A/N: Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews :D
Reminder that I do not own POTC or its characters
Her father was dead. It was the only reasonable and logical thought to enter her mind in those moments as she watched him float away on his rowboat, telling her that he'd send her love to her mother. They're both dead. There's nobody left. And it was her fault. She had been the one to leave him in Port Royal and head to Tortuga. No wonder he'd thought that she was dead. It had been months since she had seen him, weeks since she'd even thought about him.
She was a terrible daughter. And a terrible person. It was the second death on her hands, the second time she'd ruined a life. She should have taken her father with her. They could have left Port Royal together, escaped Beckett together, perhaps even found Jack together.
Will still held her in his arms, letting her cry into his chest, stroking her hair and whispering comforting words into her ears. It was the closest they'd been to each other since... and it was reassuring to know that he still cared about her, that he'd forgiven her indiscretions.
They stood like that for a long while until Elizabeth finally lifted her head to look at him, and by the sympathetic expression she was greeted with she could tell that she probably looked a mess, and she felt like one too. She tried to speak but all that come out was a muffled sob.
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth." Will said as he planted a light kiss on her forehead.
Elizabeth looked up, brow creasing in confusion, finally able to find her voice. "What for?"
"It's my fault. I shouldn't have gone through with Beckett's offer. I should have found my own way to free you from prison, and then we could have fled Port Royal together, the three of us."
She broke away from him, outraged that he could even consider the thought that he held any blame in this. He had done nothing wrong. He had only been acting in her best interests, and she had thrown them back in his face. "It's not your fault, Will, it's mine. I could have taken father with me when I left Port Royal, but I didn't."
"You weren't to know, Elizabeth." He went to gently caress her face but she stepped back, shaking her head. "You shouldn't blame yourself."
"I must blame myself, Will. It's my own fault." He took a step towards her but she continued to back away from him, shrugging off his arms. "Don't! Please, Will. You can't keep treating me like I'm not a bad person!" She felt tears sting at the back of her eyes. "Don't you see? I'm the cause of all of this! If it wasn't for me we wouldn't have even had to come here!"
"If it wasn't for you we might all have been in the Locker with no hope of rescue."
Refusing to listen to his reply, she turned from him and descended the Pearl's steps, and without giving it a lot of thought she pushed open the door to the captain's quarters, stepping inside. She slammed the door shut and glanced around the room, noting with slight disappointment that Jack was nowhere to be found.
She crossed his cabin, pushing open the door to his sleeping quarters, and gently sat on the edge of his bed, the bed that he had once offered to her, whilst on their way to Isla Cruces, as a gesture of goodwill. But since his return she'd insisted she bunked with the rest of the crew so that she didn't inconvenience him. If she'd asked he would probably have said no anyway. He wouldn't want his murderess anywhere near his things.
She put her head in her hands, wishing she could erase those events from her memory, wipe clean the slate and start again with Jack, with everyone. If she could go back to that moment aboard the Pearl, what would she have done differently? She'd never once asked Jack why he'd returned to his ship that day when he could so easily have kept rowing. He would have reached land eventually, and escaped as the Kraken took down the rest of them.
Her heart lurched and tears began streaming down her face. What if he had been planning to stay behind all along? What if he didn't need encouragement to be a good captain and go down with the Black Pearl? She'd sent him to his death with a Judas kiss and an 'I'm not sorry', rubbing salt into an already open wound.
She was a terrible person. It could no longer be denied.
The door creaked open and as she looked up she met eyes with the one man that invaded her thoughts and tugged at her guilty conscience. He seemed startled to see her sat on his bed, but he said nothing and crossed over to the dresser, opening a drawer and rummaging around inside.
"Tell me you won't ever forgive me, Jack." Her voice was thick and he turned at the sound, his eyes displaying the same haunted sorrow that he had expressed upon telling her that they weren't back, that they hadn't made it out of the Locker.
His eyebrows drew together, his lips forming a frown. "Why would I do that?"
