turned_captain | (no subject)

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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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.