Disclaimer: I looked, and they all still belong to Disney. Hoist the colours of the Mouse!

Author's note: As always in my Pirates world, William is free of his curse. He and Elizabeth have joined the crew of the Pearl. Pirate Cat

۞

"Jack...we've been wondering..." William began, as he mopped his face with the tails of his pale blue bandana, rinsing his face off with cool water. The day was stifling hot in the sun, even for the Caribbean. The Black Pearl was moored off of the coast of Saint Kitts, in order to mend some sails that had been ripped by a storm that Jack had managed to skirt the worst of... the only damage was to the mainsail, and First Mate William Turner the Second and Captain Jack Sparrow had just climbed down from the rigging to help make certain that everything was repaired properly by the seasoned crew. They were both shirtless in the hot sun...even a simple task such as inspecting the sails was nearly unendurable.

"...wot ye wonderin', whelp?" the captain asked, as he also mopped his dark face, the water dripping off of his small nose and making him sneeze, creating a flurry of jingling beads. "Bless you..." giggled Elizabeth, as she handed them both tall mugs of fresh water to drink... Jack screwed up his face and muttered, "I needs all o' th' blessin' I can get...water...eewww."

William stood up straight and stretched, as he flexed his shoulders, "We've been wondering...when we took care of you while you were sick a while back, we couldn't help but notice all of your tattoos. We were wondering what the stories were behind them..." William was quite proud of his own tattoo, one that Jack, himself had designed, as a former tattoo artist... Jack also had the same tattoo upon the left side of his chest; a stylized heart of Davy Jones with a dagger stabbing through it (Jack could not draw a broken sword)... the dagger had a tiny sparrow perched upon the hilt. They wished to remember their shared experience and it was a sailor's tradition to be tattooed with memories.

"Yes, Jack, I am more than curious about some of your 'artwork'," Elizabeth smiled, as the captain looked himself over as though he had never seen his own body before. Indeed, he was an interesting combination of tattoos, scars and smooth deeply bronzed skin.

Jack swayed back a bit as he stretched his arms out before him, and chuckled, "I forgot that you have seen me naked whilst I was beset wif illness, Izzy." His eyebrow quirked up and he smiled wickedly, "You still owe me a peek, lass..."

Elizabeth shook her head adamently and said, "Sorry, Jack. You'd bled all over, were knocked out cold, and we had stitch up your head and strip off your bloody clothes... ... it was not enjoyable...and I do not plan to place myself in the same situation that you were in." Jack pouted a bit, and then brightened, "Alright then, which tattoo do ye want t' know 'bout first?"

The young couple looked at Jack as if he was a statue that they were considering for purchase, then Elizabeth tentatively reached out and pointed, "The anchor?" Jack stared at his right shoulder, and frowned, "That one, missy, is the most boring one, really. It was me first one... I was maybe about 14 at th' time... it was th' first time I ever got drunk wif your father," Jack nodded toward William, who was now pouring a libation that was a tad more burning and satisfying than a mug of water. Jack smiled appreciatively as they all sat down to rest in the shade. "In all honesty, I was so drunk, then so hungover, I really don't remember much 'bout it...gettin' snockered wif Bill was more interestin' than gettin' the tattoo was..." he frowned at it, again. "I really must get tha' one touched up into somethin' more interestin'."

William took a long drink and then said, "What about the mermaid under the anchor, that looks a bit like Scarlett?" Jack glared at him and growled, "Bite your tongue, lad... that is purely by chance, an' I don't remember how I got tha' one, either..." the captain shrugged, almost apologetically. William continued, "The dragon on your lower back?"

Jack smiled smugly and replied, "Singapore... th' first time around when I insulted Sao Feng." They had never gotten an explanation from Jack about that one... and from the mysterious smile upon his dark face, it seemed that they would not get one this time, either. Elizabeth laughed, "What about the other ones that you do remember?"

