#will laurence

And they keep up a correspondence even while they can’t see eachother often and before Will knows it he’s organizing his plans to court her and introduce her to his mother and—

Jane mentions the pregnancy offhandedly, with a complaint about the back pain this kid is already giving her and it had better be a girl, so help her.

Laurence’s brain fully crashes. Riley has to come check on him after a while and finds him having a nervous breakdown over course charting because now he has to find a way to get to Jane’s covert before she has the baby (“I don’t even know how far along she is, Tom,” he despairs, as if that’s the main point and not the fact that he’s like three seconds away from either commandeering the whole ship or deserting his post.). If he just gets there before the baby comes he can convince her to get married (he has no illusions that he will have to convince her, but he was expecting to be able to have a long and amicable courtship to do so!!!)

Riley manages to convince him to talk to their commanding officer. Everyone is very understanding about needing to make sure the kid that comes is legitimate. Arrangements are made while Laurence is vibrating in the corner. He does manage to have the sense to send word ahead to Jane so he’s not just bursting up to the covert doors and embarrassing her.

Convincing her to marry him is grueling. Jane genuinely doesn’t see the need to, but when he desperately points out that this way the baby will be able to visit his family openly and he’ll be able to provide for her if something should happen to either of them, she does agree—on the condition that he’s not to be Weird About It and try to turn her into a Proper Wife and all that or make her move in with his family or something. And of course if the baby is a girl he’s NOT going to interfere with her becoming Excidium’s captain in the future. Will is like yes okay I will come stay with you at the covert when I’m not on the sea just PLEASE marry me. My mother is already going to be upset that I couldn’t follow the thirty step courting plan we came up with I MUST give her the satisfaction of our at least being married before the babe comes. And Jane is like well thank god I don’t have to deal with a THIRTY STEP COURTING PLAN THEN.

They’re married in short order and Lady Allendale doesn’t chew Will out too much about getting a woman pregnant before they’re married. Excidium is still a bit iffy about this whole marriage thing but he supposes that it at least makes more children more likely.

And Emily is born and Will immediately falls in love. That’s his daughter!! His baby girl!! He goes back to his ship delirious with love.

And now come the complications such as: Will now knows information about the corps that a lot of people would really prefer he not know! They keep the Longwing captains secret for a reason, and here’s this duty bound Navy guy (derogatory) who could very well decide to get overprotective and block Emily’s future inheritance.

So Jane maybe. Doesn’t really tell anyone that it was a Navy man? And Will just kind of. Presents her as employed by the corps, so people assume she’s a maid or a cook on a covert. This is fine. Everything is fine! Whenever Will’s ship docks he gets to visit his impressive wife and wonderful daughter and uh. Their dragon. Um. He’s still getting used to that part.

After the initial panic and Surge of Love passes Will does have to grapple with his own feelings about not only women serving in the army (which tbf he’s been fairly chill about outwardly), but his daughter specifically serving. He compensates for this by teaching her as much about ships as he can. Look he’s getting such a good grade in Treating His Daughter as An Officer, Jane!!

Jane: :\ Will are you trying to poach our daughter for the Navy

Will, who now has the thought in his head of getting to serve beside his kid: …nnnno?

It’s all good natured though, and they continue in that holding pattern for years as Will moves up the ranks and then, well. The Amitie still happens. Will’s name isn’t put in the lots due to his marriage, but the lots never really mattered in the first place. He still harnesses Temeraire. There’s a good deal less initial fear involved, and Will is able to help mock up a better harness from the start, and he knows a little of how deep the bond between a dragon and their captain is. And he does tell Temeraire, quietly, that his wife is a captain to a dragon herself, and his daughter will be glad to meet him. (Emily is, delighted to have not just one aviator parent but two. Temeraire is glad to have her on his crew because he can at least trust that there’s someone else that values Laurence like he does. Also she is very good at washing his scales and curls up on his back while Laurence reads to them, so. He approves of this tiny child.)

