1.
Seawater passed over Elizabeth's feet before drawing back in on itself, reminding her of how quickly a moment can cross your path then slip away easily with the tide. Before a lump could form in her throat, she returned her focus to the book in her lap. There was a ship on the page printed in black ink, labeled with numbers. Elizabeth ran her fingers along the numbers. The parts of the ship were so much more than labeled hypotheticals on a page to her. She remembered pulling ropes and even the handful of times she was allowed to help steer when she was nice enough to the captain. Sitting the book aside, she drew her legs tighter against her chest, remembering not only leaving Will, but the feeling of having the crew usher her off, expectantly, as if her fate was already chosen. After such a long journey, so many trials, she still wasn't viewed as in control of her own destiny. The crew naturally assumed she would quietly return back to Port Royal, and she did.
A nuzzle against the back of her neck made Elizabeth smile. She turned, placing a soothing hand on her horse's nose before leaning against her, forehead-to-forehead. Elizabeth took one last look at the ocean before mounting her horse, gently pushing her heels into its sides to start back home.
"You've gone a long way today," Elizabeth whispered, to her horse, to herself. "We will go back soon enough."
The horse whinnied in reply. The sound was followed by a rhythmic whistle overhead. Elizabeth pulled at the reins, bringing them to a halt.
There was that whistle again.
"What do you imagine it is?" she asked her horse. "A wren? A warbler?"
Elizabeth quieted her questioning when the birdsong stopped entirely. She looked up at the trees, gasping when she noticed a hooded figure. She dug her heels into her horse's sides to pick up speed. A grappling hook was shot and the figure swung, landing in her path, drawing a gun and shooting it in the air. The horse threw Elizabeth off her back and raced forward into the forest. Elizabeth scrambled back onto her feet, reaching for the knife she kept at her waist but the cloaked figure was too quick, an arm around her neck, pulling her close.
She writhed in the tight grasp, trying again to grab her knife with shaking hands. Just as she wrapped her hand around it, there the birdsong was again. Except, it wasn't birdsong at all. This whistling was more melodic, less rhythmic. She knew that melody line until it paused. Two notes were repeated. Again, slower, awaiting a response, punctuated by a quick, shrill scoop. Drink up… Drink up… Drink… up…
"Drink up me hearties, yo-ho," she finished the phrase in a rasp, trailing off in disbelief.
"A swan has to return water eventually, Elizabeth." The cloaked figure circled her, smoothed hands over her shoulders, then placed a gentle finger under her chin.
Elizabeth's mouth formed a "J" but she swallowed the letter down, correcting herself knowingly. "Captain Jack Sparrow."
Jack pulled the dark cloak back in one swoop, revealing his dreadlocks and a toothy grin. "You remembered my touch."
"And your breath." She stared him down, watching his smile fall with a familiar stir of satisfaction.
He matched her gaze, unwavering, then made a tutting sound with his lips.
"I told you once, I know how alike we are." His eyes softened and in that pause the pair felt a shift. "For just a moment, you can let your guard down." A beat of silence and then—
A sob ripped from Elizabeth's throat uncontrollably as she threw her arms around him, holding tight. Jack's feet drew back, unprepared for her throwing herself onto him quite like that. He slowly drew his arms up and, while patting her back, his eyes searched on either side of her, already searching for an escape—an instinct.
"There, there."
"It's too much," she managed to say between restricted sobs. "Our history. All of us."
Jack remembered he was her first true introduction to pirates. Although Elizabeth had her suspicions, her darling Will was none the wiser he had pirate blood when he first met her. Jack reminded himself what he must embody to her. A seemingly mythical character from her childhood and the perhaps too real for her liking irreverent traitor from her early womanhood—nothing more than that. Of course, she was thinking of the entire crew in that embrace. The thought eased him yet humbled him in the same instant. He wasn't a fan of humbling.
Jack gathered himself, threw off the cloak to the ground, and clutched Elizabeth's shoulders a second time, more aware of her dress now, the sleeves draped just under where he clutched her bare skin.
