"You can't really give up the sea." The words burst forth like a breath suddenly loosed. Jack's gaze grew dark, distant. He frowned. I hated it when Jack frowned; the expression didn't fit his face, somehow. He came into the hall with me and knelt on one knee, so that his eyes met mine.
"Izzy," he began, "ye'll find, in the world that the only rules that matter are these: What a man can do and what a man can't do. Now, I could stay on the ocean, wi' me Pearl and me plunder. But, if I do that, I can't guarantee that ye'll ever see me again, or that I'll get t' meet me grandchild, savvy?"
A sick feeling crept into my stomach. I'd seen Jack serious before, of course, when he talked with Papa in low voices and they didn't know I listened. But the glint in his black eyes, the arrogant sureness in his voice were absent.
"You can't guarantee you can leave the sea behind, either," I whispered. Jack smiled and un-Jack-like smile.
"Be careful, Izzy, my lass. Ye sound more and more like yer granddad every day."
"Is he gone daft?" Gibbs stared at Mari as if she were a creature of myth.
Mari shook her head. "More like finally gone sane. He swears he's to live the rest of his life like a respectable citizen." She snorted. "He wasn't one of those before he became a pirate."
Gibbs took a healthy gulp from his flask. "What're we t' do?"
Mari sprang from her seat and began pacing the Pearl's stateroom. "I'll run the Pearl, at least until he comes to his senses. Meanwhile, Britannia and Mr. Sweet can take care of the Crimson Cutlass."
Edmund Blackhand—the late James Norrington— abandoned his corner. "And who, my dear, is to take care of you? Perhaps, rather than railing against Jack's decision, you should consider joining him."
Captain Cutlass rounded on her husband, black eyes ablaze. "If you utter one word about the delicacy of my condition, James Bartholomew Norrington, this will be the last child you ever sire!"
Blackhand raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't that also leave you at a disadvantage?"
Mari glared at him for several seconds before turning back to an amused Mr. Gibbs. "Send a message to the Cutlass with the new rank assignments, and arrange to have Jack's things sent to the Turners'."
"Aye, ma'am," Gibbs said. "But I rather think the Pearl is a bit outsized for the Turners' parlor."
Mari grinned mirthlessly. "That, my dear man, is Jack's worry, not mine." She paused. "Savvy?" And she stormed from the stateroom, the door clanging closed after her.
Gibbs gave Blackhand a sympathetic look. "There'll be no livin' wi' her after this."
Blackhand only smiled.