Jack fell silent for a long moment, looking himself over and thinking back over the circumstances that brought the captain to wish to remember these events by forever having them inked upon his body. Elizabeth had always been particularly curious about two of the tattoos that Jack bore, and he looked at her with a level dark gaze as she looked at his badly scarred left arm. The lightning bolt scar traversed all the way up the underside of his arm, from his wrist to his armpit... a burn that was inflicted upon the captain when his ship was firebombed out from under him by the East India Trade Company. There was a tattoo around his left bicep... a chain with two broken links, as if his very muscles were bursting them apart. "That one?" she asked softly.

Jack smiled, "Broken shackles, Izzy. Broken shackles of slavery... broken shackles of authority... freedom." He sipped his rum and waited for the couple to continue. William ran a hand over his deeply scarred chest, and remembered that there was one tattoo upon Jack's back that was no longer visible in it's entirety. "Your back, Jack... what about that one."

Jack's eyes widened, as he craned his neck to try to look over his shoulder to his back, "I forgot about tha' one..." He then said nothing for a moment, as his eyes met William's. Both of them had badly scarred backs from undeserved floggings. William said nothing, and looked at Jack over the edge of his mug. Elizabeth couldn't tell what either of them was thinking, and she bit her lip, wondering what the captain would say.

"That one, young Turners," Jack said, after another long, slow swallow of rum, "...was an Irish harp at one time. My mother played the Irish harp..." he continued, "...Cutler Beckett's little pet, Mr. Mercer, took care o' that tattoo wif a cat o' nine tails once I was plucked from th' sea by th' Endeavor after they sank me ship... Mercer laid me back open, an' ruined a perfectly lovely tattoo...I eked out a bit o' revenge for that one, though." He smiled and winked at his companions, however, as they all smirked at the story that Jack had told them of the mark that he had left upon Beckett.

Elizabeth sipped her own rum and said to Jack, "I am really surprised that you don't have a tattoo of the Black Pearl, Jack... only the words 'The Black Pearl', here." She traced her finger over the ornately scripted tattoo that was arced over his own heart.

Jack looked at that one fondly, "That one I got after the mutiny..." there was a momentary silence, once again, as the three friends thought over the circumstance that had brought them all together... then Jack concluded by saying, simply, "I didn't have any home, let alone money... I had the simple words 'The Black Pearl' tattooed over my heart in my own handwriting... didn't need anythin' more 'n' that..."

After a few moments of thought, William grinned, "Besides, Jack, you're so scrawny that there isn't enough of you to tattoo the entire Pearl upon." Jack drew himself up indignantly, then deflated a bit, when Elizabeth laughed out loud, visualizing the slender captain covered from head to toe in a tattoo of a ship...William was right.

William stretched again, and said, "I have been thinking of getting another tattoo." Elizabeth turned and looked at her husband curiously, as she loved his tattoo that Jack had designed. "Another one, Will? What would you get?" She was geniunely interested, as was Jack, who hoped that he might be called upon to design another one for his best friend.

William smiled at his wife and said, "The Dead Man's Chest." Jack nearly choked upon his rum as Elizabeth's eyes grew wide. William enjoyed the reaction that he had gotten, "... the Dead Man's Chest, opened and empty... " William took Elizabeth's hand and slowly drew it to his scarred chest. "...to remind me of where my heart is, now." Elizabeth's hand pressed against her husband's strong muscled chest... a chest with a strong, beating heart under that long, jagged scar.

Elizabeth's eyes softened and she looked into her husband's loving brown eyes, and said, "... if you were to do that, my love, then I would get a tattoo of the key..." she smiled, "...to always remind us that nothing... not even the Dead Man's Chest... can contain our love..." She leaned into a long, soft kiss, her hands going from William's chest to run her fingers through his long, curly dark hair.

As the young couple was lost in each other's embrace upon the deck of his dark ship, Jack observed them with a grin, munching upon a handful of peanuts... and he wondered if he could make a draw'ring of the Dead Man's Chest... and of the key...

۞