Midnight. The most beautiful time of day in her personal opinion.
The oceans were at their most magical, reflecting the stars and moon they sailed beneath. They were coming out of the cold. They had left behind the last of the icebergs hours ago and the waters were as clear as fine crystal, as far as the eye could see.
Midnight had always been the time she missed most during those long numb years. She feared the moonlight and the constant cloud of fog which had followed them obscured the beauty she knew was there, hidden from her.
Sitting on the bow of the Pearl that first night as a free woman, watching the stars and listening to the waves, it had been the perfect night. Clear skies, open waters, rum and good company. She missed that company now. The weakness she had allowed to lead her actions had found an incomparable substitute for that company just hours ago and now it had passed, Nic felt hollow.
She could feel that lump in her chest, the same which had only appeared there a few times before. As she looked down at the waters below, she felt like throwing herself over the side and into their icy depths. It would have taken away the pain, it would have taken her to Jack.
Her body wanted to expel the memory of it all, the sensations, the sounds... The warmth of the sticky air and the smooth feel of the sheets against her bare skin.
The act hadn't stopped her pain, it hadn't made her better, it had just made her feel sick. Now ashamed and weak, Nicolette knew she had betrayed him...she had betrayed them both...
Upon the first sign of turbulence she panicked, all of her life. Only since running to her mother or a Imelda wasn't an option anymore she ran into the arms of men. It hadn't mattered before now, it was just called living, but now she felt so helpless because of him.
How pathetic. She had been on her own for years, surrounded by men who could have made her life a hell of a lot harder than they did but she had rose up and survived them. Without Jack.
But mortality had brought a weakness along with it. She had almost died when left to her own devices on land for gods sake. How was she to survive at sea, as Captain, among uncharted waters? She told herself she needed Barbossa to survive the night and night she felt even closer to loosing everything.
Without any thinking behind it, Nicolette's hands wrapped around the carved wood and her foot lifted an inch off the ground, ready to swing over the railing. Her mind was blank, unengaged, with her actions being driven purely by grief and fear.
The Captain took a deep breath, closed her eyes and sang a small prayer then; "It's a beautiful night."
Nicolette stopped dead. Her heart leaped up Ito her throat and her foot hovered, frozen in the air.
Silence followed and it lasted a long while until soft footsteps travelled closer.
Like a tidal wave, her common sense rushed back to her and she found herself cursing the wind and the loneliness as guilt struck a pain in her chest.
By the time Elizabeth appeared in her peripheral vision, loose curls blowing in the breeze, Nicolette was watching the water with parted lips and staggered breaths. She remained stiff but her foot once again made contact with the deck, hands shaking.
"Captain?" The girl tried again and this time Nicolette turned her head so their eyes met. Her gaze was harsh and powerful, but dull. Like a caged animal she looked lost and confused. "Is everything alright?"
Elizabeth was unsure if she should ask such a question to the woman who had been the epitome of unapproachable since they had met. But the same instinct which told her to address the woman she had spotted inhabiting the deck told her she should.
"Yes..." Nicolette whispered after a second, shaking her head wildly. "Yes of course..." Her fingers unlatched from the railings and she appears to take a minuscule step back away from the edge so she could no longer sea the waters directly underneath them.
Was she mad? Had it come to madness? Would she have done it?
"I'm sorry." Upon hearing those words Nicolette looked at the girl again and frowned. This time her presence wasn't upsetting or irritating, but passive. It was like she wasn't really there at all, just a ghost; a figment of her imagination. Elizabeth took her look of wonder as curiosity however and went on. "About Jack...I never..." She took a breath and Nicolette finally started listening to the words. "I haven't had a chance to apologise. But I'm sorry, for what... I know you know what I did and I'm sorry."
Nicolette sighed solemnly and bit her lip, the image of Jack tied to the mast appearing behind her eyes.
"It was for the good of the crew. I did it to protect Will, myself...everybody."
"I know." The woman eventually spoke and although it was short and quiet, there was a certain strength behind the words. "I know why. That's doesn't mean I commend you."
"No of course not." Elizabeth's brow creased when Nicolette turned away, embarrassed by her own lack of control. The images of the Pearl sinking filled the empty oceans ahead and it made her hollow chest burn.
"But...what's done is done." She started walking and, after the sound left her mouth, Elizabeth hurried to walk alongside her. "We should put it past us. I can forgive you, lord knows people have forgiven me for worst things." Her mind tried to laugh, to jest, but her heart wouldn't allow it and instead a scoff ended up sounding like nought more than a cough.
She was exhausted of being angry at the sight of Elizabeth, tired of scowling and remembering. She wanted to forget and 'to forgive was to forget' - that's how the saying went, wasn't it?
"I...Thank you...Captain." The girl was wide eyed as they gently strolled together along the deck. "I...wish Will could do the same."
