Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean, its story and characters, is owned by Walt Disney Pictures.

Chapter 4

Jack sighed as he made his way over to the balcony. He felt like relaxing and the calm air of the sea had always cleared his head. Even as far from the beach as the mansion was, Jack could still pick up the faintest sent of the ocean salt. He leaned over and rested his arms on the railing. He knew the way he had acted that night wasn't very appropriate, but he just couldn't help it. He had felt so damned frustrated with the way the Norringtons were treating them. How could he help but show that just because his family wasn't like theirs didn't mean they weren't a real family.

He straightened as his nose picked up a familiar yet strong sent that was not the ocean. He turned to his side realizing for the first time that he was not alone. He saw the faint glow of a match stick as it was lifted to the fat end of a cigar. He then realized that the cigar was held firmly between the lips of his own son. He raised his eye brows as the young man puffed on the cigar like it was a part of habit. His body seemed to relax a bit and a grin of satisfaction crossed his young face as he continued to puff on the cigar. Jack couldn't help but look at him as if he were six years old and had the cigar hanging from his lips. It was just so strange to see him smoking! It was even stranger then the first time Jack had caught Gabe drinking rum in a pub.

"Didn't know ye were a smoker, lad," Jack called over to him and was rewarded with a startled jump from Gabe as the young man finally took notice to his presence. He turned and stared at his father as if he'd been caught misbehaving, and in a way, he had! Jack smirked at his spitting image. "Share that there fag with yer ole man an' all will be forgiven."

Gabe smirked at him as he pulled the cigar out of his mouth and held it between his fingers in an experienced grasp. "What makes ye think I've forgive ye!" he shot back, a slight cloud of smoke floating out of his mouth.

Jack chuckled. "'Cause whelp, if ye don't share with me ye'll be gettin' an earful from yer Father, savvy?"

Gabe glared at Jack, seeing that the older man clearly had the upper hand on him. He placed the end of the cigar back in his mouth as he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out another one. He tossed it over to his dad and Jack caught it mid-air.

He smiled as he lifted the cigar under is nose and breathed in the strong smell of the tobacco. "I see ye've been holdin' out on me," he said jokingly as he motioned for a match. Gabe complied, striking the match on the railing and holding the flaming tip to the end of the cigar. When the tip began to smoke, Gabe shook out the match and threw it over the railing. Jack too a few puffs, letting the rich flavor swim in his mouth for a moment, before pulling out the cigar breathing out a cloud of smoke.

"Good stuff, ay?" Gabe asked, raising his eyebrows at him and smiling cheekily. He took a few puffs on his own cigar and stared out into the distance.

"Right good," Jack replied. "Too good for a mere blacksmith. Where'd ye get the fags from whelp?"

"Let's say I liberated them from someone who wasn't appreciatin' their fine quality." A smug smile graced the young pirate turned blacksmith's lips and Jack felt a swell of pride in him. He felt like kissing his son on the cheek, but didn't want to chance his luck that this father son moment of bonding was actually happening and wasn't just some wonderful dream. Instead, he settled for wrapping his arm around his shoulder.

"That's me boy," he said proudly as he patted the younger man's shoulder.

"Ah yes, like father like son, as they say." The two turned to see James strolling up beside them, an awkwardly smug grin on his face.

Gabe's grin disappeared and he fidgeted awkwardly in his father's half embrace. "Well, sir," he began nervously. "I can't help it if I take after my Dad, but I do take after my Father as well." Jack gave his son a sharp glare from the corner of his eye as he dropped his arm from his shoulder. Gabe slumped his shoulders in disappointment, but knew he deserved that.

"Well, young Master Sparrow... Turner, could you give your... 'Dad' and I a minute alone together?" Jack gave Norrington a questioning look as Gabe nervously complied and headed inside. "Do be careful not to smoke that inside." Norrington called over his shoulder to the young man's retreating form.

Jack puffed his cigar for a moment before pulling it out of his mouth to speak clearly. "What will ye be wantin' ta talk with me about, James?" He said the name with more then a bit of distaste, still feeling bitter about how he'd just been treated.

