There was still an hour to go, and everything was at hand except the bride. She was still shut up in the cabin, alone, getting ready.
But it had been a long time, and the captains were beginning to clamor for their quarters back, so Will went with them to see what was going on.
"Elizabeth? Are you ready yet?"
The door opened a few inches and Elizabeth stuck her head out. Her hair was beautiful but she looked furious. "No! I am not ready! I haven't even begun to put my dress on yet. I can't – how do you expect me to lace my own corset, hmm?"
Will looked surprised. "Oh. Well…" He took a step towards the door, but she slammed it.
"No! It's bad luck for you to see me before the ceremony, remember?"
Jack headed for the cabin. "Well, I guess that leaves me," he proposed innocently.
"Oh, no, you don't." Will grabbed him by the back of his shirt and nodded to Barbossa. "You go."
Barbossa shrugged. "Hard luck, Jack." He rapped on the cabin door and called, "Elizabeth? Coming in."
Two seconds after the door closed behind him, Will realized that he would much prefer Elizabeth's corset to be laced by a lady, and that there were in fact several ladies aboard (not counting Charlotte - Will wasn't sure she qualified as a lady anymore). But if he said something now it would make him seem old-fashioned and jealous, so he just made a smooth exit and went off to do some primping of his own.
He thought she was probably mostly dressed already, and anyway, what could possibly happen?
But Elizabeth was still in her pirate rags, sulking. "Well. You all seem to have had quite a nice night," she pouted
"Aye." Barbossa didn't bother trying to keep a straight face. "We all played the fool but I admit it were great fun. I gather your night was not so excitin?"
He was purring at her with that mock sympathy she hated so much. Elizabeth knew it, knew he was goading her on purpose, and yet she couldn't help but be goaded. "You know perfectly well I-" she broke off and let her breath out slowly. Fuming was no good, she told herself. Revenge would be better.
If he wants to rub my nose in what I can't have, she thought, two can play at that game. Cool as a cucumber, she started to undress right there in front of him.
She unbuckled her swordbelt and let it clatter to the ground. She untucked her shirt and opened the buttons swiftly and shrugged out of it.
He saw at once what she was about and hissed at her to stop. She tossed her hair behind her nearly-naked shoulders and said loftily, "Well, I need to change. If you don't like it, you can go over there in the corner and close your eyes." Ordering the captain around was a rare pleasure that would improve her tetchiness immensely. "Go on."
He narrowed his eyes at her in warning but she only smiled, confident that she could handle a battle of wills with anyone.
"No, I think I quite like it where I am," he said smoothly. "But you be welcome to change if it pleases you."
Elizabeth hesitated, wondering if she was getting in a little over her head. Had she actually expected to be allowed to torment Captain Barbossa without paying dearly for the privilege? Still, if he would call her bluff, then she would damn well call his.
She loosened the laces of her undershirt. He swallowed hard but didn't move.
He's going to give up any minute now, she assured herself as she kicked off her shoes. He can't bear looking at me and knowing I'm about to marry myself straight out of his reach. He can't. She stared hard into his eyes as she stripped, expecting that at any moment he would heave a sigh and turn red and growl For God's sake, miss, and give her some privacy.
When she began to unbutton her pants (one-handed; the other hand was busy holding her wadded-up shirt to cover her chest) she thought she had him - he flushed and shifted his eyes to a distant point over her shoulder. But then she snickered, and his pride kicked in. He put his hands on his hips and quirked his eyebrows at her defiantly and wasn't going anywhere.
Elizabeth persevered until she was down almost to the bare minimum amount of clothing to distinguish her from Adam and Eve, but then, as he still had every appearance of holding his ground, she folded. "All right, all right, fine." She crossed her arms, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious even though he very politely was keeping his eyes on her face. "Would you please turn your back."
"Why, of course, miss," he drawled, all charm now. He faced away and crossed the room to give her space while she washed up at the bucket in the corner and started the momentous task of dressing for her wedding. "You know you can't lie to me, Elizabeth - I taught you the game."
"Hmph." To cut short any more gloating she changed the subject. "So... tell me, how did last night go?"
"Very well, from the bits I remember."
"Everyone looks awful."
"Aye."
"But not you." She watched for his reaction but since all she could see was his back it was hard to tell. "You look much better," she pressed. "Why?"
