DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?

Posted By: Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon
Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, Jack/Will
Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it still does not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.  What it does have, now, is overwhelmingly sappy (and slashy) fluff.

Epilogue: In Which Certain Proposals are Made and Accepted

Elizabeth wore ropes of pearls around her neck, iridescent grey and ebony beads hanging between her breasts, dark against the soft golden glow of her skin.  And there was a lot of skin, because those smooth, shimmering gemstones were the only things she had on.

Will was bent over her, kissing her with a thoroughness that suggested that he meant to eat her from the lips downward.  His hair fell around his face as he bent forward, and the smooth curve of one naked shoulder was visible around the edges of all that bare, feminine skin.  He wasn't wearing any jewellery.  With Elizabeth draped over his lap, her dark golden hair spread across his chest, he didn't need to.

Jack's foot scuffed across one of the coins scattered over the floor, and the pair of them broke apart, turning to look up at him.

Will grinned, a slow, almost shy expression that provided a counterpoint to the wickedly seductive smile on Elizabeth's face.  He reached up, grabbed Jack by the wrist, and yanked him forward and down.

And dissolved into a haze of dark mist.

Jack groaned, and rolled his head away from whatever the irritating wet thing was that was brushing at his face.  His head hurt, his side hurt, he was thirsty, and the ship he was on was not the Black Pearl.  Damn.  He wanted the dream back.  It had been a nice dream.  Naked Elizabeth.  Naked Will.  Lots of treasure.

Maybe, if he lay very still and kept his eyes closed, he could just let the swaying of the ship lull him back to sleep, and pick up where he had left off.  The motion wasn't quite right, wasn't that unique rhythm that told his bones that he was home and whole, but it was close enough.

Something cool and wet dabbed at his face again, washing over his forehead and cheekbone in slow, even strokes.  Light as it was, the pressure was enough to reawaken the soreness in bruises that were just beginning to hit the high point of swollenness.  So much for that plan.  He turned his face toward the canvass mattress beneath him, trying to escape.

"Hold still," someone commanded.  "And keep your eyes closed.  I'm trying to get that stupid charcoal off them."

Will.  Jack ignored the command—he didn't have to obey anyway; he was the captain here, after all—and opened his eyes.  A fully clothed Will Turner was bending over him, with a wad of damp fabric that looked suspiciously like Jack's shirt—which, he noted, he no longer seemed to be wearing—in one hand.

"Haven't we done this before?"

Will blinked, then followed Jack's gaze to the shirt in his hand and smiled slightly.  "Yes, I think we have, only this time, instead of me being all over dirt, you're all over blood and black eye lining whatever."

Jack smiled back, a deliberately smug smile, and answered, "I'm sure I look even more dashin' in grime than you do."  The smile stretched into a grin as he stared up at Will's dark brown eyes, expressive and alive brown eyes, the events of the previous evening sorting themselves out in his head as the fuzziness of sleep began to clear.  He was out of jail.  Will was alive.  They were going back to his ship, and threats of a slow, painful death by hanging had again receded to the distant and uncertain future.  "I'm glad you're not dead," he informed Will.

"I know.  You told me that yesterday.  I'm glad I'm not dead, too."  The shirt-turned-washrag made another swipe along his face.  "I'm even more pleased that you're not dead.  You were supposed to be hanging in irons on Gallows Point by now."

"Yesterday?"

"It's nearly sunset," Will explained.  "You've been asleep since the tail end of last night.  Elizabeth and I were about ready to wake you up by force so that one of us could have the bed."

"Elizabeth's got the helm, then?"

"Yes.  Don't worry, I showed her how to hold us on course."

"Ah.  Good."  Jack closed his eyes again, taking a moment to simply enjoy the fact that he was stretched out horizontal someplace moderately comfortable, instead of laying on the deck in the Endeavour's orlop or on the floor of a jail cell.  His head felt significantly better than it had last night, closer to a mild hangover than to the sort of sickening, pounding ache a man got when he was foolish enough to drink the poisonous stuff that McTaggert and Twigg brewed down in the lower decks.  Apparently, being clubbed over the head by Commodore Norrington's sword hilt produced a similar effect, without the added trouble of having to drink the eye-watering brew.  "I got us out of the harbour all right, then?"

