Disclaimer: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.
Summary: A missing scene from my story "Reasons to Believe". Elizabeth has a private
conversation with the Pearl, the night before they reach their destination.


Ladies Speaking in Confidence
by Hereswith

Deep down below the deck of the Pearl, with her eyes firmly closed, Elizabeth could almost
believe that the wood that cradled her, that carried her across these unfamiliar waters, was
something more than wood. Something more than planks hewn from trunks of trees that had
been ancient even before she was born.

"Tomorrow," she said, and it was a mere whisper, easily lost to the hovering shadows. "One
more night, and then it will truly be over, no matter what happens."

She felt a little foolish, giving voice to her thoughts, but talking would, she hoped, ease the
ache inside her chest. And since she could not quite bring herself to discuss these matters with
Gibbs, or any of the crew, she chose instead, and against all sense and reason, to speak to
a once-cursed ship.

The Black Pearl, if she listened, gave no sign of it. She moved steadily forward, inevitably
towards their destination, as if unburdened by doubt. Elizabeth, however, was not. She sighed
and continued, "It's so strange. For days I've been desperate to reach those isles, and now,
at this very moment, I wish we never would. I'm—"

There was a loud creak, a sudden, discordant sound, and Elizabeth started, glancing around,
the small hairs on the back of her neck rising. She held her breath, but heard no heart beating
but her own. And nothing stirred, even in the darkest of corners.

She touched the hull, tentatively, following the pattern of the grain with her fingers. "I'm afraid,"
she confessed, at length. "Of what we will find, or—not find. Of having to go home, and live
out the rest of my life, landlocked and bound by the rules and trappings of respectable society,
knowing that is all there is left for me, because he's gone. Perhaps I could take up needlework,"
she added, with an attempt to laugh that ended up flat. "Father would be delighted. And when
he asks why I always sit so close to the window, I will smile and say the light is better there,
and not mention the sea."

Elizabeth clenched her jaw, her hand forming a fist against the wooden surface. "I might have
been able to settle for that, at one time. Made of it what I could, as best I could, my childhood
dreams fading with the years, from lack of nurture. But I can't. Not anymore. Freedom," she
told the ship, nearly choking on the word and the memory both. "That is what you are. What
you have become. For me, as well."

It was, she reflected, an irony of fate that it should be a corset that had so thoroughly changed
the course of her future.If it had not caused her to faint, if she had not fallen and been so
fortuitously saved, it was unlikely that either she, or Will, would have met the infamous Captain
Jack Sparrow. For what business would he, after all, have had with a common blacksmith's
apprentice, and a Governor's daughter? Funny ol' world, innit? Jack might have remarked,
with a devilish grin, had he been present, and privy to her musings. And it was. But it would
be bleak, beyond measure, without him.

"Jack," she said, low and fierce, promise and prayer. "Jack."

The Pearl shuddered, then, from bowsprit to stern, in instinctive response to her captain's
name, or simply at the behest of the wind and the waves, and at the edge of Elizabeth's vision,
the air seemed to tremble, the way it sometimes did in the heat of a scorching sun. She blinked,
unnerved, and the oddness vanished.

It might have been a figment of her imagination. She was tired and, to be honest, less than
clear-headed, so it was a distinct possibility. But being thrown into the midst of a ghost story
had taught her that such common, ordinary explanations could not be taken for granted. And
the vibrations still lingered, still hummed in her ears, like an echo of the surf. Or of leaves in
a dense autumn forest.

"Yes," she answered, as if a question had been put to her, and a sentiment, of sorts, had
been expressed. "So do I.