Disclaimer: Jack, Elizabeth, William Turners I, II and III and all other original PotC characters do NOT belong to me. All of their offspring and other original characters, as well as the storyline and plot, are (c) Lady Asvin - me.
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Madeleine was starving. I'm truly, honestly going to die of starvation, she thought moodily. For hours, she'd been holed up in a tiny corner belowdecks. She grimaced – her legs were cramping something horrid. She could just hear her mother's voice now: "That's what you get for sneaking onto a ship. A strange ship, mind." At any rate, she was hungry, and not a little seasick. It was also bloody cold. Rubbing her arms, she decided to wait until nightfall to explore the ship. She knew most of the men would have gone ashore by then.
A crashing racket intruded upon her privacy; a man had stumbled belowdecks and thrown himself into a splintery wooden chair. He flung his hat on the table, grabbed a rum bottle and observed something small and rusty he was holding in his right hand. Madeleine's heart raced. A pirate? And then the practical part of her brain: Don't be ridiculous, Maddie, what else would he be? Frankly, the thought excited her.
After much squinting and straining, she determined that the man was, indeed, a pirate. His alcohol-reddened eyes glistened in the light of a candle he'd brought in with him, and his dreadlocked hair strained against a ragged red swatch of cloth. Wrinkling her nose, Madeleine thought the man must not have bathed in ten years. She tried to change her position, squatting to see the man better. The man opened the rusty thing – a compass? – and took a deep swig from his bottle. His eyes seemed to shine wildly with the alcohol infusion.
"Goddamn you, Elizabeth Swann!" he said loudly, causing Madeleine to pull back as if struck. Swann? Mum's name? She trained her hears on the drunken man.
"Blast Port Royal," he continued, downing another swig. "Fifteen years… fifteen years and you're still with the whelp!" Madeleine's eyes widened; her fingers gripped the edge of a barrel as she struggled to get closer.
"But then," he said, swinging about to a porthole. "But then, you're looking well." Sucking from his bottle, he coughed and frowned. His frustration was evident in the whiteness of his knuckles and the wildness of his dark eyes.
"You're trapped, love!" He was shouting now. "They've got you trapped! Society and all those…" He slumped down in the chair and opened his compass.
"Fifteen years, and you're still my charming murderess... still exactly what I want."
Madeleine crouched, frozen. This man… he frightened her, but she felt a pull, a familiarity with him that surprised her. He was drunk, maudlin, and rank, but she couldn't help but feel pity and an unexpected sense of regret when she observed him.
How interesting, she thought, and ignored her throbbing legs to observe more.
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A welter of emotions crushed Elizabeth's thoughts as she made her way to the smithy. She had come home, heart pounding, afraid someone would discover her nervous state; but the afternoon passed without incident as she prepared a lunch basket for her husband and tea for her daughters. Seeing him again… It killed her more to realize that although he didn't know it, she'd hurt him – was hurting him – beyond compare. She came into Will's shop through the alley door, wiping her watery eyes with her apron. The basket lunch she'd miraculously managed to keep on her arm she put in a lean-to, hanging it on a nail.
She came into the main smithy. Seeing him hunched over the furnace brought a bitter grin to her face. He was everything a husband should be; dependable, diligent, a good provider, and even – her grin tightened – handsome. She tapped his shoulder, startling him, and was treated to a loving smile as she tucked a stray hair behind his ear. She kissed him on the cheek and left the shop quickly. I love Will. I love Will. He saved me… he gave ten years for me… Shaking her head quickly, she took long strides and reached her house on Willowing Street sooner than she expected. Before she could even pick up the bell on the hall table, the servant girl was flying down the stairs, tear-streaked face contorted into a terrified expression.
"What is the matter, Ílse?" The island girl's pupils contracted in fear of the reaction her news would elicit.
"Beggin' your pardon, Miz Turner," she said quickly, her thick island accent coloring her English. "Miz Madeleine gone missin'," She hung her head and twisted an index finger around the corner of her apron. "Ah went to bring in Della an' Anamaria, ma'am, and wasn't no one there watchin' them. Ah figger she run off somewhere." She dropped into a low courtesy, but the look on Elizabeth's face prompted a quick rise.
"Can ah- can ah get you anythin', Miz Turner? Let me take your shawl…" Elizabeth allowed herself to be led to the parlor and seated before she began to give orders.
"Ílse? Ílse!" The serving girl scurried before her. "Send a messenger to the commodore, and another to Jackson and William. I want them on the docks, searching for her – the fool girl often strays there on errands. I want Madeleine found before some ill-intentioned miscreant takes her off this island." Ílse began a curtsy, but was stopped midway.
"There's no time for that nonsense, go!" The terrified girl fled, scattering the petals of a wilting flower she had brushed with her skirt. Elizabeth herself changed into a worn cotton gown and fairly ran to Will's shop – at the very moment she left her home, news was reaching William Turner that Jack Sparrow was back in Port Royal.
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Will had just turned away from a dock worker picking up a mended scimitar when his wife burst through the front door of the smithy and informed him that their oldest daughter was missing. He sent her home and grimly closed up shop. The dock worker with the scimitar had helped unload casks of wine from the ship next to one that hadn't been seen in Port Royal in fifteen years.
