A/N: See how fast this update came? I’m trying to be better about this….. By the way, did you all know there’s going to be another Pirates of the Caribbean film coming out???

Reunion

“Call on the officers! Get our men down to the harbour! We must make haste!”

Admiral Thomas Morgan sprinted out of his office and along the corridor, adjusting his clothing quickly as he followed several Royal Navy officers in a mad dash to his front door. Cutler Beckett, groggy with sleep, sat up slowly in bed after hearing the shouts and loud footfalls outside his door. He was immediately curious. Had the Intrepid arrived with Captains Sparrow and Barbossa in tow? If so, what truly delicious luck he had indeed. Redemption was nigh.

“Father, let me go with you!” Thomas Jr. yelled after the admiral, his lighter footfalls moving along the corridor.

“Papa, don’t go!” Kitty cried, stopping the chase of her father by his office door.

“This is none of your business, children,” Thomas shot back, not bothering to slow down. “I must take care of this matter myself.”

“But it’s the Flying Dutchman!” Thomas Jr. replied, running up beside his father as the older man unchained the door. “I need to see her to believe she actually exists.”

“She does exist—and that’s all you need to know for the time being,” Admiral Morgan told his son in a calmer voice. He instructed his son to go back to his room, Thomas Jr. moving out of earshot as he followed his father’s instructions with a frown.

“Do you need anything before you go, Thomas?” Julia asked her husband, her voice thick with sleep as she slowly made her way down the hallway.

“I need you to guard my office,” he replied quietly to her. “In about a half hour from now, bar yourself in the room and shake the chest.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do as I say. This is very important. Just rattle the bloody thing about for as long as you can.”

“Could it be that the captain is coming for the—”

“Enough,” Morgan shot at her in a condescending tone. “You do as I say and guard that bloody thing with your life, understand?”

“Fine.”

The front door slammed as Beckett crept out of bed, pulling his breeches and boots on. He double-checked his boot for the presence of his paper and metal treasures before wrapping the reedy map around his chest and putting on a shirt and his coat over the strange kind of armor. Noticing no one in the hallway, he made his way to the servants’ quarters, where he picked up several food items and returned hastily to his room.

Julia met him by the door to his room, still wearing her nightgown and looking quite dreadful, large bags under her eyes. It was apparent that she was exhausted.

“What’s going on?” Beckett asked her, pretending to be oblivious. Without another word, she opened the door to his room and motioned him inside, following him into the room and closing the door behind her.

“It seems that the Dutchman has arrived in Southampton,” she replied in a whisper, looking worried. “I have to guard the you-know-what while he’s gone. You’re up and ready to go rather early, eh?”

“Why didn’t he take it with him?” Beckett remarked, ignoring her comment.

“The chest is rather bulky, and as long as he does not possess the key, he cannot actually access the heart. The crew of the Dutchman would simply take it off of him, or kill him, if they spotted it on or around his person. It seems you had much better luck with the heart during your possession of it, though I must admit I pitied Davy Jones to have to take orders from someone else.”

“My successful tenure with the heart existed only because I had a rather brilliant commodore who happened to bring the heart to me, with no effort of my own,” Beckett replied in a low voice. “Pray, what is the admiral going to do once he sees the Dutchman?”

“He has to hold the ship at bay until the Intrepid arrives. Surely the pirate captives aboard will have the key in their possession, and he can use the heart to control the Dutchman and her captain. I must be going—I have to be certain one of the children doesn’t investigate that room, not that there’s much they can do with the chest. I have been charged with the duty of shaking it about until he returns.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it seems to summon the captain of the Dutchman, and I imagine it would pain him as well. I rather hate doing such a thing, but it’s something I must do to keep pressure on the captain, lest he try to kill Thomas.”

“And you wouldn’t want that to happen,” Beckett remarked, his eyes narrowed as if testing her.

“Of course not!” she replied, immediately looking flustered. “How could you say such a thing? Good heavens; I must be going! I have to begin shaking the chest a half hour from now.”

“Why don’t you put on a change of clothes and wake up more fully while I stand guard at the office door?” he offered, flashing her a shy smile. “You look quite a sight.”

“Thank you for informing me,” she quipped sarcastically. “But I will be fine.”

“You look like you could fall asleep any minute,” Beckett remarked. “I can’t let you fall asleep on the job, because if he dies, I will not get promoted.”

“That sounds just like you, only helpful when it benefits you.”

“Exactly.” He was now smiling unabashedly, albeit naughtily.

“Fine. Stand outside the door for a little while. Do not enter his office.”

“Yes, because merely laying eyes on it will—”

“You cannot go inside the room,” she commanded, face grave. “Please do not test me, or I will not trust you with this duty. Thomas will not allow his own children to enter the room, let alone an opportunistic brother-in-law.”

“Point taken,” Beckett replied, grimacing.

Brother and sister left Beckett’s temporary room, Julia leaving her brother at the door to the admiral’s office.

As Julia headed down the hallway in a hurry, Beckett stood with an air of propriety outside of the room, keeping his hands clasped behind him, feet together. When he could see that no one was in the hallway, he attempted to turn the doorknob. The door was locked.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered. There goes my chance.

