Chapter 4: An Old Soul

Another day, another adventure, thought Jack, taking a sip of rum. Another round with that scurvy mutinous maggot-bellied Barbossa, a cursed skeleton crew, and Aztec gold. Not to mention the Royal Navy cruising around somewhere in an undoubtedly unamused state of mind, and the whelp, that foolish eunuchy blacksmith, undoubtedly soon to get his throat cut by the aforementioned maggot-bellied mutineer.

Jack paid a sliding glance to his right.

Elizabeth sat quietly, loosely gripping her own bottle in hand, looking out towards the sea.

Well, at least the scenery had improved dramatically since the last time he was here.

Jack had endeavored to keep her mind off all the aforementioned little unpleasantries in their current plot line, not to mention their predicament of being marooned upon a desert island. He'd done a good job of it too up to a point, loosening her up with a bit of rum, inciting songs and raucous dancing around the fire.

She was a smart lass, too smart, perhaps. Now she'd gone quiet, and he wondered if she'd begun to truly grasp the possible horror of their plight. Dying of dehydration on a desert isle was not the way Captain Jack Sparrow ever intended to go. He didn't relish using the bullet on the girl in an act of mercy either. He would much rather put it in Barbossa's chest, but he didn't know if he would get the chance now.

It surprised Jack when he felt the weight of the lass's pensive quiet uneasily upon his shoulders.

"Piece o' eight for your thoughts, luv."

The girl raised an eyebrow, so curiously dark compared to the lightness of her tawny locks. It was as though two natures lived within her. A bit o' angel and a bit o' devil. From what he'd seen of her thus far, it was a fitting description.

She paid him a sliding glance, the corner of her shapely lips quirking up. "You probably don't want to know, Captain Sparrow."

Though he loved hearing that particular personal moniker, he decided he preferred it when she called him Jack.

He took another drink, his curiosity instantly aroused.

"Aye, and why is that?"

Elizabeth sighed, and leaned back in the sand. She'd never imbibed in spirits before, and found the rum left her feeling warm, liquid, and a little brazen. The energy she'd felt before when they danced by the fire had waned, and yet she wasn't quite ready to sleep. She wanted…something else. What exactly, she wasn't sure yet.

She looked to the pirate at her side, the fearsome, handsome, and yes-very odd-Captain Sparrow.

The rumors of his exploits all managed to leave out that particular detail of the pirate captain. It was something that could only be conveyed in personal acquaintance, she supposed. And despite his oddity, his wild tangents, his run-on manner of speaking, and his animated gesticulations…he made her feel like no one else ever had, and she couldn't quite place her finger upon it. Elizabeth was a woman of a lightning quick wit, and it bothered her when something escaped her cognitive grasp. It was a question she decided she would like to further explore, even if-well, what did it matter now anyway?

"I would hate to offend you, Captain, as we are sharing such close quarters tonight."

Jack laughed a little, taking the opportunity-the invitation-to siddle just a bit closer. Under the circumstances, he couldn't help but think about how seemingly willing she'd been to kiss a pirate in the blacksmith's shop.

If the whelp didn't get his throat cut, Jack still owed him for the rude interruption.

He mirrored her stance, sprawling out in the sand, propping his head upon his hand. "Offend me? A notorious and seasoned buccaneer? Now y'eve really got me curiosity up."

She gave that wan half smile, and he found himself watching her mouth with more interest than he should. "Well, that's just the thing, Captain Sparrow."

"Aye?"

"Here I am, a lady of station spending the night on a desert isle with a man society considers a fiend, even if I know he's a much better man than he's given credit for. Even if you do not even raise a finger in my direction, I am absolutely, irrevocably, ruined."

The pirate pressed his lips in a hard line, those dark eyes glinting dangerously in the firelight. For all his prattling and waving his fingers and odd way of speaking, it was moments like this that reminded Elizabeth exactly who she was keeping company with.

She mistook his dark expression for anger at her, but it was not Elizabeth Swann who angered Jack. It was the fetters of the society that confined them both. The society that kept her in a gilded cage, and that never really gave him a chance at an honest life in the first place.

Her heart skipped a beat as Jack lifted a finger towards her, and she flinched a little. And yet when he caressed the side of her face with a touch that was feather light she sighed, leaning into his touch, though not necessarily of her own volition. She was drawn to this man. She knew she shouldn't be, and yet she just couldn't seem to help herself.

