A/N: This is a holiday two-shot dedicated to the wonderful Willofthewisp & written in response to her prompt: Jack and Elizabeth crash a Christmas party. The second chapter will be posted later today or tomorrow :)

I would like to wish you all a Magical & Merry Christmas! :):):)

Disclaimer: I don't own Jack, Elizabeth, etc. I guess I also don't own Santa Claus ;)

Let It Snow

Chapter 1

"It's snowing!" Elizabeth exclaimed in bafflement when Jack, stifling an amused smile at the hint of something close to accusation in her voice, finally unwrapped from around her head a piece of black lace that was covering her eyes.

"You surely must have seen the snow before, love? When you were little and caused relatively little trouble?" Jack asked with a small smirk, draping a warm coat around Elizabeth's shoulders.

"It's not the snow that I find strange," she said through her teeth, sliding her arms into the sleeves, and turning to face Jack. "I find it strange that we are here!" she said looking around. "Wherever hereis. Where are we, Jack?" she asked, not for the first time but this time actually expecting him to give her an answer.

But he only flashed her a roguish smile in response. "We're here to find the map that leads to the Fountain of Youth."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I know that! But can't you just say-"

"I would if I could but I can't. Savvy?"

"No, not savvy at all!" she said irritatedly, squinting at him when he waved a pair of red mittens in front of her face. "They don't match the coat," she said, shifting her eyes from the mittens to Jack's face.

He pouted. "Of course they do. Red and green look fabulous together."

"Maybe they just don't look fabulous on you," she retorted, looking herself and then him up and down. Jack pouted even more. "Why are we wearing the same clothes?" she demanded, eyeing him suspiciously.

"We're not wearing the same clothes, Lizzie," Jack said with a twitch of his nose. "I'm wearing mine, and you're wearing yours." Elizabeth huffed in exasperation. "But if you so wish, love, I'm perfectly willing to share my clothes with you. There is plenty of room under this coat," Jack said, pointing to the coat he was wearing.

"I would jump off the ship if we were on a ship right now," Elizabeth said, walking past him, and immediately almost falling to the ground, surprised by the amount of snow and by how difficult walking in such high snow was. "We are at the end of the world!" she exclaimed, looking around in disbelief. All she could see was snow. Snow, snow, snow, and...

… a one horse open sleigh very near them.

She shot Jack a look over her shoulder.

He grinned, extending his arms. "I'm Captain-"

"I'm Captain!" she cut him off, climbing onto the sleigh. "Seeing how we've been sailing on my ship for the last several months while searching for yours," she said under her breath.

Jack put a hurt expression on his face, climbing onto the sleigh next to her, shoulders hunched. "One would expect you to behave friendlier on Christmas Eve, love" he muttered, producing a red hat from under his coat and putting it on Elizabeth's head.

She took the hat off her head but after a brief examination put it back on.

Despite the beautiful scenery that Elizabeth secretly found most enchanting, she remained easily annoyed, inquisitive, and unimpressed all the way until the house came into view.

Jack bit back a smile when she suddenly fell silent, her eyes widening. "What is that?" she whispered.

"This is the house where we have every reason to believe the map leading to the Fountain of Youth is kept," Jack said, slightly glaring at the horse for not wishing to move any faster (and from time to time not wishing to move at all).

Elizabeth did not say anything, just stared at the breathtaking, most beautifully decorated and illuminated house she had ever seen.

"Why if somebody is home?" she asked, struck by an idea upon noticing that nearly every window in the house was incredibly bright.

Jack cleared his throat. "Somebody is most certainly home, 'Lizbeth. In fact, the house is probably full of... people and they're having a marvelous party there at this very moment."

Elizabeth widened her eyes at him. "Do you really think that's the best time for sneaking inside, then?" she asked incredulously.

Jack gave her an astonished look. "Of course! Nobody will notice us in such a crowd, especially in these spectacular costumes I supplied us with."

"Except that these spectacular costumes beg to be noticed," Elizabeth snapped.

Jack gave her a lop-sided smile. "Not among dozens of identical ones."

"Keep walking!" Jack said under his breath, pulling Elizabeth by her coat sleeve with him before she had a chance to take a closer look at the guests gathered in a bright ballroom downstairs.

She wondered how Jack knew the house so well that they had managed to sneak upstairs virtually unnoticed. She did not think asking him would do any good but decided to ask him nonetheless. He mumbled something about having seen the drawings of it and then requested her to be quiet.

"Stop giving me orders!..." she whispered irately.

"Am not!" Jack whispered back, tightening his grip around her wrist when he felt her slow down her steps again.

Elizabeth huffed in annoyance, unhappy about not being able to blend in, if only for a brief while.

The music that she could hear was so joyous and beautiful and it reminded her of the happiest Christmas parties at her home in England… with both of her parents…

"You said nobody would notice us in the crowd!" she argued, following Jack into a room.

"But I didn't say that we actually have to test that, did I?" Jack answered, glancing right and left around the corridor before closing the door behind them.