He doubted she had brought it up for no reason - he had taught her the game, after all. "Before the drinking got heavy, I let Davy take a look at me shoulder," he admitted coolly. ("Letting" Davy have a look had been a terrifying ordeal for him that had required intense persuasion by Jack and his pistol, but Barbossa glossed right over that part.) "I let him look, and he did somethin in the wound and it felt a little better straight off. Fever's down, too."
"You had a fever?" she asked sharply. "Why didn't you say something?" He shrugged. "You're impossible, Captain, you know that. I hope you told Jack, at least, so he can take care of you?"
Barbossa was quick to deny it. "I never tell Jack nothin. What he sees, he sees."
She rolled her eyes, which was not very effective since he wasn't looking at her. "Oh, yes, that's a brilliant policy," she muttered under her breath, not quite daring to lecture him aloud. "Bloody pirates. Bloody men. Well, anyway, that's wonderful about Davy at least, I thought he might do that. I'll have to tell him thank you if he comes this afternoon. All right, you can turn around now - I'm mostly dressed."
Mostly was not the word he would have chosen, but he was hardly about to complain. "Tell me when it's time for the corset."
"Almost ready, hold on." She searched for something to fill the silence. "My night was all right. Sad but all right. I spent it with my father - you know, it's the last time I'll see him like that."
"Like how?"
"Like a daughter." She swallowed hard and it helped. "You know, I think it will be difficult to get used to. He brought me up all by himself - I mean of course there were nurses and nannies and all, you know - but it was always just he and I. But from now on I won't be his daughter, I'll be somebody's wife."
Barbossa dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "You'll always be his daughter, no matter how old you get or how many filthy brats you turn out."
"Very poetic," Elizabeth said dryly. "And how would you know, may I ask?" She half-expected him to crack and mention a long-lost family of his own.
Instead he shrugged and explained, "Because that's simply the way it works. To me you'll always be the young missie who knows she's in far over her head and still can't be made to back down." He chuckled softly. "No matter how big a household ye become mistress of, or how wide a dress ye put on."
Elizabeth's jaw dropped. "Now that really was poetic," she said after a moment. "Now you're going to make me cry."
"Then what say we start with the corset - then you'll have a real excuse to cry. Aye?"
She bit her lip. "Aye."
Governor Swann walked past the cabin at exactly the wrong moment. "This dress is impossible," said the gravelly voice of Captain Barbossa. "I should just rip it right off you."
"Behave," snapped Elizabeth's voice back. "Ow ! Mind the brand, don't touch there." There was the sound of someone getting a weak little slap on the hand. As if that would stop a deranged pirate!
Swann hovered outside, wondering if he should burst in.
He was too slow – all at once he heard the rustle of Elizabeth's dress and, "Brace yourself, miss." A grunt from the pirate, a squeal from Elizabeth, and Swann fumbled for the pistol at his side while his other hand went to the doorknob and-
The pirate's voice stopped him: "Elizabeth? Are you all right?"
"Yes it's fine" she gasped, "Just God you have to go slower and- mmph- first give me time to- oh- to get used to it. I'm fine."
The governor paused. That didn't sound like she was being taken advantage of, but...
"It's snug already and I haven't even started yet." The pirate sounded concerned even to Swann's biased ears. "Are you sure this is comfortable for you? I could stop..."
"N-no," came Elizabeth's breathless answer. "Of course it's not, ooh, comfortable, but I'm about to be married and I will be a proper bride."
Swann frowned. Perhaps he had stumbled upon some bizarre enactment of a pirate captain's droit du seigneur? Did pirates still practice that? Did anyone? At any rate, he thought, whatever was going on seemed to be consensual and therefore he could just turn and-
But Elizabeth gasped in pain again. The verbal exchange that followed ("Too much?" "No, for heaven's sake stop stopping, it's fine, keep going,"), while it did tell him that Elizabeth was not being forced, did not convince him that she was not making a mistake. She was in there… ahem… with a partner who was completely unsuitable for her and, frankly, disgusting. Besides, he was hurting her. Swann believed in respecting his daughter's autonomy as much as possible, but he was convinced that this was still one of those times where Papa knew best. He steeled himself to make a dangerous pirate (two dangerous pirates?) very angry, and prepared to interrupt. He reached for the doorknob again.
