Standard Issue Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. Or the parts that I shamelessly borrowed and rehashed from At World’s End.

Well, I’m back. I didn’t expect to be back, but here I am. This little story was the product of a week off with nothing to do, an overactive imagination, an episode of NPR’s ‘This American Life’ called ‘Nobody’s Family is Going to Change’, the album ‘Get Lonely’ by The Mountain Goats and the following five fantastic people. Thank them:

Oh-you-pretty-things – my one true love, as most of you know. She told me to rewrite the whole thing on day one, I did, and it suddenly worked. Also known for sending me very sexy pictures of a (formerly) very sexy man to keep me going.

Unacymbal – because she’s patient as heck with me and also very sympathetic. Holds my hand and offers me pets, which I often need.

Williz – the original idea-runner-byer. She made sure it all made sense and wasn’t dumb. Made hilarious play-by-play comments via email that made me laugh. A lot.

Jack E – my fact-checker extraordinaire for everything that takes place in the 18th century. Helped me reach a new appreciation for DMC.

RoxanneJ – I’m actually asking her about every little detail of this story, life and every decision I’ve ever made ever, right now. And she’s giving me fabulous advice, such as “You’re trying too hard. You should wait for the ideas to think of you.”

Basically, this piece is based on my initial reactions to AWE, leaving the theater the very first time seeing it, and has been nagging me since. I missed the scene after the credits because I had to make call to an orchestra concert, but I think I’ve inserted Mini-Will into this quite well. I have also wanted to write a one-shot that was set in the PoTC era and was T-rated. Well, this thing grew. And grew, and grew a little more. And it sort of outgrew the PoTC era while it was outgrowing standard oneshot wordage. But, I managed to keep it rated T! I’m very impressed at my restraint.

Rating is for mild language and sexual references.

Ok. This author’s note is officially way too long. Consider this piece your encore from me and ENJOY!

--

Part I: The Little Red Bicycle

-or-

How Long Can We Go On Like This?

With a glint of silver and a flash of green, her eyes shot open; it was the same every day, actually, the same dream. Didn’t bother her any more. She glanced at the clock, which in its bold red block numbers taunted her. 7:45AM. Her heart raced for a second before she realized it was Saturday, and with a slow, deep breath, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and got up, ready to face yet another day.

Elizabeth was careful not to wake her husband, eager to buy herself a little time. It amazed her how much she craved solitude, given that it was all she really had at the end of the day. She sulked down the hallway and into the bathroom to begin a morning routine that was every bit as banal as the rest of her life: she peed, she brushed her teeth, she washed her face and she studied herself in the mirror, the image taunting her a little more as each day or year or decade passed. It was unchanging. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Then, she would make her coffee, run outside to the front steps and gather up the paper as quickly as she could, preferably without being seen by anyone and then, once inside, she’d sit there in the relative silence of her apartment until her husband or son woke up. It was still hard for her after all of these years to love them, to not resent them. She hadn’t chosen this, wouldn’t have chosen this. An unwilling player in the never-ending and now almost legendary Turner family tragedy. But she tried with what she assumed to be all of her heart to forgive them. Maybe not hard enough, maybe it wasn’t enough, but she tried. This may not have been her fault, but she had promised them forever and forever is what they would get. What she had learned, though, was that forever was an awfully long time.

She heard the bathroom door click shut and quickly pulled the paper out of its little plastic bag. This is how they spent every weekend. He wouldn’t bother her while she read and she wouldn’t bother him while he spent the day tinkering around their apartment trying to change, alter or improve something, anything, for just for the sake of having changed it. When William woke up, they would do their best to try and entertain him, but she could categorically say that their best effort wasn’t much. Therefore, they would likely end up in three separate corners of the apartment, each fighting his or her own internal war. On Monday, husband and wife would get on different trains to get to work and William would…well, she hoped he stayed inside like she’d commanded, but she didn’t fool herself. A nine year old couldn’t possibly understand consequences as complex as the ones William potentially faced, despite having an unlimited amount of time to ponder them.

