Author's Note: This takes place right as Pirates 3 leaves off, so if you haven't seen that movie yet and don't want any spoilers, DO NOT continue!!! This chapter is also a little bit short, but it's just the intro...the next couple will definitely be longer.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean (although that would be nice), and I certainly don't own Jack, Will, Elizabeth, or any of the characters for the movies. The story, however, is of my creation, as are any non-canon characters or things.

Chapter One

A Pirate's Life for Me

Three days.

Three sunrises, three sunsets, three mornings, three afternoons, seventy two empty hours.

Only nine years and three hundred and sixty two days left until he saw his Elizabeth again.

Will watched as the Dutchman drew closer to a wreck that had only minutes ago been just a speck on the horizon. In the capable hands of Bill Turner at the wheel and experienced crew on the deck, the ship always made good time…just when Will was wishing they could go a bit slower. He hated seeing the dead souls, hated looking into the faces of men who'd died far too young, leaving wives and children behind them.

The ship was a member of the Spanish Armada from the looks of things, probably blown off course by a nasty storm that'd crept up on them unexpectedly. It looked as though in all of the tossing and turning, something had ignited the barrels of gunpowder that had no doubt been stored underneath the deck--a stray candle, perhaps. Now all that was left was a sea of splintered, burned wood and the bodies of dead men floating in the abyss.

"Sailors, bring them onboard," he said in the tone Elizabeth had once nicknamed his 'Captain's' voice. The crew immediately began helping the dead souls aboard, and Will could not help but get a sick feeling in his stomach as he took in the hideously burned faces of the unfortunate crew. How did a poor, orphaned blacksmith end up with this job? he wondered to himself.

"Por favor, seňor. Is this the afterlife?" a young man in a uniform that had no doubt been a fine one asked in an accent thick as butter.

"This is the Flying Dutchman," Will answered, his voice flat. He hated saying that.

Immediately the dead crew froze, but even after just three days, Will was used to this. The legend of Davy Jones and his evil crew still haunted every seaman, and when a sailor heard the name Dutchman, a shiver automatically rolled down his spine. Word that Jones was dead had not yet spread, and sailors automatically assumed that the famous ghost ship was still under his command.

He raised his hands. "You have no reason to fear. Davy Jones is dead…I am the new captain, William Turner. Our duty is to ferry the souls lost at sea into the next life."

Slowly the rest of the crew boarded and were shown below deck, their faces distraught as they began to cope with the fact that they were, in fact, dead. They glanced nervously at the fleet of small boats that trailed the Dutchman, each carrying a soul lost to the sea. Will turned to Wyvern.

"How much time until sunset?"

The newly restored crewman consulted an old pocket watch and then the sun. "I'd say about ten minutes, Captain."

Will nodded, and then turned to his father. "Sail for the western horizon, then."

"Aye, Captain."

He turned to address his crew. "Back to your duties, men." They were working overtime to try and make the Dutchman a proper ship once more—it had suffered under the rule of Jones, and although it would sail no matter what (supernatural things had a habbit of doing that), Will had decreed that no ship of his would sail in such a sorry state.

The men returned to their duties and Will returned to his post at the rear of the ship, staring off into the distance behind them.

"Still thinking about her, son?" Bill Turner's voice was quiet, as he was careful to pay Will the proper respect as Captain in front of the men.

Will nodded and put a hand over the place where his heart had once sat, now simply an empty space underneath the angry red scar. He was happy to be alive, or whatever he was, but to have been brought back to life only to be tied to a ship that ferried the dead and the damned to the next life, to be torn away from the girl he had loved to oblivion since he was twelve years old, made him unsure if this half life that he led was truly worth it.

"You'll get used to it in time."

Will shook his head, but didn't say anything. "Was it hard when you left Mother?"

Bill shrugged. "Truth be told, I was never at home on the land, and she was never at home on the sea. I missed her, of course, but I've always believed that my true love was the sea."

