Firstly, thank you to (deep deep breath) BlackJackSilver, Peacockgirl, Trinity Day, FalconWing, DebH, Gayle, geekmama, Lady Lorax, Dragon Girl Revlis, and koriaena. Thank you for your feedback, as it is my drug of choice, and is greatly appreciated. I'm sorry this next part took so long. I was starting to think somebody was going to have to beat this chapter out of me. It wasn't being cooperative. Words and sentences and even paragraphs were obliterated almost as soon as they were out, for I looked on them and they did not please me. I'm not sure if I was unfocused or just too damn picky, but in any event...here you have it.
Also, I apologize in advance for the scenes NOT being divided. Apparently ff.n is no longer recognizing the happy little rows of periods I used in the original document for this very purpose. Why? Who knows? I've tried to fix it. It won't fix. The scenes aren't marked off. Drives me up the wall, but if I fight with this anymore tonight my head's going to explode.
See part one for disclaimers.
"What made you decide to marry Mother?"
Five-year-old William Turner knelt on a chair at the kitchen counter, rinsing the dishes his mother washed and regarding his father with intense dark eyes.
"Dishes over the washtub, Will; you're dripping all over the floor!" his mother chastised hastily, turning him around.
Bill sat at the table, slicing up an apple. "Ahh, let's see..." he said slowly, leaning back and stretching his legs out, one ankle hooked over the other.
"Watch yourself, Turner," Cathleen growled with a twinkle in her eye.
"Don't distract me, Catie, I'm trying to think." Bill chewed thoughtfully on a sliver of apple, one finger tapping against his lips.
"Was it because she was so pretty?" Will asked, craning his neck around to study his father.
"Well, she was fair enough, that's true. But a man can't just go marrying the first pretty face he lays eyes on. Or the second, or the third, or the--"
Cathleen cleared her throat.
"Point being, lad, it's more what's going on in a girl's head and heart you should concern yourself with," Bill said quickly.
"Mother, what was going on in your head when you married Papa?" Will asked quite earnestly, and frowned slightly when his mother doubled over laughing. "What?!"
Bill just grinned and popped another bite of apple into his mouth. "Out of the mouths of babes, eh Catie? I've often wondered that one myself."
"Ohhh," Cathleen groaned, catching her breath and wiping at her eyes. "Will, my little love, you knock me to the floor some days. Your da makes me laugh, too. That's one reason I had to have him for keeps."
"And your mother's an easy one to make smile, she is," Bill went on. "That's probably why I have her."
The little boy wrinkled his nose skeptically. "That's it? You were funny and she was easy?" he demanded, then waited impatiently for both of his parents to stop cackling. Bill only narrowly avoided choking on his apple.
"Oh, Will," Bill gasped out, "if you're plannin' on writin' us a love song, wait 'til we're dead, aye? Else we won't be able to look the neighbors in the eye."
"I'm not writing any songs," Will said matter-of-factly, in that particular tone of condescension that only children at the end of their tethers with adults can manage. "I just want to know. In case I want to get married."
"Got someone in mind, do you?" Bill asked, straight-faced.
"No," Will said emphatically, rolling his eyes. "I just wanted to know. In case."
"Ah, Will, when you find your lass, just bring her home to supper. If she doesn't run screaming from your mother's cooking, she's a keeper."
The dishrag hit Bill dead between his eyes, and it was Will's turn to curl up giggling as his mother wiped her soapy hands on her apron.
Elizabeth was wrong. Their wedding day wouldn't be perfect.
Will hammered away at the hot steel of another blade almost meditatively. The steady, ringing beats pounded in his ears; the impact of each strike traveled up his arm, making his fingers tingle and his shoulder ache satisfyingly. He'd awakened even earlier than usual this morning (dawn had still been a couple hours off – Elizabeth would have been appalled) and had thrown himself into his work without even bothering with breakfast, in hopes of shaking off the melancholy thoughts that plagued him.
Missing his mother and father had settled into the lingering pain of an old, long-since-healed wound; something that had ached so long it was simply there, accepted and lived with, but not given much active attention.
This morning, however, their absence was stabbing Will in the chest.
He was getting married in a few short weeks, and his parents weren't going to be there. His mother wouldn't drive him mad fussing with his clothes beforehand. His father wouldn't dance with Elizabeth afterwards.