"You don't remember?"  Will dropped the shirt and leaned forward to peer at him carefully.

"I remember everythin' perfectly," Jack protested, slightly irked at this slur on his faculties.  "Up until I took hold of the wheel, that is.  It all gets sort of hazy after that."

Will raised his eyebrows, looking mildly impressed.  "You steered her steady as a rock.  You mean you weren't, ah, all there," he made a vague gesture toward his head, "for that bit?"

Jack propped himself up on his elbows, so as to get a better view of Will, and  stifled a yawn.  "Didn't matter, did it?  I can pilot a ship through anythin', always could.  I'm the best pirate in the Caribbean, savvy?"

Will looked tired, he noticed.  He was smiling, but the lantern light in the commandeered sloop's cramped little cabin picked out the circles under his eyes, and, with his shirt sleeves pushed up, Jack could see the reddened skin of a burn on his right forearm.  He was momentarily distracted from the need to assert his credentials.

"Discovered the downside of bein' a gunner, have you, love?"  He waved a hand at the injury.

"What?"  Will glanced down at his arm, as if slightly surprised to see the length of burned skin.  "Oh, that.  I brushed my arm against a cannon.  I'd forgotten all about it."  He shrugged.  "I've had worse.  I work with hot metal for a living, remember?"  His eyes shifted back to Jack.  "Are you all right?"

Jack considered the question for a moment.  "Gettin' there," he finally answered.  It was true.  The long stretch of sleep had taken a lot of the headache away, and the dizziness seemed pretty much gone, though he wouldn't know for sure until he stood up.  He'd seen men take hard knocks to the head before, had a couple himself, too, though never one this bad before.  If a man didn't die within the first day or so, or wake up with his wits knocked out, everything usually went away on its own.  "A drink or two would help things along considerably."

This time, Will's smile was an odd cross between apologetic and amused.  "Elizabeth didn't bring any.  She thinks rum is-"

"A vile drink," Jack finished.  "I know.  I'm goin' to have to talk to her about that," he muttered.

"You can come on deck and do it, if you're really all right," Will offered.  "Someone needs to relieve her at the wheel anyway."

Jack sat up all the way and stretched his arms above his head, though he couldn't stretch them very far for fear of hitting the low beams overhead.  He rotated his shoulders, feeling one of the joints crack and pop.  Shackles were not kind to a man's arms and back.  At least he hadn't had the things on long enough for his wrists to get all banged up, he consoled himself.  "Be a good lad an' give me a hand up, will you, mate?"  He extended one hand towards Will, and the other man gripped him by the wrist and pulled him to his feet.  It was the same grip Will had had on him in the dream, some small part of his mind noted absently.  Too bad the piles of gold and ropes of black pearls weren't around to go with it.

Once on his feet—his bare feet, as his boots seemed to have been removed along with his shirt—Jack swayed for a moment, leaning against Will's shoulder as a snowstorm of grey momentarily blocked out his vision.  Will, who still had him by the wrist, pulled Jack's arm over his shoulders held him upright as if they were shipmates making their way back from a night in Tortuga.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.

"M'fine."  Jack waved his free hand dismissively, and shook the brief surge of light-headedness off.  "I haven't eaten in two days, you know," he added plaintively.  "Please tell me Elizabeth packed food."

"Jack," Will turned to look at him steadily, his face mere inches away from Jack's, "we're not stupid."

They stood there like that for a second, Jack leaning on Will, staring at each other, barely a breath apart.  It was an extremely tempting position, almost as tempting as Elizabeth's spectacular bodice of guard seduction from the previous night.  The reminder of Elizabeth, however, was enough to make the temptation manageable.

"You're heavy," Will pointed out, after a moment.

Jack gave him his most ingratiating grin.  "But you're such a comfy arm rest."

