To Lose A Pirate
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Chapter 2: Grief
(One year later)
Will placed the finished sword in the rack with the other completed ones. Another one for Norrington's men. There was a regular need for new swords, and Will knew that Norrington trusted the quality of his workmanship over that of anyone else in Port Royal.
But that was little comfort to Will, following Jack's death. Nothing was the same any more, and he didn't know how he was still alive. Jack's murder (which was how he viewed the late pirate captain's hanging) had broken him completely and utterly. His entire being ached, felt unbearably heavy. He had no idea how he forced himself to get up and go to work every day. Every day was bleak, hopeless, pointless. Life held no meaning for Will now; Jack had introduced him to life beyond the social constraints of British society, shown him excitement, adventure, freedom. Jack had changed Will's life, and now he was gone. Gone forever.
"Will? Are you busy?"
Will stepped back from the rack and turned round to see Elizabeth standing by the main door to the smithy, a basket in her hand. He gave her a small half-hearted smile but made no move towards her. Elizabeth had grown used to Will's unresponsiveness since Jack's death, and it hurt her deeply to see him so. She put the basket down and went over to him, reaching out and brushing a lock of his curly dark hair out of his eyes, which reflected nothing but despair and pain. "I've brought you some lunch."
"You didn't need to," replied Will tiredly.
"Yes I did. You hardly eat."
Will shrugged. "I'm not hungry."
"You need a break from work."
"I can't afford to, Elizabeth. We need the money and I don't want to rely on your father for anything if I can possibly help it."
Elizabeth smiled at this. She knew how determined Will was to prove to Governor Swann that allowing his daughter to marry a blacksmith had not been a serious social or financial mistake. "I'm sure one or two days will hardly have an effect on our finances –"
"It keeps my mind away from other thoughts," Will interrupted her abruptly, pulling away.
Elizabeth sobered. "Will, you have to move on. I know it's hard, but Jack is gone and he won't come back. At least you were able to say goodbye to him."
"It shouldn't have happened." Will's tone was short, curt, defensive. Elizabeth steeled herself; a defensive and angry Will was extremely difficult to deal with. She took his hand in hers and led him over to the basket. Picking up said basket, she gestured to the stone steps that were by the main door, in which Will had once embedded a sword to prevent Jack escaping the smithy. "Sit, William Turner."
Will stiffened and Elizabeth instantly regretted her words. Jack was the only one who had ever called him William; to everyone else he was Will, or Mr. Turner.
They sat down in silence and Elizabeth unpacked the food, guilt eating at her for the slip. To some it was but a small slip; to Will, it was everything. She watched him closely as he reluctantly took a small bite of the sandwich but ate no more, took in his slumped posture and his downcast eyes, the melancholy that was wrapped so tightly around his very soul. For Elizabeth, it was heartbreaking to see Will go from being full of life and happiness to this almost lifeless, despairing creature. It had been a year since Captain Jack Sparrow had departed this world, and Will had not even started to deal with the fact. Elizabeth resolved to broach the subject with him that evening.
She turned to him. "How was your morning?"
He shrugged. "Fine. The usual. Busy."
Elizabeth suppressed the urge to strangle him. "Would you care to elaborate a little more?"
"What is there to elaborate on?"
"I don't know. But there must be something, surely."
"There isn't."
"Oh." She was silent for a moment. "What do you want to talk about?"
Another shrug.
So Elizabeth commenced remarking on the young ladies of the upper class and how Juliette Trevelyan had very publicly broken off her engagement to the son of a very important Member of Parliament. Will paid this little attention – high society bored him and he always felt extremely uncomfortable in such settings – but Elizabeth chattered on in a desperate attempt to fill what would otherwise be silence.
When it became clear that Will was not going to eat anything more, Elizabeth sighed and plucked the half-eaten sandwich from his grasp. "I'm going to leave you some food in case you get hungry this afternoon." I should be so lucky, she thought cynically.
"I won't."
"I shall leave it anyway."
"Fine." He stood up, Elizabeth taking this as her cue to leave, and went over to the fire, in which sat several partially-formed swords. He placed his hand over one – and hesitated. He had once taken a sword with a glowing tip from this fire when he had first encountered Jack. The grief hit him suddenly, painfully, and his breath caught in his throat, tears springing to his eyes at the memory. He missed Jack so much, would give up everything just to see him again, to spend time with him…
No. Don't think of that, Will chastised himself, forcing back the thoughts that swam to the forefront of his memory. The pain of these memories was too much for him to bear. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor, overwhelmed as memories of his first encounter with Captain Jack Sparrow came flooding back. The first exchange of words: "You're the one they're hunting. The pirate." And Jack's response: "You look somewhat familiar; have I threatened you before?" It was only later that Jack had realised why Will looked so familiar, when the blacksmith had given the pirate his name.