How they would have loved Elizabeth! She would have whispered conspiratorially with his mother about their questionable taste in Turner men, and impressed his father with her well-rounded knowledge of raunchy and inappropriate drinking songs. If his memory of his father was anything to go by, of course. The man Will remembered, the one he'd last seen in the flesh when he was six years old, had given his son a worldly sort of music appreciation every time they were safely out of his mother's earshot.
Then he had the bloody nerve to look shocked if I happened to repeat any of it in front of her, Will recalled fondly.
They'd been a couple of disloyal partners-in-crime, that was for sure and certain. Getting into any sort of trouble they could find, swearing each other to secrecy, then tripping over themselves to be the first to rat the other out when confronted with one of Cathleen's harpoon-tipped glares.
"You'll never believe what I caught the lad at this time, Catie!"
"Papa said we could, Mother!"
Come to think of it, Elizabeth had a glare in her arsenal an awful lot like his mother's.
Will sighed heavily, and put the hammer away. He wasn't one for feeling sorry for himself, but "it's not fair" was beginning to run through his mind in a mantra.
Good lord, man, you're marrying the girl of your dreams. A woman who by rights shouldn't even give you directions will be giving you her whole life. What more could you want?
Simple. He wanted his parents. He wanted his mother and father there when he got married.
Hell, as long as he was wishing for the impossible, he wanted Jack there, too, standing (albeit unsteadily) as his best man. He wanted to marry Elizabeth barefoot on the beach, her clad in seashells and flowers and not much else. Then they'd go have their honeymoon on the most notorious pirate ship in the Caribbean, do unmentionable things to each other in the crow's nest, and they wouldn't be back for a month. Or two.
A flush that had nothing to do with the heat in the forge crept across his skin, and the chuckle that rose in his throat was almost enough to shake loose the lump that had formed there.
"Elizabeth, you're a terrible influence on me," he thought out loud, smiling.
A little while later, the new blade cooling and the darkest of his grey thoughts exorcised, for the time being at least, Will decided he was ready for a break. He headed for the wash bucket, and grimaced at the amount of ash and soot in the water. Will grabbed up the bucket and went outside, emptying the dingy water onto the ground on his way to the well.
Dawn was still fresh and soft, the air still relatively cool, for which Will was grateful. By mid-morning the summer sun would already be getting fierce, and the open air would offer little relief from the smothering temperatures of the forge.
Will cranked up the well bucket and took the time for a long drink before refilling his wash water. A little gust of a breeze kicked up, setting the wind chimes hanging from the eave of the well spinning and ringing gently. Will had strung them together as a lark a couple years back, using odd and eye-catching bits of metal discarded from his work, along with little pieces of mirrored glass.
Little mirrors that suddenly reflected fragments of a form that wasn't Will's as it moved across the yard.
Kneeling to pour his water, Will's eyes flickered up, and his muscles tensed. He kept his hands at their task, and his eyes on the chimes' mirrors, on the broken jigsaw images of grey and red and brown they threw back at him, betraying the intruder's presence with no sound save the tinkling of tiny bells.
Will straightened, and waited for the sound of a light footfall just behind him before he swung the empty bucket around and into the midsection of the person creeping close. There was a loud and pained "oompf!", and Will had just enough time as he turned to see a very familiar body hit the ground horizontally before his legs were swept out from under him by a well-placed kick.
The bucket hit the ground with a crash, and then there was quiet broken only by the sound of wheezing as Will Turner and Jack Sparrow lied flat on their backs, boots tangled at the ankles, and tried to remember how to breathe.
Will rolled his head around enough to bring the prone pirate into his line of vision.
Jack stared, wide-eyed, up at the clouds. The fingers of one hand twitched, then tapped thoughtfully on the ground. "Next time," he panted, "I might submit to convention..." a bit more panting, "...and knock."
"Jack," Will said when he'd caught a little of his breath back. "Lovely of you to stop by." He pushed himself into a sitting position and winced, leaning his weight back on his hands. "You know, you left going ass over teakettle, too. Is this going to be a tradition?"
Jack started to laugh, but it hurt, so he bit his lip in an attempt to stop. "Shut it, you cheeky whelp," he said, rolling over onto his side. "Fine way to greet an old friend. Come to congratulate you on your upcoming nuptials and get assaulted. 'Hello Jack, how've you been, sure have missed you, oh and here, have a bit of internal bleeding.' Risk life and limb avoiding the navy just to let you beat the hell out of me--"
His tirade was cut off as Will yanked him to his feet and into a fierce hug that threatened to crack any ribs the bucket might have missed.
