A/N: Okay, so I'm a rotten jerk for making you guys wait SO LONG for an ending to this fic. I just hadn't ever thought of a perfect way to end the damn story after I lost my notes. But…seeing AWE and what not has definitely put me into a piratey mood. If that's a word. So here's the conclusion. Hope you all enjoyed!

Chapter 11: Light at the End

"Come now son, you should get some rest. Wot of yer little squirt? She's been wonderin' where here daddy's at." For the second time that morning Jack was at Will's side with little Emily in his arms trying to coerce the concerned husband away from his sleeping wife after his nearly two day stint at her side.

The child's delighted smile at seeing her mother faded quickly as she reached out but was denied admittance to the bed Elizabeth was lying on.

"Not until I know she's safe, Jack." Though he did move his eyes away from his slightly pale and sleeping wife to fix them on his wiggling six-month-old daughter. A small smile formed as he reached out to her, her body pushing away from Jack's immediately as she snuggled into his chest.

Jack left as quietly as he'd come, intending on bringing the starving man something to eat.

"We almost lost her, love," Will sighed, his voice a mere whisper against the soft, dark curls of Emily's head. Placing unknowing kisses into her hair, he talked to himself through a conversation with his child. "I was so scared, Emi, so scared."

Her coo made the blacksmith chuckle through a small sob as he pulled back to look into the piercing blue eyes of his baby. "Oh, so your beginning to talk back, eh? Well yes, little one, your daddy was scared. I…I guess now I know what it was like for Elizabeth when she was told that I'd passed away."

Another gurgle.

"Well…that's not a happy story baby, maybe we'll tell you when you are a bit older. Seeing her fall like that was…heartbreaking. I don't think I could survive without her, Emily. I don't think I could be a father without her beside me."

Small whimpers were his answer as she stuck her thumb in her mouth with a sigh, her stomach rumbling beneath her pajamas – which Will just noticed were on backwards.

"Did Uncle Jack dress you, Emily?"

Setting her on the bed with a sigh, making sure he wasn't too constricting to Elizabeth as she slept soundly beside them. Undressing the infant and unpinning her diaper, he grumbled as he spotted a fresh cloth diaper across the room.

"I don't suppose there's any point in me saying 'sit still' is there?" He smiled, her single sliver of a tooth shone in the light of the room as she delighted in so much attention from her father after two days of his absence.

Standing and moving across the cabin quickly, he turned back with the folded cloth and pin in hand as the sight on the bed stopped him in his tracks.

Emily had rolled herself over – a new trick that frustrated the parents each time a diaper or clothing change was needed – and was trying to push herself up on her forearms. Once up, she bounced a bit before slipping back onto her stomach. Trying once more, she was up on her hands as her legs finally moved where they needed to be and she took her first scoots up to where Elizabeth was lying, his wife's hand tucked against her cheek as she lay in an almost fetal position.

"Mmmm," Emily mumbled through pursed lips as she plopped onto her naked bottom next to her mother's chest. Leaning back with a light giggle, her hands playfully grabbing her toes, she tipped back into Elizabeth's chest a couple of times before reaching out and setting a surprisingly gentle hand to the sleeping woman's cheek.

"Mmmm," she almost ordered, pushing herself up in a kneeling spot. Hovering over her face, the leaned in and placed a gentle smack with her lips against Elizabeth's cheek.

"Darling, let your mum sleep." Though Will was moved almost to tears, he didn't want his wife waking before she'd healed completely.

Quickly dressing his squirmy daughter, he felt his shoulders begin to droop. He'd been fighting sleep for almost two days to make sure that his face was the first thing she saw after her ordeal, and though he had been good to his word so far, he was fast losing the battle.

'Perhaps a quick nap, if only to appease Jack.'

Walking around the room with little Emily against his chest, he felt her begin to slip into dreamland with her thumb stuck in her mouth and her bright blue eyes closing more and more after each blink. Finally, once she was dead weight against his forearm and shoulder, he set the slumbering child into the middle of the bed beside Elizabeth before slipping out of his shoes and shirt and sliding in beside his sleeping family.

Elizabeth woke slowly, her mind in a haze as she attempted to figure out where she was. The last thing she remembered was the fight in the cavern, and that was a drastic change from her current surroundings.

Hearing a soft snore, she rolled carefully over and spotted her daughter tucked in the arm of her husband as they both slept. Running a soft hand over both cheeks she sat up, stiffness in her chest taking away her breath for a brief moment.

"That'd be the wound I'll bet."

