Time and Time Again
folder
Pirates of the Caribbean (All) › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
17
Views:
4,196
Reviews:
57
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Pirates of the Caribbean (All) › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
17
Views:
4,196
Reviews:
57
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter 5 - Then and Now
Time and Time Again, by Hellborne (the_ferret_mom@yahoo.com)
Pirates of the Caribbean – PG-13
Copyright. Characters, not mine. See the Mouse. Story, mine, but I make no money. He does, but not on this.
Typing convention: / is used for thoughts. * - * - * is used for scene changes and passages of time.
Summary: It’s the year 2001. Will Turner, descendent of a particular blacksmith, has been left a journal and a scarf...leading him to a particular cave.
Beta: The great BetaGoddess Pendragginink. She’s fantastic! And way too modest for her own good!
NOTE: I live for reviews. No reviews, the muses go out gambling (we DO live in Las Vegas, after all) and I can’t get any writing done. Can’t figure out if anyone likes it if they don’t review. So REVIEW! PLEEEEEEZE???
* - * - * - * - * - * - * - *
Chapter 5 – Then and Now
“Will! Avert your eyes! Quickly!” Jack crammed the cowboy hat he was wearing over the boy’s face and jumped back onto the yacht, reappearing immediately with two blankets. Without missing a beat, he threw one blanket over a lady’s shoulders and wrapped the remaining blanket around her companion as a dazed Will picked up Jack’s fallen cowboy hat, wondering what was wrong.
The two string bikini-clad beauties stared at the crazy man who had just covered them from head to toe. “Are you nuts?!” The woman wrestled the blanket off herself and threw it at Jack. The other divested herself of her blanket and calmly handed it back.
Jack averted his eyes. “Forgive me, Mi’ladies. I’d thought ye’d been attacked and had naught to wear but rags held together by strings.” He backed away from the ladies, turning back to Will, who started laughing at him. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he deposited the blankets over Will’s head after retrieving his hat. “And just what is so funny, whelp?”
“You are! You watched a porn movie as if it were an every day occurrence, but you see two ladies walking in bikinis and you think they were doing something indecent.”
“Aye. In my time, there were shows such as that one for the very rich and for those outside of ‘polite society’. I clearly remember one in Tortuga where this one girl had a pet monkey, and—“
“JACK!”
“Ah...yes...but that all took place in the privacy of an establishment. Those two brazen wenches were close to naked...sinful!...bold as ye please right out in the open where all and sundry and the Lord Himself could see them! Nearly starkers, they was! Lad, even the courtesans in Tortuga would never parade their wares like that in public!
* - * - *
Jack rushed forward to open the door for the lady heading into the building. “Mi’lady.”
The lady turned to him and thanked him, exclaiming that it was a pity more men weren’t like him.
When she’d gotten out of earshot, Jack asked Will about what she said compared to the two “shameless hussies” he’d tried to shield from prying eyes.
“Well, Women’s Lib pretty much killed chivalry in America. When you treat women differently than you treat men, nine times out of ten the woman will berate you for being a ‘male chauvinist pig’. And that includes covering them up when they’re wearing bikinis. The lady you helped through the door obviously isn’t a ‘libber’ and apparently she wishes more men would go against the current trend.”
“Will, women in your time confuse me. Why would they wish to be equal to men when they’re so much superior to them already?”
“Women don’t see it that way, Jack. They want to work and earn as much as a man in their position.”
“But women in my time didn’t have to work outside of the house, yet they enjoyed the ability to spend the household monies as they saw fit.”
“They had no rights. Now they do.”
“Their men worshiped the ground they walked on.”
“Did you worship the ground the mother of your children walked on?”
“I did, yes. Both of them. Yes. As long as they raised my whelps, I kept them in riches. They lived far better than many of the women whose men were there, and they didn’t have to put up with their man coming home drunk and possibly beating them.”
“And when your son became an apprentice?”
“As she weren’t my wife, there was no obligation to pay her way if she wasn’t going to raise my son. However, I did pay her off quite well. The final settlement to Dorothy was over a thousand crowns. And she were an ungrateful wench, at that. She had sold her own son into servitude telling me he’d been apprenticed, and complained when I cut her off for doin’ it. I’d ha’e never sold my own son to a Rheinlander...no matter that he adopted the boy as his own. Wouldn’t even sell him back to me for twice the price! And as the boy was happy, I didn’t have the heart to steal him away, even from a Hun. Had Dorothy told me she didn’t want to keep the boy, I’d have taken him with me and trained him myself, or found someone who I trusted to apprentice him to. But she sold him to the highest bidder, not caring what happened to him. Ungrateful...greedy wench she was. I wasn’t sorry to hear of her death.”
“And the other one?”
