Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean (sadly).
Chapter Two
Young James walked into the kitchen anything but quietly, "Hello Frieda!" He said to the fairly plump maid who sat mending socks at the kitchen table."Why hello James. You have been out playing quite roughly it seems." She looked at his torn pants covered in dirt.
"Only a little, playing pirates, but don't tell Mum..."
"Don't tell me what?" Elizabeth asked as she walked in and over to Young James where she ruffled his curl and pecked his cheek which he wiped with his dirty hand.
"James Norrington the Second! Have you been playing pirates again?" She asked noticing the cut on his arm.
Panic shot onto his face as he tried to hide his arm and eyes. "I wasn't going to, honest! Besides, you confiscated my best sword last week, but Fredrick, he begged me to play, and I didn't have a good excuse when he offered me to borrow his extra sword."
Elizabeth looked at the cut, it wasn't deep. "Frieda, do you have some cloth I could borrow?" She asked noticing the maid had her sewing kit out.
"Why yes Mrs. Norrington, right her." She handed Elizabeth a simple brown strip of soft fabric who in turn wrapped it around her son's arms.
"There you are... now promise, no – more - pirates!"
"No more..." he said, then sulked out of the room grumbling something about "...all the other boy's Ma's let them..." and closed the kitchen door behind him.
& It was late when Elizabeth went to give her son a kiss before bed. When she walked in he seemed asleep, but when she sat down, she noticed one eye flicker open, he was only faking.
"Oh no, Young James is asleep, I guess we will have to go without a story tonight...too bad."
He perked up, trying to look as tired as possible. "Why Mum, I didn't know you were in here."
She laughed, "I guess you'll be wanting a story then."
"Yes indeed," he said.
"What shall it be about tonight?" She sat down on the bed slowly, scooping up her sons hand into hers. Young James always had a preference for stories.
"How about a pirate story, the one about Will Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow."
Elizabeth's smile left her face. She had told him this story many times before, but not recently. She had always made a habit of replacing the commodore with a governor and her name with "Margaret Black", a young maid instead of the governor's daughter. She didn't want the truth to come out about her and Will, not yet, at least.
"Well," she started, "There was once a handsome young blacksmith named William Turner...
Young James' eyes grew wide. At the time in which "Margaret" replaced her name with Turner, he cried, "No Margaret, no!" but as the story drained on, his eyes grew smaller and he began to drift. "...and Will was banished from the colony for 10 years, leaving Margaret to marry the evil Governor... and he was never seen again." She made the end as dramatic as she could, but had a hard time fighting back a small tear at the thought of where Will might be.
"Thanks Mum." James said as he closed his eyes. She sat up and walked to the door.
Closing it, she turned around to see none other than the Commodore himself, "James," She said, surprised, "Was your day productive?"
"Quite..." he answered, extremely unhappily. "I couldn't help but overhear the story you were telling Young James..." he said. She looked away.
"I didn't tell the whole truth. I replaced my name...and yours." He still looked slightly unhappy.
"Don't tell it again," he began to walk away, "the boy has enough about pirates on the mind than to have you throwing stories at him." Norrington turned back towards her, "Especially ones involving you and Mr. Turner.
"It won't happen again, I promise." She felt pained to have made him unhappy, she did care about him. After almost 10 years of marriage she had to.
"Now shall we retire?" He held out his arm to her and she linked it properly. He led her slowly to their bedroom and closed to door.