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

Disclaimer: I don't own Jack, Elizabeth, etc.

Chapter 52

Jack smirked to himself at the sight of Elizabeth's trunks in his cabin. He made a mental note to tell Gibbs not to move Elizabeth's belongings back to her cabin after all.

He put his hat on, and walked out of the Captain's Quarters to take the night shift.

On his way to the helm, he stopped in front of one of the doors in the corridor, and looked at it disgustedly. He sighed, rolled his eyes, grimaced, and at last walked in.

"Ne'er heard of knockin'-", started Barbossa angrily, but then just sneered at the sight of Jack.

Jack slammed the door shut. "Yes, I did. I heard of knocking people out of places if they behave badly", said Jack slumping into a chair, and propping his feet at the table.

Barbossa snarled, and tore out a map from under Jack's legs, examined it carefully, and put it gently on the other side of the table.

"Oh, so she ran t'ye t'complain", said Barbossa mockingly. "How touchin'", he said with a sweetish grimace. "Only it seems t'prove my point, since I don't see it workin' with the Brethren. Ye bein' the indispensable advisor, an' all, ye know."

"Don't worry. Ye may not even live long enough to see the day, the next meeting, that is", said Jack with a smile, looking at Barbossa, but out of the corner of his eye scanning the table.

"Well, I wouldn't worry 'bout that", retorted Barbossa. "An' also, if there's anybody to blame for that unpleasant situation it's ye." Jack raised his eyebrows, clearly astonished. "If ye'd have found out the location of the chest, I wouldn't be forced t'make yer dearly beloved's pretty head worry over the subject. But ye left me no choice, Jack", said Barbossa sitting back in his chair, and unfolding his arms with pretended helplessness.

Jack narrowed his eyes. "I would point out all the weak points of yer grand plan", said Jack lifting a piece of paper from the table in his two fingers, "but I don't really have that much time right now." He looked at the paper, and then threw it behind him.

"Perhaps yer weak points are indeed easier to enumerate", replied Barbossa sneeringly. Jack looked at him steadily. "An' don't think that I don't know why ye're here", he added in a low voice. "An' that it has nothin' to do with that blasted key."

Jack wrinkled his forehead, nad tilted back his head, resting it against his hands intertwined behind it.

"Ye didn't know I knew 'bout that three people proviso, did ye?", asked Barbossa with a smile.

"No doubt ye want to be included, aye?", smirked Jack.

"Actually... no", replied Barbossa after a moment of mock-consideration.

"Suit yerself", said Jack cheerfully. "I won't dare trying to change yer regrettably unregrettable decision."

"Ye didn't quite catch my meanin', Jack."

"I knew it." Jack grimaced. "Too good to be true."

"It's even better", said Barbossa with a grin, reaching for the bowl of apples.

Jack followed his actions with a seemingly bored facial expression.

Barbossa took one of the apples from the bowl, and put it on the table. "You", he said pointing to an apple.

Jack arched an eyebrow, and crossed his arms over his chest, shooting Barbossa an indulgent look.

"The future former Pirate King", Barbossa placed another apple on the table. "And the future former Captain of the Flying Dutchman." The third apple joined the other two.

Jack narrowed his eyes, looking at the apples thoughtfully. Then he quickly leaned forward, and pointed at one of the apples. "Can I be this one? This one looks better."

Barbossa rolled his eyes. "Ye really don't know what's good for ye, do ye?", he asked irritatedly.

Jack sat back in his chair. "Actually I think I do", he stated, smiling complacently.

Barbossa reached to his pocket, and put the key on the table, next to the apples. "Me."

"Ah." Jack smirked. Barbossa grinned, leaned forward, and opened his mouth to speak. "I knew ye'd get tired of those apples one day."

Barbossa rolled his eyes in exasperation. The bloody idiot was just not going to be serious, was he?

"Ye don't think it will look suspicious if ye don't drink from the Fountain?", asked Jack all of a sudden in a serious tone of voice, reaching for an apple, and turning it in his hand.

Barbossa darted his eyes to him, and squinted. "It can be arranged."

Jack snorted slightly, his eyes fixed on the apple. "Oh, I'm sure", he said with a smirk putting the apple back on the table.

"D'we have an accord?", asked Barbossa with a half-smile, tilting his head to the side.

"What 'bout that part with the Brethren?" Jack tapped his fingers on the table, looking steadily at his interlocutor.

