Disclaimer: Attribute unto Disney that which is Disney's, and unto me that which is mine. Also, any resemblance, superficial or otherwise, to Hereswith's story White Squall is purely coincidental, though I suggest that you read said story if you have not yet, because it is absolutely stunning.
Author's Note: I cannot tell you how excited I am at the prospect of posting this before midnight. Usually I'm up 'til sunrise on update night, working on final touches. Also, I had hoped to post this chapter no more than a month after the last one went up, and lo and behold! I have met my deadline with one day to go. One tiny note: Elizabeth's utterance of "Hmph" in this chapter was borrowed shamelessly and without permission, for the sole reason that it seemed fitting and amused me, from a lady of the same name and similar temperament who is featured in James L. Nelson's Brethren of the Coast series. Which novels, by the way, I highly recommend for anyone who enjoys tales about tall ships and pirates. There. I may be derivative, but I try to document it properly.
Special and profuse thanks to Geek Mama for being my expert beta-victim this time around, and for kindly reassuring me that I had not committed any crimes of gross mischaracterization, plagiarism, or bad taste.
Chapter XXV.
Surfacing
Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,
thy tears shall efface their decree;
for Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,
I have been but too faithful to thee.
"When He Who Adores Thee"
One night she knelt close by my side
when I was fast asleep.
She threw her arms around my neck
and she began to weep.
She wept, she cried, she tore her hair
Ah, me! What could I do?
So all night long I held her in my arms
just to keep her from the foggy foggy dew.
"The Foggy, Foggy Dew"
Shouts of "Fuego!" and "Madre de Dios!" can be heard ringing out across the harbor as Nichole D'Bouvoire and her companion drag themselves up onto the muddy shore beneath the pier. The other seems willing to rest there, but Nichole is not; stupid to stop now, before they are well away. "Come on," she hisses, and Morena's prisoner staggers to his feet. She leads the man, ducking and stumbling, from pier to pier, until he collapses in the shadows under the farthest dock. Nichole flings herself down beside him.
He turns to her, then, in the dark. "Who are--"
There are men with torches coming along the seawall. "Shh!" She pulls him face-down into the muck. The torchlight sweeps over them cursorily, without a pause. The voices move on.
Her companion lifts his head cautiously. "Are they looking for us?"
"Doubtful," Nichole says, and smirks. "People don't often look for you when you're dead, and they tend not to see you, either. It's one of the great advantages. Captain Nichole D'Bouvoire," she adds, extending a muddy hand. "Formerly of the Seahawk, recently deceased. And you?"
"Captain Will Turner," he says. He rolls slightly to one side, grasps her fingers weakly. "Formerly of the...Lady Swann. Apparently...deceased as well. As of tonight."
Will Turner. She knows that name, doesn't she? She gives her companion a searching glance. So this is the husband of young 'Leslie Swann.' Interesting... "Don't worry," she says aloud. "You'll soon get used to it. Being dead, I mean. It's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be." Then, hearing his harsh indrawn breath as he attempts to push himself upright, she abandons the joke, says sharply, "You are hurt. What ails you?"
He grimaces; his face is pale under the smears of dirt. "My head. And a broken rib...I think. And I feel...quite ill..."
She manages to clean her hand somewhat on her soaked tunic, presses a palm against his cheek. "Mon Dieu," she mutters. "You're burning up with fever, Will Turner. We had better get moving, or you'll be dead for good sooner rather than later." She sits back on her knees. "Can you get up, if I help you?"
Jaw set, he says grimly, "If I must, I must."
"Let's try it, then, shall we?" She hooks an arm about his waist, as carefully as possible. "Sit up first. One--two--three--" and he is upright, gasping. "Good. Which rib is it, by the way?"
"Lower," he grates out. "On the right."
She nods, goes around to his left side. "Ready?"
He's giving her a strange look. "Why...are you helping me, Miss D'Bouvoire?"
"It's Captain," she says. "Put your arm 'round me, or this won't work. And we'll just say, for now, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, yes? One--two--" She drags him upwards. "Three."
