the Dalaverse

Ha! I knew I had more mpreg in me! Hmmm, that sounds dirty. Anyway, moving on.



Nothing New Under the Sun (VIII)



Will was in the captain’s cabin with Idris, doing mathematics with dried beans, when the whooping started up outside.

“Stay here, please,” he said to the little girl, punctuating his meaning with a hand held out. Idris sighed but sank back down, muttering to herself and her piles of beans, as he slipped out through the door.

He found Jack at the helm, flipping a spyglass in one hand and grinning like a madman. Already tired and irritable, Will found himself all the more annoyed by the crackles of energy surrounding the captain. “What’s going on?”

“Fresh plunder!” He spun Will around and tilted the spyglass up to his eye, managing to bang him in the nose first. “See ‘er there?” Will squinted though the lens at the fuzzy black dot, which revealed itself as a small ship as Jack fiddled with the glass. “Spanish ’s my guess, though you’d best lay your money down now afore we catch up to her.”

“We’re attacking that ship?”

Jack’s eyes rolled so severely that they might have dropped right out of the sockets. “We’re pirates, love, or have you forgotten so quickly? Hold’s been a little light for some time now, and the rum’s dwindling quicker to compensate. Whatever’s aboard that little lass should do us quite nicely.”

Will looked away from Jack to the ship on the horizon. He couldn’t pin down the sudden swell of uneasiness he felt. It wasn’t cowardice; heavens knew he’d been active in his share of the Pearl’s raids, including a few that had taken a turn for the violent. He’d killed his first man on one such occasion, a captain who’d whimpered surrender and then made a stab at Jack before they could confiscate his weapons. And he’d found it much easier, after getting to know each and every man who sailed beside him, to defend this ship and her crew without hesitance if they were met with resistence. Will never took the blood he shed lightly, but he certainly was not afraid to shed it.

The ship was probably a merchantman and whatever guns she carried were no match for those of the Pearl. He had his sword and his pistol in his belt, an able-bodied crew at his back, and Jack at his side. There should have been adrenaline pumping through his veins, not these panicky nerves.

“What?” Jack’s unusually sharp tone shook Will out of his thoughts. The captain was peering curiously at young Patricks, who had a round pink face and lank blond hair. Patricks had taken something of a shine to Will, a fact Jack used to tease him mercilessly until Will got to badgering him about exactly how he’d met Gibbs. That topic of discussion always shut him up immediately.

Patricks was twisting a finger in his ear, clearly uncertain about questioning Jack. “It’s just, cap’n...what about Mr. Turner?”

“What about Mr. Turner?” Jack asked, whipping his head around to raise his eyebrows at Will, who merely shrugged.

Worry was plain in Patricks’ eyes as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I mean...” He cleared his throat and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I mean the baby, sir.”

The man’s words acted like a match to the feelings Will had been unable to name up till that point; a ferocious protectiveness turned his muscles rigid and made his hands clench into fists.

“Feller’s right.” Anamaria, slinking up from where she’d been listening in, nodded smartly to Will. “First time we ever got a body on board what can’t protect itself.”

“But it’s inside Will!” Jack protested, boggling at her. "And the boy can handle himself, as we all know.”

“There’s Idris, too,” Will put in, smiling at Patricks. It touched him that the crew had warmed so quickly to his strange predicament. Not a one had come forth to condemn him, Jack, or the island magics that had made it possible, and he even found himself being cosseted by the hardened pirates who’d grown fond of him. Jack gritted his teeth and tolerated hands on his first mate, but he’d drawn the line at offers of foot rubs, declaring that only the captain had the right to administer them. There had been a formal statement issued and an oath sworn by everyone aboard one Sunday morning.

Patricks blushed and retreated. Will made a quick decision to personally oversee his next visit to a brothel, because something wasn’t being done correctly.

Jack suddenly snapped his fingers, looking pleased with himself as he normally did. “I’ve got it. We’ll lock Will and the scrap down in the hold during the capture so no harm’ll come to either.”

“Excuse me?” Will planted fists on his hips, indignant at this blow to his pride. “I’ll not be hidden below like a woman. Sorry,” he added quickly as Anamaria’s brows drew together and she seemed to be seriously reconsidering the drunken promise that she wouldn’t hit him while he was pregnant.

“All right then, stay and fight if you wish –”

“No!” Will snapped, holding a hand to his belly. “I won’t expose my child to the slightest risk of violence, not when I can help it.”

Jack took a deep breath, steepling his hands in front of his chest as he called up reserves of patience. Will snorted at his melodrama. “Then please tell me, dear heart,” he said, very slowly and carefully, “what exactly you would have me do, if you won’t go below and you won’t fight.”

