Disclaimer: My story. Not my world. All hail the Mouse.

A/N: Getting closer, my friends.

I'm glad you folks are liking Elizabeth. All her flaws are on display in this story, and I have been tempted more than once to just pitch her overboard, central character or no. But though I love Jack and feel for Will, this tale really belongs to her.


Chapter XXIII
Smoke on the Wind

She had sweethearts a-plenty
and men of high degree
but no man but Jack the sailor
her true love e'er could be.

-Jackaroe

Then three times 'round went our gallant ship
and three times 'round went she
and the third time that she went 'round
she sank to the bottom of the sea.

-The Mermaid


Anamaria sits with her back against the mast, long legs stretched in front of her, ankles crossed. Her eyes, intent on the tumbling dice, glitter button-black in the lamplight. "Aha."

Cotton's parrot squawks disparagingly; the mute is shaking his head.

"Eleven." Ana pulls the battered hat that's been acting as their pot towards herself, and empties the contents into the purse at her belt. "Again." She smiles and leans back against the mainmast, puffing on her carved tobacco pipe, satisfied.

"'Tis unnatural." Mr. Gibbs glowers at the quartermaster, nips a mouthful from his hip flask. "Uncanny. 'Sall I'm saying."

Ana ignores him. "'Tis your throw, Mistress Turner," she says serenely, and hands Elizabeth the dice. The other players, grumbling but good-natured, ante up once more.

Elizabeth, seated cross-legged near the starboard rail, adds her own coin to Jack Sparrow's second-favorite hat, and accepts the flask when Gibbs passes it her way. The liquor scorches her throat, pools hot in her belly. She bites her lip and gives the two cubes of bone a shake. Trying not to wonder what manner of bone they might be, she looks up; into Jack's kohl-shadowed glance.

He's lounging opposite her in the small circle, one leg bent under him, one knee pulled up toward his chest in an indolent pose; he lifts the flask that Ana has waved away and winks, a wordless toast. With a little gasp, she tears her gaze away. The dice rattle on the Pearl's boards, coming to rest near Jack's boot.

He moves languidly to examine them. "Snake eyes." His own eyes gleam, laughing at her.

"Oh, no!"

"Oh yes." He tilts the surfaces of the dice towards her. "Sorry, darling. Double your coin."

How has she been finagled into joining this rogue's game? Ladies don't gamble. But of course, she hasn't been much of a lady lately. And the game is rather thrilling, letting one's fortune ride in the hands of Luck, and Fate. Jack certainly seems to enjoy it. Then again, Lady Luck seems to favor him.

"You distracted me," she protests, then laughs with the rest of them, fishing another shilling out of the small cloth bag she's taken to wearing on a string round her neck for safekeeping. But as she tucks the coin-purse back inside her shirt, she once again catches him studying her. She thinks of his beard-roughened cheek against hers a few hours earlier, and feels a flush wash over her collarbone, where her skin is exposed by an unfastened top button that she knows has not escaped his notice.

Ana is watching this exchange as intently as she watched her throw moments ago, dark eyes narrowed. The parrot clucks in a speculative way. Mr. Gibbs clears his throat and retrieves the dice, casting what might be interpreted as a quelling look towards Jack, who merely smiles and takes another swig of rum.

They know, Elizabeth realizes suddenly. Ana probably guessed at it that first day out from Tortuga. Gibbs, who remembers her as a young girl crossing from England into a new life, appears to harbor some vague fatherly concern for her. Cotton just looks faintly amused. Is it that obvious?

Perhaps it is the fault of the alcohol, but she finds to her surprise that right now, she doesn't mind terribly that the crew suspects the truth. Let them speculate. They are pirates, after all; they're not the ladies of Port Royal simpering to her face and judging her behind her back.

She focuses on the game again in time to see Gibbs roll a five and mutter something not quite audible about women and luck as the throw passes to Jack. The Captain gives the dice a swift shake, and tosses them with a magician's lightning wrist flick. Double sixes.