Will, king of keeping his mouth shut for propriety’s sake, could mention these facts at any point to anyone else to smooth things over. He does not do this. Why would he. He’s pretty openly treating Emily as his daughter but like. He’s also doing the same with the other runners assigned to him. Probably the first anyone hears about it is because Harcourt is obviously wary of him giving her the proper respect, and so he quietly tries to reassure her.

“My wife serves in the corps, and I would be a dreadful husband if I hadn’t learned to cope with her profession, especially considering my daughter will one day take her spot.”

Harcourt connects several dots and says, a little too loud, “You’re married to a Longwing Captain???”

And everyone is like dude what the fuck why didn’t you mention this WHO are you married to

And Emily, who is present because I’ve decided she’s being a very Underfoot Child to her dad since she hasn’t seen him in a while, just kind of goes, “Uh???” And gestures between them. There is, the other aviators note with alarm, a semblance.

He's usually very conscious that he's the interloper in their world, has been diligent about learning the aerial corps terms for everything, and does his best to talk like an aviator (within the bounds of his own sense of propriety). But when he's exhausted, and there's no emergency to keep him focused, a lifetime of habit creeps up on him, and the naval terms slip out without his notice.

Unfortunately, Laurence also has the skill of a seasoned senior officer of not appearing tired in the slightest, even when he's about to keel over (see what I did there :-D). So on those occasions when the crew are all knackered and short tempered at the end of a hard day's training, and their endlessly upright and proper captain starts speaking gibberish with no other change in his demeanor, everyone presumes he's doing it on purpose just to be a dick.

After the Victoriatus rescue Granby asks him about it, and Laurence is naturally extremely embarrassed and profusely apologetic. Once the crew are aware that Laurence slowly becoming incomprehensible means he's exhausted, they use it as a handy barometer of when they need to herd him off to bed. They actually find it kind of adorable that their captain has this quirky little tell (not that they'd ever say that to his face).

When they're aboard the Allegiance on the way to China, with little else to occupy them, Granby insists that Laurence teach them basic naval terminology (since they currently have a ship handy so he can show them what he's referring to), plus the kind of sailor's slang that even the officers use in ordinary conversation. That way if he ever does slip up in an emergency, they have a chance at understanding what the hell he's talking about.

Temeraire picked up some of it during his first few weeks living aboard the Reliant, but he's always eager for more knowledge, especially about something that's important to Laurence. He takes to these lessons as enthusiastically as he does those in Chinese, and by the time they reach China he knows the names and functions of each part of the ship inside and out.

At various times during their following journeys, Temeraire will have Laurence make a game of it. They figure out ways to translate sailing terminology to dragon flight, and Temeraire delights in confusing people by being able to take directions as if he had masts and sails. It eventually becomes handy in battle when it's just the two of them, letting both Laurence and Temeraire openly shout out instructions and warnings for surprise manoeuvers.

Laurence still does his best to speak like a proper aerial officer while working with other aviators, but he eventually lets himself relax somewhat when he's off duty, and uses whatever mix of naval and aerial vocabulary comes naturally to him. He's privately delighted every time he notices that he's infected his friends with his seafaring turns of phrase.

Like, all of that is what he's attempting to silently say when he insists Granby call him "sir", and in the Navy it would've been understood implicitly. It does not at any point occur to him that Granby wouldn't hear that!

But what Granby hears is, "I think that the Navy is better than the Corps and that I specifically am better than you specifically. Every conclusion you've jumped to about me is right. I will be taking advantage of my dragon's great value to the Corps to get my way."

And then he spends the next month calling Laurence "sir" in the sassiest, most pointed way he can muster, because his response to that is "You may outrank me and due to your ability to destroy my career I will obey your uptight demand, but I will not mean it. My respect is something you have to earn, and you have done nothing at all to do that."

And what Laurence hears is "I am the sort of person who will reluctantly keep to the letter of the rules of civility but not to the spirit. I am so dead set against the very premise of your presence here that I am going to remind you of it every time we interact."