A/N: Thank you so much for all the amazing reviews! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own PotC.
Chapter 37
"Lizzie?" Jack looked around the room rather puzzled by Elizabeth's absence. He had not been gone for more than several minutes. Where was she? She did not get upset about his suspicions, did she? After all it was not his fault that she had not told him about those 'dreams'.
Why hadn't she told him? He still could hardly believe that strange discovery... Even though he probably believed it faster than logic would allow... For some reason as soon as Bill had mentioned it he knew it was true... Somewhere deep inside he always knew... And now he desperately tried to remember every small detail of those 'dreams' that he had tried so hard not to think about before. Now he did not want any little moment lost; now that he knew that it really happened... The meeting in the tavern when she was staring at him... her senseless apologies... her bluntness... her confessions... Everything was suddenly making perfect sense.
"Lizzie?" With a sigh, he turned around, and headed for the door, wondering where she could have gone with her limited knowledge of the Cove. He will kiss her senseless once he finds her, and tell her not to ever go anywhere without him again. Did she forgot the rule number one? He smiled, but then his smile faded when he noticed that Elizabeth's carmine dress was still lying on the floor right where they had left it. He wrinkled his forehead in stupefaction, and scanned the room once again. He did not have any other clothes in this room, and she did not have any other clothes with her either. No matter how angry she would not have gone walking around the place naked, he thought with a small smirk, even though his humor was fading rather quickly.
He bent down, and picked up the dress, brushing his thumbs over the silk. He could still feel her breath on his skin when she panted his name, her hands grasping his shoulders, her lips...
He put the dress away, and just in case checked the wardrobe, and looked under the bed. Not that he had really expected her to be in either of those places, but on the other hand one could never know when it came to Mrs. Captain Jack Sparrow.
He bit back a smile, and once again turned to the door, but stopped dead in his tracks noticing something on the floor. Slowly, he squatted down, and reached for the small object with his hand... or rather for two pieces of one small object...
With wonder, he stared at the two pieces of his green ring which he had given to Elizabeth as the wedding ring during their marriage ceremony.
The ring was broken.
He closed it in his hand, suddenly feeling cold shivers running up his spine.
Something was wrong.
She felt as if she was sleeping, even though she knew she was not... Her eyelids felt so heavy, but there were no images behind them, no colors in her head, not even the darkness...
She could not see anything, trapped in an amorphous dream that had no look and no sound, and she could only sense some strange, shimmering quality of it; sense that she was alive.
Tears gathered somewhere deep in her mind, or her heart, she was not sure, and yet she knew she would not, could not cry with her eyes closed, and for a moment she feared she might drown in her tears if-
Drown...
And then suddenly in the colorless nothingness of her non-dream there was his face floating above hers, eyebrows knitted, and the curiosity of a stranger fixed on her as she laid on the dock cold and soaking wet, rescued only to be lost again, for when she looked in his eyes she knew that she would see him again... somehow... She wanted to reach for him, but it was too early... and she just touched him with her eyes.
"Jack," Elizabeth opened her eyes with a gasp, and sat up, the memory of their first meeting as fresh in her mind as if it had just happened, as if it was still happening... She took a deep breath, almost hearing her heart pounding in her chest. Her fingers closed around some fabric, her fist clenching.
He was not here, and she did not even have to look around to know it. She remembered the dawn, remembered her wedding ring breaking, and then everything went grey and silver, and she could see nothing, the light of the sun suddenly cold on her skin like blanket of icicles.
She hugged herself with a heavy sigh, comforted by the familiar texture of her carmine dress-
But she had not had the time to wear her dress, had she?
Slowly she looked at herself, and blinked at the surprised sight of the dress that looked strikingly similar to the dress Jack had given her. Only that this one...
was black.
She looked up, taking a cautious look around. She was sitting on the bed in a dimly lit room, but she was not able to determine where the dim light was coming from. There was no window, no lanterns, no candles-
Candles...
"Leave it."