Elizabeth's mouth dropped open as if to speak but she cast her gaze back to the forest he ventured through instead. Jack. In a forest. Not a port or a shore. She would have laughed if she wasn't still in a state of shock.
"They talk about you. The crew," Jack said, nonchalantly. He reached for the cloak, swallowing down a relieved sigh because she had kept it together, mostly. Jack pushed away the thought that he was the one who welcomed her vulnerability but he knew, as with most of his troubles, he had no one to blame but himself. But Jack knew she wouldn't fully show it, in the same way he would never fully break around her. The pair knew the dance, the facade, the charade. "Miss their King, they do."
"Well, I was reminded men will never see me that way on land," she answered, her voice returning to the cold, unfeeling tone she was accustomed to.
"That's where your problem lies, love. Land," Jack said, and just then, the sound of thunder started overhead. "But while we're here, please, ever so sweetly welcome me into your home—mansion or shanty—I'm not picky. Not sure where to peg you these days." Jack shook out the cloak, and paused for just a moment. He made to drape the cloak over Elizabeth's bare shoulders but then thought better of it, throwing it back over his own before leading the way with a walking stick he found on the ground—no matter that he didn't know the direction.
"There won't be pegging of any sort," Elizabeth muttered.
Jack's eyebrows shot up, not expecting the double entendre from Elizabeth, or at least not so sudden.
"A friend of my father's, the new governor, he took the governor's quarters but traded me his second home. It's on the countryside. You are safe to stay," Elizabeth explained while rushing after Jack in the start of the rain, her dress-skirt held by white-knuckled hands. She almost knocked into him when he stopped. "For a while," she amended.
"That's more like it. You know I don't have land legs." Jack stalled in front of the chestnut brown horse which ran off earlier and was seemingly sneering at him. "Charming creature," he said, forcing a weak smile before prodding at the horse's nose, prompting the animal to snap her teeth at him. Jack snapped his teeth back, wearing a furrowed brow.
Elizabeth mounted the horse, unpinned her hair, then stared at Jack expectantly, the pins hanging out of the corner of her mouth. "Well, come on then, Captain."
Jack couldn't help but truly smile at her using the title before taking her outstretched hand. He let out an affronted noise when Elizabeth instantly clicked her shoes into the horse's sides, starting them off at a too-fast pace. Jack squeezed Elizabeth around the middle to avoid falling, hanging half-off the horse and scrambling, sideways and graceless. After catching his bearings, Jack swung his legs over the creature.
"A horse. I'm on a horse. Like a bloody Englishman." Jack made a disgusted face, his arms around Elizabeth's middle and his cheek pressed against her exposed shoulder. "The things I do for you."
Once the pair arrived, Jack couldn't get off the horse soon enough. His legs shakily adjusted after leaping to the ground. Jack reached up to take Elizabeth by the waist to help her down but she steered her horse aside then dismounted on her own.
"'It's on the countryside,'" Jack mocked her voice in a high tone, staring at the less-than-quaint building. "Yet still in such style."
"Don't worry—the maid is out on holiday."
"Maid? You still have a maid."
"The new governor, he insists. I think it's to keep an eye on what I'm studying. As I came back alone, pitied and fatherless, my bounty was forgiven but not forgotten."
"Poor Elizabeth stomachs judgmental stares at the market," Jack mocked, putting on a pout.
The horse bit the back of Jack's hair.
"Taking it back. I be taking it back. I take it back!" Jack rubbed the back of his head, sighing in disgust after feeling the saliva coating his dreadlocks. "Yeesh," Jack huffed out the sound through gritted teeth. "I do not like your horse."
"She feels intimidated is all."
"Ah, I tend to have that effect on women," he said with a smile.
"Into the stables with you, Sparrow," she cooed, calmly stroking the horse's nose.
"Sparrow? Will everyone stop naming vermin after me?"
"Come inside, Jack."
