It's the times when she's alone with her thoughts that the doubts slither in. They will wrap themselves around her resolve, doing their best to choke off her hope, much like the snakes in the Caribbean she's seen smothering their prey.

The uncertainty is slowly suffocating her.

She watches him often. She's become adept at reading him, at knowing when he will slant a glance in her direction. And she will quickly turn her eyes away, a second before their gazes would meet, to continue with whatever task is at hand with an air of unflappable calm.

She finds herself treading so very carefully around him; she fears upsetting some critical, but unseen, delicate balance.

She has long ago perfected the art of waiting. She's waited ten years. Surely she can wait a little while longer, she thinks.

She knows that Will has incredible adjustments to make. While she has created a life for herself and William, one that has carried at least a modicum of satisfaction for the past ten years, Will has left the solitary life he's known and must needs start completely over. She and William had the freedom to go anywhere in the world, should they have chosen to do so, while Will was limited to the seas of the dead, with no thought of touching land.

He does not talk about those years, but his eyes give him away. What he has seen, and what he has done, has imparted wisdom, but also darkness. He is old in his soul now.

To try and insert himself into the life that she and William have is a daunting task, she tells herself. She knew it would be, and so she tried to do everything she could to make it easier. She bought the smithy in their village, thinking that the familiarity of his old occupation would help him ease back into their lives. And she knew he would never be happy doing nothing. In the months before he came home, she talked with William, telling him everything about Will, answering every question, acquainting him with his father as best she could.

She is patient, tender, affectionate when he lets her be. To hear his heartbeat under her ear at night is her greatest joy. They have bested the curse, she tells herself.

So why is it that she doesn't feel that she's won? What she feels, when she allows herself to think about it, is that she's still running the same race for her marriage, for her life with Will, that she's run for the last ten years. The finish line has been passed. It's over, but it isn't over. It was only a partial victory.

There are times when she goes to the smithy, just to watch him without his knowing it. She peers into the darkness of the shop, sees him as he was when he was an apprentice and it sometimes brings tears to her eyes. She can see that he's found some comfort in being a blacksmith once again, and has found a link to this world through that.

She watches him with William, can see their son able to coax from him the smile that she cannot seem to, and she knows that he's has found another way to the living in his relationship with their boy.

But, somehow, there doesn't seem to be a link to this world through her. And she thinks herself inadequate.

She misses him, misses the man with ardent eyes that spoke volumes of his love for her. She misses the man who'd proposed to her on the heaving, rain-drenched deck of the Pearl, unwilling to wait, telling her that he'd made his choice and what was hers?

"Now may be the only time! Elizabeth Swann, do you take me ..."

She misses the gaze that never left hers as he lay dying, as if she were his North Star. She misses the eyes filled with despair and impossible determination as he bid her keep a weather eye on the horizon.

There are moments when she feels hope. Today, in the market place, Will stood back and watched her barter with a merchant, something she's done a hundred times at least. The smile of wry amusement on his lips had her heart soaring, and she'd smiled back sunnily. Yet it didn't last. He's once again withdrawn.

There is a panic that accompanies these moments, fear that she ruthlessly buries deep. She cannot allow herself to think that the man who'd loved her beyond reason, who'd done everything for her, is the man who doesn't seem to hardly love her at all anymore. That her ten years of love, of faithfulness, of fierce determination to see him free of the curse, are slowly turning to ashes in her hands.

So she tells herself yet again that he merely needs time, and she can wait.

She just isn't sure for what anymore.