Norrington took charge of the wheel at once. Elizabeth, who had taken a break from helping the wounded in order to watch the drama unfold, released her death-grip on the bloody rag she was holding and went back to what she was doing.

Jack intercepted Davy's furious rush forward and tried the one thing he thought would calm the squidman for sure: he just up and handed over the heart.

The heart. It. There it was. Davy shuddered when he saw it. He reached out for it with his good hand, and put the heart in one of his pockets – it might be safer to stuff it into his coat the way the pirates were always doing it, but he didn't think he could bear to feel it beating against his chest. There. Now he had it. It was safe.

He wanted to kill Turner and to go get his heart to someplace even safer as soon as possible. But he also wanted to say goodbye to Elizabeth, and after a moment's thought he chose that option over the others.

He found her kneeling over a soldier who had a punctured lung and a pulsating mass of sea scum growing into a wound in his throat. Out of habit Davy found himself assessing the man's condition as a possible recruit. Hmm. With some excellent medical care and a little luck he might live, but right now he was choking and wheezing and would almost surely take an offer if Davy were to make one...

"So I guess this is it, then," Elizabeth said, holding her patient's hand and trying to help clear his airway. "It's been... interesting to know you, Davy." She looked up. "I should tell you, you're going to be needing a new bosun, sorry. You might think of choosing somebody with a heart this time."

He could see that she hadn't mean anything personal by the comment, but he couldn't resist chuckling, "I find having a heart to be overrated."

"Really?" Elizabeth looked back down to what she was doing. "Well, I find I never have to go gallivanting about in a panic looking for my heart. But suit yourself, I suppose."

"Hmph. And there's that mouth again." On impulse Jones knelt down beside her. "Let me see that." He grabbed the injured man's head with his claw and wrenched it around to face him. The man squeezed his eyes shut, whimpering with terror. "Look at me." Hyperventilation but little else. "Open your eyes if you want to live!"

That worked. The terrified soldier opened his eyes and Davy stared into them. Yes, the wounds were probably survivable. But he was suffocating. Davy put his good hand across the soldier's throat and let a little tentacle slip down from his sleeve to go exploring in the wound, absorbing the scum one of his crewmen had left growing there. He kept their eyes locked so that he could better judge how much of the slime remained.

At last he sensed that he had absorbed it all. He withdrew his appendage and then touched it to the hole in the soldier's chest, clogging it up with a little patch of muck.

The hideous wheezing sound ceased immediately. Davy looked at Elizabeth. "Leave it for now so he can breathe, but when he's better you ought to carve that out."

She nodded, feeling very warm and fuzzy that she had inspired Davy Jones to do what was probably his first good deed in years.

"There," she teased, "Was that so hard?"

"Certainly not – or I wouldn't have done it."

They stood up. He was waiting for her to speak. She sighed. "Davy... you can't set foot on land, and I'm probably about to have a pack of children and never set foot off land again, so... this really may be it."

"Aye. So it may." He reached out, overriding the stern orders he had given to himself at least four times today, and touched her on the cheek.

"I hope you'll think about everything I said to you."

"And I hope you'll give that contemptible boy the all the care that his devotion deserves. Much as I can't stand him."

She stepped up and initiated a farewell hug. He hugged back, which was fine, but then a bit of his moustache came up and traced over her lips, leaving a trail of fishy slime. She flinched and he slapped it away. "Ach, sorry."

"It's all right." She held him at arms length and looked at him one more time. "Goodbye, Davy."

"Goodbye."

He was in such a good mood that he grabbed the injured arm of Elizabeth's father as he walked past, sucking the slime out of his little cut.

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Once he was gone Elizabeth wiped at her face. "First Beckett and now him. I need something to rinse my mouth out with," she muttered, looking around.

Jack was at her shoulder. She hadn't even noticed him come up. "Sorry to disappoint you, love," he said, "But Barbossa is otherwise engaged right now. You'll have to make do with me."

"Very funny, Jack." Elizabeth forgot all about rinsing out her mouth. "How is he?"

"Alive. Or was the last time I checked."

"That bad? I want to go see him. I know he's asleep," she overrode Jack's interruption, "And in fact that's better. I don't really want to talk to him right now, I just want to sit with him a bit and make sure he's all right."

"Sorry. Can't let you do that, love."

"What? Why?"