After whispering an innuendo under his breath which Elizabeth pointedly ignored, Jack followed her in. Jack hung his stolen cloak on the coatrack then walked straight into the kitchen, grabbing a peach from the table as Elizabeth stoked a fire. She sat in the high back chair by the fireplace then removed her heeled shoes and rubbed her feet.
Jack tutted again before saying in a low voice, "A swan still stuck between two worlds."
"A pirate who still doesn't know what he wants."
"A woman who doesn't know how to shut it." Jack wore a regretful expression after the comment. "A beautiful woman who doesn't know how to shut it?"
"Jack, why did you come looking for me?" she asked through a sigh.
"I gave you time. Time heals all wounds, or something like that. I knew you'd be here. Stuck." Jack sat cross-legged on the floor, tossing the fruit between his hands.
"Captain Jack Sparrow doesn't do rescue missions." She looked at him skeptically.
"Not a rescue mission for you, I can assure that."
"You're in trouble."
"When am I not?" he muttered. "If Turner wouldn't have gotten himself stabbed by fish-face, it'd be me on the Dutchman."
"It's better this way, for you, that you didn't stab Davy Jones's heart," Elizabeth said, standing to cross her way to the kitchen, open a window, and stare into the dark horizon.
"What makes you say a thing like that?" Jack rose to his feet, trailing after Elizabeth.
She let them both listen to the rain for a while, breathing in its cleansing fragrance.
"Sailing the seas forever, yes, that sounds like you, Jack, but guiding lost souls, on someone else's accord? You wouldn't last three days."
"Let me be the judge of how long I'll last, darling," Jack said, making sure he locked eyes with her before pointedly biting into the peach. Elizabeth looked away from his gaze and the juice dripping down his chin then returned to the fire. Jack swallowed down the peach along with an affronted noise at her refusal to play.
"It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be you."
"And you be knowing me, how long? A handful of moments over the course of less than a year. You don't know me, love," he made clear before stepping back into the drawing room, his hands fanning out before he placed them on the chairback. "But I would give you the chance to get to know me."
Elizabeth turned to face Jack, not realizing he had gotten so close that she was now breathing into his mouth. Her eyes couldn't help but fall to his lips.
"Biblically."
She recoiled from his wide, semi-gold-plated grin.
"I am only of interest to you because you view me as a challenge. Impenetrable."
"I think we both know I could easily penetrate you. Just say the word, love."
Elizabeth stood and made to leave when Jack stepped backwards into her path, his steps almost a dance, his arms moving in large, sweeping motions.
"And Turner? Your precious son of a pirate, what has he got that I haven't?" Jack cleared his throat. "Why him for the captain of the Dutchman?" he clarified in a deeper voice.
Elizabeth slumped back into her chair at the sound of her surname, the only part of Will that remained with her besides memories—and his beating heart in the chest beneath her bed.
"Will is loyal. He doesn't stray from the beaten path. To captain the Dutchman, it sounds just like him. He helped his father, he'll help the crew, those souls. Is it as I had hoped? No. As he had hoped? No. But most of life isn't as one would hope."
"A natural poet you are, Elizabeth."
"And what do you know of poetry? An art form that requires feeling to be properly understood? I thought Captain Jack Sparrow had no feelings besides the warmth in his chest from drink or a woman beneath him?"
"Using my own words against me," Jack said with a smile fleeting across his lips. She remembered the lie he shared in passing on the Pearl. The last time they spoke together, just the two of them, felt like ages ago. "I've lived enough to understand poetry, love, know that," he shared in a low voice that made Elizabeth question where he was in his headspace and, more importantly, with whom. "Besides, a pirate needs more than charts on long sails." Jack returned to the window to peer at the ocean. "You miss him. Will." Jack shut the window to a tight close.
"Every moment."
"Then what's keeping you from him, aye? We're all dying to know—What is keeping Miss Swann, sorry—Misses Turner, King of the Pirate Brethren Court, landlocked when you should be at sea attempting to rescue your eunuch in distress?"
Elizabeth walked towards Jack, taking his hand in her own, then settled it on the front of her stomach.
"Even though we must wait ten years, Will deserves to see his child."
