Jack's face showed all signs of mental defeat, but in his mind, he was grinning like crazy. Step one of his plan was a success. Now to break the information to Will slowly.
"Er………well, I've seen her around a bit."
"How could you! You said you just came here tonight!"
Jack looked at the ground, pretending to contemplate. Then he looked Will straight in the eye.
"When I came into port………I found her in the shop, OK."
Will stared at him for a second, "What?"
"You heard me well enough, Will."
"Are you telling me", said Will, his voice strained in anger, "That my daughter, MY DAUGHTER, snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and broke into my blacksmith shop!"
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.", said Jack as though this was no big deal.
"I'll kill her!", yelled Will.
"Woah, Will! Calm down!"
"Calm down! I'll show you calm down! I'll calm a stick right down on her backside! She specifically disobeyed me!"
Jack looked confused. "So you specifically told her not to steal out of the house and break into your blacksmith shop? I suppose you remind her to breathe on a regular basis, too."
Will looked a little embarrassed, but that look vanished almost instantly. "Well, I didn't think even MY daughter would need that many restrictions!"
"Will, you're jumping to conclusions", said Jack, "You don't know the whole story."
"How much more information could I possibly need!", he yelled.
"Do you know WHY she broke into the shop?"
"I don't need to! If you had lived with her for the passed 9 years, you wouldn't need to, either! It's plain to see that she only did this to spite me!"
"Well, for your information, Mr. Fun-fact", said Jack, "She did it for the exact opposite reason."
"What?"
"I talked to her for a while when I found her here. The child idolizes you! The only reason she did this was to prove to you that she was good enough to follow in your metal-shaping footsteps, which, as she tells it, you've forbidden her to do."
Will looked at the floor. "Well, I guess I should have expected something like this. I suppose she told you about the graduation fiasco."
"No, as a matter of fact. Be delighted to hear it though.", Jack replied, leaning forward in his chair.
So Will spilled his guts to Jack about everything that had happened over the passed few days; the sweet potato, Kate breaking her candlestick on the door, and all the rest of it. When he was finished, Jack filled him in on what Kate had told him.
"So that explains yesterday morning.", exclaimed Will, "Why would she put herself through more lessons if she was going to sneak out to the shop anyway?"
"Speaking of which", said Jack, "You're not going to make her take another session, are you?"
"I most certainly am!", snapped Will, "She's the grand-daughter of the Governor, and she's going to grow up to be a proper young lady, just like her mother."
"Talk about me not changing.", muttered Jack, rolling his eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Jack let out an exasperated sigh. "Will, you're as good as man as when I last saw you. Unfortunately, as it follows, some other things about you haven't changed."
Will looked a bit angry and confused at the same time; Jack continued speaking as though he hadn't noticed.
"One of these being that you still posses that annoying little habit of refusing to accept facts you don't like. It happened when you found out about your fathers secret life as a pirate, and it's happening again now."
"How do you mean?", asked Will.
"Have you met your daughter?", Jack asked back.
"If the 'fact' you're referring to in this case is that Kate is a tomboy, that makes it a completely different matter. If you were correct in saying that my father was a pirate, which I see now that you were by the way, there was no way it could have been changed; it had been done and my father had died. However, in this case, with a little more discipline in the area of these lessons, she'll grow out of it soon enough."
"No, Will, she won't."
"What do you mean?"
"She can't"
"What!", Will yelled.
But Jack's face remained calm, "Let me explain this to you in a way you'll understand. As you recall, the only rules that really matter are these; what a man can do, and what a man can't do. Take young Katherine, for example. Now, whether you like it or not, the fact of the matter is that your daughter has inherited the love of adventure and excitement of you and your father alike. Now the question is what can or can't she do with it? The answer to half of that question is that what she can't do, is ignore it. It's plain to see that this child of yours is not destined to spend her life sitting in a parlor, doing needlepoint and sipping tea. So the last half of the question remains; what can she do?"
Will stood in front of the chair where Jack sat and said coolly, "So, Captain Jack Sparrow, I suppose you have the answer to that all worked out as well?"
"As a matter of fact, William Turner", said Jack, grinning, "I do."
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DO YOU LOVE IT! I have no idea what the appeal is with me and cliff hangers! I guess I just love torturing ya. (but it's pretty obvious anyway, if you know jack AT ALL! lol!)
