Oh right, I forgot: I'm french. It's normal if my english isn't perfect. And don't expect me to write strange accents. I'm writing in a language that ain't mine, and I won't write accents.
Chapter 2: At peace
The sun sank in the sea, but it never went anywhere after that. The sinking itself disappeared, as if it had never happened, because, those were facts: it had never happened. Time was rewritting itself, and the dusk that should have seen Will Turner's conviction did not exist anymore.
Time was disappearing, falling into ruins, as a castle of sand falling upon itself, wistfully trying to stay up, strangely reconstructing itself, only to collapse faster than before. The last eighty years or so erased themselves, letting only one bewildered William Turner in the middle. The man looked around, unsure of what he was seeing, unsure of what was happening. What he knew for certain was that he wasn't sitting on top of his wife's grave anymore. Besides that, he didn't know anything.
Finally, Time settled itself, and Will fell on something that wasn't exactly hard, but that at least feeled earthly. His eyes wide-open, but seeing nothing in the darkness and confusion, he wondered if, maybe, that was his punishment for not going back to his duty, and for staying on shore when he shouldn't have been. He recognized the ground he was laying on to be made of sand, and he remembered his trip to Davy Jones' Locker, years ago. His own locker, as it had become...
Maybe that was it.
Maybe he had been condamned to spend eternity in the locker that should have been under his power.
Or maybe not. Jack had never talked about nightime in the locker. There was a night falling on the the waters off the coast of the locker, he had experienced it himself many time, sending the dead to the afterworld, and even that time, when he had still been mortal. But there was no night upon the locker itself. Jack had been clear about that. A bit repetitive, too, for he had complained days long about the craziness of a supernatural place where the sun never backed away.
Will took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
He then noticed he felt strange.
He was unhumanly sad and hurt over his wife's death, but it wasn't as it had been before his fall into this place. He felt those feelings more than he had at the time, but in a way, it wasn't as unsufferable as before. He felt...
At peace, maybe.
Now he knew he would get over it, and remember the good times with nostalgia, but no longing. Elizabeth would stay in his heart forever and ever, and always he would cherish her memory... But he wouldn't wish he could perish anymore when thinking about her. She wouldn't have wanted that.
After a while, of course. He wasn't quite there yet.
What had triggered this sudden change, after hours of despair, he did not know.
But William was grateful for it.
He opened his eyes, and this time, he was able to see the stary sky. Far to the West, his eyes fell upon a star he was sure he had never seen before, and someway, he felt as if it was something dear to him, something he should have recognized.
Will waited for the night to end before getting up and searching for anything that could tell him where exactly he was. He stayed there, lying on the ground, sand shifting under his body each time he moved a bit, thinking. He thought, and for many other hours, he remembered Elizabeth.
He wished, oh how he wished, that he would have been able to offer her a true life, with no undead pirates, no running away from crazy Lords working for the East Indian Company, no pirate war, and most of all, no undead and forever away husband. He knew he would never have been able to offer her a life such as what it'd have been if she had married amongst her kind. But he could have, more accurately, he should have gifted her so much more than he had been able to.
But he was no fool. No undead pirates, and he would have looked at her as she married the commodore. No crazy Lord, and she'd have searched, at some point, for more adventure. Elizabeth wasn't an outlaw at heart, but she wasn't a housewife either. They'd have fallen back, in the end, into some sort of adventurous life. No undead and forever away husband... well, he'd have been dead, and that was all.
Maybe their love had been doomed from the start, maybe they weren't meant to live happily ever after so easily, but they wouldn't have been happy either if none of that had happened. At least, Elizabeth and him had used what little time had been given to them to its fullest.
To say he wasn't hurting anymore, to say he was happy with this ending was a lie. But he knew, this time, that he'd get over it, and at the same time, that he'd never forget about the wonderful yet desperate love they had shared.
William Turner and Elizabeth Swan had been meant to be, if not to live through it in bliss and ignorance. They would forever be written in the stars.
And Will could now see how beautiful a story it was, and how he couldn't tarnish it with regrets.
Upon these thoughts, somewhat peaceful, somewhat bitter, the night passed away. As the last shadow withered under a shy ray of light, Will hadn't slept at all.
The truth was, he didn't need to. He was an undead, undying man, and sleeping, breathing, eating or drinking were of no necessity to him. He could not do it and still stay alive.
The only thing was, he had no need for it... yet he felt the need. Maybe it was only a reminder of before, of when he had been alive, of when he had been human. But even so, he could ignore the hunger and the thirst, the exhaustion and the suffocation. They weren't really there, after all. He thought they were, but they weren't. And no matter what, if he felt better eating and drinking when he could, if he liked to sleep and rest his mind, if he breathed out of habit more than anything else, he didn't need it.
