(OT: So I haven't written in ages and this story popped into my head while I was supposedly busy at work. Anyway, it starts out with some long ponderings from Will, but I think they're worthwhile if you read them. It's all quite important and relevant to the rest of the story. I'll update when possible, and I'm trying my best to feel out the characters all over again. It's been a long while, and it's strange enough writing in third person again... When I have been writing in first lately. Please leave reviews with any comments! Thanks and Enjoy!)

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There were always evenings like these, when Will restlessly lay awake, his hands folded behind his head, his mind elsewhere as he stared at the ceiling of the captain's quarters. He usually thought of his wife and their short time upon the golden shores of Shipwreck Cove, her lithe body enticing him, her lustrous hair glinting in the light as she danced around him.

Tonight was different.

Tonight, he dwelled over Davy Jones' demise and the day his own palpitating heart was ripped from his chest. Absentmindedly rubbing the black scar, Will propped himself up and leaned against the wall, his feet draped over the edge of his bunk. He remembered the way the slimy bastard gripped at his chest, as though his soul had shriveled along with his heart, and he knew, by instinct or otherwise, the former captain had rejoined his lover once he toppled into the swirling sea. However, Will couldn't help but wonder if there was a place beyond the ocean for Davy Jones. The immortal weren't supposed to die. The immortal were... Everlasting, perpetual, and bound to roam the Earth until everyone they knew perished. But that wasn't how it worked for Davy, was it? He was as special case; a macabre and unique case, to be sure.

Instead, the man had fallen into the harsh and changing sea, purely because he was in love with it. Now what? Was there a hell, as the Bible proposed? Did Davy arrive in his own locker, no longer littered with writhing tentacles and forced to reside as a normal man in that place of torture and punishment? A place where there was no hope, no ease from the pain of losing everything dear to him? Then again, did Davy Jones' possess anything dear to him at all? Perhaps the locket that now slumbered in the music chamber was still a prized possession, but Will rather doubted it.

His mind drifted away from Jones' and the foul deeds committed, and wandered back to Elizabeth, once again thinking of what would happen once Elizabeth died…Once their children and their children's children died... Will would be the only one left, unless his heart was returned by the bayou goddess, which seemed unlikely when it came down to it. He would have to live with the sorrow of losing his loved ones, even Jack, who, through all his faults, still managed to be his friend in one way or another.

Will would be alone.

The thought of life and death circled again and again as if he were facing the gallows in a matter of hours.

Even if there were distant descendents of himself to come, Will would not be able to bear watching his wife's lovely, intelligent eyes or slightly crooked smile be passed on through the generations, and he would not be able to explain his ethereal term aboard the Flying Dutchman and his equally ill-fate of living forever. And in that case, Will considered suicide. Or rather, Will decided on suicide, no matter how much his absent heart protested. The ache of emotional torment would be too much, he knew. It would cause him unequivocal pain that no woman or journey could absolve. So he would stab his own heart, by that time hopefully he would've found a captain to replace him, and he would soar away to a place where he could be with Elizabeth and their sons and daughters again, and nothing would be able to go wrong.

It was a bitter, horrid dream that Will had to, more than once, shake from his mind.

Shaking his head, Will scratched his arm, feeling the mild rash beneath his red blouse feel as though it was pulsing when he touched it. It had appeared a fortnight ago, first as a red circle and then spots began to appear. The captain flipped up the cuff of his sleeve to eye it again, for the billionth time wondering what could cause an immortal man to possess such a fiery inflammation. It was then Will's eyes widened and the fabric slipped from his fingers before he picked it up again.

It was no longer a slightly red, feverish pattern of bumps running from his elbow to his wrist; green-tinged scales swathed his arm, as though shielded in armor, and tiny white barnacles that belonged on a giant whale decorated the crevices of his skin, nearly encasing his wrist. Will ran his hand over the fish-like limb again and again, his breath catching, blood rushing into his cheeks.

