Flights of Fancy
By Illoria
A/N: Ok, so this is not a one-shot anymore. :)
Wow, you guys sure can be persuasive, hehe. So I will be continuing this story!
=) Thank you for the great feedback on this story though, I really appreciate
it tons and tons. =)
Chapter Two: Dreams and Flight
Upstairs in her room, the restlessness had built up inside Elizabeth until she couldn't take staying still anymore; she had gotten up and opened her window and received an invitation in the form of the night's breeze carrying a salty mist from the sea. She needed to go somewhere where she could breathe. And that was precisely why she was creeping out of her father's mansion in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a shift.
She closed the front door gently behind her, tearing her hands away from the door handles; her hands were shaking and the door handles were rattling. She took a deep breath of the refreshing salty air as she turned, but it didn't do much to calm her.
No sensation or thought did much to calm her until she arrived at the fort. She snuck past the negligent night guard and made her way to the cliffs, past the gallows, their eeriness decreased by the absence of the noose.
It was the cruelest thing she had ever known, a hanging. Supposedly the one – the pirate, most likely – being hanged was the cruel one; but Elizabeth saw otherwise in the spectators' anxious faces. It was horrifying, really, the crowds that flocked to a hanging – she knew not whether they were attracted by morbid fascination or a sick desire to see the dreads of society "get theirs". Whatever the reason, it was more cruel a thing than most anything she had ever known a pirate to do.
Elizabeth felt sick herself as she noted that to any observer, she would've seemed just another one of those spectators that day. Just standing there all dressed up in her corset and her frilly dress and her bonnet, fanning herself beside her respectful father and equally respectful fiancé…
She felt dizzy and she had to sit down right there in the middle of the yard, scraping her hands on the stone. She felt lost, all alone in the empty yard with clear views on both sides of her – to the right, the gallows. To the left, the sea. She was turned to the right and her eyes were gravitating toward the gallows.
Jack was up there, his hands bound, his head bowed slightly as the drums sounded. Her heart was beating louder than the hard drumming punctuating the air, and the noose slipped over his head.
"This is wrong…"A drop, and her breath stopped, but no one knew because all she did was stand there just as helpless as Jack, but she had reason to be guilty because her helplessness could've been changed…
And Will. Oh, Will, thank God. If it hadn't been for Will…
Elizabeth shook her head. No, no, no, no, no. This was too much. She couldn't
take it.
"I'm sorry, Jack." Her voice rang through the empty yard, past the gallows, and she hoped it would ring out into the sea so he could hear her. But still she knew she couldn't say in words how sorry she was for standing there watching.
But what was done was done, wasn't it? She couldn't go back and save him like she wished she had tried to. It was in the past and she couldn't redo it even if she tried.
"They done what's right by them. That's all that matters."
It was also comforting to her that Jack would most likely dismiss any of her apologies with a wave of his hand and say that what was done was done and have some rum Miss Swann.
"How many times must I ask you to
call me Elizabeth?"
"At least once more, Miss Swann. As always."
"Elizabeth – it is Elizabeth,
isn't it?"
"It's Miss Swann."
Somehow tears had made their way to her eyes. She turned quickly from the gallows, a sort of relief washing over her as she looked instead toward the sea. Infinite and mysterious and magical were the words that came to mind, though words couldn't do much to describe the sea, really.
Elizabeth smiled as Jack's mistress reassured her. It was kind of funny, really. His Mistress Sea had orchestrated everything. Elizabeth had fallen into her embrace and Mistress had handed her over to Jack, whom she knew so well; Mistress had carried the Pearl away and sped the Interceptor away chasing her. Mistress Sea had lapped up onto the island to check up and see if Jack had yet betrayed her, whispering thanks to Elizabeth as she pushed him away.
As Elizabeth stood on the cliffs, the fort and the gallows behind her, the sea in front, everything was blurred and confusing except one thing. That night on the island with Jack was the only thing that was clear to her, because that night she knew that she had been truly free. And she wanted it back.
She was quite certain that she would do a lot of things to get that night back. In this sense she was as greedy as any pirate, really.
But what in the world was she going to do about it? Morning would come eventually and she would have to do something; whether or not it was something about this situation or not, it would have to be something – be it having breakfast or getting dressed or getting married, it would be something and that was making her feel hopeless.
Because she didn't want to go back.
Of course, things wouldn't be quite the same. She had Will now. Will… She felt sad for him because he loved her so much that he would die for her, and here she was, not loving him. And she could pretend to love him, but that would only be even more sad a thing because everything would be a lie. And eventually, or sooner than one might think, he would be able to tell in her kisses that she was lying and then he would be guilty and disappointed, and she cared for him enough not to want that for him.
Or was her care just her excuse not to love him?
Well, either way – whether she was caring or selfish – she didn't love Will. She loved that he had saved Jack's life, but what did that tell her?
The wind was picking up strength, Elizabeth noticed. She heard the gallows, creaking from behind her, and the waves, stronger against the cliffs.
