Disclaimer: Don't own.
Elizabeth had been untouched by the gossip mongering well-to-do's of Port Royal for most of her life. At least, from the most hurtful gossip, anyway. Whatever people did have to say about her had only to do with her latest dress or hairstyle, or which rich old man or fine-looking well-born stallion would be her next suitor. The more hurtful tittering was uttered by malicious sewing circles of matrons while they looked on full of pompous disapproval; or fascinated and reluctantly condemning girls Elizabeth's age or younger trying to at least seem as disapproving as their mothers - well, that was generally reserved for Christina. Elizabeth was the social butterfly of Port Royal, with many men clamoring for her affections, waxing and waning with her interest from gathering to gathering. They revolved around her and when she it didn't please her to humor them, they found the second, third, and forth most desirable girl to attend to while waiting for their turn again.
Christina was not the second, third, or fourth most desirable girl of Port Royal. While the more relaxed of Port Royal's rich patrons were rather indulgent towards Christina Swann - the way a soft-hearted old lady might be indulgent towards a stray cat, enough to let it have a litter of kittens under her roof - most were staunch in their displeasure. If they saw Christina as comparable to a feline, it was only in the way that made them turn up their nose. A litter of kittens was no good to anyone, and frequently ended up making a nice parlor smell terribly.
All that at changed, however, since Christina had abruptly left Port Royal after catching Elizabeth and Will in the garden. The gossip hadn't lessened, and Elizabeth did not expect it to. But it had a new face now. The approving smiles of the more esteemed matrons of Port Royal had turned cold when they fell upon Elizabeth. The younger girls glared accusingly - something they wouldn't have dared to do a few months back. Naturally, everyone knew that Elizabeth had fancied the poor blacksmith, Mr. Turner, and she wasn't alone in her affections. Will Turner was one of the best looking bachelor's Port Royal had to offer - but not to upstanding gentlewomen such as Miss Swann - either of them. This didn't change the fact that he was the most talented blacksmith Port Royal had had in years, and the most sober one at that. The men liked him because he knew his business with swords, and the girls liked him because he knew his way with swords and was quite handsome about it too. The matrons tried desperately not to like him, but whenever he came to call with a completed order they couldn't help but wish that he was more well-born. What their grandchildren would look like if he were to marry one of their girls! Why, more beautiful children couldn't hope to be found, especially if Will and Elizabeth were to marry. Which, of course, they wouldn't. But young William had the charm of a little puppy, so stern mothers and stately grandmothers alike had a soft spot where he was concerned.
When the news broke that Christina was going to marry Will, there was a great deal of shock going around the upper circles of Port Royal. Well, many thought, if one of the daughters of the Governor insisted on marrying beneath her, better it be Christina than Elizabeth. Everyone who was anyone with a son at Port Royal breathed a sigh of relief - Elizabeth was still the most eligible bachelorette, and although she was getting on in years - dear, the girl would be twenty-one come January! - she still looked as young and rosy-cheeked as when she was sixteen. And her beauty only intensified with the years.
Elizabeth didn't feel young and rosy-cheeked anymore, though. She had gone down to the docks almost every day since Christina had left, and religiously since the Commodore had gone after her. Recently, she'd been met with Jerome Dawson. She had known the sandy-haired young man ever since she had been at Port Royal. She knew him because he worked at his mother's dress shop, admittedly one of Elizabeth's favorite places at Port Royal. Jerome had always insisted that his meeting her here was completely by accident; indeed, he often had a box with him that boasted of some delivery or another. But often she found that he went out of his way to stand by her for a moment or two, always to ask the same question: "No sign of them yet, Miss Swann?" and to offer her a roguish grin that she was quite obliged to turn her nose up at.
"No, Mr. Dawson, the Commodore hasn't brought her back yet. Good day," Elizabeth would respond stiffly, walking away angrily and hopping a carriage back to the mansion. He was always so infuriating, looking at her as if he could read her mind, knowing the guilt she had twisted herself up in. Oh, he had never presumed to speak it aloud, of course - he must have known how swiftly she would have upbraided him and put him in his place - but the very thought that he would grin at her so! Oh, it made her mad enough to scream. But she didn't need anyone talking about rubbish about her than they were already.
