ooh, thanks for asking, Anon!
So, here goes: for this ‘verse, Hennessey had a brief relationship with James’ mother. He didn’t realize he was gay/ace (I can never decide with him but I lean toward asexual homoromantic). Anyway – they were together, and Hennessey did the thing where he reasoned that he MUST be attracted to her, she was cute and funny and beautiful – and then he got transferred to a different post, and by the time he came back, she’d married another man, probably because she was pregnant with James and that was frowned upon without a husband back then. She died in childbirth, and the man she married was also in the Navy and in no position to raise James, so he left him with his father, Darby McGraw, who raised him and never said a word if he suspected that his son wasn’t James actual sire. Darby gets ill, and James joins the Navy as his stepfather’s apprentice, and then Edward McGraw (the name I’ve assigned for him) dies in battle or of some illness or other, and Hennessey takes James in, never knowing he’s just taken charge of his own son.
As to what happens next – he. hehehehe. So, this is a universe where the pardons went through without a hitch and that means that a certain Hal Gates is going to be looking for something to do now he’s no longer a pirate and has the paperwork to prove it…..
For anyone who’s looking for the story referred to in the ask, it’s here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118924
Meg's Mumbles 