A/N: Thank you so much for all the awesome reviews! :)

...Just one more week, and things should be back to normal! :) (As far as the frequency of updates is concerned, and not the plot of this story, of course lol)

Disclaimer: PotC belong to Disney.

Chapter 38

When James finally retreated to the room he had been given, he was tossing and turning for a few hours, not able to stop his racing thoughts and fall asleep. There were just too many things to think about, too many overwhelming occurrences and incidents, too many future possibilities...

And too much time to think.

Even though he was exhausted he would have rather gone into the battle right away to save himself the unnecessarily abundant amount of time to think about certain people getting married. And somehow the fact that some other people were certainly having a definitely worse nightmares than he had right to have, was not making him feel better. Perhaps there was a very faint glimpse of revengeful satisfaction in that situation on his side, but it was so faint, and so, in fact, unhelpful that he hardly noticed that he felt it at all.

After several hours he gave up his efforts to fall asleep, stopped stirring, and just stared at ceiling wondering what were his (or everybody else's, for that matter) chances not to die on the following day. Not that he would mind it terribly, he thought with a quiet snort, watching the thin strip of moonlight crossing the room, and hanging above him like a magical silver bridge. If it was only not so fragile, maybe he could use it to walk away from here, to... go back. He sighed. Go back. Whatever that meant. If it even meant anything at all... anymore.

He did what he could to ensure that there was not going back, didn't he? And yet every time he thought his position fixed and permanent, something always happened to prove him wrong, and change his course so drastically that he could immediately neither acknowledge nor accept the new direction in which he was headed.

Were his choices his own? He was not sure anymore. He had always believed that it was the man's responsibility to hold his fate in his hands, and choose the path of his life. At the same time he knew he could not create the path... But it was his decision which path he would choose. It was his decision whether he would follow the path no matter where it led. It was his decision on which side of the road he would walk. Finally, it was up to him whether he would walk until the very end of the road, or rather turn at some point, and choose a different path to continue his journey.

But at the moment he felt that he had lost his sense of direction. He turned too many times to be able to decipher where exactly he was.

He closed his eyes hoping that he exhausted his imagination enough to finally drift into sleep, but as soon as his eyelids cut him off from the moonlight, he saw them as he had seen them right after his arrival when he had not known yet that it was them kissing in the corridor as if there was no tomorrow. He opened his eyes to stop seeing the disturbing image. He did not know exactly how he felt – or should feel about it. He did not have enough reasons, enough memories to feel jealous... and yet there was that nagging feeling of bitterness sipping through his thoughts at the realization that whatever illusions he had subconsciously nourished for so many months, were now irretrievably gone. And not only because Elizabeth was married to somebody else, but because her heart was taken.

She had said once where her heart laid, but it seemed that she herself was not aware of the meaning of her words at that time... When had her feelings changed? Had they changed? Or perhaps she was simply not listening to her heart before?

Like he had not listened to his...

James put his arm over his eyes, and took a deep breath, grateful for the scent of the sea in it. The closeness of the sea was always making him feel better, making him feel anchored, giving him the sense of belonging he craved, and somehow could not find anywhere else but at sea...

He had been postponing his heart's wishes for so long, trying to fulfill all the prerequisites that he had thought he had to meet in order to gain the right to his own happiness. There was always something left to be earned, to be gathered, and ensured before he would have considered himself prepared for making another step in his life.

Maybe if he had asked her to marry him earlier, they would have been married long before that fateful day in Port Royal when she had fallen from the Fort. Maybe then she would have never fallen... from the Fort and into Jack Sparrow's hands.

He frowned, and turned on his side, looking at the window and the dark curtain shivering in the warm wind. He just could not find it in himself to be angry. Why should he be angry? If there was anybody who should be angry it was that unfortunate William Turner. From the way he had looked upon hearing the news, he had not expected such a turn of events in the least, and he had felt a bit sorry for the man.

Yet, he thought that he himself should feel angry as well, and he tried to understand why he did not. She seemed very happy, he could tell that much even from that glimpse of her and Sparrow that he had seen in the Great Chamber when they had sat there together, so close, so focused on each other even when they were not looking at each other... And he was glad that she was happy. The question was, whether he was glad because he loved her that much that her happiness was all that mattered, or rather because he did not really love her...

Somewhere in the midst of his thoughts, he finally fell asleep, and when he woke up in the morning he was surprised to find himself suffering from a severe headache. He did not feel tired, and he had gotten some sleep, so...