Barbossa always claimed that Jack had to babysit him simply as protection against being murdered in his sleep. But Jack was nobody's fool. He knew that it was also critically important to the captain not to be seen by anyone, including and especially friends, while he was weak and helpless. And of course, Jack realized, it would defeat the whole purpose if he went and said this out loud to Elizabeth. So he fished for an explanation, any explanation, and finally produced, "Because he's not... decent."

"Decent?" Elizabeth's eyebrows shot up. "So now we've got an attack of modesty in a pirate, is that it? Jack, really. Besides," she added, "I've already seen him without his skin on – what more is there?"

It was a good point and it made Jack smile, but he did not relent. "Sorry, love, but he can't have company right now. Really. Why don't you go entertain your poor terrified father instead?"

She found it adorable that he was so protective, but that didn't stop her from muttering under her breath: "the lovesick puppy strikes again."

Of course Jack could never let her have the last word. He pitched his voice high and waved his arms around parodying a damsel in distress. "Oh dear, oh me, oh my, we can't leave him, Jack, oh no we have to go back for him, we must, we have to run our heads into the noose-"

"Oh, be quiet! I notice you don't have a single scratch from that little adventure."

"Well, I'm Jack Sparrow," he reminded her. "What do you expect?" He couldn't help but smile – she was charming when she fumed! And, even better, she was willing to accept the whole blame for turning around. "Oh, come on, love, don't be like that. Barbossa needs his sleep, but you can wait up for him if you want. First we need to clean up all these people. Then we loot Beckett's ship and figure out what to do with it. Then we'll get out some cards and just amuse ourselves til the beast emerges, eh?"

Her arms were still crossed. Jack tempted her further: "Come on, and I'll even tell you a story. One from a long while ago. One that Barbossa would gut me for sharing."

Well, some things simply could not be resisted. Elizabeth uncrossed her arms. "Fine."

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Elizabeth poked around in Beckett's cabin and found some things that disturbed her very deeply. She didn't touch them. She did take one thing for herself: a lacy dressing gown that she draped over herself to cover her shoulders and hopefully help wipe the agonized, scandalized expression off her father's face.

When she showed back up on the Pearl wearing it, Norrington greeted her jubilantly from the wheel.

"Well, there's a sight for sore eyes!" he exclaimed, smirking just a little. "Elizabeth in a dress!"

She didn't think it was funny. "Actually, it's not a dress," she explained, toying with the frilly ruffles. "We raided Lord Beckett's ship and believe it or not, this is what he sleeps in. I know it's a little strange for me to be wearing it considering we just killed him, but my father was practically going into vapors at what I was clothed in. He'll like this better than knickers, at least."

"Lord Beckett's?" Norrington frowned. "You're right, that is a little odd for you to wear." He was silent for a moment, wrestling with the question of propriety, then decided that propriety was a moot point where Elizabeth was concerned. "You looted my ship as well. Some of my things are down the hold. Come - you can wear one of mine. Mr. Gibbs!" He handed off control of the wheel and offered his arm.

They went down the hold and sifted through all the booty until they found his trunks. (He turned his back while she slipped out of Beckett's dressing gown and into his, which was ludicrous because underneath it she still wore the undershirt and pants she had been fighting in.) Elizabeth felt much better wrapped up in the clothes of a former fiancé than in the clothes of a dead man. "Thank you. Listen… James..." she reached up to cup his cheek.

He caught her hand and peeled it off, knowing exactly what she was thinking. "Elizabeth. I don't need a hug or a kiss or any speech to remember you by – I've got this." He opened his shirt a little to show her the cut she'd given him while asking for his second surrender.

She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, I'd forgotten about that... James, I really am sorry..."

"It's fine," he said, laughing a little. "I'm glad of it, actually. Do you have any idea how bent up I was about being rejected in favor of a no-name blacksmith? But now I can think, see, it's all right after all. She's a bloodthirsty wild animal, I could hardly sleep with THAT in my bed, now, could I."

With a gasp of mock outrage, she shoved at him and stamped her foot. "I am not a bloodthirsty wild animal!"

"I know. But let me think it – it helps." A little sad, maybe. But not accusing and not bitter. She was surprised to see how much that meant to her.

"James... thank you." Impulsively she threw her arms around him and gave him a hard squeeze. He was pretty stiff in her arms - typical Norrington - but he did at least make an attempt to hug back.

