A/N: Sorry that my unfinished stories aren't being updated. My dial up connection is being stupid, and I can't get to my stats or my stories list. Therefore, I can't update. However, starting next Friday I'll be at a house with high-speed for two weeks, and I'll try to do some updating there, but no promises. The legend about the ship in a bottle is completely my own silly idea. Sorry for the long A/N.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except whatever parts of the plot I invented.

Jack was watching her again. She could feel it, feel his deep, heart melting eyes fixed on her as she moved around the room, picking up trifles and examining them. She was in what had been the captain's quarters of a ship, before it was wrecked and added to the pile of ships which made up shipwreck cove. Shelves covered in knick-knacks hung crookedly on the wall here and there. She picked up a ship in a bottle and peered at it curiously. She was somewhat surprised when Jack addressed her: he had voted her Pirate King, but he still didn't talk to her much.

"There's a legend about them bottles, you know."

"What is it?"

"They say there was a young captain named Walter Filgger. Filgger was a merchant to start with, but he became a pirate. He fell in love with a sprightly pirate lass. The navy was chasing him all over, and one day, she betrayed him. The navy caught her and threatened to kill the child she had had with Filgger if she didn't reveal his location. She told them where his ship made berth. Two days later, she escaped, took her son somewhere safe, commandeered a ship, and went to Filgger. A day after she got to him, the navy showed up. Now, Filgger berthed his ship in a huge cave he had found. It vaguely resembled a bottle. The lass confessed that she had given the bearings for their hiding place up. The navy spilled explosives all over the water in the front of the cave, then set fire to the whole place. Filgger and his lass died on the ship, but they say as it burned, the cave and the ship were refined into glass, and at the end, there was a glass ship in a bottle. It's said that Filgger turned to his lass with a bottle of rum right before the ship burned, raised it, and said, "To us." Then they died."

Elizabeth stared at the bottle for a moment, thinking about how that girl had betrayed her lover, but had then taken the consequences with him. Unlike her. Coward that she was, she had betrayed Jack and then left him to die alone. The lass in the story betrayed her man to save her child; Elizabeth betrayed Jack to save her fiancé. She should have stayed with Jack. It was the least she could have done for the man she had doomed to death. She turned to face him, pondering why he was alone in this room with her. He couldn't possibly wish to be her friend anymore. Had he come for his revenge? She shuddered at the thought of how much he deserved revenge. He could rape her, and it would be less than what she deserved. He could kill her, and it would be no more than what she deserved. She would not beg for mercy. She owed him whatever vengeance he wanted. She would, however, voice the one thing she knew to be true in her ruined, scrambled world.

"Jack, I'm sorry. I said I wasn't, but I am. So very sorry."

He just looked at her.

"What do you want Jack? Do you want to kill me with your bare hands? Go ahead. I deserve it. Do you want to cut me to shreds but let me live, hideously scarred for the rest of my life? As you wish. I deserve whatever you want to do to me, Jack. Just do it and move on with your life. I…"

He cut her off with his mouth. He kissed her hard, and she could feel the anger in it. Many thought that Captain Jack Sparrow was a shallow, drunken fool with amazing luck. But she knew the truth. Jack had deeper emotions than anyone else she had ever known. So deep they could drown him, and so he hid them under frivolity and rum. He was scared of how much he felt, and she somehow understood that. Now, however, she could feel him losing control of his rage. It boiled to the surface, threatening to overcome them both. His hands wrapped around her neck as he pushed his mouth hard on hers. She couldn't breathe. He was choking her, killing her slowly beneath his hands and his mouth.

She did not whimper, did not beg. Instead, she kissed him back. His hands tightened. He was frightened of her kiss, of the way she affected him. He did not want her to change his mind. She could feel his desire for her, but it did not surprise her that he would not rape her. He was not the kind of man to rape a woman, even the woman who had killed him. But he was just angry enough to kill her. Black dots danced before her eyes, and she fought down panic. She tried to stay conscious, but she could feel herself sinking into blackness. It reminded her of the day they met, the corset crushing the air out of her as his hands did now, the desperate fight not to faint, and then the sensation of falling. Blackness.

She felt herself being pulled, dragged down a dark tunnel. Then she saw a desert. It was the place they had rescued Jack from. The Locker. Fear touched her. The idea of living all alone there with her memories forever made her shudder. She gasped for the breath that Jack had choked from her. Something pulled her back just slightly from the desert. She took another breath, and moved further backwards. She could hear Jack. His voice sounded panicked.

"Lizzie. Lizzie-luv, I didn't really mean to kill you. I just wanted to punish you a little. Please come back. Don't die. Please."

He sounded like an imploring child. She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't.

"I love you, Lizzie. I hated you, but I love you. You sent me to Hell, but I didn't mean to actually do the same to you. Please breathe."

She gasped a breath in weakly. Somehow she found the strength to open her eyes. She couldn't believe it, but there were tears on his cheeks. He had his eyes closed, couldn't see that hers were open. Huskily, she spoke.

"I end your life, you end mine: we're square."

"Elizabeth."

He drew her close to him, kissing her throat where his fingers had left swollen red marks, kissing her lips, which were pale from lack of oxygen. She smiled at him weakly. She was slumped in a soft chair, and he was kneeling before her, tears streaming unabashedly down his face. He kept saying how sorry he was, but she brushed him off.

"I'll forgive you, if you'll forgive me."

He lay his head in her lap, looking up with her tragic eyes. She could hardly believe how deep the emotions in them went. She had made the great Captain Jack Sparrow cry. Captain Jack Sparrow had said he loved her. He was looking at her now with sorrowful, worshipping eyes. And all she could think of to say was what she whispered just before her lips met his.

"I love you."