A soft breeze brushed his cheek. The fire was roaring, it heated his face up and left a warm, red glow on his chest. There was a smell of smoke and burned wood in the cool night air, and . . . And rum. He felt his heart skip a beat as he heard her warm, rum-soaked laughter in the distance. It was unusual, of course, and inappropriate, he could imagine Will – or even the former Elizabeth – would say. He smirked at the thought of her face, the way she would glare at him and hiss his favourite word through her white, pearly teeth: Pirate. He had often heard this word, spoken to him in many voices. A soft whisper, like when the wind runs through the bushes, an agry cry echoing through his mind and leaving a numb feeling of guilt in him, or even, he sometimes caught himself thinking, lovingly, a silent, but at the same time interrogating voice, talking to him through her eyes. Lizzie had so many voices, so many faces. He didn't think he could go through with his plan this time. At all.
He felt a soft breeze close to his back as she took another turn around the fire: ". . . and really bad eggs, drink up me hearties, yo ho!" It was unusual to see her like this. So . . . happy. Her skirt was carelessly swinging around her in the wind, as she swayed a little, happily trying to regain balance, arms bashing the air, as though she was trying to take off towards the starry skies. She was a bird to him, and she'd finally come out of her cage. A real sparrow.
- Tell me, darling, he thought to himself, - how could I hurt you when you're like this?
And with a sad grumble he got to his feet, swaying only a little more than usual as he arose. Rum. Quickly, with much experience, he snatched the bottle from the warm sands and opened it with his teeth. Turning towards her, he could now see her. She was singing, singing the song which had recently, actually in this very moment, become his favourite, his song, and he caught himself thinking of sirens out of greek mythology as she drew closer – still singing – and he knew that he was now trapped in a cage, just as well as she had just as recently escaped one. Her cage. She took the last dancing step towards him and stopped right in front of him as if on cue. She stole his breath the very moment they together drew their first breath of the clean night air. It was a bright night, starry and delicately breezy. Jack did not notice. The only thing that mattered in the world was her. And rum. And The Pearl. And vengeance on the rum-soaked deckhands what took off with his ship. . . ! But never mind that now. She was here. He was here. And they had rum. Plenty of rum. So why was he not happy? It ached inside of him when he thought of what he would have to do before sunrise. He couldn't bear the thought. He saw her light, pure dress, her familiar face, her deep, brown eyes, teasingly telling him that he hardly knew her yet. That there was so much more to Elizabeth Swann, be it pirate, woman and everything, there was more to be found in her than what met the eyes.
She was challenging him to know her. Sometimes it drove him mad, and a little voice in his head whispered: "She doesn't know. She doesn't know who she's dealing with, who she's teasing, who she's driving out of his mind just by being here. She doesn't know. . . Bloody wench." But another voice rang out louder and more truthfully: "Oh but she does. Don't think she doesn't look at you and see you for who you are. She knows. The question is: Do you?"
How he hated that voice. It had often costed him another bottle of rum to have that voice visit, it drove him mad, and so he drank, hoping the delicate poison would cure him of this madness. But it didn't, and the voice grew in his head, bred by fear. Because he couldn't stand the idea that she teased him, knowing very well who he was. A pirate. Because he didn't like to think of how much he cared for her, fearing she would not care for him, even as a friend. That he would be left to fall, deeper and deeper. That she wouldn't catch him. But the real reason why he hated this voice inside his head, he was trying to hide from himself.
Because for the first time in his life, Captain Jack Sparrow was afraid of the truth.