But then he heard the noises and loud voices coming both from the inside and the outside of the building which seemed to serve as a sufficient justification for his headache.

"Sir, there is a-"

Will pushed his way through the guards, and stepped into the room, causing Mercer's eyes dart to him with cold annoyance.

Beckett looked up from his desk, eyebrows raised, as he shifted his eyes between the two men. "What an interesting visit," he said with a faint smile, giving Mercer almost indiscernible nod. The man slowly blinked, and left the room, his eyes sweeping over Will with assessing intensity.

Will waited until the door closed, and then turned back to Beckett. "And an unexpected one, I guess," he said with a faint sneer. He suddenly felt very tired, and for a moment he just wanted to turn around and leave, but somehow he knew that it was not possible, not after he had already come here.

"Unexpected?" Beckett pushed himself up to his feet, his facial expression guarded, but amused. "I would have been more surprised if-" he stopped in mid-sentence, catching an indeed unexpected sight in the small window.

Will tilted his head to the side, as Beckett stared out for a while at the sea and the ship lulling on the waves, before at last he turned to face Will.

"Is this, at least, unexpected?" asked Will with a hint of sardonic interest in his voice.

Beckett smiled. "Merely convenient," he said in a low, cool voice, stealing one more glance at the Black Pearl.

Governor Swann and Bill Turner listened to Gibbs in perfect silence, not interrupting him even once, hardly keeping up with the pace of his story, even though he tried to explain everything very clearly.

He had told them about the journey to the Locker, about finding Jack, about Tia Dalma sending Elizabeth to the past, and the problems with bringing her back, and finally about Jack's unexpected return from the dead.

"So she really was there," Bootstrap stared at his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

The Governor looked at him, wondering how he could just so easily acknowledge such an impossible chain of events. Time travels. He snorted inwardly, half-heartedly, almost trying to convince himself that he was still not treating this story with too much seriousness, because it would certainly cause his mood to decrease even more.

"And ye've met her," Gibbs shook his head with a disbelieving smile. "It really was more than a dream, all of that, then."

Bill looked up, giving him a sad smile. "It seemed very much like a dream to me. They looked as if they were taken out of a fairy tale. Holding hands, feeding each other..." The Governor shifted his eyes to Bill. "At some point I forgot we were marooned there after the mutiny," he smiled weakly, feeling a twinge of pain at the memory of Will. "And she saved my life," he added in a whisper, staring into the distance. "Somehow..."

"Yes," Gibbs took a deep breath. "That actually makes sense. Miss Sw- Mrs. Sp-" he glanced at the Governor, and cleared his throat. "Mrs. Elizabeth told ye to jump off the ship, and that's why ye're alive. That's logical." Bootstrap raised his eyebrows. "More or less," amended Gibbs with a smile. "But why Jack woke up? I saw him, I checked his pulse... He was... gone."

"I think we should find them, and talk to them both," said Bill with a sigh.

"Yes," the Governor agreed quickly. "There is more than one reason for a long conversation," he wrinkled his forehead. "With both of them."

"Where is she?"

He knew the question must have sounded almost ridiculous... his voice almost pleading... his heart almost breaking, as if he already knew the answer, as if he already knew that whatever the answer was going to be it was not what he wanted to hear... and he just hoped it was something he could stand. Half of his mind began producing busily some unsubstantiated hypotheses, naive explanations, and he was on the verge of taking his question back when Teague gave him a long look, turned around, and walked into the darkness of the room behind him.

Jack stood for a moment watching the dark frame of the opened door, when it suddenly brightened, weak light shimmering in the shadows of the chamber.

Reluctantly, Jack stepped into the room, a dull headache already pulsating in his brows, and he was not sure whether the gust of cold air that suddenly enveloped him came from the half-open window or rather from within his heart.

Teague lighted one more candle, and sat it on the table next to another one, glancing at Jack with silent request for him to sit down, but he either did not understand the implication, or did not care about it well enough to listen, too preoccupied by his own thoughts that were both racing and circulating painfully slow in his mind.

Teague slumped into a chair, and put his guitar away, the gesture catching Jack's attention, his eyes darting warily to his father's face. "Do you know where she is?" he asked, eyeing the large book that lay on the table, a brown, tattered cover looking as if it shimmered between shaky shadows cast by the candles.

Teague's answer was mercilessly short. "No," he glanced up at Jack, whose face was unreadable, still, and pale – too pale – in the dusky orange light.