Sure enough, Will avoided her completely, only grunting a nearly incomprehensible “thank you” as he walked by with a coffee cup. At this point in their marriage, leaving the exactly correct amount and brew of coffee in the pot in the morning was less a sweet and considerate favor and more of an expectation. She nodded in response and unrolled the front section of the paper, her eyes drawn to headlines about falling markets and rising prices, about one or another candidate’s chances in the rural states and the violent situation in the Middle East. It still amazed her that despite having plenty of access to history, each generation consistently thought that theirs would be the last, that their problems were by far the worst and that the incumbent government was surely going to bring about the end of the world. And sure, she’d thought that once, about what should have been her generation. Things, she thought, hadn’t become more violent, they’d just become more…televised. She sighed and folded the paper, her eyes catching the date before she discarded it.

It was Saturday, April 5, 2008. She had just celebrated her 288th birthday.

And, the fact was, she was approaching an impasse. Soon, she wouldn’t care if Will stayed with her at all.

--

She knew exactly what moment caused everything to veer off track. Or maybe it had been a series of moments. But even after their ‘marriage interrupted’ as Beckett had called it, as well as the subsequent chaos, when she kissed him in the rain on the deck of the Pearl, she had felt invincible. Time had stopped. All of the risks they faced had been removed. She honestly thought in that moment that they’d be able to go back to the way things were supposed to be, or at least some equally blissful alternative.

She was so sure of this, in fact, that she hadn’t hesitated to take on Davy Jones himself when they swung onto the Dutchman. She had even quipped with him a little before drawing her ridiculously heavy East Asian sword, before beginning to fight him. She was on a high for having finally, finally married him (and on pirate ship no less!) as she fought Jones with everything she had in her, her body unconsciously recalling everything her new husband had taught her back in Port Royal during their engagement.

But she had underestimated Jones, or Jones’ claw rather, and the next thing she knew, everything went black. And when she came to, she could immediately sense that something was very, very wrong. She could hear Jones’ dreadful voice and immediately looked for Will. Her relief upon seeing him was mercilessly short-lived, however, when she noticed his ragged breathing and the fact that he was also sprawled on the deck, unarmed. She froze as Jones raised a sword, the sword that Will had made all of those years ago, to Will’s throat.

Her mind wrestled with her body as she willed herself to move, or close her eyes, or something, but she could only sit and stare, paralyzed and hardly lucid. God, she hoped or maybe even prayed, please let this be a dream.

She braced herself as she heard Jones say those words…William Turner, do you fear death?...cursing herself for not being able to do anything, cursing herself for having it in her to sit there like a spectator as her husband would inevitably be killed. She hadn’t expected to hear Jack, or turn to see him standing there with the heart as though he were some kind of demented angel. He spoke as Elizabeth watched, rapt, willing him to just stab the damn heart. And as it turned out, Jones hadn’t been amused by Jack’s characteristic banter either.

Her stream of consciousness grew slower and slower as Jones turned around, to the point that she watched the sword plunge into Will’s chest frame by frame. She almost wanted to laugh when she heard the sword pierce skin because to her in that moment, she was convinced it just had to be a joke or a mistake; that something this terrible couldn’t actually happen, especially not to her. She wanted to close her eyes and curl into a ball until he’d stand up and take her in his arms and tell her it was all ok, then they could go home and start their life together. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t laugh or even speak or cry.

She gasped and tried to run to him, but her legs betrayed her, as if making it over to him would only confirm the horrible reality of the situation. Will was dying; her Will was about to be gone forever. Something was happening behind her, but she couldn’t be sure what it was. All she could see, hear and feel was Will and his labored gasps. Finally, using the wall for support, she pulled herself to his side.

“Will! Look at me! Stay with me!” she demanded of him. Will Turner had never denied her before, and she’d be damned if he started now. But he could only struggle for air and whimper in response, clearly rallying all of his effort to just to keep his eyes on her. Her hands were all over his face, imploring him to just acknowledge her presence. “You’re all right!” she simply stated, as though saying it would make it true.

