A/N: This is now a two-shot, because why not.

Chapter Two:

It was quiet aboard the Black Pearl the following day. The crew, both Singaporean and original, moped about in thirst with small complaints. Barbossa supervised Cotton at the helm, despite the lack of wind and movement of the ship. Will was below deck somewhere. Jack switched between trying to interpret the charts and pacing with a frown. Elizabeth watched him.

Jack appeared to be rather impatient, frustrated with the lack of answers the Mao Kun maps were giving him. She could see through it, however, to the worry bubbling inside of him. He feared that they would not escape the Locker, that they would be stuck to sail the windless seas of Davy Jones's realm forever. Seeing his concern welled up a similar feeling inside of her- why did his feelings have to be so contagious?

After several hours of this, Elizabeth watched him vanish inside his cabin with a hopeless shake of his head. She followed, hoping that this second intrusion of his privacy wouldn't bother him too much. She didn't wish to face anything like the night prior, though part of her knew that this wouldn't be the prettiest meeting either given how he'd appeared to be acting for the extent of the morning.

The cabin door creaked as she entered, light flooding the dark entryway for a brief moment before the door shut and cut it off.

"Who's there?" Jack's muffled voice reached her ears.

She spotted him sitting at the desk, hands fisted against his forehead as if he were fighting off a major headache, which he probably was. When she did not answer his question, he lifted his head to look in her direction.

"Oh, it's you." He observed in his English accent, snatching an opened bottle of rum off the wooden surface of his desk and taking a swig. He nodded her over with an irritable drawl. "Feel free to come in."

Because she had already intruded.

"Sorry." Elizabeth offered as she moved further into the cabin, inwardly sighing at his apparent mood.

"That's twice in less than a day."

"Since when did you care about privacy?"

"Only my own." He told her, placing the rum back down and crossing his arms across his chest.

She rolled her eyes, then cut to the reason she'd intruded to begin with. "What's bothering you, Jack?"

"Bothered? Me?" Jack scoffed, lips curling bitterly. "Go take a look at those blasted charts an' tell me ye can make sense o' them. I don't think we're gettin' out o' 'ere, love. Ye shouldn't have come in the first place. Ye lot doomed yourselves."

"We'll get out of here, Jack." She promised.

"We'll see. Tia Dalma says we only have the rest o' the bloody day to do it. Come sunset, ye're all stuck 'ere with me." He explained.

"That doesn't sound too horrible." Elizabeth mused.

That elected a surprised snort out of him. "What?"

She flushed bright red under his judging gaze. Though she had wished she could have told him of her feelings for him long ago, part of her dreaded it now that the moment was upon her. "I said that it wouldn't be horrible to be stuck here with you."

"I heard." His head tilted slightly, as if he was trying to figure her out. She could see a small spark of hope in his eyes, a hope that she felt of him as he'd accidentally confessed he did her.

She took a deep breath to compose herself. "I...I don't know what I would do if I lost you again, Jack. Last time, it was like all the light had been sucked from the seas. Even when my mother died back in England, it was never like that. Not even when I saw my father last night." Her voice shook at the mention of her parents' passing. "I-"

"'M sorry, by the way." Jack cut in, the haunted look he'd had on his face the night prior briefly flashing across his face. Before it vanished, she wondered if he blamed himself for the spoken event, for getting himself involved in the affairs of her life and causing all she had known to crumble as horribly and suddenly as it had. "'Bout your father."

"I knew the risks when I left Port Royal." Elizabeth offered a small, sad smile.

She hadn't brought her father along the journey to look for Will because she had known that he'd not have lasted a day in such an environment. She supposed that whatever path he had gone down, he would not have made it out soundly.

Blinking to clear her mind of thoughts of her father, she once more transitioned back to the reason she had approached the pirate captain; she really needed to stop letting him distract her from what she wished to say.

"And I also know the risks of loving a pirate." She finished her declaration by meeting his gaze.

His initial surprise faded into a fond smile. "I knew ye'd come over to my side."