He's built well, though not heavily, and is clearly a strong man when not so ill-used. Still, he's unable to help her much, and it requires considerable effort on her part to get him to his feet. Once there, he sways for a moment, leaning heavily on her; the pressure with which he grips her shoulder makes it plain that her support is the only thing keeping him standing.
Then his knees give way, and he crumples forward. She catches him, slowing his fall, but he is already unconscious--whether from pain or fever, she cannot tell. When she kneels by his side and pulls back one lid with a careful finger, only the white of his eye is visible.
"Oh, bugger," says Nichole D'Bouvoire, succinctly and with great feeling.
Jack's cabin is dark and slightly musty with the scent of old parchment, overlaid by a faint, spicy musk that is uniquely his. He seats Elizabeth on the big four-poster bed before taking out his tinder-box and lighting the sconces set in the bulkhead, followed by the tapers in the eclectic assortment of candlesticks that scatter the shelves and small, map-cluttered table. Finished, he crosses to the bureau, where he pours a small amount of amber-colored liquid from a small decanter, and returns to hand her the glass.
She accepts it warily. "What is it--rum?"
"Whiskey," he says. "Don't much care for the stuff myself, but I keep it for emergencies. Drink it. It'll help, I promise you."
She tosses half of it back, gasping as the liquid fire sears her throat and settles in her belly, sending tendrils of warmth creeping through her frozen core.
"Good girl."
"It's beastly."
"Told you I don't keep it for the taste." He stands a few feet away, watching her; the candlelight accentuates the sharp angles of his jawbone and brow, and conspires for a moment with his slight frown to make him look his age: hollow-eyed, care-worn. Of course; he must be grieving, too. Remembering his haunted look back in Navidad harbor, when he'd known or suspected the truth about Will, Elizabeth shivers slightly and tips up her glass to drain the last of the whiskey.
"There," he says. "Feel better?"
"A little," she says; but her voice breaks and she has to look down, swallowing hard.
He is by her side at once; crouching before her to massage her hands between both of his own, he peers up into her eyes, and mutters a soft oath at what he sees there. He takes her in his arms, then, sitting beside her on the bed and pulling her to him; shaking with suppressed sobs, she hides her face against his chest.
They remain thus for a while without speaking. Elizabeth, settling closer against him as she calms, hears his heartbeat quicken just a fraction; then he draws a deep breath and his pulse evens out, slow and strong under her cheek. She breathes with him, and thinks, Five days ago I would have pushed him away.
But everything has changed, now. And somehow what would have seemed a strange and disgraceful predicament to her, just a few short days ago, seems the most natural thing in the world on this terrible night.
"Is this my punishment, Jack?" she says at last.
He rears back slightly to study her, his expression perturbed. "Now why would you say a thing like that?"
"Mrs. Dupont...the minister's wife, back in Port Royal, you know...she would say God took Will as the wages of my sin..."
"Rubbish," he snaps. Then, much more gently, "It's you, my dear, who is punishing yourself unnecessarily. God and sin have nothing to do with it."
She stares into the dregs of her glass. "I feel as if I'd killed him."
"Well, don't." His reply is sharp, immediate. "Your Will chose the life of a privateer. 'Twas in his blood, after all...He knew the occupational hazards well enough."
She says, bleakly, "But that's just it...He didn't choose it. He did it for me. To provide the life he thought I should have."
"Ah." He rises and rummages through the clutter on the table until he comes up, rather triumphantly, with another glass. "Tell me something, darling. Did you ever ask him to do that for you?"
"No!" she bursts out. "I would never ask such a thing of him! I told him that...more than enough times. I would have been just as happy as a blacksmith's wife as I was as the wife of a...'merchant sailor'." Jack lifts an eyebrow at this, but says nothing. "It was Father who put him up to it, of course."
"Old Weatherby? Really?" Jack pours himself some whiskey, offers the decanter to her; she shakes her head. He shrugs, and grimaces as he takes a large swallow of the stuff. "I can't imagine the Governor endorsing piracy as a career for his own son-in-law, even in the name of the Crown."
