A/N: Thank you so much for all the beautiful reviews:)
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack, Elizabeth, etc. I don't even own Koehler (whose name I found in the CotBP script:)
Chapter 9
Tia Dalma sat at the table staring into the black globe which gave out a faint, hazy light. The little boy sat at the chair nearby, gazing at the globe with fascination. He had calmed down as soon as he had noticed that nobody was going to hurt him, or even punish him for stealing the medallion... The strange-looking lady was only asking him some questions, but unfortunately he was unable to answer most of them. He just knew that he lived in Tortuga, but he did not know when he lived (well, he hardly even understood the question itself), and that seemed to upset the lady.
"Is there a point to this?", asked Barbossa with slight impatience, after looking at the black globe for several minutes of heavy silence.
"We have to know where Elizabeth is", answered Will grimly without tearing his gaze off the globe. "To bring her back."
Barbossa sighed audibly. "I'd be more interested in discoverin' why people who were dead are apparently not dead anymore", observed Barbossa drily.
"Astonishing, that you should be the one complaining about that", retorted Will in a low tone of voice.
Barbossa narrowed his eyes at him, and huffed in annoyance. "Can't ye just send the whelp", he gestured toward the little boy, "back to whenever 'e came from, set the medallion for several hours once again, an' the problem be solved?", Barbossa addressed Tia Dalma in the most patient voice that he could muster at the moment.
Will shifted his eyes to Tia Dalma. The advise seemed reasonable. Tia Dalma, however, appeared to be rather annoyed by, or at least disinterested in all the advisory voices. She had explained to Will, Gibbs and Barbossa what had exactly happened, why she had sent Elizabeth into the past, and how was she supposed get back. She had also explained to them that it was apparently the boy who had accidentally thrown the medallion into the ocean, and therefore he, and not Elizabeth travelled back to the future.
Now all that Tia Dalma had to do was to determine at which point of the past Elizabeth was, and then she could send the boy back to his times with the medallion and additional amount of time for Elizabeth to come back.
But there was something disturbing about the situation, something that she had not mention to the crew. It was the fact that Elizabeth's not coming back had coincided oddly with Jack's coming back to life. Because he had really been dead, she was sure of that. She would not have sent Elizabeth into the past, if he hadn't. It would have been to risky, and it might have caused trouble... And now, he was alive, and Elizabeth was still in the past, although, fortunately, she did not know that Jack was not dead. And she certainly should not be informed about that.
The rays of sunlight shone through the thin curtains brightening the cabin. She could almost feel the light lying softly on her eyelids, and although she had woken up, she was reluctant to open her eyes. It felt so wonderful, so strangely wonderful to only feel the light, feel the morning instead of seeing it.
The morning.
Elizabeth's eyes snapped open. Light. Daylight. The night was over. The hour was certainly over, and she was still alive. Apparently.
She almost smiled at the thought, but then a sudden wave of breathtaking trepidation washed over her, and she sat up in the bed abruptly.
In the bed. In... Jack's bed.
"A fairy tale?", she questioned.
He only smiled in response, and kissed her, his hands caressing her, making her feel like she had never thought possible to feel, making her feel perfectly free, irreplaceable, beautiful...
He whispered her name, over and over again, and at some point she was not sure that it was her name anymore... She had no name... She was only made out of those emotions and feelings coursing through her when he kissed every part of her body, every part... of her soul, and yet she knew that it was her name, because he was saying it... and it sounded more like a prayer, and not a name... not a name at all... And she felt worshipped by his words... and his hands... his kisses... And she knew that she was shaking, and she wanted to stop shaking, but it was as if her body had a mind on its own. She wrapped her arms around Jack to let him know that she was not afraid... of him... of anything, it was just that she trembled, her body trembled, and she could not stop it...
"Lizzie", he whispered, and her eyes focused on him, his face an inch above hers, and she could feel his breath on her face, and her eyes fluttered shut, but she made an effort to open them again.
She did not answer. She could not answer. She wanted to, but somehow the words were somewhere where she could not reach them... And somehow he seemed to understand that.
"It's alright, Lizzie-luv. I'm here", he whispered, a trace of a smirk flickering across his face, as he had probably guessed that it was precisely the very reason of her nervousness.
He kissed her, gently at first, and then more passionately, and it surprised her that the kiss had actually helped her calm down and stop shaking. She placed her hands on his shoulders, and he looked her deeply in the eyes, when they were both fighting for breath.
