Title: Visiting and Living (Leaving & Staying part 2/2)
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Summary: Some nights, she sat on her bed in the dark, wishing she could cry. But she found that all the wishing in the world would not help her now, and there was little point in it, so she stopped.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Jack/Elizabeth, slight Will/Elizabeth
Length: 4,700 words
Genres: romance, angst
Spoilers: major spoilers for AWE
A/N: Um, yeah, you probably all hate me completely now. It's been a whole freaking month since I posted the first part. Whoopsie... Life and work and... junk got in the way. But I've been busting my butt these past couple of days to finally finish this and get it out to you guys. So I hope you forgive me. And also, this one's a lot longer than the previous part... It wound up covering a lot shorter period of time than I expected, but it wound up SO much longer... Don't ask, I have no idea. Um... And I really am so unsure about this part because the last half of it has been so oddly planned and cobbled together. So please, if you like it, let me know. It'd soothe my nerves a whole lot.
EDIT, A/N #2: Oh, yes, and I had a lot of y'all saying last time that you were very confused as to who Bee's father was. The fact of the matter is, I purposely didn't explicitly say who Bee's father was. I wanted you to all guess and make up your mind for yourself whether it was Jack or Will. It's all up to you and your own imagination. :)

Visiting and Living

A week before Will would arrive, Jack left, claiming he wanted the Black Pearl to be as far away from the Flying Dutchman as possible when it arrived. Elizabeth wished he didn't have to go so early, but she knew that it made sense. She gave Jack a trunk, returning all of his gifts from the past ten years—temporarily, she assured him. Still, he looked a bit saddened by the act of putting the trunk into the dinghy that he would use to row out to the Pearl, anchored off the coast of the island.

Before he did, though, he turned to Elizabeth, kissed her lightly, and promised her that everything would be fine.

The comment soothed her nerves and she spent the next week trying to relax herself while making the final preparations for Will's coming.

The day that she and Bee stood on the bluff, watching the horizon as the flash appeared, all of the apprehension reentered Elizabeth's chest in one great surge. By the time Will was actually coming ashore, she'd practically made herself sick. But then the rest of the visit passed by in a blur.

A week after Will left, Jack returned curious, and Elizabeth's first reaction had only been to remark on Jack's speedy return. But he sat her down and asked about Will, and she told him what few details stuck out to her in the blur.

Will's expected surprise about Bee, his comments about how much Bee looked like Elizabeth (she agreed it was true: almost every trace of his father had faded from Bee as he grew), his smile at Bee's "manners" in calling him "sir." Once, he asked if she'd seen or spoken to Jack in the past ten years. Before she had to lie, though, he dismissed the idea as unreasonable. Then Will had asked Bee if his mother had told him stories of the great Captain Jack Sparrow. Bee had looked uncertainly to Elizabeth, who answered for him: yes, she'd told the boy a few of Jack's stories when he was younger. Will had laughed and muttered a bemused, "Of course!"

When Elizabeth told Jack that, he grinned appreciatively. Then he went on to ask the question that Elizabeth had been asking herself for a week: what did she think of Will's visit?

For that week, she had been unable to formulate an answer. This time, she sat thinking about it long moments before she answered.

But finally, she did.

Will's visit hadn't been like she expected. She'd expected the visit to pass like the old days, not at all like ten years had come and gone. Somehow, she had expected to still feel the same way about him in spite of everything that had happened in the past ten years. But there had been several hours of awkwardness followed by several more of getting reacquainted.

And Will…

Will was different than he had been ten years ago. The years of grim duty aboard the Dutchman had changed him in ways Elizabeth didn't immediately recognize and ways she pretended to understand.

Elizabeth admitted that she too was different than she'd been ten years ago. Life on the island and life as a mother had drastically changed her in ways that Will didn't see or understand. Her relationship with Jack had changed her outlook on things too—something she wouldn't ever admit to Will.

There was no doubt in her mind that she still loved Will—he was her first love and that feeling never truly went away—but time had changed her love for him, and he was no longer able to be what she really needed.

Upon realizing and confessing that out loud, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around Jack and buried her face in his chest. Neither of them had ever been particularly given to professions of love, but Elizabeth whispered then that the very same ten years that had distanced Will from her had brought Jack closer.

The thought was, she whispered, so unfathomably unlikely that before she might never have believed it would happen.

That ten years time could make her not the right mate for the man that she had married, but perfect for another man entirely, and that those same years could make that man right for her seemed so… strange. Contrary to all of the fairy-tale love stories that had been written on her mind from a young age.