So, not tired in the slightest, the young man, for that was what he looked like, even if he was nearing a century of age, the young man got on his feet and started looking around.
He was on the beach of a tiny island, tinier even than the one Jack and Elizabeth had been marooned to by Barbossa, years before. It was less of an island than of a cay protruding out of the ocean, in the middle of nowhere, really. There wasn't even a single tree, only a tutf of grass here and there.
Great.
Lost in the middle of nowhere.
With nothing to do.
At least, Will reasoned, it still looked like his world, and maybe, he thought very carefully, in case his hope were to be shattered, maybe he wasn't in some kind of purgatory for ferrymen who stopped doing their duty and dared to break the rules of their curse. Of course, he could be sure of nothing, but well... It surely looked like the real world of the living... So it might be it... Or it could be that it just looked like it.
After all, he was on land for the second day in a row, and nothing had yet tried to have his hide for his cheek, no terrible curse nor horrible beast. That was a bit disturbing, and so maybe he was in some sort of purgatory for cursed slackers.
Or, somehow, he had been freed from his curse.
Which was unlikely, because he had checked, and though he had a pulse, he still had no heart. And he wasn't dead. Not more than before. So he certainly was still cursed, somehow... at least partially.
Will sighed, and gazed back at the sea in front of him. It was either that, or the sand, or a tuft of grass, or the sea behind him, or on his right, or on his left...
His time here was certainly going to be fascinating. Good company, a lot of different activities, a banquet for him only, and... Oh, who was he kidding! He'd be bored out of his mind in less than a week.
For a moment, he considered just walking away from the island, in the water, since he had no trouble breathing underwater, as, you know, he didn't need to breathe. Actually, he could even go at great depths, to the bottom of the ocean, despite the pressure, if he wished to. He was immortal, and nearly indestructible. It wasn't comfortable down there, he knew from experience, but it wouldn't kill him. If he tried, he'd get away with a headache at most.
The thought was tempting, he had to admit. But he had no idea where he was, no idea how far land was, and no idea if he'd even be going in the right direction.
So in the end, Will settled with waiting for a ship to pass by, and perhaps, to pick him up. That is, if the captain didn't jump to conclusions and decided he was pirate because they were the only ones to be marooned on deserted island, and he had no dinghy to make it look like he had survived an attack while his ship had been taken down...
And there was the fact that, as handsome and charming as he was, he was still wearing his usual garb... And if it didn't exactly scream "pirate", it wasn't the usual crew's attire either.
Looking at himself, the young man tugged on his grey shirt, noticing with annoyance he had a great blot of blood staining it, from when a dying sailor had all but fallen upon him two months before. Despite everything he had tried, the stain hadn't disappeared from the clothes.
Eitherway, he'd say that was from the pirate attack that had fallen upon the ship he had been cruising on.
Now, there was the problem of his scar. He couldn't really walk around with a scar that told anyone who looked closely he should be dead, for it was right on the heart he had not, and it seemed a grave enough wound to have reached said heart he still didn't have.
Will buttoned up his shirt, even if he was feeling quite hot under the carribean sun. That, at least, he was sure of: this sun and this cay were typical of the Carribean.
He then glanced at the sword at his hip, and groaned.
He couldn't pass for a naval officer, not matter how hard he tried, and this sword was Norrington's. It had written "so-not-for-the-lowly-being-he-apparently-was" all over it, and worst, if someone got their hands on it, they'd noticed the filigree and well...
Right, so, he was a blacksmith, which was true, who had been sailing to his new home from England, which had been true at a time though not exactly in this order, and whose ship had been attacked, which once again wasn't an outright lie. He had jumped overboard and washed up here, which was a lie, with nothing but his life and the blade he had made for an officer of the Navy who had died before he had the opportunity to deliver his order, which was more or less the truth, timeline excepted.
The young man guessed it was a convincing enough story, though he'd have to figure out which ship exactly he could have been sailing on. If he was supposed to come from England, it couldn't be a lowly boat, and the Navy would know if he gave the name of a ship that didn't exist, or hadn't been attacked lately.
Oh, well, he'd just have to "forget" it for a time, say he wasn't sure how many time he had spent on the island, and pick up a name afterward, if ever they thought to ask again.
He went to comb his hair with his fingers, and touched the worn fabric of his headscarf. He had forgotten about this, and it would do him no good if someone saw him wearing it. Once undone, Will looked at the worn tissue and wondered what to do with it. He didn't feel like throwing it away, for he was a bit short on supplies here. Eventually, he tied it in a knot on his left arm.
He knew he didn't exactly look like a castaway, and he certainly looked way to healthy for someone who had spent days on a deserted island, but he couldn't force himself to look agonizing, could he?