“Elizabeth, wake up.”

At first the words sounded far away and muffled, but after hearing them repeatedly, Elizabeth realized their meaning. Letting out a moan of pain, Elizabeth opened her eyes one at a time, unsure of what to expect.

She found herself to be lying on a moving surface, for it rocked back and forth. Joana Sparrow was squatted down next to her and was now removing a wet cloth from Elizabeth’s forehead.

“Wh-what happened to me?”

“You fainted,” Joana commented blandly.

“Where am I?”

“You are aboard the Flying Dutchman. Captain Tur—”

“Will?” she murmured, pitch higher than usual.

“Elizabeth,” a male voice replied. She craned her neck to see beyond the group of craggy crew members that had gathered in a circle above Joana and her. Will stepped into view. So Joana brought Elizabeth back for me, though it is obvious that she is not fond of her, Will mused. I wonder where Jack went—he had originally promised to help me find Elizabeth and the chest.

Elizabeth couldn’t help but gasp. It was unbelievable what had happened to Will in the course of less than a year. Thankfully his face was largely unblemished, as opposed to Jones’s tentacle-ridden face. However, instead of his moustache, he had an antenna between his nose and mouth that seemed to be quivering. Barnacles littered his arms and neck like clumps of graying stubble. A few stray barnacles marred his forehead, though they were smaller than the ones on his neck. He kept his arms behind him, though he was not in the proper position to stand in such an awkward way. One of his legs appeared to hardly fill out his trousers and was clearly unable to bend. Under his tattered bandanna, his hair glistened green like seaweed. He regarded her with a tight-lipped grimace.

“Will,” Elizabeth choked out, barely able to speak. “We have a son.”

“Oh,” Will said dully, suddenly turning away from her, his stiff left leg thudding on the deck as he shifted positions. As he turned, he moved his hands to the front of his body. “And how certain are you of that?” he asked Elizabeth, peering over his shoulder at her.

“It’s your son,” she said. “It can be no one else’s.”

All of a sudden a cluster of barnacles popped on the back of his neck, leaving behind normal human flesh. Elizabeth shuddered.

“What is his name?”

“His name is William,” she replied without skipping a beat. “Would you like me to fetch him?”

“Where is he?”

“At the Royal Navy medic’s home. I thought it best to let him sleep while I saw you.”

“When was he born?” he asked, ignoring her offer to let him see the infant. “It has not yet been nine months since we—” he began, but then stopped himself. “He can’t be mine,” he said, voice low and defeated.

Elizabeth was utterly frustrated. Is he not going to confront me about my infidelity? The one thing I am certain of, the baby that I was absolutely faithful and truthful about, and he doesn’t believe me. After the death of Jack Sparrow and Will’s supposing she loved the rogue pirate, he had completely avoided her and the subject, which irritated her to no end. He had never even fully addressed the issue before his impromptu proposal during the battle with the Flying Dutchman. Surely he had expected they’d both die in each other’s arms that day. Will had been set on marrying me even without a declaration of love from me, which I never gave him, she mused. It’s as if he was more intent on possessing me than he was on hearing my confession of love for him.

“He was born only yesterday, and much earlier than expected,” she spat, pulling herself to her feet. Will made no effort to help her. Wincing at the painful sensation on the back of her head due to her fall, she walked over to her Will, moving to the front of him. It was then that she saw his grotesquely transformed hands.

“Will, what happened to your hands—”

“What does it look like?” he interrupted, frowning as he realized the futility of his trying to hide them from her. Now that she had seen his starfish hands, he made no effort to hide them from her.

I cannot believe he is holding back all the anger he must feel, Elizabeth raged. Obviously he suspects me, wondering if I’m sure of my baby’s paternity. How can he stay so bloody calm through all of this? This is utterly infuriating!

Ignoring Elizabeth for the time being, Will turned to Joana, who was standing nearby.

“Thank you for bringing Elizabeth to me,” he asked her calmly. “Where did you find her?”

“She was at the medic’s house,” Joana replied.

“Where is Jack?” Will asked next.

“I believe he is looking for the chest right now,” she told him, hoping that what she said was true.

“Why were she and the child at the medic’s house? I expected them to be with—”

“You can ask me that question. I’m standing right here,” Elizabeth offered, feeling violated. Now he was going to ignore her?

“Why should I,” Will stated blandly, not bothering to turn towards his wife. “I cannot trust you.”

“Do you want to accuse me of something?” Elizabeth retorted, feeling ire. “It’s unbelievably frustrating to me watching you keep your composure at all times. Have you nothing to say to me, nothing to ask me?”

“Why,” he deadpanned, turning around to face her. “Is there something you want to admit?” Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his eyes, which looked dead, like the eyes of a corpse. It was as if all semblance of human emotion had been taken from him. Elizabeth, feeling her own blood pounding in her eyes, glared at her husband with utter irritation.