But she shuddered to think what shape she would be in if that storm had never blown Jack's dinghy ashore all those years ago.

Pulling back slightly, Jack asked if she was ready now. She frowned and asked, "Ready for what?" but he didn't answered and instead shrugged it off. She didn't pursue the matter either, but let it drop.

She thought about it, though, after Jack left the next morning. Surely, he had to have been asking her something important… But, as the months wore on and she failed to come up with any answer, Elizabeth gradually forgot about it. By Jack's next arrival, almost seven months later, it didn't even cross her mind to bring it up again.

He came in the evening, shortly after Elizabeth had sent Bee to bed. Raising an eyebrow, he asked if she was too tired for him. She responded that had she ever once in the past ten years been too tired for him?

Of course, he had to remind her of the days after she'd given birth to Bee where she fell asleep without warning, even right in the middle of conversations with him.

Scoffing indignantly, she insisted that he would've done the same if he'd just had to shove another human being out of his body and then have that same human being keep him from getting a night's sleep. In fact, she said, she was sure he would've done a worse job than she. And that was why childbirth was best left up to women.

Jack laughed. That was fine by him, he said, just so long as the conception wasn't left up to women alone.

Elizabeth whole-heartedly agreed with that.

The next morning at family breakfast, Bee immediately opened up with, "Tell me where you've been, Daddy," knowing full well that it would launch Jack into the lengthy tales of where he'd been and what he'd done in the past seven months.

Jack kept Bee entertained with the stories off and on through the entire day until well after supper time. When finally, the stories came to an end, Bee sat staring starry-eyed at Jack.

Then he said something Elizabeth had expected, perhaps dreaded for a long time: that he wanted to be a pirate too, just like his daddy.

Smiling, Jack said that maybe someday, but to be a pirate, one had to be at least thirteen years of age. Mouth falling slightly agape, Elizabeth shot him an angry, warning glare from behind Bee. He stammered dumbly for a moment and Elizabeth adamantly mouthed "Sixteen! Sixteen!" at him several times.

But Bee had already latched onto his words, and exclaimed that his thirteenth birthday was not too far off—just over three years!

Oh, what a beautiful mess Elizabeth thought.

But it was too late for intervention now, she knew, so she simply sent Bee to bed. To dreams of the open sea, no doubt.

The moment he left the room, Elizabeth gave Jack a glare more deadly than any weapon she had ever wielded. He answered by saying that Bee was her son, and that he would want the sea as much as Elizabeth herself had, even if he had never heard a single story.

Elizabeth knew that it was true, but she refused to concede the battle to Jack and berated him a hundred ways for instilling such foolishness in their boy. She went to bed that night without surrendering either.

The next morning, she was not at all surprised to find Jack gone. Honestly, she was a bit relieved at his departure. She hoped that his absence might give Bee a chance to calm down and regain some sense, but it seemed only to fuel his excitement.

When Jack returned two months later for Bee's birthday, the child was just as—if not more—excited than he had been that first night. Jack ruffled the boy's hair and proudly told him that he was growing up. Ten-years-old, he was in double-digits now!

Bee grinned, saying that there were now only three years until he could sail.

These next two birthdays, Elizabeth knew, were going to be nightmares.

If his tenth, eleventh, and twelfth birthdays were nightmares, though, his thirteenth would be hell. Elizabeth didn't know how in the world she would tell her son that day that he couldn't leave with Jack on the Black Pearl. It would break the boy's heart, and probably Elizabeth's consequently.

But that, she had to remind herself, was a worry for another day. Today, she was going to enjoy Bee's birthday party.

As Bee opened his presents, Elizabeth smiled. She was the practical parent and Bee received a practical present from her: new shirts, which were about all she had to offer him. Jack, on the other hand, was the "fun" parent. From him, Bee received a hat, just like Jack's, that was a size or two too big—he'd grow into it, Jack said.

Bee agreed. By his thirteenth birthday, when he needed it, the hat would certainly fit.

Elizabeth sighed deeply. The very first moment she had alone with Jack, she berated him again for filling—and now covering—Bee's head with the dream that he would soon be a pirate.

Clearing her throat, though, she reminded herself aloud that it was a worry for another day, three years from now. There was no use in soiling everything over something that wouldn't happen for a time yet.

The rest of Jack's visit passed in a decidedly cheerier mood once they set that aside. Even his departure—he warned Elizabeth of it this time—was not so hard as some had been.

Eight months later, he came in late at night, when Bee was in bed and Elizabeth was tidying up, trying to sneak up behind her to scare her. She heard the faintest creak of the door opening and closing, though, and she knew already that it was him.