"I've missed you, Jack," Will said, grinning. "How've you been?"
"Prior to the manhandling, you mean?" Jack groused, but Will noticed he returned the embrace just as tightly before tugging himself loose. "Beat me to paste and then come over all cuddly...where's me bleedin' hat?" Brushing himself off, Jack retrieved the displaced item and set it primly back on his head. "Hardly proper for you to be out here gropin' me when you've got a fiancée for that sort of thing. Speaking of which," Jack stepped close and swatted Will playfully on the arm, winking, "good on you, lad. Don't know why in God's name anyone would want to get married, but if you're dead set on it, you couldn't ask for a better woman than Elizabeth."
Will cocked his head and crossed his arms, still feeling a bit dazed, as much from his friend's sudden appearance as his own meeting with the ground, if not more so. "How in the world did you find out?"
Slipping fluidly around Will, Jack narrowed his eyes. "I have ways, William, savvy? Just got to listen to the wind, and watch the stars."
Will snorted. "You're so full of shit you ought to be growing grass out your ears," he shot.
Jack grinned and flung an arm around the younger man's shoulders, walking them both towards the forge. "Come on. I haven't had me breakfast today, and if you're going to beat up your visitors, the least you can do is feed them afterwards."
Twenty minutes later, the two of them were ensconced in Will's quarters with tea, bread, and honey, and Will was well on his way to getting Jack caught up with "life on the damned dry ground", as Jack had dubbed it.
"Well, can't say as I'm thrilled at the idea of all the king's men taking a page out of your book of tricks," Jack was saying with a wry smile, "but I would have loved to be a mouse in the corner when ol' Jamie Norrington came begging your assistance. Did he require a drink of water to help him choke down that chalky pride of his?"
Will gave Jack a reproachful look, but couldn't quite resist a chuckle. "He didn't come begging. And it didn't appear to pain him in the least, if you can believe that."
"I believe in mermaids and the walking dead. But James Norrington giving you your due without it being extracted from him at knifepoint..." Jack shook his head and raised an eyebrow. "You're quite sure he wasn't drunk?"
"Quite sure."
"Running a high fever?"
"Healthy as a horse."
Jack blew a soft breath through the steam rising off of his tea, one sun-browned, fine-boned finger tracing the rim of the cup. "Possessed?"
"Jack!"
He held one hand up in surrender, and had the grace to look sheepish. "All right, all right. I'm only playin' with you, Will. It's a fine opportunity to come your way. Though if I come up against any redcoats who actually make a fair show of whooping my ass, I'll know who to blame, and you and I shall have words, whelp."
"Well, just be sure to cheat, and you should be fine," Will retorted.
Jack's eyes shifted thoughtfully as he considered this, sucking a bit of honey off one thumb, and he nodded. "'S true." His eyes glittered wickedly. "Not planning on teaching them the underhanded bits then, are you?"
Will turned a bland, innocent expression on him. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Ah."
"Don't make that bloody face at me." Will jabbed a finger in Jack's direction.
"I didn't make a face."
"You did. You made that bloody annoying 'I know more about what you're saying than you do' face. And you had a tone."
"I didn't have a tone."
"It was smug."
"Well, don't try to lie to me, and I won't have reason to be smug when I see through it." Jack said with a tiny shrug of one shoulder.
Will smirked. "So you're admitting you're smug?"
"You admitting you're a liar?"
"Absolutely not," Will said firmly, leaning back in his chair. "I've been employed to show the commodore's men how to improve their technique, and I'm going to do just that."
"You're plannin' on holdin' out on them, Will Turner, and don't you bloody dare deny it, because I know you." Jack was practically wriggling with self-satisfaction.
"I'm going to teach them everything they need to know," Will informed him matter-of-factly.
"And not one single scrap they don't." Jack raised his eyebrows expectantly at Will, who managed not to smile for almost ten seconds. "Ha!"
"Oh, shut up," Will grumbled unconvincingly.
"You toss those slippery answers at someone else, whelp; I invented them."
"Who do you think I learned from?" Will pointed out.
"And I couldn't be prouder, believe you me. Cheating, lying, defying authority...I'd say I'm doing a fine job of rubbing off on you." Jack tipped his chair back off its front legs and toyed with one tattered end of his red scarf. "Never had any siblings to corrupt. Sort of fun, really. One day you'll thank me for helping to shape your character."
