DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?
Posted By: Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon
Ships: Elizabeth/Norrington, implied Elizabeth/Jack.

Warnings: Contains children, and a mention of character death.

Author’s Note: AU branching off from the end of the film.

Elizabeth stood by her husband’s side and watched the HMS Zephyr’s sailors tie her off at the dock, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the sound of George and Cecily arguing.

"There are sea monsters in the Pacific," Cecily insisted. "And mermaids, too. I read it in a geography book."

"That shows how much you know," George said scornfully, with all the authority of four extra years. "Mermaids are a legend. Ask Father; he’ll tell you."

"Then why are there mermaids and monsters drawn on all the maps, half-wit?" Cecily demanded.

"As decoration, lack-brain."

"George, Cecily," Admiral James Norrington said, not turning his eyes from the ship before them, "stop arguing, or I shall have your mother take you home."

There was instant silence.

Elizabeth smiled slightly, as she saw Cecily stick her tongue out at her older brother behind her father’s back. Cecily, the only girls, with her strong opinions and avid curiosity, had always been her favourite child. However, that didn’t stop her from mouthing a stern, "behave," at her before she too, turned back to watch the Zephyr dock.

As always the sight of a ship tying up caused a small pang of something that was not quite sorrow in her heart. Everything important in her life, it seemed, had always begun or ended with a ship. It was onboard a ship that she had met James, when she had been only a few years older then Cecily. It had been a ship that had taken Will away from her, when he sailed away to Virginia, and the exile from Jamaica that had been the price of his pardon. It had been a ship that had carried Elizabeth herself back home to England after James had been promoted to Admiral, when she had been pregnant with George. It had been a ship—this ship—that had taken her oldest son away from her last winter, only to return him again today.

When Midshipman John Norrington strode down the gangplank, moving with the rolling gait of someone who has spent months at sea, Elizabeth almost stopped breathing for a moment. He looked so grown up, so different from the fourteen-year-old boy who had gone to sea a year ago. So very like his father.

Halfway down the pier, John abandoned dignity and broke into a run, the long tail of his black queue bouncing behind him. "Father!"

He skidded to a stop in front of James, grinning broadly and fairly bouncing with excitement. "I mean, ah, Admiral, Sir," he corrected himself.

"Welcome home, John." James reached out and clasped John’s hand. Elizabeth could tell he really wanted to hug him, but was restraining himself in deference to the sailors and officers lining the dock. "How were the south seas?"

"Wonderful, sir. Most instructive." It was the expected thing to say, but Elizabeth could tell he really meant it. Still grinning, John turned to her. "Mother," he began.

Elizabeth, not bound by Navy protocols, pulled him into a hug. She could still do it easily; he was inches taller, but still didn’t have the height George was already beginning to gain. "Welcome home. I’ve missed you."

John hugged her back very briefly, before letting go and stepping safely out of range. It wouldn’t do for his shipmates to see him embracing his mother. Brave, tarry naval officers, Elizabeth supposed, were not supposed to have mothers.

"Johnny!" Cecily was almost dancing with glee. "Did you bring me a present?"

"Cecily!" Elizabeth scolded, "Don’t be rude."

"May I have my present, please?"

John laughed, picking Cecily up and swinging her around. His eyes danced, looking blacker than ever against his new tropical tan. "Of course, Cecily love. I wouldn’t forget to get a present for my favourite sister. But you’ll have to wait until we get home, all right?" He set her on her feet again and rumpled her hair.

"All right. Did you see mermaids?"

"Of course I did. Beautiful ones, with long, silver tails," he sketched a curve in the air with his hands, "and seaweed in their hair. They wear necklaces made of pearls and sing like nightingales."

"See!" Cecily crowed triumphantly. "I told you. There are mermaids."

"There aren’t," George insisted, his practical nature insulted. "He’s just lying to you ‘cause you’re a baby. Aren’t you, John?"

"I might be." John grinned, white teeth against dark tan, a hauntingly familiar expression. "And I might not."
The five of them walked together to the carriage, John striding proudly beside James, the father in whose footsteps he was following, but whom he looked absolutely nothing like.

Elizabeth, watching them, remembered one wild, drunken night on a tropical island, so long ago and distant that it seemed almost to have happened to someone else, and remembered also an almost as distant hanging, held two days after Will had reluctantly taken ship for Virginia, and a week before her wedding. She had hated James for that banishment and hanging, once, before John’s birth had changed things between them.

She was happy with her life now, rarely regretted it even when she received letters from Will’s family in Williamsburg, telling of another daughter born or a new forge built, but for a moment, as she looked at the son whom both she and her husband pretended was James’, she wondered what piracy would have been like.

^_~