Without even turning to face him, she called, "Nice try, Jack."

He swore under his breath, causing her to laugh deeply. As he wrapped his arms around her from behind, she sank back against him. She heard his heart against her ear and listened to the rhythm.

Rhythm. It was then that she realized that their lives were following a rhythm of their own: despite Will's visit, life was going on as normally as it ever got for them. It was what any woman really wanted when she settled down and started a family: a rhythm of her own, steadiness in some form.

Hers was far from normal with a husband who was only around one day every ten years and another man in an unnamable role who wandered but came home at least more often than the other. And Elizabeth knew that Jack was more of a father to Bee than Will could ever be, even if it was possible that Bee was Will's son biologically. Will had one day out of ten years to visit Elizabeth and Bee. Though Jack didn't use the full nine years and three-hundred sixty-four days left, he did live with them considerably longer than Will visited.

It was quite possibly the strangest arrangement Elizabeth had ever heard of.

But it was her life. Her own rhythm, in spite of its many flaws.

Some of those flaws, though, she had to admit she sometimes longed to fix. Like, at this moment, she wished to fix Jack's leaving (which, for this visit, came a full week after his arrival). Though she understood, she couldn't stop the occasionally hope that one day, he would stay indefinitely.

By the time Jack came again, four months later, Elizabeth had again tucked the irrational hope into a back corner of her mind to sit for a while before it inevitably reemerged.

This time, it was Bee's eleventh birthday and the boy spent the entire day proudly exclaiming, "Two more years, two more years!"

The thought of her baby boy leaving her as well turned Elizabeth's stomach, even though it was a few years down the road yet. She already had two men in her life who couldn't stay, and her baby boy was talking about leaving as well. Since his enthusiasm didn't seem to have died down at all over the past year, Elizabeth counted it as a real, impending event.

Through the entire birthday celebration—and really, for the several days that Jack stayed after—Elizabeth wore a smile that she didn't really feel.

The night after he left, though, and after Bee went to bed, Elizabeth finally took the opportunity given to her and sat on her bed, burying her face in her hands. And she sobbed until she had regained the strength to push the loneliness into the back of her mind again. Until she had reassured herself that she would be all right for a time yet.

Three months later when Jack returned, Elizabeth was still holding on strong. The loneliness was still gnawing at the very back of her mind, but it was at least out of sight.

The next morning, Elizabeth awoke somewhat earlier than she usually did. After dressing according to her usual routine, she brushed her hair before braiding it. It was getting very long, she noticed. She'd barely bothered with trimming it in the twelve years that she'd been on the island now, and these days it fell past her waist.

Bee had liked tugging on it as a child, Jack liked running his fingers through it, and two years ago today, Will too had commented on how much he liked it. Elizabeth, though, had never really decided if she liked it. A lot of times, like right now, it simply served to remind her that she was no longer the young, messy-haired pirate girl she had been. Still, she found it hard to cut all of that hair away.

Sighing to herself, she tossed the braid over her shoulder and went out to the kitchen to start breakfast. Almost an hour later, the smells of a finished breakfast drew both Bee and Jack out of bed and to the table.

Elizabeth sighed quietly to herself as the usual routine kicked off: Bee asked and Jack went into his usual tales of his latest adventures. It faintly prodded those feelings she had been stowing in the back of her mind, but she forced herself to bear it.

These were her men, this was her life. Why should she feel sad about it now, after all these years of being fine?

Asking herself that over and over again got Elizabeth through the rest of Jack's visit and the months that followed.

Nine months later, when Jack came back for Bee's twelfth birthday, Elizabeth was once again firmly pinning the emotions in the back of her mind. She was determined not to fret about things and feel down, but enjoy every day.

Even with Bee's constant proclamations of "One year!" on this day.

Elizabeth laughed, interjected things in the midst of Jack's stories, and amusedly promised to fix the coat that Bee received from Jack, as it was far too big in most places. For all intents and purposes, she was indeed happy. She swore she was.

But, she wondered, did she have herself fooled, or was it the truth? It was a question she didn't yet have the answer to, and she was glad that it was a question that, at least for the moment, didn't really need answering.

Bee's birthday passed in a lighter mood with Elizabeth, and to her amusement, Jack commented that night that she seemed "considerably cheerier today" than on Bee's previous two birthdays.

In response, Elizabeth merely smiled and shrugged. There was nothing to say.

Likewise, Jack wordlessly returned the smile and lightly kissed her forehead.

The next morning, he was gone and Elizabeth sighed lightly to herself as she rolled out of bed. Not a depressed sigh like the ones she had been fighting, but a simple, meaningless sigh.