Reaching into the hat, he withdraws Elizabeth's shilling. "Still warm," he observes, eyebrow lifted, and those gold teeth flash as he does something complicated with his right hand. He opens his empty palm, makes a show of searching for the vanished coin, and gives Elizabeth a reproachful look as if she's the one who caused it to go missing; then he shrugs, pretending to reach for a replacement from the pot.

She slaps his hand away playfully. "Jack! That's cheating."

"Bloody show-off," Ana says, but the tobacco she's smoking seems to have mellowed her usual acerbity.

"Jus' keeping in practice-"

But his unrepentant drawl is interrupted by a shout from the crow's nest.

"Cap'n! Look! Yonder, t' the west!"

They all hear the distant, deep boom clearly over the water. Jack is on his feet in one smooth motion, the easy languor vanished from his body as completely as that coin from his hand. He pulls himself up on the rail, leaning far out to peer forward past the rigging. When he drops back to the deck and turns round, Elizabeth sees his expression. She leaps up.

"Jack? What is it? Jack!" But he has stalked past her without a word, is scaling the mainmast with all the nimble agility of a monkey and the fluid grace of a cat. She stares up at his rapidly climbing form for a second before flinging herself to the rail.

The horizon to the west glows, sunset-orange. But the sun has long sunk away, its light all but gone from a sky patched by ragged dark clouds that alternately obscure and reveal the stars. Then the glow flickers, widens a bit; a gust of wind carries the stink of burning. A sick foreboding rises in Elizabeth's stomach, making her regret the rum and sailor's fare she's swallowed this evening.

"What is it, Mr. Gibbs?" she asks, as the first mate joins her at her vantage point.

"Something bad, Miss Elizabeth," he answers, echoing her thoughts. "Something devilish bad, I reckon."

"Helmsman!" Jack's voice rings out from above, strained and sharpened by something that sounds almost like fear. "Swing her round, mate!" The coordinates that follow are lost to Elizabeth, but the young steersman must have caught them; the Black Pearl jerks starboard, the air filling suddenly with the protesting creak of lines pulled taut. Ana lopes forward to the helm; Gibbs hollers urgent orders. Men spring to action around them, loosening and re-lashing lines, clambering upwards to adjust the snapping sails.

Alarmed, Elizabeth tilts her head back, attempting to catch another glimpse of Captain Sparrow, but the crow's nest sits nearly directly above her and she cannot see him from such an angle. Why turn aside now? She digs her nails into the wood, knuckles whitening. Every minute wasted is another minute in which Will might be lost forever. If Jack, ever the opportunist, is changing course in order to seek plunder, or is on the track of some other harebrained adventure-- If this detour causes them to be too late--

A hand falls on her shoulder; she jumps and turns. Jack's features are creased with...weariness? Regret? Concern?

"Jack, why? Where are we going?"

He nods toward the fitful glow on the horizon. The Pearl is drawing rapidly closer now, so that the dark smudge below it is recognizable as land, and the spreading dark smudge above it is obviously smoke.

"The Lady Swann," he says, "lies in that harbor, yonder."

His words grip her heart like a vise, tightening painfully.

Will. She feels herself sway, gropes for the rail.

Jack swears softly. Then his arms go around her, gathering her in a fierce embrace. "Don't look like that, Elizabeth, my darling," he says into her hair. "We'll find him, love. You hear me? I'll find him for you..."

Elizabeth clings to him despite her startlement at his words, burying her face in the worn lapel of his jacket.

She doesn't think she's ready to let go.


The Black Pearl drops anchor in the shadow of the steep cliff near the harbor's wide mouth, almost directly across the sound from the small garrison. Their arrival seems to have gone unnoticed. Any guards must be distracted by the tumult that has arisen down by the docks, by the grim tableau now lit by moonrise, the great smoking ship-carcass drifting low in the water. A few soldiers have rowed out to the ruined hulk, combing the debris for survivors. Clearly, something has gone unexpectedly and utterly wrong. Jack inspects the shore, and then the cliffs that hem them in, and sees nothing to indicate a raid or attack. The Lady Swann rests dark and silent at the docks. And they have seen no other vessels on their approach, heard no cannonfire except that single powerful explosion.

