With all the speculation and spoilers out there I know everyone is about ready to pull their hair out, so I thought we could use a little comic relief. This story uses the plotline I've set up in "Pretend" so you might want to read that before you read this. Uses spoilers and speculation from AWE and some ideas that are entirely my own.
This may eventually become a series of one-shots in this universe.
I own nothing. If I owned them, the trailers would be filled with Sparrabeth goodness.
"I was thinking 'Weatherby'," Elizabeth pondered with a grin. Her gaze fell across the table they had gathered around. It was strewn with charts, maps and rum bottles; some half-eaten food and scattered cards from the night's earlier revelry only added to the chaos that was their life. She plopped her bare feet in Jack's lap and tried to get comfortable in her chair though she was somewhat restricted by the cannonball sized bump protruding from her once-svelte belly.
Jack reached forward to grab his bottle off of the table; his hand passing briefly over Elizabeth's stomach. "Oh 'Lizabeth, I think your dearly departed father is suffering enough what with having to bear the knowledge that his beloved, proper little girl is now impregnated by a ... what was it you called me?"
"Wobbly-legged, rum-soaked pirate."
Jack considered the moniker for a moment before grinning maniacally across the table at James Norrington. "Has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say, mate?"
"I've been called worse." James answered without missing a beat.
Intrigued, Jack leaned forward, "Do tell."
"Please don't," Lizzie implored.
With a smirk, Jack lifted up Elizabeth's feet and placed them in a decidedly much more comfortable spot in his lap. "Love, your ears are about as pure as the rest of you." Still clutching his bottle, he draped his hand against Elizabeth's stomach as if he were bellying-up at a tavern in Tortuga.
"Jack, I am not a table."
"Now, now, love, don't let's get cranky. Whenever you get cranky things end badly for me. Carry on with your name finding quest. All I ask is that you pick something I can't forget and that I can spell."
Norrington found himself taking another gulp of rum in distaste. "Fine pirates we are sitting around talking about naming a whelp."
Jack arched his brow, "There's rum involved, does that make it better?"
"It helps a little, yes," James quipped dryly.
With a start, Jack yanked his hand away from what would any day now be his child. He pointed down at the bump accusingly, "There it goes again. It won't stop kicking me."
"Maybe you should name him 'William'."
The corners of her mouth turning up, Elizabeth tried to look shocked. "James, you are the most wicked man."
"He does have a point, love. Will had a fondness for kicking me; or just causing me bodily harm in general," Jack explained, draping his arm back over Elizabeth's stomach.
Rubbing her belly to try and calm her agitated offspring, Elizabeth shook her head at Jack. "We are not naming him 'William'," she shot a quick look in the other man's direction before he could throw his own name into the equation, "or 'James'."
Never one to back down from an irresistible opening, Norrington merely shrugged. "It's a good thing you didn't have any more fiancés, Elizabeth, or you would be severely restricted in your choices for a name."
Ignoring James' wicked tease, Elizabeth ran her hand over Jack's listening to their rings clink together. "He kicks you because he likes you."
"Who? William or my progeny?" Jack asked with feigned innocence in his kohl-rimmed eyes.
James couldn't stop the boisterous guffaw from escaping his mouth as Elizabeth tried to shove her captain's hand off the product of their insatiable appetite for each other. But Jack merely twisted his hand around, catching Elizabeth's wrist and pulling her gently toward him.
"Jack Sparrow, you take me to the brink."
Rising on his previously mentioned wobbly legs, Jack leaned into Elizabeth and placed a lingering kiss along her neck, followed by another. "I believe I've taken you there, pushed you over it, and brought you back again, darling," he growled against her throat.
"Does the fact that I'm here bother you two at all?"
"Only when you talk," Jack tossed toward Norrington.
With a sharp intake of breath, Elizabeth's eyes closed and her face contorted in discomfort. "There he goes again."
Jack pulled away from her tempting neck and stared at Elizabeth, all teasing and sexual maneuvering flung aside, his face now deadly serious. "'Liz'beth ..." his voice trailed off, low and steady.
Refusing to show any weakness, even in front of those who knew her best, Elizabeth opened her eyes back up and tried to rub away the stabbing from within her. "I'm fine. I've felt worse pain than this."
His voice almost a lullaby now, Jack leaned in so close, Elizabeth could smell the sweetness of rum on his breath. "Pain is pain, love. Being jabbed from the inside by a six-pound babe is no less heroic than being jabbed from the outside by a two-hundred pound pirate."
"It hurts," Elizabeth hissed through gritted teeth.
"No worse than seeing Jack's face every morning, I should imagine," Norrington added, trying his best to hide his own concern for Elizabeth.
