Disclaimer: not my movie.
Author's note: I ship Will and Elizabeth like mad, so this is something of a departure for me. It was written in response to a 'He's a pirate' challenge. Is Will really a pirate? Feedback and constructive criticism welcome.
Declare War on the World
"And you want to turn pirate yourself, is that it?"
"Never."
Will had been telling the truth. He had never wanted to turn pirate. As a child, he had always looked on with incomprehension when Elizabeth, his fairytale princess, had brandished a wooden dagger, calling herself Blood Eye Bet, the scurviest scallywag ever to sail the seven seas. Such a role was unfitting for such a silk-fine lady, he thought, but regardless had allowed himself to be pressed into service as her first mate.
Eight years of silent love passed before he learned that she had been mistaken in him from the first. The day that he rescued her from the accursed pirates, the day that he had been a good man, a brave man, a veritable knight in shining armour, she told him that she had thought him to be a pirate. Her regard for him was founded on his father's legacy, blood and gold and piracy.
How could he disillusion her?
There never was a chance. No opportune moment, Jack would say.
Jack. There was a pirate in truth. Will had felt a flicker of unease when he realised that Elizabeth had spent the night alone on an island with one of the few who was both a pirate and a good man, knowing that it was just that heady mixture which had fired Elizabeth's childish imagination and might inflame her adult body. He refused to contemplate it, would not call that slippery, angry fear jealousy. There was no need, for while Elizabeth believed him, Will, to be that rare combination also, he would hold her heart.
She did believe him. After his rescue of Jack, she elatedly proclaimed to her father that her beloved was a pirate. Will kissed her, safe in the knowledge that as long as his piratical credentials held good, she would love him in full measure.
She did. Her discontent came upon them slow, therefore, but he was quick to understand that the root of it was that she was yearning for the sea. Not for herself. For him.
And so when the Caribbean winds blew Jack back into their lives, all tangled black hair and fluttering bejewelled fingers, and the pirate put his suggestion to the blacksmith, Will was not surprised to see Elizabeth's excitement. She asked how he could bear to leave her, but her lips were parted, her face flushed, and the pulse beat rapidly in her throat. If he wanted to join the buccaneer crew that was the most fearsome in the Spanish Main, she said, he must. Never mind what her father or Norrington or Port Royal society would say. Of course he would never be captured. Yes, she would be all right on her own. He must follow his heart, even if it took him to the Black Pearl.
Will's love for his wife was limitless. Elizabeth wanted him to be a pirate. So he would be.