He recalled the ensuing swordfight, himself flinging one sword into the door to prevent Jack from escaping, the acrobatic and almost dance-like movement around the smithy, Jack cheating and temporarily disabling him by sending sand into his face, and his now-dead master, Mr. Brown, knocking Jack unconscious with his empty bottle, and his own bitterness towards the man who had for so long taken credit for Will's work.
Recalled the adventure he had gone on a year later, when Elizabeth had been in England for six months, when Jack had swanned into Port Royal and 'borrowed with every intention of returning' him for various wild adventures, in which both Will and Jack had stared death in the face on multiple occasions. That had been the best time of Will's life, the time he had spent on the open seas on the Black Pearl with Jack.
He forced the tears back, his pride refusing to permit them passage down his face. Much as he desperately longed to weep, he could not do so without being seen as weak. And that was one thing that William Turner, son of a pirate, could not afford to be. He longed for the pain, the weariness, the emptiness, to just go away. He couldn't remember what it was like to feel happy; that was long ago, in another lifetime. In a world where Jack was still alive, and vibrantly full of life. A world where Gilette was not strutting around Port Royal with a permanent, self-important smirk on his face despite Norrington's best attempts to counter it.
Eventually he forced himself to his feet and, forcing his emotions down, turned his focus to his work. He had done this so often that he was more than capable of doing it in his sleep, and his actions now were no more than automatic. He longed for the day to finish, so that he could return home and go to bed. Sleep was good.
When he could. There were nights – far too many to count – when sleep eluded him entirely. They were the worst nights, when all he was able to do was lie in bed and think about Jack.
He somehow managed to survive another day of work in the hot, steamy, smoky atmosphere of the smithy, remaining hard at work until Mrs. Robinson from the bakery hurried in from the twilit outside world, dusting flour from her hands onto her apron. "Mr. Turner, are you ever going to go 'ome to your Elizabeth? I'm sure she's wonderin' where you are."
Will glanced up from the horseshoe he was making and sighed, nodding as he wiped sweat from his forehead. "I should," he agreed. "Except I am sure she is all too aware of the dinner at her father's tonight that we are expected to attend."
Mrs. Robinson could not prevent a smile from forming on her round rosy face as she shook her head wryly. "Rather you than me. You don't want to go, I gather."
Will nodded his confirmation.
"You 'ave my sympathies. But be off with you now, or else your Elizabeth will be down 'ere draggin' you 'ome!" She extracted Will's tools from his hands, laid them down and grabbed his cloak from the hook, ushering him out of the door as she wrapped sad cloak around his shoulders. "Be off 'ome with you!"
"But the fire –"
"My 'usband will sort it out. Home!"
Will knew better than to argue, so he turned and slowly, wearily made his way home, spirits as low as ever. He was grateful for Mrs. Robinson; she looked after him. If his senses had not been dulled by the melancholy in which he was lost, he would have suspected Elizabeth having a hand in Mrs. Robinson's recently increased mothering of him (which she had).
Elizabeth was waiting in the doorway for him when he arrived at their home. Her face visibly creased with worry the moment he walked through the door. "We're not going to my father's tonight," she told him briskly.
Will slowly removed his cloak and hung it up. Even small tasks such as this seemed to require almost too much effort now. "We're not?"
"I sent a message to my father. I have a severe headache and you do not wish to leave my bedside because you are such a devoted husband."
"Oh. I see." He allowed his face to show his relief. He had been dreading this evening – all the aristocrats of Port Royal and the surrounding areas delighted in looking down on him and making it crystal clear that he was not acceptable as part of their social circle. Elizabeth hated it, almost more than Will himself, and, unlike her husband who preferred to slip away before his face could reveal his shame and hurt, made her opinions on their treatment of her Will known and told the gathered others exactly what she thought of their attitudes – earning herself sharp rebukes from her father when they were alone.
"And you came in at just the right moment – Mary is just about to serve dinner."
Will sighed wearily. "I'm not hungry, Elizabeth. I just want to go to bed."
"Not before dinner. That's an order. And then after dinner, you and I are going to talk."
Will's stomach tightened form anxiety at the prospect; this talk that Elizabeth had probably spent most of the day rehearsing could not be good. "What about?" he asked nervously.
Elizabeth's face softened, taking on a sad expression as she reached out to cup Will's face in her delicate hand. He flinched involuntarily and she let her hand drop sadly. "Wait until dinner is over. In the meantime, try to eat something decent."
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TBC