“James became a midshipman in His Majesty’s Royal Navy when he was twelve. For that, I supported his mum till she died, even though she didn’t NEED the money. I met up with the boy years later...he didn’t even know I was his father. I’m glad though. Naval commodores with pirate fathers don’t stay commodores very long. Hell’s bells, the boy almost hanged me!”
“There’s a commodore that tried to hang you in the journal. Do you mean that Commodore Norrington was your son?”
“Aye. I was right proud of him, though I couldn’t show it. Tall, he was...half a head taller than me, and a fine man. The bloody bastard who killed him didn’t even know why I attacked his ship without quarter. I’ve always tried to protect my own...or avenge them if I can’t.”
“So you treated women with respect, did you? You didn’t even marry them.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t want them to need widow’s walks on the houses I’d bought for them. They got all the benefits and none of the disadvantages. Can you imagine them having to tell people that their husband was a pirate?”
“Yes, but I can also imagine what they had to go through being single mothers. Even today there’s a horrible stigma to raising a child without a father.”
“Lad, they didn’t want to marry me or anyone else. Dorothy was a whore, and Belinda was the daughter of a nobleman. Neither wanted to be tied to a man, least of all me. I’ll keep my respect of women no matter how much they want me to lose it.”
* - * - *
After four months of searching, Jack was becoming an expert with the Internet. The paintings from the treasure cave had fetched a surprising amount at Sotheby’s; and with just his fifty percent he was quite wealthy. His looks had changed as well. Gone were the dreadlocks, the gold teeth and most of the beard. He now sported a single herringbone braid going down his back, and he wore his silver mandala as a necklace on a long, thin silver chain. His beard and mustache had been trimmed and shaved back to a neat goatee and fine-line French mustache. His gold teeth had been replaced by porcelain crowns; the gold teeth were kept in a jewelry box in the hotel room. And the white linen Armani suit with matching fedora were quite striking on him. In his wallet he kept the visa that Will had procured for him through the government, and he appeared, for all intents and purposes, as the perfect millionaire.
Every night would find both men on their computers trying to track down the elusive coin. In addition, Jack had taken a quick course in U.S. History. Jack thought it lay west of their position, but once Will found out that he had no clue as to how FAR west, he told Jack they’d have to find it some other way than walking. “The entire country is west of here. You don’t want to pick your way through a country three-quarters of a billion people strong, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Then we’ll do it my way.”
* - * - *
TBC
A/N: Hey, I need some feedback...hit that REVIEW button and tell me how I'm doing, savvy?
Pirates of the Caribbean – PG-13
Copyright. Characters, not mine. See the Mouse. Story, mine, but I make no money. He does, but not on this.
Typing convention: / is used for thoughts. * - * - * is used for scene changes and passages of time.
Summary: It’s the year 2001. Will Turner, descendent of a particular blacksmith, has been left a journal and a scarf...leading him to a particular cave.
Beta: The great BetaGoddess Pendragginink. She’s fantastic! And way too modest for her own good!
NOTE: I live for reviews. No reviews, the muses go out gambling (we DO live in Las Vegas, after all) and I can’t get any writing done. Can’t figure out if anyone likes it if they don’t review. So REVIEW! PLEEEEEEZE???
* - * - * - * - * - * - * - *
Chapter 5 – Then and Now
“Will! Avert your eyes! Quickly!” Jack crammed the cowboy hat he was wearing over the boy’s face and jumped back onto the yacht, reappearing immediately with two blankets. Without missing a beat, he threw one blanket over a lady’s shoulders and wrapped the remaining blanket around her companion as a dazed Will picked up Jack’s fallen cowboy hat, wondering what was wrong.
The two string bikini-clad beauties stared at the crazy man who had just covered them from head to toe. “Are you nuts?!” The woman wrestled the blanket off herself and threw it at Jack. The other divested herself of her blanket and calmly handed it back.
Jack averted his eyes. “Forgive me, Mi’ladies. I’d thought ye’d been attacked and had naught to wear but rags held together by strings.” He backed away from the ladies, turning back to Will, who started laughing at him. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he deposited the blankets over Will’s head after retrieving his hat. “And just what is so funny, whelp?”
“You are! You watched a porn movie as if it were an every day occurrence, but you see two ladies walking in bikinis and you think they were doing something indecent.”
“Aye. In my time, there were shows such as that one for the very rich and for those outside of ‘polite society’. I clearly remember one in Tortuga where this one girl had a pet monkey, and—“
“JACK!”
“Ah...yes...but that all took place in the privacy of an establishment. Those two brazen wenches were close to naked...sinful!...bold as ye please right out in the open where all and sundry and the Lord Himself could see them! Nearly starkers, they was! Lad, even the courtesans in Tortuga would never parade their wares like that in public!