As much as he liked sailing, Will couldn't relate to that at all. A ship was a ship and a good thing to have, but his true love waited in a place he could never go. An upperclass lady with money to take care of herself usually died when she was forty or fifty…that meant that he would only be able to see her two or three more times in this life. No, he couldn't think of that. It was too painful.

Sensing his son's dismay, Bootstrap reached back and patted him on the shoulder. As nice as it was to be comforted, it didn't help at all.

I cannot live like this.

"Raise the sails! I want to see every inch of canvas that we've got!"

Her crew, no doubt, believed her to be mad, but Elizabeth had not gone from useless gentlewoman to King of Pirates in the space of one year for nothing. They followed her orders quickly and efficiently as they chased after an East India ship heading to her hometown of Port Royal.

At first, Elizabeth hadn't been sure about her career as a true pirate. Stealing from the innocent had never been something that she wished to do—adventures were what she wanted, yes, but not at the expense of others who did not deserve it. However, she'd quickly discovered that nothing took her mind off of a certain William Turner quite as well as a good fight, and East India ships would generally shoot at them anyway, so she felt no qualms in chasing one or two of them down a month. Normally they just carried tea or sugar, nothing as exciting as shiny gold pieces, but that could be sold for a good profit at ports like Nassau and St. Augustine, so Elizabeth had decided that that'd be the best course they could take.

It took about five minutes to overtake the East India ship and less than that to take it over. The captain was a starched and pompous military man who scoffed at the sight of a girl captain trying to take over a great British ship. She'd wiped the smirk off of his powdered face with a sword straight through the heart.

A sword through the heart.

Elizabeth reflected on this as her men rounded up the swag from below deck. A few of the remaining crew members had elected to join the pirate ship, the rest had been given a small boat and enough water and food to last five days.

Will had been killed when his own blade had been driven straight into his heart. She remembered how scarcely two years ago he'd been laboring in his master's forge, creating beautiful swords for people like Norrington and getting none of the credit. Maybe if they'd stayed like that, he'd be standing right next to her now. No, that wasn't true. She'd always suspected that Will had loved her, for she'd always felt the same way about him, but without the adventure that they'd ended up on, she knew that she would have ended up married to a man like Norrington, stuffed into a corset and doing needlepoint all day. But Will…how had it come to this?

It'd been three days since she last saw him, walking out into the sunset to meet his new ship and new destiny. He wasn't fully alive now, but nor was he dead. He was immortal, which sounded strange even in her head. He would stay as young as ever, while she grew old. She'd see him maybe two or three times before she died, but that would be it. They wouldn't be like normal husbands and wives, who had houses and children and family to be with—they would never even be together. Would he still love her when he still appeared to be a young man, and she was old with wrinkles and white hair? She didn't want to think about the answer to that. Nevertheless, she'd guard the chest that contained his heart with her life.

She couldn't live with this. It felt as though it had been her heart that'd been ripped clean out of her body. Everything from the sun on the horizon to the sound of boots walking on the firm planks of her ship reminded her of him. His face was constantly swimming before her…how had she ever believed that she might in fact be in love with Jack instead? How had Will ever believed it?

"Er…Captain?"

Elizabeth snapped back to reality. "Oh, yes. What have we got?"

"Well…quite a bit of sugar. Some fabric, too."

The era of treasure ships roaming the Caribbean was long past. They were down to petty items like calico and foodstuffs.

Elizabeth nodded. "Bring it aboard, along with the new acquisitions. I'll set a course to St. Augustine, and maybe we'll sell some amongst the islands that we pass along the way."

She headed back to the ship, her earlier thoughts echoing in her mind.

I cannot go on like this.

She stared out onto the horizon as the crew heaved in the anchors and the ship began slipping smoothly through the water once again.

Who was she?
She was Elizabeth Turner, and the Turner family didn't just accept their destinies.

They made their own.

She was a Turner now, and she was not about to give up on her husband, accepting the notion of seeing him just once every ten years. She remembered a favorite expression of her mother: "Where there's a will, there's a way." Well, she had a will. Now she just had to find a way.

Author's Note: That's it for this chapter. I know that this one didn't have Jack in it, but don't worry, he's coming up soon