She hid her face in her hands, and moaned. She had thought that memories would have helped her survive the separation from him, but it seemed that they made her feel even worse. How could she endure twenty years without his touch if he remembered it so well? How could she stand not being able to touch him if she could still feel his lips on hers, his hands hugging her to him, cradling her face, holding her when she was falling apart into a thousand rainbows flashing around her.
"Oh Jack." She did not even want to see where she was. She did not even want to live anymore. After twenty years he will hardly remember me...
Or maybe she should have more faith in him... But still, twenty years were just too long to expect him to keep his feelings for her intact. He might remember her, but there was no hope he would still love her...
Perhaps it was for the better that he had gotten upset with her... She did not want him to hurt, to feel like she was feeling now. But she could not imagine what he would think about her disappearance... What would her father think... She had not even managed to talk to him one last time... to tell him that she was happy, that Jack loved her, that she was married to him...
Swallowing the tears, Elizabeth slowly slid off the bed, taking a look around the room. The room looked ordinary, and she did not know what to think of it. She remembered what Jack had said about the Maelstrom of Time, that it was a living hell, a place where people who made a deal with Death were put through as much suffering as they could endure. So shouldn't she be in some horrible place right now? She almost wished she was... Maybe real pain would take away the pain smouldering in her heart...
She tucked loose strands of her hair behind her ears, and walked barefooted to the door, hesitatingly placing her hand on the knob.
"Impatience brings losses."
Elizabeth swirled around with a gasp, her eyes feverishly searching the semi-darkness around her.
"Mister Gibbs!!"
"Jack!" Gibbs ran toward Jack across the corridor, a distressed look on his face. "I'm afraid-"
"Have you seen Elizabeth?" Jack cut him off, looking around the hallway, as if hoping that he would see her at any moment, already on the verge of starting shouting at her for making him worry-
Worry?... Yes. And he did not even remember worrying about anything that much.
"Elizabeth?" Gibbs blinked, perplexed. "I thought she was with ye," he offered tentatively.
Jack shot him an annoyed look. "She was just a moment ago. I went downstairs for a minute-"
"I'm sure she'll be right back," said Gibbs with a small, reassuring smile, and if it was not for the bad news he had to break to Jack right now, he would have found it very amusing that Jack Sparrow was panicking, because his lass had gone somewhere without telling him.
"Something is wrong," muttered Jack more to himself than to Gibbs.
"Aye, about that-" Gibbs grimaced, and nervously rubbed his forehead, but Jack did not let him finish his sentence.
"Her dress is still in the room, and her ring..." Jack opened his hand, and Gibbs looked at the two pieces of the ring in wonder. "Something is wrong," he repeated quietly. "Tell everybody to look for her," he took a step to walk past Gibbs.
"Jack, wait-"
"Send somebody to town, in case she got outside, which I doubt, but still," Jack knitted his eyebrows, closing the broken ring in his fist.
"Jack-" Gibbs raised his hands and voice, trying to break into Jack's train of thought, and tell him what he needed to tell him.
"If ye'll find her, don't let her go anywhere, just-"
"Jack, I have to tell ye something, it's import-"
"Nothing in more important than me wife! Savvy?" bellowed Jack through his gritted teeth, causing Gibbs, and the people who just appeared in the corridor to cringe.
"Aye," Gibbs swallowed, and nodded, glancing at Barbossa who was approaching quickly, accompanied by the Governor who had been awoken by sudden commotion, and had quickly left the room he had been given, having an irrational feeling that something happened to Elizabeth, but as it turned out the reason for the commotion was different...
"So where is she?" asked Barbossa in a very irritated tone of voice, disregarding Gibbs' dramatic gestures meant to indicate that he had not managed to tell Jack yet...
Jack turned around, and glared at Barbossa. "It's none of yer concern," he said, annoyed, glancing at the Governor, and subconsciously remembering that he had forgotten to do something... ask for Elizabeth's hand in marriage, or ask for a blessing, or something along those lines... And his annoyance toward Barbossa grew as he was sure the image of him shouting in the morning was not something that Elizabeth's father would appreciate, and it was certainly not an image that would prevent him from slicing him into half as soon as he would have found out – which he must have found out already, actually... So perhaps even knowing that Elizabeth married him, her father had no intention of killing him, which was, he had to admit, a fairly good start of family relations...
