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The beach was calm, and for once it didn’t calm Jack as it usually did to watch the waves lap against the shore. Her eyes stung from the tears she hadn’t dared to shed since they had won against the East Indian Trading Company. Against Becket. Her heart ached at the thought of him, his burnt body floating along the water to be pecked at by sharks and seagulls. She had done her best not to look down at the wreckage as they’d passed to allow Elizabeth on shore. A small smile graced her lips. At least Elizabeth was happy, with the ring on her finger she’d always wanted and the heart of Will safely under lock and key.
Back at the Cove, there were pirates everywhere drinking and singing to their heart’s content. Yet Jack wanted to be alone. She sat on rocks along the beach on the far side of the island, cradling her stomach as the reality of what had happened sunk in.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Jack glanced over her shoulder to find Captain Teague standing behind her. “I wasn’t in the mood for drinking.”
“That’s not like you,” he muttered as he moved closer to her. “You did good today, Jackie.”
“Did I?” she scoffed. “I don’t feel like I did.”
He sat down on a rock beside her. “Why’s that then?”
Jack sighed, “Remember that bloke I told you about? The one from London?” Teague’s eyes narrowed slightly as he nodded. “Well, he were the one who planned this whole thing. Was gonna kill us all and then he was gonna turn on Jones.”
“And?”
Taking in a shuddering breath, Jack continued: “And thanks to me, he’s dead. We’re safe. Jones is dead. Beckett’s dead. Bootstrap’s free. Elizabeth and Will are married…”
“Sounds like a perfect ending to me, my girl.”
“Yeah, it is. Except I can’t help hating myself for it.” Tears pricked her eyes as she murmured, “Because despite everything. Despite him wanting to kill everyone I give a damn about…I still love him. I killed the man I love.”
Teague watched her sob silently, noting the way his daughter kept a hand around her abdomen. “That’s not everything though is it, love?” he asked softly.
Jack shook her head. “Damn git only went and got me pregnant, didn’t he? One final blow,” she muttered bitterly.
Teague froze. “I didn’t know you’d seen him,” he said carefully.
“Not till I came back from the Locker. Course I had to spread me legs the first chance I got. Let him do what he wanted to me. And for what? On the off-chance he’d spare me if we lost? He was never gonna let you guys live. I knew that much.”
Teague considered his daughter for a moment. This girl in front of him looked no different to the one who came crying back to Shipwreck Cove thirteen years prior with a broken heart and a tan line on her finger from were a ring had sat. Now she looked even more broken, if that was even possible. He never knew what to do with her when she was like this. Her mother would’ve, but there was very little chance she could help them now.
“You can stay here, you know?” he said eventually.
“At the Cove?”
He nodded. “You know as well as I do that Barbossa will chuck you off the first chance he gets. Why not let him think he’s won this time around?”
Drying her eyes with her sleeve, she nodded. “Yeah, I thought as much.” She then reached into the inside of her shirt and pulled out the rolled-up charts. “That’s why I nicked these.”
Teague joined her in a soft laughter as they imagined the look on Barbossa’s face when he realised there was a hole in his map. “What do you say?”
Jack sighed, “You better not snore anymore.”
His eyes crinkled as he smiled fondly at his daughter, noting the curvature of her stomach as his grandchild slumbered within, completely unaware of today’s events.