Well, another one hit me. I don't think it as strong as the others, but I certainly hope you enjoy it anyway. Thank you to everyone who continues to read my other stories and, especially, to those of you who tell me what you think, good and bad.

Life After Death

Jack rounded a bend in the wide dirt path and he could hear the pounding of a hammer echo against the cliff walls. As the house came into view, Jack stopped. For the first time since that far off day, Jack saw him. Will. The whelp of so many years ago, the pirate, the boy and the man all wrapped in one.

"How goes it, mate?" Jack asked, coming up quietly behind him, leaning curiously over Will's shoulder. Will jumped and turned to swing the hammer. Jack ducked just in time.

"Damn it, Jack!" But he was smiling. Will put his hand out and helped Jack off the ground.

"Still trying to get yourself killed, I see."

Jack gave a grouchy half smile as he firmly placed his hat back on his head. "Part of my charm."

Will grinned and just looked at him for a moment. Jack looked back expectantly.

"Need a drink?" Will asked, as if ten years had never passed.

"Thought you'd never ask, mate! Don't mind if I do."

He followed Will into the kitchen, looking around him warily. "And where is the devilish Captain Turner this fine morning?" he asked as casually as he could. There were just some things a man didn't recover from and the Locker was one. No qualms pirating with the girl, but he always remembered she was a pirate and a girl. Scary combination, that.

"Elizabeth and William are at the beach." That was all Will said as he gathered glasses and rum from the cabinet. Jack noticed the level in the bottle hadn't changed since his last visit and he grinned. Elizabeth was nothing if not true to her principles.

Will handed him his glass and sat across from him at the worn table. He still said nothing.

"Cat got your tongue, young William?" Jack asked. This was not the talkative, annoying, know-it-all Will of years before.

Will's smile was self-conscious. "Elizabeth asks the same thing. It's been a long time since I've been in talking society, Jack. Takes some getting used to."

"You've been back on dry land for three months, mate. Have you been letting her talk your ear off all that time? I love the dulcet tones of a fine woman like the next man, but mate, there's only so much you can take."

Will smiled but didn't respond. He truly was a far more subdued version of his younger self. Jack wondered if it was age or experience that had changed him so.

"Well, mate, if you can stand her, you're welcome to her." He paused. "So why are you not on the beach with the lady, wading romantically through the warm, lapping waves?"

Across the table, Will looked uncomfortable as he took a swig from his rum. "There's work to do here."

"Work to do every where, mate. No reason to volunteer for it."

"Someone has to do it."

Jack put his feet up on the chair next to him and balanced precariously, tilting his chair back. He put his hands behind his head. "Suit yourself."

There was silence in the kitchen. Jack, who was never ill at ease unless death was imminent, had nearly fallen asleep when Will spoke. Damn the boy! This was the Will he remembered. No sense of timing whatsoever.

"I'm not sure what I'm doing here, Jack."

"I know you didn't do it much before, but it's called rum. Nice stuff, that."

"You know what I mean, Jack."

Jack peeked out of one eye and looked at Will. Sighing, he swung his feet off the chair and settled back. Loftily he said, "You've been sailing the seas for ten years. Sailing the guilty and the innocent to a fate beyond." Here Jack paused. "Have I mentioned how happy I am that I haven't had to lay eyes on you these last ten years?"

Will let out a puff of air that could have been a laugh. "I know what I've been doing. I don't know what I'm doing now."

"Living the fine, upstanding life of a father and husband. As horrible and reprehensible the thought is to me, I imagine it's right up your alley. Get on with it." He tried to return to his nap.

"What do you mean?"

Jack rolled his eyes, resigning himself to being forced awake. "You're here, hammering…things into things, when the wifey and young whelp are somewhere else. Now, I think that sounds like an excellent way to do things, but, let's be honest here, mate, you are definitely not Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Thank God for that," said Will with a hint his old sarcasm. Jack grinned.

"Couldn't agree more, mate. More rum?"

Pouring a healthy amount in to the glass, Jack stood up and began wandering around the kitchen. He rubbed a finger along a window sill and looked shocked at the dirt. "You need better maids."

Feeling pretty confident that any soot on Jack's hand had been there long before he entered the house, Will just shook his head with a smile.

"Now, let's see if we can figure out the problem. Power of speech seems to have disappeared but not everyone was as interested in what you had to say as you thought, so that isn't much of a hardship. At least not to the rest of us."

Jack swung around, waving a finger in Will's face. Will was scowling. "Issues in the bedroom, then, is it? Can't say as I blame you for that—she is a bit off-putting."

Will stood up, angry. Same old Jack. Jack dodged around him and continued his inventory of the kitchen.

"Well, if that's not it, then you're on your own, mate. Ten years is a long time. Maybe your bonnie lass doesn't hold your heart strings anymore?"

Will swung at him with a strong fist. Jack ducked as quickly as he had earlier and grinned. "Guess that's not it, then."

Fiercely quiet, Will said, "She's always held my heart. Literally. That won't change."

Jack looked him over and waved his hands as if dismissing the concept. "Right then. To each their own. You got me, mate. I'm out of ideas."

Sitting back down, Will looked at him seriously. "I don't know how to talk to them, Jack. Do you have any idea what it was like on that ship for ten years? Don't get me wrong, I'd do it for a thousand if it meant coming home to her at the end, but now that I'm here….I don't know what to do. They have these amazing things to share with me, that I've missed. What can I say to them in return? It's not exactly a fairy story."

"More to life than death, mate. I'd think you of all people would know that."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning you're here, hammering things into things, while the whelp and wife are somewhere else."

Jack finally slunk back into his seat and propped his feet up on the chair, determined now to get his nap. Will just watched him.

Will was gone when Jack woke up a few hours later. After pulling himself up from his tipped chair, Jack made a beeline for the door. He intended to be in port for only a little longer—the Pearl was to dock soon and he had a ship to steal. As he made his way back down the dirt road, feet leading him faithfully to the tavern, he could hear three laughing voices making their way back up the beach path.

Jack stopped to listen for a moment, and then shook his head, baffled. There was no accounting for taste in this world.

Finis