He had ferried souls. He had never strayed, and for the past year and a half, he had never returned to the world of the living to visit his beloved. Will would never corrupt his purpose, therefore corrupting himself, and he trembled when he felt the slick exterior again. Something was terribly wrong; he could feel it beating through his veins.

After lugging back on his boots, Will bolted from the chamber, nervously playing with his sleeve as he bounded up the steps toward the helm. He glanced over his shoulder, and for a mere second, he saw Elizabeth gliding toward him in a sheer nightgown, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, but a darkness lurking in her eyes. Will squinted, looking closer, and realized that she was transparent; as transparent as a ghost, and when he turned around to move closer, she disappeared.

Did that mean Elizabeth, his Elizabeth, was dead? Dying? Hurt? He managed the trek up the staircase in a complete daze and faced Bootstrap Bill Turner.

"How do I summon Calypso?" Will asked.

"Calypso?" Bootstrap shook his head, the grey tint to his curious eyes fading. "Davy Jones never sought her out, Will. I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to."

Will gritted his teeth and then, with a hesitant glance around the ship, he showed his father the scaly patch of skin.

His father's hoarse voice lowered, "What's the meaning of that?"

"I don't know," Will replied. "I have ferried souls. I have done my duty that Calypso endowed me with. I can't… Make out what I have done."

"Is not you that has ruined t'ings," a voice ricocheted. "Is your lover, William Turner, whose nature is mine."

Will spun around to see Calypso, leaning over the stern of the ship, black dreadlocks hanging down the back of her russet colored gown. The pungent smell of mud and saltwater struck him like a mound of bricks as he approached the sea witch, and Will gazed into her back, wanting to accuse of her bewitching him, of ruining his life, of every horrid thought that had ever entered his brain. But Will merely clenched his fists.

"Elizabeth is faithful to me," he said. "She would not—"

"Oh, but William, I know you, and you have fallen prey to someone who you cannot trust with your heart."

"That isn't true, and if it was— I have not corrupted my purpose, as Jones' did. There is no reason for me to become like him. I have done the duty you bestowed on me, Calyspo. I have never faltered."

She swirled around, deep circles beneath her eyes as she hissed, "Oh but you have! She has corrupted your purpose and she has corrupted you."

Will flinched, entirely confused. Calypso slunk toward him like a graceful animal, and her slender fingers stroked his cheek. Will did not avoid the touch, not wanting to offend her in any way. He had to know what she meant; he had to know what had happened to Elizabeth.

The goddess' hand fell away from Will's face, and Calypso said, "While I gave you this duty, to ferry souls to the other side, Elizabeth is your purpose. She is what you live for. You belong to her, and so, when she betrayed you, you are the one that suffers."

Will drew in a shaky breath, the night air clinging to his lungs. "And so I will become like Davy Jones?"

She nodded, an evil glare tainting the sorrowful expression.

"Can anything be done to change it?"

Her head tilted to one side, and she looked as if it were her terms and her decision on whether Will continued his devotion to his wife. "Do you t'ink she loves you, William?"

"Yes," Will automatically said.

"Then you may see her." She paused, her fingers curling. "Seven days."

"And what of the souls?"

"They can wait," she said. "And if she does not love you, perhaps you…" She tenderly caressed his face again. "Can find another to love. Another to take her place so you do not turn as Davy Jones did."

"Beyond this one, to visit my wife," he enunciated the word, "I will not receive any offers from you."

"Very well," she said. "But a pity you chose a woman with such untamable qualities. After Davy Jones', how could you not see through her?" She released a soft laugh, as if everything she had said was a joke. "Is like looking at me."

Will's teeth grinded together and he closed his eyes, inhaling his fury to the pit of his stomach. "Elizabeth did not betray me as you did to Davy. She did not—"

"Do not speak of things you do not know!" she cried.

Will's voice pitched to a louder level. "Do you know where she is?"

"She is not on the sea, therefore she is not part of my sight."

"And Jack? Do you know of his whereabouts?"

"Ahh," she whispered. "Jack Sparrow. That I can tell you."