Barbossa snarled. "Subject to negotiations", he said, narrowing his eyes in a smile.

Jack took his feet from the table, and stood up. "And ye're going to take my word for the location of the-"

"No, I'd rather take advantage of yer hospitality, an' be dropped on the location to verify it. No offence t'be taken. Mere cautiousness", grinned Barbossa.

Jack smirked, bent over the table, his hand hovering over an apple. "Mere cautiousness, ye say", he said under his breath, and waving his hand over the apple dismissively, reached for the key, and grabbed it before Barbossa had time to protest.

"What-", Barbossa started angrily, rising to his feet.

"I'll give it back to ye when we reach the Fountain", explained Jack calmly, slowly walking backwards toward the door. "An' when ye won't drink from it", he said with a smile, pointing his finger at Barbossa.

"That was not the part of the agreement", said Barbossa irritatedly, his hand almost subconsciously travelling to his pistol.

Jack blinked, sincerely surprised. "There was no agreement yet. And apart from that, what reason do ye have to think I'm not going to be reasonable?", he asked, narrowing his eyes meaningfully. "'Cause whatever the agreement will be it will certainly be reasonable, won't it, aye?"

"Well, ye did prove to be capable of being unreasonable quite often so I'm not sure I should comply with those terms of yours", said Barbossa in a low tone of voice.

"Have some faith in me senses, Hector", smiled Jack, putting his hand on the door knob behind him.

"I have faith in yer common sense", said Barbossa aiming his pistol at him.

Jack looked at the pistol disapprovingly, and sighed. "Without the location ye've no purpose for the key, which without the location is purposeless at the moment. My purpose, therefore, is to purposefully find the purpose for the key through locating the location which, being purposeful once it's found, adds the purpose to the key. Aye? And ye get both the location, an' the key at the same time. What do ye say to that?", inquired Jack happily.

Barbossa stared at Jack with a grimace, his pistol a few inches from his chest. After a moment of silence, Barbossa turned around, and fired his pistol at one of the apples, which burst into pieces. Jack winced disgustedly. Then Barbossa shot the second apple, and after cocking his pistol once again, he aimed at the third, but did not shoot. Instead, he grabbed the apple, bit into it, and then threw it on the other side of the room.

"I hope ye got my meaning, Jack", said Barbossa with a sour half-smile, putting his pistol away.

"Ye mean ye agree", replied Jack with a smile, which did not reach his eyes at all.

Barbossa snarled, and hissed: "Aye."


Elizabeth laid on the edge of the bed, faking sleep. She had talked with Will for the better part of the night, at last telling him that she was awfully tired, and she had wished to go to sleep. And she had tried not to look too uncomfortable when he had walked her to "our bed chamber". He had said that he will be right back, and left to give some orders to his crew, apparently, so Elizabeth had taken the chance, and quickly slipped into the bed, closing her eyes, and trying to appear very much asleep.

She was afraid that her eyelids might betray her... She remembered when her mother had told her once that if you only pretended to be asleep your eyelids shivered slightly, while when you were really asleep, they remained motionless. And it had bothered her ever since, until she had come up with a trick. One evening, when her mother had come, as always, to tuck her in bed, she had closed her eyes, and asked her mother whether her eyelids were moving, and to her cheerful satisfaction, her mother had confirmed that her eyelids were, in fact, not moving.

Elizabeth held her breath when she heard the door crack opened, and she could hear Will stepping into the cabin.

She kept her eyes closed, crossing them under her eyelids, and imagining that she was looking at her nose. That was the secret. That was the trick. She just hoped that it worked...

She felt and heard Will laying on the bed next to her.

"Elizabeth?", he called quietly, bending over her.

I am sleeping, I am sleeping, she chanted in her head, as if it could help. But Will was not suspicious, apparently. At least at the moment... Which brought her thoughts back to the subject of their discussion...

The Fountain of Youth was no longer a happily desired destination. She almost felt like turning back, and leaving it all behind, abandoning the quest. And what would Jack say? What will he say when she tell him that they need to be handed the water in order to drink it, and that the people who hand the water will die... If he does not know about it already, she thought with slight annoyance. It was always a possibility... That he knew everything... Well, if he knows about that, then I will... then this time he will certainly regret not telling me!

A hand stroking her hair shook Elizabeth out of her thoughts. She almost forgot that she was supposed to be sleeping... Her eyelids were surely shivering, she thought, and panicked, but then she felt Will kissing her hair, whispering "Good night, Elizabeth", and, apparently, going to sleep.