Far from being Port Royal's favorite social butterfly, Elizabeth was now the object of talk among her peers. They were frankly appalled at her behavior, and Elizabeth had begun wishing fervently that her father's servants weren't quite so keen to notice everything that went on at the mansion. At the very least they should have the prudence not to talk about it! But no, they went and ran their mouths at every opportunity; obviously, the falling out that had taken placed between the Swann daughters was all over Port Royal and has spread like a plague from the roots of the town to the tips of the societal branches.
Elizabeth was not the perfect little lady anymore; oh, no. Now she was a base wench who went out of the way to steal the one man who had found love with Christina. Christina, who had always been the overlooked one, the black sheep, the odd lot. The Swann daughter who was not the first, second, third or fourth most desirable woman in Port Royal's inner circle. The girl all the other girl's put up with because she was good for a laugh and because she was the Governor's firstborn daughter. Maybe even because some of the other ladies lived through Christina, who was frank and coarse and very much like the mother that they'd only heard about but never seen. The daughter of a woman who had run off with a pirate! How romantic, how adventurous - how very different from the droll, properly comfortable life that the rich young women of Port Royal led.
No, for the first time everyone else was seeing Elizabeth for what she truly was: a selfish, self-centered, well-born woman accustomed to getting whatever it was she wanted. Even Elizabeth herself was seeing what she truly was - and she didn't like it one bit. For as long as she could remember, everyone was praising her for everything that she did right. She was meek and quiet when it pleased her to be so; she was defiant when she had to be - for example, upon meeting Jack Sparrow for the first time, she had objected blatantly to Commodore Norrington's proposal of hanging the pirate. When he turned on her, however, she didn't hesitate to loath him as a proper lady should.
Elizabeth swore she would apologize to Christina once she got back, and Will too. She would simper and curtsy and lower her eyes if she had to! It was partly out of a desire to form a true sisterly bond with her twin; it had been years since one had existed. Another reason was to get Will to talk to her again - not as a lover, but at least as a friend. She also knew that he had been in love with her at one point, as much as she had been in love with him. And she wanted to know if there was a man behind those dashing good looks, one whom it would justify the eight years Elizabeth spent wishing he was more well-born so he could court her and kiss her and marry her one day. And no matter what seasoned old ladies said, marriage had to be more than an obligation. She knew how her father had adored her mother, and now she knew how her mother had been passionately in love with another man prior to marrying the Governor. Elizabeth had wanted passion, and she had wanted it with someone as handsome as Will Turner. Passion and love had been one and the same to Elizabeth, along with adventure and fantasy and romance.
But that had changed now. She didn't want passion, she wanted her sister back. She wanted people to stop calling her "the other woman," and accusing her of greed and selfishness. She wanted to go back to when everyone liked her. No, she wanted to go farther back. She wanted to go back to when her mother was here; when she and Christina were still friends. When she believed that Father was really her father, and that she wasn't the daughter of some unknown man who could be anywhere in the world. She must be like him, because from what she could tell she wasn't very much like her mother - that was Christina. Perhaps all Elizabeth had inherited from Belynda Swann was her selfishness, then.
Elizabeth stared across the ocean at the bare horizon, lost in her thoughts and thoroughly ignoring Jerome Dawson, who was watching her with an odd little smile on his lips. She was so lost that she started to stare instead at the hem of her dress which was making little hills in the sand. When she looked up there was a tiny black dot where the sky met the sea, moving with the unbearable slowness of a tiny tri-sailed boat and heading straight for Port Royal as fast as the wind would grant it speed.
1.
I awoke to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and with much more sand in my eyes than I was accustomed to. I sighed and wished for a moment that I was back at Port Royal, alone and comfortable in my own bed instead of on a pillow-scattered dais, with Will's heavy arm across my chest, his head tucked into my shoulder and his breath doing funny things to my stomach as he exhaled on my skin. I made sure to stay quite still so he wouldn't wake up - I was much too confused to have to deal with him smiling all smugly at me, like I knew he would do.
There were dew drops still on the mosaic of flowers that hung all around, decorating the gauzy cloth that surrounded us. My eyes were dazzled with colors, my nose with fragrances of sweet honey-suckle and vanilla, and my skin with the itchy, uncomfortable feeling that I used to get when I did something wrong and was about to be caught by my father. I prayed fervently, albeit ridiculously, that my father hadn't somehow found a way to this island to stumble upon Will and I lying tangled and in various states of undress in the middle of a forest. He might literally have a coronary and die.