Jumping, Elizabeth fixed her eyes on Jack's deep almost black orbs as he sat in the corner of the room. Feet propped up on the ornate table in the middle of the living space, he tipped his hat back to look at the young wife.

"What wound?" Her breathy voice was quiet as she tried to keep from waking her sleeping family.

"You don't remember? Well…during the escapade on said cursed island, you took a blade to the chest."

'A what?!'

"Don't look so surprised, 'Lizabeth. If it weren't for Turners one and two, we'd be preparin' your funeral. Well, it's good to see you're awake. I'm off to make sure me crew knows where the devil we're goin'. Nice to have you back, love."

Standing with a frown, she crossed the room with a hand massaging her aching chest while the other reached out to dust off the mirror in the corner. Opening the front of her dress quickly, the laces hanging down over her stomach, she saw the hideous purple/pink scar that marred the center of her sternum between her breasts.

With a gasp of pain and horror, tears leapt from her eyes as she leaned heavily against the wall and cried. Startled when two strong arms wrapped around her middle, the comforting feeling of her husband's body cradling hers, she turned to see his concerned eyes filled with hope, love, and a certain bit of despair.

No words were exchanged as Will nodded slowly, his hand resting over hers that covered the wound on her chest. Pushing herself into his arms while his pulled her close, they cried together for what they could have lost before making their way to the bed and sitting quietly beside one another.

"How close was it, Will?"

"You were no longer part…part of this world, love. It wasn't until my father and Jack brought up the Vial that I even entertained the thought of holding you close to me once more."

Reaching a gentle hand out Elizabeth soothed the tears from his cheek before pressing hers to his shoulder.

"By some strange fate, darling, we have a second chance. Let's not talk of it again." Her words were contradictory as her hand moved back up to rub at the puckered flesh of her chest.

"The scar will fade in time." Reaching out and moving her hand away from the ugly reminder, his own moved up to cup her cheek before his lips descended over her own.

They were neither gentle nor rough, merely desperate. Drinking in the essence of his wife, they were parted by a giggle from the bed. Pulling away slowly, they fixed shining eyes on their little girl who was wide awake and sitting on her padded bottom. Tipping forward and catching herself on wobbly, chubby arms, she once more pushed her legs out and took a few awkward scoots toward her parents on the opposite edge of the bed.

"When did you start that, angel?" Elizabeth laughed while reaching out and scooping her daughter up into her arms. Cradling her close, the infant was ecstatic at the attention she was finally getting from her mother as she clung to her shoulders and gurgled into her hair.

Will delighted in seeing her hold Emily once more. As the thought of never seeing them together again weighed on his mind, he fondly remembered his wife's words after his own near-death experience the year before.

"You promised never to leave me, and I now grant the same promise to you. Even in death my heart will be yours, for it's always belonged to you. Our love will continue past death, I swear it; we'll never be without each other."

"Will…can you catch her?" Elizabeth shouted from the washroom as a wet, soapy and naked two-year-old flew into the reading room where Will was reading.

With a laugh, he set his book down as Emily all but jumped into his lap with a giggle.

"Momma, no." Her two favorite words uttered in one breath as Elizabeth waddled into the room with a hand cradling her large stomach.

"She's getting too fast for me, you'll have to take up bathing her."

A large wet spot on the from of her dress was a testament to the difficulties she was facing by trying to bathe a wiggling two-year-old and carry their second child at almost eight months along.

"Worry not love, I'll take it from here." Lifting the toddler into his arms and pressing a loving kiss to his tired wife's brow, Emily was carried and deposited back into the ornate tub down the hall.

"Daddy, no. No baff."

"Yes, darling, you must take a bath. You're far too pretty for you to run around with dirt all over your face. Look…it's a boat."

Lifting the wooden toy boat he'd carved for the infant, she laughed and splashed as it floated along the surface.

"Unca Jack!"

Will played with his daughter at the same time as washing her hair and body, deftly pulling her out of the luke-warm water and into a fluffy towel. After getting her dried off and dressed into a little sleeping gown, he and his wife read her a short story as she nodded off. Tucking her in, they themselves decided it was about bedtime.

"How does your back fare, love? Still aching?" Pulling her into the circle of his arms, his hand massaging her lower back, she groaned and leaned her head against his chest.

"That feels wonderful,"

Will grinned and set her on the edge of the bed as he undressed, tugging his cotton sleeping trousers over his hips before pulling the blankets back and tucking her in much the same way he had his daughter. Pressing a loving kiss to her lips and another to the bulge of her stomach, he doused the lamps before joining her.

