A Line In The Sand
Chapter Sixteen: Epilogue - Part II

Author's Note: This is part two of the epilogue and the last part of the fic! There's no flashbacks here, I hope they weren't too confusing in the last chapter. Which means this whole chapter is set ten years after the rest of the fic and in the last chapter, we left Victoria staring at her father...

"Whelks!" Gibbs said suddenly and James looked at him as though he was mad. "C'mon, your mother and grandfather have a lot to discuss. Jack will help us find some whelks. Won't you, Jack?"

Jack blinked and surveyed the children with a slightly wrinkled nose. Gibbs gave him a pointed stare and Jack sighed, before nodding.

"Aye. Let's try over there," and he pointing vaguely to the other end of the shore.

Reluctantly, the children followed Gibbs, young George looking longingly at Bootstrap's face, as though for trace of a barnacle. His twin Joanna tugged his arm, though she also seemed transfixed.

"I'll, uh, go with them then," Jack said, glancing from Bootstrap to Victoria. He started to leave, then turned back to give Bootstrap's hand a quick shake. "Good to see you again, mate," he studied at his own palm and appeared satisfied. "Especially when you're not bearing bad news. I'll leave you two to get reacquainted. Or newly acquainted, as the case may be."

Jack turned, herding the lingering twins awkwardly in front of him.

James stood to one side, uncertain. Then, annoyed at his own foolishness, reminded himself he was neither a boy nor a newlywed and stepped behind Victoria. He placed his hands on her hips and leaned round to kiss her cheek.

"I'll keep an eye on them," he murmured.

Her hands darted to his arms as they pulled away from her and he slipped them back for a moment to give her a gentle squeeze, so that when he pulled away, she let him go.

Victoria watched him go for a moment, and then looked back at her father. He was still staring at James and the children, then cast her the same bewildered look he had when she had impaled him. She looked away, studying a pebble at the hem of her dress.

"Will you walk with me?" Bootstrap said suddenly. When she looked up, he was offering her his arm and she recoiled inwardly. "It's been a long time since I felt the earth beneath my feet."

Hesitantly, she took his arm, squeezing it slightly to feel the solid, warm flesh beneath his shirt rather than the soft, rotting mush through which she had run a sword.

"Tell me about your life," he said after a moment.

She noticed there was still a damp sound in his voice, as though there was water in his lungs, and wondered whether that had been the voice he had wooed her mother with. But he did look like Will now, she noted. There was something in his face that reminded her of Will, though his blue eyes were hers.

"Tell me how you became a wife and mother," he said when she remained silent. "Tell me so I can picture it, so I can imagine I was there."

They had reached a jumble of boulders and Bootstrap inclined his head, indicating that she should sit. She did so, smoothing her dress neatly around her, not looking at him. She toyed with the idea of stating the bald facts, the events and their dates, but when she looked up, he was sitting at her side, waiting patiently, and she couldn't do it.

She started at docking in Tortuga, then told him how she had acquired the gold from Barbossa and Jack, jumping when he laughed. She skipped over the months before she married James, but lingered over the births of her children and Barbossa and Jack's visits, slipping in anecdotes from Elizabeth's letters.

"Jack's got the Pearl now. Elizabeth said she heard Barbossa was in Singapore. It's only a matter of time before he comes after the Pearl again..." she tailed off, wondering what to say next.

"You waited how long to marry him?" Bootstrap asked, peering down the beach at James's tall figure.

"Just over three months," she said.

"Do you love him?"

"Yes. I…" she studied her fingers, slightly embarrassed. "I have loved him from the moment I met him."

"Then why wait months until you married him? Will and Elizabeth did not."

"I didn't think he loved me," she replied evasively. "We had always been friends. Then, when he convinced me that he did love me… I hardly felt I deserved it."

"Why would you think such a thing?"

"I – I chose him… Over my own father," she met his eyes at last. "Over you."

"Aye," he nodded. "Perhaps you did. And I'm glad of it. For if you had not, you would have hated me. And the woman I'd be meeting today would be a lonely one. No. 'Tis better that you are happy. That is all I ever wanted for you. That you should find greater happiness than my Caroline found with me. And he is a good man, I think, to save my daughter when I could not."

"You forgive me then?" she asked, feeling slightly dizzy.

"Forgive you?" he looked confused. "Victoria, I never blamed you."

She laughed suddenly and Bootstrap leaned back a little as the tears poured down her face and tapped her knee absently as she rummaged for a handkerchief. She wiped her face and shook her hair back, smiling, though her face was still red and blotchy. When she stood up, she extended her hand to him.

"Come and meet your grandchildren, Father."

"Will talks about you."

James didn't answer for a moment; he continued examining the knuckles Joanna had scraped on a rock. He ran his thumb over her knuckles and dropped a quick kiss on them.

"No harm done," he said, wiping the tears off her cheeks with his thumbs and kissing her forehead. "Off you go, darling."

He gave her a gentle nudge and she turned to run back to her twin, pausing only to wave at her grandfather. James straightened up and faced Bootstrap.