This time, what stayed his hand was the sudden idea of what he was actually about to walk in on. His daughter…? That was not really something he ought to see. Not at all. Perhaps he ought to just knock...
He became more and more unwilling to open the door as the conversation continued: "I'm powerful glad not to be a lady. I wouldn't let anyone do this to me," the captain said after she let out a particularly pained squeal.
"Well," Elizabeth answered, her speech punctuated by her partner's grunts and her answering gasps. "It's only -mmn- this miserable due to inexperience and -ah- you're being -oh- unbearably rough." Then she hissed in exasperation. "All right, don't overdo it, you don't have to be that gentle, I'm not going to break. Oh, yes, like that, that's fine. A little more."
The governor's ears burned. Oh, it was time to leave. If his daughter needed help she was just going to have to find it elsewhere. He walked away, but not fast enough to miss the pirate's next comment: "Almost done, miss. It's tight." Shudder! He heard Elizabeth's answer: "You're telling me." Double shudder!
He skedaddled just in time to miss Elizabeth complaining, "Whoever invented corsets must -oh- hate women."
Everyone was assembled and ready to go. The guests were all uneasy because of the ghostly organ music whose source they could not determine (It was, of course, the Flying Dutchman, somewhere below them). Governor Swann stood by Elizabeth's side, simultaneously hating the ridiculousness of his daughter's wedding and accepting it because for some unfathomable reason it all seemed to make her very happy.
Captain Barbossa stood beside Will, stealing speculative glances at him from time to time and trying to determine whether or not it was time to stop calling him "boy." Will Turner, husband and pirate and... man? On the one hand, Will had made considerable progress. He had new confidence, a bit of a head on his shoulders, and a respectable amount of blood in his history (including his father's, a thought that still had the power to make Barbossa uncomfortable). Perhaps "boy" wasn't fair. On the other hand there was that conversation they had had this morning, where Will had obliquely confessed to being unprepared for the wedding night despite all of Elizabeth's attempts to seduce him early, and Barbossa had laughed for near half a minute before assuring him that he would figure it all out. Furiously jealous, the captain had only just managed not to add, don't worry, Elizabeth's an excellent student and I taught her everything you'll need to know.
Jack rapped on the altar (a half-full barrel of grog and a stolen tablecloth) and leaned over it. "Dearly beloved... pirates, family, friends... captives... we are gathered here today to celebrate a marriage that has been a long time in the making. Some of us," he added a little more softly, locking his eyes on Elizabeth and letting his voice go all husky, "Are extremely ready for this marriage to take place."
Barbossa growled low in his throat and Jack got a little more serious. "Right! Enough sermonizing. Time for the vows then, eh?" Jack took a deep breath. "But before we get started, I do have one small request." He leaned closer to the couple as though sharing a secret. "I think on this day of all days, it would be permissible for me to give the bride a kiss, don't you?"
Will looked suspicious. Elizabeth pointed to her forehead. "Certainly, Jack."
"Can't reach, love." Before she could stop him, he skittered around the altar, got his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. A big kiss. A big, long kiss.
Elizabeth's eyes flew open and she looked to Will. He was shaking his head at her over Jack's shoulder, looking simultaneously shocked and amused, and finally waved his hand at her as if to tell her just to get it over with.
"Scandalous," Governor Swann muttered.
"Pirates," Norrington reminded him quietly from off to the side. "I warned you something like this would probably happen."
Not everyone was taking it so calmly. Will heard the zhing of a knife being drawn beside him. Although it gave him the warm fuzzies to be on the receiving end of such protectiveness, he really didn't think that threats were necessary. He reached out without looking and put a hand on Barbossa's arm. "It's all right, Captain, I think I brought this on myself," he murmured. "I told her that on our wedding day she could have anything she wanted..."
Barbossa settled down and put his blade away with a snort of disbelief.
"Yes, I know, I should have thought about it first." Will sighed. "But how would I have foreseen this? And if there's an answer to that question I don't want to know," he added quickly.
Elizabeth was too busy to hear any of it. She had kissed an awful lot of people since that horrible day with the Kraken, but her mouth remembered Jack's and she would know him anywhere. He seemed to remember her, too – they slid comfortably into a rhythm almost immediately. He did taste fabulous. Salty, again, though.