Will still slept soundly in a way that I was quite jealous of him for. At the same time, I felt an odd sort of pride: I had evidently exhausted him. My face heated up considerably at the thought and I threw my mind in any other direction than thinking about last night, the curious happenings of which still puzzled me. According to every proper lady that I'd ever come into contact with, what I had done last night was a grave sin and upon returning to Port Royal I'd have to go straight to confession - and even hours upon hours of penance wouldn't absolve me from my trespass. It would be straight to Hell for my damned soul, to be sure. In fact, what I had done last night was so unforgivable that most ladies who went so far as to consider themselves ladies didn't even think about it, much less talk about it. The only proof that they'd done what I'd done is that they have children, but they'll tell anyone who will listen that a canary brought the bouncy baby to their doorstep one day, or some other such rubbish.
A terrible thought struck me at that moment and only exhaustion kept me from leaping away from Will. What if I'd gotten with child last night? The thought was nearly too horrible to bear. Do not get me wrong - I want to have children as much as the next newlywed woman, a fact that surprised even me. But to have a child conceived on an island, in the heart of heathendom? What was I thinking last night? And Will! How dare he lure me into this! A child of mine, born a bastard? Oh, what would my mother say?
I bit my lip thoughtfully. My mother would probably heartily approve. It is my father that I should be worried about - but I had no intention of telling him, either. Imagine how that conversation would commence: "Father, you know that time that I ran away for weeks on end? Well, yes. I took part in a native ceremony and was received into a tribe. Smashing, I know. Then I proceeded to be married by island customs, forsake honor in its entirety and get with child by the town's blacksmith!" My poor father would likely drown himself.
I took a deep breath and asserted that I just could not possibly be pregnant. For one thing, I didn't feel pregnant. I felt perfectly normal, if sore and rather flustered. I firmly decided, then, that I wasn't the least bit pregnant and refused to worry about it until we got back to Port Royal.
I was concentrating on the sounds of the distant waves against the shore and the wind through the trees, trying not to feel every inch of my skin that was touching Will's, when I felt him whisper "Hello, my wife," in my ear. I nearly screamed out loud as I jerked around to look at him. "Will!" I said admonishingly, which he thoroughly ignored and planted a kiss on my lips that at once had me reeling and also pushing away uncomfortably.
"Will!" I said again, breathless and staring up at his complacent smile softened only by the look of joy in his eyes. I wanted desperately to punch him, but settled instead for pulling whatever blankets I could up to my chest and trying desperately to keep from touching him. "What?" he asked, pulling me closer. I crossed my arms over my chest in one final attempt to keep my skin away from his, but he only smiled. "Stop it!" I whispered half-heartedly, not wanting to cast my lot anymore in the direction of "sin" than it already was. He looked at me, wounded and possibly unable to fathom what it was that had me so confused.
"What is wrong?" he asked. I bit my lip. "Nothing," I said quickly, so quickly that it was obvious that I was lying through my teeth. He sighed. "We're married now, Christina. You can tell me," he said, sounding almost sad. I sighed again. "It's nothing…just…well, what we did last night. Would it…would it be all right with you if we didn't do that again until we get back to Port Royal?" I asked in a rush, hating how I felt my face heat up and wishing he would go away.
Will blinked. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that," I said quickly, wanting more and more to disappear somewhere cool and dark and away from him. Will smiled slowly and leaned in to kiss me again. The truth was that I wanted very much to have an encore but was now fearing greatly not only for my soul, but for the soul of whatever child I might have gotten with Will last night. Even though I had firmly decided that there was no child, all the same it pays to be cautious. I let him kiss me, and admittedly I kissed him back quite happily. Things were going along quite well, except for one thing.
It was broad daylight. Somehow this fact came back to me through the hazy, happy fog that was my mind. "Stop!" my brain screamed, and within a quarter of an hour, my body obeyed. I tore my lips away from Will's - instead of a rushing passion that had taken us last night, in the daylight he was taking his time. "We can't!" I gasped, trying to pull away. He had me pinned down to the hard wooden floor of the dais and one of his hands was tangled in my hair. The other was decidedly hidden from view.
"Don't, Will." I was begging quietly and he pulled away. "What's the matter?" he asked again. I shrugged uncomfortably, pulling the blanket up to my chest and sitting up to reach for my dress that was rather worse for wear. I struggled to pull it over my head without losing hold of the blankets - no mean feat, I assure you.
