Protection

“Mama!” Little fists pounded the door now, the knob twisting back and forth as Barbossa retrieved his breeches from the floor, Elizabeth moving closer to the door.

“Just a moment, Hawser,” she cooed to the door, her hand reaching for the knob, but Barbossa halting her actions with a disapproving look as he did up the buttons of his fly.

“Cover yerself, Elizabeth, the lad’s getting older now, yeh realize.”

“Oh, Hector, he’s a little boy,” she smiled with a shrug of her shoulders, and turned back to the door.

“He’s my son,” replied Barbossa, immediately plucking his shirt from the floor and holding it for her to slip her arms into. “He’ll notice a naked woman.” There was a trace of a conceited smile on his lips and a raise of his eyebrows as he pulled the shirt over her shoulders and fastened two buttons over her breasts and stomach. Elizabeth rolled her eyes; then opened the door.

“Mam—“ Hawser’s eyes turned up towards Elizabeth, dark brown like her own, but soon he noticed another presence in the room, and the moment he made out who, bolted on his toddling legs towards his father. “Papa!” He hollered loudly, his little arms out at his sides, waving like wings, Barbossa squatting down to his son’s level, arms also open, sweeping the boy up in a bear hug as he stood again, Hawser nestling delightedly into his father’s arms, a handful of Barbossa’s beard in one little hand, and his father’s hair in the other. “Papa!” Hawser said again and again, smiling widely as Barbossa laughed.

Elizabeth smiled as she watched them already conversing in some shared language of bug eyes and stuck out tongues, neither one of them giving her a thought. “Well, I can see I am not needed.” She laughed and fell upon the chaise, watching her men and remembering how she’d not been able to find the courage to tell her lover she carried his child all those years ago, but not remembering why. Perhaps if she had been able to say to Barbossa that his child grew within her he would not have been so quick to suggest she keep her promise and marry Will? No matter now, they were together, all of them, and she and Barbossa would be married soon enough at last, King and Queen, with their little Prince. Her smile broadened, reliving the past, and imagining their future. A little Prince.

A cacophony of names suddenly shuffled through Elizabeth’s mind. Her son would be known as Prince Hawser! It sounded so very German. She’d not anticipated naming a prince the first time she held her son in her arms, but she was now well aware of the attention and regard her children’s names would garner. Prince Hawser…it was a strong name, and nautical too, and had been their son’s name since before he was born. She hadn’t meant to introduce the word as a name, but all it took was her one analogy of how the baby within her was like a hawser line, keeping her forever moored to Barbossa and he forever moored to her. The sentiment had made Barbossa smile broadly and he’d pulled her into his arms, hugging her as tightly as he dared with the protuberance of her belly between them, and swore to her then and there to always be true to her, her marriage be damned. Ever since then, her spherical belly came to be known as “Hawser,” and when finally a son was born, there was but nothing else fit to call him. Prince Hawser…perhaps he could have had a more regal name, but as Elizabeth watched father and son together, her cares of what others may think faded, for what truly mattered was playing out before her, and alive in her heart.

“Yeh’ve been a good boy for yer Ma?” Barbossa asked his son, who now had latched onto his father’s finger and held tightly to the bear’s head ring, nothing able to wipe the smile from his face as he squirmed happily in Barbossa’s arms. “Been taking care of her for Papa?”

Hawser nodded enthusiastically. “Papa, you stay here now? You be here tomorrow?”

Barbossa smiled warmly and stroked his hand over the red highlights in his child’s otherwise dark hair; Elizabeth had at first been disappointed that their son was not blessed with his father’s trademark red hair, but Barbossa had assured her that his own hair had been dark as a boy as well, fading to red as he grew older. To Elizabeth’s delight, every day there seemed to be more red in Hawser’s hair when the sun shined on it.

