And here we go, right into the next chapter. thank yous goin out to SD, inspire16, Jennifer Lynn Weston, Girlz-Rule, Peace Like a River, SailorNeo, TheatreChick07, and unacymbal who took the time to review the last chapter. your reviews not only motivate me, but give me the much needed feed back I need to make this story better for you guys. And now im done sucking up.
Disclaimer: a funny thing happened on the way to the forum this morning. I had a sudden urge to own Pirates of the Caribbean so then Ted 'n' Terry walked up to me and were all like "you dood, you own piratez now". And I thought that was cool and all until I realized they were speaking with very poor grammar… so then I woke up. So still nothing. Im done.
I stayed below deck for a while after Elizabeth left. I didn't really want to do anything. I was beyond pitying myself though. I keep my hopes up with at the thought that maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth still loves me.
I'm also well beyond the idea that she didn't trust me with the knowledge that she had killed Jack. It wasn't my burden to bear according to her. I suppose I won't tell her about my father then. Or rather what I want to do to free him. With Jack and the Pearl back, it should be easier than without them.
Just then the realization that Elizabeth killed Jack hit me. I had been so hurt she hadn't been truthful to me that I forgot the seriousness of the matter. She killed Jack Sparrow. I realize that she had killed other pirates before, but this was Jack. Jack is like a friend to us. And to make matters worse, I saw what happened so I know, she had distracted him. Some how she must have forced Jack to stay on the Pearl. It really wasn't right. But she suffered under her guilt didn't she? Some would say that was punishment enough, but was it really?
Night has fallen over the ship. I hear two heavy thumps from the deck above. They kind of sounds like dropped cannonballs. Why not? I climb the stairs to investigate.
Some of the crew that are on the deck already have their attention drawn to something in the waters close to us. Rushing over, I see a vast fleet of boats each carrying one or two people. Gibbs is slowly readying a gun to defend up. Thinking quick, I push the gun away from where it was aimed.
"They're not a threat to us," I say. Turning to Tia Dalma I continue. "Am I right?"
"We're nothing but ghosts to dem," she confirms. Below the ship, submerged ghost like beings drift aimlessly onward. They have no guidance into the afterlife. It's truly a sad sight.
"It's best to let them be," Barbossa mutters. Just then Elizabeth comes up to the railing. She must have just come up on deck to find out what the source of commotion was. I see out of the corner of my eye that she has a smile spreading across her face.
"It's my father, we're back!" she says joyfully. I look out to the people and spot him. It wasn't that hard really; his pompous wig really sets him apart from a crowd. "Father! Father here, look here!" she shouts trying to catch his attention.
"Elizabeth," Jack says seriously, "we're not back." Elizabeth's smile falters a bit at this piece of information. I reach out to her to try and comfort her. I don't think she's ready to understand that these people going by us are all dead. She follows her father's progression along the rail.
"Father!" her shouts are now desperate and pleading. The governor seems to hear her finally. Her turns his head to us a bit confused.
"Elizabeth!" he calls, finally seeing us. "Are you dead?" he asks concerned. She shakes her head no several times.
"I think I am," he seems to laugh at not knowing his own fate.
"No you can't be," Elizabeth says. She's refusing to believe her father's fate. The governor tells his daughter what happened. I look over at Elizabeth during his explanation. He seems to ignore her pleas to come on the ship. Elizabeth is steadily loosing all color in her face.
"I learnt that if you stab the heart, yours must take its place and you will sail the sea for eternity. The Dutchman must have a captain. Silly think to die for," he says. I can't help but agree with the governor. Elizabeth runs over to Marty and takes a line of rope from him.
"A touch of destiny," Tia Dalma whispers to me. She has said that to me a couple of times. As much as I hate to admit it, she probably knows more than I do about my own fate.
Elizabeth tosses the line over to her father instructing him to take the rope and come on board with us again. The governor seems to have accepted his own fate; he couldn't come with us.
"I'm so proud of you Elizabeth," he says, smiling up at her. The rope slips from his boat and falls into the water. Elizabeth readies herself to jump from the ship to her father.
"She must not leave da ship!" Tia Dalma yells. Of course she can't, she'll be taken with the drifting spirits. I rush forward, knocking several men out of my way. Just as she grabs the side of the ship, her feet slip and it gives me a moment to catch her around the middle. I pull her back into me, but she struggles against me. I refuse to let her go.
"Elizabeth, please," I whisper to her. She won't hear me.
"I won't leave you!" she shrieks still trying to get to her father.
"I'll give your love to your mother, shall I?" the governor says as he drifts onward.
"I won't let you die!" Elizabeth cried. I finally pull her off of the ship's side and bring her into my embrace. I can't but selfishly feel happy to have her back in my arms. Elizabeth sobs into my chest and clings to me as tightly as she can.