She didn’t notice the skirmish between Bootstrap and Jones raging behind her and she didn’t notice Jack appear beside her with the heart of Davy Jones. It simply didn’t register, what Jack was doing. She watched intently, though, as Jack lifted Will’s hand, closed it around what was left of his sword and plunged it into the still beating heart. She just didn’t realize what it meant, didn’t understand why Jack of all people was pulling her off Will when she was quite content to go down with him. She screamed when he overpowered her, the horror of never seeing Will again was now confirmed, was now a reality that she hadn’t prepared for. It still hadn’t registered, in fact, when she was somehow flying high above the ocean. She could only watch wordlessly, somewhere between shock and sorrow, as the Dutchman was sucked down into the maelstrom.

--

After having dealt with their depressing morning routine, Will slipped quietly out the back door of their apartment and down the back stairs, totally unnoticed. And despite Elizabeth’s thoughts on the matter, he remained unnoticed as he walked down the street. After a long string of failed attempts at putting down some roots and creating the home he’d always wanted to give his wife and child, they’d landed here, in Brooklyn, New York. If anonymity was what they craved, he’d surely found it for them here, because in New York City, no one asked questions. No one noticed anything. And if they did notice anything, they were generally called crazy and ignored.

Will turned onto Bedford Street, the main drag of the neighborhood, which was named, ironically, Williamsburg. It had almost seemed as though it were calling to him when he found out about it, a young and diverse neighborhood, with a high turnover in residency. Mostly students, artists, hipsters and other people who would be incapable of putting two and two together with regard to his family. As long as they could keep William under the radar, it couldn’t fail. Its name just sort of sealed the deal. It had to be perfect.

It wasn’t perfect. Once again, his best efforts had proved insufficient.

He walked up to a newspaper stand and made small talk with the man behind the counter. He wasn’t afraid to do this; there would be a new man at the stand to make small talk with before the old one ever figured out that Will never aged if he figured it out at all. People here just didn’t seem concerned with the lives of others, and that was more than fine by him. Will put the money down for the paper…the same one they had delivered to their building. But he wouldn’t dare try to ask for it, to try and share it with her. Their sharing days had effectively ended some time ago.

Will turned to walk down the street. He could never figure out exactly why that was. He had done everything he could. He had worked like a dog to be able to afford to get counterfeit documentation for his family, so that they could at least enjoy some of the trappings of twenty-first century normalcy: a credit card, a bank account, a legitimate lease on an apartment and a shiny state ID card for each of them. He was even working as a documented worker, doing something stupid and frivolous in an office downtown. He had always preferred physical labor and working with his hands, but he was happy to give it up if it meant finally redeeming himself for sins committed over two centuries ago.

He had understood and even shared in her pain when they had been forced to move around constantly. But now that they were here, somewhere they could stay for a while, he didn’t actually know what he had done wrong. Overall, though, he had gotten the feeling that it had less to do with him and more to do with William. She simply refused to let him share in her private, motherly grief over a child she couldn’t nurture and raise. He just couldn’t understand why, what he had done or not done to cause that wall to be erected.

But then he did know, didn’t he? The fact that he’d made a terribly wrong choice when he was a legitimate 23 year old that had lead to, among other things, his own immortality had sparked a series of unfortunate occurrences that brought them here. All they had wanted in the world was to settle down, to put down some roots, fill their home with children and grow old together. And so far he was batting a thousand, unable to truly give his wife any of those things.

Not being able to have more children, or finish raising the one they did have, had hit them both hardest. He blamed himself, of course, for that, although he knew in some remote corner of his brain that her inability to get pregnant had nothing to do with him. They had conceived William successfully after his heart had replaced Jones’, so reason would suggest that it had everything to do with her body’s own inability to support an organism who needed to age in order to exist. The baby wouldn’t grow inside her as long as she remained, effectively, trapped in time. He knew she knew this, too, and that she hated her condition all the more for it. A condition that, without his bull-headed actions all those years ago, would never have come about. He shouldn’t have wavered. He should have kept his eyes, and his heart while he still had one, trained on her.

