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Hope, Will Turner discovered, could be a very cruel thing. As his first day on land in ten years drew closer, he allowed himself to indulge in the dangerous pastime of hoping. Maybe, just maybe, this would be it. Calypso would be appeased and he would be released from his duty. But that was not to be.
As the sun sank slowly towards the horizon, he felt the pull, like a hook in his belly, back towards the sea. A hook that, even as he tried to ignore it by focusing with all his might on his newly found family tugged with greater and greater intensity until finally, like an exhausted fish on a line, he gave in.
He barely spoke to his crew for several days, and they let him be. He had been struck with melancholia before, it was only natural he would endure it again. During the strange hours of darkness that was night in the Locker, when all was quiet aside from the hushed hiss of the dead and the waves, his thoughts drifted back to them. Elizabeth, putting on a brave face but hiding the storm inside and Henry, bookish, quietly determined Henry who’d clung to him with the grip of a drowning man as he had made his way back to the waves.
He plotted in those still hours, and pretended not to notice his own father shooting him looks of concern.
He got his chance when he felt the quiet but insistent tug towards the other world (he’d given up calling it the “real” world, the worlds he moved between were equally real, it scared him when he found himself wondering which one was more so). As Will and his crew moved among the wreckage to do their duty, he became aware of another vessel approaching, and of a familiar voice shouting that they needed to move closer. Will had never been more glad of his supernatural ability to jump between ships as he had been that night.
The pre-dawn sky was tinged with pink when he finally bid Elizabeth farewell and returned to the Dutchman. This time it was his crew who were silent.
A single pale crab scuttled across the deck and over the side with a small plop.
It was after the second time that Will found an excuse to loiter when he discovered the first tiny barnacle clinging to his jacket.
After the third coincidental meeting, seaweed and other sea life seemed to creep over the ship quicker than it could be removed.
The fourth time, Will told himself, was necessary. He had become aware of a small bright presence on a sea of thousands, and an entity that was familiar and partly his. He had rocketed to the surface world so quickly that profuse apologies had to be made to the disgruntled souls he had been ferrying. On surfacing they found the source, Henry, afloat at least a mile from shore. He didn’t seem too perturbed about being swept out in a rip, quite the contrary in fact. His delight at finding his father wasn’t dampened by the stern lecture he was given about the dangers of the sea before he was safely taken back to the shore by his grandfather.
Now that he could readily recognise it, Will realised he was always aware, at least at the back of his mind, of Henry’s presence at sea. He became distracted more and more often, and now Bootstrap was not the only one who watched him warily.
It must have been after the second or third time they’d raced to Henry’s aid only to discover that he was safely back on land by the time they’d arrived that the elephant in the room finally made itself known.
“With all due respects, Captain, we can’t keep doing this.” Murmurs of agreement and mutterings of, “Don’t want to end up like we did with Jones,” had been quickly quelled when their usually mild mannered captain had lost his temper for the first time in years.
“They have a point you know, they fear going back to the way things were,” Bootstrap had said quietly as Will had stormed past him, looking more like the fearsome being he was believed to be than ever.
It was then, when he barricaded himself in his cabin, that he discovered the trail of barnacles crawling along his jaw.
If anyone heard the muffled sobs as they passed they pretended otherwise.
oOo
Hope, Will Turner found, was very hard to maintain in such circumstances. He felt like his spirit was slowly being crushed, as if he was trapped at the very depths of the ocean. The reality of his fate suddenly seemed heavier and bleaker than ever, and seemed determined to do its best to squeeze the pathetic excuse for life he had left out of him. He acknowledged the steadily growing presence of marine life on both himself, his crew and his ship with dull resignation, and made no effort to fight it.
His crew didn’t know what was worse, the carelessness of his attempts to rendezvous with his wife and son, or the captain who went through the motions of command but who’s soul seemed far away. It was a stark and bitter contrast to the man they’d known for the first ten years.
Will successfully ignored the bright spark that was his son when he could, but eventually he felt it urgently enough that he couldn’t anymore. Henry had grown in the few years since he’d seen him last, but the steely determination that had struck him on that first meeting was still alive and well.
Will wondered what Henry thought when he saw his father looking less human than ever and with a voice that sounded as rough as a winter’s storm. He also wondered how on Earth the boy had found him, his knack at doing so was unnerving to say the least. He put a stop to where that line of speculation was taking him, it was bad enough that two generations of his family were tied to this ship, he didn’t need to think about—
Then his son was talking about the Trident, and it hurt more than it should for a heartless man. Of course, Henry was too young to know that hope can cut just as deeply and just as viciously as any sword. He tried to dissuade him as gently as possible, and wondered if Henry could even guess at his reasoning behind telling him to leave the sea he loved, a love that Elizabeth had written extensively on in her letters, sent with dying comrades and friends.
“I can barely keep him away from it Will, he’s drawn to it…”
No, if he was on land, Will would no longer be able to sense him, and maybe, maybe Henry would forget about him. Ha, as if, his subconscious taunted, remember you at his age?
It was only when the words, “I want you to come home,” were spoken that the spell broke, and the young boy he was slipped through. Will’s heart was no longer in his chest, but he remembered the sensation of it clenching all too well at the tears layering his son’s words.
It was for the best, he told himself as he sank back to the depths, his son seeming to fly upwards. It was best not to hope, as he had discovered all too well. Let Henry and Elizabeth live their lives without him, he was as good as dead to them in any case.
A blessing of this duty was that the salt on your cheeks was far more likely to come from the sea itself than from tears.