Disclaimer: Thankfully I don't own any of these characters, or the movies wouldn't have been so good.
A/N So this was origionally two chapters, but it suits one better.
Thanks to She Who Shall Go Nameless for betaing this
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It had been 9 years, 11 months and 29 days since that day. The day that had quashed all her hopes for a future.
Since she first knew what love was, she had loved him. It had shattered her when she realized that he did not feel the same.
But then he admitted to it. He had told her he loved her – in front of her then-fiancé, no less! That was when her outlook for life began to change, she had envisioned them living together, in peace. She began to hope that her future might not be as bleak as she originally foreseen.
Then on her marriage day – to him, mind – they were arrested for helping the escape of a fugitive. A man that in her opinion had had a major part in bringing them together, a man that she now considered to be a good friend. Whilst the future she had envisioned was now less clear, she had still allowed herself a small amount of hope.
Then he was forced onto a journey to find said fugitive as a way to free both of them. She had escaped and followed him. To say it was a disaster was a complete and utter understatement.
She visited the ends of the earth and the 'land' beyond, faced down the kraken, fought some of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty creatures of the sea, both mortal and immortal, but that day she had come to realize her greatest fear. Barely a minute after their impromptu wedding, she found herself holding her man's face as the light left his eyes. That was the moment that everything she had hoped for, everything she had dreamed, was lost.
That was the day she forgot how to hope.
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It had been 9 years, 11 months and 29 days since that day. The day that had quashed all her hopes for a future.
Since that forsaken day she had busied herself with little things like home-schooling her son (which of course included sword lessons, she knew and had seen firsthand the risks life brought).
Due to her history and past experience she had helped ensure that her home port of the past nine years could withstand almost any attack. Not to mention word had somehow got around the surrounding oceans that the port was protected by more than just its occupants. Now it had become a sanctuary, many scared people and families coming to settle in the now-thriving area.
She broke out of her musings, called to her son and they headed together to cliffs above the settlement. This would be her final day; after today Calypso had promised to free her husband. And yet she did not allow herself to hope. She wanted to believe that Calypso had honoured her promise and found a replacement captain, or that even after all these years he still loved her, but she would not dare to hope that either was true, for fear of the same feeling she had felt on that terrible day.
Smiling softly, she silently scolded herself. There was no point dwelling on this. All she could do was wait.
Her – their – son skipped in front of her singing a song that she used to use to sing him to sleep. He stopped at the cliffs edge and gazed towards the sun setting over the sea. She drew her son close to her smiling down at him, not able to face the empty horizon yet. Forcing herself to look toward the setting sun, her face was lit up with a green light. What she now saw was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
There was the Flying Dutchman, sailing into the harbour, carrying her William towards both her and Jack. She thought she heard a voice whisper in her ear 'the debt is paid', and for the first time in ten long years, Elizabeth Turner allowed herself to hope.
