Disclaimer: tra la la. You can sue me, but all you'll get is a dollar. Maybe a dime and some pennies, too if I ever get around to cleaning my room. Conclusion: not worth it.
substitution
"Are you sure? After all, he is a blacksmith."
"No, he's a pirate."
Trouble is, she lied.
Trouble is: Will was never truly a pirate in that one adventure had been enough. But, in a way, it was comforting to pretend, to live and love by substitutions. And amazingly easy, considering that it was hard to tell differences by candlelight and hormones anyways.
One night Will slyly hooks a finger on her nightgown and tells her how hot Jamaican weather is, that they are really wearing too much clothing. She doesn't have to look to know he is smiling in the dark. He's predictable like that.
But she is so cold next to him, so she says, "I—I think I still hear the maid in the house—" Liar. Elizabeth knows for a fact that Lisette had left early and that there must be absolutely no-one in their secluded bit of island but themselves.
Marooned, more like.
Will knows better, and kisses her softly at her temple before turning over, his fingers slipping shyly into her curled grip.
And that, she thinks with a light regret creeping round her eyes, is the difference.
It's unfair, she knows, but she can't help but make comparisons; stereotypes, as well. Until blonde becomes the color for land and the sun through mossy vines and dry, dead grass and sand. Like sand, he is callous to the touch—a bit she'd recognized that moment below deck of the Interceptor. Carpenter's hands, he'd said.
And she'd shone with foolish hope—of course she could still be respectable and seen among her friends at Port Royal (at that point a part of her had not been ready to play the outcast. Or the wife, either way). After all, wasn't Will almost the real thing?
A year later, she knows how impossible it is to live by halves. To the point that when she lightly combs Will's hair, she pretends it is dark and less fine and something she can hold on to.
But Will is her husband (say a thing enough times and it'll be true enough).
Husband husband husband. Husband.
Funny how the only thing that's become true is that the word 'husband' makes no sense at all. Like the way she sits precariously most days on the edge of the dock and repeats 'distance distance distance distance.' And then she looks up until the brightness of the sky blinds her, hyper-sensitive to the rough texture of the wooden planks beneath her fingers until she can pretend she is sailing on his ship and they are sailing back to that island…
And she relives the day on that island, which has all the quality for her now of watching the natives pull ropes dripping with tree sap that catches the light. Thick and glittery and sticky just behind her eyelids.
She wanted to stay there forever—something she had taken for granted although it is dangerous to take things for granted. She wants to lay back on that sand and look into his dark eyes and hear him say, "No such thing, love."
Then there is the reality: Elizabeth Turner and Will Turner, in the same bed, breaths commingling. It's a silly, useless gesture, but she pulls her hand away from Will's fingers.
She sleeps. Three hundred sixty five days and counting.
a/n: okay, so maybe this chapter was more for aesthetics than for anything really substantial. And a bit over-dramatic…but, look! Me! Writing! vanquishes the damned writer's block