"Mister Turner," he said, nodding. "I assume your son doesn't think I am a good choice for his sister?"

Bootstrap waved his hand carelessly.

"He says you are a good man, though you never saw eye-to-eye."

"No," James allowed himself a slight smile. "He was always more rash than I."

"Yes," Bootstrap agreed, watching the children tumbling together with Will further down the beach. "I can imagine that. My daughter loves you very much, you know. She says she loved you from the moment she met you. And she was fourteen when she met you."

James shifted, embarrassed and looked away from Bootstrap.

"I know. Although I was not always aware of her feelings. Or mine, for that matter."

"And you love her?" Bootstrap had folded his arms now, watching James instead of the children.

"I would not have married her if I had not."

"No. But Will says you made an offer to Elizabeth."

"I did. Years ago now. Another lifetime," James felt himself bristling under his father-in-law's scrutiny and lifted his chin higher, never wavering in eye-contact.

"And yet you still say you love my daughter?"

"I do. Forgive me, Mister Turner, but I believe I know my feelings and my reasons better than you."

"Then explain to me. For I'd like to know that the man my daughter chose was worth it."

"That has tormented her," James said sharply, understanding exactly what Bootstrap meant. "Had I known how much it would devastate her, I would rather you had killed me."

Bootstrap raised his eyebrows slightly and shifted, unfolding his arms to tuck them in his pockets.

"I've already told her she chose the best course. She is as happy as I could wish and I have you to thank for it."

"You needn't thank me. I have been happy too. More than happy."

"No regrets then?"

"If you are referring to Elizabeth – no. None," James heard the irritation creep into his voice and struggled to quell it. "I – have always loved Victoria. Fool that I was, I chose to ignore how important she was in my life. I chose to honour society and my place in it above everything else. It was only when I returned to my old life, having known what it was to live free of such confinements that I realised her full value in my life. I do not expect you or Will to understand. I treated her badly – I did not show her the same loyalty that she showed me. That is my one regret. But she has forgiven me. And for that, I must have done something right."

"Aye," Bootstrap nodded, appraising him. "You are precisely the sort of man I would have chosen for her. You might have made mistakes, lad, but you're as straight as she is deep down. You've managed to make her happy for ten years – I did not manage two, though I loved her mother very much. You may not think much of me – I abandoned my wife and children to go pirating, something you'd never do – but I never forgot them. I always loved them."

"Father, George is determined that you must still have a barnacle somewhere," Victoria said, coming over.

"Then perhaps I ought to prove it to him," he laughed, rolling up his sleeves.

Victoria watched him walk away and then tiptoed slightly to murmur in James's ear, "What were you two talking about for so long?"

"Your father was – I think – trying to ascertain my intentions."

"Intentions?" Victoria raised her eyebrows. "Surely he's ten years too late?"

"As he himself pointed out – you are still his daughter. I would do the same for Katie and Joanna."

"And what did you tell him, James?"

"That I regretted nothing except hurting you. That I always loved you. He seemed content with that," she had slipped her arms around his waist and he ran his hands up her arms before going on. "Victoria… he said he told you that you had made the right choice, that day on the Dutchman..."

"He did say that, yes."

"For ten years, that has been the one dark spot; you know that, don't you? It has not affected our happiness or our children's, but I have always known it haunted you and I have been at a loss…" he trailed his hand along her shoulder, bringing it to rest at her neck.

"I know. I know you wanted to help me, but there was nothing you could do. I put it away, as best I could, until I could ask his forgiveness."

"But sometimes, you would fall so silent…"

"Yes," she stepped closer to him, tightening her arms around his waist. "James, the worst of it is, the thing I could not put from my mind, was that I did not regret it. That is, I regretted hurting him, but I did not regret choosing you over him. That is why I pulled away from you."

"I thought that it was because you wished to punish yourself for doing it."

"You were right. And I thought it wrong to marry the man whose life I did not regret valuing over my father's. But you... " she reached up to curl her fingers into his hair. "James, I've loved you since I was fourteen years old. And when you stayed to help me start the blacksmiths, you proved to me that you were worth it. If it were to be anyone that I chose over my own flesh and blood, it was not so wrong that it was you."

He kissed her, pulling her even closer and the shadow that drifted between them for ten years evaporated in the deep red of sunset. They slipped their arms around each others waists and wandered back to the others, who were roasting whelks on a fire. Will looked up when he saw them approach and gave his sister an approving smile.

"I think you'll make a blacksmith of him yet, Vicky."

The End.

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. I was very worried about posting an OC story because I know how unpopular they are, so your support and reviews really gave me the confidence to continue. If you want to read more from this particular AU, I've posted the Deleted Scenes. There's seven, all of which take place during and just after Curse of the Black Pearl because I felt that particular film got the short end of the stick in this fic because I was so desperate to get onto the next chapter and the action. All of them are James/Victoria, with the exception of the last one, which is Will, Elizabeth and Governor Swann.