"Unless it was discreet...My father always tries to do what is right. But he doesn't much distinguish between what is right and what is...decorous."
"A well-intentioned man, but a rather foolish one, I fear." He pauses. "Apologies, love. I don't mean to disparage your Da. "
"Why not? It's true enough." She continues woodenly, "Will was very like him in that way: always so concerned about what was proper--which is how I imagine Father managed to convince him to take the letter of marque, even to lie to me about it." The thought tightens like a knot in her throat; she swallows it down. "That was one of the reasons I couldn't bear to go home with James, you know."
"And why's that, love?"
"To face my father, after all of this--so soon--I'm afraid I might come to hate him. And I couldn't bear to hate him..." Especially because it's not her father's fault, not really. Wrong of her to want to put the blame on him, to want so very badly to give in to Jack's persuasion, to take the solace offered there.
Then again, Jack might be right. Maybe Will did want--had, she amends brutally, had wanted--the life of a privateer. Somehow, she has stopped knowing what Will wanted; now she will never know for certain. But she does know that Will and the Governor acted to protect her, to serve the Crown, and she...she has acted in no one's interest but her own. Selfish. Stupidly, shamefully selfish.
"You're doing it again," Jack observes mildly. She looks up, confused; he goes on, "Torturin' yourself over it. Trying to think what you might have done different, to change things. Thinking you could have done a hundred things, a thousand..."
"How do you know...?"
"Well, for one thing, you're practically ripping my poor counterpane to shreds," he says dryly. He's right; her fingers are clutching convulsively at the bedspread. She stills them with an effort. "But mostly I know because I've been there, love. I've lost good men. Good friends..." and his mouth twists, old pain remembered. "A captain is responsible for the safety of his crew; men have died for mistakes I've made. You think 'if only I'd done it right, chosen someone else, steered us in another direction.' But it doesn't matter. In the end you're still where you were, you've got to go on, and they can't. They're still gone; the sea still takes them. And you can't change that. It's done, it's over." He contemplates the remaining liquor in his glass, downs it abruptly. "Blaming yourself won't bring him back, Elizabeth. It'll only hurt you more; it'll kill you, if you let it."
She cries, "I can't help it! I can't believe he's gone--" She buries her face in her hands; after a moment, she feels his touch on her bent head, on her shoulder.
Presently, he says, "Here," and holds out a remarkably white and lacy handkerchief. "It's quite clean," he assures her. "Stole it only recently."
"Thank you," she says, with a choked sort of laugh. She takes the proffered handkerchief gratefully, scrubs at her swollen eyes and nose. "You're being very kind to me tonight."
"And you find that strange, do you?"
"A little," she admits.
He raises an eyebrow. "Because I've been so cruel to you these past few days, is that it?"
"You know that's not what I meant," she mutters.
"Is it not?" He goes to the table and pours himself another tot of whiskey, his movements deliberate. "You'd be right, I believe. I haven't exactly been the perfect gentleman, love."
She snorts, and feels the world tilt a fraction back towards normalcy. "Are you ever that, Jack Sparrow?" This is safe ground, their familiar verbal dance, subtle goad and arch reply.
"Not if I can help it," he says, with just the shadow of a grin. "And yet," he adds thoughtfully, "you are still here...I find that very strange, indeed."
"Jack—" And just like that, he's changed the rules on her again. Sincerity, a much riskier game. "If I wanted the company of a gentleman, I would have sailed with the Commodore."
"Ah. I wondered what the other reason was."
"Reason...? For what?"
He appears to consider the glass in his hand, sets it down untasted. "For not sailing home aboard the Dauntless. Besides not wanting to face your father, and an understandable desire to avoid the philosophies of the good Mrs. Dupont."
"There were...a number of reasons," she says, and doesn't elaborate.
He waits, head inclined attentively.
