Only Way

Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: The world really does not need another one of these stories. Just so that you know that I know that.

The world is full of dreadful choices. She'd always known that, always heard that, always read that, in adventure stories and tragedies. It all comes down to the choice, and the choice that saves you is the one that will kill you.

It wasn't the first time she'd done this, not the first time she'd betrayed Will to save him. And was this betrayal so much worse than the last? Here, at least, there was no promise made against him. She wasn't bartering her future for his life. Whether he saw that or not wouldn't matter, because he'd at least be alive. If she had had time to think, she would have asked Will not to blame her. She would have pleaded with the gods to make him understand. There wasn't time to think that. There was only time for two thoughts: It was betrayal, and it was the only way.

She don't know what she said to him, the Captain. She only know that she played the tragic onlooker, playing sympathy, miming compassion. She hated herself for that. She was human, she was weak, she could find no other way out of this but to betray a man to Death...a man she'd once stepped in front of a sword for. Once? Many times.

She didn't know what he felt, she could only remember Barbossa's words: "I feel...nothing." She couldn't feel anything in that terrible few moments. Lust flared and crumbled to ashes. He wasn't what she wanted. She only wanted to live. To let Will live.

"I'm not sorry."

And she wasn't. But she knew she would be.

"Pirate." They done what's best by them.

It was an absolution. But it wasn't forgiveness. She'd never be able to ask for forgiveness; dead men tell no tales. And so she left him there, shackled.

Climbing down into the longboat, she felt Will's hand, steadying her. The numbness turned to ice at his touch. What did you see, Will? What do you think of me now?

Perhaps she was more like Jack than she wanted to admit. She had never been quite sure as to whose side he had been on during their first adventure, and now, only days ago, Jack had lied to her and betrayed Will to save his own stinking skin. He deserved as good as he got...didn't he? Elizabeth wanted to be a better person than that, than one to take an eye for an eye. Wanted to be. But it was too late for that now.

"Where's Jack?" The only accusation he'd ever laid on Elizabeth. And she lied to him again.

He couldn't keep the emotion, whatever it was, out of his voice. He had steadied Elizabeth as she climbed down into the longboat, but he couldn't bring himself to touch her again. So much had gone on in the last hour, and he couldn't bring myself to think about it. So many emotions...fear, grief, anger, hurt. And no one to lay any of it on.

He saw it in her eyes when he accused her. Elizabeth's face was closed, defensive, but there was no betrayal there. Only a terrible guilt. Yes, she had betrayed, but not him. He doesn't know if he knew, then, why she'd done it, or if memory has only superimposed the knowledge, softening the sting of the memory. He likes to think he knew.

But he does remember stepping out onto the deck of the cabin in the swamp and seeing her there, huddled on the edge. The sky was growing imperceptibly lighter; Elizabeth had always loved dawn when they were out on the open ocean.

He sits beside her, still not touching. She doesn't look at him; keeps her hair across her face as a screen. He knows she's been weeping—though for what, he's not sure.

"Elizabeth?"

"William." Sometimes their names are all they have, and he lets his silence be the question.

She raises her head, looks out at the gloaming of the swamp, the tree trunks rising from the mist like masts of ghost-ships. And then she turns to him, and lets her eyes give the answer.

It is up to him to break the barrier now. He reaches out, taking her cold form in his arms. She returns the embrace, hiding her face in his shoulder, weeping again. He finds it difficult not to do the same.

"I'm so sorry, Will. I'm so sorry," she says again and again through the tears.

There is only one thing to say to that. Forgiveness is not his to give.

"It was the only way."