Ana comes to lean her elbows on the rail beside him. "What d'you reckon happened here, Cap'n? Fire in the magazine?"

"Aye," he says. "Might be an accident. Some poor blighter lightin' a match in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

"Might be." Ana squints thoughtfully at the wreckage. "Or, mayhaps it was done on purpose." Lowering her voice, she adds, "She's the right size and the right design, Jack. Same as the vessel we seek."

"I thought she might be." Jack sighs, and pockets his glass.

"I'll have a boat readied for you," Ana says, guessing his intent in that occasionally preternatural way she has, and pads away sternwards, where a few terse orders soon have the men hurrying to deploy one of the dinghies. Jack, meanwhile, makes his way to the forecastle to retrieve his sword and extra shot for his pistol.

Elizabeth Turner ambushes him just outside his cabin door. "What's happening?" she demands sharply. "Are you going ashore?"

"Aye, love." He reaches for the door-latch, but she blocks his way adroitly, ignoring him when he gestures for her to step aside. She looks very pale in the moonlight, pale and small and extremely formidable, though her eyes are wide and dark with anxiety. He wants to pull her to him again, tell her she has nothing to worry about, promise her that he will make sure of that. But he's plagued by a rising premonition that if he said it, he'd be lying.

She says, "I'll come with you."

"Bollocks," he snaps. "You'll do no such thing. Would you move, please?"

She doesn't budge. "I won't sit about here waiting for news. I've done enough of that, these last three years...I'm coming."

"No, Elizabeth. There's no telling what we'll find." Or what he'll have to do, he adds silently. The last thing he wants is to have to pull off some incredibly stupid rescue mission on Mr. Turner's behalf while keeping the impulsive Mrs. Turner in check and out of harm's way. Also, he plans to be very much elsewhere for their ecstatic reunion scene. He wonders if there's a good tavern in this godforsaken village. "It's too dangerous, love."

"Goddamn you men," she cries. "Will is just the same. I'm a grown-up, Jack. Why can't I do as I please?"

"Because," Jack says, "you're a bloody stubborn little fool. And let me remind you, I am Captain of this ship. You'll do as I say, madam." He takes her firmly by the shoulders; she tries unsuccessfully to wrench away, but he moves her bodily aside, keeping her at arm's length as she strikes out at him with a little scream of frustration. He gives her a barely-gentle shake, his own frustration rising. "Would you like me to have you locked in the brig? Is that it? Because I can make arrangements."

She goes still, though her expression remains defiant. "You'll have to," she says. "You won't be able to stop me, otherwise."

There is steel in her voice; but it is the pleading look she gives him that defeats him, sorely tempted as he is to take her at her word and lock her up, out of his way and out of trouble. "Very well," he says, swallowing his irritation. "But you'll follow my orders on this venture, savvy? And don't do anything stupid."

"He is my husband, Jack. He's here on my account. It's my venture as much as yours," she says. "You don't need to protect me."

Yes, he thinks. I bloody well do. He says instead, "We leave in ten minutes, m'lady. And don't forget that pretty knife of yours. You may need it before the night is through."

"Thank you, Jack," she says quietly.

"Don't mention it," he growls. "Just don't let me regret this." And he escapes into the darkness of his cabin, cursing himself for a fool. Try as he might, it seems he cannot refuse those eyes. Not since he was a young man has any woman wielded so much power over him.

At this rate, it could prove both their downfalls.


The tide has just begun to ebb, but Jack and Ana lash the beached rowboat to a sprawling mangrove root where the cliff's base meets a narrow strip of sand. "Just in case," Jack says, sounding distracted, when Elizabeth voices her doubt that they'll still be ashore when the tide comes in again. She looks from one grim, brown face to the other and falls silent, wondering if they know something she does not. She wouldn't put it past Jack to withhold information from her that he thought might upset her; especially considering his increasingly puzzling behavior towards her these past days at sea, marked as it is by an uneven, exasperated sort of tenderness. It is a characteristic she never would have suspected of him.