"There is no comfort for me at home," she says finally, to the floorboards. "Without Will..." She falters, whispers, "There is nothing left for me there. Nothing to remind me how to live, or that I want to..."
He speaks casually, but she can feel his gaze on her. "And here?"
She takes a deep breath, and lifts her head to meet his eyes.
"Ah," he says softly, just as if she has spoken, though she is not entirely sure what answer he has read in her glance. "That's all right, then." And his face relaxes, just a little, so that he does not seem quite so haunted. "In that case, I shall endeavor to remind you as often as possible."
There is, she thinks, too much space between them. Getting to her feet, she finds that they will hold her now; they carry her to him. He folds her against him wordlessly, presses a chaste kiss to her temple.
"Jack," she says into his collarbone. "Can I--would you mind if I slept here tonight?"
She hadn't meant to voice that thought, and she instantly wishes she hadn't. Too bold, Elizabeth Turner... But he says merely, "Aye, if you like. I've a hammock I set up on deck sometimes--"
"No," she says, boldness begetting boldness, and draws back just far enough to look at him. "Please. I don't want to sleep alone..."
He regards her searchingly, eyes dark and unreadable, while the silence stretches between them. Then he raises a hand to tuck a loose tendril of hair back from her forehead, lets his fingers brush her cheek in the lightest of caresses. "So that is the way of it," he murmurs. "Very well..."
She finds herself turning her cheek into his palm, the contact awakening a profound ache in her body for the comfort and heat of skin upon skin. To her utter bewilderment, it is he who pulls away...too soon, too soon!...and she bites her lip to keep from crying out in protest.
"I must see to the Pearl." There is an odd note in his voice, an emotion she can't quite identify. "You, m'lady, will be staying right here. In fact..." he frowns, "I've a mind to set a guard on this cabin, after that little trick you played earlier."
She knows he means that moment at the rail; she didn't know she'd climbed it until he pulled her down. She thinks she must have lost her mind a little. She cannot even recall their trip back to the Pearl from Navidad. Her memory skips from James' haggard face to Jack's furious one as he dragged her back from the bulwarks.
"Bloody hell," he says. "Lizzie--"
She starts as if from a dream. The name is unexpected; he's always called her Elizabeth, Mrs. Turner, or a dozen different flippant endearments: love, darling, m'lady. Never Lizzie. But it's the way he says it, on a deep, ragged rumble, that stirs her blood, piercing through the deadly numbness that threatens to descend upon her mind and heart.
He forces her chin upwards, those dark eyes boring into hers. "Promise me you won't try anything that bloody stupid again."
Finding herself speechless, she nods, once.
"Good," he says, low and fierce. And kisses her. It's not chaste this time; his mouth is hard on hers, and she responds in kind, hands tangling among braids and beads, letting his heat race through her like whiskey. He tastes of whiskey, too; it's not such a bad flavor, after all. His lips are on her jaw now, her throat. Though she molds herself against him, she cannot seem to get close enough.
"Lizzie," he murmurs; a plea, a prayer that marks her skin. In answer, she shifts her hips slightly, and hears his shuddering inhalation, feels his rising need; it matches hers. But suddenly he stills, looking down at her gravely.
"Jack," she says, breathless, touching him; but he intercepts her roving hands, holds them fast between their bodies. "Jack, what is it?"
"It occurs to me," he says, very gently, "that we might not want to be doing this, love."
"But I thought..." Hesitating, she realizes her pride has no place here. She suspects Jack sees through it, anyway. "I thought you did want this. Thought you wanted me..."
"Elizabeth. Darling. It's not that." He folds his fingers around hers, says on an urgent undertone, "I have not wanted anyone, anything so much in a very long time...But not like this. Do you understand? If I took you now, as I would like to do..." He closes his eyes briefly, exhales. "It wouldn't be right by you, love."
"I don't believe this." She lets out a shaky laugh. "The world must have gone mad! I practically throw myself at you, and you--you, the infamous Jack Sparrow!--are telling me that you will not take me into your bed because it's not right--?"
