"I-I don't understand, papa. W-why do you have to go?" Emily stood in the doorway, her glare growing harsher each time he attempted to explain.
He didn't really know what to tell her. He stared down at his hand where the Spot had reappeared just days earlier.
If Elizabeth wanted him for a nice little chat, she wouldn't have done it like this. He knew how much could have gone wrong. This didn't bode well for him; he knew that too. Would sticking around put Emily in danger? He didn't know that, but he also wasn't willing to risk it.
"Because…" He turned to his daughter, who'd just turned twelve, and tried not let what he was feeling betray him. "Because Jade is ill…" That, at least, was no lie. "A-and any kind of help that I can get for her will take money that we don't have, but that I can get if I go with your Uncle Jack."
"If you go pirating with him, you mean." Her glare grows even harsher, if that his possible, but not for the reasons one would think. "Then take me with you! Don't leave me here with her. I want to go with you!"
"I know you do, but I can't…"
"You've taken me before!"
"But Emily, this time is…"
"I'm not going to stay here just to take care of that hag! She's not even my bloody mother!"
"Emily!" He yelled finally. "That is enough! You wonder why I am keeping you here? I won't have you becoming one of these salty sea wenches, traipsing about in mens clothing, cursing like a sailor. You deserve better than what they end up with! I promise you, I will be back, but you have to stay here this time."
All is silent for a moment.
"Is that why you stopped loving mother?" Emily's voice is quiet now. "Because she wasn't enough of a lady."
He turned away from her peircing gaze then, unable to stand it, and pulled a flask out of his pocket, taking a drink and then replacing it before grabbing the small bag he'd packed.
"You go too far, Emily. Jade was right, I shouldn't have given you as much freedom as I did. It's going to get you into trouble some day. You need to learn your place."
"You need to learn your place…"
"…learn your place…"
He left then, without even telling her he loved her. He had no idea of how that conversation would torture him later on.
The forest around him is thick, and it is hot, so hot. He is gasping for breath, his heart is pounding. He isn't sure how much longer he can keep going. He'd thought he'd be safer once he got to land, thought maybe she'd just give it up, but goddess, how stupid he'd been. First the Company, and now her again. Why does everyone suddenly want him dead?
She is a different matter, though. Not only has she lost her mind, but she's decided to blame everything on him, and now it seems she'll stop at nothing until she gets him.
He can hardly feel his legs, he's been running so long, but fear pushes him onward. Fear of what she will do if she gets her hands on him. If there is anything, anything at all, left of the woman he once knew he may be able to reason with her, but he isn't exactly willing to bet it all on that so easily.
After all, he is facing a fate far worse than death if she does catch him, and he has made a promise to his daughter, a promise to come back for her always. He must not break his promise, not to her.
He can hear the men behind him, coming for him, swords drawn, pistols firing, bullets whistling right past his head. He looks back once, just once, to see how far ahead of them he is.
A fatal mistake.
He trips on a tree root, stumbling forward, flailing and trying desperately to stay on his feet. It is no use. He falls forward and lands hard on his stomach and is frozen for a moment as the wind is knocked out of him.
He's lost ground now, too much ground to bother trying to run again. What had Jack once told him about that oldest and noblest of pirate traditions?
Fighting to run away?
Well, he hadn't intended to go down without a fight anyways. He scrambles back to his feet and draws his sword just as the men come barreling towards him through the trees. Their appearances are not quite as frightening as when he'd seen the Dutchman's first crew, but they certainly aren't human anymore, either.
He manages to take down a few of them with his blade, slicing through ones gut and then slitting the throat of another, but then there are just too many of them, so he draws his pistol and fires. He takes down several more this way, but it does him no good, for they are already dead, and are only slowed down by wounds that should be fatal.
Finally he gives in, dropping his sword and pistol, then collapsing to his knees, soaked with sweat and out of breath and too tired to even stay standing.
An all too famaliar face emerges from the small crowd of men – no, more like creatures now– surrounding him.
"F-father?" he gasps.
"I'm so sorry, William. She gives us no choice."
Bill Turner's skin is pale, and he is beginning to look more like he did when Will first met him. Will opens his mouth to respond, but no sound comes out. Bill nods to the man closest to Will, and he steps forward with a strange looking club in his hands.
The back of Will's head explodes in pain, and his last thought before all fades to black is of just how much he wishes he could say sorry to his little Emily…
She weilds her weapon with an impossible amount of grace for all that she is so constricted in her simple brown dress and corset. The metal shines in the afternoon sun as she twists and turns as if fending off an attacker, though she is alone.
Three hours a day she practices in the field outside of the small town she lives in, just like her papa taught her.
"Should've known I'd find ye 'ere."
The girl is startled by the voice sounding so close behind here. There'd been no one else around just moments before. She spins around on instinct and holds the sword up to the neck of whoever is behind her.
"Oi!" A tall boy with dark hair stands behind her, one hand now on his own sword, though his eyes sparkle with amusement. It takes her a moment to recognize who it is. She has not seen him in three years.
He's grown visibly stronger and more handsome since then.
"Alex?" She lowers her blade, looking shocked, then breaks into a wide grin. "Your back!"
"Well, yes, it certainly looks…" He begins playfully, but is cut off by Emily, who drops her sword and throws her arms around him with all her usual disregard for propriety.
"Oh, how I've missed you!" She exclaims, then pulls back with an angry look upon her face and, to his shock, delivers a hard smack to his cheek. "What were you thinking, disappearing like that, and without even telling me? Must everyone forget I exist?"
He opens his mouth to respond, then seems to think better of it, pausing a moment.
"You don't plan on doin that a second time, do ye? 'Cause if ye do, best just get it over with."
"Not right now, I don't, don't worry." She crosses her arms and sits herself down in the grass, next to her sword.
