Author's note: A tip o' th' tricorn to ScarlettRosePetal and DeppnBloom for encouragement and some nice suggestions! And thanks to SD, for prodding my creativity a bit! Pirate Cat raises her mug of eggnog, spiked with rum, to her mates!

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Jack did not want to do this... decorating the small evergreen tree that stood at the far end of the glen, next to the rocky shores of the cove that so effectively hid his quiet Black Pearl. It was cold, and he was susceptible to cold, he sniffed to himself, although he doing his best to hide his shivering... letting anyone know that his teeth were chattering would not be suitable, family or no family... it was not suitable to a captain to let on that he couldn't feel his feet. His toes were numb inside of his boots, and his light coat was letting in every breath of the chill air that was blowing through the deep forest. Clenching his teeth together so hard that it seemed that his jaws would lock, he shoved his hands deeply into his pockets, and listened as the others were placing decorations on the tree. He wanted to be by the warm fire, drinking rum... but he was standing her for Little Will and the others... freezing, and thinking back...

"The tradition of decorating a tree goes back for centuries here in Ireland... it is a pagan custom, starting with Druid priests... not that I have much store for religion, but I like the thought of paying tribute to the forest where I live... and where we all love..." Janie was saying, as she and William were stringing the garland around the tree's branches. Janie and Elizabeth had spent a good part of the morning at the kitchen table, threading dried berries, bread and nutmeats on long strings... Elizabeth had enjoyed this, immensely, and as Little Will spent the morning in the great room with William and Jack, Janie and Elizabeth would put their heads together in girlish giggling and assemble a box of festive small items to pay tribute to the Winter Solstice that was upon them. Janie had eventually sent the two men out to the dock to fill the lanterns with oil, as she lit them every evening, along with the candle that kept vigil on the windowsill... of course, William filled the lanterns, as Jack supervised... oil was costly, and it was decided that Jack could only drain bottles, not fill them.

Elizabeth was now holding a tightly bundled Little Will up to the small tree... the babe's hand would reach out, clumsily, and try to touch the green needles; the tree was a fir tree and the needles were not so prickly... Elizabeth bent down, and picked an ornament out of the box - a small pinecone with a length of blue knitting wool strung around it, and she laughed as Little Will reached for that, also. "I have always wanted to do this!" she was smiling, "... we observed Christmas in Port Royal, but we never did anything like this. There were decorations put up by the servants, and there was always a huge dinner, like always, with heads of government and their wives... " she paused, and became wistful as Janie and William put the last of the garland around the bottom branches... "... but it was rather cold..."

They stopped and looked at Elizabeth, as she reached into the box for another pinecone. Her sudden silence made them pause, as Elizabeth looked up at Janie, and said, "My father did his best, but with no other family in Jamaica, and only some distant cousins back in England that I had never met, the winter holidays were mostly for the adults in our home. I received gifts, but... " she looked up at her tall husband.

William was cloaked in his long, black leather coat, and the slight wind was blowing his dark, curly hair with its small braids, all about his tanned face... his warm, handsome face... Elizabeth's face filled with such love that she could not imagine being anywhere else, doing anything else, but being here with her family and her soul mate. Reaching up to touch his cheek, as their baby's hands wavered toward his parents, Elizabeth looked deeply into William's eyes, and said, "... as much as I loved my father, and as much as I know that he tried, there was something lacking in our holiday. I always felt empty... until I met you. Even then, we could not spend the winter holidays together, but I always wanted to... I love you, Will... how lucky we are to be here..."

Janie stood off to the side, watching her young friends with affection, and saying nothing. Her own thoughts were going back to her own past... an affluent father that did not want her... and with all of the rich, material things around her in her cold room of her father's mansion, the only real family that she had ever known was a young gypsy woman and her son... Janie's love...her beautiful gypsy boy, Jack.

They were the ones who had taught her about freedom and love, family and warmth, the value of things beyond what money could buy, only to have it all wrested away by corruption and greed. The celebration of love that took place during this season might have lost much of its meaning to Jack, but not to Janie... and she wanted to reawaken it in the love of her life more than anything in the world.

William reached down and lightly kissed his wife's upturned lips, putting his hand lovingly at Elizabeth's chin... looking into her eyes, he said, "... to think that I would still be on the Dutchman, if it wasn't for Jack intervening...we are together in this beautiful place called Ireland, with our son and our family, now, doing something that I would never have dreamed of not long ago... celebrating rebirth! Elizabeth, my darling, I would have loved to have spent a holiday with you while in Port Royal, but I had none, at all..."