"Thanks, Jack," Will said suddenly, one foot striking out to nudge Jack's chair further off-balance, drawing a yelp from the pirate as he lurched forward to keep from toppling over.
"That," Jack growled, bouncing a piece of bread off Will's forehead with a deft flick of his fingers, "wasn't very nice. See now, if you'd had someone to whip your skinny ass into shape, you'd be more respectful of your elders."
It struck somewhere other than where Jack had intended, and he saw the sadness that passed over Will's face like a cloud blown in front of the sun, though the younger man glanced quickly away, and was making an effort at an easy smile when he met Jack's eyes again. "You might stand a chance at it if you sneak up on me from behind or give me a face full of ash first," Will said, in a voice that didn't quite have the lighthearted bite Jack knew it was supposed to.
"Bill would've been proud of you, you know," Jack said quietly.
Will looked taken aback, then his lips quirked in a half-smile. "You sure about that, are you? Me passing his teaching on to people who'll probably use it against men like him?"
"There aren't many men like your father, Will," Jack informed him, casually tipping his chair back once more. "Certainly not among those the commodore hunts, if that's what's weighing on your mind. And he would be proud of you. Not just for what you do with those blades of yours, though I'm sure he'd puff up like a peacock if you gave him credit for even half your skill. You do his name honor." He caught up a beaded lock of his hair, twisting the bright trinkets absently, giving Will the slightly sleepy gaze that he usually adopted when his mind was running at its wildest pace. "He never spoke of you with anything but pride."
Will swallowed hard. "Did he speak of me often?"
Staring into Will's hopeful face, Jack searched for an answer that wouldn't hurt, before deciding it was futile. "Not often, Will," he replied carefully, flinching at his friend's crestfallen expression almost before it appeared, and hastened to clarify himself. "Not because you weren't in his thoughts, lad. You were. Always. But it was a hard thing for him to dwell on. It killed him to be so far from you and your mum, for so long."
Will stared out the window, absorbing this. "We certainly had no way of knowing it," he replied, his voice sharp around the edges. "He scarcely ever wrote us in all those years it was killing him to be away."
"Will, he couldn't," Jack admonished gently, leaning forward, drawing Will's attention back to him. "It's rather difficult for a man avoiding the notice of the crown to find reliable handling of his correspondence. And even when it could be managed, keep in mind, William, that there were eyes on your father he'd just as soon not see the names and whereabouts of his loved ones."
"He was willing to risk it to spite Barbossa."
"It wasn't mere spite, lad. Bill wasn't that petty." Jack's head bowed, eyes half veiled by his dark lashes. "He was trying to make amends. Even the scales. Oh, he wanted Barbossa to suffer; I don't doubt that. But it was bigger than that for Bill, it was. He wanted justice done. For me." Jack turned what might have been a pained catch of his breath into a dismissive snort. "Bleedin' idiot."
Will chewed his lip pensively. "Why didn't he help you that night, Jack?" he asked.
"Will, don't." It had the ring of a warning to it.
"He was your friend. He should have done something!" Will pressed.
"Like what, exactly?" Jack replied, more calmly than Will felt was appropriate. "Throw himself between me and the wolves? That only works when the wolves have some miniscule speck of human decency somewhere behind the jaws."
"He should have tried."
Jack sighed. It was some sort of blood-linked Turner compulsion, this unhealthy insistence on getting between Jack and whatever or whoever wanted his head on a given week. "Your father was a good man, Will. Much of the time we spent in each other's company involved him disentangling me from difficulties of varying type and degree. Now there were plenty of those times, despite Bill's arguments to the contrary, that I had things quite well in hand all by me onesies. As for the others..." Jack shook his head. "I would have been dead a dozen times over if not for Bill Turner. But you make a habit of swimmin' where it's rough and deep, sooner or later you've got to keep your own head above water, savvy? Bill had no business jumping in after me when there were people on shore somewhere waiting for him, depending on him." This last was said with a trace of anger that caught Will off-guard, and his brows drew together in a small, thoughtful frown as he regarded his friend.
"You made him stay out of it, didn't you?" Will ventured. "How?"
"I dropped a word or two about priorities," Jack replied. It had been a few words more than that, actually, but not many. There had been little time; once Barbossa had tipped his hand, it had been only a scant couple of hours before they reached the barren little island he'd intended Jack to die on. "Then I reminded him that unless he'd turned with the rest of them, I was still his captain and he had to follow my orders."