I understand what she's going through. I grew up really without a father. When I was ten, my mother died. Elizabeth had lost her mother and now her father. He was a good man that did not deserve to die at sea like this. Nor did Elizabeth deserve to have her father die like this.
I look up to see the crew surrounding us. "Is there a way?" I ask Tia Dalma. I look into her eyes, begging for someway to make my Elizabeth happy again.
Tia Dalma shakes her head slowly. "Him at peace."
The crew soon disperses around us. Elizabeth's tears seem relentless. I'm really at a loss of how to comfort someone over a death. I never really had anyone around after my mother died, nor did I ever really know someone well enough to be in a position where I have to comfort someone like this. All I can think of doing is tightening my grip on her every so often and uttering a few phrases of comfort every so often.
After sometime, her body is no longer shaking with sobs. She brings her face away from my chest and leans one side of her head against me again. Her eyes are puffy and red.
"Are you okay?" I ask quietly. She looks up at me. Of course she wasn't okay. "I mean, I know that you're not over anything, but, would you want to sit down or something?" She nods and I lead her over to one of the long crates nearby. I sit her down before joining her. I wrap one of my arms around her. I want to grab her hand, just to let her know that I am here for her. I don't know if she would want that though. Elizabeth rests her head on my shoulder. She sighs quietly.
I want to tell her that I love her. I'm not sure if she would want to hear that. She takes my free hand in one of hers. Maybe we'll be okay. We sit in a comfortable silence for a while. I look over at her a few minutes later. She's starting to cry again.
"Liz, don't cry," I say. She's to amazingly beautiful to cry. "It'll be okay, I promise." She looks up at me, pouting. "You'll get over this." That was the wrong thing to say. I regretted that the moment I said it.
"That's not what I wanted to hear," she replied letting go over my hand.
"But it's true! You will get over it. I mean, it'll take a while, but, when my mother died-"
"Will, I know what it's like to loose someone," Elizabeth cuts in moving away from me.
"I know you do, I'm just saying that I know what you're going through!" I say trying to get her to understand what I meant.
"Is everything about you all the time?" she asks quietly. Where did that come from? I'm left speechless. She takes this as some kind of confirmation. Nodding, she leaves me on the bow of the ship, alone.
She briskly walks over to the hatch and pulls it open. Moonlight reflects off of the tears rolling down her face. All she seems to do is cry now. For the most part, it's my entire fault too.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why am I so stupid? There I was, a perfect situation to resolve everything with her, and with one stupid sentence, I mess it up. I guess the only thing I can be thankful for is that the people in boats have drifted past us. This way I can wallow in my own misery.
I guess she did have some right to be angry at me. All I had wanted to do is tell her that I knew what it was like to loose someone. It was just really bad timing. It was tactless.
A small child runs down the street, a huge smile plastered on his dirty face. He looks like he's only five or six. A mass of dark hair falls in thick tendrils over the boy's eyes.
He enters a dingy little house on a side street. It's late in the evening. His mother is a thin woman who immediately pulls the boy onto her lap. She tells the young boy a story to put him to sleep. He probably hasn't had supper tonight. Despite the boy's hunger, he falls asleep soon after the tale's beginning. The mother brings him to his small bed.
The boy seems to have grown overnight. He looks to be around ten or even his early teens. Although he's grown, he still has the same youthful gleam in his chocolate brown eyes.
His mother has aged a significant amount in such a short time. Little does her son know, she is slowly dying. She sits down on her bed and beckons in her only child. She gives him a gift that was sent to him from his father. The woman tells her son, that he will one day go to the Caribbean to find his father. The young boy met his father once, but that was long ago. He was a merchant, so he almost never came home.
It had only been a few months, but the mother has died. A doctor did all he could for the ailing woman on such a low amount of money. The boy is left alone to make a life for himself. Resolute, he finds a ship to take him away from Glasgow and to the Caribbean. He quickly finds work as a cabin boy on a ship.
Much has changed over the years. The one time child has become a strong, young man. He ultimately must deal with the fact that by ending a horrible curse, he has killed his father. His father had been pinned beneath a cannon for years, a punishment for insolence.
But here was his father, just over a year later. He was imprisoned on a ship, bound to serve one hundred years in exchange for his freedom. So enters the man's son, his namesake. He takes his father's trusted knife with a vow to never abandon his father.
I'm awoken with a sharp poke to my head. The sunlight covers the deck of the ship. "Get up and get to work lad," Gibbs says. I rub my face realizing that I had fallen asleep outside.
I need to figure out how to turn Jack over to Sao Feng. That's the only way to get the Pearl for myself to save my father. I made a promise.
A/N: just as a side note, I had a really hard time deciding when to end this chapter. I hope it works for you guys where I did decide to end it. Im not entirely pleased with it, but I suppose it works. Let me know.