"A child? My condolences—congratulations," Jack amended, turning away from Elizabeth, his eyebrows raising to the sky then instantly correcting into an understanding expression. He hadn't planned for that. "So that's it?" Jack sunk into her chair, waiving Elizabeth over to ensure she heard this bit. "A King has her heir and she stays where she started, waited on hand and foot, lying in a bed each night warmed by coals she didn't even heat herself, stuck ashore for the rest of her days, waiting on one day each decade until she goes to the Locker—or wherever you land-dwellers end up?"
"And what else? What other path might an infamous drunkard hope for me?" Elizabeth insisted to know, challenging, only to mirror Jack's regretful look from earlier after she spoke the accusatory words. Jack raised his arms in performed defense.
"It's not my life, Elizabeth. Dying in a warm, cozy bed with a spawn at my side?" Jack rose then welcomed Elizabeth back into her seat with his hand free of the fruit in a dance of musical chairs. "It was never my life. Should I die, I'll die at sea." He paused, turning from the window to face her. "I won't tell you how to live. I just thought you were less, well, plain than that. You had life inside you before that seed, you know." Jack finished the peach and threw the pit into the fire. "Fiery, passionate life."
"How so?"
"The passion only a pirate can have for life. A thirst for adventure," he stared into the flames, imaging the "former Elizabeth." He swore her saw her in those flames, in her tricorn hat and foraged clothes, sword raised as she called out an order, a natural pirate.
"Yes," she whispered, as if to say go on, the word barely there. He knew she was far away, in a sea of memories.
"Challenging us all. Charming us all. Keeping up with my verbal dance—"
"Sometimes knowing it better," she added through a smile.
"Let's not make hyperbole, love." Jack paused. "Well, admittedly yes," he sighed after a moment. "And now, a… mother." He sunk to the floor, cross-legged.
"And what's wrong with being a mother?"
"It's not my life," Jack repeated, hands in front of himself in surrender once again. "I had one. A mother. Can't say she ever did much for me. That's a lie, I did barter a dingy once with her shrunken head."
"But what of me? Your opinion of me with child?"
"A waste of a pirate," he said, no hesitation. "But you'll birth one, no doubt, between the blood of you and Turner—"
"And you'll be the God Father."
"I take no responsibility of children."
"I'm taken aback by your repugnance towards my metaphorical child."
"Don't take it personal, love, I—Metaphorical?" Jack paused, hearing her words and sensing her feigned disbelief.
"Jack, I'm not pregnant."
His eyebrows raised. His mouth twitched, fighitng off a smile. "Oh?"
"But I found out what I needed know." She stood, walking over to her bookcase.
"What? Why?" Jack followed her.
"I have my reasons."
"Why?" Jack popped his head between her and the bookshelf. "Why? Why? Why? Out with it." Jack tried to shoo out the answer with his hands.
"I have my reasons," she repeated sharply. "You showed me you in your response. I'm simply hoping to know you more." Elizabeth turned to Jack, leaning against her book case.
Jack slinked in close to her, pulling a book off the shelf on sailing. He flipped through a few pages, stopping on one bookmarked by a folded "Wanted" sign. He unfolded the sign, looking back at his younger self illustrated in ink, long straight hair and sporting only a mustache, all he could manage to grow at the time. Jack was taken aback a bit at the tangible proof of Elizabeth knowing of him before their first meeting, but he did not miss a beat or show this, making unwavering eye contact with her, showing the gold in his teeth with a sly smile.
"The offer's still on the table, the offer to know me"—he held up a Bible from the shelf—"biblically."
"Has it ever been off the table?" Elizabeth asked, taking the books from him then placing both on the writing desk behind her, not breaking eye contact. The book on sailing covered the Bible.
"Hasn't ever moved. Still there. Collecting dust," he was sure to punctuate the "t," his voice low.
"Mm, how… unfortunate," she punctuated the "t" right back, wearing a smile of her own.
"Needs a good rubbing it does."