Will turned the corner onto Metropolitan Avenue and picked up his pace. He continued to walk for several minutes, eventually crossing under the B&Q Expressway. He shoved his paper into his jacket and looked at his watch. He wouldn’t be making it home any time soon. Buying the paper had been pointless, like so much else.

Eventually, he passed a toy store. This was frequently his destination, although it forced him to have to consider the problem his son presented. He and Elizabeth could have probably existed with greater normalcy had they not been trying to conceal a perpetually nine year old boy from the authorities. They could have traveled, they could have done more, had more friends. At least for a while longer. And even though it had been his own actions that had brought this all about in the first place, he couldn’t deny his son’s role in their predicament and the distance that had grown between himself and his wife.

It hurt Will to the core that he harbored resentment for his own flesh and blood, someone he was supposed to love unconditionally. So, he came here because he was simply at a loss for what else to do. The boy’s room was full of model trains and airplanes (anything but ships, really) and books and games. Truth be told, Will was running out of ideas as he browsed on that particular Saturday before his eyes came to fall on a shiny red bicycle.

William had never had a bicycle before, at Elizabeth’s insistence. And in attempt to not lose any more ground with her than he already had, he generally followed whatever directions he was given, eager on some level to show her he was listening and trying to give her what she wanted, trying to get her to notice him again. After all, though, a nine year old boy would naturally be reckless with a bicycle, and their son was no exception. He’d ride after the other boys in the neighborhood, and eventually he’d fall off or run into something. A normal boy would get bruises and scrapes or maybe even break a bone in the course of owning a bicycle. William would not. And inevitably, someone would notice and they would be forced to flee again.

Will considered this very earnestly for a second before purchasing the bike. And, curiously, as he walked home with it, he wasn’t afraid of what might happen and was, in fact, almost giddy with excitement. Something would inevitably happen with the introduction of the bicycle into the household!

And sure enough, it did. William was, honestly and for the first time in years, absolutely delighted at his father’s gift. His son’s enthusiasm, however, is short-lived and their connection over the moment was very abruptly severed as Elizabeth entered the room, mad as hell. She yelled at William to go back into his room and she yelled at Will, all the things he knew she would, all the things they’d been over before. She pushed past him after her tirade, stomping right into the bedroom and slamming the door shut.

There was a time when he would have felt horrible, absolutely riddled with guilt at having upset her and he would have gone to her and wrapped her in his arms and kissed her gently and reverently. But now, things were different. He felt strangely vindicated. And he didn’t want to touch her at all.

--

He noticed her sword in the sand as soon as he stepped onto the island and was slightly dismayed that he had left her waiting. He didn’t want to waste a single moment; if this was all he had, he was going to make sure it was worth everything they had to go through for it. For her sake as much as his.

He placed the Dead Man’s Chest on a rock and shoved his sword into the sand next to hers and was inwardly quite pleased when the shifting of the sand caused the two swords to lean into each other, forming a cross. A symbol of unity. Their unity, finally, after nearly a lifetime of waiting. He spotted her, perched on a piece of volcanic rock, deep in thought and unswayed by the sound of the sword cutting into the sand. As he approached her, she finally turned, frozen to the spot for a second and the next, running towards him with all of her might. He ran, too, and caught her in his arms. He held her, kissing her hair, her face, and pulling her as close into him as he could manage. He recalled the moment on the deck of the Dutchman, where, in the most intense pain he had ever experienced, he willed himself to keep his eyes on her. He wouldn’t leave her. He simply couldn’t. But, destiny had a different plan. She had faded from his view.

“I….I thought I had lost you,” she mumbled into his chest, eyes wide and wild.

“You will never lose me, Elizabeth,” he whispered in reply, meaning with his entire being every word of it. He may have had a destiny that lead him to the Flying Dutchman, but he would be damned if he left her permanently. Still, ten years was a long time.

She kneeled in the sand before him and pulled him down to her level. Few words were exchanged between them in those first few moments, as she ran her hands along his face, studying him intently. He had waited so many years for this moment, and if he were to be entirely honest with himself, he had genuinely doubted that it would ever arrive. To his surprise, he was able to accept it, surrender to it. His hands were around her waist, pulling her close.