"Usually I have to do a bit more than lift a finger to relieve a lady of her virtue," he said, chucking her lightly under her chin. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath, until suddenly it released in the form of a rather embarrassing sigh.

Jack was surprised again as he found he sympathized a little for the girl, and what it could mean for her to be ruined. He thought of his own Mum, and the difficulty of being a woman living without the protection of a man, scorned by society. He didn't think she could ever quite be reduced to living as a tart for this little folly, but maybe spinsterhood spent with the world whispering behind your back wasn't so appealing either.

"Despoiled many virtuous ladies, have you?" she asked with that half smile that somehow tugged at his heartstrings.

"Maybe a few. You'll be fine, luv. You might…have to submit to a doctor's examination to prove your-er-innocence…but after that no one will dare call you a liar. Or worse."

Elizabeth made an awful screwed up face, thinking of her father's physician, Doctor Reed, who was a pudgy, self-important tub of dough who smelled like old cheese left out on a hot day. The thought of subjecting herself to the humiliation of such an examination of her most private parts left a decidedly bitter taste in her mouth. "I think I would prefer the ruin," she quipped, and took a hearty swig of rum.

Jack raised his dark brows for such a revelation, and immediately his mind set upon the implications of such a statement, as a pack of starving hounds upon a fat hare. Immediately the devil inside began whispering in his ear all the things that could mean and all the things he could do with this beautiful girl on this deserted island, far away from civilization, society, the law, her father, Commodore James Norrington…

Shaking himself mentally, he scolded that voice inside, attempting to revoke it from his thoughts. She's just a girl, he insisted, at himself. She's just had her first drink of real spirits, and she doesn't really know what she's saying.

As though she were unaware of the battle she'd sparked within the pirate, she went on, "It's actually a little exciting, really. It makes me wonder, after all the dust settles, will I be free? Free to not marry-for no one my father approves of will possibly have me now. I have always thought, why should I have to marry? I am an intelligent human being. I am capable of orchestrating endeavors outside of having bloody tea in the drawing room with the other insipid society wives. I already handle father's accounts when he is away. Why can't a woman be free to make her own way in the world? The yoke of marriage is the only viable option a woman has, and it isn't fair. Indeed, marriage can go to the devil, I say."

Jack smiled widely, and in the firelight it seemed more a baring of teeth. His dark eyes positively gleamed in the firelight, glittering with some dark promise she didn't entirely understand. It caught her breath in her throat, made her chest feel suddenly tight. She found in that moment she absolutely could not tear her eyes from him.

"But what if you meet a bloke you would actually want to marry, Miss Elizabeth? What if someday you meet your match?"

He heard the sly words leave his mouth before he could bite down on them. Sometimes he felt as though he watched himself and the things he did from afar, as though it was not really him but something inside him, pulling all the strings. As though he was possessed by a demon that made him run two and fro to see whatever chaos he'd started to the end.

"My match?" She gave a sly smile, regarding him from beneath her lowered lids. For some reason she felt rather powerful, when Jack looked at her that way. "Well, it's certainly not James Norrington. And the thought, even if just on paper, that he would be considered my master absolutely rankles me."

Jack chuckled for the thought that anyone could consider himself her master, much less James Norrington. And yet he suspected she'd never beheld the fiercer side of the good Commodore. A man did not rise so high in the Royal Navy if he didn't have at least a small streak of sadist in him.

"And what of the young blacksmith? Dear William? He fancies you somethin' awful."

Awful enough to nearly put a sword in Jack's belly.

Elizabeth softened in that moment, toying with a shell in the sand. "Will is a dear friend. I know he fancies me, but I fear I would eat him alive. No, I am no match for Will Turner either."

Jack found himself scooting a hair closer, and though Elizabeth noticed, she didn't seem to mind. "What you're sayin' luv, is that you need someone a bit more…wicked?"

She smiled up at him, a closed mouth smile curling those perfect lips. "Perhaps," she acknowledged quietly.

"Someone who can read life between the lines. And someone with a hint o' rogue in 'em. I'm beginning to think you're the sort who likes that."

Smiling wider, Elizabeth found herself lying back in the sand, looking up at Jack. It felt very natural to do so. To lie close to this man, to feel as though he were leaning over her, without lording over her. "I might."