* - * - *
Jack rushed forward to open the door for the lady heading into the building. “Mi’lady.”
The lady turned to him and thanked him, exclaiming that it was a pity more men weren’t like him.
When she’d gotten out of earshot, Jack asked Will about what she said compared to the two “shameless hussies” he’d tried to shield from prying eyes.
“Well, Women’s Lib pretty much killed chivalry in America. When you treat women differently than you treat men, nine times out of ten the woman will berate you for being a ‘male chauvinist pig’. And that includes covering them up when they’re wearing bikinis. The lady you helped through the door obviously isn’t a ‘libber’ and apparently she wishes more men would go against the current trend.”
“Will, women in your time confuse me. Why would they wish to be equal to men when they’re so much superior to them already?”
“Women don’t see it that way, Jack. They want to work and earn as much as a man in their position.”
“But women in my time didn’t have to work outside of the house, yet they enjoyed the ability to spend the household monies as they saw fit.”
“They had no rights. Now they do.”
“Their men worshiped the ground they walked on.”
“Did you worship the ground the mother of your children walked on?”
“I did, yes. Both of them. Yes. As long as they raised my whelps, I kept them in riches. They lived far better than many of the women whose men were there, and they didn’t have to put up with their man coming home drunk and possibly beating them.”
“And when your son became an apprentice?”
“As she weren’t my wife, there was no obligation to pay her way if she wasn’t going to raise my son. However, I did pay her off quite well. The final settlement to Dorothy was over a thousand crowns. And she were an ungrateful wench, at that. She had sold her own son into servitude telling me he’d been apprenticed, and complained when I cut her off for doin’ it. I’d ha’e never sold my own son to a Rheinlander...no matter that he adopted the boy as his own. Wouldn’t even sell him back to me for twice the price! And as the boy was happy, I didn’t have the heart to steal him away, even from a Hun. Had Dorothy told me she didn’t want to keep the boy, I’d have taken him with me and trained him myself, or found someone who I trusted to apprentice him to. But she sold him to the highest bidder, not caring what happened to him. Ungrateful...greedy wench she was. I wasn’t sorry to hear of her death.”
“And the other one?”
“James became a midshipman in His Majesty’s Royal Navy when he was twelve. For that, I supported his mum till she died, even though she didn’t NEED the money. I met up with the boy years later...he didn’t even know I was his father. I’m glad though. Naval commodores with pirate fathers don’t stay commodores very long. Hell’s bells, the boy almost hanged me!”
“There’s a commodore that tried to hang you in the journal. Do you mean that Commodore Norrington was your son?”
“Aye. I was right proud of him, though I couldn’t show it. Tall, he was...half a head taller than me, and a fine man. The bloody bastard who killed him didn’t even know why I attacked his ship without quarter. I’ve always tried to protect my own...or avenge them if I can’t.”
“So you treated women with respect, did you? You didn’t even marry them.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t want them to need widow’s walks on the houses I’d bought for them. They got all the benefits and none of the disadvantages. Can you imagine them having to tell people that their husband was a pirate?”
“Yes, but I can also imagine what they had to go through being single mothers. Even today there’s a horrible stigma to raising a child without a father.”
“Lad, they didn’t want to marry me or anyone else. Dorothy was a whore, and Belinda was the daughter of a nobleman. Neither wanted to be tied to a man, least of all me. I’ll keep my respect of women no matter how much they want me to lose it.”
* - * - *
After four months of searching, Jack was becoming an expert with the Internet. The paintings from the treasure cave had fetched a surprising amount at Sotheby’s; and with just his fifty percent he was quite wealthy. His looks had changed as well. Gone were the dreadlocks, the gold teeth and most of the beard. He now sported a single herringbone braid going down his back, and he wore his silver mandala as a necklace on a long, thin silver chain. His beard and mustache had been trimmed and shaved back to a neat goatee and fine-line French mustache. His gold teeth had been replaced by porcelain crowns; the gold teeth were kept in a jewelry box in the hotel room. And the white linen Armani suit with matching fedora were quite striking on him. In his wallet he kept the visa that Will had procured for him through the government, and he appeared, for all intents and purposes, as the perfect millionaire.
Every night would find both men on their computers trying to track down the elusive coin. In addition, Jack had taken a quick course in U.S. History. Jack thought it lay west of their position, but once Will found out that he had no clue as to how FAR west, he told Jack they’d have to find it some other way than walking. “The entire country is west of here. You don’t want to pick your way through a country three-quarters of a billion people strong, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Then we’ll do it my way.”
* - * - *
TBC
A/N: Hey, I need some feedback...hit that REVIEW button and tell me how I'm doing, savvy?