"Why it is so dark here?" he muttered, taking a few steps toward the curtained window, and away from his father's answer.

"Leave it," Teague's voice stopped him before he let the daylight flow into the room.

Jack froze. "Leave it." He could feel her lips brushing against his as if she was standing right in front of him, married to him, chained to him; unloseable.

He swirled around almost angrily. "I have to find her. If-" his voice faded away when Teague's eyes met his, and for a moment he wished to see the well-known anger in his father's eyes, a familiar flash of fury, a well-remembered irritation and impatience. But instead he could only see sadness and compassion, and it ignited fury in him.

Without a word, he headed for the door, running away from the words that caught him despite his efforts to flee.

"She is not here, but... she is somewhere." Jack stopped in his tracks, but did not turn. "She knew it was going to happen. She had a demeanor of a condemned man," Teague slowly ran his hand across the cover of the book. "Bravery of hopelessness," he whispered pensively. "I can't see her, but I can sense her-" he said in a whisper, but Jack interrupted him.

"Do ye know where she is, or not?"

Teague looked up when Jack was already across from him at the table, hands splayed on the surface, as he was looking down at both the book and his father.

"If there is anybody who can find out what happened to her, it is ye," said Teague slowly, holding Jack's gaze.

"Where is my daughter?"

Jack turned around, and Teague looked up finding Governor Swann, Bill Turner and Gibbs already in the room, standing by the door, and looking at them questioningly.

"You have blood on your hands. Taking lives should not be difficult for you."

Elizabeth sat on the bed, staring at her hands, her eyes red from crying, her hair hanging loosely over her shoulders, curtaining her face. She felt like on that day when she was going to marry Will, and she was waiting for him in the rain, already knowing that something was wrong, not knowing what it was, but feeling that even if she would have known, there was nothing she could have done about it.

But now it was worse. Now she knew what was happening. She brought her fate upon herself, there was nobody to blame. If she had not killed Jack, she would not have had to make the deal with Death to bring him back. And she had had to bring him back, because... She looked at the silver ring at her finger, and grimaced. Because she loved him. It was something she should cling to... the light that would carry her across the darkness.

"It is time to go."

She looked up, startled. A pair of colorless eyes studied her face, and she wondered for how long he had been standing there, watching her. Slowly, she rose to her feet.

"What if I refuse?" she asked, her facial expression hardening. She knew that he must have noticed that she had been crying, but there was no reason to appear helpless in front of him.

A small smile flickered across his pale lips. "You are here for your own reasons. If you wish to break our agreement..." he paused, squinting, as if expecting her to interrupt him, but she listened to him in silence. "I shall not keep you here against your will," he took a step toward her. "You may leave," he took another step, and Elizabeth instinctively stepped back. "You may refuse," he tilted his head to the side, as if amused by her efforts to move away from him. "But then I will take those two lives you wanted to save back to the world of the dead." He studied her face, and smiled inwardly, seeing in her eyes no indication that she knew about one little detail... He had wondered if somehow she had figured that out, or at least started suspecting something, but apparently she was not aware of the fact that one of the two men she had wanted to save had come back to life without his interference... And even though he had acknowledged that strange incident in front of Chronos, he was not going to tell the girl about it, as it might have influenced the level of her determination to keep to the agreement she had made.

Elizabeth tucked her hair behind her ears, shooting him a cold glare. "I don't know how can I make people cross the border between life and death, if I'm not Death," she said after a pause, trying to suppress the feeling of dread at the idea that Jack's life could be easily taken away from him again, if she would fail to fulfill her part of the agreement. She just hoped she would be strong enough to survive twenty years here.

Right after the man had told her what she was expected to do, she had thought that he had wanted her to murder people, and when she had told him that she was not going to do that, he had only smiled, telling her that she had misunderstood him. He had explained to her that her task was not of such foul nature – he did not want her to kill people, but merely take their lives away from them when it was their time to pass away. Then he had left her, promising to be back shortly.

And now he was back, and Elizabeth was not sure if she was more scared, or more relieved that soon she was going to find out what it felt like to be taking lives away, because she wanted to know if it was something she was able to endure. For a moment she thought that it might not be that hard... or that terrible; but the longer she looked into the man's unmoving, coldly calm eyes, the more she feared that perhaps she was underestimating the task...