Will sighed, and sat back on the sand.
Now, he could only wait and dwell on his loss, once again.
Planning his rescue had been a good enough way of forgetting, but it hadn't lasted.
Time went by, and soon enough, the sun was high in the sky. Will guessed it was around three o'clock, and he thanked the heavens he would never again get sunburns. He also promised himself that, when the night would come, he'd try to locate the ridiculously tiny island by looking at the stars. He hadn't during the preceding night, too preoccupied with what had happened, and the mystery of his being on land and not suffering a thousand deaths or whatever.
The carribean weather was torture, right under the sun in the mid of the day, and Will was acquainting himself once again with boredom and stifling heat. At some point, he started looking pointedly at the sun, ignoring stubbornly the pain as he lost his sight and healed at the same time. That was a bad habit he had developed after a few years of super-accelerated healing and supersized depression.
It'd have been stupid and dangerous if he hadn't been immortal and supernaturaly fast at healing, but as he was both, it was just a stupid, pointless game where he challended the star to take his sight during long minutes before getting bored and stopping the foolishness.
So he was busy staring intently at the sun when white sails appeared on the horizon.
A large and powerful and uncannily familiar ship sailed towards the West, and at some point, the man in the crow's nest spotted a dark form on a cay in the middle of the ocean. He squinted, unsure of what he was seeing, but there was no mistaking it, it was a man lying on the beach there, all alone, no boat, no tree, nothing at all except this man.
The alert was soon given, and the ship changed course a bit, to get closer to the island and send a dinghy to retrieve the man. The shipwreck they had come across the night before, and the sole survivor, were on everyone's mind. They had traveled quite a bit since the evening, but who knew, maybe the pirate crew, for even if they all denied it, that had definitely been a pirate attack, had taken prisoners and marooned those who had nothing to offer. Not the usual modus operandi, but still possible, and well, there was a man alone in the middle of the ocean, and he certainly hadn't swum all the way here.
When Will heard the telltale sound of oars on water, he had closed his eyes and almost drifted to sleep. Startled, he got up and blinked at the dinghy coming his way. His gaze then went to the dark shape of a great ship a bit further away.
"Well, it haven't been so long a wait, then..."
It had been so short he still didn't believe his luck. The only person he knew who had been found faster than him after being marooned was Elizabeth, but she had had rum and trees to burn, and half the Royal Navy in the Carribean looking for her, so it didn't count.
The young man shifted a bit as he recognized the colours of the men in the dinghy, but he stayed where he was. Even if he had wanted to run away, he was a bit stuck on this very-too-tiny island. The best he could have done would have been hiding behind a tuft of grass. Not very efficient, to say the least.
Not a problem. He wasn't a pirate.
Not really, at least. Not anymore, if he had ever been. The worst they could charge him with was... Right. Freeing a well known pirate. Commandering the Interceptor. Running away from the Navy, not that anyone would resent him for that when they were hell bent on hanging him for no reason. Being a part of a pirate war with the East Indian Company. Sinking the Endeavour. And, being a supernatural occurrence, not that he could do much about it, but they generally didn't like the supernatural.
He couldn't blame them for that, really.
Well, he just had to hope they wouldn't recognize him.
If Will had been less busy ferrying souls to the afterworld during the last decades, he'd have noticed the change in the world. But he had been busy, and hadn't quite noticed. It kind of marked him, how there was something strange about the uniforms, how he hadn't seen any of those for some time already, but he still didn't quite register that the men weren't wearing the nineteenth century uniform, but the ones from when he had been alive.
A soldier stepped out of the dinghy, his flintock musket pointed at the obviously marooned man on the beach. Said man had a sword at his hips, but he held his hands above his head, as if expecting some sort of mistrust, and while it proved his good will, the soldier wondered why exactly the man seemed used to these kind of situations.
"What are you doing here? Were you perhaps on the merchant ship from London that has been attacked yesterday?"
Will blinked at the question, surprised once again with his luck. Not only there had been an attack not far from there, but the soldier had been kind enough to tell him exactly what he needed without realizing it.
"Erm... Yes. I... I was going to the Carribean to start again there, and... Well... You know..."
He couldn't have been more vague, but the soldier lowered his flintlock musket. The men let him onto the dinghy, and they rowed back to the ship in awkward silence. Will watched the ship as they got closer, and he felt a bit uneasy, as if he knew that ship, but it shouldn't have been there. He didn't get to see its name, it being back to the sun. As he got onto the ship, someone asked him for his name. The young man helped himself on deck and looked up.
"Will..."
Will stopped there, pale as death as he looked at the young boy sitting on a barrel.
