Chapter 3

But she was alone.

It wasn't fair. He couldn't do this to her.

She sat down in the wet sand and leaned back, letting the stinging rain hit her face. It felt like heaven to be able to sit and breathe.

He must have already made it to shore. Elizabeth looked back out towards the sea and searched the water with her eyes but saw only the churning waves. Either side of her along the beach looked similarly deserted. That didn't mean anything. Jack probably made it to shore long before she did.

No, there was no use in worrying about Jack Sparrow. She didn't even know why she ran to his rescue in the first place. Stupid move is what that was. Jack always took care of himself first, and he obviously found some better place to wait out the storm. Bloody pirate.

She clung to the anger and outrage at being deserted as stubbornly as she clung onto the hope of finding shore; she just couldn't deal with the possibility of the alternative.

Dawn

"Elizabeth."

The voice came from far away, and for a long time she couldn't understand what it wanted of her. Eventually she opened her eyes. Her fiancé Will Turner stood directly above her, his face grey and indistinct in the faint light of morning. A shiver coursed through her body as she became aware of the drizzling rain still falling all around her.

"Can you move?" A new voice, a woman's voice, spoke next and the words were full of urgency.

Elizabeth stretched experimentally and found that, yes, she could move. The memory of the night before came rushing back with another wave of nausea. "He left me behind. I couldn't find him." Somehow, she managed to roll to her side as she coughed up what was left of the seawater she swallowed on her way to shore.

"He left you?" Will and Ana asked in unison.

The tears swelled unbidden to her stinging eyes. "I thought he'd be here, but I couldn't find him." With great effort, Elizabeth pushed herself upright into a sitting position. She could not fight the tears, but she absolutely refused to break down and sob like a useless idiot. "Is he with you?"

"No." Ana Maria answered softly. She adjusted the cloak around Elizabeth's shoulders. It was a useless gesture since the girl had been soaked all night, but she needed to do something. "The important thing is that you are now with us." Ana Maria assured her. She now turned to Will. "Take Elizabeth back to the Pearl and get her warm, then send Cotton to wait for me with another boat. I am going to look for Jack."

The young man didn't argue and Ana Maria didn't expect him too; Jack may have been their friend, but Elizabeth held top priority in young Turner's mind. Ana checked herself; Jack is their friend, and she refused to give up on the pirate so easily. The girl, though exhausted, needed remarkably little help making it back to the boat and Ana felt duly impressed.

"Where did you last see Jack?" Ana asked before Will pushed the boat back into deeper water.

"I don't know. I don't know where I lost him." Elizabeth whispered and would not look Ana in the eye, but as Will rowed the boat back towards the Pearl, Elizabeth called out one last thing before moving out of earshot. "When you find him, tell him he better have had a good reason for going off on his own."

"I will." Ana yelled back and then set her mind to finding Jack.

She didn't know where to begin, and the worst of it was that she didn't honestly believe there would be anything to find. Sure, she didn't want to give up hope, but realistically? If Jack were able, he would have found his way to the lantern, and the simple fact that he wasn't able to spoke volumes.

Through the remaining haze of rain, the shoreline stretched out unchanged in either direction for as far as visibility allowed. Ana pulled her canvas cloak tightly around her shoulders to ward off the damp, and resolutely set off east along the beach. The current seemed to be flowing more in that direction then any other, and if a body were to wash up on shore in the aftermath of a storm that was most likely where she would find it. She kept her eyes peeled for any scrap of clothing or suspicious markings as she trudged along.

This wasn't the first time she found herself body hunting. Five years ago, she walked along a beach similar to this one outside of Tortuga, and she remembered walking it with just as much determination. Funny how life runs in circles, because it was on that walk where she first met Jack, though of course he wasn't who she was looking for at the time.

***

Wreckage from five Navy caravels littered the shore from the latest hurricane. Pieces of broken crates and the treasures once contained within lay strewn across the beach. Occasionally she came across another bloated and battered body of what was once a man, only looking at it for the time she needed to identify it as not belonging to the man she wished to find before moving on. She wasn't alone in her task and counted at least six others.