"It's the Pearl," he'd said thickly, spitting into a bucket at the front of the smithy. "Slice off me head if it ain't!" Eyes narrowed, Will holstered a flintlock pistol in his belt and patted his boots to ensure that his knives were present. Retying his hair with a leather thong, Will's expression was hard and unyielding.
"Not again, Jack," he said aloud. "I will not let you take another one I love!" For although all had been settled that night in Tia Dalma's – Calypso's – shack in the bayou, and later on that hellish voyage back to the land of the living, where Elizabeth explained that kissing Jack was only a means to ensure their safety, Will was no fool. He knew Elizabeth's empty eyes and automatic movements for months afterward were the price she paid; she'd lost a piece of her heart that day. Her wildness, the part of her that yearned for the sea's freedom – she'd left it with a rogue she'd tied to a mast, one who'd rather save his own skin than give a thought to anyone else's.
Ironically, Will's next thought was one of a conversation he'd had with Jack upon first meeting him.
Cheater!
Pirate.
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The captain of the Black Pearl stared morosely at his dagger. Then at an empty rum bottle on the table before him. Back to the dagger. The pattern continued until he finally took the dagger and poised it against the tendons of his neck – a small gasp escaped a dark, barrel-filled corner of the cabin. Shifting his eyes and frowning, Jack again lifted the dagger to his throat. Another gasp, smaller this time, issued from the dark. The pirate got heavily to his feet and slowly made his way to the offending corner.
Hefting a barrel out of the way, another one toppled over to reveal a girl, crouched in a fetal position and near blue from the cold.
"Bloody hell," said the Captain, trying to work his mind around it. He debated leaving her there, but his inebriated mind finally grasped the fact that he knew the girl. It was the Turner girl. Marcheline? Mariselle? No – Madeleine. Dropping the dagger, he picked the girl up and bodily carried her to his hammock. With another exclamation of "bloody hell," he draped his own coat, stiff with salt, over her. The girl didn't say a word but followed his movements with sharp eyes. It wasn't until he'd brought a bottle of rum to her lips that they parted, cracked and bleeding, to let her speak.
"No thank you," she said. "I prefer not to drink." Struck by the absurdity of the situation, Jack huffed and kept the rum bottle under her nose.
"Why the devil not," he growled, terrified as her skin continued to fade to a dusty blue. The girl fixed him with her dark gaze.
"Because drinking is vile and turns even the most educated gentleman into a complete-"
"Scoundrel," finished Jack, mouth twitching. The girl let her eyes slide closed.
"Yes," was the last thing to escape her lips before she sank back down into the hammock. She was getting bluer by the second, and Jack was getting anxious. He pressed his eyes closed in frustration, and eventually began to rub the girl's arms and legs vigorously, trying to get her blood moving. Her eyes seemed to be the only thing alive in her face; for most of his ministrations, they stared piercingly at him from her tanned and impassive face. Jack rocked back and forth on his heels and sighed; he was no expert in healthcare, and when it came to women…
Even miniature women.
In an act of desperation, the pirate scooped up the girl and held her tight, as he would an infant. For a moment, he felt an irrational fear of letting go; muffled giggles interrupted the gratuitous urge. Jack held out the girl to see her face, and noticed a blush breaking through her blue pallor.
"I'm not sure that's an entirely proper action for a young lady and a rough sea man to be engaging in," she laughed. "Oomph!" Jack had dropped her unceremoniously back into the hammock.
"Well then , my bonny lass, I'm not sure it's entirely proper for you to be on my ship, and I'm sure I won't have to ask you to get off twice because you're a good girl and you'll go right home, savvy?" Despite the dumping, Madeleine's curiosity was aroused and her body heat was returning.
"No." She looked defiantly at the pirate. "I've never been on a ship before. My mum and father don't allow it." Jack almost laughed at that – the daughter of the Pirate King and her husband, ferryman of souls, not allowed on a ship? – but managed to keep his face in a sneer.
"Well that's a pretty shame," said Jack. "But you see, that isn't my problem. That's Lizzie and young Will's problem." Madeleine's interest was piqued.
"That's another thing – you know my parents." Jack rolled his eyes, and the girl noticed for the first time that they were lined with Kohl.
"They are quite well known in Port Royal, love." Madeleine hissed angrily.
"Don't give me that. You know them. Nobody – not even father – calls mum 'Lizzie.' And her maiden name? You knew my parents before they married." Bugger, thought Jack. She's smart. I'll have to keep me knife sharp with this one.
"Look, Miss Turner. I haven't been to Port Royal in fif…" his voice died as a thought occurred to him. "How old are you, lass?" Madeleine's brow furrowed.
"Fourteen in a fortnight," she said at last. The world buzzed around Jack's ears. He didn't think… no, he wouldn't think. It wasn't possible – Elizabeth hadn't said anything. And she'd promised, hadn't she? She'd promised that if…
Madeleine looked at him curiously, and the more she met his gaze the more Jack was convinced he was getting the false end of the story and the short end of the stick. He leaned close to the girl and smiled.
"Welcome to the Pearl, love," he said, running a dirty hand through Madeleine's dark, thick hair.
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