Norrington sighed as he pulled out a cigar from his own breast pocket and fumbled with it between his fingers. He turned to look at Jack for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to have a light would you?"

Jack shook his head. "He did," he said, nodding his head toward the direction that Gabe had disappeared to.

Norrington sighed and turned back to stare at the cigar in hand. "Pity," he mumbled as he continued to play with the cigar in his hands. There was a long moment of uneasy silence before Norrington finally spoke again. "I wanted to apologize..." he began uncomfortably, "for the way we acted tonight."

Jack stared at him, clearly taken aback by the former naval officer's words. "C-come again?" he said, his head still unable to taken the information it had just received.

Norrington sighed again, shutting his eyes in concentration. Clearly this wasn't easy for him. "The simplest way to put it is that you were right," he explained. "You and your family are guest here, and... well I haven't been a very good host now have I?" He chuckled quietly to himself, but Jack didn't see anything funny about the situation or what was just said. "It's just that... well I was... I am a bit-"

"Disgusted?" Jack finished for him, raising a questioning eyebrow at the other man.

Norrington shook his head and chuckled at Jack's words. There was a strange hitch to his laugh that made Jack think that the former military man was on the brink of tears. "If only that were the word I was looking for." He turned his head up to the sky above them, taking in a few shaky breaths before finally speaking. "No Sparrow, I'm not disgusted. I'm actually... jealous."

Jack coughed in surprise at the declaration. "'Jealous'?" he repeated after regaining his composure. "Yer jealous of me? Why?"

Norrington's eyes began to fill up with tears as he bit his lip and turned away from the pirate captain. His shoulders began to shake and his breathing became raged as he fought back the tears that he'd likely been holding inside for years. "Because..." he began, his voice shaking with emotion. "Because you get to be with someone you love... and have them love you back." He swallowed a few times before continuing. "I love Elizabeth... more then anything! But in the past nineteen years that we've been married she has never once shown any signs of returning my feelings.

"Am I a fool for believing that she would love me? That in time she would grow to except that I love her and that William never will?" The emotions seemed to have been too much for him to hold onto any longer as the man actually busted into tears right in front of Jack.

Jack just stood there with his mouth hanging open, his cigar barely hanging on the edge of his lip as he stared at the scene in front of him. He never knew that Norrington had such feelings, or any feelings at all! The man had always been so stiff and serious. He had shown on many occasions that he had a soft spot for Elizabeth, but he didn't know just how deep those feelings went.

Elizabeth was many things. She was beautiful, strong willed, but regrettably spoiled. As a child who grew up with wealth and privilege, it's not surprising to think that the girl is used to getting what ever she wanted and clearly she wanted Will. A part of her must have realized that it was now just an impossible dream to think that she had any kind of romantic future with the former blacksmith, but the stubborn part of her must have retained the hope that one day she'd find a way to be with him, even going as far as to hurt another person just to hold on to that dream. Did she love James at all? And what about their son? Did she not care for him, simply because his father wasn't Will?

Jack shook the thought from his head. Elizabeth wasn't a monster! How could anyone not love their own child? Still the blame couldn't be put on her either. She couldn't help it if her father spoiled her, and yet Jack couldn't find it in his heart to blame him either. Given the Governor's situation, raising a daughter alone, it wasn't surprising that he gave in to her every whim. Lord knows that if he could, Jack would have pulled the stars from the sky and gave them to his children if it made them happy.

No one was to blame and yet no matter what the out come was, if he had left Will alone and allowed him to marry Elizabeth, or if James had won out in the end and had gotten the object of his desires, his heart still would have been broken. His heart. Never would Jack have imagined that he would care if a navy man's heart was breaking. However, James was a human being. He had feelings just like everyone else, didn't he deserve to be loved too?

His heart seemed to constrict as a thought occurred to him, he was in James' situation once. When Will was on board the Pearl, pregnant with Gabe, there was a time that the younger man wouldn't let Jack go near him. His mere hint of affection would make Will uncomfortable, and even disgusted. There had been a time of panic in which Jack had thought Will would never return his love. That thought had scared him beyond belief and he realized now that he was lucky he didn't turn out like James.

