the Dalaverse

Nothing New, because dammit, it WILL be done. Angst, for which I sincerely apologize, but then! PotC --> fairytale! I wrote that bit ages ago and briefly flirted with the notion of making it into an actual fic, but I've got enough on my plate as it is.





Jack was deeply entrenched in a card game with Anamaria and Gibbs when it happened. He scowled at the little girl tugging on his arm.

“Shove off, child, ‘m winnin’.”

“By whose rules?” Anamaria demanded.

Idris glared at him, her face creased with what he suddenly realized was worry. “Is Will.” At the same time, a shout rang out for Jack from near the helm. Cards scattered everywhere as he leapt to his feet and forgot about his lucky hand.

“Man down!” the parrot squawked.

“Move!” he snarled at the knot of people gathered around Will, who was lying flat on the deck. He didn’t stir when Jack took his hand. “What happened?”

“I dunno, sir,” said Duncan, twisting his cap in his head. “‘e just...’e just fell, like.”

Jack gripped Will by the shoulders and shook him gently. “Wake up, lad.” Will’s head lolled to the side, but he didn’t stir. “Goddamit, Will!”

“Lemme try, Cap’n.” Gibbs nudged him aside, pulling a little vial out from his jacket pocket. Uncapping it, he waved it under Will’s nose.




A smell like rotting fish wafted into Will’s nostrils, pulling him back from oblivion. He gagged, then winced as the rest of his body protested the reawakening. His body had a habit of protesting many things these days.

He forced his unwilling eyes to open, fighting a sense of vertigo. Jack and Gibbs were bent over him, looking every bit as frightened as Elizabeth had the first time he’d fainted in front of her. He tried a reassuring smile, which only served to make their frowns deepen.

“I’m all –” Starting to sit up, he wavered and covered his eyes again. Bloody tropical sun –

“Easy, love,” Jack murmured, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders. “Let’s get you t’ bed.” Will couldn’t find the energy to protest or lend much of a hand as Jack and Gibbs helped him to the cabin. Once they’d laid him down on the wonderfully soft bed, Jack crooked his head at the door. Gibbs took the hint immediately, giving Will a quick pat on the arm before he left.

Will tucked a pillow beneath his head, wary of the storm in Jack’s eyes. Every muscle in his body was tightly coiled and Will knew he was itching to pace the width of the room. He made himself look as sweet and innocent as he could, mentally urging the baby to play along and stop battering at him.

Jack pressed his hands together in front of his torso. “William,” he said, dragging the word out with exaggerated patience. “Please. Tell me. What’s fucking going on?” His control completely frayed and he shouted the last few words.

“It’s nothing,” said Will, toying with the pillowcase. He shifted up, sitting back against the headboard, as his insides churned. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

“You passed out, darling,” said Jack in a clipped tone. He had succumbed to the urge to pace and his worn boot heels made more of a dragging sound than a tap. “That’s not normal. And you don’t...Will, you don’t look right.”

Will made a face at him. “I have a melon stuffed under my skin. I should hope I don’t look right.”

“I don’t mean –” Jack huffed in frustration and dropped down beside Will. “Look, it’s not just the belly and the fatigue and puffy feet – I know all that comes with th’ territory. It’s somethin’ about your mouth, your eyes...” Jack framed Will’s face with both hands, pressing their foreheads together. The throbbing in Will’s temples got worse. “Just tell me ‘f anything’s wrong.”

His breathing had the slightest hitch to it and his fingers curled as he drew them down Will’s neck.

“Nothing is wrong,” said Will. Jack’s head jerked up, his eyes narrowed and suspicious, and Will knew he wasn’t going to be able to put this off any longer. “...precisely.”

Jack immediately sat up, his posture as straight as that of the sour-faced tutor Elizabeth had chased off when she was fourteen. He looked at Will levelly. “Explain.” It was rare that he put his captain tone to use with his first mate, and even rarer that he did so in their bed.

Will leaned back, propping his sore feet on Jack’s knees. “It’s common with male pregnancies, according to Sanna. My body is well aware that I’ve forced something unnatural upon it, so it, ah, makes clear its displeasure – headaches, nausea, exhaustion, and yes, the occasional fainting spell. It started happening when I was in Port Royal. Idris says that she’s seen the symptoms before, and mine aren’t out of the ordinary.”