Elizabeth realized after a moment that it was because she was crying. Understandable. After all, she was kissing Jack, Jack Sparrow, the pirate she had worshipped since she was old enough to read, the man who had introduced himself to her by saving her life and then not said a single angry word when she repaid him with betrayal and murder.
Jack. His strong arms were around her now, his messy hair in her face and his sword – she hoped – poking into her hip. She heard Will mutter "Bloody pirate! I don't believe this!" and Jack laughed into her mouth. She took the opportunity to gasp in some air before diving back into the kiss, letting her hands move over him, touching his face, his neck, his shoulders, memorizing every detail because she knew that this was it. Jack. His lips were as rough as she'd come to expect from a pirate but his tongue was even softer - and more insistent - than she remembered.
His arms tightened around her and forced her to take a step back. She moved as she was directed, tilting her head as Jack deepened the kiss. For a moment she thought she might faint. Goodbye, Jack, you have no idea how I'll miss you.
Will didn't think he was being jilted at the altar; it looked like a goodbye kiss and he thought perhaps he should just go politely blind for a moment the way all the guests were doing. Still, he was annoyed.
His bride's mouth was full of a pirate's tongue instead of his, and worse, said pirate seemed to be a much better kisser than he would ever be. Will watched helplessly as Jack backed her up all the way to the railing. She put her arms around his neck and leaned out over the sea, clearly ready to accept anything Jack cared to give her…
But then one of Jack's hands left Elizabeth's waist and hovered in the air. Without disturbing the kiss in the slightest, he snapped his fingers and beckoned for Will to approach.
Will came up close. Elizabeth's eyes were still closed and her lips still busy, but Will wasn't watching because he had more pressing matters to attend to. Jack was using his free hand to take something from his belt and dump it into Will's hands. Will frowned. A pair of shackles?
Jack held up one finger and then Will understood. As quietly as he could, Will snapped one end on to his own wrist and then handed the open cuff back to Jack. Even through the noises of a wet and sloppy kiss, Will could hear the rumble of the pirate's laughter. Quick as a wink Jack locked the cuff onto Elizabeth, kissed her once more on the lips and backed away.
"Turnabout's fair play, love," he told her apologetically as she stared openmouthed at her shackled hand. Had she not been wearing a dress she might have kicked him. Here she was, kissing him as if it meant something, feeling an honest-to-God emotional tug with Jack's name on it, and he was only playing a trick on her! Or was he? She tried to read him, but he turned his attention to Will before she could figure anything out.
He told Will, "That should help you keep her out of trouble, eh?" Will couldn't help but notice that he was completely out of breath and his eyes were all pupil.
"All right," Will said firmly, "Now, that will be enough of that – when we're married, Elizabeth, there will be no more kissing of Jack Sparrow, none at all, ever, is that clear?"
Turnabout might be fair and so might Will's pronouncement, but she didn't have to like either. She glared at them both in turn and then rattled the handcuffs. "Inescapably," she sulked. But then when Jack laughed she had to laugh too. He cupped her face with both dirty hands.
"It's really a shame to lose you, love," he said. He stood on tiptoe to kiss her on the forehead, then stepped away to proceed with the marriage ceremony.
"Do you, William Turner, son of Bootstrap Bill Turner…" Jack's eyes narrowed just a hair. "Do you have the courage and fortitude to stay true and follow your heart in the face of danger, boredom, and whatever else may come to you in all the years ahead? And do you choose this woman, Elizabeth Swann, as the one to whom you pledge yourself body and soul – forever – until death do you part?"
Will tightened his grip on Elizabeth's hands, which made the chains rattle. "I do."
Jack turned to the bride and let his voice soften just a little. "And do you, love, Elizabeth Swann, daughter of a man in a very large and frightening wig, do you also have the courage and fortitude to stay true, to both follow and tame your heart, in the face of danger, boredom or anything else the future may hold for you?" He paused. "And do you choose…are you sure this time… do you choose this man, this William Turner the younger, as the one to whom you pledge yourself…body…" his eyes shot down just for a moment "…and soul, forever, until death do you part – again?"
Gentle laughter. "I do, Jack. And I am sure."
"Really?" he pressed, making a face. "You're sure you don't need some more time to thi-"
"Jack!"
