Another Knock on the Head

By Lady Angst

Beta: Miss Aconite

Spoilers: Yes, to all three movies.

Summary: Did you ever notice how often Will Turner gets knocked out? As he wakes up from another painful hit to the head, he reminisces about several such instances.

Angst/General, a bit AU, but nothing outlandish

Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean is owned by Disney

Part One

I am unconscious entirely too often, thought Will Turner as he woke, yet again, with a splitting headache.

Will had grown somewhat used to waking up this way. He could hardly remember a time when being knocked unconscious was not a fairly regular occurrence in his life. Though, he thought wryly, that could be because of all the hits to my head.

In his younger days, Will had thought that he must have an extraordinarily soft skull to be knocked out so easily, but, as time went by, he realized he actually had a very hard head, and extraordinarily bad luck. As Will tried to persuade his eyes to open despite the hammering in his head, he thought back to when this dreadful trend started…

Seven-year-old Will Turner raced along the muddy path after his friends Henry and John. They beat him by a good distance to the big oak just outside of town as usual, but being much younger and scrawnier than the other two, Will had grown used to losing often and was not surprised or disappointed. When Will reached the oak, he was saddened to find that "their" tree had indeed been struck by lightning during the storm the night before. Several of the branches they often climbed, walked, and swung on were severely damaged.

"Oh no," Will murmured, struggling to hold back tears. He did not want to cry in front of the older boys, but the tree had been like a friend to him. "What are we going to do now?"

"Do?" Henry asked. "What do you mean, 'do'? It is just a bit charred is all, I am sure the branches are still fine."

"I don't think so; it looks like it got hit bad."

"Are you kidding me, Turner? This oak is a hundred years old! I bet it's survived thousands of lightning strikes! Although, if you are really concerned about our safety, then you should probably be the one to climb up, since you're so much lighter than either of us."

Little Will looked back and forth between Henry and John, knowing that no matter what he said or did, he would end up climbing the tree. It did not matter that he knew better, and it did not matter if he protested, they would get him up the tree. Finally, Will shrugged to himself and decided he could at least climb this tree on his own terms.

He had only reached the second branch up from the ground when he heard the ominous cracking sound he had be dreading. He was suddenly falling and then knew nothing but black. When he woke in his own bed, some time later, he learned that he had scared the living daylights out of John and Henry. Of course, he told their mothers that climbing the tree was entirely his idea, so neither of the boys got in any trouble. They were even commended for getting Will home and fetching the doctor so quickly. Will did not begrudge them their unearned praise though, because they never used him as a tester again.

Not that that helped much, Will remembered to himself. I still managed to fall off a horse, down a small cliff, and out of a perfectly healthy tree. And then there was that incident at Andrew's birthday party. Oh well, enough reminiscing; time to wake up.