two: heart of glass
Elizabeth has her back turned: she was always running, from him and the promise she'd made, from the gentle suffocation of Port Royal. A better man would have let her go years ago, but James won't lie to himself. A part of him still wants her: to court her, to win her, to love her. However, he knows full well it is his loneliness and nothing else that keeps him bound thus.
He calls her name and she swivels to face him, rests her elbows on the railing with an easy grace. "James," she says quietly: the greeting has none of Sparrow's flippant spite, but it's neither light nor cheerful. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," James admits. It's been months since he's been out to sea with anything but solid ground beneath his feet, but he's growing used to the thrum of his muscles, the ache of his head. And then: partly because he is, and partly to twist the knife he knows is already halfway to her heart, James says, "I'm sorry about your wedding."
She makes a small, noncommittal sound and turns past him to the sea, its calm swelling and release. James fears he has made her cry; but though he thinks of taking his leave, the silence keeps him pinned there alongside her.
"I had my father send couriers," she begins, turning back to him. Her throat sounds parched, salt-scrubbed: "We could find no news of you. I was afraid that you'd been killed in a duel, or drowned, or alone."
(Elizabeth, with her sunburned face and rough hands; Elizabeth, who is lost at sea.)
"I was right to worry," she says. She looks so, so tired.