Two women walked together, sharing their misery through heart wrenching sobs while they scoured the beach for lost loved ones. Three children picked through pieces of crates, intent on finding the remainder of something at least somewhat valuable to sell on the street to earn a few coins. And one man stood alone staring sometimes into the distance, and often staring at Ana herself. As she made her way further along the shoreline and away from the others, he followed discreetly behind. Any other day she might have felt uncomfortable or threatened by the unwanted attention, but this day she welcomed the intrusion. Let him look, she thought, let him or any other man try to take advantage of her again, and she would show them just what it meant to deal with Ana Maria Delamonte.

Gradually the man drew closer until he stood only six feet away. She refused to even give him the satisfaction of looking in his direction.

He watched her prod another corpse with her foot and roll it onto it's back. She studied the grotesquely battered face for a moment, and then stepped over it to continue walking.

"Are you looking for someone in particular?" He asked.

She did turn to him then, and she could not hide the fury behind her eyes. "What is your business here?"

He shrugged and waved a hand vaguely towards the horizon. "Paying homage to a harsh mistress. Who is it that you're looking for?"

"My husband."

He lowered his eyes and nodded his head with his hands held together as though in prayer to touch his lips with his index fingers. "My condolences on your loss."

Ana Maria smiled ferociously. "Best thing that happened since I got married so far as I'm concerned. I'm only looking for his body to prove the bastard dead."

He cocked his head to one side and smiled back. "Then I suppose you'd be available to take a drink with me tonight at the Faithful Bride back in Tortuga."

"Only if you intend to pay, and only after I find my husband's remains."

"By all means. I'll even help you search." He offered and started walking beside her.

Together, they eventually found him. She spat on the corpse, turned around, and headed back to Tortuga with Jack Sparrow on her arm, intent on enjoying her first night of widowhood.

***

In the very least, Jack deserved a proper burial.

Ana thought of what she might have done differently in the last five years, and of what she didn't get around to doing at all. One thing in particular stood out more then the rest in her gallery of regrets. In her quest to ensure that she'd never again become trapped in another abusive relationship, she refused to allow any new relationships to develop. In particular, the relationship she might have had with Jack.

She cursed herself for being too much of a coward to admit her inner feelings, and in desperation looked up at the rain clouds still hovering overhead. "God, or whatever you are, let Jack be alive and I swear I'll do anything."

It wasn't like she expected lightning to part the sky and deposit her Captain on the sand right in front of her or anything like that, but she felt disappointed at the lack of acknowledgement regardless. On the other hand, maybe it was simply that she didn't swear on the right thing.

"I swear I'll never yell at him again, or hide his rum and drink it myself." She yelled out. Still nothing. "I swear I'll tell him the truth about what we did to his hat after he fell asleep last month at the Faithful Bride." The memory made her smile, but it also unleashed the flood of emotions resting just below the surface. She tilted her head skyward for the rain to wash away her tears. "I swear I'll never take him for granted, and I'll tell him…" She faltered on this last one, but she needed to say it. "I swear I'll tell him how much he means to me, and how much it hurts to think I've lost him for good." She stopped walking and knelt down on the sand, unable to continue with the pain of emotion tearing at her guts. "Please, I'll do anything, just let him be alive."

Still, nothing changed. The rain continued to fall, and Ana shivered at the moisture she felt soaking through her canvas cloak. She was a fool; what good could she do yelling at the sky? All those times she scoffed at the priests who prayed for the poor and sick, expecting their god to take care of the people they themselves would do nothing to help, how would doing the same be of any good to her?

She wouldn't spend another minute, or waste another tear, on things over which she held no control. Resolutely she stood up and continued her trek along the shore. For all the times Jack gambled with danger and escaped relatively unscathed, he was bound to lose eventually. She held onto the knowledge that unlike most people, Jack Sparrow lived long enough to attain his heart's desire and reclaimed the Black Pearl.