Will stared at him for another moment, and then his face took on that familiar determined frown.  "Oh, bugger this," he muttered, "I might as well try it and see what happens while you're still off balance enough for me to duck."  And then he bent his head forward slightly, closed the narrow gap between them, and kissed Jack.  On the lips.

It was not a very good kiss, certainly not the passionate locking of lips Jack had seen him engage in with Elizabeth.  'But really,' his mind babbled at him, 'who's keeping score?'  It was a first effort, after all, and Will learned quickly.

Jack stayed absolutely motionless for a moment, that little part of his mind that was experienced in the ways of hallucinations and fancies and curses and bloody skeletons that walked around and tried to kill you half convinced that he had to be imagining this.  Then again, if he were imagining it, he would not have been the only one minus a shirt.  So he opened his mouth and kissed back.  A man didn't kiss with just his lips, after all.  Surely, after being married for this long, Will knew that.  The moustache, he decided, was not as irritating as one might think.

Will pulled away, breaking off the contact, and Jack unconsciously leaned forward, resting even more of his weight on Will, until he could feel Will's linen shirt—and the warm muscle underneath it, pressed against his bare chest and side.  Why were they stopping?  This wasn't the part where you stopped.  Will had just begun getting the hang of it.

Will, he saw, with the part of his brain that wasn't busy clamouring 'Will.  Sex.  Now,' like a tribal chant, was smiling.  A different sort of smile from the ones he'd been wearing earlier; a satisfied one.  "That," he said slowly, voice slightly hoarse, "worked better than I thought it would."

And then, Will dragged him on deck—barefoot, shirtless, minus scarf, kohl, and just about everything else except his breeches and tattoos, and still aching from that broken-off kiss—to confront Elizabeth.

She was standing behind the wheel, wearing the same British uniform she'd had on back last summer at the Isla del Muerte.  The spectacular corset and its accompanying view were sadly gone.  In fact, knowing Elizabeth, the corset was probably well on its way to Davy Jones' locker.

"You're awake," she greeted them.  "Good.  Someone come and grab this monstrously heavy wheel from me before my arms fall off."

Will, whose eyes had taken on that special, worshipful look they always seemed to hold when looking at Elizabeth, blushed.  This time without any careful prompting on Jack's part.  Elizabeth turned her gaze from the horizon then and really looked at them, a long, measuring sort of look.

"Oh."  She smiled, eyebrows going up, "you've gotten in ahead of me, haven't you."  And then she just looked for a while, while Jack stared back at her and wondered what the devil she was talking about.

"Enjoying the view, Lizzie?" Will asked.

She grinned mischievously.  "I don't know.  Perhaps you should take your shirt off too, to let me compare."

That was when Jack belatedly realised that they were discussing him, because oh, yes, half naked and shirtless here.  The impulse to show off fought briefly with the impulse to demand exactly what had happened to everyone else on this sloop while he'd been asleep, and won.  "See anything you like, love?"

"The compass rose is very pretty," she said seriously, "but the bootprint on your ribs is a little disconcerting."

As was Elizabeth eyeing him like that, because he didn't think she was teasing this time.  It wasn't as if Jack minded, but Will was standing right there.  Next to him.  With an arm around his shoulders.  And they'd been kissing about a half a minute ago.  He had to ask.  "Not that I'm complainin' about all this sudden an' overdue appreciation, but I thought you two had a great and magical undyin' love of the sort legends are made of."

Will elbowed him in the ribs, carefully avoiding the bruised part.

Elizabeth made a little noise that wasn't quite a laugh.  "Ah, that's where it becomes complicated."  She then launched into a hurriedly spoken explanation that was impressively long-but-not-entirely-clarifying even by Jack's standards.  "You know, half of Port Royal thinks that you and I have eloped together after having a torrid affair by this point.  And the more people accused me of it, the more it started to sound like a good idea.  So I talked to Will, and he thinks it's a good idea, too.  So we both eloped, in a way, if you want us, that is.  But I gave the earrings back to my cousin-in-law.  I'm sorry."

