AN: Another possibly in the same category as "WEFAS," though it can also be construed as a bit all on its onesies. I don't know what it is with me, but their coming out all over the place. Inspired in part by mermaidinblack on lj, but I've had the idea for a while. Two fics in a day? I'm crazy.

Disclaimer: If I owned this, the J/E bits would be much more better than they are now. And now, they're FREAKING AMAZING. The point is, I don't own.

At Whatever Cost

It isn't until that moment as he watches Elizabeth's hand press into Jack's stomach and they both tumble toward the mast that he doubts his own love for Elizabeth. He's been in love with her since he was twelve and she had accidentally knocked him over the head with her wooden sword (really more of a small piece of driftwood) and she'd kissed the egg-like bump like he knew his mother would have, if she were alive.

But there it is. He loves her, and he's never given another woman a second glance. He knows he's not unattractive man, and he also knows that, on occasion, other women will give him that lazy look over he's never quite understood, but it's never mattered before now. Now he thinks of Tia Dalma's knowing look, the air of sexuality about her, the way her eyes had moved, oh so slowly, taking him in. He gets the feeling she wasn't thinking "eunuch" when they landed none-too-bashfully just below his waist. And he noticed Elizabeth's maid – Estrella, he thinks – always blushes and giggles when she sees him. Not like Elizabeth, always so sure of herself.

He wonders if he's been deluding himself all this time, and that what he's always felt…it's that elation of having someone to care for. Who'll care for him.

Because really, Miss Swann (he still sometimes catches himself halfway through calling her that) is not who Elizabeth is anymore. Maybe it's not who she ever has been, because she's almost always insisted on being called Elizabeth.

He cringes as Gibbs sits in the boat, and he's waiting for him to comment. Because he had to see it. Had to see Jack, and Elizabeth…God.

It hurts, but maybe not as much as it should, knowing his fiancé is, right at this very moment, kissing another man. A pirate.

He knows that there are women all over Port Royal who would love to be married to a blacksmith, love to have a home and a stable life.

Elizabeth never wanted a stable life. She wanted him to be a pirate, but more and more, he's realizing that he's squared with that. And it isn't what he wants. He loves the feel of a hammer in his hands, and he loves knowing that he molds metal into beautiful things to be admired.

He tries to imagine Elizabeth sitting at home, reading a storybook to a small child with locks of curly brown hair and her dark, mysterious eyes, and finds that he can't see it. When he sees Elizabeth, he sees her with a smudge of dirt above her right eyebrow, wearing a ridiculous three-point hat, in the men's clothes she's been wearing more and more often (because, as she's said, it's impossible to fight in a dress), with a cutlass at her hip, a hard look in her eyes, and her hair blowing in the wind, long ago dunked in sea water and dried by the breeze blowing sails, pushing a ship toward the horizon.

She wants to be free. And he…he wants her to have what she wants.

At whatever cost.