Oh, of course she was paying such attention to the wind to distract herself and put off the conclusion that was inching its way up inside of her. If she were to be completely honest with herself, which she had never really been before, she would admit that she wanted Jack to hand her a bottle of rum and sing and sing and sing with her and put his arms around her and pull her close and…
But what was it worth your whole life being ashamed of what you wanted, really? And what she wanted wasn't a bad thing. Jack was a pirate and an excellent one at that, but that didn't mean… She couldn't explain it. Just something in the memory of his arm draped across her shoulder was telling her that he was an interesting pirate because he loved.
Oh, and she could see it. He was in love with life, more than anyone, it was in the crazy way he danced around the fire, in the loud voice he used to sing, in the way he drank a bottle of rum, in his entire being when he spoke of freedom and swayed like the sea.
"Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and deck and sails – that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom."
Was that an invitation, perhaps? Wherever we want to go, we'll go. The whole thing made her feel content and full and excited and alive. That was what she wanted to feel. She wanted to be alive like he was.
There was an energy inside of her now and it was coursing through her and breaking over her and instinct told her to be guilty but something else was telling her to be to be excited because she didn't need to be guilty – and she didn't need to let go. She could very well be as greedy as she could and hold on and hold on and hold on to what she wanted. It was a sudden realization. She didn't need to be caged!
It was as if something brilliant had exploded inside of her, and she got up and started singing and twirling around in the yard until she was dizzy because she could. She didn't need to do anything and she didn't need to resign herself to anything and she didn't need to make sacrifices and trap herself; she really could be free! Because freedom really was more than a fantasy.
Because Jack Sparrow was more than a fantasy and she had fallen more in love with him than she ever thought she could've loved anyone. And that made her come alive.
**
Come
morning and there was only one ship leaving port.
Standing on the docks, Will saw in a spyglass the merchant ship sailing away with her sailors on board, but it wasn't them that he was thinking about. It was Elizabeth, because she too was on board the ship. She had trusted him enough to let him know. And she should've… After all their history, she most definitely should've been able to trust him.
But he had also thought that after all their history, she should've been able to love him. And just that morning she had shown up at his door wearing nothing but a shift, and the rising sun had illuminated the highlights in her long hair and the sparks from the stove in the smithy had caught the lights in her eyes, and just as his heart had started flying she had told him she didn't love him after all.
Will lowered the spyglass.
This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Ever since he had first seen Elizabeth when they were children, he had loved her. He felt now like he had been dreaming all those years and as soon as the dream had been getting to the best part, he had been jarred awake and everything had been taken away.
Oh, she was his everything. He had always known that he would do anything for her. He hadn't known, however, that doing anything for her included letting her go.
The spyglass clattered to the dock.
He was remembering all the times he had waited outside her window as a boy, waiting for her to open the window and wave down to him and just that would be enough to make him grin for the rest of the day. He remembered how her father had caught him and said shouldn't he be at the smithy? And he had never come back to her window after that.
He was remembering when he would sit on the decks or stand at the bow with her on the way to Port Royal. When they'd arrived, he'd gone with her to her new house, and her father the governor had agreed at her persuasion to let him stay there until he found another place to go.
So he'd stayed.
If she and her father weren't going out, she would come to get him and they would go outside and run through the gardens and make up games to play, or they would sneak into the gardener's shed and talk about everything.
He'd stayed at her father's mansion until he was able to get an apprenticeship at the smithy. He didn't see her very much after that, but he was always trying to think of excuses to see her, or jumping at the chance to run errands around town on the off chance that he would run into her. But these occasions were rare, and their meetings were brief. In the absence of being with her, he would recall and go over all the conversations they'd had, or he would think of a new game she might like, and he would picture her lovely sparkling eyes.
She had always been a dream to him.
…Now what?
The tears subsided as the anger swept in. He was supposed to be her hero; he had come to her rescue and now it was supposed to be happily ever after. But it wasn't… it wasn't…
All those years of wishing… wishing… wishing. She had been his dream and it jarred him to realize that he really didn't know her as well as he'd thought. It frightened him to realize how much of what he loved about her was of his own prediction. She was his glowing fantasy, but it was hard to see her when she was surrounded by that haze.
If he had known her as well as he should've, he would've known the freedom she needed. He would've known that she needed to fly and that he couldn't be the one to give her her wings.
But he loved her… he loved her…
He loved her enough to let her fly.
The ship was but a spot on the horizon.
**
Elizabeth could see Port Royal in the distance. She picked out the spot on the docks were Will had been when she had left.
It had hurt her to hurt him. She didn't love him, but that didn't mean she didn't care for him. She was remembering all the times they had tramped through her father's gardens as children and all the times her father had scolded her for getting another dress dirty. And she had told Will about getting in trouble, and the next time they had played outside and she tore the hem of her dress, he had fixed it for her before her father could see.
Oh, she hoped Will would be happy. She hoped a lot of things for Will. That he would become a pirate again and go to Tortuga and love a barmaid and that would be enough to get his mind off of Elizabeth.
But oh, if he went to Tortuga he wouldn't be able to forget her. Because that was where she was headed…