Now the boy was a different story altogether. One couldn't exactly forgive a unappealing wet face...
"He is caught up in the fate of his father." Nicolette started softly. With her conscience returning after it had been pushed aside while in her cabin, she felt she needed to return the comforting words the girl had sent her way. "People do stupid things when they are hurting, Miss Swann."
Her words hung in the air as Elizabeth debated them and Nicolette tried to use them to accredit her own actions. But as she closed her eyes once more and the pair came to still at the bow, Elizabeth choose to watch her.
As much as it pained her to say, she envied the woman just as she had when they had first been introduced. She had the freedom, the power, the confidence and she had gained it all for herself without any man. She had walked through the streets of Tortuga never once looking over her shoulder or straying from her path to avoid a boisterous drunk, she walked with her head high and greeted numerous sailers with a small smile as they gave their condolences.
But the spark which had been there at the beginning of Elizabeth's adventure had been missing for a while now. The mischief in her eyes was gone and no longer did any of the crew catch her staring out at the sea in admiration or love, it was only sadness. The quips, as sarcastic as ever, remained but they were rare and the only ones she seemed to communicate with were Barbossa and Gibbs.
And all they ever talked about was the voyage, the search for World's End, or Jack's passing. Unknown to Elizabeth each time the latter was brought up it made the voyage feel less and less achievable.
But she did notice how the woman looked tired now she truly studied her, her eyes reminded Elizabeth of her own during her wedding day. So, taking the initiative, she assumed a question which sparked a pleasant memory was in order.
"On board the Pearl, when we talked?" Elizabeth started talking slowly as a smile crept onto her lips. Nicolette looked at her, a brow raised, and frowned but out of curiosity as opposed to fury. "You said everyone has a Will Turner..."
Unwillingly the corner of Nicolette's mouth turned up, of course it disappeared almost as soon as it came. "Yes." She nodded barely, gesturing for the girl to go on with a narrowed gaze.
"Is it Jack?" The smile Elizabeth awaited never came but there was something as Nicolette sucked her cheeks in and tilted her head to the side. She was smirking.
"No..." She said finally and then, to both of their surprise, she chuckled. It was low and husky and short, but she laughed. "No...he erm..." Nic considered her next words heavily as she eyed the young girl. Was he? She hadn't meant it that way at the time but now, all things considered; "You could say that..."
A broken proposal, a runaway into piracy. Actually now she thought of it she wasn't so differ to the girl at Elizabeth's age apart from the obvious conflicting backgrounds.
"Captain Rathbone, the man who leant us passage...Matthew..." Nicolette paused to take a breath. "We were engaged. Before he was a Captain, before I had ever sailed with Jack." She smiled again and this time it stayed for all that came to her were those same memories of Jack; asking her to come with him, bringing her trinkets from his adventures and holding her hand as they walked the docks.
She almost cringed at the memory, they had been such children with no one to hide from them. The last time she held his hand was before his mutiny, before Beckett.
She had been so caught up in the past she hadn't noticed the smile coming to Elizabeth's own lips and how she watched the captain closely with disbelief.
"Engaged?"
"Yes." In what world would she had got away with such a beige answer? As the pause continued and Miss Swann's eyes failed to divert, she figured it wasn't this world. "I was a bar maid in Tortuga. Eighteen I was when Jack first came in to the tavern. Looking back now I only saw him maybe half a dozen times across a couple of years but it was-" She stopped and bit her lip as grief started to flood back to her. "I can't describe it."
"Instant?" Elizabeth offered and she nodded slowly.
"But after a while I told myself he would only ever visit. Jack would always be Jack, he would always be the boy seducing and charming his way into women's bed for free." Both women scowled. "And then Matthew was there one day, all handsome and different. A couple of months past and he asked me to marry him and in all that time Jack never made port. Until three days before we were set to wed."
Nicolette could remember every minute of that night from the second she laid her eyes on Jack to when he had pulled her aside, into a side alley, before they reached the Pearl and kissed her. Back then a kiss meant more, like they did to all children who are young and stupid, that small gesture on its own was an adventure.
"He stopped the wedding?" Elizabeth asked after a short while and Nic did a double take at her, having completely forgot where she were. But instantly the story came back to her and she shook her head, fighting back a smile.
"No, he asked me to come with him. On the Pearl." Elizabeth smirked as she tried to imagine Jack in such a predicament, pulling off such a romantic gesture. That's what it was after all to her, she imagined Nicolette being swept off her feet by the exuberant Captain in the night, fleeing the free port in search of an adventure.
"And you ran away with him?"