"Jack-" Gibbs tried to explain once again, and once again failing to continue.
"Well, it is my concern," retorted Barbossa angrily. "Firstly, she is mine, secondly, ye've lost 'er again which makes ye unquestioningly unworthy of 'er, an' thirdly-"
Jack pulled out his pistol, and fired, and if it was not for Gibbs who grabbed his arm, the bullet would have pierced straight through Barbossa's heart. Barbossa blinked, slightly taken aback by the suddenness of Jack's reaction.
Governor Swann stared at Jack, suddenly hit by the realization that the this man was his family now; this screaming man with a pistol in his hand was his daughter's husband. She must have been insane to marry him. And he must have been even more insane to have allowed it.
"Jack, ye don't understand," Gibbs struggled to keep Jack from shooting again.
"What the hell are ye doing?!" screamed Barbossa, reaching for his own pistol, and the Governor decided that it was the right moment to take two steps away from those people.
Gibbs winced, accidentally loosening his grip on Jack's arm. Jack started forward, backing Barbossa against the wall, and pressing the pistol under his chin.
"Take back all that nonsense ye just said," he said in a low, menacing voice.
"I can't see why I should take anything back," Barbossa whispered hoarsely, his eyes glaring daggers at Jack, who cocked his pistol.
"Jack, he's talking about the Black Pearl," said Gibbs in a very unhappy voice.
"I know he's talkin' 'bout the Black Pearl," snapped Jack angrily, his eyes fixed on Barbossa's face. That's why-" he trailed off, and blinked. "What?" he glanced at Gibbs over his shoulder.
Gibbs sighed frustratedly. "The Black Pearl is missin', Jack. I was tryin' to tell ye..."
"What do ye mean the Black Pearl's missing?" Jack let go of Barbossa, and turned to fully face Gibbs. Barbossa rolled his eyes, and put his pistol away.
"We just noticed it," said Gibbs uncomfortably. Jack looked away, wrinkling his forehead. "I don't know how it could happen. We left the night watch... Four people. But they're nowhere to be found now, they must be still on the ship..." Gibbs hesitated, before adding. "There's also no trace of Will."
Jack darted his eyes to Gibbs, the unsettling image of Will kidnapping Elizabeth suddenly springing to his mind, sending a wave of cold across his body.
Barbossa snarled angrily. "Ye stole his wench, ye should've at least had the decency to shoot him. It was well foreseeable he could do something like that. And now ye doomed us all!"
The Governor shot Barbossa a cold glare, suddenly finding Jack's attempts to shoot the man fairly well-justified.
"Is she still in sight?" asked Jack, for once ignoring Barbossa, and looking at Gibbs expectantly.
Gibbs shook his head. Jack inwardly sighed with relief. If Will had taken the Pearl more than two quarters of an hour ago, then he could not have kidnapped Elizabeth. It struck him how insignificant the commandeering of the Pearl suddenly seemed in comparison with the fear of losing his wife. His wife.
"Ye don't understand, do ye?" screamed Barbossa, fury flashing in his eyes. He took a hasty step toward Jack, and lowered his voice. "Maybe ye forgot who was locked in the brig on that ship," he said, looking at Jack piercingly, and Jack looked back at him, even though his mind was spinning trying to figure out where Elizabeth could be, making it difficult for him to concentrate on any other subject. "Without her, we stand no chance in that war. An' now, thanks to ye, we have no Black Pearl, and no Calypso. It isn't hard to predict whom that little maggot will give them both to."
"They don't even have one Piece of Eight, not to mention nine of them, so they can't use Calypso against us," observed Gibbs matter-of-factly.
"Mister Gibbs," Jack interrupted before Barbossa had a chance to retort. "I think I gave ye an order," he said sternly. Gibbs blinked, puzzled, not recalling any order, except- "Search the Cove, and let me know if ye find Elizabeth," he said, and made to leave.