She glances sidelong at him, but can see no hint of the man that less than an hour ago held her in his arms and whispered endearments into her hair; there is no sign of tenderness now in the closed, chiseled features and shadowed eyes. His gesture is impatient, and she thinks better of asking what trouble is haunting him, the thing he's not telling her.

With a growing sense of unease, she follows Ana's sure steps down the beach, picking her way around crumbling outcroppings, rocks, and driftwood. She stumbles once and Jack, walking just behind and a little to her left, takes her by the elbow to steady her; the movement seems almost automatic, and his expression when she turns to thank him remains distant, unreadable.

He has been unusually taciturn since he emerged from his cabin back on the Pearl in his shirtsleeves and handed her a large bundle, saying, "Wear this." Depositing a familiar-looking sailor's cap on top of the neatly folded cloth, he added, "This too."

The bundle turned out to be his own shabby, well-loved greatcoat. She began, "Jack, I couldn't possibly-"

"It'll hide your figure," he said curtly, and stalked away, leaving her with her arms full of salt-stained felt. After a moment, she wrapped the coat around her. It still held his warmth and, disconcertingly, his scent of spice, sweat and the sea. The cap is her own, the one she thought she'd left in their room at the "Faithful Bride." He must have picked it up and kept it for her, though she cannot fathom why.

They are passing directly opposite the shattered, smoldering hull that drifts, now more than half-sunken, in the bay. Elizabeth finds herself unable to look away from the embers burning fitfully out on the dark water, remembering another day of fire and death long ago, another ruined vessel, a boy salvaged miraculously from the wreck. That was a dank, mist-thick afternoon on the trackless Atlantic, all noises muffled eerily by fog, the red glow of flames and black jagged timbers rising unexpectedly out of indistinguishable greyness; this is a clear night, shapes blue-lit in sharp, almost surreal relief by a moon just beginning to wane. It's a different type of eeriness; she shivers, and prays that same lost if now grown boy is somewhere nearby, waiting for rescue in some lonely cell or ship's brig.

They will find him, she thinks; alive of course, just as Jack has promised. Her husband will walk blinking into the light, and the weight of guilty dread will lift from her shoulders somewhat. Having rescued him again she will take his hand, and they will return to Port Royal where she will take up the threads of her lonely existence as a sailor's wife with a will; and endeavor to pretend that she does not desire and has never tasted freedom, which is salty like the sea-air on the tongue, like Jack Sparrow's skin.

As for the man currently walking close by her side with a drunkard's over-careful gait, whose dark gaze pierces through her propriety, her pretenses and guarded pride so easily to expose the wild dreams she's tried to bury deep beneath--she will bid him a grave, polite farewell, and watch him sail away until he's vanished over her horizon. And hope the apothecary can provide laudanum enough to keep the dreams at bay.

Because after all, what choice does she have?

Because it doesn't matter if she has a choice, Elizabeth tells herself sternly. Because she loves Will; because he loves her. Because that is how it is meant to be. Fated from that first moment on a cold ship's deck so many years ago, when he opened his eyes and looked up at her in wonder, as if she were no mere mortal girl but his own personal angel of salvation. He's never stopped looking at her that way.

Girl saves boy; boy loves girl; girl marries boy. Isn't that the way this story goes?

And they live happily and sedately ever after...

She never much cared for such stories as a child, she thinks inconsequentially. Much to the dismay and eventual despair of a long succession of tutors, small Elizabeth eschewed tales of princesses and courtly knights on white horses in favor of highwaymen and explorers and corsairs on the high seas...

Ahead of her, Ana changes course slightly; Elizabeth surfaces from the treacherous current of her thoughts to take in her surroundings.

Here, about a quarter-mile from the first buildings of the small port, the cliffs sit far back from the waterline, separated from the beach by dense stands of cypresses and mangroves. Ana guides them away from the bay and under the whispering shadows of leaves at the trees' edge, gliding through the tangled undergrowth without seeming to disturb a single twig or blade of grass. Attempting to follow the other woman's path exactly, Elizabeth feels she is finding all the stray twigs Ana has missed, earning more than one reproving glare from the quartermaster. Meanwhile Jack, despite his apparently haphazard steps, also manages to make minimal noise with what appears to be minimal effort; Elizabeth consoles herself with the thought that she has already trod upon all the branches that might ordinarily snap under his booted feet.

