A/N: Over a hundred reviews! Thank you so much! I am trying to actually have a plot, so please bear with me about the fact that there will be less JE moments. :( But rest assured I will not write a Willabeth story for my life.
Disclaimer: Alas, Disney owns PotC.
Jack acted on impulse.
He smiled a bright and friendly smile and said, "What?"
Barbossa shook his head with exasperation. "Yer pocket." And he lifted Jack's arm so that his hand came out his pocket. Thinking fast, Jack dropped the key, but it was too late--it fell to the ground.
Barbossa grinned.
"Ah," he said, and picked up the key, examining it in his hands.
"Oi," said Jack. Barbossa looked up.
Jack was pointing his pistol directly between Barbossa's eyes.
He raised an eyebrow, dangling the key in his fingers.
Jack cocked the pistol. "I'd be wantin' that back, mate."
Barbossa smiled a bit defeatedly and handed the key back to Jack. As he watched him stow the pistol away, he thought, A pity I didn't run the moment I had it. But now I know Sparrow has it...
Jack glared at Barbossa, and Barbossa glared back. The former resentment and rivalry between them was back.
Jack was the first to break the silence.
"What are you doing on me ship?"
"I had the impression ye called the Black Pearl yer ship."
Jack shrugged and said cheerfully, "I have two ships. What are you doing on me stolen ship?"
"Technically if you stole this ship and it belongs to you, then the Black Pearl is mine..."
"What are ye doing on the Queen?!"
"I made a deal with you," said Barbossa evenly.
"Aye," agreed Jack. "Wouldn't it to be customary then, for now to be the time for you to... leave?"
"Aye, it would," said Barbossa. "But we don't follow customs very well, now do we, Sparrow? And I've a few questions I been meaning to ask Mrs. Turner... Is she available?"
"Actually," said Jack truthfully, glaring suspiciously, "she seems to be having a lack of availability lately."
"Ah, ye wouldn't mind if I wait, then would ye?"
Jack pretended to consider. What the hell is he trying to do...
"I would mind greatly," said Jack. "Shall I escort you off the ship?"
Barbossa rolled his eyes.
"You and I will be seeing each other more often now," he said. "Our deal."
"Yes that will be necessary," said Jack. "Therefore I shall savor the times, such as now, when I do not have to see you. Savvy?"
"Fine. I'll be going now," he said. "But I do have that accord with you. I intend to be immortal and enjoy it."
He swung away back to the Pearl.
"Doesn't everyone?" said Jack.
Elizabeth had been sitting on her bed ever since she had ran away from Jack, and she had relived every moment she could remember of being with Will, starting all the way from when they had met, when she had saved him, in a way, on the crossing to Port Royal...
Her face was stained with tears.
Yes, I do still love him, she insisted. I love him. I do. I just... love Jack too?
She remembered the things she'd thought so long ago, it seemed... about what she had wanted as a child. Freedom, adventure, true love. And she hadn't even wanted to be a wife, she had just wanted to be in love, to have someone love her back. And she had thought it would be simple, to just fall out of love...
Oh God, I can fall out of love.
No. I can't. I love Will. I. Love. Will. I am his lawfully wedded wife. We belong together. We're soulmates, and we realized that since we met.
But she had admitted, and not just to herself, that she loved Jack! And she knew she did...
Why, why had she said so?! It had only been a passing fancy, an impulse...! But she acted on impulse... And why did having told him make her feel so weak, so passive? She had known what would happen if she told him she loved him, or had she? No, she couldn't predict that, but even then she shouldn't have! If she hadn't, she wouldn't be driven mad with longing for his lips now, would she? She wouldn't have hurt Jack as well, she wouldn't have made this journey much more complicated than it needed to be... Why did she have to be cursed with such damned curiosity?!
If I were Pandora, I would have opened the forbidden box.
God I shouldn't have told him!!
She ran her fingers over the carvings on the Chest, which sat beside her.
Oh, Elizabeth, what were you thinking? Do you have to push the limits on everything? Do you have to find out what happens if you do something you know you shouldn't...?!
Yes, yes, she did. She had to tell him. She had to open the forbidden box.
And look what had happened!
And yet... telling him, those words, coming out of her mouth... yes, she had been submissive, she had given in... but she'd felt so wonderful saying it, admitting something, telling the truth... It had been like letting go of an enormous burden, letting herself give in to temptation, soaking herself in rich warm comfort afterwards.
But you shouldn't have anyway!
She buried her face in her hands.
She was so tired of arguing with herself.
She picked up the heavy Chest, laid it on her lap and stared at the heart-shaped lock. She could hear the steady beating inside, taunting her, reminding her that she did not have the key.
Elizabeth pulled out her dagger and jammed it into the lock, tried to turn it. The dagger stuck fast in the locking mechanism, not moving.
Another bad decision.
She yanked the dagger out and screaming angrily to herself, stabbed the Chest, slashing at the decorated surfaces, leaving marks on the carved lid, and when she finally brought herself to stop collapsed bent over the Chest, her body shaking with sobs.
She pushed the Chest aside, not bothering to notice that it fell to the floor, and staggered on deck. Someone had just come down from the crow's nest and she took the afternoon watch.
She sat there for hours, staring blankly ahead at the horizon, and sometimes she thought she could see a ship there... And she passed the afternoon in that manner, becoming hopeful in a sudden rush, thinking she had sighted the Dutchman, and sitting down again disappointed, knowing it had been just an illusion.
Elizabeth climbed down at sunset, after she had watched Jack steer and made sure he was back in his cabin. She intended to return to her own cabin but at that moment she saw out of the corner of her eye, someone swinging off the Black Pearl, still adjacent to the Queen.
She turned quickly. It was Barbossa.
"What are you doing here?" said Elizabeth.
"Not a very friendly greeting," said Barbossa. "It's been too long, Mrs. Turner."
He grinned at her, biting into an apple.