She stared into his eyes with fascination, mesmerized by the fire in his eyes, his brown orbs blackened by darkness, or lust, she could not tell.
He brushed his lips along her jawline, and then returned to her lips, claiming them with impatience, savouring the taste of her lips...
And then, when she was so dazed from the kiss, that she almost could not hear and see anything anymore, he broke the kiss, and whispered against her lips:
"Just dig yer nails in me back as hard as ye wish, luv."
Puzzled, she wanted to ask him why would she-
But then everything fell apart, the world around her, the thoughts in her head, the hesitation in her mind, the sense of guilt in her heart... The time dissolved into thousands of tiny silvery stars which danced behind her closed eyelids and washed over her body, and they hurt at first, as if they were more like sharp icicles, and she unconsciously dug her nails into his back as he had told her to do, and then the stars warmed up, and flood over her like beautiful, melting snowflakes, filling her, at the same time with fiery bliss and soothingly cool tranquility.
Elizabeth gasped and looked around wide-eyed, her absent gaze suddenly registering that she was alone in the cabin. He had gone. Where?
She put her head in her hands, and closed her eyes. Her eyes... She could still feel his lips kissing her tears away...
She hugged herself, dismayed. What had she done? And why did she feel so wrongly wonderful thinking about it...
Throwing herself back down onto the pillows, Elizabeth opened her eyes and stared toward the small cabin window, breathing raggedly as her mind, despite her efforts to stop it, kept reliving the last night's moments...
But suddenly she winced, the sense of guilt waking up from its comatose state, and breaking through the transfixing memories. Not only had she betrayed Will, but she had also betrayed herself. She had given herself away, she had given every part, every inch of her body, of her mind,
of her heart
away... And he even was not there when she had woken up. Maybe if she could have woken up in his arms...
She shivered at the memory, terrified just by how much she wanted to just be in his arms again... To be so close to him again. Because that was the most beautiful part of what had happened last night. The closeness. Being so close to him, with him. Together, inseparable...
But apparently he did not care... anymore. What had she expected? It was just a night for him... A night... a girl... Maybe he was waiting right now in the adjacent cabin for her to wake up, so he could tell her to leave his ship as soon as possib-
His ship.
Elizabeth blinked. She had almost forgotten. She was on the Black Pearl.
And it took her several more moments to realize, that the way in which the ship was rocking was not the way in which ships rock when they are docked.
She blinked again.
The Black Pearl was at sea.
She was at sea.
Walking across the deck Jack had an impression that everybody knew what was going on, even though he was certain that no one knew. Especially, that even he was not sure if he himself knew...
But when he had woken up with her in his arms, he was more than certain that he was not able to leave her behind for several weeks, maybe even months, all alone in that blasted town where so many bad things could happen to her... Yet another reason was that she might get sad again, and what if she would try to kill herself again? She could drown herself without anybody even noticing it. And it was just the risk that he could not, that he definitely did not want to take.
He took over the helm, and trying to concentrate on the ship and on the journey before them, he watched the crew preparing to set sail. But the images flashing across his mind kept interrupting his train of reasonable thought, and all he could think of was her...
"A fairy tale?", she questioned, her beautiful hazel eyes wide-open, and he knew that she was only childishly procrastinating whatever she thought was going to happen.
And he tried to calm her down, to make her feel safe and cherished. And God, she was beautiful. She was so beautiful that he had to calm himself down as well in order not to forget to be considerate...
He kissed her, and chanted her name, taking his time to learn by heart the map of her body, and she shivered, and he grinned against her skin, but then he noticed that her shivering was not just a simple response to his touch, but rather her response to the entire situation.
"Lizzie", he whispered, and her eyes darted to him, their faces almost touching, and he could feel her breath on his face as she struggled to keep her eyes focused on him.
He looked at her as she looked back at him in silence. He felt like he should ask her whether she was sure... But he quickly shook the thought away, half-fearing that she might actually say that she was not sure...
"It's alright, Lizzie-luv. I'm here", he whispered, covering an inward snort at his so easily suppressed noble second thoughts with an outward smirk.
Yet, when they kissed he felt no second thoughts running through her head... Or maybe he was just too overwhelmed by the feeling of her lips pressed against his to feel anything else...
And it was her, it was only her that he wanted to feel. She ran her hands all over his back, and then rested them on his shoulders. And she was not shaking anymore, even though she could hardly breath, and only then, seeing her fighting for air he realized that he could not breath himself either...