Four months later, late one night, she heard the door creak faintly again as it had a while ago—almost two years ago, had it been? It didn't seem that long—and she laughed. "Still not working, Jack," she called once again without turning.

He swore faintly like he had before, and she laughed to herself again.

She realized then that this was nice—she was, in that short moment, happy without trying to be happy. She was joyful without making herself forget about impending things. For a moment, she just blinked at herself as Jack rambled about something behind her back. It seemed so strange to her, this just now.

What about that moment had brought her joy?

Surely, it was not as simple as Jack's arrival.

Maybe his antics—which she had seen less of directed at her down through the years—made her feel young again? Maybe she liked that this visit was a tad set apart from others? Or maybe it was something else entirely, something she couldn't think of or name?

She didn't know, and decided that it shouldn't matter. Over-thinking the matter would not bring her any more pleasure than that moment had held. So she went to bed that night wondering faintly, but resolved not to over-think the matter.

They—Elizabeth, Jack, and Bee—spent the majority of the next day fishing. When Bee had been younger, it had been a fairly regular thing with them. Almost every time Jack would visit, they would go fishing. Sometimes Elizabeth would go, sometimes she would not. Sometimes between Jack's visits, just she and Bee went.

But it had been quite a while since the three of them had all been.

In the morning, after breakfast, they went down to the beach. While Bee and Jack waded into the water with their poles, Elizabeth stood on the jetties with hers, mostly safe from the splashing waves. They had pretty fair success, and to Elizabeth's delight, her catch outweighed both her son's and Jack's.

Before long, though, the sun's heat became too much and after stopping at home for a brief lunch, the three moved their fishing adventure to a shaded inland lake. They spent the majority of the afternoon there, and though Jack and Bee had better luck in the lake, Elizabeth still outdid them.

In the late afternoon, on the way home, she certainly didn't let them forget it, either.

She cooked up a few of the fish for dinner, and they all ate while Jack insisted that Elizabeth's fish tasted worse than his. She, of course, insisted that it was the other way around. Bee eventually took his mother's side, leaving Jack's claim unsupported.

Elizabeth expected him to keep up the argument after Bee went to bed, but instead, he fell silent as Elizabeth collected the dishes.

Then, solemnly, he repeated a question he had asked three years ago—was she ready?

Elizabeth had the same response as the first time: "Ready for what?" accompanied by a confused frown.

Again, Jack didn't seem inclined to answer. He fiddled with the buttons on his shirt and didn't look up at Elizabeth to even acknowledge that she'd asked a question. Exasperated, she sighed and pointedly told him that if he didn't answer her question, she'd be unable to answer his.

After a few more moments of silence, he asked if she was ready for Bee to leave.

She swallowed against the lump that immediately rose in her throat. Staring at the floor for several minutes, she eventually answered: no; she didn't think she would ever be ready.

Jack sighed, and reminded her that his fateful thirteenth birthday would be arriving in eight months. And how were they ever going to stop him now?

Snappily, Elizabeth responded that, had Jack listened to her three years ago, they wouldn't have this problem.

She was surprised when he agreed.

That night, they both fell asleep with absolutely no solution in mind. When the morning light came, Elizabeth still didn't have an answer and she found Jack gone. That angered her a little—that he would leave when they were in the middle of such a discussion—but then, as a bit of time wore by, she realized that it gave her time to think by herself, and probably gave Jack the same advantage.

Jack gave her—and himself—four months of thinking time before he returned again. By that time, Elizabeth was sure she had her answer.

Jack poked his head sneakily into the door and looked around before asking if Bee was in bed. Elizabeth answered that she'd sent the boy to bed just under half an hour ago. Nodding faintly, Jack slipped in.

Raising an eyebrow, Elizabeth asked why he didn't want Bee to see him. He answered that this visit wasn't about him and Bee, but about Elizabeth and Bee. Quietly and solemnly, he repeated the question from his last visit: how were they ever going to stop Bee from leaving in four months?

Softly, simply, Elizabeth gave her answer.

They weren't. They couldn't stop Bee now. In four months, when he turned thirteen, he was going to leave on the Black Pearl with his father.

Apparently surprised by her words, Jack just blinked at her for a moment. Then slowly, he asked if she was serious. Surely, he said, she wasn't. She wouldn't let Bee go that easily.

She assured him that she was completely serious. She didn't see that she had any other option but to let him go. The sea's call was in Bee's blood, and if they tried to stop him from going, he would resent them both for a very long time.

