The third installment of my Island Fic plus deleted scenes. This is one of my favorite scenes. I love the interplay between Jack and Elizabeth. Johnny Depp talks about the whole island episode as being one where Jack is completely exposed. I had fun trying to show that while still keeping him Jack. I hope I succeeded. Since I am writing this in third person omniscient point of view, I have switched fairly rapidly between Jack's head and Elizabeth's. I hope that's not too confusing.

Rating: T in some parts but this is K
Pairing: Canon
Cast: Jack and Elizabeth
Disclaimer: Disney, Johnny, Kiera, Ted and Terry own all. Borrowed without permission.

Welcome to the Caribbean
By Honorat Selonnet

Leaving Jack Sparrow to his own devices, Elizabeth found herself circumnavigating the island. At first she had been comforted by the crystal white unspoiled beach lapped with turquoise water, the emerald palms swaying gently in the cool breeze coming off the ocean, the warm caress of sand on her bare feet. However, by the time she was half way around the island, she was becoming tired of sand and palm trees. And she was becoming excessively tired of conch shells. She hadn't gone barefooted since she was a child, and her feet were bruised and raw from encounters first with the coral reefs and now with the sharp edges of the shells. The pitiless Caribbean sun had already dried her shift into stiff salt-crusted folds and her hair into limp salt-crusted strings and was now engaged in glaring off the white sand, giving her a headache. Her skin felt dusty and dry and hot. Already she was beginning to imagine the taste of cool water. But she was becoming depressingly aware of the fact that there was nothing on this island. Nothing she could see. No water. No food. How had Jack Sparrow survived here last time? How had he escaped?

Much sooner than she had expected, Elizabeth saw the figure of the pirate still sitting on the beach where she had left him. She didn't want to converse with him, but she didn't see any alternative. Slowly, picking her way gingerly through the sand, she approached him. A chill, at odds with the heat of the day, went through her as she recognized what he was doing. He was reloading his pistol, a concentrated introspective look on his face. She remembered Barbossa's words, drifting out over the water as he drove Jack off the plank: "You can be the gentleman and shoot the lady and starve to death yourself." Whatever resources Jack Sparrow knew about on this island would be strained two-fold by her presence. His chances of survival would be cut in half. And she already knew how ruthless this man could be.

Elizabeth paused. Her first impulse was to escape; her second, based on the utter impossibility of the first, was to keep walking. She came up to where the pirate captain was sitting in the sand, his possessions spread about him drying. The expanse of sand stretched out in front of her, empty except for her own footprints. Sparrow looked up at her and followed the direction of her gaze. "It's really not all that big, is it?" he remarked, turning back to the pistol.

The silence hovered oppressively. Elizabeth stared at Jack Sparrow, who was looking perfectly unconcerned with either their plight or her presence. Suddenly, she just wanted it all over. "If you're going to shoot me, please do so without delay."

Jack squinted up at the girl, thoroughly nonplussed. Of all the things he had never imagined she would say, that was the winner. He draped his forearms over his knees, dangling the pistol. Tilting his head to one side, he asked, "Is there a problem between us Miss Swann?"

A problem? Elizabeth couldn't begin to list the problems she had with this unprincipled, treacherous, murderous pirate. She took a step towards him. "You were going to tell Barbossa about Will in exchange for a ship," she accused, her eyes hot with hate.

Ah. So that was it. Jack leaned forward. He nodded at the empty ocean surrounding them. "We could use a ship," he pointed out sarcastically. Her stormy look did not lighten. "As a matter of fact," he continued, emphasizing his points with his pistol, his tone acerbic. "I was going to not tell Barbossa about bloody Will in exchange for a ship because as long as he didn't know about bloody Will, I had something to bargain with, which now no one has, thanks to bloody, stupid Will." He scrambled to his feet.

Her eyes dropped. "Oh."

"Oh!" Jack imitated her mockingly. He stuffed the pistol into his sash.

"He still risked his life to save ours," Elizabeth insisted.

"Hah!" Jack gave a sharp crack of unamused laughter, his eyes wide in disbelief. Lot of good that did, missy. The whelp had risked his life so that they could starve to death in the near future, that's what. Bit of a miscalculation there. He stalked off up the beach. If he was going to be having to converse with young and despairing love, he needed rum.

Elizabeth watched miserably as Jack Sparrow made for the stand of palm trees behind them, each step looking as though he wasn't finding the land quite where he thought he'd put it. How could she make that heartless pirate care? For Will's sake she had to try. Doggedly, she pursued his retreating back, calling after him desperately, "So—we have to do something to rescue him!"

Jack whirled around to face her and flapped his arms in her face. "Off you go then!" he encouraged with enthusiasm, shooing her away with the backs of his hands. "Let me know how that turns out." He smirked insincerely. With an unwieldy pivot, he resumed his former course. Elizabeth did not, however, go "off." Instead she ran along behind him. Why had he ever thought that a beautiful woman was a charming addition to a desert island? He must have been mad. She was a right nuisance, that's what. He increased his speed. Rum. Rum. Where's the rum? Bloody palm trees all look exactly alike. It's been ten bloody years.

Elizabeth followed Captain Sparrow into the sun-dappled shade of the palm grove. The debris on the ground kept tripping her already abused feet, but she ignored the pain. Sparrow didn't even seem to notice what he trod upon or stumbled over. The pirate was regarding each tree they passed as if it were a suspicious Navy officer, staring at it ferociously. She couldn't imagine what he was up to. What she wanted him to be up to was plotting a way to get off this wretched island.