She pretended not to hear the kiss he brushed over her hair.

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When Elizabeth came up out of the hold with Norrington of all people, him resting a hand on the small of her back to steady her on the ladder, her with a familiar smile in his direction and wearing his dressing gown no less, Will found himself beginning to get a little jealous.

Will was a clever boy – he had already figured out that his fiancée had been up close and personal with Barbossa today. He had known it since the moment she climbed aboard the Pearl. He was hurt. She wasn't. Yet she was covered head to toe in blood, in a way that suggested that either: 1: she had poured a bucket of blood over herself and then stuck her face in to take a drink of it, or 2: she had given her injured hero a great big hug and messy kiss on the mouth.

Disgusting as the image was, Will really believed he would be able to let it go. After all, the poor man had nearly been killed, likely as not because he had been protecting her, and more importantly, Will knew it was a mistake she would not make again. What Barbossa had done to Lord Beckett would ensure that.

But Norrington was another story. He at least was not an unsuitable partner. He was not old, hideous, or completely amoral. He had something to offer beyond a dirty life on the run. He, in fact, had at one time been acceptable enough to her that she had agreed to marry him!

Will made up his mind. He liked to let Elizabeth have her way in most things, but this was where he had to draw the line. He didn't know what had gone on down there in the hold, and given Norrington's starchiness he guessed it was nothing beyond a friendly little chat and the loan of a dressing gown, but still. They needed to be clear on who stood where.

"Elizabeth? Can I talk to you for a minute?" He took her arm and pulled her straight back down the hold.

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Jack was sprawled out on the deck drinking when Will and Elizabeth re-emerged. He took one look at their disheveled appearance and gave them a smile, but before he could come up with a lewd comment Elizabeth beat him to it.

"Will is not a eunuch," she anticipated when she saw where his eyes had flashed to, "So whatever you were going to say about that, don't bother."

He laughed outright. "About time, eh? Pish-posh to waiting for the wedding."

Elizabeth gasped. "Will! The wedding…" she looked up at him, eyes shining. "Can we have it on the Pearl? Even before we go home to Port Royal?"

"Of course we can," Will laughed. "We can have it right now if you like…" he made a bit of a face. "Although I did always hope that you would be wearing a dress, not another man's sleepwear, but I guess I can't have everything."

Elizabeth stilled. "Well, I do have a dress," she said quietly. "There was one in Lord Beckett's cabin. I don't know why, but he had it brought for me."

"A dress fit for a wedding?" She nodded. "You mean Beckett was going to ask for your hand?"

"Oh, no, that's bizarre, he hardly knew me," she protested. "But yes, he did bring an absolutely beautiful dress, made to my measurements, on this trip. D'you think it would be bad luck to wear it?"

"I don't think he'd mind – he looked happier than I'd ever seen him, dying in your arms. Morbid as that may be. I'd love to have a wedding at sea. Will your father be all right with it?"

"My father! Will, this is perfect, my father's here and all his horrible friends are not. So he won't even have to feel uncomfortable about it, he can give me away and everything will be wonderful! Oh…Will…who's going to stand in for your parents?"

Then they looked at each other and just laughed. Who else?

"I suppose it is fitting," Will said helplessly, "Since after all, he did bring us together. By kidnapping you."

"Now, all we need is the one who can perform the ceremony..." She went over and nudged Jack with her foot. "You know, Jack, I seem to remember something about your being a...captain of a... ship…who can perform a marriage right here on the deck."

He flashed her his best smile. "Ah, but when I said that, love, I was rather hoping you were going to reconsider your choice of groom."

"Jack!" Will looked honestly shocked, but Elizabeth put a hand on his arm.

"All right, all right!" Jack held up his hands in surrender. "I'll do it. After all, I do love weddings."

Elizabeth beamed at him. "Drinks all around, eh?"

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TBC.

Sorry we didn't see Barbossa yet; this chapter was longer than I expected. He'll be back, with a vengeance, possibly as early as tomorrow but definitely Friday otherwise. I'm like 85 decided on how he handles Will's attempted murder jag. Hint: he doesn't just let it go.

And as to what happened between Will and Elizabeth in the hold… given the rating, I'll leave it all to your imagination.

Review for me! All that's left to tie up is the wedding and the little trip home. Let me know what you think!