Alternative Ending - Chapter Seven: Unfinished Business
Repairs were going at a steady pace. Everyone was still on edge about Barbossa being in the brig. He was hardly quiet and would bark at any who passed by. Amelia avoided going below deck as much as possible. She couldn't bear facing him this way. She felt lost. Amelia had spent years imagining being free from her husband, but she didn't feel free yet. Jack was back in her life but from what she had heard, he had such a life without her. He was unchanged. He was still strong and adventurous. He was still the man that she loved. She, however, knew that she was altered. She felt it. Now it was not only the thought of facing her father that made her uncomfortable, but her captain as well. Jack didn't understand.
"Still as stubborn as ever, I see," Jack said to her. He didn't mean for her to take the comment too seriously. When she became silent, he became concerned. "You're unhappy," he noted.
"No," she said. "I'm not unhappy. Tristan is safe, that's all that matters now."
"I'm sorry I wasn't there, love," he said sincerely. "If I had known what it would be like for you –"
"Jack, you have nothing to regret. We all made our choices."
"And what made you choose him?"
"I was an unwed mother, Jack. If Tristan was going to have any chance of being accepted, I had to do it. I held off a long time. I tried. My mother was getting so impatient with me," Amelia said with a faint smile in her recollection. "I think I wore her right out. She caught a fever in the winter." Her voice began to dry. It was as though each word was a strain. "I've never seen her so frail. We had to keep Tristan out of the house. He was just a baby then. She begged me. She begged me for the sake of the child not to make the same mistakes that she did. I had to put Tristan first. It was the only way. We negotiated with Gerald. His father practically had to buy him over. My mother lived long enough to see the engagement properly announced. She didn't make it to the spring."
"So you squared your debt with her? Made up for a lifetime of rebellion by giving into a lifetime of submission. I should have known," Jack said.
"Why? What would you have done, Jack? You would have me thrown off the ship to have the baby. And then what? Would you stay with me ashore or bring a baby aboard?"
Jack was silent.
"Or wash your hands of it altogether?"
That struck too great a nerve in the captain. "I've washed my hands of nothing."
"If Tristan hadn't found you?"
"Don't make my hands clean. Don't think that I ever stopped thinking about you. Not for a moment."
Amelia forced a laugh. "Only while around Sao Feng's successor I suppose."
Jack didn't expect Amelia to be familiar with that part of the story.
"Ms. Swann was it? By the description I was given, she sounded lovely, Jack. A governor's daughter and pirate king. Could she have been any more perfect?" Amelia asked.
"She reminded me of you," Jack said, "but she wasn't mine to have. She was in love with a pirate. Bootstrap's boy, if you can believe it."
"William," Amelia recalled.
"Knew him, did you?"
"Yes, briefly. He was just a child at the time. Besides, Mr. Ragetti already explained the whole ordeal to me. Ms. Swann gave his name as her own."
"She did. And he followed her like a little lost dog. Ready to die for her, he was."
"You admired him," Amelia observed.
"He knew what he wanted," Jack said toying with his compass. "He did everything right. We've got a second chance, now, Amelia. I can't afford to not do it right this time."
"We can't just pick up from where we left off, Jack. Too much has happened. Too much has changed. I've changed."
"I don't believe that for a moment."
"Just look at me, Jack. Some days I barely recognize myself. I'm not –"
"You're the same to me, love. Not a day changed," Jack interrupted.
"You're a terrible liar, Jack."
He put his hand to her chin and turned her face upwards so that she would look at him directly. He leaned in to kiss her. Amelia pulled away. This wasn't something that she was ready to do. She couldn't follow him blindly as she once did. She couldn't be selfish. Tristan was all that mattered. She didn't trust Jack to understand that.