Elizabeth leaned against the wooden railing that surrounded Tia Dulma's house, and slid down silently to the blackened boards beneath her. All around, she could hear the night noises of the swamp: the insects, the lapping water of the river, and her own pounding heartbeat. The world, lit by the moonlight and starlight and the guttering candles of the shack, seemed very unreal to her… ready to slip out of her grasp into (…the ocean…) darkness.
Her hands shook as they drew around her knees, hugging herself in a vain attempt at comfort. She rocked, her nails leaving little cuts in the flesh of her clenched fists.
…Peas in a pod, love…
Now her whole body was shaking, trying to contain the painful sobs that struggled to escape her raw throat. She glanced around, eyes wide and glistening, to check if anyone could see her in this moment of weakness. But the crew was asleep, escaping the pain of the day… The death of their (her) beloved Captain, and their (his) beautiful Pearl.
Oh, Jack…She shut her eyes, but couldn't stop the traitorous tears that slipped from beneath trembling lids and down her cheeks. She had spent every moment, after leaving Jack on his ship, fighting to keep in control. She could let go now, with no one to witness it. Especially not Will. Lowering her head to her knees, she allowed herself to think about what (she had done) had happened.
I'm not sorry.
A choked cry escaped her chapped lips, and she bit them to stifle the sound. The last thing she had said to the infamous Jack Sparrow was a lie, and not a very good one at that. She was sorry, more than she had ever been in her life. She hated herself. He had come back and proved himself a good man, and she had betrayed him. She'd kissed him, kissed him, and had left him to die. Murdered him.
Tears were coming hard and fast now, and she couldn't stop them. They slipped down her cheeks, leaving little shining paths on her skin. Her hair, the colour of damaged gold, obscured her face from the world that closed in around her. Her heart burned in her chest.
I deserve this pain, this heartbreak.
Because that's what it was: heartbreak. Because, now that she was finally being honest with herself, she was in love with Jack Sparrow. Ever since he'd saved her, and ever since he'd shown her what freedom meant. What it was to be free.
More muffled sobs tore through her throat and emerged broken into the night air. Freedom. Jack was freedom, he lived and breathed it. And now he was gone, and it was because of her. She'd never be free again. She felt a scream struggling inside her, desperate to claw itself into existence.
It was the same inner scream she'd felt in her prison of society, with its corsets and marriages and captivity. The selfsame prison that Jack had saved her from, and the one that Will would unconsciously entrap her in once more.
Will wasn't a pirate, not like her and Jack were. She could tell that he played the part for her sake, and that once this adventure was over and his father saved, he'd never sail again. He'd return to being the naive blacksmith that he'd always been. And a blacksmith's wife was no freer than a Commodore's: she would just have more love and less money. A bird in a cage is not free, whether its bars are of iron or gold. The part of her heart that was (supposed to be) in love with Will attempted to deny the truth in those words… but just. Couldn't. Do it.
Flashes of Jack ran through her tortured mind, unmerciful and unrelenting in their clarity: Jack, crouching over her drenched body on a dock with his eyes gleaming and seeing, really seeing, her. Jack, dancing in the firelight and holding her close to him, smelling of seasalt and rum and freedom. Jack, dropping so casually the words that she'd only thought in the deepest recesses of her heart: about curiosity and persuasion. Jack, awaiting death while chained to the mast of his own damned ship, and finally naming her for what they had both known she'd always been…inside…
Pirate.
Her last thought before letting the darkness of exhaustion claim her was:
I'll save you Jack. I swear it.