A/N: warning! blood and character death! please review.
Jack felt surprisingly light, and the crimson blood that stained his fingertips seemed to hold little worry for him. His blood gushed from the hole in his flesh, seeping slowly into the once polished wood of his beloved ship, leaving a piece of him behind as the boards turned red. The liquid soaked into the windswept deck, and Jack watched it with morbid fascination, gazing at the blood-drenched portion of his cotton shirt that had once covered the wound. Jack's tanned, golden face was void of pain or anguish, and his dark eyes shone like round, entrancing orbs, rimmed as always with a smoky lining of kohl.
Elizabeth stood shakily above his dying form, her slender hand trembling so hard that the pistol fell with an audible clunk to the deck. She paid it no heed, staring at Jack with a drawn, gaunt expression, her face pale like a ghost's as horror flitted across her wide brown eyes. A flash of red was shown just in the corner of her eye—she was spattered in his blood, and her usually clean hands were tainted with the crimson liquid, dying her manicured nails in an ugly reddish hue. "I've killed him," she murmured to herself, voice hoarse as her throat constricted, the realization closing in on her, leaving no room for escape.
Jack smiled wanly; a weak smile at best. "I'm not quite dead yet, love," he chided faintly, his eyes concernedly flickering up to her pallid face. Her hair hung in front of her face, serving as a sort of wall between her and the world—only her perfect rosebud shaped lips were visible beneath the curtain of hair, and even so, they were chapped and dry from anguish. She sat down next to him, hugging her knees to her chest and unconsciously rocking back and forth, eyes wide open, but unseeing. "Elizabeth," Jack murmured softly, fading.
She slowly turned to meet his gaze, staring blankly at his golden, cat-like face and shrinking back as he seemed to wither bit by bit. She swallowed hard, blinking until she found her voice. "Yes?" she answered falteringly, her voice just barely above the volume of a whisper, catching in her throat.
"Are you sorry this time?" Jack asked softly, his gaze intense and somber.
A tear made a trail down her dirty cheek, and droplets of warm, salty tears quivered on the edge of her long eyelashes, her brown eyes brimming. She gulped, fighting the lump forming in her throat. "Yes," she managed to reply, choking on restrained sobs, seeming to be in pain.
Jack smiled faintly. "Thank you," he murmured, and with that his eyes closed and the life faded from him, pooling along with his blood to soak into the deck of the Pearl. He had been so full of life, but now it was all gone, and his body lay unmoving on the floor, shriveled in death as the warmth of the living seeped away, dispersing into the air around him and then disappearing.
Elizabeth wept now, high keening cries, ringing across the open water and out across the horizon. One hand strayed from her side to rest on Jack's hair, but she snatched it back, ruing its jarringly blood-spattered presence in her line of vision. Curling up into a fetal ball, she rocked back and forth on her side, crying softly until finally the hand of sleep gently overtook her, granting her grateful refuge for at least a little while.