"Oh.  Right.  Don't worry about it."  Then Jack finished piecing together the rest of her meaning, and he was suddenly very glad that he was still half-draped over Will, because otherwise it probably would have staggered him.  Yesterday, he had lost everything, and had been stuck in Port Royal's dank little jail waiting to die.  Today…

"Wait, you both want to have an affair with me?"

"It isn't going to work, is it?" Will said, ducking out from under Jack's arm.  "It's too, too strange."

Jack felt oddly bereft as Will stepped away from him toward Elizabeth.  "No, no," he said quickly, hold a hand up, palm out.  "It's just that nobody in the entire world is that lucky.  And you're already married to each other."

Elizabeth and Will exchanged glances.  "If you'd ever been married, you'd know that one of the most important parts of a marriage is sharing," Elizabeth said.  She let go of the wheel—which Will quickly grabbed hold of—and stepped out from behind it to take Jack's hand.  She did a double take when she saw the skull tattoo on his wrist, but didn't say anything about it.  "I like the person I turn into when you're around.  That's one reason why I had to get you out of there.  And Will hasn't really said as much, but I think he does too."  She smiled, an expression eerily identical to the one dream-Elizabeth had worn.  "And he already knows that I always fall in love with people who rescue me."

Jack looked at Elizabeth, and then over at Will, who was holding the wheel steady in a firm and competent-looking grip.  The sloop, he couldn't help noticing, was only a point or two off the course he had set her on last night, and she was carrying exactly the right amount of sail.  And when he and Will had come on deck, Elizabeth had been staring of into the sunset with a look in her eyes that far too few people shared or understood.  "Oh good," Jack announced, stepping over to stand between them.  He threw an arm apiece over their shoulders.  "We've got somethin' in common, then, savvy?"

Elizabeth's kiss was a little less uncertain than Will's, Jack noted, as he leaned over and bit gently at that lower lip that seemed designed solely for the purpose of being kissed, before Will started nibbling on his ear.  Then, he stopped thinking at all.

When somebody finally thought to pay attention to the helm again, they were considerably more than two points off course.

^_~

Thank you to all my reviewers! 

Shellie Rae: Thank You!  Here you go: more shiny pirate goodness.  The Jack/Will hug took much effort and re-writing in order not to sound like something out of a bad Victorian novel, so I'm glad you liked it.  As for the Elizabeth-ogling, I'd already vicariously ogled Jack and Will, so I figured it was her turn ^_~

Concrete-angel:  Thank you!  But if all of the pirates went free, what would I do for dramatic tension?  (not to mention that Norrington skipping is just wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  He strides, he stalks, he treads, he promenades, but the good Commodore doesn't skip).

Calendar:  Thank you!  Yes, it would be a threesome, if this little epilogue didn't clear that up ^_~.  Elizabeth is one lucky woman. 

Rissa of the Saiya-Jin: Thank you!  I'm glad you enjoyed it, doom-laden cliff-hangers and all.

Leap-of-fate:  Thank you!  I'm glad you liked the descriptions and the plot.  I had the whole thing mostly plotted-out before I started writing, but some of the little bits (like Lizzie's last confrontation with Mary Rose) snuck up on me. 

Phyllis:  Thank you!  Wow, a really long review!  I assume you're a different Phyllis, and not the Phyllis that is my Great Aunt ^_~.  I had great fun writing this story, and part of it was because of the moral ambiguities I got to play with.  Plus, Norrington appeals to my long-standing soft spot for Navy guys, so I couldn't bastardise him into some evil villain.  After all, the man's just trying to do his job.  The threesome dynamic was a challenge—it was the first time I'd ever written a relationship with three people involved, and I had to juggle E/W, W/J, and E/J (not to mention Norrington's unrequited feelings for Elizabeth).  I'm thrilled that you think I did a good job ^_^.

^_~

This final (and it really is final this time, I swear) instalment of sappy almost-smut was brought to you by pizza, sleep deprivation, vast amounts of sugar, Elspethdixon's vaguely bisexual subconscious, the good people at Dell Computers, and the UCC computer lab.