Elizabeth looked at him with a frown but then noticed her surroundings, once again caught off guard by the sight.

She had never seen such an astounding collection of books before. It was the largest personal library she had ever had the pleasure of visiting. For a longer while she just stood in silence marveling at the dark-wooden shelves filled with the impossible to count number of books of all sizes and titles in all imaginable languages.

Jack, on the other hand, seemed perfectly composed, albeit slightly distressed.

"Jack?"

He looked at her, his eyebrows knitted in thought.

"Do you know where exactly the map is?" she asked, looking at him intently.

Jack's nose twitched. "It's in here."

"Do you need help defining what exactly means?" she squinted, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I need help finding the map," Jack said, narrowing his eyes in an artificial smile.

Elizabeth gave him a disbelieving look. "You can't be ser-"

But before she had the time to finish her sentence, Jack suddenly caught her hand and pulled her behind the door.

"What-" she started but he kissed her, cutting her off, and she had to dig her fingernails in his coat really hard in order to keep herself from falling when he broke the kiss, leaving her breathless and stupefied, staring up at him in complete bafflement.

He had not even tried to kiss her since he had come to her offering to take her on a journey to find the Fountain of Youth… granted she would have been as kind as to provide a ship while the Black Pearl was not recovered from Barbossa's slimy, treacherous, usurpatory, hideous- (at which point she had placed a bottle of rum in front of him so he had stopped).

It was not until a couple of months later when her initial appreciation of his most immaculate moral conduct had turned into aggravation. But of course there was nothing to be done and she could not have possibly let it show that it had bothered her. Not that she would have actually let him kiss her if he had tried… but since he had not tried, thinking about how she would have reacted was quite pointless. And the fact that it was pointless had aggravated her even more.

Myriads of thoughts ran through her head at once when he drew back but before she managed to voice any of them she noticed that somebody was in the room and it dawned on her that he had kissed her only to silence her. They were standing right behind the door that remained open, hiding them from being seen. Elizabeth bit her lip, glaring daggers at Jack.

He widened his eyes at her, seemingly surprised by the harsh look on her face. He pointed to tiny flowers of mistletoe strapped to their hats and she could clearly see amusement sparkling in his eyes but there was also something else she could not quite place… and it somehow made her anger fade, if only a little.

"Which one were we supposed to bring?"

The voice averted Elizabeth's attention from Jack, and she slightly tilted her head to the side, catching a glimpse of the figures in the room. There were three of them, contemplating one of the shelves, all of them wearing green coats and red hats exactly like the ones she and Jack were wearing.

"South America!" the other figure said, reaching for one of the books. "It's this one. Here. All the new addresses from the area."

Elizabeth glanced at Jack who was currently busy staring up at the ceiling. She rolled her eyes but then froze when the three… "people" turned around and headed for the door, book in hand.

Even after the door closed behind them Elizabeth continued blinking, trying to understand what she had just seen.

"Jack?" she hissed and he winced, apparently expecting to hear his name in the very tone. "Jack!" she shook him by the lapels of his coat. "What is going on here?"

"We're here to find-" he started but she cut him off.

"Stop repeating that! Tell me where we are and what is going on! I saw those… those… I don't even know who they are but they're most certainly not people!... Jack! Where are we? Whose house is this?"

He looked at her with a slightly childish frown on his face, still obviously reluctant to answer her question. "I don't see how this is relevant in any way to what we're here for," he said with a pout.

"Jack!"

"Shhh!" he covered her mouth with his hand, immediately reminding her of the kiss, causing an involuntary shiver to run through her. She clenched her teeth certain that he had noticed her reaction. But even if he had, he chose not to mention it. "You don't want them to catch us here, do you?"

Elizabeth brushed Jack's hand off her face. "I want to know where we are!" she demanded in a quiet but determined voice.

Jack sighed.

A flicker of light captured Elizabeth's attention and her eyes darted to a tall window at the end of the room. There, against the darkening sky, among the falling snowflakes she suddenly saw something so incredible that for a moment she just stood transfixed, unable to utter a word.

Following her gaze, Jack also turned around and they both just looked at what they were seeing in silent wonder. They slowly made their way closer toward the window.

A beautiful, seemingly endless golden sleigh decorated with mistletoe, lights and ribbons descended from the sky and landed in front of the mansion, causing all the guests from the ballroom to come outside to greet the man in a red coat and then beginning to work on filling the empty sleigh with countless, colorful boxes, bags and packages among merrily exchanged words, enchanting music and gleeful laughter.

When at last Elizabeth managed to collect her thoughts she shifted her eyes to Jack who kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Jack, tell me this isn't true," she said quietly.

"What isn't true?" Jack asked with as much innocence in his voice as he could muster.

"Tell me that..." she drew a breath, "that we're not stealing from Santa Claus," she whispered, looking at him in sincere dismay.

Jack gave her a bright smile. "Of course not!"

Elizabeth's face relaxed a bit but only until Jack added:

"We're just going to borrow the map from him!"