~ Second Chances ~

"Not dead?"

"Not dead." A smile lit the man's face, and there was something about his eyes, weary but very much aware. Unlike the last time they'd met.

His brain whirled with a hundred questions, but the effort of speaking...

"D'you remember I near killed you?" The man's smile slipped.

"Yes." His voice barely a croak.

"Name's Bill Turner - Bootstrap Bill. Will's da." Bill nodded, and went on in a slow, soothing tone. "Aye, you didn't have any idea of that when you were in command here, did you? I was just one of Jones' fishy gobs, I suppose. I was real bad off when we last met, I'm sorry to say, though my boy says it all had to do with destiny and that heathen goddess, Calypso. We're still on the Dutchman, by the by, but my boy is captain now, fine as they come. Jones did him to death, same as I near did for you, but Jack Sparrow had the heart and helped Will to stab it."

More questions, but one surfaced above the others. "Elizabeth?"

Bill positively smirked. "She's the Pirate King. And my boy's wife. Seems Barbossa married 'em during the Battle of the Maelstrom. Don't know how legal that is with God or man, but after the Dutchman and the Pearl blew Beckett to smithereens, the two had their one day ashore, and it took. We hear she's with child. Will was that overset he couldn't be with her, but then we happened on Jack Sparrow, half dead in a sinking dingy, the fool. Will sent him back to the Cove, to take care of Elizabeth. And she of him, I daresay. Lord knows he needs it. Made Will a mite easier, on both counts."

It hurt to laugh.

"Easy there, Admiral," said Bootstrap. "You're healing, but you ain't there yet. Rest, that's the ticket."

The laughter had completely died away. "Not 'Admiral'."

"No. I suppose not," agreed Bootstrap. "Norrington?"

"James," he said. "It's James."

*

"You're sure this is what you want?" Turner asked. "The whole world is out there, I can take you anywhere."

James had been gaping (there was no other word for it) at the majesty of the extinct caldera that formed the walls of Shipwreck Cove, and at the startling, dilapidated magnificence that was Shipwreck City, rising tier on colorful tier in the Cove's midst. The waters around them were settling to glass again, after the Dutchman's roiling, foamy entrance, which had set the inhabitants of Shipwreck City scurrying every which way, like an anthill poked with a stick. This had seemed to amuse Turner, though his eyes were mostly drawn to one particular area, the largest wharf, where two rakish ships were already docked. There was still room for the Dutchman to tie off, however, and it appeared that's where they were headed.

James turned to Will. "You've asked me that before."

"And your answer's the same, I take it? Well, I must admit I'll rest easier, knowing it's not only Jack watching over her. He's a bit..."

"Insane?"

Will grinned. "Flighty. He and Elizabeth seem too much alike, in some ways. Though not in others."

"Yes," James agreed, dryly. He thought of the two... pirates. It had to be admitted that Elizabeth was truly one of them now. No longer the governor's daughter, a well-born scion of aristocracy, eminently suited to marriage with a rising officer of the Royal Navy.

And yet, a few minutes later, as she boarded with Sparrow and he watched her astonishment give way to joy, and then tears, he wondered if perhaps this beautiful, fierce, loving creature was not what she'd always been meant to be.

"James!" she gasped and rushed to him, embraced him, and wept. It was damnably awkward, and like a dream come true at the same time. He closed his eyes and laid his cheek against her hair.

Sparrow's velvet growl penetrated the reverie, after a few moments. "Thought you was dead."

James glanced up. Cocksure as ever, looking down his nose with his usual hauteur, the kohl-lined eyes sparking, lips fighting a grin. James said, "So sorry to disappoint you, Sparrow."

The grin had its way. "S'alright, James-me-lad. Lizzie missed you."

Elizabeth straightened. "More, much more than that. James, have you been on the Dutchman all along? Why didn't you tell us?" She turned from James to her husband and back again, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

But it was Bootstrap Bill who answered. "Didn't think he was going to make it. Took a mort of care to see him through, but it was my duty, so to speak, seeing I'd near killed him myself. And after, well, a man doesn't get a second chance at life every day, does he?"

Elizabeth nodded, and looked up at James. "This is the choice you've made?"

"It is," James said. "I lay my sword at your feet, ma'am. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I understand the sword your husband made for me was lost in the depths."

After it had killed its maker. All of them knew it, though no one spoke the words.

Elizabeth said, "I accept your service, in all truth."

"And I'll make you another sword," Will said, with a smile.

"Drinks all around! It's a pirate's life for you, James." Sparrow chuckled, and held out his hand.

It was a great concession on Sparrow's part. James had taken the heart, leaving Jack and everyone on the Pearl helpless against the Kraken, and then had given the heart to Beckett, an error in judgment that had cost many more lives. Too many.

But there was something of truth about that 'touch of destiny' Will spoke of, too. And about second chances.

"So it seems," James said, resigned, but, prodded by memory and mischief, he gripped Sparrow's strong, fine-boned hand too firmly and too long, as he had done on that dock in Port Royal so long ago. Sparrow's eyes widened a little in alarm, and it was James grinning now, his first in a very long time.

~.~