Governor Swann wrinkled his forehead at the mentioning of Elizabeth. "If you find Elizabeth" ?
Barbossa snarled. "So ye've lost her as well? Perhaps she didn't find the wedding night with ye satisfying," he sneered. "Can always help ye with that, ye know. Just send her to m-"
The word died on his lips when a bullet flew next to his face, brushing his cheek, and with astonishment Barbossa brought his hand to his face, and touched the side of it feeling the blood on his fingers.
"I'm really not in the mood today," said Jack, giving him a grim look, and quickly walking away.
Barbossa stared after him, and then narrowed his eyes, and muttering curses under his breath stormed away into the opposite direction.
Gibbs ran his hands across his face with a sigh. It was all just not going well. Even though there was little Beckett could do with Calypso, but without the Pieces of Eight, there was also nothing they could do without Calypso and with all the Pieces of Eight in the world.
"Is Elizabeth... missing?" The Governor Swann's voice brought Gibbs back from his reverie.
"Missing?" Gibbs blinked. "N-no, I don't think so. She's just gone somewhere without telling. Jack's a bit wary 'bout losing her out of sight, I guess," he said with a small smile.
The Governor nodded, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "I'd like to talk to her," he said in a low voice, suddenly feeling a twinge of melancholy at the idea that now he would have to request a conversation with his own daughter, ask if she had time, ask... her husband if they had time. He shook his head with an inaudible sigh. He was so tired yesterday, so exhausted, but now in the morning light everything looked different, and for a moment he could hardly imagine how could he have ever agreed on her marriage to that... pirate.
But then he remembered her confession, and the look in her eyes...
He really needed to talk to her.
"Oh, I'm sure as soon as we-"
"Jack, where's Jack?" Bill Turner broke into Gibbs' sentence suddenly appearing on his side, a look of deep anxiety on his face. Gibbs looked at him, hoping that there was no more bad news in store for them all, but judging from Bootstrap's face... "I have to tell him... ask if he remembers... I remember," he grimaced, and nervously rubbed his temple. "When we were marooned, before the girl disappeared, she was talking to somebody we could not see..." he squinted into the distance, straining his memory. "I shouldn't be here," he whispered, shaking his head sadly. "It's not right I'm here," he muttered absently.
"Who disappeared?" Governor Swann looked between Gibbs and Bill Turner questioningly, a strange feeling of cold dread washing over him for the second time this morning.
Gibbs winced, and thought that it was really not fair that it was always him who had to explain everything to everybody. "When Elizabeth was in the past-" he stopped in mid-sentence suddenly remembering that according to what Tia Dalma had said, he should not be talking about that at all.
Both men looked at him wide-eyed.
"Elizabeth was in the past?" repeated Governor Swann incredulously. "What is that supposed to mean?" he asked with a small, nervous smile.
"You knew about that? You knew that she was in the past?" Bill Turner looked at Gibbs searchingly.
"This is all rather complicated," said Gibbs in a miserable voice, already sensing troubles. "When we found Jack in the Locker, he was dead, and-"
"Jack was dead?" Bill cut in, his eyes widening.
The Governor only blinked, not even trying to understand that piece of news before it was thoroughly explained.
"Well," Gibbs scratched his forehead. "It seemed so, but I guess he was not really dead, seeing-"
"So it had something to do with it," whispered Bootstrap, taking a step backwards, his eyes wandering absent-mindedly around the hallway. Gibbs shook his head in incomprehension. "I was dead, and I'm here... He was dead, and he is here..." He ran his hand across his face, his breathing quickening. "She was talking about the price... I remember the word..." He blinked, and swallowed. "I have to talk to her," he said in a suddenly urgent tone of voice, darting his eyes to Gibbs, who was gradually becoming more and more confused. "I have to talk to them both... Where are they?"
Gibbs took a deep breath. "Perhaps that's not the best moment. We all have to set sail soon, and now with the Pearl gone, we also have to-"
"The Pearl is gone?" Bill interrupted once again, and Gibbs wondered if it was actually Bootstrap's habit to always cut people's off in the middle of their sentences.