"But you were marooned on this island before, weren't you?" she persisted. "So we can escape in the same way you did then."

She held her ground as Jack rounded on her. "To what point and purpose, young missy?" His voice was harsh, his eyes angry. "The Black Pearl is gone." He stabbed a hand towards the empty sea. "And unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice," Jack glanced insultingly down at the item in question, measuring her in the air with his hands, " – unlikely –" he judged, "young Mr. Turner will be dead long before you can reach him."

Dead. Jack saw Elizabeth flinch at the word. There was no point in mincing any words. She might as well resign herself to the bitter truth as soon as possible. He knew—who better—what kind of mercy Bootstrap Bill's son would receive from Barbossa's men. God, he needed rum.

Ah ha! There it was. The tree he was looking for. Surely that was the one. He knocked on the trunk trying to ignore Elizabeth. If he had hoped to make her angry enough to leave him alone, he was going to have to rethink his strategy. The lass was as persistent as a tick on a dog.

"But you're Captain Jack Sparrow," she reminded him from the other side of the tree. As though he didn't know.

Yes! He was Captain Jack Sparrow, who always knew where to find rum. This was the palm tree! Ah! Buried treasure of the best sort.

"You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company," Elizabeth persisted.

Sparrow began to pace off the magic distance in the correct direction, swinging his legs high in the air, windmilling his arms to keep his balance. Elizabeth stared at him incredulously. She was stuck on an island with an utter lunatic!

Four large paces later, Jack bounced experimentally on an unremarkable patch of sand and sea grass. The sand bounced back. Now that was how land ought to behave.

"You sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot!" A note of panic accompanied Elizabeth's recitation of his former escapades. What if this were not the Jack Sparrow of the stories? He only thought he was a pirate when in actuality he'd escaped from Bedlam.

Jack was flattered that Elizabeth had heard the stories. After all he'd worked hard at embellishing most of them himself. However, there was a slight problem.

Elizabeth planted herself firmly in front of Jack. "Are you the pirate I've read about or not?"

That would be the problem. Jack found himself trapped. Will's bonnie lass stood before him believing he held some clever solution to their plight. They were abandoned to die on this island, but the last time he'd been here, he hadn't died. Now she demanded the truth from him.

"How did you escape last time?" Her voice was soft, intense.

How did he escape last time? Jack looked at Elizabeth, all passion and fury and indomitable will. Determined to fly to the rescue of her beloved in the face of the laws of the universe. Incapable of imagining a future in which everything was lost. Had he ever been that young? She expected him to be a storybook hero. To somehow hold the key that would unlock the last minute save of the day that preceded her happy ending. Captain Jack Sparrow, who could not even succeed as the hero in his own tale. Who knew down to the bitter dregs of his soul that eventually everything was lost. Who spent his life merely a step ahead of defeat, playing the luck, dodging the raindrops. He played a good game. But every game had its finish.

Elizabeth watched, puzzled, as, for the first time since she had met him, Captain Sparrow went completely still, his mobile face frozen in unfamiliar seriousness. His eyes lost their mad glitter, becoming fathomless as the sea and as empty. He took her by the arms, pushing her back a few steps; then he dropped his hands. One hand rose again as if in protest then stopped, hanging there helplessly. The garrulous pirate seemed to be hunting for words. When words came they were empty of bombast, bare of satire, cold with honesty. This was not Captain Jack Sparrow. Not the charmer of sea-life. Not the honorary chieftain. This was only Jack, stripped of the legend, pinned against the wall of inescapable truth.

"Last time . . ." he spoke as though the words were being dragged from him by grapnels. " . . . I was here a grand total of three days, all right?" He pursed his lips together—the truth a sour taste in his mouth. Breaking eye contact with her, he turned to the sandy expanse beside them, bent down and dug about for what proved to be a latch.

"Last time," he threw open a cellar door, revealing a yawning square hole, "the rumrunners who used this island as a cache came by," He tramped down rickety wooden stairs drifted over with years of sand, "and I was able to barter a passage off." His voice echoed up hollowly from the dark pit into which he had disappeared. Elizabeth heard clinking and clanking as he rummaged about down below. "From the looks of things, they've long been out of business. Probably," a hand appeared clutching a tall glass bottle filled with caramel colored liquid, "have your bloody friend Norrington to thank for that." The hand was followed by the rest of the pirate as he clambered out of the cellar with a second bottle of rum, squat, round and black. He let the door drop.

Jack saw the hope leaching out of Elizabeth's eyes. Her voice was thick with contempt, near to tears. "So that's it then? That's the secret grand adventure of the infamous Jack Sparrow?" Her eyes accused him. "You spent three days lying on a beach, drinking rum!"

Actually, he hadn't found the cache the first day. Nor the second. He had found the trapdoor by accident, pitching in heatstruck delirium onto the unnaturally springy turf. At the time he had been more grateful that the rum was liquid he could drink than that it could make him drunk. But he did not tell Elizabeth this. Jack stood silently looking down at the girl, watching the illusion peel and flake away revealing the sham, watching the ideal shrivel up and die. That's right, love. In the real world miracles don't happen. In the real world, you can't believe in anyone. A man needs a lot of rum to drown out the real world. Jack needed to get started drowning it out immediately.

The pirate pasted on his most annoying grin. Spreading his arms out, he waved the rum bottles about cheerily and gave a little island dance sashay. "Welcome to the Caribbean, love." The glare Elizabeth gave him could have melted steel. The smile wiped off his face as swiftly as it had been painted on. Rudely, he pushed her aside and headed, rum in hand, back the way he had come.

TBC