"Aye," he says quietly. "And it's you who's done it, Lizzie. Changin' me. Making me want to be a better man than what I am. No good can come of it," and he flashes her a crooked, golden grin that is gone as quickly as it appears, leaving him somber and distant. "But it's nothing at all to do with what's wrong and what's right, really." Then his gaze locks with hers, and something in that gaze makes her breath hitch in her throat. His voice drops, roughened velvet. "It's only this: that I would not cause you pain, nor have you sorrow any more on my account. Not like last time..."
She stares at him. "Last time...do you really think I still blame you for that? I acted a bloody little fool, and you and I both know it. But you said it yourself. It's different between us, now. It wouldn't be like that, not tonight..."
"Wouldn't it?" he demands harshly. "Can you honestly tell me that tomorrow you will not feel that I took advantage of you in your grief? Can you honestly tell me that wouldn't be the truth of it?" He releases her hands abruptly. "No. Whatever is between us, Lizzie, I would not have it be regret."
"Nor would I," she whispers.
He's eyeing her almost warily, now; picking up his abandoned glass, he tosses back the contents as if by reflex. "Must go," he mutters. "The Pearl needs me...Make yourself at home, Mrs. Turner."
And if I need you? What then, Jack Sparrow? But she doesn't say it. She has some pride left, after all; and the meaning behind his use of her married name is not lost on her.
He turns to leave; then he stops short. "Blast. I almost forgot. I believe this is yours." He produces a crumpled piece of foolscap. "You dropped it earlier. Thought you might want to have it."
Will's letter! How could she have forgotten about the letter? "Thank you," she says stiffly, and reaches out to take it. He captures her wrist as she does so, and she looks up, startled.
"Not to worry, love," he says, with another one of his lightning grins. "I'll be back. Somehow I don't fancy sleeping under the stars tonight. 'Tis an unseasonably cold night for September, and I'm older than I look, y'know."
And just like that, he is gone. Watching the cabin's double doors swing shut, she almost calls out to him; she hasn't remembered, until just now, that she is still wearing his coat.
Instead, she sinks into a chair, and spreads the single page out before her on the table with something very much like reluctance.
My darling Elizabeth,
If you are reading this, it is likely that I am no longer in this world. This letter is the only way I have of reaching you, for they tell me you are lost, that you are in the clutches of that villain, my enemy, Captain Morena. I can only pray that you are well and hope against hope that you have not been mistreated. In this, and in all that has lately befallen the both of us, I hold myself fully accountable.
You must now be aware that I no longer sail as a merchant, but as a privateer. Though I will not pretend to understand completely why you ran away from Port Royal, I know that it was at least in part my lie in this regard that led you to such rash action. It was my cowardice that drove me to that lie; I feared you would think less of me, for I had betrayed my own principles, and was ashamed. But I should have told you the truth in that, and in all things.
For the truth is, my dear one, I have made every mistake there was to make with you. But please know that I do love you with all of my heart; even if not, perhaps, in the way that you deserve.
The truth, I fear, is that I loved the dream of you so much, I never quite came to know the reality behind that vision of perfection. For you have been a dream to me since I met you, Elizabeth. You are my most precious jewel, my Evening Star, my goddess. And yet, I begin to see--only now, when it is too late--that I have treated you all too often as a treasure to be guarded, that while I can see you in my mind's eye, shining from afar, you might not be able to see me thus; that you have no star to look to.
Believe me when I say I never meant to take away your freedom. But that is what I have done, though I intended the opposite: to ensure that you would never be tied to the dreary, difficult life of a craftsman's wife. I always thought that fate had somehow placed us in one another's paths, had laid me at your feet that night so long ago. But perhaps it was never fated to be that way between us. Perhaps I was wrong to think that I could make you happy.
Elizabeth, I wish that I could somehow make this right again. But I cannot change the past, nor can I deny fate, if indeed this is ours. All I can do is hope that, whatever happens to me now and whatever doom I must face, you will live and be happy, and that you will never again let any man keep you caged; not even for love.