When he kissed her, he meant for it to last the next decade. He memorized the feeling of her mouth on his, her lips, her tongue and the little mews she made into his mouth. And then, her hands were on the hem of his shirt, tugging it over his head. And for once, he didn’t stop her. She had always been assertive and insistent. It was part of why he loved her so much. And now, she was his wife, his forever.

The first time they made love, he came almost immediately. He was embarrassed by this, ashamed that he wasn’t a better lover, that he couldn’t control himself, that it wasn’t perfect for her. He had waited so long to share that moment with her, and when it finally came, it was over so quickly. He simply wanted to touch her, to commit every single detail of his Elizabeth to memory: the fit of her body against his, the softness of her skin, the heat of the sun and the wetness of the sand beneath them…and she didn’t disappoint him. How could she? She was Elizabeth, after all. She smiled then, and kissed him gently, guiding his hands to her onto body. This was how they spent the rest of the day.

As the sun began to set, the call of the Dutchman began to beat steadily where his heart had been. It physically hurt him, as he wrestled between the Dutchman’s call and his raw need for his new wife. In the end, however, he knew he had to pay for what had been done; it was simply his responsibility. As he dressed, he could hear her behind him, busying herself with something in what he surmised had been an effort to detach herself from what was about to transpire. And when he noticed he was short a boot, he had known immediately that she had something to do with its disappearance, a mild protest against the inevitable.

“I’m going to need the other one,” Will said, his voice high, almost cracking.

And she did deliver, as only she could, by setting the boot down onto the rock next to him, her leg ensconced inside. She was going to make this as hard as possible, wasn’t she? He couldn’t not touch her and took the bait, kissing her leg, pausing once again as the pull of his newly acquired ship battled with his desire to have her just once more, to make sure she knew just how completely he loved her.

In the end, the Dutchman won. “It’s nearly sunset,” he mumbled, getting up. Elizabeth looked out at the sea weakly, as though to confirm; the look in her eyes would have surely broken his heart if there was one to break. His heart! Remembering the most important thing he had yet to give her, he got up and took something from beneath his coat. He turned to face her. “It’s always belonged to you,” he said, consciously fighting back tears. “Will you keep it safe?”

“Yes,” she breathed, “yes.”

She came to him and took the chest. He trusted her completely with this venture. He leaned his forehead into hers and they stayed that way for a moment. He desperately wanted to kiss her, just one more time; after all, ten years would feel like hell without it. But then, if he did kiss her, would he find it in him to leave and fulfill his duty? He turned and walked away. He simply had to do this. He had been left without a choice.

But she wouldn’t let him leave like that, would she? “Will!” she yelled, and as much as he would have liked to just walk away with that final shred of strength, she would simply have none of it. She flew into his arms and he caught her, eager to make that kiss, that final kiss, last for ten agonizing years.

“Keep a weather eye on the horizon,” he finally said, just before leaving her there. He could not believe himself for doing it. He couldn’t believe that those were the only words he could muster. But it was too late. He was sure his heart was breaking inside that chest.

--

William locked the door behind him, leaving the shiny new bike in the hallway. He made his way to his window, propped it open with a piece of plywood he’d found in the alley and pushed himself onto the fire escape. Often, he’d walk down the stairs out of respect for his perpetually worried mother (he could only recall about ten individual days of his entire life when she had not been overcome with grief or worry about something), but today he was feeling stubborn, defiant and totally misunderstood. He launched himself off the rickety metal staircase, landing on the pavement below with a conspicuous thud and then stood up no worse for it. It was a game he’d played with himself for over two centuries that never seemed to get old. He took small comfort in that. From the looks of things, he’d never get old either.

He dusted himself off, pleased to see that he hadn’t even managed to tear his jeans this time. It was so awful when that happened, since then his mother would question him about it and he’d have to lie to her. He hated lying to her, and he knew it was wrong, but he simply hated being scolded. It wasn’t like he could get hurt or die anyway!

