Title: Curiosity
Author: Drey'auc475
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2: DEAD MAN'S CHEST
Rating: K+
Spoilers: COTBP and DMC
Genre: Angst
Setting: after DMC
Summary: Elizabeth fears that she is too much like a pirate...
A/N: I love Johnny Depp, but I will never own Jack Sparrow (boo hoo!)

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Elizabeth looked out over the balustrade of the ship, at the breathtaking sunrise coming up over the ocean. She twirled a gold bracelet around her finger as the sun rose. It was one of the ones that had been at Isla de la Muerta a year ago. Actually it had been one that Jack had claimed and had dropped in the longboat before he was apprehended by Norrington. She had taken it as a keepsake and now wore it whenever she could.

She bit her lip as she thought about Jack. Captain Jack Sparrow – the greatest pirate in the Caribbean. And his beloved Pearl. She though back to the time when she and Jack had been marooned on that island. He had told her that the Black Pearl was freedom. And it was. Since leaving Port Royal to find Will, she had never felt so free in all her life. It was what it meant to be a pirate. Freedom…

But she had never really wanted to be a pirate. As Jack had recently said, she did crave freedom. But she now feared that she had become too much like a pirate. Too self-centered; too worried about her own survival over his.

Everyday, she still tasted him on her lips; felt the silkiness of his tongue against hers. She was afraid to sleep nowadays, because of the image of his face burnt onto the inside of her eyelids. Every moment, she thought of him, of how she 'distracted' him when she clamped the manacles on him. The way he said "pirate" in that accusatory tone.

She could see before her, clear as day, the look of pride on his face as she walked away from him. She hated herself for that. He was proud of her because at that moment, the second she stepped away from him, she became a pirate like him. She left him to die…

Nothing she did would ever undo the sins she had committed that day. She had betrayed Will and Jack. She had seen Will looking at her in a different way since then and had begun to think that maybe he knew; maybe he had seen what she had done. Though he never did mention it.

If they never got Jack back, then she would never be able to forgive herself. If they never got him back then she would never be able to marry Will.

There was a time when that mattered to her. It was what she had wanted. Being married to Will was something that she had wanted before Norrington even proposed to her. And now it seemed as likely as walking on water.

In reality, her life was falling to pieces. She didn't trust herself anymore, she hated being a pirate. In fact, she felt sick, as though it was in her bones, a disease, something contagious that Jack had infected her with the day she met him. Ever since that day, she had done things she would never normally have done. It had affected her life. She would probably be someone different if she had never met him… actually she would probably be dead.

She looked out at the sea again. The sun had now risen and had begun to warm her hair. She tilted her face to it and soaked up its warmth. She looked back down at the bracelet. She looped it about her fingers again. Somehow it gave her a bit of hope. She tucked it into her pocket. For now she'd have to live with the fact that she was a pirate, but she swore to herself that she would not become like Jack. She would go to the end of the earth to find him. And there, she would prove to him that there was more to being a pirate than… curiosity.