I am sorry, my dearest. Though I must now bid you farewell, I am still and always will be,
Yours,
William Turner.
Jack returns to his cabin sometime later to find Elizabeth asleep at his table, her head pillowed on her folded arms, her lax hand resting atop that damnable letter. She has taken the pins out of her hair, at least; it pools on his charts, spills in honeyed waves over her shoulders.
"This won't do, Lizzie." He traces one finger down her cheek, following the tear-tracks drying there. "No, this won't do at all..."
At his light touch, she stirs, but does not wake. After a moment's reflection, he bends down and lifts her in his arms as if she were a child.
"Jack," she murmurs. "You came back."
"Aye." He lays her down on the bed. "Said I would, didn't I?"
She regards him briefly, lashes at half-mast. "Hmph." But her eyes flutter closed again, and she appears to have fallen back asleep.
Sitting at the foot of the bed, he shakes his head at her, bemused, and turns his attention to the task of removing her boots; once finished, he leans across her to pull back the blankets. She makes a protesting noise as he tucks them round her.
"But I'm still dressed..."
"I was hoping you wouldn't notice that little detail," he says, half-amused, half-exasperated. "And you would like me to remedy the situation, is that it?"
"Mmm," she says, an affirmative. He studies her face for some sign that she's bluffing, but detects none.
"Minx," he mutters. "I suppose I have an old shirt or something of the like that you can wear. But you'll be undressing yourself, d'you hear?"
"Hmm?"
"Never mind," he growls, and goes to find one for her.
He thought he remembered her skin, how fair and smooth it is, the beauty of her; but she is even more lovely than his memory of her, and candlelight illuminates the planes and contours of her body in a way that moonlight did not. He is almost glad when she is clothed again, though his shirt is not as large on her as he would like. Taking a long breath, he turns up the covers over her slender legs, and thinks that the chilly night air on deck might be a blessing, after all.
He straightens, but she grasps his hand, cold-fingered. "Don't go..."
"You're bound and determined to torment me tonight, aren't you," he starts; and breaks off, for he notices that her eyes are open now, huge and glittering with tears, and that she's trembling visibly beneath the sheets.
"I thought I had dreamed it all," she whispers, once she is curled into his side and the tremors have begun to ebb somewhat. "But he's still gone, Jack. This is real, and he's still gone..."
He strokes her hair, gathering her closer, and says, "Aye. This is real."
But long after she has slipped once more into a deep, exhausted slumber, he lies awake; holding her, listening to the steady tide of her breath, he too finds himself wondering if this is, after all, only an awful and wondrous dream.
Later, he awakens again in the dark to her hands, her body pressing urgently against him. "Remind me," she says. "I've forgotten...oh, Jack, remind me..."
Remind me how to live... that I want to...
The naked desolation in her voice pierces his heart like a knife; and he finds he has no questions to ask her, this time, about regrets either past or future. He puts his mouth on hers to silence her, drinks the bitterness of her need along with the sweetness, and proceeds to utilize every skill gained and refined in a thousand casual encounters to remind them both, as thoroughly and tenderly as he knows how, of the immediacy and ascendancy of life.
A heartfelt authorly thank you to all who have read, and most especially to all who have reviewed:
Vivianne, wellduh, PBOCGirl, too lazy, and anyone else who I've mistakenly overlooked: Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed.
Dutchess of Doom: Extra thanks, not just for your very kind words about "Choices", but for "Pearl" and "Out of Time" as well.
Missy Mouse: Likewise to you for reviews here and elsewhere.
Hereswith: You see what I mean? The situation is significantly different, but certain elements are not so much. It was totally unintentional, I swear...
Shadow Phenix: I don't know when/if you'll be reading this, but if you are, I want you to know I've been keeping you and your family in my thoughts lately.
CaptainTish and Tephie: I couldn't kill Will. He doesn't deserve it, and it would make things too easy for our favorite pair.
Persh: I've been doing a lot of plugging for The Words Unsaid. Thank you for providing us with a J&E haven!
