AN: Misplaced Hearts is mostly about Liz trying to keep Will's heart safe while he's away on the Dutchman, and protecting her own when the first real temptation - or not - arrives on her doorstep with his own agenda.

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Summary: Elizabeth finds a novel way to get revenge on an unwitting old friend.

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Part 4 – A Not So Clandestine Gathering

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Elizabeth quickened her steps, certain that she must be mistaken. Following the loud voices, she rounded a massive boulder to find a narrow crevice cut into stone beneath it. It was a difficult pass for a woman in a long skirt, but she managed to negotiate it with a minimum of scraped skin and torn clothing from the jagged rocks.

Truth be told, she thought almost glibly, she could have climbed down in full chorus of 'A Pirate's Life," for the ruckus that those three were causing. Apparently, none of them knew the meaning of a 'clandestine gathering' among thieves. And by the increasing volume of the three clashing voices, the crooks were anything but civil about it.

Despite that, Elizabeth still couldn't locate them among the towering rock maze. Then she spotted what looked like a low-recessed inlet carved under a stone overhang into a tiny, beautiful blue-walled grotto. She meant only to take a minute to admire it, but over by the far ledge a well-weathered dinghy bobbed gently upon prestine water, and it displayed the tattered flag of the Caribbean Pirate Lord on its mast.

Jack Sparrow.

The conniving, low-life, sneaky, treacherous pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow, she amended furiously, back to cause her misery by stealing Will's heart?

She didn't take the time to question such motives or even what might have happened to the man's own ship, not when the tempting sight of that oar balanced against the bow had just distracted her.

Who needed a weapon?

Oh, yes, she knew how to deal with his kind, she decided, now unable to contain a gleeful laugh of anticipation in spite of her ire at this callous betrayal of their friendship.

"Friendship, ha!" She gritted, feeling a bitter taste left in her mouth with the possible concept. "How could I ever think that of a man like him! How many times did he purposely mislead or misinform Will for his own selfish purposes?"

The narrow grotto floor appeared damp and the lazy undulating water reflected an odd ripple-like reflection along the smooth, glassy walls. Elizabeth's shoes slid on the slippery ledge as she determinedly reached in for the loose oar. The sharp, reverberating echo of a pistol shot, however, startled her so badly that she missed her footing and tumbled headlong into the shifting boat as the oar slipped from her grasp to hit the dark water with a noisy plop.

In the time it took for her to untangle herself from the suffocating gray coat, the oar had already started to drift away from the dinghy. Desperate, she to catch it before it got too far, Elizabeth knelt low in the boat and vainly tried to paddle by hand.

What she forgot, of course, was that like any true sailor, Jack had tied the thing down so that the current wouldn't pull it – like it had already done with the oar. Too late, Elizabeth realized that all her furious efforts were taking the boat in one direction – over! Yet even as the poor, shuddering boat rolled, dumping her into the water feet first, she cried out in surprised amazement, unable to believe what had just happened!

What was even more astonishing was that Elizabeth had only dropped to her waist. She felt like a hopeless fool as her skirt billowed up around her middle. Naturally, to complete her humiliation, the oar floated defiantly by her left shoulder.

The embattled little dinghy, unfortunately, gave a forlorn gurgle of surrender as it filled up with grotto water and sank, ejecting the familiar worn gray coat and battered tricorn, along with two empty bottles of rum.

For several moments, too stunned to move, Elizabeth could do nothing more than stare at the vacant spot where Jack's boat had been earlier.

"Oh."

She hadn't meant to sink Jack's boat.

Shivering in the chill of the grotto, Elizabeth glumly snagged the passing oar and pushed herself through the waist-deep water. Despite casualties, her mission was unchanged: make Jack Sparrow wish he'd never heard of Elizabeth Swann nee' Turner.

Naturally, in the back of her mind, she already knew that the pirate had passed that point a long while ago – right about when he'd been introduced to Jones' relentless pet.

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TBC:

Part 5 – Ready Oar Not