"Sounds awfully frilly when you put it like that..." Nic answered with a pout, refusing to admit that she had in fact done just that. But after a second she smirked and hung her head low. "It didn't take a second thought for me to say yes. And of course I'll always know it was inspired by jealousy...but I can't imagine a life without him having asked. But I guess that's Jack, always getting what he wants."
"But he's the same Jack...the same pirate, the same man going from port to port?" She knew what the girl was implying and Nicolette chuckled at the blush spreading across her cheeks - little girls were so easy to embarrass.
"There was a time when things did change." Elizabeth perked her brows, smiling through her intrigue. But as the light drained from Nicolette's eyes she assumed it was not going to be a happy twist in the tale. "But men in love are easier to burn Elizabeth. It's a weakness, and there are far too many people out there who will take advantage of that."
The sea had calmed even more and the waves sounded more like ripples. The riggings mouse like squeaks barely broke the girls' silence, so when Elizabeth spoke it was like a spirits gasp.
"What happened?"
"The same what happened to yourself and Turner. Beckett." Nicolette had not fully redressed before she had fled the claustrophobic cabin, her corset had been left behind and the laces of her shirt were loose. Slowly, she peeled down the thin fabric to unveil one shoulder and the bandages Elizabeth had never before knew existed.
"What-" Before she could finish her inquisition, Nicolette unwrapped the rarely replaced frayed and dirty bandages and looked away as the mark only a handful of people had seen was revealed. The girl gasped quite audibly and the calming setting was broken, the silence icy rather than comforting. "Oh my..."
There was no doubting what the mark symbolised. It may had been rough and scared and blurred but the shape was obvious. The EITC. It wasn't large, only the size of her palm but what made the young girl squirm was way the skin puckered and remained pale, bordered by thick red scared skin. Seeing it healed was nothing however, she could only picture the pain Nicolette had been exposed to, the fear and the nausea as the smell of burning flesh surrounded her.
"He made quiet the mark on me." Nic was quick to cover the mark back up but Elizabeth caught sight of the second branding, a 'P' just like Jack's, on her wrist. "Jack was in the next room, heard everything no doubt. It was too late by the time he got to Beckett. When he tried to have them let me go, Mercer did this." She gestured to her eye with a slender finger, avoiding touching the jagged bump in her skin. "It had nothin to do with who I was or what I had done, all that mattered was what I was to Jack. He hurt me to hurt him and it worked because every time he looked at me from that day forward he saw Beckett." She replaced her shirt and bit her lip hard, frowning as she glanced down at bandage herself. "Everything changed that day, for both of us."
"I'm sorry." For the first time Elizabeth sounded fully sincere and her eyes matched, the brown orbs softening and warming up. "We'll get him back. Then we will deal with Beckett." And that would solve everything? Nic would have liked to believe so but there would never be an end to the endless cycle. After Beckett there had been Barbossa and now Jones...
But for once she couldn't let the sarcastic and sour comment leave her tongue so Nicolette simply smiled and looked at the girl with as much hope as she could muster.
"Aye." She nodded and trailed her hands along the railing of the ship, leaning upon it. "Aye we will. We have to."
Something in the air lifted then as it was if Nic could breathe finally. She was no longer suffocating or sinking but there was a breeziness to her, instead of a heavy weight on her back weighing her down.
"How much further have we to go?"
"No telling. Though any further and I fear we will either starve or freeze." Elizabeth turned her head an inch, watching her elder, frowning.
"We mustn't be far from traveling around the whole world."
"Don't underestimate the size of the world Miss Swann." The lost spark suddenly returned to her eyes and she met the girls gaze as her arms loosened from how they had been wrapped around the ship, holding her up. "You would loose years to travelling around the untameable lands and seas we live upon."
Just like she had. Lord knows how many times she had crossed the world.
"You should rest." She smiled at the girl. "Let us hope tomorrow will be the day..."
"Yes, let us." Elizabeth stepped back, but there was hesitation as she went to turn. "Goodnight Captain Barker."
The girl finally retreated below, her slippered barely making a sound, and when Nicolette was sure she was finally alone she let out a heavy sigh and slumped over the ships edge.
The past had to be forgotten. She had to get a hold of herself and move forward if they were going to find Jack.
Over the edge. Over again. Over the edge. Over again.
"You'd know exactly what that means wouldn't you?" She spoke into the darkness, smiling at only herself. Jack still felt so far away and now he was no longer the last she remembered, she had never regretted anything more.
Nicolette closed her eyes and tried to remember a time which was not tainted, any time where they were alone with no one there to threaten them, no one there to intercept or poison the good in them; the good rarely seen.
She needed to remember just one before she returned to her bed where Hector still lay. Since Jack passed she had stopped her mind in its tracks before she went too far down the rabbit hole and found hope again, hope more memories like those could be created. But Elizabeth had opened that door with her and she had found light on the other side.
But tonight she needed it before she almost lost herself again.