"You are not Death indeed," his voice shook her out of her reverie, and she shuddered, suddenly noticing that he had moved closer to her when she was not paying attention. "But you are," he brought his hand to her face, and Elizabeth wanted to step away from him, but he grasped her shoulders, and pulled her toward him, "my bride."

She stiffened, and stared at him wide-eyed, but then she allowed a small sneer flicker across her lips. "I'm married," she said distinctly, in a low voice. "It doesn't matter what ring I wear. I'm married to my husband who is most certainly not you."

To her puzzlement, he returned her sneer, his grip on her shoulders tightening. "It doesn't matter whose wife you are," he leaned down, and Elizabeth tilted her head backwards abruptly. "As long as you are here, you are my bride," he looked in her eyes, and Elizabeth did her best not to scream, not to let her fear show on her face, as she tried to retain a guarded facial expression, even though she doubted that the look in her eyes was not giving her fears away. She tried to think of something she could do or say if he tried to kiss her. If she hit him... would he feel it? If she screamed... would he care? Would she be strong enough to push him away? Was there anything she could say to stop him?

But to her relief all those questions proved irrelevant, because soon he let go of her, and turned around, opening the door, and motioning for her to follow him.

"Somebody is on the verge of death. Somebody's soul is waiting. It's time to go," he said, staring into the distance, and for a moment she wished she could see what he saw, for there was a sudden flicker of light that flashed in his eyes, that seemed to turn his colorless eyes into two stars as colorful as the most beautiful rainbows. "Elizabeth?"

She shivered at the use of her name, and pursed her lips angrily. "It's Mrs. Sparrow," she said through her gritted teeth.

He smiled, his eyes blank again, his hand outstretched toward her. "Mrs. Sparrow."

She ignored his hand, and quickly walked past him, wondering if he only pretended not to be bothered by her arrogance, or perhaps he was playing his own game, in which she was already placed on the losing position.

Jack gritted his teeth, coldness creeping over him at the question, and his inability to answer it. Where was Elizabeth? Where was his wife? He should know that, he - of all people should know that. But he did not. He had no idea where she was; he, who should keep her safe, he, who should prove that he deserved her. And now her father was asking where she was, and he had no answer to give him. He was arrogant enough to marry her without asking for her father's permission, without even informing him about it, but apparently he was not responsible enough to keep her safe. The very basic thing, something that should not be even considered worth mentioning, because it was natural, obvious; vital.

"Where is my daughter?" the Governor took a few steps toward Teague and Jack, who kept looking at the Governor with a stony face, unable to utter a word.

What could he say? That she would be back any minute - something that he himself so desperately wanted to believe. But somehow he felt that something bad had happened. He tried to recall every minute with her, attempting to catch a glimpse of something unusual in her behaviour, some kind of hint...

Was all her behaviour, lately, not a hint? Now that he thought about it... She was so sincere, so... desperate. Or was he just overinterpreting everything now? Looking for the clues that were not there...

"Nothing will take ye away from me, luv. I've lost ships, and souls, but I won't lose you, I promise you that."

"Shhh. Don't say that."

"Jack?" Gibbs wrinkled his forehead worriedly, not knowing what to think about the strange silence that fell in the room.

Teague pushed himself up to his feet. "Let us all sit," he said, shifting his eyes from his son to the Governor, whose eyes were fixed on Jack.

"It must have something to do with the fact that we're alive," said Bill Turner in a low voice, slowly walking toward the table.

Teague tilted his head to the side, and regarded Bill with narrowed eyes. Jack darted his eyes to him. "What do ye mean?" he asked sharply, every moment of Elizabeth's absence making her absence more irritating, more painful, more real.

"Do ye remember when we were marooned on that island," Bill stopped in the middle of the room, staring thoughtfully into the distance. "Everything was well, until Elizabeth started seeing something..."

Jack knitted his eyebrows, his eyes fixed on Bill whose words sent cold shivers up his spine.

"Why does it matter? It's just... a small change, a life saved, it won't do no harm to anybody!"

"She was talking to somebody," said Jack in a hollow voice, his eyes widening as the memories came flowing back to him. He had tried to forget all those 'dreams', because they were reminding him about what he could not have had... But now he knew that they were not dreams.

He took a deep breath, still not feeling comfortable with the realization... He needed to think about everything that happened in the past once again. He wanted to remember everything.

"Yes," Bill nodded, shifting his gaze to Jack. "She was talking with somebody before she disappeared..."