“That’s all?” Jack wanted to know. He was sitting perfectly still, which always made Will nervous. “You’re sure that’s all it is?”

Squirming a bit under his steady gaze, Will amended, “Well, it gets worse the closer I get. In a little while, I’ll want to start staying out of the sun, and it might not be easy for me to get out of bed.” He snorted, remembering countless nights spent drinking with Jack, mornings after where he’d wake up with no ill effects. “Believe me, I’m not looking forward to it.”

Jack laid Will’s feet carefully aside, rising slowly. He stared at a spot on the wall beyond Will’s head. “The closer you get to what, exactly? I’ve never understood what happens at the end of all this, lad – how we’re gonna bring this child into the world.”

You never asked, Will thought irritably, but this was at least something for which he had a sensible explanation. “The women told me – it’s not really a traditional birth, obviously, because I’m not built for it. The way things are laid out inside doesn’t make it possible for the baby to come out the way it got in, and in any case the pain would be...” He paused, puzzled by the way Jack suddenly turned away from him. “So they have to make a cut. And Sanna used more words than that, but they were mostly Spanish and I didn’t catch them. She kept saying sangre, and...sounded like pelican. Peli-something.”

“Peligroso.” Jack faced the door now, his head bowed.

Will beamed at him, although he couldn’t see it. Uneasiness was beginning to push physical discomfort from his mind. “That was it. What does it mean?”

“Peligroso means dangerous. Sangre is blood.” His voice was flat, his hands inert at his sides.

Will pulled the pillow up, tucked it beneath his chin. “Oh,” he said in a small voice.

Jack shook his head from side to side. When he spoke, his voice was very, very soft. “I should never’ve let you go through with this.”

“Let me?” said Will indignantly. “I seem to recall you saying that it was entirely up to me.”

He spun around, his eyes blazing and his face contorted, and Will felt a tiny thread of fear chill his blood. “That’s because I’m stupid! I’m stupid, an’ it’s all your fault! I didn’t bloody know because you didn’t bloody tell me what was what, did you? ‘F I’d realize what would happen, what you’d have to – Jesus, Will, do you understand how easily you could die because of this ill-begotten idea?”

Will pushed up on his elbows, matching him glare for glare and shout for shout. “Don’t talk to me about death. I watched my mother fade away with none but myself to care for her, I saw all the people on that cargo ship meet their ends from Barbossa’s cannons, I’ve spent two fucking years on board one of the most infamous pirate vessels in the Caribbean – how dare you treat me like some untried boy who’s never been marked or wounded or scarred!”

“Will, I –”

“Do you know what I’ve learned about death, Jack? I’ve learned that it comes upon us by random chance, whether we are good men or bad men or somewhere in between. I’ve learned that to die is a terrible thing, but to die with no purpose, no meaning, no love, nothing to protect – that is more terrible by far. And if I lose my life because of my decision, at least it will be because I stood up for something I believed in and wanted, not because I was too afraid to take chances.”

He fell back, pressing his palm to his hammering heart. There was not enough strength in him for such a display, and he could only try to still his breathing as Jack crumpled onto the bed beside him.

“Pretty as that sentiment is, love, I’d take no comfort in it if you were gone from me.”

Will bit his lip at the despair in Jack’s tone. Looking at his face, it was suddenly so easy to remember that he was nearly twice Will’s age – thirty-nine last October, which was certainly not old, and normally he didn’t appear anywhere near it. But now, with his eyes worried and sad, his brow furrowed, his lips thinned, he looked very weary, and Will was wracked with guilt for having caused it.

“Oh, Jack,” he whispered, reaching for him, “I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry for that.”

With a heavy sigh, Jack curled up against him, arms going around the bulge at his middle. “And I’m sorry for losing me temper, ‘specially with you in this condition. It’s just...” He pressed a tender kiss to Will’s distended navel.

“I know,” said Will, brushing his tangled hair back, rolling the beads and trinkets between his fingertips, wondering if the child would be terrified or fascinated by the unruly mess. “We’ll be back at the island in a few days. I think I’ll feel better there.”




Will didn’t improve when they reached the island. At first Sanna wanted to install him in the women’s tent, but after Jack pitched a fit about not being allowed inside, they set up a smaller, more private temporary home for them both.