“Aye, Papa will be here when yeh wake up. Papa’s been too far away and gone far too long, and he’s sorry for that, lad. Missed yeh and yer Ma more than he misses the sea when he’s away from it.” Elizabeth smiled as Barbossa pressed a soft kiss to their son’s forehead then hugged him again, closing his blue eyes and savoring the feeling of his child in his arms once more. “But Papa’s seen and done all he’s needed to accomplish to finally keep us all together, lad. Starting tomorrow we make ready for ever after,” Barbossa tilted his eyes Elizabeth’s direction. “After we make port at Shipwreck Cove, Elizabeth. Start planning the royal wedding!” He smiled at her, Elizabeth beaming back at him, but Hawser soon stole his father’s attention again.

“Fish, Papa?” Hawser asked, pointing out the dark window towards the tidal pools.

“Aye, boy, we’ll fish!” Barbossa smiled.

Hawser’s eyes lit up and he gasped excitedly. “Now?”

Barbossa laughed. “Nay, son, not now, a bit dark for fishing.” He shifted the boy in his arms and turned towards Elizabeth. “Yer Ma would miss me if we went fishing now.” He smiled at Elizabeth.

“I would!” Agreed Elizabeth, standing and walking over to put one arm around her lover’s back, her fiancé’s back, and lay the other hand to their son’s cheek. “And you’ll be too sleepy to go fishing with Papa tomorrow if you don’t go back to bed, won’t you?”

“No!” Hawser groaned, his lower lip protruding and trembling as he leaned against his father, hooking his little arms around Barbossa’s neck. “Want Papa!”

“Hawser William,” Elizabeth sighed softly, half wanting to scold him, but too touched at her son’s devotion to his father to truly be upset with him. She reached for him, only to have Hawser tighten his hold on his father. “I know you love Papa, darling, but you need to go back to sleep. So does Papa, and so do I.”

“No!” Hawser mewled, tears beginning to show at the corners of his dark eyes, and he turned his face against Barbossa’s neck, blocking his mother from his sight.

“Elizabeth,” Barbossa broke in as she opened her mouth to speak again. “I’ll take the boy and get him settled. Think that be the best solution.” He patted Hawser’s back and lay his bearded cheek to his son’s head, Elizabeth smiled at them both, feeling a happiness she’d never imagined possible until after they’d become parents.

“Yes, Majesty,” she smiled, raising herself up on her toes to kiss Barbossa’s cheek. “I believe you are right.”

He turned his head catching her lips with his, deepening the kiss to more than a peck, growling faintly until her tongue met his briefly before he pulled away, looking again towards Hawser, but giving Elizabeth a wink. “C’mon, lad, back to sleep with yeh.”

She smiled as Barbossa carried his son through the doorway and across the hall to the nursery, Hawser babbling away about fishing and his favorite creatures among the waves and tidal pools. “Crabs, Papa…pinch my fingers!”

“Oh, aye, boy,” Replied his father with a smirk the boy couldn’t have interpreted as they reached the nursery door, “be sound advice to any sailorman going ashore, be wary of catching the crabs…”

Elizabeth couldn’t contain her laugh, slinging her arm over her belly as she fell into bed, the smile on her face inerasable. She was getting married! It was for the second time, but somehow it still felt like the very first. And it was to be a royal wedding, too! Somewhere her father had to be smiling; he’d been pleased enough once to see her engaged to an admiral, but now she was marrying a king!

She unbuttoned the shirt her king had draped her in and let it slip to the floor, fluffing up the pillows and comforters then made herself cozy against them. She’d read Barbossa’s kiss, once there child was asleep, he’d want her again. Oh, but they’d hardly spoken since he’d arrived home, perhaps they should make time for a few words? Or, did they simply not need them? This evening, longing looks, hungry touches and impassioned groans had more than taken the place of words. They were to be married now though; two months apart…they should speak, husbands and wives spoke. But Elizabeth could only smile as she lay back; two months apart had been far too long, though it had been time well spent. He’d become a monarch, annulled her marriage to Will, secured marital rights and intentions towards her, and by the new energy that seemed to course through him with every touch and kiss, she suspected that Barbossa had made one other life changing voyage. But above all he’d made it possible for her to return to the Brethren Court, in a form more befitting her. She was free, no longer bound to spend her days upon this island. Lovely as it had become, it was still a prison. But no longer must she stay upon land for fear of having whatever ship she sailed blown to splinters. She was a queen. King Hector’s queen. She sighed as her smile grew bigger; he was a wonderful father, an attentive, desirous and devoted lover, and a good man. His kiss, the craving growl, the touch of tongues…she hoped that Hawser went quickly to sleep; her lover hadn’t yet given her breasts enough attention.