She couldn't meet his eyes, choosing to look down at the wooden floorboards instead. "Because I don't deserve your forgiveness. I'm an awful person."
Jack was silent for a moment, leading Elizabeth to wonder if he was going to respond at all. Then, "If you insist."
She looked up as he turned his attention back to the dresser, his back to her. "What?"
She saw his shoulders slump and he sighed. His voice was bitter. "It's what you wanted to hear, wasn't it? You want me to tell you what you want to hear." He spun back around to face her. "You don't deserve my forgiveness, love. There. Now that's out of way, can you please leave my cabin and shut the door on your way out." He made a grand gesture at the door with his hand.
"That's all you're going to say to me, Jack?" Rising from the bed, she couldn't quite believe that Jack was capable of such spite in his words. Her eyes met his and his expression softened slightly, but it wasn't anywhere near the warm, cheeriness with which he used to address her. What had happened to 'I want nothing that isn't freely given'?
He raised his eyebrows. "You want me to go further, Miss Swann? Fine." He wandered around the bed until he was stood on the other side. "No, I'm not going to let you cry on my shoulder, since that's the job of your fiancé, not me. And yes, I agree with you, dear ol' William does not deserve you for a wife." She flinched at the harshness in his tone, once again taken aback by the way he seemed to know her thoughts even before she did. "Why? Because he deserves somebody innocent, honest, faithful and as a consequence rather dull, all of which you are not."
What was that supposed to mean? Her gaze followed him as he crossed to the other side of the room, noting the exaggerated movements of his arms as he walked. This was all bravado. "Then who do I deserve, Jack? You?"
Jack shifted uneasily where he stood, swaying slightly. "No, but not for the reason you think." He broke eye contact, his gaze casting downward for a brief moment, and Elizabeth knew she'd pierced his armour. His voice softened, and he said with surprising earnest. "You really don't deserve someone like me, darling, believe me."
She took hesitant steps towards him, seeing that his heavily crafted facade was slowly disintegrating in front of her. "Why not? You said yourself that we were peas in a pod, very much alike, both driven by curiosity." He tensed as she approached. "We're both pirates, we both long for freedom, we both want to know what it tastes like," she was now only inches from him, her lips within touching distance of his. All she had to do was take that step, take his lips in hers again. She could tell his body was betraying him: he leant closer, his lips parting for her, his breathing growing frantic. "What it actually tastes like."
She closed her eyes and her lips found his, meeting in a clash of fiery passion. She felt herself falling, freeing herself from her guilt, the taste of his lips intoxicating, addicting. Her arms wrapped themselves around his neck, holding onto him, never wanting to let go of this moment. His deft hands found her waist and gently pushed her towards the bed but before she reached it he pulled away.
"Enough." His voice was hoarse and he pulled her arms away from his neck. "We can't keep doing this, Elizabeth."
"This is only the second time." She watched as he closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. "And tell me it wasn't what you wanted. What we both wanted."
"We can't always have what we want, Elizabeth." His voice was distant again and she knew his barriers had gone back up, blocking out his emotions. "It's a sad fact of life. Instead, we have to focus on what we need to survive."
He turned from her and walked off, leading her to wonder what game he was trying to play. She needed to be able to play it better. She needed to get through to him, find the good, honest man that still lingered underneath his cold, unconcerned exterior. "Why are you doing this, Jack? I've never heard you so defeated. You're a pirate, you take what you want and don't give anything back."
"Why am I doing this?" He spun around to face her, arms outstretched in an exasperated gesture. "Why are you doing this, Elizabeth? Do you like tormenting me? Does it give you a thrill to know that you can continue to charm your way around Captain Jack Sparrow, even after you've killed him?"
She bit her lip at his outburst. This was the anger she had been expecting all along, and it hurt her to see the pain in his expression. He wasn't really angry, he was hurting, and it broke her heart. They just stood, staring at one another, Jack's arms eventually dropping to his sides.