Turning to Janie, William said, "... I always had to work at the smithy, and could not take any time off... the business never closed for any holiday, and was open for every day except Sundays, and I worked on Sundays, anyway, to keep up with orders. Master Smith was hardly ever there, and when he was, he was drinking... I was always at the smithy, and never once had a taste of true freedom until a skinny pirate called Sparrow stumbled into Jamaica to commandeer a ship of the Royal Navy!"

Sighing, as he also reached into the box for an ornament, he said, "... Mr. Brown would invite me to their house on Christmas Eve for a celebratory drink... one drink... he kept the rest of the liquor for himself... sounds like someone else that I know..."

His joking words were met with utter silence, as they all turned to the captain. He had moved off to the edge of the forest, now shivering openly in front of them, his eyes distant and lost in thought. His shoulders were hunched with the cold, his teeth now chattering together. His eyes, they saw, were not vague and wandering... his mind was sound... but just remembering his and Janie's last winter holiday as a family, with his mother...

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"... look! It's snowing!" Maggie gathered her heavy woolen shawl around herself, tightly, as her dark eyes danced.. "Alright, you two, I have the decorations! Take each other's hands, now, and let's go!"

Janie had just tied Jackie's scarf around his neck and pulled her own fur hat firmly down onto her unruly auburn curls... Jackie's eyes looked at the furry hat with envy, and said, "I want a hat! A fine one like that one!"

Maggie scolded her small son, "That's not nice, Jack... someday Papa might bring ye a hat, but until then, maybe I should wind my whole shawl around ye! How would ye like that? Ye would look like a little round cake, and we could sprinkle cinnamon on ye, and bake ye in the oven!" Janie had laughed at the thought, as Jackie pondered being a round cake, whilst trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

Turning his dark face up to his mother's darker one, he held his best friend Janie's hand very tightly with one hand, and his mother's with the other, "Mama, would Papa do that? Bring me a hat someday? Would he bring one for Janie, too? Papa will come back to see us this year, won't he?"

His plaintive voice held a tone of sadness about it... Maggie stopped and gently knelt down in front of the two children, her brightly coloured skirt spreading out around her like flowers... her little five year old Jackie, with those bottomless pools of liquid chocolate that were his eyes, and Janie's own brilliant, sharp blue ones, encircled by long auburn eyelashes.

The small seven year old girl reached out and lovingly curled her own hand into the beautiful woman's luxurious black ringlets that fell down from her red bandanna...this extraordinary, free spirited woman who had taken her to her own side, like a daughter, and had loved her... there were no social differences to Maggie Sparrow, who rented her cottage from Janie's cold, distant father...

Pulling her little ones close, Maggie whispered, "... maybe someday your Papa and I will be back together...maybe someday we will be with Papa, always... we made mistakes that ye wouldn't understand, my little love..."

She pulled Jack's coat close around the boy, and she pulled Janie's hat closer around her face to keep her rosy cheeks from getting rosier. "... Jack, your papa, Captain Edward Jonathan Teague, is a wonderful man... just remember that... he may be hard to understand, but he is like no one else... maybe someday, ye'll understand him. He needs the sea as much as I need the forest... you, my son, will need both, since ye are the wonderful combination of your pirate father and myself... you are like no one else!"

Reaching over and tweaking Janie's chin, Maggie smiled that wonderful smile that only she and her son possessed, and said, "... and you, Janie! You are like no one else, too... remember that, child! Today, ye are a gypsy! Ye are about to help pay respect to the forest and all of creation with the decorations that we all made, today, with our own hands! The birds and little animals will have a fine feast from our tree, and will love us for it!!"

Standing up, she picked the box of decorations back up and took Jack's hand, and they all made their way into the forest, singing "Greensleeves", Maggie's favourite song... the sad words were lost on the two children who were enthralled at Maggie's beautiful clear voice... the voice that had made Captain Teague fall in love with her, in a pub in Dublin... and the voice that hoped to say, "I do!" if Captain Teague would come back, forgive her for leaving him in one of her bouts of mental wandering, and ask her to marry him...hope sprang eternal in Maggie's heart... maybe this year she and her love, the Keeper of the Code, would be together, again...

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"Jack! Darlin', ye're freezing! Come here!" Janie fussed, as she took Jack's arm and pulled him toward the tree. Elizabeth had suddenly remembered how Jack would be overtaken with terrible cold spells when he was sick over a year ago; he was prone to being chilled, easily, since he had nearly died at the hands of a cruel slavemaster and had been chained in a brig to die as a child, rife with dysentary, scurvy and lice... he was near death when his father found him, thanks to a heartbroken little girl's confiding in him what had happened to the woman that he loved and his small son. In spite of being a strong man, Jack's resistance to illness was very low, after that, and it was part of the reason that he opted to sail in warmer climates later in life. He was startled into staring at his companions, and blinked at them. "Wot?"

