I don't own anything that I didn't make up, please don't sue me!! I'm not worth it!! Way different from the movies, like Beckett's reason for killing Governor Swann.

James looked at Elizabeth with an aching heart. Her battle for freedom had cost her so much. It had cost her status. It had cost her best friend. It had cost her father. It had even cost her fiancé. She had won her freedom, but at a price which made it almost not worth the while. Her status, that of a governor's daughter, had been lost because no proper woman sailed willingly with pirates. Her best friend, Jack Sparrow, had been killed by none other than Elizabeth herself, in an effort to save herself and the crew. Her father, Governor Weatherbee Swann, had been killed by Beckett in his effort to hurt Elizabeth as much as possible. Her beloved fiancé, Will Turner, had died protecting her from Captain Sao Feng. Now, she was left on a small commandeered sloop with the remains of Sparrow's crew and him: a drunken former commodore who was still helplessly besotted with her. Nevertheless, she was free.

How he longed to ease the pain he saw in her beautiful eyes and beloved face. He longed to hold her in his arms and kiss away the agony of so many losses. Yet it was not his place, he could not replace Turner or Sparrow in her heart; could not fill the hole left by lover and friend. He could not give her the emotional nourishment of a father. He could not gain back her lost status; could not even gain back his own. All he could do was watch her and love her with all his heart.

Every night was painful. While he was most often drunk during the day, she got drunk at night, and every night she came to him, climbing onto his small cot and wrapping her arms around him, murmuring Will's name. Every night, he longed to take what she offered, but knew she did not realize what she was doing. So every night he carried her back to her bed without tarnishing her honor. Every night, though the pain in his heart begged to be dulled by rum, he did not drink, because he might not refuse her advances if he was drunk. Every night, he longed to at least kiss her, but he knew he would get no satisfaction with her drunken belief that it was Will who held her. So he just carried her back to her bed.

Every day was agony. She drank all day, hovering on the edge of intoxication until evening, when she allowed herself to get drunk. He was drunk all day, but had reached the point where he was still mostly lucid while drunk. He did his share of the work, and then just watched her. She would just sit on the rail, staring out at the ocean, sometimes with silent tears running down her face, more often with a vacant, almost dead look on her face. Every day, he feared she was going to throw herself off and let the sea take her. Every day, he would stand leaning on the rail a few feet from her, staring into the sea and considering doing what he feared she was going to do: throw himself to death in the waves. Every day, he decided not to. He was never quite sure why. He supposed she held him back. He did not think she cared much for him, but he was all she had left, the only connection to her memories. So he stayed and bore the agony, pondering whether either of them could ever recover from the cost of freedom.