“Let it go,” said Will.

“Let what go?”

“The ship,” Will replied matter-of-factly. “Let it pass without attacking. Then there’ll be no danger to anyone.”

For a moment Jack simply stared at him. “Let...it...go,” he repeated as if he were having trouble making sense of the words. Will nodded, satisfied with this solution.

“Will,” said Jack softly, reaching out a hand to pat his shoulder. “I understand where you’re comin’ from, I really, really do. But wouldn’t it be sensible if we just kept you in a safe place, completely out of the action, totally secure in the knowledge that I would never, ever let anything happen to you or the babe?” His eyes got rounder and mistier with every second passing, sincerity pitching his voice low as he leaned in close.

“No,” said Will, refusing to be manipulated no matter how adorable Jack could be when he put his mind to it.

“Is this about last night?” A hint of a whine crept into Jack’s voice despite his obvious attempts to control himself. He turned to Anamaria and used his hands in spirited defense. “‘Cause I swear, I asked the whelp time and again if he was tired and he just yelled at me to keep suck–”

“Jack,” said Will sharply. Stark evidence of their nocturnal – and all right, frequently diurnal – activities aside, he hated the knowing smirk on the woman’s face.

Jack turned to regard him with a cocked eyebrow and a firmly set mouth, abruptly serious. “‘M still your captain. I could order you below.”

“You could,” Will conceded, and Jack’s eyes lit with hope. “But I’d die before I forgave you for it.”

His face crumpled as he gave up all pretense of rational behavior. “But look at her!” he cried, jabbing a finger at the unsuspecting victim. “She’s fat with cargo – ridin’ low –”

Will and Anamaria both scrunched their faces up at his choice of wording, which was questionable at the best of times but doubly so when he was too distressed to notice their reactions.

“It’d be so easy to take her! She’s practically dead in the water!” At this point he’d actually begun hopping up and down with frustration, looking very much like an irate monkey.

Will told him calmly, “I’ve said what I have to say. This is your ship, your choice...” And your child was implied by the hands he folded over his mid-section. Jack’s gaze dropped and he closed his eyes tightly, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

“Fine,” he said, the strain evident in his tone. “You win.” He waved a hand in the direction of Anamaria and Gibbs, who had been slowly coming closer while trying not to draw attention to himself. “Take care o’ it. I’m going above.” His eyes were still closed when he slipped his boots off and began to climb into the shrouds.

Will looked again at the ship, drawing away now with no clue of how lucky she’d been, before he returned to the cabin to nap with Idris curled up against his back. He dreamed about being pulled from the water, only this time it was Jack and a grown-up Elizabeth who knelt peering down at the scrawny twelve-year-old boy. Doesn’t look like he’s going to make it, she said nonchalantly. Shame, that, replied Jack with equal enthusiasm, and they left him gasping on the deck.

Idris woke from his thrashing limbs and scooted against the headboard, running her fingers through his hair and murmuring to him in her own language until he relaxed.



Up top, Jack gnawed on a thumbnail and glared at the speck of ship until it faded away and the sun started to hurt his eyes.

Will had a point and it was a good one. Much could go wrong even with the simplest of raids, even if he’d somehow managed to convince Will to sequester himself and the girl in relative safety. The thought of putting him in that kind of situation should have been unconscionable.

But they both lived a certain kind of life, and that life was meant to provide for them as best it could. A pirate who turned down merchants bearing rich cargo would soon find himself starving, perhaps abandoned. The Pearl’s crew was made up mostly of good folk, but he’d caught a few exchanging baleful looks when he’d passed up the ship. Besides which, he had no right to repeatedly ask that of any man, even if he genuinely cared for Will – perhaps especially then.

This was not a question of treasure and glory; it was about survival. A child would have a shaky welcome indeed if its parents were unable to eke out a living doing what they had signed on for.

“Quite the quandary,” he remarked to a little green lizard that had crawled onto his breeches, presumably taken aboard with the rest of the supplies from Idris’ island. Interesting that it had managed to thrive so far away from its home.

“Home!” he exclaimed, startling the lizard so that it scurried away. Jack slapped the knee where it had been. “Of course – why didn’t I think of it before?”

It would take some coaxing to get Will back on land again, especially over Port Royal way, and there was always the Commodore to consider, but hopefully darling Lizzie would have gained enough perspective and wisdom in the year since her onetime fiancé had been gone from her to shelter him in his time of need. After all, Jack reflected as he swung himself down the lines, she still owed him for the rum.