She wrung her hands together, aware that she was only making everything worse. "No, it makes me feel sick to know I've done this to you. Chaining you to the mast was selfish. I was thinking of the crew and Will, but also of myself. I didn't want to admit that I felt something for someone other than my husband and I thought with you gone Will and I could be happy again."
"And were you?"
She met Jack's eyes. "We've barely spoken since that day."
Jack paused, though his face remained stoic. After a long moment, he sighed. "I'll say it again, Elizabeth, you don't deserve me. You're never going to meet another like Will Turner. You might not deserve him, but he would never give you up. Don't throw away your chance at happiness and wedded bliss because you're not going to find it with me."
"You think I'll be happy after all of this is over? Do you think I'll be happy in Port Royal, suffocating in corsets and listening to idle gossip with no freedom whatsoever?" Her anger softened upon seeing the understanding reflected in his eyes. He knew only too well what freedom meant. You long for freedom. He'd recognised it in her psyche before she had discovered it herself.
Yet another example of how alike they were.
She ran her palm along her face, collapsing onto the bed. Jack was stood out of her field of vision, somewhere on the other side of the room. She just felt so tired. Tired of everything. "It's what William wants, I'm sure of it." She didn't even know if Jack was still listening, or even there, but she continued regardless. "He wants nothing more than to secure pardons for the both of us and settle back in Port Royal, getting married and having children as all ordinary families do. But that's not what I want. And I don't think he should suffer merely because of my selfishness."
She heard the creaking of floorboards and looked up, watching impassively as Jack took a seat next to her on the bed. They looked at each other a moment, neither sure how to act, the awkwardness a stark contrast to their interaction a few moments ago. Jack made the first move, tentatively putting his arm around her and drawing her closer to him, and Elizabeth let her head rest on his shoulder.
"What do I do, Jack?" she said quietly, "I can't go back to Port Royal. I can't. My father's dead. There's no-one left."
His voice was tender, affectionate. She thought she would never hear that from him again. "It'll work out in the end, love."
She nodded, wanting to believe him, before looking up at him, his gaze still fixed on an undetermined point ahead of them. "Can I stay here, Jack?" His head jerked towards her. "I mean, just for tonight. I don't want to face Will again. I don't want to face any of them."
His expression betraying no flicker of emotion, he carefully withdrew his hand from her shoulder and stood up, moving towards the door. "Alright."
"Wait!" she called, prompting him to stop and turn to face her. "You can stay. I mean, only if you want to. I'm unlikely to get much sleep anyway... I can always sleep on the floor. I just know if I leave here William will be waiting for me, and I don't have the energy to argue with him again."
"Surely that would only add to the suspicion, you spending the night in the captain's cabin with said captain?" he ended as an uncertain question, raising an eyebrow in bewilderment.
She tried to smile, though it was a feeble attempt. "I hardly care for my reputation anymore."
His eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the room. "Take the bed, Elizabeth. I'll string up a hammock or something." He ran a hand through his dreadlocks, wearily. "Or, better yet, I'll just stay out here." He gestured behind him to the door that led to his main cabin, before muttering under his breath, "Sleep will only elude me anyway."
Her heart lurched, and she stood up, moving over to him and putting a hand on his arm before he could turn and leave. "Jack, I..." words failed her and she bit her lip nervously.
Jack reached up and gently brushed his thumb down her face. "Don't mention it, darling." She smiled, but his expression remained serious. "I mean it, love. If you mention it to anyone, I will think up the most heinous form of revenge." It was then she noticed the flash of amusement in his dark orbs and the ghost of a smirk that played on his lips and relaxed. "Something to make you rue the day you sought to ruin my fearsome reputation."
She laughed, for the first time feeling herself, however briefly. "I'll be sure not to, Jack." His smile broadened slightly and he gently squeezed her shoulder before turning and leaving the room, giving her hope that their relationship might be repaired, if given time.
And she was fully prepared to give it time if it meant regaining even a semblance of the carefree banter and repartee they'd enjoyed before.
A/N: Thank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it! :) Please leave a review, they make my day! Till next time!
