Warnings/Rating: PG for mild language.
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean and all characters therein © Disney & Jerry Bruckheimer. Some of the dialogue comes directly from the first movie.
Author's Note: A bit of filler for Curse of the Black Pearl, beginning immediately after Jack and Will's conversation about Will's father aboard the Interceptor on their way to Tortuga.
Originally posted September 2006, story has been edited and reformatted as of March 2012
Will took the hilt of his sword. He looked up, meeting Jack's gaze. "Tortuga?" he questioned.
Jack flashed a mad grin back at him. "Tortuga," he confirmed. He let go of Will's blade and offered the blacksmith a hand. Will hesitated for only a second before clasping the calloused palm and letting the pirate pull him to his feet again.
He sheathed his sword, and Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder before pushing past him. The pirate swaggered back over to the wheel, draping himself over it and staring past the deck with distant, kohl-darkened eyes. He clearly had no intention of engaging with Will any further at the moment.
The silence suited Will just fine; he was in no mood for any more conversation himself just yet. He was still reeling somewhat from the news that Jack had so unceremoniously just dumped on his head.
Will sighed, and jumped down the steps from the helm to the deck, trying to find something, anything, to distract him from his thoughts. Finding a short length of rope, Will went over and sat down on the bottom step. He quickly occupied himself with the thick cord, attempting and failing miserably to make a successful bowline knot the way Jack had showed him earlier. After seven failed attempts, Will cursed softly and threw the rope down in his frustration.
He drew his knees up to his chest and hunched over, running a trembling hand through his hair. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he tried to calm his whirling thoughts.
"He was a bloody pirate. A scallywag."
Will's father was a pirate. That in itself had been enough of a shock for the poor lad. His mother had always insisted that his father was a merchant. She had said that her dear husband, Bill Turner, had sailed off to the Caribbean Sea in pursuit of its fine riches.
Will snorted at the thought. In a way, he supposed, that was not too far from the truth. That is, if the truth was indeed what Jack had told him.
"Most everyone else just called him Bootstrap, or Bootstrap Bill."
The concept was ridiculous, and more than a little frightening to Will. His father, the respected, revered man who had been absent throughout his childhood, the one Will had longed for, the one he'd been sure would someday return, did not exist. Had never existed, if Jack was to be believed.
Will had a sinking feeling that Jack was not lying; the tough pirate captain had no reason to.
However, the thought of his estranged father being a pirate was not what bothered Will the most about his enlightening conversation with Captain Jack Sparrow.
"He was a good man. Good pirate."
There was something else, something in the way Jack talked about Bill Turner, that was bothering Will.
"I knew him."
What disturbed the young blacksmith the most…
"You can accept the fact that your father was a pirate, and a good man, or you can't."
…was the manner in which Jack spoke of him.
Was. Knew. Called.
As though Bill Turner was a part of the past. Always, always speaking of him in the past tense.
"I knew him."
Why was Bill Turner a 'was'? Had he died? If it was true that he was a pirate, that would be a possibility. Or perhaps Jack had simply gotten out of touch with Bill Turner? Will doubted pirates spent much time writing one another cheery letters with updates of how they were faring.
What had happened to his father?
Moreover, what was Bill Turner to Jack Sparrow that the mention of his name would change the pirate captain's mind about helping Will?
Had they been friends, perhaps, or worked on the same ship? Jack had seemed fond enough of William Senior while talking about him, though slightly sad and almost…regretful. He had had nothing bad to say of Bill, aside of course from calling him a pirate.
"He was a bloody pirate. A scallywag."
Nevertheless, whatever Bill Turner had been or done, and whatever had befallen him, he was now apparently a part of the past, at least to Jack. Maybe even to the rest of the world as well.
Will and his mother had only received infrequent letters from Mr. Turner throughout Will's childhood. Roughly a year or so before Will's mother died of a terminal illness, they had received one final letter before the messages stopped altogether. With it had come a gift for Will, a gold medallion of foreign make on a slim link chain.
It had been very strange and beautiful, but slightly disturbing from what Will remembered. It had seemed to Will that it exuded an odd aura, a tense foreboding that he could not shake.
Despite the odd feeling he got from the gold, Will had worn it every day since it had been given to him. All because it came from his father. It was a piece of the man that Will had never gotten a chance to know, a reminder that his father really did exist, and cared about him, even though he was on the other side of the world. Even though the medallion, with its fierce skull and almost unnatural shine, made him feel uneasy, Will wore it for his father.
After his mother had died, Will had bartered for passage on a merchant ship coming to the Caribbean, intending to find his father and join him in his travels on the sea. On the way across the Atlantic, when the ship was attacked by a great black pirate ship that had seemed to come out of nowhere, Will had been thrown into the water as the ship exploded everywhere.
He had just barely managed to pull himself onto a scrap of the hull floating nearby before he passed out. When he had awoken later, Elizabeth was there, standing over him. At the time, Will had thought she must be an angel, looking down at him with a sweet smile on her pretty face while promising to watch over him.
When he woke again below deck later, he had looked for his father's gift, only to find it missing. He supposed now that it must be at the bottom of the ocean, lost forever. He had always regretted losing that last piece of his father, had wondered occasionally, and sometimes even practiced how he would tell William Senior when he had finally found him that he had lost that precious gift.
He had never found his father. He had asked everyone he met, and listened for word of a man named William Turner. He had watched every ship that came into the harbor at Port Royale and checked every list and record of people having passed through the town, but there was never any sign of his father.
Until now. Even though he had not yet met his father, Will felt that in a way, thanks to Jack, he had finally found William Turner Senior.
He had found his father was most likely lost to him forever.
The young blacksmith drew another shuddering breath, covering his face with a calloused hand as he tried to get his emotions under control.
Both of Will's parents were gone, his mother dead, and his father apparently the same. His master was a drunk who could not care less. His childhood friend was untouchable to him because of her status, not to mention she had been kidnapped by pirates.
Will was alone.
Off-key humming from the direction of the wheel roused Will from his desolate thoughts, and the blacksmith glanced over his shoulder at the pirate captain behind him.
Jack was hanging off of the wheel, and had a distant, drunken smile on his tanned face, eyes misty as he played out some fantasy or memory in his mind. A few more horribly sung notes drifted over to Will's ears, and the blacksmith smirked before chuckling at the oblivious pirate, shaking his head in amusement.
Well, perhaps, he was not totally alone.
Will smiled.