Do I Have To Cry For You?
Chapter Six
No man has felt the true sorrow of heartache until he wears the blood of his best friend.
The hand that held the fountain pen immediately ceased.
Pained eyes slowly trailed over the lengths of each curve of each letter and the former pirate captain sighed.
What a funny ol' world.
I do not get these sayings, Wren. Sometimes I question the intelligence and accuracy behind them, if there is any at all, that is. You were my best friend, Wren, and to sit here and say that I felt no trace of remorse, not even the tiniest bit, would be a lie. True that I did not come to terms with reality for ten years, but when I got news of your death; my heart did indeed ache with something fierce. It did not last long, mostly due to the fact that I refused to believe that you were gone. I was not there when Barbossa ran that sword through your body without a care in the world or any guilt. I was not there to hold you as your life slowly crept out of your bleeding soul. I was not there. I did not wear your blood. My heart ached even still. It does to this day. Have I not experienced the true sorrow of heartache, Wren? As I said, I do not get these sayings, a good majority of them.
Heartache is not just the outcome of blood.
Indeed it was not. His rival reality, that damned uncouth mistress that he had come to loathe, had been sure to make him realize this.
Heartache is a sorrow that is triggered by emotion. Emotion is a pain, an ache, that is triggered by any number of things. Loneliness, defeat, rejection, abandonment, fatigue, betrayal, exile, death…
Betrayal.
What a hilarious ol' world.
All of these things can cause pain, and all of them do cause pain. A deep penetrating pain that, more often than not, shatters the soul and releases bittersweet tears that were not meant to be witnessed by any other man, woman, or beast. You died, Wren, and I felt loneliness, and I felt defeat. I felt fatigue. I felt rejected and betrayed and abandoned by our almighty God for letting what happened to you happen. I felt shunned for ten years. It was pain, Wren, that brought on emotion, which brought on heartache, yet I did not wear your blood. No man has felt the true sorrow of heartache until he wears the blood of his best friend. I did not wear your blood, Wren, ergo; I did not feel the true sorrow of heartache. But what I felt, though, what I carried with me for ten years nearly was the death of me. If this was not true heartache, if this was not the full effect of how much pain God will allow us to undergo, then I do not want to know what is, Wren, nor should any other man.
Nonsense. It was all just nonsense.
Who would continue adding to a letter that was not meant to be but a page long?
Him, that's who. Bootstrap. Bootstrap Bill. Bootstrap Bill Turner. William Turner. Whatever the bloody hell it was that he was known by these days. Bootstrap slammed the fountain pen down onto the table and allowed his head to fall into his hands. Him. He was simple enough to continue a letter for a year with no signs of an ending anywhere in sight. It was hell all over again.
He silently cursed at Elizabeth and at his son.
Honestly, how bloody long did it take to retrieve someone and then come back?
The harsh words that he and Will had exchanged earlier in the Smithy rang loudly in his ears and Bootstrap sighed at their continuous echo. The lad probably did not want to come back, and who was he to blame him? His child was taken away by some pirate captain and was being held hostage on a ship that Seth had stolen from his best friend. Will was angry and worried and hurt and God only knew what else. Bootstrap, saying that he did not know who Seth was, besides an emotion, did not help matters, and did not help to make his son less angry or less worried or less hurt. The former pirate captain sighed as his eyes rested on one of the many pages that, over the course of a year, had become both his hell and his heaven. Both his sanity and his insanity.
Dear God help him, he was dependent on a letter to keep him sane.
Perhaps that was why he saw no signs of an ending anywhere in sight.
Or it could just be his punishment for doing what he had done to his wife, his child and his best friend.
Bootstrap did nothing nor said anything as the front door softly clicked open and Elizabeth finally returned with Will.