"Get your skinny arse over here, cousin! Not only is there safety in numbers, there's warmth, too!" William grinned, as Jack tried to control his teeth in order to say something.

"I'm f-f-f-f-f-fine! J-j-j-j-just a bit chilled, is all! I'm f-f-f-f-f... I'm okay." was the captain's shivering reply, as Janie swept part of her full, long cloak around him, pulling him close. As she put her cheek next to his, her auburn curls tickling his face, he smiled as Elizabeth handed him an ornament.

"Here, Jack... oh, your fingers are blue!... Janie made an ornament for each of us! Look, there was a knitted star for me, that she starched so the points would stand up!" Elizabeth smiled with happiness at her friend, as she chirped, "... because of my bravery, courage, beauty and willingness to learn something as mundane as baking bread!" she giggled.

"Will's ornament is a little horse, to represent strength and his past life as a blacksmith, and to remember the night that we saved Allan and Betsy Kerrigan! She made it of clay, and baked it, to make it ready to take on the weather... it even has a tail made of yarn! Baby Will's is a little wool covered lamb... look, isn't it cute? Janie's own is a candle!" Hugging Little Will to her, Elizabeth could not contain her happiness, bouncing up and down on her toes, even if they, also, were getting cold,"... isn't this fun?"

Janie was busily trying to warm Jack's hands against the cold, as he was looking at his own ornament... a tiny clay boat with a starched sail made of a scrap of cloth... looking up at William, Jack began to grin... then chuckle... then laugh out loud! William could not help himself, either, as he was reading his cousin's mind... his laugh began to sound as though it was coming from his own boots, and he and Jack slapped each other on the back...

Janie and Elizabeth looked at them both, quizically, as Jack and William began to double over in laughter, whooping with glee at what they were both thinking... they would stop laughing, then look at each other, and burst into laughter again. William began to hold his sides, as Jack's whole body shook with mirth... they could not stop!

Finally gasping for air, they wiped tears away from their eyes, and Jack struggled to speak, as William began to snicker,"... neither of you would understand! You had to be there..."

Looking at Janie, Jack kissed her and said, "... I appreciate your effort, my love, my lassie! But... " William burst into laughter, again, for Jack's ornament looked exactly like the wooden dinghy that William had found Jack in, knocked out by his own oar, whilst William was still the captain of the Flying Dutchman... a dinghy that Jack had christened "The Sparrow's Revenge"... and little wooden dinghy that had started the voyage to recovering William's living heart, and that brought them all together upon this day!

Dangling the small decoration in front of them all, Jack happily made a sailing motion and sang, "Yo ho, Yo ho, I'll decorate a tree!"

As they all laughed, including Little Will in his blankets, suddenly Jack's eyes spied something above them, growing up the side of another tree. His eyes grew wide, and his grin grew wicked... they all looked up, and Janie's hand flew up to her mouth! "Saints preserve us! I looked all over for it and never saw it! I didn't know if it still grew around here! William! Can ye reach it?"

"If I can't, I will hoist Jack up on my shoulders to reach it!" William declared.

"Wot? You will not!" Jack leaned back and threw his hands up, defensively, "We'll hoist Izzy up to reach it!"

"Oh yes, I will hoist you up, you scalawag! You spotted it!" William replied, as he pulled out his dagger and reached as high as he could, as they all recognized what Jack's dark eyes had spied... Elizabeth even knew what it was, as it was a happy tradition that transcended all cultures... they would all enjoy adding mistletoe to the Inn's already festive decorations!

Jack leaned in to Janie, and puckered up, as she goodnaturedly scowled at him... "... stop it, ye naughty scamp!" He had forgotten all about being cold!

It was then that a voice broke through the cold air... a familiar voice that was calling from the waters of the cove, "Ahoy, the Ó Madáin Inn! Ahoy, the former cap'n o' th' Flyin' Dutchman! Where's me family?"

And much to William's, Jack's and Elizabeth's open mouthed surprise, a longboat was being rowed into view in the cold waters of the cove... William stood only for a moment, then his face burst into a happy grin... taking Elizabeth, they both hurried down to the water's edge, William waving, wildly, "Father!!! FATHER!!!"

"Papa Bill!!" Elizabeth was trying to run as well as she could with a baby in her arms to the man who had become a father to her... a tall man, with a jaunty knitted cap pulled crookedly over his long curly hair, his bright blue eyes dancing, his white face split with a huge grin... Bootstrap Bill Turner.

Just then, another deep gravelly voice called out from the longboat, "Ahoy! Jackie, me boy! Janie, love! Come pull an old man outta th' sea!"

Jack's eyes grew wide with complete and speechless shock, as Janie pulled him close... and whispered into his astonished ear, "...Nollaig Shona Dhuit, me darlin'... my gift to ye... your papa... Captain Teague..."

To be continued...

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