"Well, first of all, the pillows are all scattered," I said lamely, the excuse falling flat even to my ears.
"Love, are you still so shy after last -"
"Oh, William! You cannot be so crude that you would say it aloud!" I said nervously, sitting with my dress around my neck and the blanket up to where the dress stopped covering me. I couldn't move, nor could I pull the blanket away as it was the only one and it was covering Will as well as myself. He was unabashedly naked to the waist and laying back with a comfort and ease that made me want to either pounce on him to attack him, or to do something far less innocent and far more friendly. Will grinned wider as he tugged me down to lay atop him. "You were far less modest last night, I think, my dear," he suggested. I glared down at him. "Do not get me in a temper, William! I do not know what I should do!" I threatened him. He responded by looking even more amused, a light dancing in his eyes that was all lust and love and eagerness. "I look forward to it." He touched my shoulder, my side, my hip and I trembled.
"No! Anyone could be coming to wake us right now! Jack could be coming! Mary! The Commodore!" I yelped, horrified and pulling away from him again.
This time I threw modesty to the wind in order to pull the blasted dress over my head, an action met with an impatient groan from my dear husband. "Christina!" he said, and I stood up quickly to keep him from touching me again. The dress was barely hanging on together as it was, and I knew that if Will kissed me one more time I would tear it to shreds myself and spend at least a week in this tiny little dais, pillows or no pillows.
"Get up, Will, we've got to go. I'm sure we can't stay here any longer, and I want to say goodbye to Jack and Laurelyn." Will sighed and pushed himself to his feet and I crossed my arms over my chest, my face heating unwillingly.
"If you think to tempt me, Mr. Turner, by standing around naked as the day you were born, it wont work," I warned. I picked up his clothes and bundled them in my arms so he wouldn't see my hands shaking. He didn't say anything, only looked at me with a grin and stretched. I raised my chin. "It wont!" I shouted, throwing his clothes at him and marching away with the strangest desire to burst out laughing. My soul was damned, no doubt about it.
Will and I were walking arm in arm moments later to the coast to say goodbye to Jack and the crew. When we got there, however, the only ship to be seen on the horizon was the tiny boat that the Commodore had sailed here. The Black Pearl, with her looming hull and her ebony sails - rich and whole, now, instead of the deathly tattered grave-black under Barbossa - was nowhere to be seen, and the natural harbor looked large and lonely without it.
"Where's Jack?" I asked bluntly. "Good morning to you too," Mary sniffed, looking pressed and proper in her clothes brought by Commodore Norrington. The Commodore himself was standing ramrod straight and unflappable in the light breeze. Gillette looked at Will and I with eyes that were laughing, and I took my arm from Will's and crossed both of them defiantly over my chest. It only amused the First Mate more, unfortunately.
"Mr. Sparrow took his leave of this island sometime in the middle of the night," Commodore Norrington drawled, looking quite bored and ready to leave. The island folk came out and surrounded us so quickly that the Commodore's face actually showed surprise, although Will, Mary, and I were already quite used to that. He smoothed over his features at once, however, and went on. "We shall be leaving momentarily, but I have a feeling that you will want to make your goodbyes."
"Kind of you," I said shortly, his flippant manner irritating me. Mary looked like she might admonish me, but I glowered at her and she held her tongue. With Jack gone without so much as a goodbye, I was annoyed. I had wanted to talk to Laurelyn, or even Anamaria, seeing as how both women knew much more about men than I did. The Commodore, Gillette, and Mary walked closer to the shore, and I turned around to meet the eyes of Naneth; she was looking at me warmly, seemingly able to read my thoughts.
"Jack's lover and Anamaria would be able to tell you about men, but not of husbands. Taeryn can help you there, or Maurya, or even myself - though it do be many long years since I did have a husband of my own. But mostly, it do be up to you to figure out this man of yours," she said. I smiled, Naneth's words soothing me a bit, and I reached for Will's hand.
"We want to thank you for everything you've done for us, Naneth," I said. She waved her hand. "Jack did tell me upon bringing you here that there was something different about you, different from Miss Mary-belle, different even from his Laurelyn though she do be formidable in her own right. You are like our Anamaria: Port Royal is not yours, nor is our island, nor any other land. You maybe do not know it, but you belong only to young stag beside you, and he to you. As long as you remember that then nothing can harm you."
