Author's Note 1:

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed!

Jackfan2, thank you very much for the reviews you've given my stories. I'm not sure that words can fully express my gratitude. Reading them made me feel literally dizzy with happiness! I hope you continue to enjoy my writing, as knowing someone likes them so much is the best encouragement possible. Thank you! I really enjoyed your first chapter of 'Shelter in the Storm' and look forward to the next. I promise to find the time to read your second story as soon as I can, and by all means recommend mine - I'd be greatly honoured!

Suzy-400 and Freckled raven, thanks for your encouragement!

Miss Becky, yay! that is exactly how I hoped it would come across!

Marie, yep! Elizabeth's perspective was what I intended to use for this next scene. It's set slightly earlier, though. I hope you still like it.

AN 2:

This was going to be the last part to this collection of missing scenes. However, Jackfan2 has given me the inspiration for a forth. If all goes well, it'll be up in a few days.

~*~

3.

Watched

He's A Pirate

Across the calm green-blue sea the sun was low on the horizon and darkness was slowly creeping up on Port Royal from the mainland. On the docks, Elizabeth Swann stood at her fiancé's side watching the prisoners being escorted off H.M.S. Dauntless.

The commodore had assigned a high number of his most competent guards to the task, not wanting to risk any one of the pirates escaping. Elizabeth was aware of his anxious glances out to sea, as if he expected the dreaded galleon with black sails to appear at any moment. These nervous looks were always followed by a scan of the gathering crowd of townsfolk, due to fear that Sparrow's crew was already there and hid among them.

Last of all, the pirate captain who caused Commodore Norrington so much anxiety was brought up from below and swiftly taken off the ship and onto the pier. Elizabeth's chest constricted at the sight. She had tried to the extreme point of teary-eyed pleading with her father to get him to let Jack go free. She had only finally stopped when he had become so frustrated and irritated she feared he would revoke Will's clemency. Jack Sparrow had a lifetime's worth of crime, which the Law would not let them ignore even if they wanted to. The scoundrel had even threatened her life, which Elizabeth would do well to remember. Now that she had suffered at the hands of a whole crew of pirates, surely she would lose these fantastical and childish ideas about them.

"Vile and dissolute creatures, the lot of them," Norrington had told her, eight years ago on the crossing from England, when she was a girl of twelve and he a lieutenant.

However, he had been wrong. Barbossa and his crew fit the description perfectly, but Jack broke the rule. He was a pirate, but he wasn't a bad person.

She knew more than Jack would perhaps want her to know on hindsight, after that night on the island beach where liquor and impending doom had loosened his tongue. Sure, the infamous captain often had a little too much to say for himself at the worst possible moments, but always with bravado and never from the heart. While they were marooned, he'd confided in her his true reasons.

Freedom, all the man wanted was freedom. The sparrow didn't want to be caged; he needed to fly.

She remembered the Black Pearl's figurehead of a woman holding a bird out as if to set it free, which she suddenly realised was so fitting that she found herself wondering about the mysterious past of Jack's ship. Elizabeth's gaze wandered out to the horizon, hoping to draw the Pearl into appearance through sheer will and imagination.

With a sigh, Elizabeth turned her eyes from the still empty waves and watched the captured pirate captain being led along the pier. He was surrounded by Navy officers with their bayonets fixed, his wrists clasped in irons and two men holding him tightly by the shoulders. His walk was steady and even, instead of his customary sway, but he still carried himself straight with his usual pride. Only a deep look into his soulful eyes gave any true sign of his hatred and fear of being trapped.

Elizabeth felt as trapped as Jack was. Trapped in a marriage to a man she didn't love. James Norrington had kindness, wealth and status, sure enough. But he could never have her heart, for it already belonged to Will Turner.

Throughout the voyage back to Port Royal, she had felt as if she were in limbo; caught between her previous life of hopeful fancies and her heartbreaking future. How could she feel so much for someone who it appeared didn't return her affection with equal strength? Once she had thought Will loved her, but then he had been so accepting of her engagement to Commodore Norrington. Was it not breaking his heart as much as it was hers? Heaven have mercy, she had only agreed to the marriage to save Will's life!

Since leaving the pirates' cave, her determination to avoid Will had only been matched by his determination to avoid her. It hurt terribly to think of him and seeing him increased the pain a hundred-fold.

She had allowed herself to be fooled by the excitement of rescuing each other, believing that there was no way for it to end but with them finally getting together. Unless they were both killed, of course. She had never even considered it ending with such uncertainty, confusion and endless heartache.

Commodore Norrington moved to follow the procession heading for the fort jail, barking orders for the curious crowd to be kept back, and Elizabeth walked quietly at his side. Her eyes found Jack again. A torrent of feeling rushed through her, which was voiced in her mind as a repeated scream of "This is wrong!". However, she remained silent and outwardly composed. Jack had chosen the life of a pirate, she reminded herself, and had been well aware of what he was getting himself in for. He had many more crimes to his name than he had years.

There was nothing Elizabeth could do.

It was time to accept that she had lost Will, if she had ever really had him, and their pirate adventure was over. In the moonlit courtyard of the fort, the noose waited to deliver a short drop and a sudden stop to the last link they had to their love-driven escapade. Tomorrow it would end.

They had escaped from Isla de Muerte, the Island of Death, but for Captain Jack Sparrow Port Royal also meant death.