She inwardly sighed with relief, and went back to her thoughts.

How could Will think that she was going to... (she could hardly pronounce the word in that context...) kill Jack again? How could he thought that ill of her? He must have been very desperate, indeed. Very desperate to find any excuse for her, any excuse that would overrule the possibility of her having feelings towards Jack... And she felt sorry for Will, she felt so painfully sorry for him. He really did not deserve going through all this... But what could she do?

And now, as if that problem was not enough, she got herself into yet more troubles... She made Will believe (or at least she did not say anything to prove him wrong) that she really was going to make, and let Jack give Will the drink...

She involuntarily smirked to herself at the thought of Jack's facial expression when she tells him all that. She needs to think about a good way to tell him yet. It may be quite amusing.

Elizabeth wrinkled her forehead, and scolded herself in her thoughts. There was nothing amusing about the situation. Was it amusing that, basically, Will had nothing against killing Jack? Well, he had said that they should think about another way, but... What that another way could be?

One more question that bothered her was how Will knew about that strange Fountain mystery at all? He had not told her. She had asked him, and he had said that it was in that book, but she did not believe him. There was something in his eyes... And she just knew that he was not telling the truth (so I turned Will into a liar... that's all my fault... everything...). Especially, that Bill Turner had not mentioned such thing that night when they were discussing the quest. He would have told Jack about that, wouldn't he? If he had known... And he was the one who had read that book thoroughly...

Elizabeth opened her eyes, and stared into the darkness. Now she remembered that Bill Turner had even said that Will had not actually read the book. He had only read some fragments that his father told him to read. Therefore...

How could Will know that about the Fountain? If he had not read it...

She was only glad that Will, inadvertently perhaps, had not asked her how had she 'known' about it. She would not have had an answer to that...

Elizabeth closed her eyes. She actually was tired. 'Course I'm tired. I've been drinking rum throughout the last night, and then I just slept for a short time... She smiled to herself remembering the morning commotion. And then the kisses...

She knitted her eyebrows. Will had seen... How... And then she recalled hearing something in the corridor. So it weren't just your lips on mine after all, Jack, she thought with half-irritation, and grim half-amusement. It was Will.

Elizabeth snuggled her head into a pillow. Why it had to be so difficult? Why could she not just tell Will the truth? Despite everything, he would probably prefer the truth... Even though he was doing presumably everything he could to avoid hearing, avoid acknowledging the truth. He would rather think her a murderess, than adulteress. And it hurt her somehow.

She just wished she could be on the Black Pearl right now.


Jack spent the entire night at the helm. He did not think he could sleep anyway. He kept thinking about what could have been happening at the Flying Dutchman... It was rather annoying, because he had actually made a resolution not to think about it at all. Yet, his thoughts were constantly betraying his will. Even though he probably had much more disturbing things to think about right now.

For instance...

Jack took the key out of his pocket, and looked at it with a faint smile, although his smile quickly faded. He put the key back to his pocket. Why should Barbossa agree on his terms? Why had he not insisted on getting the key back immediately. Of course, he might have believed that Jack was going to go for his plan... But for some reason he did not really think it was the case. There was something else...

He let go of that key too easily...


Barbossa sat in his cabin in a very angry mood. He did not quite like the late turn of events. It was still his game, but the pieces were falling apart. He was supposed to keep the key, he thought angrily, but then smiled to himself all of a sudden.

He did not need the key.

But it annoyed him that Jack had taken the key nonetheless, simply because he had not expected that too happen.

When they reach the Fountain... Turner gives him the drink, and he will drink it, despite the agreement. That will lose him the key. Barbossa sneered. Which I don't need, ye fool. Then Jack gives Turner (have to talk to that whelp yet) the drink, and Mr. Turner gets his heart back, as the water will cure the curse. Thoroughly. Something, that only he knew, thanks to his precious chart, once again. There will be no longer any chest, or key in question. Just the heart. Back in the chest; literally. And this is where it will be stabbed, he thought with a chuckle.

So he will be left with mortal Mr. and Mrs. Turner, Jack being dead after the drink already.

Then he will stab the heart, and sail away with his newly acquired two ships. And the Pirate King. He smiled. So they would go to the Shipwreck Cove, and choose a more appropriate King, while he could certainly think of a more appropriate purpose for the soon-to-be-former King.