“Bloody hell!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I’ve imagined this moment in my head over and over again, and never did I suspect you’d renounce all feeling, all sense of—”

“I know that you didn’t keep the chest safe,” Will interrupted, his voice at normal volume. “My heart is now in the hands of someone who seeks to do it harm—when actually, it is only you who can and you who has done my heart harm. Just thinking about you pains me. The only upside of my thoughts of you involve the key I entrusted to you. I trust you still have it…”

As Beckett stood disappointed in front of Admiral Morgan’s locked office, having turned his back to the door once again, there came a noise from behind him, a squeaking of hinges as the door was very quietly pulled open. He carefully peeked over his shoulder to see a child emerge from inside the room. Upon seeing him standing there, his niece Kitty very nearly fainted of fright. Rather than attempt to scare her with a look of disappointment or anger, Beckett flashed her the slightest of smirks, and indicated the direction she could go to leave the area. With a questioning look on her face, she pointed to confirm the direction, her fingers shimmering like silver in the candlelight of the hallway. He nodded to her, a hint of confusion on his face.

“Thank you, Uncle Cutler,” Kitty replied with a smile as she stood in front of him, wiping her hands up and down on her nightgown. “Please don’t tell my mum that I went in there….”

“Of course not,” he countered.

“There’s a broken bottle in there,” she added in a whisper. “—but I didn’t break it.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” he said with a little smirk.

It was the perfect excuse to enter the room. And if Julia by some chance interrupted him while he was in the room, he had an airtight reason. ‘Well, you see, Julia, Kitty entered the room after your husband left, and saw a broken bottle. I felt the need to investigate.’

Upon entering the room, Beckett saw no sign of the chest. Where could Admiral Morgan have stashed the rather large item? He paced around gingerly, bending over occasionally to peer under a table or chest of drawers.

Where the bloody hell is the chest, he mused, anxiously pacing the room. There are only so many places it could be.

Quickly he ruled out several shallow shelves and drawers in his quest to find the true treasure that would perhaps redeem him in one regard and would certainly condemn him in the minds of all law-abiding citizens.

He opened a rather oddly-placed armoire and saw on the top shelf the Dead Man’s Chest. Staring at the door as he felt his heart racing, he lowered the chest onto the ground, pulled the key out of his boot, and unlocked the chest with the key. Footsteps were approaching the door from the hallway around the corner. Oh, God, surely Julia has noticed my absence in front of the door. He tucked the bloody item into his coat as he finished up, shoving the key back down his boot and closing the chest as quietly as possible. Within seconds, he had placed the chest back on its shelf and the key back in his boot. If he left now, he could easily make it back out to the door and close it behind him. It was then that he looked down at his hands, noticing little globs of silvery fluid on them. Where the bloody hell did this come from? This looks like what was on Kitty’s fingers. He opened the armoire back up and looked up at the chest, noticing a little silvery puddle on the shelf it was sitting on, with one or two small blobs stuck to the handles of the chest. Odd, he mused. But it’s far too high for her to reach.

As he looked toward the doorway, a glass tube mounted on the wall caught his eye. It was a mercury barometer labeled with the insignia of the admiral, though the level of the mercury was extremely low, the barometer nearly devoid of the substance. The copper lid on the barometer had been removed, the glass around the lip crunched, presumably during the removal of the lid, which had been set back on top of the barometer, though not pushed back onto the glass lip. It looked as though the tube itself had been removed from its wooden mount, a troubling thought. Kitty had had her hands in mercury, mercury which also contaminated the Dead Man’s Chest! Suddenly he felt rather sick to his stomach.

“What in God’s name are you doing in here?” Julia fumed, marching into the room with arms crossed tightly across her chest. It was too late for Beckett to wipe his hands off on his coat and so he clasped them behind his back. “I thought I told you not to come in here,” she scolded him, much like an insolent child. He thought of his excuse.

“Well, you see, Kitty was—”

“Don’t pass the blame to one of my children, you bloody charlatan! How could I have been stupid enough to trust you?!”

He interrupted her with a dramatic sigh, continuing to explain.

“Kitty was leaving the room as I arrived to guard the door, and she seemed to get herself into a rather nasty substance while in the room.”

“What are you talking about?”

Beckett pointed at the barometer, obviously fooled with and almost completely empty of mercury.

“I noticed mercury on her fingers,” Beckett explained.

“Is that dangerous?” Julia replied, feeling a bit dumb for not understanding Beckett’s point.

“Very much so.”

Kitty suddenly appeared behind the pair, looking pale and waxen.

“I was getting a toy which rolled under the door, Mum,” she said, frowning with disappointment at her uncle. “That’s all—”

“Kitty, did you drink out of this glass tube?” Beckett asked her as he pointed at the barometer, feeling a hollowness in the pit of his stomach.

She nodded solemnly.

“But there’s practically nothing left in there!” Julia exclaimed. “Did you drink the entire tube, Kitty?”

“No,” the child replied quietly. “Just a little bit. There wasn’t much in there.… but I don’t think I should have done that. I thought it was some kind of water. Very shiny—” she muttered, before losing consciousness.

A/N: Arrrrr! I'd be very happy if ye'd review, whether ye be likin' or dislikin' what ye see! There be more to come with Will and Elizabeth!