turned_captain | (no subject)

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The first thing Will is aware of is a steady throb that's both silent and deafening. At first he has no idea what it might be, then he thinks it must be his own heart beat, because it starts in his chest and seems to fill his every vein with life.

But when his fingers reach up to the hole in his shirt, her remembers that his heart shouldn't be beating at all. Further exploration yields a fresh, red welt where he dimly remembers a knife cutting into his chest, after the sword had been removed.

Then Will realises. That sound that isn't a sound, it's not really a heartbeat at all. It's more the rhythmic waves of a lively ocean. And he notices that the body he feels it pulsing through doesn't end at his fingers and toes. As Will carefully draws the first breath since what was meant to be his last, he realises he's feeling the entire ship as it rocks in the swell.

Cautiously, he opens his eyes.

A crew is standing watching him, apparently apprehensive, and Will recognises his father near the front, a familiar knife in his hand. The man standing near might be Jimmylegs, the boatswain who takes a cruel pride in cleaving to the bone when he has to flog a crew member, but like the men surrounding him, he no longer looks like a hideous piscine monstrosity, but like an awed, hopeful, human man. In his hands he carries a chest Will recognises instantly, even before he hears the faint beat of his own heart within it, audible only in the silence of the watching crew

No one on the deck in this still, stagnant underworld says a word as Will stands, and not even his father offers a hand when he proves a little unsteady. They're all watching him, to see what he will do.

Will takes the chest off the boatswain before he says a word of his own.

"To stations," he says flatly, uncertain of his own authority, and they disperse. Only his father lags behind, but Will can't face him now. He continues across the deck, towards Davy Jones'... towards his cabin.

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His cabin is not empty.

True, there is still the wreckage of it's last occupant--the madness of Davy Jones shattered everything it touched, dragged what was left into the great green deeps of delirium and vengeance, and the wood is dark, waterlogged. At the far end, the great organ lies silent. There are the splintered remains of table and chair; there are the small pound cannon sitting dormant, no longer guarding anything at all.

And there is someone else, someone unseen for the moment, whose touch lingers on shattered keys which make no sound.

Along the planks, a few crabs scuttle.

Will doesn't really know what to do, other than place the chest on a small table in the centre of the room that seems to have been placed there for that purpose. Once that's done, he draws a slow breath, and marvels how the air feels, pushing his lungs out into a chest with nothing else in it.

As he becomes aware of another's presence, he lifts his head slowly to see her.

"You knew this would happen."

Or did she engineer it all?

She looks the same. Her dress is soaked with sea-water, and her eyes are fixed on Will, infinitely sad and infinitely joyful.

"Maybe."

It whispers about the cabin.

"Ye are captain of the Dutchman now, William Turner." As if remembering an old and secret joke, she smiles, a little. "A touch of destiny. Be glad this touch was from love and not a blow of anger or hate."

"Davy Jones stabbed me," Will states, as if speaking them out loud will alleviate his confusion. "I don't think that was out of love."

She makes a little humming noise of laughter and steps quickly closer to lay her hand on his chest, brown palm over the red and angry scar.

"This," she says. "It is your duty, now."

Will's head drops to watch, marvelling at his refreshingly cool her hand is against his wounded chest.

He remembers a knife. His knife - his father's knife - cutting into his dead flesh, but he doesn't remember seeing it through his own eyes. It's almost as if he watched it from another viewpoint.

But he knows that his own father cut out his heart. And that, yes, was done with love. Will nods.

"To ferry the souls of those that die at sea to the next world."

He's repeating her own words back to her, as much as he can recall.

"Yes." Her touch is kind.

"And not to go on land but for one day in ten years." She looks up at him, a small woman who nonetheless fills the cabin.

"Even I cannot change that."

Will reaches towards her hand, but his fingers stop just short.

"I wouldn't ask you to."