What Naneth said hardly made any sense to me, but I smiled at the old woman anyway. Her words, as hard to puzzle out as they were, comforted me. She frowned. "Old Naneth did nothing for you that you could not have done for yourself. You would have found each other eventually, no matter what this fool did to shove you away -" She jerked her head at Will, and I laughed at the look of irritation on his face. "The magic of our beautiful island did speed things along, but that is all." It was her way of saying goodbye, it seemed, because she kissed Will on the forehead - he had to bend nearly double for her to reach him, but she kissed him nonetheless - and then bade me farewell by kissing both my cheeks and pressing her thumb to the tattoo on my shoulder.
"You are welcome here always, Princess," Maurya said with a surprising gentleness as she took Naneth by the arm and led her away up the soft white sand. Taeryn and her husband stood before us then. "All those married on this island become family by custom," Taeryn said. "Our home is always open to you, should you be in need of it, my sister." She handed me a frock of deep brown, seemingly plain and unadorned but upon closer inspection I could see the embroidery. It was the garb of all the married island women. Taeryn took my hand and placed over her rounded belly, where I could feel the baby kick. My heart raced and I had to take a deep breath - the ways of the island women were so strange. Could they possibly tell if a woman was pregnant the day after she is first with her husband? Taeryn's eyes twinkled at the fear she must have read on my face.
"A child is a gift, no matter when it is begotten," she said mysteriously. I swayed on my feet and Will's hand was there to steady me in an instant. Taeryn tilted her head to the side. "Relax, Princess. How do your people put it? The, er, stork hasn't gifted you yet." I had never heard Taeryn's husband speak before, and the fact that his first words were of something as inappropriate as whether or not I was pregnant floored me. Will looked disappointed, but I felt a large about of relief. "Thank you," I said softly, as Will led me away to where the Commodore, Gillette, and Mary were waiting.
We made our way to the tiny vessel in a silence that was suddenly and unceremoniously broken by Gillette. "Laurelyn told me to bid you goodbye. She says she hopes to see you soon at Tortuga, but she doubts that you'll need to visit there anymore, Turner," he said. I tripped on the front of my skirt, its strings of shells clinking together loudly to my ears. "I beg your pardon!" I gasped, feeling my face heat for the millionth time that morning. That Laurelyn! The nerve of her! To mention such things, and to Gillette of all people. Mary looked torn between amused and disapproving, with a hearty helping of embarrassed as well. The Commodore, oddly enough, was smiling almost roguishly. "I am not about to ask how you got along last night, Miss Swann, and I shall tell your father that I believe in your utmost propriety. But Mr. Sparrow did request that I tell you - before he went capering off into the night like the bandit he is - that he hopes dear William did not disappoint. Possibly he thought that Bootstrap, lady-killer that Jack assures me he was - would have equally as dashing a son."
"How dare you!" I shrieked, while Will's face twitched in amusement although he tried to keep in set in lines of rage. "It isn't proper! It isn't seemly! Commodore!"
"Really, James, we've all been through such a trying ordeal. You mustn't bait Miss Swann so," Mary implored. "I am quite sure that honor was maintained."
"Do spare me, Miss Porter. We are so far from Port Royal that honor is about as important as a grain of sand on a beach. Miss Swann, whatever transpired last night between you and Mr. Turner is of little consequence to me. Your father did, incidentally, want me to make sure your good name would still be upheld. I shall tell him that Miss Porter never left your side and we'll leave it at that, shall we?"
I hadn't quite given a thought to how much talk would surround a woman who had fled Port Royal in the company of Jack Sparrow and his band of rogues. Possibly the fact that Mary - whose name was as spotless as the saint after whom she was named - had come with me was all that had saved the shreds of my reputation. "Thank you, Commodore," I said stiffly, although relaxing a bit under the warm look he gave me. Perhaps even the esteemed Commodore James Norrington could be human at times.
"Besides," he said offhandedly, "nothing you do should surprise anyone anymore, Miss Swann. Quite frankly, you are the worst 'lady' Port Royal has ever seen."
Leaving the island was strange and quiet. Mary had opted to stay below and the boat was small enough to be manned easily by three people, so with a kiss on my cheek Will had decided to help sail us back to Port Royal. I stood with the sea on my face, watching Naneth's island shrink before my eyes as a pod of dolphins sped us along home.