"Aye," he nodded. "And we're afraid..." he gave Bill a hesitating look. "We suspect that it was Will who took the Pearl."
Bill looked at him for a moment in silence, slowly taking in the news. "I see," he whispered at last. "I should've known, should've kept an eye on him, but he said he wanted to be alone, and I was so tired..." he trailed off, wrinkling his forehead, feeling a twinge of pain at the thought that Will had not trusted him enough to talk to him before doing such a thing... He was acting in a fever, no doubt, but still... He had left without even saying good-bye to him... But perhaps he should not be the one resenting others for abandoning him...
"I will not abandon you."
Even if it hurt...
"That's not yer fault," Gibbs gave him a faint, sympathetic smile.
Bill slowly shifted his gaze from the floor to Gibbs. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," he said pensively, once again drifting in his thoughts back to the island, trying to recall every word of that strange conversation Elizabeth had been apparently having with someone that neither Jack nor him could have seen.
He had been everywhere.
He had checked his room, he had checked the entire floor. In fact he had been to every room on each floor, but Elizabeth was nowhere to be found. Nobody had seen her this morning, and Jack's anxiety was growing, his heartbeat quickening with every next, checked, empty room, with every person shaking their heads in denial.
Where did she go? Where could she possibly go? Jack walked hastily across the corridor, hanging onto half-hearted threats sent her way, imagining how he would scream at her for disappearing like that once he found her. First he would scream, then kiss her, then apologize for his mistaken accusation... then kiss her again, and shout some more, threaten her with walking the plank, hug her, and silence her with a kiss when she would try uttering some kind of retort. Then he would flung her over his shoulder, and carry her upstairs, and tell her that she must not leave this room until she would atone for making him search for her for over an hour...
...over an hour...
...and then she would smile and laugh and kiss him-
"She looked haunted."
Jack spun around, finding Teague standing in the doorway with his immortal guitar in his arms. He remembered when he was a lad he had thought that Teague's voice was hidden in this guitar, and if he had put it away, he would have not been able to speak.
"She looked haunted when she was looking for you yesterday," said Teague in a calm voice, his eyes fixed on Jack's face.
"Have you seen her this morning?" asked Jack in a strangely hurried tone, as if trying to deafen Teague's words.
Teague looked at him for a while, until the silence began to pulsate in Jack's ears, and he shook his head, even before Teague spoke at last. "She's not here, Jackie," he said quietly, his voice causing the blood in Jack's veins to freeze. "She's not here."
"Where did you intend to go if you don't even know where you are?"
The voice seemed to come from the far right corner of the room – toneless and mildly arrogant. Elizabeth still could not make a definite shape of a person in the dim light.
"I know where I am," she snapped, taking a cautious step forward to see better. She could almost feel him smile.
"Do you?" The voice flew across the room, as if it was made out of mist; a mist that was enveloping her tighter and tighter every time he spoke.
Elizabeth clenched her fists, and strained her eyes, but all she could see was a shadowed part of the room, and she could not observe any movement, as if nobody was there... which, she knew, was not true.
"I'm in the Maelstrom of Time," she said thrusting up her chin to make up for her involuntarily quivering voice.
She heard a quiet snort, and suddenly she could see a movement in the corner of the room, and a grey silhouette emerged from the darkness taking a step toward her. She held her breath desperately trying not to lose her composure.
He looked as she remembered him from that day on the beach, and then later when he appeared-
She quickly brought her hand to her face, and her eyes widened at the sight of the silver band around her finger. Now she could not only feel it, but see it as well.
"What is this?" she asked sharply, shifting her eyes to him. "And why did my wedding ring break?"
"This is your wedding ring," came a flat reply, as the man took several more steps forward, his way of walking reminding her strangely of London, when she had sat on the top of the stairs watching her parents' guests crossing the hallway.