At the border of the town, Ana pauses, throwing Jack a questioning look.

He nods toward the harbor, where several boats, salvage efforts abandoned, are making their slow way back to shore. "To the docks, I think," he says. "Keep your ears open."

But as they thread their way through the narrow, sandy streets, Elizabeth discovers that listening does her no good whatsoever. The few knots of townspeople they pass speak in rapid-fire Spanish; her limited vocabulary allows her to pick out only a few words here and there. Jack's intent expression, however, indicates that he probably has a working knowledge of the language. He strays a bit ahead of Ana and Elizabeth; his erratic trajectory might seem random to a casual observer, but Elizabeth notes how it consistently brings him into earshot of passersby while leading without detour to the harbor.

"It's very different from Tortuga," she ventures after a little while, keeping her voice low. She has a vague idea that an English voice here would likely be singled out and questioned.

Ana grunts an affirmative. "Ain't many free souls here; just a lot of black robes up on yon hill preaching the Gospel, and a profitable market for blackbirders in the village square." She gives a harsh laugh, clearly unamused in the least at the complicity of priests and slavers. "'Tis a Spanish Navy outpost. La Navidad, so called."

They have emerged from among the houses and shuttered shops onto the beachfront; Elizabeth scans the quay, puzzled. "I don't see any Navy vessels?"

For answer, the quartermaster jerks her chin towards the wreck out in the bay, now marked by little more than an accumulation of floating debris on the waves.

"Oh." Indeed, the rowboats which have just returned from investigating the explosion are manned by uniformed soldiers, their faces grim and angry. Elizabeth watches them curiously as they moor the nearest boat at the docks and begin hauling up something bulky and heavy.

Beside her, Jack says urgently, "Best not to look, darling--" But it's too late; Elizabeth has already seen the shackled body as it is laid on the pier. Chains rattle and slide against the planks. Beneath the prone form, a dark, wet stain begins to spread; water or blood, she cannot tell by moonlight.

Fingers pressed to her mouth, she shuts her eyes, still seeing the blackened, contorted limbs, the lolling head, a face charred beyond recognition... She shudders.

Jack's hand grips her shoulder. "Steady, love." She opens her eyes, averting them from the scene on the docks, and finds him frowning at her. He says, "I wish you hadn't seen that."

He is protecting her again; moreover, he's likely regretting allowing her to come ashore in the first place. She squares her back, slipping away from the comfort of his touch. "I've seen dead men before," she says, but the composure she attempts sounds flat and unconvincing to her own ears.

"Aye," says Ana, "but a clean death by sword or pistol, that's one thing. This is different. No need to be ashamed, Mistress Elizabeth. It's not an easy sight for any to stomach."

Elizabeth glances at Ana gratefully, surprised at the woman's rough kindness. Still, she rather wishes Jack would stop giving her that worried, sideways glance, as if he expects her to faint dead away at any moment. She bites her lip, steeling herself, and lets her attention wander along the harbor, noting with studied detachment that two more bodies have been pulled from the boats, that a small group of men stand about talking in subdued murmurs not far from them, and that somewhere to her left a woman is crying; an utterly desolate noise, the dry, heaving sobs of one who has no hope left. Then she stiffens; at the far side of the docks, a familiar vessel rides at anchor. Just as Jack said, the Lady Swann is here.

"What happened in this place?" Elizabeth whispers, to no one in particular.

"That," says Jack softly, "is what we aim to find out."

She stares at him. "I thought we were here to find Will. Aren't we?" He doesn't answer. "Jack! You don't think that he had anything to do with-" And she stops, because she can see that he does think so. The ill-defined uneasiness she's felt since they left the Pearl has a shape now, and a source; it blooms abruptly in her chest like a poisonous flower, crowding all the air out of her lungs. She opens her mouth to speak, but cannot muster any words.