Jack didn't know what possessed him, when he reached out a ringed finger to caress her hair, brushing a strand away from her face, and arranging it upon her shoulder. His fingers brushed her collarbone, causing her to shudder.

"And, someone fierce, who can protect you. A man who will get you out of your scrapes when you need it, but who will also still regard ye as an equal afterwards."

Jack's clever fingers continued to toy with her hair, and Elizabeth's eyes slipped closed, enjoying the sinfully sweet contact. James had certainly never touched her like this, and Will had never dared. Jack lit her on fire with just a look; his hands upon her made her feel utterly wild inside. Something indescribable bubbled within her and she didn't know what it was or where it could go.

"Captain Sparrow, it sounds as though you are describing yourself."

"Does it?" He affected mock surprise, pressing long bejeweled fingers to his chest.

She felt bold just then. Her limbs were tingly and warm, and she didn't know if it was the rum or the intoxication of having a handsome man so near. Of having this handsome man so near. She had experience with neither. Elizabeth reached up to trace Jack's features, his high cheekbones and long straight nose. Beneath the dirt and scruff and baubles, she realized he was handsome to the point of almost being beautiful. It didn't seem fair at all for a pirate to possess such looks.

"You forgot physical appearance," she teased, fascinated by his features, able to study this rare creature so near. "Naturally I would desire someone as devilishly beautiful on the outside as within. Classical features paired with a fearsome vanity," she said, tracing his brow, looking into his kohl lined eyes. "And eyes so dark it seems they could swallow me up with just a look."

Jack's throat suddenly went dry. Where did she learn to speak to a man like that? In a way that would twist up his insides, and make him do foolish foolish things? He remembered the dock, and how the lightest touch of her hand had rendered him unable to flee a whole squadron of redcoats marching his way. What would he do now that there was no one to say otherwise? He caught her fine boned hand before it could trail further down the column of his neck, planting a gentle kiss upon her fingers.

"Luv…"

"Perhaps you should make an offer for me, Jack," she teased with a cheeky little smile, a flash of teeth behind full lips. "It would be the honorable thing to do."

Again, that devil whispered in his ear, and try as he might he could not silence it.

He sighed quietly against her hand; she never would have known if she hadn't felt the warm air of his breath on her skin. Immediately she assumed that she took their game too far. She couldn't know the war Jack fought with himself inside. The war he was quickly losing.

She doubted herself, until Jack turned his eyes back up to here, a dark light entering his gaze, something she didn't entirely understand. She realized that she wanted to. Oh how she wanted to.

"Lizzy…you are playing with fire, lass." He said it quietly, but it was a sincere warning all the same. She understood, and she recognized the devil in herself too. This was going to be one of her moments when she pushed too far, just to see what would happen. Like climbing a tree too high as a girl, or sneaking out of the house in her boy's costume in the dead of the night and heading for the docks, thinking to find her destiny aboard a ship. She knew she would cross that line, just as surely as she knew she couldn't stop herself.

"I just thought that if I am to be ruined, I might as well enjoy it a little," she answered in a similar tone, looking up to Jack with honeyed eyes that sparked in the firelight.

"If you are to be hanged for the crime, you might as well commit it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, his abdomen clenching and stirring with the thought. She doesn't know what she's saying he told himself again. She has no idea what she can do to a man. No inkling of her power.

And the devil in his mind answered back, No, but you could show her.

"Something like that." Elizabeth moistened her lips, and Jack found his attention focused upon her mouth most intently. He was leaning towards her without even realizing, and Elizabeth watched his approach, too fascinated to even entertain a protest.

Jack caught himself, steadying his advance with an arm in the sand by her shoulder. He hovered over her now, any pretense of polite distance between them evaporated into the night.

"So you think you would like to be…betrothed to a pirate, luv?"

It was Elizabeth's turn to focus upon Jack's mouth, lips so full and artfully molded by the divine clay. Did the creator find it ironic to spend such extra time on a man who would be such a rogue, she wondered? And what would it be like to kiss him?

"Ah, so you are going to offer for me?" she asked, hardly recognizing herself for the cheek in her reply. Who was this girl? This brazen, fool-hardy woman, tempting a pirate on an island where no one could hear her scream? It felt so good. She felt free. Was this how Jack lived, all the time? Doing as he pleased, without the constraints of society's expectations?

