azurelunaticLength: 500-600 words
Rating: G
Pairing(s): canon!
Spoilers: At World's End, through the end of the ending credits.
Disclaimer: These characters and their source do not belong to me. My interpretation of what happened to them, and the words I used to phrase that, do. They cast the actor; I picked out the name.
Summary: In the ten years that pass during the ending credits, Elizabeth is neither bored nor proper. She wondered when she stopped believing in government by habit and started believing in free will under the Code.
Notes: I couldn't go to sleep until I had written down the way I saw it happening. Some things aren't mutually exclusive; you just have to handle them right.
Elizabeth Turner remains the Pirate King, and has spent the intervening ten glorious years fighting the good fight and earning her mastery over the sea by the sweat of her brow and the strength of her back.
Baby Billy was not entirely surprising, and once he was weaned, he spent his formative years growing up in Shipwreck Bay at the knee of the elder Sparrow, learning the ways of the pirates. A ship is no place for a babe in arms, but Billy learned to climb before he learned to walk. Every now and then Jack Sparrow blows in and back out again, coming in drunk and leaving drunker than he came, teaching Billy some of the most vile personal habits and a way with words. As much as Elizabeth tries to discourage it, Billy will trail around after Jack like Cotton's parrot on Cotton's shoulder, and when it comes down to it, she can't really insist. She just prays that Billy will pick up all the good luck and none of the bad.
Elizabeth has made her own peace with the goddess of the waves. They're women together in the world of men. The sea is fickle, but somehow her ship finds the currents that run true and deep where other ships are lightly tossed aside. They call her a witch. No man under her command ever whispers aught ill of her.
They say the Pirate King appears to men before they die. They say if a man dreams of her kiss, he'll meet the Flying Dutchman within the month. They say the Pirate King hasn't aged a day in ten years, and won't age a day in another ten.
Elizabeth watches her son grow tall and strong. He is heir to things he cannot possibly understand. The seas grow more and more dangerous for pirates. A King has duties. Old wives who talk about herding cats should try to get a consensus out of pirates. She fears that even the concerted effort of the pirates working together won't be enough to hold off the steady march of the law. She wondered when she stopped believing in government by habit and started believing in free will under the Code. Sometimes she wonders if she's being a good mother. Most of the time she hopes she's being strong enough so there will be a future for her son that isn't dancing at the end of the hangman's rope.
It's been ten years, and Elizabeth stands on the cliffs with Billy, waiting. None of them will sleep today. She has sent a thousand kisses on the brows of a thousand dead men. She has whispered her hopes and fears into the sea. Has Will heard them? Surely he must have heard that they have a son. Surely one of the thousand bottles and letters and prayers has floated its way home. Dead men tell no tales to the living, but the captain of the Flying Dutchman is not quite alive.
Some year, she will fly away with him when he comes for her. She has counted the seconds until then against the beat of his heart.