He spent most of his time lying on a thickly padded mat, trying to rest in the brutal heat. Every morning and evening when the weather was cooler, Jack would coax him out for a walk along the beach. Although Will enjoyed the faint breeze and the waves lapping at his feet, he hated having to lean on Jack for support, the curious stares he got from the tribe. They weren’t hostile, but he shrank from them all the same.

For his part, Jack put on a sunny face, determined not to let the boy see how unsettled he was. Not even the worst of the mood swings stood on par with the gauntness of Will’s face, the way his hands trembled, the quickness with which he lost his breath. Even suffering so, Will was solicitous of the child within him, often losing himself in thought while his hands drifted over his belly.

It was miserably still one afternoon, one of those days when Jack had to steel his nerves in order to push the tent flap open and enter the dark, bare space. Will stirred from where he lay on the floor, lifting his head. His dark hair clung to his brow and he had stripped off his shirt.

“Water?” Jack knelt beside him, holding out the flask.

“Mmmm,” Will replied, swallowing nearly all of it in one gulp. It was too hot to press against Jack as he was wont to do, so he merely clung to his hand.

Jack smiled at him, deciding his color didn’t look any worse than yesterday. “Anything else you want, love?”

“No.” Will paused, eyes thoughtful. “Well...there is one thing.”

“Name it.”

He squeezed Jack’s hand. “Tell me a story?”

“You know all my stories,” said Jack.

“A new one, then,” Will suggested. “Please?”

Jack sighed, powerless against that pleading stare. “What sort of story?” He settled back into a cross-legged sprawl.

“A fairy tale,” said Will decisively.

“Ah, practice, is that it? Let’s see – where to begin...” Jack stroked his braided beard, warming to the prospect. It would get Will’s mind off of his discomfort, at the very least. “Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince –”

“Is that supposed to be me?” Will interrupted, a skeptical twist to his mouth. “Or you?”

Jack tapped his wrist in admonition. “He’s not supposed to be anyone. Do you want your story or don’t you?” Will nodded solemnly and Jack cleared his throat. “Anyway, like I was sayin’, once upon a time there was a handsome prince. Only he didn’t know he was a prince, see, because he lived in a little cottage with a poor woodcutter.”

“How did that happen?”

“When the prince was born, there was another lass in castle havin’ her babe and it didn’t survive the birth.” Belatedly he realized that this might not have been the ideal beginning, so he hastily added, “So the prince’s mam, the queen, she’s just had twins and she tells the midwife to give one baby to the poor woman with none.”

Thankfully Will only looked intrigued, not disturbed. “How did they choose which one to give up?”

“Nobody’d told her which was what yet, so she ordered ‘em not to and picked one with her eyes closed. The boy baby was given to the woodcutter’s wife, who told her husband he was their own, and the girl baby stayed in the palace to grow up a princess.”

“That doesn’t seem exactly equal.”

“Well, no, but the little prince had hisself a good life nonetheless, ‘cept some part of him knew that he was destined for greater things. There were days he’d creep off alone to a bluff overlookin’ the whole kingdom, just sit on his own and feel like his heart was too big for his small home, and there was something waiting for him beyond where the sun set.”

“Was he a good person?”

Jack grinned down at him, brushing fingertips over the back of his palm. “Aye, he was kind and generous and modest, and I b’lieve I already mentioned his stunning good looks. Had to beat the nearby village girls off wi’ a stick.”

Will snorted doubtfully. “What about the princess?”

“She grew up beautiful and brave, though perhaps a bit more headstrong than her folks would’ve liked. But she too had this ache in her like there was something she didn’t know yet, something she was meant to strike out on her own and find.”

“Didn’t they ever meet?”

“I’m gettin’ to that part. Now, when the princess and the prince what didn’t know he was had passed their eighteenth birthdays, a mysterious, dashing stranger came to the kingdom.”

“What a surprise,” said Will in a dry voice.

“Hush, whelp,” Jack scolded, imagination tumbling off into vast stretches of possibility. “This stranger was from a far-off land; though he claimed no kingdom as his own, he’d been born a rich and powerful baron. He was in the realm searching for an evil sorcerer who’d stolen his family’s most precious heirloom: a jewel set in gold.”

“Let me guess. It was a black pearl.”