What Jack wanted to do was fall upon her, kiss her silly and show her exactly what young miss was really asking for. But perhaps he was not so free as he claimed. He exorcised great restraint, retreating from Elizabeth once more.

"It would round the trio of your suitors nicely, wouldn't it? A commodore, a blacksmith, and a pirate?"

She rolled back onto her side, propping her head upon her hand, mirroring Jack. Any distance he'd managed to put between them was obliterated by the girl, and vaguely he wondered who was hunting who.

"Not just any pirate. The great Captain Jack Sparrow."

She played on his vanity, and he couldn't help but offer up a gold-glinting grin. It just sounded so good, and his name on her lips did things to his insides that were decidedly…inconvenient.

He toyed with a tendril of her hair, watching the burnished gold shine in the firelight. Obsessed with treasure indeed. "As it were, Captain Jack Sparrow is a shrewd man. He would think it awfully inattentive t'offer for a lady without having kissed her first."

He waited for the slap.

Seconds passed, but it did not come.

There was only a smile, this one broader than all the others she'd paid him that evening.

"You want to kiss me, Jack?"

Of course he bloody wanted to kiss her.

Their interlude in the blacksmith's shop was burned in his brain, playing in an incessant loop that gave him no peace with her near. The only problem was, he feared if he started, he couldn't possibly stop.

Elizabeth misinterpreted his moment of pensive hesitation, dropping her gaze back to the sand. "You must think me very silly. I'm sure you've had dozens of women far more experienced than I. Kissing me must not be terribly appealing to you."

Immediately Jack hooked his finger beneath her chin, turning her gaze back up to him "I've known a few women in my day, luv, but I've never been this close to a woman as fine as you."

He watched as the compliment settled over her, and something filled her eyes again, her chin held just so once more. Ah, she was a proud young thing, Miss Swann. Yet though he was accustomed to saying pretty things to women to win their favor, this once he absolutely meant them.

Elizabeth's eyes fluttered closed as Jack's ringed fingers slid into her hair at the base of her neck, drawing her closer. She waited, waited for him to crash over her like a wave. Surely that was how a pirate would kiss? Giving no quarter? Showing no mercy? The idea frightened and titillated, and with bated breath she waited. And so when Jack's lips touched hers ever so lightly, just barely brushing over her mouth, an embarrassing whimper escaped her.

Her eyes flew open, and she regarded Jack from only the distance that was the span of her nose. The eye contact was jarringly intimate, and it was Jack who closed his eyes once more, kissing her again. This kiss was deeper, wetter, utterly melting. Of her own volition she opened beneath him, and Jack swept inside, caressing her with his tongue. He nibbled her lips and explored her mouth, leaving no corner untasted. His kisses ignited something wild inside her, made her feel as though something untamable burned within her belly, her every hair standing on end.

When Jack leaned over her again, his body pressing hers down into the sand, the only thought she could muster was yes. He claimed her mouth with his own, branded her with lips, forged her anew with the touch of his tongue. She simply knew she would never be the same again.

His mouth moved down to kiss the line of her jaw, and the dip of her throat, the blunt of his teeth grazing the hollow at the base of her neck. "Lizzy…" he whispered against her skin like a prayer. "Beautiful, bonnie little Lizzy…"

He continued to kiss her silly as Jack's hand roamed her curves, moving up to cup her breast. The vaguest inkling that she might protest was quashed by the unexpected thrill that shot through her body, through her heart and straight to her loins. Jack swallowed her cry with his mouth on hers, crashing over her like a wave.

Yet when his hand strayed down, beginning to slide beneath skirts that had already begun to ride up her thighs, she gasped, managing to grasp at some semblance of a sane thought. So many new sensations overcame her, so wonderful and confusing, swirling inside her with all the power of a hurricane. He robbed her of her wits, reduced her to a quivering pile of pure sensation. The weight of his sinewy body pressed down into her, trapped her, claimed her, consumed her. It was all so wonderful and yet so alien. She could hardly stand it, she didn't know what to do with all this. She could hardly even breathe. "Jack!" she pleaded, and it was two parts pleasure, one part fear.

The fear was what caused the pirate to halt in his tracks, sitting up on his elbows to look down at her questioningly. He'd never seen anything so beautiful as Elizabeth below him, her mane of golden hair spread out in the sand, her lips swollen from his kisses, her eyes gleaming in the firelight. Ah, but those eyes were just a little too wide.