"I don't care what happens to me. Just save them. Both of them. They are both dead."

"She was talking about us," said Jack, hardly hearing his own voice through the high-pitched, piercing noise that reverberated in his ears.

"Aye," Bill pressed his hand to his forehead, and grimaced. "And she said something about-" he looked at Jack, who met his gaze, eyes wide from shock and anxiety.

"About the price," finished Jack, putting his hands to his head, his heart racing. "What has she done," he whispered, his lips barely moving. "What the hell has she done," he repeated, remembering how in the past it had already frightened him that she had mentioned 'price' in what he had considered at that time to be only her feverish ramblings. "What have ye done, Lizzie," he repeated once again in a barely audible whisper.

Governor Swann listened to the entire conversation in silence, the terrifying thought that something bad had happened to Elizabeth suddenly materializing almost in front of his eyes.

Teague shifted his eyes between Bill and Jack, his hand absently brushing the cover of the book on the table, as if mistaking it for the strings of his guitar.

"There is only one force that she could ask to bring dead people back to life, if this is what she did," he said in a low, solemn voice.

Everybody's eyes darted to Teague, but he dropped his gaze to the book that sat on the table.

"No, she didn't," Jack shook his head almost unconsciously, even before Teague's words fully registered in his mind, but then suddenly he paled, and Teague's face twitched at the change in his son's face.

Jack looked away, his blood freezing in his veins at the recollection. "She asked about-" he licked his suddenly very dry lips. "She asked me once about the Maelstrom of Time."

"Holy Heaven," Gibbs quickly crossed himself, receiving a frightened and questioning look from Governor Swann.

"Ah," Teague said pensively, slumping into his chair. "So here it is."

"That's not possible," said Jack quickly with a forced, broken chuckle, trying to make himself believe once again that the reason for Elizabeth's interest in the Maelstrom of Time was only her curiosity, but he remembered all too well the desperate look in her eyes, the look that betrayed more than curiosity, and he could not believe now that he had missed the strange urgency in her voice when she had pressed him to tell her what the Maelstrom of Time was. "This is not... It can't..."

"If she is in the Maelstrom of Time, there is a way of reaching her there."

Jack shifted his eyes to Teague, unable to believe that they were really talking about the Maelstrom of Time. It was merely a legend, one of the many tales that he knew, recounted, did not care much about... And he was almost angry at Teague that he was talking about it as if it was the most usual thing on Earth, as if it was comprehensible, while it was not. Only a few moments ago he had woken up with his wife in his arms, her skin warm and soft against his... She could not just disappear, she could not be gone just like that, she could not...

"I want you to know something, Jack. Only death could take me away from you."

"Lizzie," he whispered, oblivious to the fact that he had said this aloud.

The Governor looked at him, rendered speechless by the expression on his face. He wanted to demand explanation as to what had happened, what had happened to Elizabeth, and how could that have happened to her, but the look of pure dismay, of fear, dread, and despair on Jack's face stopped him. He loves her, he thought, not remembering if he had already realized that before; but even if he had, right now he not only realized it, but saw it in the man's face, in his eyes; heard it in his voice, and somehow it made his heart clench, and he decided to leave him alone, and address Teague instead:

"How can we find my daughter?"

Teague smiled faintly. "There is a way," he said opening the book, the heavy cover hitting the surface of the table with a low thud. "A man can be brought back from the Maelstrom of Time," Teague followed a black line on one of the pages with his tarred finger, "only by his enemy," Teague's voice snapped Jack back into the reality, which seemed to engulf him to the point at which he felt as if he was being strangled by it.

"Enemy?" Bill Turner ran his hand across his forehead. "Why would anybody risk such a journey for an enemy?"

Gibbs sighed. "Doesn't seem to be a way."

The Governor was about to ask what was the Maelstrom of Time. Was it some place to which Elizabeth had been taken? Had she been abducted? By whom? What for?"

"And who is an enemy?" Jack's voice resounded in the room, attracting general attention.

Gibbs wrinkled his forehead, and glanced at Teague, quite puzzled by a small smile that flickered across his lips. "Who is an enemy?" he repeated Jack's question, glancing at Bill and the Governor to see if they understood Jack's strange inquiry, but they seemed as confused as he.

"If you killed somebody, and this person never told you that he forgave you for what you had done... does it make you an enemy of this person?" Jack looked at Teague, who nodded slowly.

"Sounds like a good definition to me," he said quietly.