It was some twenty minutes before Barbossa returned to their room, striding in and unbuttoning his breeches as he walked towards the bed. “The lad’s soundly out,” he smiled. “Tells me we’ve another kraken in the tidal pools.”

“Have we?” Elizabeth laughed, sitting up a bit to watch as he pushed his breeches down his legs.

“I’m surprised yer unaware of the danger,” Barbossa laughed warmly. “Being as how the boy’s had to save yeh from the beast’s tentacles some four times now!” He stepped out of his breeches and walked towards the bed, Elizabeth’s eyes catching only a brief glimpse of his still soft cock, but that was by no means an indication of what he was capable of; a few kisses, a few strokes, a few caresses of her body against his and much could change.

“Oh,” she laughed again as Barbossa stood by the bed. She lay down again as he bent over top of her. “That kraken.”

Barbossa gave an amused, mysterious groan, then placed on knee upon the mattress and settled himself above her, Elizabeth’s legs immediately spreading around him, her arms opening to him as his hands slipped beneath her shoulders, his weight on his elbows. Again he groaned as he rolled his hips slowly from side to side, nestling his flaccid member into her dampening folds. “Hate to be breaking yer heart, Elizabeth, but I do suspect our son favors me over yeh.” He smirked to her.

Elizabeth sighed and smiled at him, wishing she could feel more of him between her legs. “The things you think I don’t notice,” she laughed, pressing her pelvis up towards his. She reached up and let her fingertips drag gently out from the corner of his eye. “Just like you think I don’t notice the disappearance of a few of the weathered lines on your face, or the absence of some of the silver in your hair and your beard. And, my love, what’s become of your crooked knee?” She ran her fingers lightly through the strands of red and smiled again. “Sailed to the fountain with Jack, have you?”

For a moment his brow furrowed and he seemed embarrassed to say so, but it soon faded. “Can yeh find fault with that? My wife is some three decades meh junior, we’ve a wee lad asleep across the hall, and I’ve all the world’s pirates to govern. I can’t be faulted for wanting a spot of meh youth back, can I?”

Elizabeth smiled now until every tooth was visible and she laughed joyously, unable to contain the mirth flowing within her. There was no better time for him to have turned back ten or fifteen years. But she soon realized Barbossa was staring down at her demanding an explanation. Yes, they should speak. “I don’t fault you at all, Sire” she simpered, “I want to have and hold you with us for a very long time to come.”

“But alas, yeh find meh vanity amusing?”

“No,” she laughed. “It’s just that—“ She paused, too excited to continue, needing to take a deep breath.

“Elizabeth?” He questioned, his voice growing serious with his concern.

“Oh, Hector,” she sighed, tittering with blissful laughter, but another breath steadied her and she looked up at him, raising her head to kiss his lips. He was rigid above her at first, but the more her arms drew around him and the more her tongue pleaded upon his mouth, he opened to her, melting into the pleasure of kissing her and being kissed by her, holding her body tightly to his and trailing further kisses down her neck. Elizabeth felt the tenseness that had crept into his form completely gone, replaced with something far more powerful. Again she smiled as his beard, lips and tongue dragged over her skin. Speak. “I have your child inside me again.”


Wow, over 300 hits already! Thank you for reading and I'd love to hear from more of you! By all means, tell me what you think! I had intended to wrap this story up in 4 chapters, but as I have suffered a broken hinge joint in my left ring finger, typing has become drudgery. So, there will now be a chapter 5 on the rise, and that will do it. Thank you all again for following along!