Virgin, you bloody imbecile, he reminded himself.

Her breathing was labored, and not only because of his body weight settled atop her. No, she found she quite liked that.

Again he waited for the slap, but it did not come.

After a long moment she regained herself, slowly sliding her palms up his sides, across the flat of his chest, and down again. She watched with fascination as his eyes slipped closed, suddenly feeling rather powerful for the reaction she inspired in him. She explored the shape of his body, intrigued by how different he was from herself, all the rigid lines and hard muscle. When her inquisitive hands slipped beneath his own shirt, her nails tracing the ridge of his abdomen it was Jack's turn to groan, resting his forehead against hers. "Luv, if you touch me like that, I can't…"

She didn't stop, suddenly no longer so afraid, smiling a little to herself, until she found the ridge of a rather nasty scar upon his ribcage. Her fingers fixated upon the old wound, tracing it as a blind woman would read brail. She wondered what awful thing had happened to him. She knew even if he told her she could hardly fathom it, sheltered life that she'd lived.

He sighed, knowing there was only one way she was going to stay a virgin tonight, and it involved distance between he and she. He rolled off of her, laying back in the sand. The sudden absence of him left her feeling so cold and alone, her heart clenched in protest. "Jack?"

Jack groaned, pressing his palms against his eyes, as though he could clear the image of her from his brain. "That was not your first kiss," he found himself blurting, though it was absolutely not what he intended to say.

"No," she admitted, sitting up on her elbow once more. She paid the pirate an appraising stare, equating what she'd felt with what she saw now. Her eyes were drawn to the bulge in his breeches, curious and a little afraid. She knew what that was, she'd felt it so firm against her hip, and she vaguely knew what it meant. Knew that it meant he wanted her, the way the animals…oh my. "Though it was my favourite to date," she said cheekily.

"Well…" For a rare moment, words seemed to escape him. "Well."

Feeling brave again, she scooted to lie against Jack's side, resting her head upon his shoulder. Jack gave a pained sigh, because she was not making it easy to remain honorable. The impulse was fleeting enough in him, as it were. "Haven't ye had enough ruin for one night?"

Even as he attempted to sound gruff, Jack's arm looped about her shoulders, pulling her closer. She looked up at him with her chin upon his chest, that knowing little smile in place. He shook his head, examining her from beneath his lids. "In the East, luv, they would call ye an old soul."

"An old soul? What does that mean?"

"It means ye seem…wise beyond your years." It means ye look at me like you might like to eat me up, and I forgot ye don't know how, he thought.

"Where did you hear that?"

"India. They believe a person is reborn again and again, until they can learn to play nice an' stop makin' all the same human mistakes and finally reach nirvana. They call the cycle reincarnation."

He expected her to scoff, like any good girl raised in the Church of England, secure in her singular view of the world would. Instead she pleasantly surprised him when she canted her head, curiosity shining in her eyes. "That sounds a lot better than fire and brimstone," she admitted. "Do you believe in this? Reincarnation?"

"Sometimes," he admitted.

"Were you in India long?"

"Few years." He'd hid out on the subcontinent, waiting for the business with Henry Morgan and Barbossa to blow over. The chaos of the place was easy to lose oneself in, and he'd loved the vibrant, ancient culture, the sights and smells and tastes of the land. The caste system was a little rough, but the pure teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism, the really heavy stuff, he found very interesting.

"Is that where you learned to paint your eyes with kohl?" she asked with that infuriating little smile.

"Cuts down on the glare, luv," he sighed, wondering if she would question him like a child endlessly, and wondering if his cock would ever settle down with her lithe young body pressed up against him. "If I tell ye a story will ye go to sleep?" It was that, or the other way he knew, and that was a bad idea. As his sanity slowly returned to him, he knew it more and more.

"A story from India?" she asked hopefully.

"If ye like."

Three stories later, one true, one half true, and one entirely fabricated about a princess and a bandit, Elizabeth finally drifted off into slumber, her long legs twined with his. Before Jack himself followed, he stole one last glance down at the angel whose head rested in the dip of his shoulder.

The scenery had decidedly improved since last time.


A nice long chapter for a nice long weekend. :) Hope everyone enjoyed, and have a safe and happy Fourth! I want to thank everyone who has favorited, followed, and best of all, reviewed! Your comments and support mean the world to me!