She knows that she shouldn't feel like this because she knows that he loves her. She knows that he doesn't do it to hurt her, that he could never… she knows this.
But it's so hard.
Seeing them together, talking, being friends… It hurts. It hurts more than it should.
But how can it not?
The girl is perfect. She's pretty, she's nice, and she's likeable. She has something that Margaret knows herself to be lacking.
She had him first.
She knows everyone has a past, and that with the great Captain Jack Sparrow, there was bound to be a lot of past but… Dammit, his past is right there, co-habiting with his present. He doesn't realise what it does to her. She'll never tell him how empty it makes her feel, how vulnerable the way he looks at her makes her feel.
And vulnerable is something she doesn't like to feel.
She bites her lip and sips her drink. It's hard. Very hard.
But still, it's not hard enough.
She loves him. With every fibre of her body. Her fingers long to touch him. They need to touch him. She needs to love him. He's inside her body, claiming her, owning her, ruining her for anyone else because she knows that no one else could make her feel as complete as him.
She doesn't need remind herself that she's inside his body, she's already claimed him, she owns him, she has ruined him for anyone else ever since she shackled him to his ship and left him for dead.
She knows that he loves her, just not as much as he loves her. And she's okay with that because she knows what she is to him. A figure from his past that he has to see, given the promise he made to the captain of the Flying Dutchman. But she knows that it's more than just a chore to him; that it's something he wants to do, something he needs to do to remind himself that she's there and that she is real and alive and that she still needs him just as much as he needs her.
She hears them talking, she hears her laugh and sees his hand reach up to touch her face. It's a friendly gesture, she knows. She is just a friend.
She knows this.
But God, it kills her.