"And you ordered him to save himself." It wasn't a question, and apparently the pirate decided that relieved him of the obligation to answer.
Will worried lightly at his lower lip. It wasn't the answer he'd wanted, but he wasn't really sure what would've been. The futile anger he'd felt towards his father still curled the edges of his thoughts, like slow-burning paper. And he felt ashamed for being angry.
Jack swirled the last vestiges of his tea in the bottom of his cup and peered curiously at the pattern the dregs made when they settled. "What's chewin' on your leg now, Will?" he asked without looking up.
"Nothing you can help me be rid of."
Jack twitched one shoulder in a small shrug. "Even so."
"I shouldn't be angry with him, Jack. It's not right, not when I have so little of him left."
"Right and wrong don't always sleep in separate bedrooms, lad." Catching Will's look, Jack smiled softly. "They get a bit blurry, 's what I mean."
"But he was a good person. I know that. I remember that." Will shook his head, a lock of hair tumbling down into his eyes. "And whatever else he did with his life, I know he tried to do right by the people he loved. He died trying to rectify what happened to you."
The statement hurt a hell of a lot more than something said so utterly without malice had any right to, and Jack silently wondered how someone as adept with weapons as Will could be quite so completely unaware of the knife he was twisting in Jack's gut. "He died courageously." And horribly. I could tell you about the one where he comes crawling across the floor towards me, all grey and bloated and twisted, trailing crushed legs and seaweed behind him...
"...help but wonder how things would have turned out if he'd acted that night. Or if he'd never left England to begin with." Will laughed, a hushed, humorless exhalation of breath. "Selfish of me, isn't it? He left to provide my mother and I with a better life."
Jack turned the teacup this way and that in his hands, and lifted fathomless eyes to meet Will's. "It's not selfish for a son to want his father near, Will." As opposed to dragging a man with a son that was missing him along on an idiotic disaster of a voyage and getting him killed for your own damnable pride?
Considering how many times he'd been hit in the head, Jack would have thought the part of his brain where that particular annoying little voice lived might have been incapacitated, but clearly that wasn't the case.
"Have you never been angry at him, then?" Will wondered. "In all the time since the mutiny?"
Jack thought back to the day he'd first learned what had become of Bill, when Joshamee Gibbs, whom Jack had known for mere weeks at the time, had come to him bearing ill news and pity. Jack hadn't reacted well to either one.
Gibbs had respectfully left him alone while he'd sobbed himself sick, showing up several hours later, pity wisely replaced by a couple of large, full bottles. Jack had stared up at him from where he lied on the floor, kohl-tinged streaks on his face, but his eyes long since dry.
"He died for me," Jack had said, his voice hoarse, and eerily empty, like the air after a squall.
"Then have a drink for him, mate," Gibbs had replied, and it had sounded like wisdom to Jack.
Regarding Bill Turner's struggling son across the remains of their breakfast, Jack had to admit to anger of his own. "Yeah, Will. S'pose there's been a time or two I've been a bit cross with 'im."
"And have you forgiven him?"
You know what the lad wants to hear, Sparrow, so just give it to him. You know your way around a bloody lie.
"When it comes that, I guess I haven't."
Oh, what the bloody buggering hell was that?
That little voice was becoming a right fucking stink of a thing to get rid of.
"Ah." Will said it like he understood, which Jack knew, of course, he didn't. But there had been more than enough enlightenment for one day.
There was quiet for a long while then, not exactly uncomfortable, but the sort that needed breaking, all the same.
"I think I've got an octopus," Jack announced suddenly.
There was subsequently a bit more quiet time as Will decided whether or not this was an alarming statement, considering the source. He came down on the side of not; it was when Jack started sounding really logical that you generally needed to worry. "I beg your pardon?"
Jack was squinting into his cup. He looked up and held it towards Will. "In m'leaves. Looks like an octopus. See the little legs?"
Will looked, because a year ago the idea of him having breakfast with a fugitive pirate would have been ludicrous, as well. "Huh. You're right."
"What've you got?"
"It's...hmmm. Looks like...wait a minute...yes. I believe it's...oh, it's definitely a monkey."
Will was proud of how straight his face was. Jack stared, eyes widening almost imperceptibly.
"You don't have a monkey."
"No, I really do."
"You don't have a monkey in your cup. Let me see."
Will clutched it closer. "Just let's not worry about it, Jack."
