"Thank you, Jack."

He slowly turned to face her. In her eyes, he could see a mixture of emotions: fear, perhaps even anger at their current predicament. Most likely, it was directed toward him for some long-forgotten sin. And yet. A tiny glimmer of naivety, just enough to remind him of the fiery woman he'd rescued from the wrath of the ocean. The begrudging admiration she felt from reading all of those stories, wondering what it would be like to partake in such adventures. He studied her, took in the smudged dirt on her cheeks and the tattered clothing she wore, and wondered if it was everything she'd ever hoped for. He rather doubted it. Gently, he reminded her, "We're not free yet, love."

Ah, there it was. Annoyance. A slight roll of the eyes as she began to move closer; apparently, he'd managed to once again insult her intelligence. Regardless, she still wore the barest of smiles on her lips when she stepped closer still, almost floating over the deck, somehow separated from the debris and smoldering chunks of raw flesh that clogged the air with an acrid scent. He, for one, would never be able to remove it from his nasal passages. "You came back," she said. Her smile grew. "I always knew you were a good man."

In any other situation, he would have laughed at the sincerity of her words. Hardly a year prior, stranded on an island watching Barbossa sail away with a piece of each of them, Elizabeth had given Jack several choice words along with an eternal distrust of her being anywhere near his stash of rum. A good man was most certainly not the apt description that would have flown from her lips, but now, standing on the deck of the Pearl, Jack's doubts scattered as Elizabeth covered his mouth with her own.

She tasted wonderful - apples, he thought, groaning as he tilted his head and invited her tongue to dance with his own. For a woman whose experience was derived purely from kissing the whelp, she displayed a delightful amount of natural talent. A twinge of fear flared within him with the realization that he could easily become addicted to this sensation.

The flicker became a roaring fire when Elizabeth suddenly pulled away, leaving Jack with tingling lips and a cold, metal shackle pinching the skin of his wrist. She trailed her fingertips along his arm and side, burning a path that led straight to his heart. "It's after you, not the ship," she hissed. Her breath was warm on his face; distinctly different from the chill seeping into her words. "It's not us. This is the only way, don't you see?"

Her brow furrowed in confusion as a smirk spread over his lips. It was insane, this urge to laugh, but it was so amusingly ironic that they had finally come full circle, once again ending with him bound in irons, and she free to live her life as she pleased. Perhaps she feared that he was not taking her seriously, for she brought her mouth to his and whispered her final words against his lips: "I'm not sorry."

Touche. "Pirate," he whispered in return, watching with satisfaction as the realization of what she'd done began to seep into her bones. With a determined nod, she practically ran from him and clambered down the ladder to the awaiting longboat, floating in the waters below. He made no move to stop her, nor did he call after her, but his smile steadily began to fade as he looked down to the shackle fastened firmly to the mast, chaining him in place.

You are a pirate, milady, he thought, as the kraken rumbled its return and he strengthened himself to face his death. Well done.