A dark shape took form on the sand in the distance and Ana Maria squinted to see it more clearly. It looked like a hat. Moreover, it looked like Jack's hat. Her own discomfort and fatigue forgotten, she broke into a sprint. If Jack's hat found its way to shore, then maybe Jack also found his way.

The hat sat partly buried in the sand and as Ana knelt to retrieve it she spotted an odd trail in the sand. It looked like something had been dragged out of the water, across the sand, and over the dunes. She followed the trail up to the bushes and stood in shock at the sight of a boot sticking out from under a palmetto bush.

She found him. Ana Maria dropped his hat in her rush to kneel beside Jack, and felt her breath catch in her throat at the sight of him sprawled awkwardly on his back in the mud. His head rested to the right, half submerged in a puddle, his left arm lay twisted at an unnatural angle under his back, and his legs bent at the knees toward the left. Unable to see the rise and fall of his chest, she lifted his head out of the water and pressed her fingers against the side of his throat, feeling for a pulse.

She felt it. Beneath her fingers his skin felt warm to the touch, and she felt the steady rhythm of his heart beat.

"Jack." She placed his head in her lap and smoothed the tangled hair away from his face. During the night, he lost his bandana, most of the beads and braids in his hair, and even the charcoal washed away from his eyes. He looked different without his accessories, almost like any other man. She reached out, took hold of his right hand, and rubbed his palm with her thumb.

"Come back to me Jack." She leaned over so that her lips were almost touching his ear, and felt his fingers twitch in her hand.

Abruptly, his entire body jerked in spasm and his mouth opened wide, desperately trying to draw in breath. He saw Ana Maria kneeling over him, and then looked away to search the rest of his surroundings.

"He was here, did you see him?" His voice came out harsh and barely audible. He slowly pushed himself up with his right arm, careful not to put any pressure on his left side.

Her spirit sang with joy for the miracle that was Jack, but her heart sank with the words he spoke because she understood the question and the yearning behind it more then she'd like to admit. He referred to the ghost story about a skeletal demon walking the beach in the moonlight to tend the lantern.  It was a story she knew Jack wanted to believe in.  "I'm sorry Jack."

Her platitude only served to agitate him further. Jack pushed away from her roughly, but only succeeded in losing his own balance and slipping into the mud. "I saw him, he pulled me from the water."

"I believe you, but I haven't seen him." They were both covered in mud now, and Ana removed her cloak to wrap around his shoulders. "Cotton is waiting to take us back to the Black Pearl."

He coughed before being able to speak again, but his voice sounded no better for it. "Did Elizabeth make it?"

"Her sweet-heart, Will, is taking care of her back on the Pearl as we speak." Ana assured him. "Jack, I found you on my own without any help from man or ghost."

"Bootstrap is on this bay, and he is the one tending the lantern." Jack pressed. He refused to accept the hand she offered as he struggled to his feet.

"Yes, you told me the story. Back in the glory days, little Jack Sparrow and Bootstrap used this bay for their smuggling and they used the lantern as a signal to meet and pick up more goods." Ana poised ready to reach out and offer a hand if necessary as she kept pace walking slowly beside him as he limped towards the beach. "Ever since I met you, you've been obsessed with coming here.  That's five years Jack, and we've never seen him.  Even now that you've lifted the curse and took back the Pearl, nothing has changed."

"I saw him."

"Maybe he did save you from drowning like you say, but he didn't care enough to wait and make sure you'd still be alive come morning. Don't you see there's something seriously off here?"

"All the more reason to find him."

"And how do you intend to do that?  He won't come to you.  Every time we've stopped on this cursed beach you sit and wait, and every time you leave disappointed."

"I've never come with young Turner before." Jack shot back.

"What do you have planned?"

"I think it's about time for our Will to meet his namesake, don't you?"

Ana didn't respond.

They both paused as a parrot flew overhead. "One of these days I'm going to find out how he trained that bloody thing."  Jack muttered.

Cotton appeared with the long boat minutes later to take them back to the Pearl.

Note:  I've reworked the end of this chapter to sit better with what's happening in my mind.  Please let me know if it moves smoothly or too quick, or not at all!  Thanks, Rat