"Oh," Elizabeth gasped after Jack reached for her waist then pulled her in close, his right hand playing with the silk ribbons lacing up the back of her dress. Elizabeth knew the dirt under Jack's fingernails was a stark contrast with the pristine pale pink ribbons at the small of her back, and she chastised herself for wishing she could see for herself, watch him "dirty her up," so to speak, a representation of the way they were.
"You're truly not with child?" he whispered into her ear.
"No," she answered, quickly followed by, "but best not chance it, right?" Elizabeth stepped back. "If you couldn't stand the thought of me as a mother, you certainly wouldn't—"
"Fancy myself a father," he agreed, nodding. "Luckily there are ways around that, Lizzie. You simply unhook your legs when I say, aye?"
"Is it true you held a knife to the neck of a woman who tried to make you a father?"
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Tortuga. People talk, Jack. You're a popular subject there."
"Of course. Tortuga. The only land that's not half bad, for a night's stay."
"Then why come here? When there's Tortuga or… the Fountain of Youth?" She made sure to ask about the rumor of his voyage that made it to Port Royal.
"Why be immortal and give up the greatest adventure one day?"
"You couldn't find it."
"Alright, you're right, I couldn't find it." Jack crossed his arms like a scolded child. "But you can't find something you don't want and can only want something alone for so long." Jack realized he overshared. "Anyway, I don't do the same adventure twice."
"That's not what I overheard two busty women saying in Tortuga."
"Women are different. Tangible, soft," Jack said, his hands instantly extending briefly, losing himself in the thought. Then his mouth dropped and his hands followed, scraping dirt from under his nails. Jack scrambled to play with a quill once realizing Elizabeth noticed the almost-shy gesture. He put down the quill, clasping his hands together, silently cursing them. "Anyway, the same night doesn't count."
"And the adventure of your life is different. You'd rather die than live a life that isn't worth telling." Elizabeth's eyes were narrowed, trying to take him in, understand him.
"Speaking on my behalf gets people in dangerous situations, love," Jack warned.
He was right. Bootstrap. Will. Herself. She banished the memory of Will for a moment.
"Have you not done it all already, Jack?" Elizabeth asked, stepping forward. "You've danced between life and death countless times and this last attempt with the Fountain seems nearly like the decision of stabbing Davy Jones's heart all over again. In a way, you're already telling the same tale—"
"No. Righting a tale, actually."
Elizabeth, still nearing Jack, wore a puzzled look.
"Anyway, naughty Elizabeth," Jack laughed, holding his hands out to stop her. He dropped them to his sides when he noticed they were level with her breasts. He cleared his throat. "You won't do this to me. Seduce me into playing Godfather of your spawn, metaphorical or not—convince me off the sea just because you're too afraid to go back."
Elizabeth leaned into Jack, her mouth near his ear.
"I'm not afraid—I'm ready." Elizabeth drew a sword from where she reached behind the book case. "I'm not convincing you off the sea, I'm convincing myself back." She clarified, her sharp articulation paired with a swift move of the sword making Jack squint.
"Watch it."
"I've grieved long enough. Even if there is no way to save Will without getting him cursed, I could—I could see him. A glimpse of him. See something at least!" She swallowed down her desperation. "I need a ship."
"Well we're both out of luck then. I have no ship."
"You lost the Pearl?"
"Gibbs lost the Pearl," Jack corrected. "Idiot." He stole the sword from Elizabeth's hand. "And you lost your sword."
Elizabeth drew another sword from behind the bookcase.
"What kind of bloody Englishwoman are you?"
"I'm not. You said it yourself. I'm a pirate." Elizabeth slid her sword up Jack's slowly, quickly leaning towards him in time with the sharp clashing sound. "I challenge you."
"You're making a mistake, Elizabeth," Jack said with a grin, "but what mistake are you willing to make?"
"If I win this sword fight, you stay here as my stowaway and help me find a ship."
"And if I win," Jack countered, his mouth curling, "I take the pair of swords, see your pair of knockers, and be on my merry way, resting easy knowing you're cozy living on your quaint countryside, savvy?"
"Deal."
"Deal."