'Ask' here being an entirely different thing than 'want'. He lifts his head to look her in the eye, completely unafraid, but always respectful, and now somewhat fond. He knows her story now, and there's an odd sort of kinship there.

"I knew the price when I went after the heart. An eternity carrying out the duty in exchange for one day every ten years."

"Sweet William," she sighs, "so loyal, so true. Will this be worth it, ye think? It is a long an' hard course to sail, but there will be a wind at ye're back. Ye'll not be so alone as some."

The fondness of Calypso is a dangerous thing to covet, a nearly impossible one to find, but when she grants it, it comes as a gift. She cannot control her nature, but there are those she will be watching for.

His respect is returned with a sweet smile that edges into the coyness so familiar on her face. "An' there is the one day."

"One day more than I would have had if I'd died up there," Will says, with a rueful smile. "I have that to be thankful for."

"An' yet, ten years. A long time, for someone not caught in eternity."

The black eyes dart to Will's face, then back to the keys of the silent organ. "A long time to be alone. To be faithful."

There might be something Will would say to that, but before he can, she steps forward as she had in their first meeting, some burning recognition in her face, some message unsaid.

"Ye know it was for lack of faithfulness that drove Davy Jones to become the monster."

It might sound like a slight against Elizabeth. It isn't.

This time Will doesn't draw back. He looks back; proud, confident, and respectful without submission.

"He shirked the duty," he says. "Whatever his reasons were, he abandoned his promise."

Will and Jones are as different from each other as Elizabeth and... her. More so.

"She'll be faithful to me." And yet, he promises unsaid, even if she isn't, he'll be fiathful to his duty.

"He was abandoned. For lack of the thing," she says. "He could have had a life with her that loved him best an' instead became what he was. Let anger lock him heart away instead of love."

She takes a moment to look at the man before her, and her face softens at the pride and the faith there. It's a long and fond look, and then she turns away, lays a firm hand on the chest he'd brought.

"He was not so different from you, once, before him was poisoned and cursed of his own will. Remember that, Captain; an' after ten years maybe ye'll find happiness wit' your love.

I hope it may be so."

Will listens as he listens to everything - hard and attendant, trying to grasp the implications that may not be said out loud.

And now he thinks he's heard something he didn't know before.

"For a day," he says, but it's uncertain; less a correction so much as a question. In the absense of a heart, his spirits lift.

She pauses; her back is to Will as she traces the designs on the chest but the hesitation in her words is like a breath held in the cabin. In the silence, the steady beat of Will's heart mixes with the creak of the rigging above and the bulkhead around them.

"One day, and ten years. Ten years of waiting, faithfully. That is the curse of the Dutchman's captain. That is your curse, in exchange for your duty."

Will takes a step towards her, the breath he no longer needs to take catching in his throat.

"And then another day, and another ten years?"

This time there's hope in his voice, and the question is outright asked.

"She can be faithful where I could not." There's an odd half-regretful tone in her voice, and when she turns it's with a smile of surpassing sweetness, though her eyes are bright.

"It is my nature. If I had been there, Davy Jones would not have become what you knew him to be. Not this," she waves a hand at the cabin, "wreck of a man. Not doomed. Ye have the power to take your destiny, William Turner; you and your Elizabeth. It need not be the same as his."

It's a few steps back to Will; she doesn't take them. "Curses can be broken."

The thumping in the chest stops, leaving the cabin in heavy silence for a drawn out second.

Will's throat hurts.

"Thank you," he says quietly.

She nods, and swallows. Now she takes those steps, to lay her hand against his face and to look at him with eyes that are as bright as a bird's before they are no longer there and Will is alone.

There's a little haunting melody that plays, and fades, and is gone; but the smell of the sea lingers behind.

He's alone. But he has something else he didn't quite have before.

Will has hope.

He smiles, first fondly, then satisfied, into the empty air.

One day. Ten years.

With further unspoken thanks to the sea, Captain Turner turns to the door.

If he's going to spend a day with his wife, he has a battle to win.

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