Jack was coming around the table now. "Will, give me the bloody cup."
Will slid smoothly out of his seat and backed away, raising up on his toes and holding the offending piece of porcelain out of Jack's reach. "No, it'll only upset you." He backed deftly around the room as Jack followed him.
"It won't upset me, because there is no bloody monkey! William, I swear to God--"
"You're making a scene, Jack. Someone might hear." He switched the cup to his left hand before Jack could claim it.
"You're a bloody liar, whelp."
"Maybe, but you're too short to know for sure."
"All right now, that was cheap and uncalled for," Jack informed him, and repaid the grievous insult with an elbow to the stomach, catching the teacup neatly in one hand as Will dropped it, doubling over. "Ha!" the pirate exclaimed triumphantly, peering critically at the dregs. "Nothing like a monkey." He twirled it by the handle on one finger, eyeballing Will haughtily. "And that was mean, little brother."
Will scowled, rubbing the sore spot on his stomach. "Well, you'll be consoled by the fact that we'll have matching bruises. That bloody hurt, you ass."
"Smidge less than the bucket did, I'll wager."
"Sorry. Next time you sneak up on me in my own yard I'll be careful to aim where I'll do less damage. Like your head."
Jack smirked. "Aren't you just full of piss and wind today," he observed. "I do believe Miss Swann's rubbing off on you. Speaking of which, what say we go and call on your lady fair? Hardly polite for me to sit around here all day with you and not so much as drop by."
"Oh, yes, marvelous idea. Let's just take a walk up to the governor's house right now, in broad daylight," Will said cheerily, gathering up their dirty dishes. "You and Elizabeth will have just enough time to say hello to each other before you're hauled off and hung."
Jack crossed his arms and fixed Will with a withering look. "Do you honestly think I can't make my way through this town undetected at any hour of the day or night, Will Turner?"
Bill Turner stepped off the gangplank of the Ragnarok, rucksack over his shoulder, and breathed in deeply, tasting the air.
The last time he'd set foot in Port Royal had been when he'd gotten off the ship from England. After he'd seen Will for the last time, and before he'd met Jack for the first.
To all things a season.
Bill proceeded along the dock, coming before long to a short line of men standing before the harbormaster's podium, waiting their turns to be recorded into the docking ledger. He stepped dutifully to the end of the line, hands folded patiently in front of him. He could have attempted to slip by, but it wouldn't serve his purposes as well. He would draw less attention to himself if he made no attempt to conceal his presence.
That sounds like Jack's sort of reasoning.
No, no sneaking. Not yet. He would stand, and he would wait, and he would leave a name with the harbormaster.
When the man in front of him moved on his way, Bill stepped up to the harbormaster with his shilling already in hand and an expression of good-natured boredom on his face.
"Hotter than the devil's oven today, isn't it?" he observed, setting the money down before the other man.
"Hmph," the white-wigged man replied in what could have been anything from agreement to annoyance at an uninvited attempt to converse. "Which one's yours?"
"I'm in on the Ragnarok. Not mine, though; her captain's back on board."
"And he is...?"
"Deems. Henry Deems."
The quill pen scratched along the page. "And you are—oh, blast it. Just a minute." He snapped, attention drawn to a group of men a little way off, who had unloaded several barrels onto the dock, and were now making to walk away. "You! Those can't be left there!" he called sharply, grabbing up his purse and taking a few steps towards the departing group.
"The bloody wagon ain't here, old man. We got nothin' else to do with 'em 'til it comes!"
"If your transport's not here, you can jolly well put them back where they came from until it arrives! I won't have cargo dumped all over my dock with no one to claim it."
"Bugger that, mate; that shit's heavy. We ain't carryin' it back to the ship just so's we can unload it all over again. The wagon'll be here."
The harbormaster began to turn an unappealing shade of scarlet, and Bill suspected this was not going to be a quickly resolved issue. "Beg your pardon, sir," he said to the harbormaster, and gestured from the quill to himself. "If I may, seeing as you've got your hands full?" he offered politely.
"Go ahead, go ahead," the other man consented with an impatient wave of his hand, before hurrying along to the sailors and their barrels.
Bill turned the ledger towards himself and penned neatly across the page William Yorrick. Replacing the quill, he examined the drying signature, and allowed himself a shell of a smile.
Who would have thought that after everything, he'd still have a sense of humor?
He shouldered his pack one more, and continued on his way.
TBC