"No, it's not," retorted Elizabeth coldly, fighting the urge to step back; she could not show him that she was afraid. Jack, Jack, Jack, she started chanting his name to calm herself, wishing that she had told him, after all... Maybe he could do something? Find the way to get her back... Maybe she should have had more faith in him... Maybe he did love her that much...
"Oh, I see. You're talking about..." he stopped right in front of her, his colorless eyes studying her face intently, "him."
"I'm talking about my wedding ring," said Elizabeth, feeling a strange twinge of fear at the mentioning of Jack, and trying, on an impulse, to distract the man's attention from her husband.
"Welcome to the married life, luv." Elizabeth gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. Jack, Jack, Jack.
"Do you think he will wait, twenty years?" asked the man raising his eyebrows, a ghost of a pale sneer that flickered across his face sending shivers up her spine.
"I don't think this should be of any interest to you," answered Elizabeth in the coldest voice she could muster, even though she had an impression that she could never match the coldness of the man's eyes.
The man's eyes... She was afraid to start calling him, or even thinking about him differently... She wanted to push the thought who he really was as far away from her mind as possible.
"And what if it is?" he asked, standing so still that for a moment she doubted if he was real, or perhaps it was only a sculpture talking to her in that blank, strangely mesmerizing voice.
"I can't see why it should be," she answered, not really knowing what she should say, but thinking that any answer would be better than none.
He looked at her for a moment in silence, before reaching out, and touching a strand of her hair. Elizabeth took a hasty step back.
"From what I heard Maelstrom of Time is the place of suffering for those who made a deal with... Death," she said hurriedly, almost choking on the word. "Am I in the Maelstrom of Time already, or not?"
He smiled. "You just said that you know where you are. Why are you asking me the very question you already answered for yourself?" he asked with a hint of unsettling, dim amusement in his voice.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him, took one more step backwards, and gasped, unexpectedly colliding with the door she forgot was so close behind her.
To her relief, the man did not move closer. "Place of suffering is such a crude expression..." he grimaced slightly, his eyes boring into hers, and she had to blink to shake off the odd feeling of numbness that was falling over her when she looked in his eyes too intently. He smiled faintly, and continued: "For those who made a deal with Death," he slowly repeated her words. "You make it sound almost like an accusation, while it was a gift, was it not? You wanted to save two lives, I brought back two dead people, and that was the price, you agreed to the terms of the bargain."
"I don't really know what bargain it is, apart from the fact that I am to be here for twenty years," replied Elizabeth stiffly, feeling the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, but she was determined not to cry in front of him.
"Making a bargain without knowing its terms, a brave thing to do," he said evenly.
"A stupid thing, you mean," retorted Elizabeth, having an uncomfortable impression that she was falling into his rhythm of speaking.
He smiled, a slow, brief, predatory smile. "Is there any difference, really? Coming back to rescue somebody you love is a brave thing to do, and yet in the light of the consequences it may turn out to be very stupid," he watched her face carefully.
Elizabeth's mouth twitched, a cold wave hitting her at the incredulous realization what he was talking about. If he was talking about that... He could not-
She gasped when he suddenly grabbed her wrists, and tugged her toward him. She tried to snatch her hands away, but to no avail.
"Maelstrom of Time is the place of suffering, but suffering is not about the flaming fire that might burn your flesh, nor is it about the piercing coldness of a sword that might wrench your heart apart," he whispered, his face very close to hers, and it struck her that she could not feel his breath on her face, as if... he was not breathing. "Suffering is about the soul fading away," Elizabeth cringed, and he lowered his voice even more, "about losing one's soul; about losing one's heart."
She made a frustrated effort to break free, but it was as if trying to break free from the shackles-
She shuddered at the comparison. His hands felt like shackles; cold and unbreakable around her wrists.
"I am to be here for twenty years, and then I am free to go," she said in a quiet, firm voice, her lips barely moving.
He looked at her blankly, as if she had not said anything at all, before he said something that caught her off guard: "You have blood on your hands. Taking lives should not be difficult for you."
Elizabeth stared at him wide-eyed, frozen to the spot by his words. "What do you mean?" she whispered after a pause, paling.