He swallowed his pride and took a few uneasy steps over to the weeping man and patted his back comfortingly. "Yer not a fool mate," he said finally, trying his best to comfort the other man. "Ye were in love an' love can make ye blind to the truth. An' the truth is... well..."

"She loves Will," he sniffed, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I know. I know that now." He took a shaky breath as he turned and looked out toward the sea. "I just wish I hadn't wasted so many years on such a foolish dream." He looked at the sky as if searching for an answer. Something, anything, to put his mind at easy. "Nineteen years! Nineteen wasted years of living a lie. Of a loveless marriage." He looked down at the ring on his fingered and felt the tears begin to well up in his eyes again. "You know, she never really wanted to marry me. I suppose I have William to thank for this marriage in more then just one way."

Jack raised his eyebrow at him. "What do ye mean?"

James laughed bitterly as he fingered the cigar again. "You don't know? He does, I suppose. Yes, I do think she told him all about it." He sighed and tapped the end of the cigar on the railing. "We search for him... Searched for William for quite sometime. Finally, after a year of searching, we all determined that he was dead. Few people return after being kidnapped, and the fact that there was no ransom note proved to us all that he had likely been killed in cold blood.

"Saying that Elizabeth was upset would be an understatement. She was hysteric! Nearly to the point of ending her own life. She wouldn't eat, sleep, or speak to anyone. Only stare. Stare out into the distance, out at the sea, as if she expected to see him return to her.

"One day, I came to visit. To comfort her in some small way. I can't really explain what happened next... it all still feels like a dream..." A small, wistful smile crept on to his face at the memory and Jack knew right away what had happened. "She found out she was pregnant a few months later. We were 'forced' to marry then, to keep her reputation clean. We simply told everyone that Graham was born early. They believed us... and we've been lying to everyone ever since."

"Does he know? Graham, I mean."

James' face fell, his shoulders slumped. "He knows we don't love each other. He learned that on his own, unfortunately. I hope he knows that we love him. There is that at least. I never really told him that, but I think he knows." He turned to Jack then, a pleading look in his dark blue eyes, and Jack couldn't help but feel sorry for the lonely man. "What do I do now?" he asked, he looked so very much like a lost child that Jack couldn't bare to look at him anymore.

"Ye had a dream mate," he said after a moment of silence. "Now ye just 'ave ta wake up."

Will laid on his bed, practically foaming with anger as he played the events of just a few minutes ago over in his head. He couldn't believe that Jack would actually embarrass him like that in front of their future in-laws!

Honestly! And he says I'm the one that does stupid things.

He turned to his side stared at the wall of the guest bedroom that he'd be sharing with Jack. It was a large white room, elegantly decorated with matching furniture. The bed he rested on was large enough for nearly three people to sleep comfortably and as soft as a cloud would feel. The frame was of a dark wood that Will couldn't quite name at the moment but the dresser to the right of him and the nightstand to the left seemed to be made out of it as well. A vase of lilies was placed on top of the nightstand and seemed to fill the whole room with their sweet sent. The window that was open just slightly was let in the smell of the night air and Will shivered slightly at the gentle breeze. He stared at the white curtains as they seemingly danced right in front of his eyes. He was so caught up in the action that he didn't hear the knocking on the bedroom door.

His back was facing the door, so he did not see the door knob turn or the figure quietly enter the room. He was only aware of the other's presence when they kneeled on the soft mattress next to him. He sighed in annoyance, assuming that the other was Jack.

"Unless you have come to apologize, you will be getting nothing out of me tonight," he said firmly as he closed his eyes tightly to completely shut Jack out.

He stiffened, however, when a pair of soft full lips pressed gently against his cheek and a smooth thin hand began to caress his leg. He knew right away that he had completely missed his guess and this person was most certainly not Jack.

"Actually," Elizabeth purred, her voice was husky and low with lust, "I've come to make up for lost time."

AN: I am not a smoker (if you are a smoker then you can probably tell that by the way I wrote that scene) and I'm not supporting/promoting the use of cigars/cigarettes. I merely wrote that in because I felt like it.