Ends of the World

Chapter Three

Life Was Never Meant To Come From Us

Oranjestad welcomed them rather heartily, and Elizabeth found herself the certain of attention of dozens of women there. They lived in a small seaside home, the only way Jack would live. She bought some clean, new simple clothes with money she'd had stowed away over the time from port to port on their way to Aruba. It was an odd, rather difficult change to get used to but soon she realized these clothes, though not as extravagant, were more comfortable.

Weeks went by, which turned into one month and then two. She was growing more comfortable with Jack not so much because they were getting to know each other, because they weren't. No, she was comfortable because it all became a habit. She knew his every move and had him timed to a tee. The only thing that was spontaneous was their lovemaking, and she rather preferred not to know when it would happen. It would grow dull if she could put a timer on that.

She wasn't well again into the second month, only now he was less interested in her and her health. He would sit in the parlor and draw out maps on his rickety wooden desk. A few nights into her illness she went out past the porch to the shoreline, sat in the shallow water and sand, her knees drawn up, cheek to one of them as she cried quietly. She'd been out there for some twenty minutes or so when a lady friend of Jack's came by and saw her, pulled her from the water.

"Why Elizabeth! You'll catch your death! The tide is strong around here. What on earth possessed you to sit out there?" She was a kind lady, Jack's age, maybe slightly younger. She wiped the tears from Elizabeth's face and sat with her farther back from the water in the sand.

"Oh," Elizabeth sighed softly. "I wasn't thinking about the water so much, in fact I wasn't thinking of it at all. I just. .I haven't been very well, I'm nauseated, tired, and Jack's so preoccupied with those damned useless maps that he couldn't care less."

The lady nodded a little and looked at her, felt her forehead gently. "You don't have a fever, have you vomited at all?"

Elizabeth seemed to pause in thought but then nodded. "Yes, nearly every day. 'Tis strange."

To Elizabeth's surprise, the lady began to laugh a little, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth to try and keep as polite as possible. When she saw Elizabeth's questioning glance she calmed a bit, her voice filled with mirth when she spoke again. "Oh I am sorry, dear. It's just so obvious but you've never had a woman around to know. Dear, you're with child."

Elizabeth stared at her with a less than humored expression for a short moment and then finally realized that this lady was not kidding. She looked back toward the water and hugged her knees, her mouth hanging open until she sobbed softly. "No, I can't be. This isn't fair at all, I've only just gotten used to everything and. . .and it makes sense!"

The lady patted her shoulder. "I'll come visit another night, but don't take it too hard on yourself, after all. It takes two to tango, dear. Also, be sure to have all his attention when you tell him or you may as well not, but I'm sure you know that already from having lived with him." She stood and brushed the sand from her clothes, walked back in the direction of her home.

Elizabeth came inside about an hour later to find most of the house dark except for the bedroom. Light poured out from under the door but she hadn't the nerve to face Jack yet. She sat, instead, on the sofa in the parlor and gazed out the dark window behind herself. A few moments later, when he had heard her come in but she hadn't come to him he came into the room, usual white blouse gone, in just his pants and bandanna. She looked up at him with reddened, damp eyes and then quickly looked out the window again. "J-jack . ." She said softly, curtly.

Jack watched her, not really sure how to go about "comforting" her. He swallowed thickly and moved to sit by her. His hand hovered above her calf uncertainly for a moment, then he lowered it, shaking onto her. She sobbed softly but muffled it, trying to stop herself from crying outright again. "Jack I want to be alone. . .". You'll never be alone again.

He frowned deeply and despite quite a fuss from her end, picked her up and held her to him, even as she beat at his chest and tried to wiggle away. She calmed soon, and he ran his hands clumsily up and down her back, amazingly, it was rather soothing and she calmed considerably. Her sobbing was now little whimpers every now and then. "What is it, love? What's gone on that has you so upset?"

"It wasn't meant to happen," she murmured, turning her face away from him. "Life was never meant to come from us. Us, Jack, two people who barely speak. Two people who were married of their own free wills yet know nothing about one another. We of all people, of all the couples in the world, against odds of those who would love to conceive a child and can't, we were not meant to create life."

His hold on her grew quite limp and he slipped back to look at her in the darkness. His mouth was wide open, shock written on his every feature from his dark eyes to his mouth and the general expression his cheeks and forehead formed around them. She watched his face and grew more disheartened, Jack Sparrow was nearly twice her age, if not that much. He surely was not in the market for having children.

He wet his lips and sat back, looking away from her as he gathered his thoughts as best as he could. He spoke in a soft, husky voice after a few moments. "I don't. . know what to say, I can't lie and say I'm excited about this." At least he was being honest but then, perhaps he was being a bit too honest.

She sniffled and stood from the couch, went back out onto the porch, her arms crossed over herself. Everything grew silent save an occasional sob from her, one hand slid to touch the part of her body which the child slept in briefly, but she pulled it away as if she were on fire when the door opened, and she looked at him with tearful eyes. "I didn't ask for this, Jack. Were I given a choice I . . I would have said no."

He studied her expression and the way she had paused mid-sentence. "No you wouldn't have." He said cooly. "You would have welcomed it and run from me to raise it on your own, watched it grow up and become a younger version of me and realized how you missed me and how you loved me and wished I was there."

"Never." She said in a low voice. "I would never have kept. . .Oh, Jack! We can't have a child!"

He bit his lip briefly and moved closer, stood behind her and gently rubbed her shoulders. "Oh? And why not?"