"William?" He briefly allowed his eyes to skim over the familiar rambling before rolling them in aggravation and shoving the letter into an opened drawer below. Pained eyes roamed over the chaotic, unorganized heap of nonsense and he frowned in displeasure as he slammed the drawer shut, causing the desk to shake in response to the blow. "Where are you?" Bootstrap quickly rose to his feet and started to make his way towards Elizabeth and Will. He refused to be dependent on paper and ink. This was the right thing to do, right? Discontinue the letter. There was no need to finish the letter. It could just sit in that drawer for all eternity and rot for all he cared. It was a goodbye letter to his wife, and if he did not finish the letter, maybe she would come back. No one is truly dead until you make them dead. No one is truly gone until you say goodbye.
He had to keep himself from laughing.
How foolish of him.
"Ah, there you are." Bootstrap convincingly smiled at the younger lass and nodded his head in response.
"Sorry," he said quietly, "I was distracted."
"Nothing out of the usual." Will's muttered words hit Bootstrap harder than he had expected and the older man had to shut his eyes to keep himself from screaming something futile in response. Elizabeth just sighed and hit Will's wrist as a sign that she would not stand for any bickering amongst the two men right now and Will merely nodded irritably at her and pulled his wrist free. He crossed his arms and rested his eyes on his father. "What's the plan?" Bootstrap said nothing and Will rolled his eyes at the man's behavior. Elizabeth glared at her husband before gently resting her hand on Bootstrap's shoulder and shaking the man to break him out of his trance. Bootstrap came to with a start and eyes full of… -Elizabeth didn't even know.
"All of the above. His eyes, your eyes, held all of the above."
She frowned.
"You're not-"
"I'm alright."
"-Alright." Elizabeth finished and Bootstrap shook his head and flashed the lass a small smile. Elizabeth said nothing.
"Father," Bootstrap shifted his eyes back to his son. His eyes still held a distance that frightened Will to no end. Much like Jack Sparrow, Bootstrap appeared to be dangling from a line somewhere between sanity and insanity. Losing his grandson, the possibility that his best friend could very well be dead, and having his son mad at him probably were not helping. Will sighed but did not press the matter. There'd be time for that later. The opportune moment. "What is the plan?" He asked again, and Bootstrap grinned in response. Both Elizabeth and Will raised an eyebrow at the man and the unusual action.
"Simple. We commandeer a ship and go from there," the older man shrugged. "Nothin' to it."
"William, we don't know where Seth is headed, though."
"I said 'and go from there', Elizabeth." His tone was unusually low and harsh. "We'll figure it out sooner or later. We're not getting anything accomplished just by sitting here, though. Least we can do is have a ship and be sailin', that's at least a start." Elizabeth briefly looked over at Will before she sighed and shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose you're right," she hesitantly agreed.
"What ship?"
"Preferably the H.M.S Dauntless," Bootstrap answered and grinned at Elizabeth's frown. "That is, if it's alright with the governors daughter." Elizabeth simply shrugged in response as she turned back to the door and pulled it open. She looked back at Will and Bootstrap with an impatient expression and the two men hurriedly followed her out. Bootstrap granted himself one last look at the desk that he had spent more time at than any other place in the last year and frowned at it as he wordlessly turned away. The door shut behind him with a soft thud and the house was soon as quiet and as calm as the grief-stricken Port.
* * *
His two-year-old mind could not comprehend why the man acted as he did, he just knew that his actions were daunting and foreign, and that his mother and father were not around to protect him and keep this man away. The man had not said or done much of anything to make his two-year-old mind fear him, he just knew that this man, whatever his name, was not nice, and would more than likely do him some kind of harm if the need ever arose. He frightened him, that's all that Jack could understand, that when he was around him, he did not feel secure. Whoever the man was, he was not friends with his father nor his mother, and had, for some reason or another, taken him away from them. Jack hugged his knees closer to his chest and wondered hazily where he was. He was on a ship, but what ship? Going where? Back home? The overwhelming confusion was enough to bring tears to the two-year-old's eyes and he quickly buried his face in his small arms.
He rose his tear-scarred face when light suddenly consumed the darkness that he had been hiding out in ever since discovering that the man frightened him.