"Good, then! Moving on." He sits down next to her. "I missed ye too, love. I only left like that 'cause I loath the idea of goodbyes, and I didn't think I'd be able to convince ye to come with me."
"Do you even realize how long you've been away?"
She caught it as he stole a discreet glance downward, looking her over, but she chose not to saying anything this time. After all, she'd done much the same to him earlier.
"Aye, I know how long it's been. Ye look twice as beautiful in a dress as I remember."
"I'm not exactly thirteen anymore, and I hate dresses all the more now." Emily blushes. "Have you begun telling things like that to all the women you meet?"
"Who says I've met any?" He replies, sounding indignant.
She gives him 'the look', the one he says reminds him of her papa.
"Even if I 'ad, which I 'aven't, I would never treat ye the same way." He is sincere; she hears it in his voice.
"Did you come back just to try and woo me?" She says, giving him a mild glare and trying to hide her blush. "Because I'll have you know, Alex Sparrow, you'll have to try a bit harder than that."
"Course not! Or, that's not the only reason anways. I'm came back because… well, I told ye I would, and ye deserve to have somebody who's willin to come back for ye. Obviously ye didn't believe me."
"Papa always told me not to trust a Sparrow."
"Oi! When 'ave I ever lied…"
She gives him the look again and he grins.
"To you, I mean!"
"Not once that I know of, I'll admit it. So what have you been up to, then? Did you hear anything…anything of my papa? He never came back, you know…"
Alex suddenly turns serious, very serious, and it is such an unusual thing that she is instantly worried.
"Alex? You have heard something, haven't you?"
"I met my father." He says.
"What does…"
"He said your papa had been in some trouble…"
"Trouble? What kind of trouble?" Emily is quick to interrupt.
"Well, see…"
"What? Alex, please, just tell me!"
Alex sighs and reaches for two items strapped to his belt.
"They were attacked." He says quietly. "He was taken onto the other ship. Jack found these lyin on the deck of the Pearl when the other ship finally sailed off."
Emily stares down at the two items he's just taken out, one of which he places in the grass next to her. It is a leather flask that she easily recognizes as being the one her papa had taken to carrying around.
The other, which he places into her hand, is a small ring, still attatched to the string her papa had used to tie around his neck.
Her mothers wedding ring.
A tear slides down her cheek, just one, before her small hand clenches the ring in anger.
"I'm sorry, love." Alex says, then falls silent.
"Who were they attacked by?"
"Well, erm…"
"Alex!" She stands abruptly, both of her fists clenched now. "If you keep on stuttering like that I'll…I'll…"
"You'll what?" He asks, staring up at her. "Slap me again? It was a Company ship, alright…"
"Not them again!"
"…With someone called the Admiral on board."
Emily freezes now.
"The..Admiral?"
"You've 'eard of 'im before, then?"
"When they captured me before, yes, they talked about the Admiral quite a lot. I remember thinking it was so strange that they should call him the Admiral, but never mention his name."
He is again at a loss for words; he never seems to know what to say when ever she talks about the time she was taken.
"I'm assuming you don't plan on staying here for long." She says when he remains silent.
"The ship I'm on put in here just this morning. I have a few days."
The look on Emily's face is enough to have him jumping to his feet, pointing a finger at her.
"Emily, no. I was kidding when I mentioned it earlier!"
"I'm coming with you."
"No, you're not!"
"You're not the boss of me!"
"We aren't eight years old anymore, Emily, ye can't just slip on a pair of breaches and expect no one will notice."
"If I'm careful, no one will. My mother did it!"
"Y-your mother had been out at sea before she left on her own, ye told me so yerself!" He is starting to sound exasperated.
"So have I, I'm no different than her."
"You don't know the first thing about takin care of yerself!" Now he sounds exasperated and desperate.
She picks up her sword, does a few twirls with it to show off, then moves into a ready position in front of him with the blade at the ready.
"Would you be willing to bet on that?"
He says nothing more, drawing his own sword and coming down on her, and she can tell he is using only half his strength, probably hoping she will back down, be frightened. He moves, she moves, he goes at her, she parries every blow. He is the one who begins to look worried as she shows no signs of tiring; suddenly the fight is a little too real. He finally manages to throw her sword from her hands and holds his own up to her neck, and she looks frightened.
"Ok, so you can handle a blade, I'll give ye that. Ye'd still be dead right now." He relaxes his stance and begins to lower his blade.
Her dark eyes harden in an instant, any trace of fear gone. She grabs his tattooed wrist and twists as hard as she can; she isn't strong enough to hurt him bad this way, but he does drop his word. He looks shocked, and then she is behind him, holding a knife up to his neck.
He thinks, rather inapproriately, that he would love to know just where said knife had been so well hidden.
"You're right, love," she says, a mocking tone to her breathless voice, "we aren't eight years old anymore, and I've been on my own here since Papa left." She lets him go and he turns around just in time to see her slipping the knife back into its hiding place between her…
He looks up to her, worried she'll pick her sword back up if she catches him staring.
"Ye-ye fight like a pirate! Where did ye learn that move, with the knife?" He asks.
"Papa taught me everything I know about fighting, and I've been practicing with that sword for three hours a day since I was nine." She is smiling triumphantly. "So. Do you think your captain would be willing to take on a new crew member?"
He sighs.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure she will…"
"She?"
"Yes, she. Promise not to tell anyone ye beat me like that and I'll gladly try to tell 'er about you."
"Thank you." Emily brushes off her dress, combs her fingers through her hair, picks up her sword, and strides past him, heading back for her cabin.
She smirks to herself as she can feel his eyes following her.
So, yeah, I jumped ahead in time quite a bit. This might just be one of my favorite chapters. Emily's so fiesty. :D
Thank you for the reveiws and all that good stuff!