"What do you think we shall have, boy or girl?" she asked as she tried to get comfortable on her back – which was nearly impossible since she was more accustomed to sleeping on her sides.

He thought carefully and turned to face her with a hand rubbing her stomach gently. "I care not, as long as it is healthy. Though would you hold it against me for secretly desiring a boy?"

"Of course not. It's someone to pass your legacy onto."

"Well, I can do that with Emily as much as I could with a son, but I believe that having a daughter makes me feel like a daddy and having a boy would make me feel like a father."

"Oh…so you will be much more manly if I bear you a son?"

Will laughed, kissing her cheek before settling into his pillow. "What do you wish for then?"

"Another girl, if any reason, just to outnumber you even more by women."

The child in her womb kicked into her ribs, causing a familiar dull throb in the scar that still lingered between her breasts. Rubbing it gently, Will frowned into the darkness of the room.

"Kicking again?"

"This child knows nothing of night or day, nor when it would be unpleasant to be kicked in the ribs." Will's hand set out to rub her belly once more, and his actions seemed to soothe the restless child.

"We will meet them soon enough, let's sleep. We've a long day chasing Emily ahead of us."

"It's your fault, teaching her to walk."

Will laughed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tucking her head into his arm. "Please darling, that child did not learn to walk. She progressed from crawling to running with no slowing down in between."

Elizabeth nodded with a yawn, her eyes drooping as their said their goodnights and slipped into slumber.

The day finally arrived when they were introduced to their son, the screaming little ball of energy making his way into the world after fifteen hours of painful labor for Elizabeth. After the two were cleaned and dressed, Will sat on the edge of the bed with his boy in his arms as little Emily peeked over his arm.

"Baby!" she squealed, looking to her mother for approval.

"Yes it is darling; that is our new baby."

"Mine?"

"Sort of, love, it's your baby brother."

"Buver."

The parents smiled proudly as they coddled their children close, the topic of a name arising.

"I don't want him to become William Turner the Third, what name shall we give him?"

"I've always been fond of Jack," a deep, slurring voice rang from the doorway as the new parents looked up, surprised to see their friend in their home with no word of his arrival from the servants or the pirate himself.

"Unca Jack!" Emily squealed, jumping off the bed – tripping on the edge of her dress only once – and rocketing herself against the pirate's legs.

Lifting her up with ease and flying her about, he settled and made his way over to the bed to see the new infant.

"Puckered little squirt, idn'he? I still fink Jack is a perfect name for a little boy. Worked out for me, eh?"

Elizabeth and Will smiled as they lay the child in the middle of the bed, his arms flailing about outside of the blanket showing off a faint but recognizable birth mark. A circle flanked by a sliver of dark skin on his forearm looking suspiciously like Jack's branding of a 'P' was clearly visible against his pale, pink skin.

"Well I'll be…look at that. 'E be a pirate after all! Sail the ole seas wif Uncle Jack, won't ya boy?"

"Easy now Jack, he's only an hour old. It may be a bit premature to write up his life story. However…Jack is a fine name. And you have done so much for us."

"Aye, Jack. Though you're usually more trouble than it's worth, it'd be an honor to name our son after you. As long as you wait until he's a little older before filling his head with adventures on the high seas." Will conceded, running a callused finger across the 'P' shaped birthmark on his sons arm.

"Worry not William, I shall be tried and true to the boy and let him at least reach the age of six before skillfully soiling his precious innocent mind. Though, with the trouble you two can get in on your own, I've a feelin' we'll be seein' each other real soon."

Tipping his hat and bidding the family farewell, he sauntered out into the hallway with a jingle from the odds and ends hanging from his person, Elizabeth and Will watching him go.

"Was that a wise decision, love? Naming him after a pirate?" She lifted the tiny boy into her arms as his mouth sought out her breast for his first meal.

"Not a pirate, darling, a Captain. Maybe you'll be a captain some day son," he commented, running a hand over his cheek as he fed, little gurgles and grunts coming from his suctioned lips, "Captain Jack Turner. I like the sound of that."

A/N: YAY! We're officially done with the third installment to the Turner series! There may be a little vignette or two that can be added later on (I spy mischief between the two Turner children), but other than that this is a conclusion! Again, sorry for making you all wait for SO LONG! It was rather unfair. Not to mention that my writing style has changed a bit since I'd written the last chapter of LS. Oh well. Hope you all enjoyed, and if the purple button below scares you, e-mail me here: YOU ALL!

-Jeanie