"Well for one I'm still rather a child myself and well, you act like one."

"We can," he said resolutely. "I can do anything, escape any bad ending and though I'll admit, it scares me to think we will, I'm not going to push you and this child away. This child is both of us growing inside of you and maybe it's a wakeup call, to tell us we've gone about this marriage all wrong." He sighed. "In the morning we'll sit down and just tell each other every little disgusting detail."

She looked up at him, her eyes glassy and slightly wide, but in some odd, unknown way, she trusted him like she trusted no one else, and it drove her mad. "Do you mean it? We'll really sit down and talk?"

"Cross my heart, swear to die."

Elizabeth was awoken not quite at dawn when her husband grabbed her up and began to run with her. She opened her eyes and saw that their home was burning rapidly down, and that a ship was not far offshore, firing cannons that way. She was wide awake now and struggled slightly against him. "What's going on?"

"No time to talk, love. Trust me." He ran hard, she could tell he was having slight difficulty carrying her but the moment they were out of range and into the woods where it would be more difficult to find them quickly, he set her down. "Elizabeth, we have to run for the Black Pearl as hard as we can, Norrington and the Turner boy seemed to have found us." He looked back into that direction, could barely see lifeboats rowing through the brush. "And me own crew shot our house down."

She looked to him with teary eyes, her hands held onto his forearms mostly to keep herself up. Her mind was racing and her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. Fear grew within her, instinctively, for her child's life and it was then that she looked directly into his face. "What happens when we reach the Pearl?"

He seemed to sense her suspicion and grew rather uncomfortable, as if he didn't want to have to tell her but he had made her a promise in the beginning, she could trust him. He would not lie to her. "Davy is going to take you to Tortuga, where you'll be safe until I can come for you."

"What?" She moved back, suddenly beginning to panic. "No, I won't do it! If you send me away now I'll never see you again and this child will not know it's father, no! We'll fight this together!"

"Elizabeth," he grasped her arms firmly and looked into her eyes with a stern, no-nonsense expression. "She tipped them off, Norrington's men. They've been watching us for a while and that wretch went to them after talking to you and they rowed back to inform him and William that you are with child. You're a Royal Navy bounty hunter's dream come true, they'd kill you for being with me and to kill my offspring, I cannot put you in the face of danger, or our child."

Elizabeth's face was swimming with tears and she took a deep breath, nodded a little, her lips pursed together to keep herself as quiet as she could. Jack couldn't help but frown and reach out to touch her face, brushing the hair from it as best as he could. "I haven't been the greatest husband and I may not be the greatest expectant father but I swear to you, I will protect the both of you and be back to you soon. Savvy?"

She sobbed softly and flung her arms around him, catching him clearly off guard. He soon settled from his awkward expression into a more comfortable one, slid his arms around her and held her tightly as she cried. She calmed enough to bring herself back and take his face into her hands. She kissed him as any woman would kiss her lover goodbye, every passion in her heart melting into him. She broke it regretfully, shouts in the near distance were growing closer.

"Come on then." He said, his voice more broken than she had ever heard it in the years since she had first met him.

She grabbed his hand as he stepped forward and he turned to look at her, barely strong enough to endure this as it was, and now she was holding him back. "Jack . . ." How difficult it was to come out with such a thing, such a confession that she never thought he would want to hear. She had to say it. " . . .I love you. . ."

He watched her, his heart secretly triumphing, his lips twitched into a matching smile but he tried to remain brave and only brave. "I know." He said gently, pulled her quickly over the footbridge there and through some more woods until the Pearl came into view at a secret dock in the bay. He stopped and drew his sword, kissed her softly, fleetingly once more. "I can't lead them any closer to you, go on, I have to fight them back from here now so you can get away."

"Elizabeth!"

She looked to the cry of her name, knew the voice, nodded to Jack and hurried to the ship. Jack went some ten feet back into the woods when he found what he was looking for, but they didn't see him. He climbed a tree nearby and as they all walked slowly below, searching for her, he shook some coconuts onto their heads, dropped right in front of Will and Norrington, the only two that had been too wise to be hit. "Well hello."

Will raised his sword, face contorted with absolute rage. "Where is she you vile monster?" He asked with a low, dangerous voice. "What have you done with her?"

"She's safe from you," Jack practically spat, dodging an attempted attack from Norrington. "My wife and unborn child are far away from where they can be harmed and brainwashed by you and I intend," he ran his blade across Will's. "To make sure it stays that way."

Although he was angry that Elizabeth had chosen him and that he had always seemed to win, Will could not find it in himself, as Norrington had, to hate Jack. He withdrew his sword and stood calmly, still, then suddenly struck Norrington in the stomach with his elbow, Jack shoved him so his head hit the same coconut tree and he hit the ground, unconscious. Will looked to Jack. "There are others and Tortuga will not be safe for her, Jack. They will hunt her there and clap irons on every pirate they see. You must find a more secluded place."

"I have nowhere else that she would be welcome." Jack growled, sliding his blade away he led Will through the brush only to see that the Pearl was gone. He cursed and ran up further to the end of the island, saw it sailing some yards offshore. "Dammit, I can't reach them, not that far out."

Will bit his lip and looked around. "Well if you're willing to help in a massacre, I'm sure Barbossa will take us to Tortuga after her, we'll only be a day or so behind."

Jack looked over to Will with one raised eyebrow, eyes moving a bit surprised to Will. "Pardon me, Barbossa?"

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