And with two ships in two worlds, as if, it would not even bother him too much that he could step on land only once in every ten years.

Barbossa staggered to his feet, took off his coat, and went to bed. He needed some rest before they would reach the Ghost Sea, which might prove yet to be the most difficult part of the journey.

He fell asleep thinking that the Immortal Pirate King Captain Hector Barbossa of the Flying Dutchman and the Black Pearl certainly had a pleasurable ring to it.


"We'll see whether you're good at steering the ship through the stormy, starry night, luv."

Elizabeth woke up with a start, and sat up in bed. He looked into the darkness, her breathing uneven. She had a dream...

No. She had many dreams...

Has she been dreaming?

Her eyes adjusted to darkness, and then, all of a sudden she understood. Her eyes widened, and she put her hand over her mouth to suppress a gasp.

The dreams were real.

For a moment, she was not sure where she was. She looked around in confusion, and then she noticed Will. He was asleep, face pressed against the pillow, one hand under his head, the other hanging over the edge of the bed.

Elizabeth pushed her hair away from her face, and looked at the window. It was fairly dark yet.

Soundlessly, she slipped out of the bed, and crept to the door. She put her hand on the knob, and pressed it gently. The door opened, cracking slightly. She glanced over her shoulder at Will, but he did not even move, and she could hear his steady breathing in the silence of the room.

Cautiously, she went out of the cabin, and closed the door behind her. Taking one step at a time, she slowly made her way to the corridor, and then up the stairs on the main deck.

She needed air. She needed fresh air, and the sound of waves humming in the approaching semi-darkness of an early morning.

On deck, there was quiescence. Unseen by anyone, she walked toward the stern of the Flying Dutchman, catching a glimpse of Bill Turner at the helm.

At the stern, she rested her elbows on the railing, leaning over it, and gazing out at the Black Pearl, almost invisible against the murky sea, and the dark sky.

But the sky was brightening. Clandestinely, slowly, each passing moment conquered the blackness a little more, changing the pattern of dark colors, which were gradually losing their grim shades.

The ocean was quiet, and peaceful, and the warm air engulfed her with care, making her feel safe.

Or was it rather the sight of the Pearl?

"...Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails that's what a ship needs but what a ship is...what the Black Pearl really is...is freedom."

Elizabeth smiled to herself, tears rolling down her cheeks, and falling into the ocean, noiselessly, lost in the eternal noise of the ocean waves ceaselessly crashing against each other.

"You long for freedom. You long to do what you want to do because you want it."

She propped her head on her elbow, staring out at the ship, at that ship which carried so many memories, which carried the most wonderful moments of her life... and the most painful ones too...

"It's after you."

She could not even recall what she was thinking... Did it even matter anymore? It has been forgiven... She smiled, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand.

"Elizabeth... We're not back."

But there were memories that forgiveness could not cure...

With her eyes fixed blankly on the black sails she tried to reenact some scenes from the past. Her mother... Her father... She had never really had a chance to say goodbye to either of them. They were gone before it had crossed her mind that it might have ever happened. She had expected being parted with neither of them. They were her parents. They were going to live forever.

And they did. As long as she remembered.

Remembered...

She remembered that house near Port Royal, she remembered her thoughts, that heart-piercing loneliness... which she had decided to abandon for just one day.

Just one day. Elizabeth smiled to herself, but her smile broke into a sob, and she cried as the words were floating towards her like the morning light breaking through the night sky.

"I wanted to have one day with you without anything, and anybody else. One day. To just see you, hear your voice, talk to you, look at you, be with you without the world, without the past, the present, the future, without the context. Just you and me. Just you with me for one day."

Me too. Wasn't that it? She had come to Tortuga for one day, one day which turned everything upside down.

"Up is down." She chuckled, despite the tears, which were flowing down her face.

But she did not mind them. They were washing away all her doubts and fears, they were bringing light, and the dawn which was slowly approaching, until the sunlight caught Elizabeth off guard, and she was almost surprised to notice that it was already morning.

She smiled at the sun, and closed her eyes, welcoming the new day, greeting that miraculous morning on which she had woken up... remembering.

Remembering...

Remembering everything.

Elizabeth opened her eyes, and laughed, brushing the tears away from her face."At last", she whispered to herself in a faltering voice, looking at the Black Pearl with an exhausted, radiant smile.