He stared into her hazel eyes, blackened by fear, or desire, he could not tell.
He kissed her, to erase the fear, fuel the desire, but above all to distract her from the pain that was to come. And she looked so endearingly puzzled when he had asked her to dig her nails into his back... But then she did just that, and mighty hard too.
He ran his fingers along the spokes imagining that it was her... her trembling body under his fingertips... in his arms... underneath him... He smiled to himself, a half-puerile, half-arrogant smile. She was his girl now. And she could not just run away from him.
Yet, perhaps he should ask her if she wanted to sail with him to retrieve some treasure of Spanish conquistadors... Perhaps she did not want to... Perhaps she did not fancy being hidden in his cabin for several weeks without the possibility to even get a breath of fresh air...
Jack sighed, and rubbed his forehead. If she was to stay, she must stay in his cabin. He did not want the crew to see her, or even know that she was there. Not that he suspected them of undertaking some violent actions... (A faint memory of what she had told him that she had heard flickered across his mind, but quickly faded away...) Still, it did go a bit against the equality on the ship and such... And he did not want to spoil the happy mood that was present on the ship right now due to the anticipated plunder. So...
"Captain!"
He looked up, a voice breaking through his thoughts from the real world.
"What is it?", he asked with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
"A kid ran across the gangplank when we were draggin' it back an' 'e says 'e wants t'speak... 'with a man with funny hair'", said Koehler with a grimace indicating that he was only repeating the kid's exact words.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Brin' 'im here. We'll see what 'e wants", he said, waving his hand in the air with disinterest. "Funny hair", he pouted to himself. But then his eyes widened, as the boy was brought before him. "Thank ye", he said glancing at Koehler, who nodded and walked away. "Now", started Jack looking at the boy curiously. "That is a surprise."
The boy swallowed, and averted his eyes. "I'm just lookin' for that lady that was with ye, sir. I've got somethin' that's hers, I think", said the boy as politely as he could, looking around rather than at Jack.
"How polite of ye to say so, sir", retorted Jack with an artificial smile, scolding himself inwardly for ever thinking that a person could simply disappear. Although he was certain that-
No. He was here now. Right in front of him. Was it not good enough evidence that he had not disappeared?
"Can I speak to 'er?", asked the boy, growing nervous. He still had a fresh memory of throwing the medallion into the sea, and then suddenly everything had gone black, and he had felt as if he was flying through the darkness, through a very long, very dark, and very cold tunnel until at last he had fallen... And there were some people on some ship, and a strange lady among them... And it was the strange lady that had ordered him to give the medallion back to the girl from whom he had stolen it... She had told him that the girl will probably be with the same man that he had seen her before, and that he should look for a ship with black sails... And so he did. And he just wanted to get rid of that medallion and go home.
"How did ye run away that fast?", asked Jack, his curiosity taking the better of him.
The boy blinked. The strange lady forbade him to tell them anything, apart from one short sentence intended for the girl.
Jack wrinkled his forehead. The boy blinked again.
"Alright", said Jack at last, losing patience, and having no time for pointless discussions with taciturn children. "Ye can give it back to me, an' I'll give it back to 'er, aye?", he extended his hand towards the boy, who took a step backwards, looking slightly confused.
The strange lady had told him to give the medallion to the girl, but... Did it really matter that much? He really did not want to have that medallion with him anymore. And the man with funny hair was saying that he will give it to the girl...
"Here", said the boy after the moment of consideration handing Jack the medallion. It was almost completely black, except for a small silver part which glittered in the sun. "An'..." Jack shifted his eyes from the medallion to the boy. "Tell 'er that she has three hours", said the boy distinctly, but hurriedly, and then spun around and ran away, but apparently not as fast as before, since now Jack could easily follow his gradually disappearing figure.
Three hours? Three hours of what? Jack looked at the medallion curiously, but then shrugged his shoulders and pocketed the necklace. He smiled at the thought that Elizabeth will be probably very glad to get it back.
The gangplank was taken aboard, the anchor was aweigh, the sails unfurled. Jack smiled as the ship slowly made her way across the ocean, leaving the shore and Tortuga behind. He was content to be at sea again, at sea and on another adventure, about to seize the mysterious treasure of Cortez.
He smiled even more remembering the treasure in his cabin. He did feel a bit uneasy about not asking her... But it was too late now. They set sail. They were at sea.