With a glance at the former commodore, a sly smile spread across Jack's face glinting with gold and mischief. "It's not me face she wants in the morning."
"This is God's way of punishing me for turning into such a wretched woman."
Hearing the bite back in her voice, Jack placed a kiss on top of his Lizzie's forehead, satisfied that she was alright. "Nothing wretched about you, my love," he said as he sat back down in his armchair.
"How about you name the child Peter or Paul or something? Try and get back in the Lord's good graces, as it were, Elizabeth." James grinned.
"How about this - next time we're in Spanish waters, I'll steal you a priest and he can sail about the globe with us, forgiving us all our naughty little dalliances."
"That would be the busiest priest in the world." Elizabeth laughed, shoving her impending labor into the back of her mind, she placed her feet once again in Jack's waiting lap.
"And probably the drunkest," Norrington added.
"What about Samuel? Samuel Sparrow has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say, Jack?"
"None of this is necessary," Jack dismissed with a wave of his hand.
"Really and why's that, Captain? Are we just going to refer to our child as 'you there' or 'small person'?"
"No, because 'you there' is what I call what's his face with the bulgy eye, and if you yell out 'small person' I'm afraid Marty will come running every time. I meant, love, because it's going to be a girl."
"And what makes you so sure?" Her face suddenly stern, she shot him a warning glare. "And if you answer, 'Captain Jack Sparrow' I'll run you through."
"Careful, Sparrow. I think she means it," Norrington cautioned.
"Oh I know she means it. The reason I know said knowing, darling, is because even my luck has to run out some time. So, a little lass it shall be."
A smirk spread across Norrington's face as if he had just been given a chest full of un-cursed gold. "Captain Jack Sparrow with a daughter. Now seeing that will make giving up my grand house in Port Royal to spend nights sleeping underneath Pintel on this Godforsaken ship worth it."
As if pondering the greatest mystery of life, Jack drew a finger to his chin and then turned it on Norrington. "Yes, but will it be worth losing all your former glory, having to watch your one-time fiancée do some rather naughty things to me with her foot at present time, and taking orders from me lovely person, former commodore? Excuse me, former admiral."
"It will be worth it in fifteen years when every pirate and scallywag from here to London is buzzing around your daughter, whom, if God has a sense of humor will have all of Elizabeth's good looks and none of your rather unseemly ones."
"You wound me deeply, James." Jack answered with a mock pout.
"If you two are through would someone help me stand up? I'm like a turtle on its' back," Elizabeth flung her feet down onto the floor and stuck a hand in the air, mortified she was unable to even stand without help. "This is worse than that bloody corset," she muttered under her breath.
"Ahh ... the infamous corset. Might I remind you, my Lizzie, who put you in said constraining device, and who freed you from it." Jack grinned in arrogant satisfaction.
"Well you put me in my current predicament so I'm afraid your chivalrous act of cutting me out of my restraints has now been cancelled out by making me as large as a whale and as cumbersome as an elephant."
"See," Norrington chuckled tauntingly, "I warned you, Jack, one good deed is not enough to erase a lifetime of wickedness."
"Yes, well, Pintel says you giggle like a little girl in your sleep."
Elizabeth groaned in exasperation at the two children trapped in pirates' bodies that surrounded her. "Excuse me. I still cannot get up. You two used to jump at the chance to help a damsel in distress. Perhaps I should fall off a cliff again and watch you trip all over yourselves trying to save me"
"Darling, the instant you learned how to use that sword of yours, you stopped being a damsel in distress and started being the terror of the seas." It was a compliment only Elizabeth could appreciate and once her face softened, Jack reached forward and took her hand. "But, seeing how this is all, in fact, my fault - as you so sweetly pointed out - I shall forget you are a fierce Pirate King and help your tasty, if not slightly larger bottom out of your seat."
"Thank you."
With one swift movement, Jack tugged his lady out of her chair and pulled her as tightly against himself as her pregnant stomach would allow. His black eyes held her gaze and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Elizabeth felt a longing begin to creep into her gut. The fierce pirate lady was giving way to the wanton girl within her. "Well ... it's not entirely your fault. I remember there being two of us present."
"I remember there being more chants of 'dear God' than on a Sunday in Rome."
Norrington could only roll his eyes and toss back what was left of his rum. "Oh for devils' sake."
"Now, now, no need to bring old Jonesy into our delightful little conversation is there? Let's leave him all nice and tucked-in in the Locker. I'm sure dear William occasionally checks on him to make sure he and his beastie and blasted Beckett are all behaving themselves. My Lord, if young Will doesn't have the most infuriating companions on the earth in his company."
Looking back and forth between the two pirates, Elizabeth simply sighed. "No. I think that distinction belongs to me."
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