William approached a garbage bin near the end of the alley. He didn’t have much time, since his mother would inevitably come in to check on him and explain to him, once again, why he couldn’t have a bicycle. But, his one and only friend lived back here, at the end of the alley, and he needed to say hello as good true friends do. “Hello?” he whispered as he reached the bin. With that, a scarred black and white tom cat raised his head from the bin and mewed happily. William smiled and dug into his pockets; he never left his bedroom empty handed, and pulled out a few goldfish crackers. It wasn’t much, but his friend appreciated the gesture genuinely.

“There you go,” William said, feeding the crackers to the cat and scratching him behind his ears. The cat meowed and chattered as though in gratitude, pressing his head into William’s hand.

“Yeah, she’s mad again. So, I’m out here.” The cat cocked his head to the side. “I mean, I know why I can’t have a bike, but I really want one!”

The cat chattered back, as he always did, and jumped from the trash bin onto the pavement, rubbing against William’s legs. William sat down and the cat immediately climbed into his lap, purring contentedly. Maybe this is why it had been easy for William to make believe the cat was talking back to him. Maybe he just craved friendship that much. But the fact was, he really didn’t know the first thing about having friends.

Sure, he had tried to make friends, but the thing was that they grew up so quickly and he was left behind every time, which was one of the few things in his life that genuinely. He’d tried to lie about his age, celebrate his own birthdays, but the fact was, he couldn’t keep up. He’d seen it all and done it all, so he knew a lot of things, but there were still so many things that were just beyond his level of understanding.

Take for instance, girls. He didn’t understand their appeal in the least, and it made it very hard to keep up with the other boys for more than a few months, it seemed. And it was even too hard to fake it. The thought of doing some of the things they suggested made his stomach turn. Add to that that it was also very hard for him to self-censor…he was so proud of all of his adventures and so it came as an absolute shock to him when no one believed him.

He had tried to prove himself once, and there had been absolute hell to pay. Sitting in a group of boys, he allowed the other kids to try and stab him. When they did and nothing happened, the other kids had not only run away from him screaming blue murder (apparently afraid that he was some kind of zombie), but they had told their parents, who then questioned his mother and father. They had fled their home less than a week later and the silence that had descended over their home following that incident had frightened and unsettled young William, even if he didn’t fully grasp why.

So yes, he knew why he couldn’t have the bicycle: his mother and father didn’t want to move again. He had been surprised, shocked even, that his father had come home with it in the first place. “I don’t get it,” he confessed aloud to the cat on his lap. “I just wish I could ride it. And I wish I knew why mum’s going to get so mad at me! I didn’t even ask for it!” And he wouldn’t have asked for it, because underneath everything, he had had enough time to have eventually arrived at the realization that he was responsible for this. All of this. Whenever that fact surfaced for one reason or another, his heart absolutely burned. His mum and dad were sad and silent because of him. He closed his eyes against the weight of that old realization, just like he always did, willing it to just go away.

The cat yawned and blinked slowly at William before jumping from his lap and lazily stretching. “Yeah, I guess I should go back upstairs. Mum’s going to want to see me soon,” he muttered. The cat meowed in agreement before stalking off. William carefully and quietly navigated the fire escape back to his room, relieved to find the plywood still in place and the door still locked. Without making any noise, he closed the window, unlocked the door and laid down on his bed to await the inevitable, his thoughts turning to only thing he wanted in life: to be riding his shiny new red bike down the street, his parents both happy and cheering him on.

When Elizabeth entered her son’s room, she was surprised to find him fast asleep. She sat down on his bed and stroked his hair, feeling her heart clench a little. He was still, after everything, the most beautiful thing she had ever laid her eyes on. Things had just gotten so difficult for all of them, she would rationalize often in these quiet, gentle moments. It hurt her heart to be so hard on him, to rest so much of her own baggage squarely on her son’s shoulders. Yet, for some reason, she couldn’t let go of the regret and resentment. She felt so ashamed, but she couldn’t deny it: at some point in time, her son had become her biggest burden.