Title: In Absentia (1/1)
Fandom: Pirates of the Carribean (my first PotC fic!!!)
Summary: For years, Elizabeth had wondered what Will would think of all of this. Of all the things she'd done while he was in absentia.
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Jack/Elizabeth, Will/Elizabeth
Length: 1,000 words
Genres: angst, romance
Spoilers: major spoilers for AWE, since it's set in that giant gap of time while the credits were playing
A/N: Well, I've been formulating this since the first time I watched AWE, which was on opening night... Heh. I'm really hesitant about writing for new fandoms, even though I've written over a hundred fics in at least a dozen fandoms. I'm just weird like that.Oh, and there's also an alternate version of this fic that's a lot longer and more in-depth, and also has a much steeper Sparrabeth angle to it than this fic, since this one also has a lot of that Willabeth angst angle. If you're a bigger fan of Sparrabeth, I'd suggest you go read "Leaving and Staying". :)

In Absentia

Nine years and three-hundred sixty-four days.

An awful long time for Elizabeth Swann Turner to get lonely on an island so far detached from everyone and everything. The first week without her new husband was the worst. Every day she could scarcely think of anything but her the emptiness in her heart left by the departures of her father, James Norrington, and most recently Will.

By the eighth day, the solitude was eating her from the inside out. She was starved for any sort of human contact to distract her. Any sort of touch that anyone could give her to fill the emptiness.

On the ninth day, as fate would have it, a terrible storm washed up a small dinghy with a certain familiar pirate aboard.

At that point, she would've gladly welcomed anyone to her island and the home she had begun to build there. The fact that it was Jack Sparrow was only a tacked-on bonus that she gladly accepted.

While staring through the pouring sheets of rain, she spotted his form on the beach, trying to haul his dinghy the rest of the way out of the water. Elizabeth immediately bounded down the beach to him. She helped him drag his boat up the beach to a safe distance from the turbulent ocean, then launched herself at and hugged him.

He blinked at her for a moment before returning the embrace.

She smelt the rum on his breath and figured that it was probably part of the reason he'd been blown ashore. When she pulled him through the wind and rain to her little cabin, he stumbled and she knew that if there were such a thing as too much rum for Jack Sparrow, he'd had it.

Once in the cabin, though, she kissed him and all drunkenness was gone from his eyes. He was startled sober.

Her marriage vows were still so fresh in her mind, her promises to remain true to Will, but she was so ravenous for any form of love, she let herself break them. She let herself step well over boundaries into places she never would've thought she could go.

She knew that first morning after that what she had done was wrong, terribly wrong, but she couldn't stop. The guilt always nibbled at the back of her mind, but for four more days, she broke her promises to Will, with Jack more than willing to help each time, even when he was sober.

In those four days, Elizabeth felt at once more lonely and more loved than she ever had before. She held on to the love, fearing that when it was gone, the loneliness would devour her.

In spite of that, Elizabeth couldn't dare ask Jack to stay. Despite all of his offers, she couldn't go with him when he left, either. Her heart, still bound to Will even after all she'd done, wouldn't even let her consider the thought.

So Jack Sparrow went back to sailing the sea in search of treasure—the Fountain of Youth this time, he claimed—and Elizabeth sadly watched him set sail in his patched little dinghy four days after he first washed up in it.

The nights that followed his departure seemed even lonelier than the ones before his arrival. Now she had lost two lovers instead of one. Both were sailing out on the open seas, taking Elizabeth's heart out there with them. She wished she'd accepted Jack's offer, even though she knew she couldn't have.

It wasn't long after Jack left that Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant. Knowing that there was a child growing in her made her much less lonely, but some nights, the little reminder one of her lovers had left behind didn't help at all.

The baby's name was also a burden that nagged at her mind. When she first discovered she was pregnant, she'd immediately resolved to name the child after her father. But every time she whispered "Weatherby" to her unborn child, memories of her father came rolling back to her in waves that drowned her in sorrow. Finally, she took to simply calling the child "Bee." It hurt far less.

The time passed slowly. Elizabeth knew that Will wouldn't return for years yet, but she wondered about Jack. She didn't know when he would return, or even if he would.

But nine months after he left, Jack did indeed turn up again; empty-handed, but just in time to help deliver Elizabeth's child. He stayed a few days after the baby's birth, and hesitantly asked only once if the child was his. Elizabeth admitted to him that she honestly didn't know, but given the child's features, she had a good guess.

She saw in his eyes that it was too much for him to bear, and when the baby's cries awoke her the next morning, she found him gone.

It went on like that for nine—almost ten—years. Jack would arrive one day, unannounced. Then he'd stay for a few days, two weeks at the most. But he'd leave again, going back to the sea. Time would pass and Bee, when he was old enough to understand, would ask when he would be home. Sometimes it was only a month; sometimes it was seven or eight.

Even with the haphazard "schedule" he kept up, he never once missed one of Bee's birthdays, bringing some fantastic gift that the child loved for years to come.

Jack's care for Elizabeth and Bee never overcame his love for the sea, though. He always left, never truly stayed. But his love for the sea never overcame his care for Elizabeth and Bee either. He always returned.

At times, she was sure that she was completely independent from him with how well she bore his leaving. At other times, she wondered how she would ever survive without him.

And for years, she wondered what Will would think of all of this. Of all the things she'd done while he was in absentia. Of the role that Jack had taken up in her life. And she wondered what ramifications her actions would have on Will's curse.

Now, ten years to the day since he left, as the green flash appears on the horizon, she knows she is about to find out.

The End

Please review. It would make me feel a lot less nervous about my first time writing PotC fic. :)