Sighing, Jack admitted there was nothing he could do either. And he suggested that Elizabeth help Bee pack in the coming months, so that he didn't forget anything. Sniffling, she wiped away a single tear before it fell all the way down her face. And she nodded.

Jack stood and moved towards the bedroom, but as a thought occurred to her, Elizabeth grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

She asked what he had been talking about three years ago when he'd asked if she was ready—back then, he couldn't have been talking about Bee leaving. Jack's eyes fell to the ground, and he murmured that if she was ready, she would know what he'd been asking.

Again, she stopped him and fixed him with a glare that insisted he tell her.

Still looking at the ground, he was silent for a long time before he answered, "I was asking if you were ready to leave the island. To come with me."

Startled, she blinked dumbly and released Jack's wrist, but said nothing. He walked off, leaving her that way for nigh on an hour before she regained enough brain function to go to bed herself.

The next morning when she awoke, Jack was already gone.

The next four months passed mostly in a blur of rhythmical packing like Jack had suggested. Elizabeth wanted to make sure that nothing important was left behind.

Some nights, she sat on her bed in the dark, wishing she could cry. But she found that all the wishing in the world would not help her now, and there was little point in it, so she stopped.

When those four months were up, Bee and Elizabeth sat on the beach as the sun rose. As they expected, the Black Pearl soon appeared on the lightening horizon.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin and the cool spray of the ocean on her face. Today, she thought, was the day. When she opened her eyes again what seemed like eternities later, the Pearl was anchored offshore and Jack was steadily rowing a dinghy towards her.

Bee was already grinning beside her, and she made a quick, warning "Tsk!" sound at him. The grin vanished and Bee's face mirrored his mother's straight, emotionless expression.

They let Jack get the dinghy ashore himself and they let him come over to them. He ruffled Bee's hair, wishing the boy a happy birthday. Clearing his throat and throwing a short glance over at Elizabeth, he asked, "So, are you ready?"

"Yes, we are," Elizabeth answered first.

Mouth falling slightly open, Jack blinked dumbly.

Elizabeth's expression remained the same—flat, emotionless—but Bee's grin quickly returned after a few mere seconds. And then he quickly and excitedly gushed that his mother was coming too, they were both leaving with him.

Jack looked to Elizabeth for confirmation and when she nodded, he wrapped her in his arms with a delighted laugh.

He wasted absolutely no time in helping Bee load everything into the dinghy. When they were finished, he extended a welcoming hand to Elizabeth. She told him that before they left the island, there was one thing she needed to do.

Jack looked at her quizzically when she asked for his sword, but he gave it nonetheless.

Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth flipped her hair—in a simple tail today, no braid—over her shoulder. She took a moment to steady her hand with the sword at shoulder-height then struck quicktly and decisively through the hair. The tail came off in her hand and she held it for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then she simply flung it back over her shoulder, letting it fall to the sandy beach behind her.

Handing the sword back to Jack, she climbed into the dinghy and took a seat. Jack shoved them off and rowed them out to the Black Pearl.

When she climbed aboard Jack's ship, Elizabeth closed her eyes and reveled in the old, familiar feel of the rocking deck beneath her feet. It had been far, far too long since she had felt that. When she opened her eyes, she saw several of the crew staring at her.

Old faithful crewmates who remembered her smiled widely, new ones who had never known her wondered who she was.

Clearing her throat, she asked what it was all of them were looking at and immediately began barking orders to help Jack and Bee unload the dinghy, get it aboard, and prepare the ship to sail. A few of them still stared at her blankly, but most began scurrying about and doing as she instructed.

She loved how that felt, too. How, even after all this time, it was still second nature to her to be able to command a ship such as this.

As the crew scurried around the deck, Elizabeth climbed to the back of the ship and looked back at the island. It sank in again that she was leaving it behind. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as her eyes remained fixed there.

She would continue to stare at the island until the Pearl had sailed too far away for her to see it anymore.

In six years' time, she would of course be back again to meet Will for his one day on land. But for now, she was through with being left behind. She was going back to the sea that called Jack, called her son. And back to the sea whose call she had ignored for almost fourteen years now—far, far too long.

With the resurrected Captain in her standing her tall and square-shouldered, Elizabeth turned around to face the open sea.

She had made a decision.

She was through spending her life in wait for everyone around her; she was done with being depressed over everyone's leaving. She wasn't going to put herself in a position to try and be happy anymore. From now on, she would spend what time she could with the people and things that she loved, being happy because she was happy.

In one sense, she would leave. In another, she would stay.

But in her mind, she was once again caught in between.

THE END (for real this time, no more)

Like I said, please review to soothe my nerves!