"Stay here," Jack orders brusquely, and strides towards the gathering of sailors and townspeople at the top of the jetty.

Elizabeth makes a move to follow him, but Ana grabs her arm. "We wait," the quartermaster says. Her tone brooks no argument. "No sense drawin' the eye of those Dagos."

A feeling of helplessness overtakes Elizabeth as she realizes Ana is right. She cannot understand the language here; she cannot run down to the pier and search among living and dead for her husband, for fear of being captured and questioned. "Ana, do you think Will..." She trails off, unable to finish the thought.

"There's no way of knowing that, lass," Ana says. "Master Turner may not have been brought here, though his ship's in the harbor. It's a guess, only, as guides us yet."

Though the words are obviously meant to be reassuring, Elizabeth finds little solace in them. She turns to watch Jack, who has already infiltrated the small crowd of bystanders; his back is to her, but she can hear him questioning them in Spanish. One of the seamen answers, pointing towards the bay.

"What are they saying?"

Ana listens, shrugs apologetically. "I'm not catching but a word now and again." Then her expression changes. "La Venganza," she mutters, half to herself. "The vessel scuttled was Morena's, then."

"Morena?" The name troubles Elizabeth; then she remembers. "He's the one, isn't he? The man who was after Will..."

"Aye." The quartermaster doesn't offer any further comment. Come to think of it, both she and Jack have been remarkably close-mouthed about Will's mysterious enemy.

"What else? Did they mention?"

But Ana gives a half-shake of her head and lifts her hand in a warning gesture; Elizabeth realizes she has forgotten to keep her voice down, and that Jack has abruptly abandoned his conversation, is coming swiftly back towards them.

He takes Elizabeth's elbow, roughly. "Well, let's be off then." He does not look at her. "Come on, look lively, we haven't got all night."

She doesn't move. "Jack, what did he say?"

He drops her arm like it's burned him. "Ana. Take her back to the Pearl."

"No," Elizabeth says quietly. "Not until I know what happened, Jack, I won't--"

His jaw is set. "That's an order, Mrs. Turner. Now go." And he stalks past them up the quay; she notices, with a dreamlike sense of unreality, the sudden absence of any drunken, rolling stagger in his step whatsoever...

She hurries after him, catching up with him under the eaves of the town. "Jack! What are you--"

He rounds on her with such an expression as she's never seen from him before, cold and terrible. The dark eyes, now empty of all warmth and mischief, seem to look through her, past her, as if he does not see her at all.

No, she has seen that look, just once before, also in moonlight. His face haunted and hard, dead-eyed, waiting as the echoes of a single shot faded in a listening cave, watching the death of a man he must have once called his friend.

"Go," he snaps, and walks away, still without even the slightest hint of unsteadiness.

"C'mon, girl," Ana mutters, beside her. "Best we do as Jack says." She lays a hand on the small of Elizabeth's back, pushing her in the other direction. Then she glances behind her and freezes, cursing low and violently...

Elizabeth stops too, and turns.

Jack is standing utterly still at the entrance to a narrow side-alley. Someone steps out to block his way. Elizabeth stifles an exclamation, for though the figure's face is hidden in shadow, there is something about the carriage of the shoulders, perhaps, that she recognizes. She shakes Ana off and starts towards Jack, breaking into a half-run at the familiar voice.

"Well, well...Jack Sparrow. What in the blazes are you doing here?"


To all my readers and reviewers...thank you!

Literati-Sapphire: You made me smile. That was the longest review EVAH! But I loved it. I agree with you that Elizabeth is more like Jack...they truly are two "peas in a pod." And while I cannot tell you how it will end, I will admit that I want it to turn out just as you've described.

Shadow Phenix: I think I've got you beat on updates lately! I'm glad you're still around to read, if not to write. (nudge nudge) I'll try to get ahold of you on AIM sometime soon.

Joan: Thanks for the emails! You really spurred me to get this monstrous chapter finished and posted.