“As a matter of fact, it was – but not just any pearl. No, this one was bigger’n me fist and flawless throughout. It was priceless no matter where it traveled, but that wasn’t why the baron chased it. It was an especial boon to his name, y’see, gave him all sorts of power, and he was lost without it. So he trailed the thief, who protected himself with a band of great stinking ogres. They ravaged town after town in their wake, including the one just outside the prince’s forest. His pa, or the man he thought was his pa, had been into town that day for market and he was cut down by the ogres. The wife having died of fever some years before, the prince suddenly found himself alone in the world. He packed what few things he had and began to make his way to the capital, to seek work and to warn the royal fam’ly about the raiders. Goin’ down the road one day, he ran into the baron, who had been working a delicate spell tryin’ to get a hold on the sorcerer and the stolen pearl. So his work upset, the baron challenges the young prince to a fair duel.”

“Are you sure that’s how it happened?”

“Positive. Now the prince had studied the blade with any and all knights passing through the village, and he’d had a lot of time on his hands to practice, because really his days weren’t too exciting. And he was young and limber and his blood ran hot, so though the baron was a skilled swordsman of many years’ experience, the duel ended in a draw. Once he’d gotten the prince to calm down a trifle, the two learned that they were bound for the same destination. They decided to travel together for safety.”

“I’m sure that was the baron’s only interest in the young, good-looking prince.”

The cruel lethargy had left Will’s eyes, and he looked so bright and animated that Jack had to pause to kiss his nose. “He was intrigued, to be sure, but the lad had such a keen mind and a purity like he’d never seen, and he knew a quick tumble wasn’t in the cards for the two days it would take to get to the palace. But as they walked along the road, they talked and they joked and they got along quite famously – so much so that the prince began to wonder if shyness might not be the only reason he’d been running away from the village girls for years.”

“Speaking of girls, I don’t think the princess would appreciate being left out of the tale for so long.”

“By the powers, you’re right,” Jack exclaimed, smacking his own knee. “She was a spunky lass going through scads of suitors by the time the prince and the baron arrived. They’d managed to beat the sorcerer’s gang, but only just: the palace was attacked about ten seconds into their audience with the royal family. Ten seconds, however, was enough time for the prince to spot the princess and –”

“He can’t fall madly in love with his own sister!”

“Ah, I see you fear the very thing the baron feared when the two young things locked eyes. It’s not strict accurate to say that the prince fell in love with her, but he did get this shock right at that very second that she was part of the great something he’d gone out into the world to seek. And the princess, she looked back at him and she knew it too. They were connected from the beginning and they always would be. Anyone looking could see that plain as day. Anyhow, ‘fore either the baron or the prince could get a word in about their respective troubles, the sorcerer’s ogres come crashing into the royal chamber. The brave knights of the realm were doin’ their steel-plated best to protect their people, but ogres are notoriously hard to kill. Dumb as rocks, too, but they had the sorcerer lookin’ in through his magic crystal. He spotted the princess and quicker’n you can blink, they had the girl tucked in a sack and carted away. Once the smoke cleared, the king and the queen begged for their most courageous to rescue the stolen princess. The prince immediately offered his services, as did the baron on the basis that it would lead him to the sorcerer.”

“And he’d get a chance for some more –” Will yawned hugely, throwing his head back on the pillow. “– staring at the prince’s rear?”

“So cynical for one so young. There were other volunteers, too,” he continued, softening his voice as Will’s face got drowsier. “A young knight rallied a number of his compatriots around him. He was in love with the princess, y’see, but too damned much of a coward to actually speak to her. So they all ride off after the evil sorcerer...” Will’s eyelids fluttered closed. “And perhaps we’ll leave the conclusion of this tale for another day.”

The boy frowned, forcing himself back awake. “No, I want to hear the end. Just...quickly, if you please?”

“All right then, the whittled-down version. They find the sorcerer and the lass, she helps them save the day and the incomparable jewel, the knight professes his undying love to her, and the baron is free to bend the young prince back in a breathtaking kiss before they ride off into the sunset.”

Will tucked his hands under his head. “That’s a good ending,” he said, eyes closed once more. “Happy ever after.”

“Aye,” said Jack, tucking a curl behind his ear, feeling his throat tighten. “Aye, that’s how it was, and how it shall ever be.”

“Promise?” Will murmured.

He was asleep before he caught Jack’s reply. “You don’t know how much I wish I could, lad.”