"I thought you could use some company," the man smiled at the child. Jack immediately shook his head and tried to lean back further into the wall and let out a small cry of fear when he discovered that he could not. Seth chuckled softly as he shut the cabin door and turned back around to peer at Jack. "You seem afraid."
"You're scary."
"I am?" He watched as the child's head slowly bobbed up and down in response. He grinned. "How am I scary, Jack?"
"You took me away from home."
Seth gradually started to make his way towards the frightened child. "You don't think I'm a very nice guy, do you, Jack?" The child slowly shook his head. "I'm not so different from your grandfather, you know." He paused and cocked his head to the side as his eyes curiously roamed over the smaller figure. His eyes narrowed slightly as a grin slowly spread across his face. "You love your grandfather, don't you, Jack?"
"Yes." His voice was timid and small.
"O'course you do. And he does not frighten you; you do not think that he's scary?" Jack shook his head. "Why am I, then? William and I… we are not so different, Jack, we have a lot more in common than you could ever believe."
"He's nice! You're mean!" Seth smiled at the angry shouts and kneeled down in front of the child.
"William is nice? By what definition, young Turner? Your grandfather abandoned your father when he was naught but a child, Jack, younger than you even. Do you know what 'abandoned' means, Jack?" The child shook his head and Seth grinned once more. "Left him, Jack, left him behind and left home. He lied to your father as well, saying that he was a merchant sailor, when, in actuality, he was a pirate, a member of my crew. The Pearl was mine, Jack, and then he took her from me. I welcomed him aboard when he had no where else to go when your father was born and he repaid me by taking away my life, Jack, and yet you dare to call him nice?" Seth's eyes roamed over the child's terrified state and he lowered them with a small sigh as he silently rose to his feet. "William and I… we are not so different, Jack." His tone was lower now, seemingly holding an emotion that Seth did not want to show. "He betrayed me, he did. Stole the Pearl and my crew and my life away from me." His eyes rested on the sea. "Betrayed him, I did. Tried to murder Jack, that bloody Jack Sparrow. William stopped me, though, stopped me and marooned me." He looked back at Jack. "Do you know what 'marooned' means, Jack?"
"No," the child answered softly.
"He left me on an island to die, Jack, and I stood there watching as my best friend sailed away with my ship and everything that was ever important to me." Seth shifted his eyes back to the sea. "Including him. Betrayal, Jack, it's a knife whose blade cuts so deeply that the wound never stops bleeding." The child remained silent. "William and I… we are not so different, Jack, not different at all." Jack looked up in alarm when he heard shattering glass. Seth held his hand still outside of the window and watched in morbid fascination as his blood slowly trickled out of the fresh wounds and fell down towards the sea. Memories was all the blood was. Memories seeping from his veins.
Either Seth nor Jack heard the cabin door softly clicking open.
"Captain?" Seth did not turn to meet Jaden's eyes.
"Go back to the deck."
"Sir, I heard glass shattering, are you alr-"
"The deck. Now." Jaden narrowed his eyes in uncertainty but said nothing as he gradually closed his mouth and nodded his head. The door shut with a soft click and Seth shook his head as he brought his hand back inside and allowed it to limply fall at his side. He turned away from the shattered window and rested his eyes on the terrified two-year-old that still sat crouched in the corner. "Now who's the mean one and the nice one, Jack?" Jack said nothing and Seth gave him one last cold frown before turning on his heel and walking out of the cabin and back up to the deck.
To Be Continued…
AN: Whee! This chapter is finally done! Took long enough. Anyway, major thanks to Ilya and Elf-Vulcan for helping me many, many times throughout this chapter, especially Ilya with the last part. Hope you all enjoy it.
I have four projects due this week and will not be able to update this nor my parody until sometime next weekend. But, have no fear, Christmas break starts next week and I will have two weeks to make up for lost time. Bear with me, people.
I hope everyone is getting to know Seth a little bit better by the hints that I've been dropping, and especially by this last part of six.
I will update sometime next weekend!
Please r/r on your way out!