Jack drew himself up. "Very well then. By the power vested in me by…well, technically by Davy, but that doesn't sound so fancy, does it?..." he shook his head and tried again. "By the power vested in me by the great blue sea itself, I now pronounce you man and wife." He gestured grandly and then prompted, "You may kiss the bride. Everyone else has," he muttered out of the side of his mouth.
Barbossa heard him and was not amused. "This be a wedding, cretin," he hissed back.
"S'all right, perhaps if Will gets offended we can have ourselves a swordfight right here in the middle of it all, wouldn't that be wonderful?"
But Will didn't appear to have heard any of it – he had taken Jack's advice and was finally kissing the bride.
They stopped the Pearl far enough outside the harbor that they wouldn't run the risk of being spotted and chased. They lowered all the boats and packed them with everyone who was to be returned to Port Royal. As a wedding present to the young couple the pirates had decided not to loot the city again or even to ask ransom for all the captives they had acquired.
Will and Elizabeth were to climb down last. They were only a few steps from the railing when Will was stopped by a firm grip on his arm. "Now, mind you take care of her," Barbossa growled at him quietly, "Or I'll be comin after ye."
Will thought: This madman really likes her. "Thanks for your concern, but no worries on that score," he assured. He waited til Barbossa was not looking, then grabbed Jack and took him aside. "Jack, keep a leash on him, would you?"
Jack thought: Poor boy's jealous. "Don't worry about it, son, I've got everything under control." Jack waited til Will was not looking, then hurried over to Elizabeth and whispered to her, "Be good to him, love, he's earned it."
Elizabeth thought: Jack can be so sweet sometimes! "Believe me, Jack, I intend to." She waited til Jack was not looking, then beckoned for Barbossa to come close and told him, "Take care of Jack, will you? I worry about him."
"I think we all worry about Jack, miss. But don't you worry – I'll handle it."
"Thank you. Captain..."
"Now get in that boat before I think better of lettin you go." He backed up into the crowd of well-wishing pirates and waved her a bland goodbye.
Will had been so patient with her that she would not try him more - she got in the boat and they shoved off and she didn't look back even once.
Jack took a huge swig and passed the bottle. "I hate goodbyes."
"Mmm."
"Speaking of which..." Jack took the bottle back for another drink. "You never finished what you where saying the other day. We got as far as: We're in a lot of trouble, you and I." He passed the bottle.
"So we are." There was silence for awhile. "Perhaps the problem went away on its own. Whatever did happen to Beckett's ship? I was asleep."
Jack shook his head. "It'll still be there. We dropped the anchor, left bodies all over the place and painted PLAGUE - PLEASE HELP - NEED DOCTORS all over the hull."
Barbossa took a break from the difficult conversation to chuckle. "How'd ye spell plague?"
Jack shrugged. (After much debate, Jack's insistence that there was a U had led them to write PLUAYGE instead of PLAYGE). "Wrong, probably. In any case..."
Things were bad when even Jack Sparrow was more willing to tackle a problem head-on than he was. Barbossa shrugged. "Then I suppose what we should do is go back there, divide up the crew in half, and off we go."
"We could try to sort of... cooperate..."
"And have twice the risk and half the treasure? Or have the crews get competitive? Or have you get mutinied on again and force me to fire on the Pearl? I don't think so." Barbossa put a hand on his sword to stop himself from fidgeting. "The way I see it we have two choices. Either we go pick up Beckett's ship, and we divide the crew in half, and we sail off in opposite directions now and swear never to meet again. As far as I'm concerned you're dead, and vice versa. Or..."
"Or, we...don't?" Jack suggested slowly. It was always hard to say what Barbossa was thinking, so he slid his hand towards his pistol, just in case.
"The other choice," Barbossa continued, "Is for you to stay here, actually on my ship, permanently, so that I can keep an eye on you at all times." He looked over sideways and shrugged. "I'm gettin too old to make trips to World's End for ye just because you can't take care of yourself."
Jack looked over at him in amazement, then laughed. "I always knew you'd go soft, mate."
Barbossa didn't bother to deny it. "Aye, dyin'll do that to you."
"I know," Jack reminded him.
"Well? What do you say?"
"I say," Jack answered after a moment, "that the Pearl is our ship, not yours, and that otherwise it sounds like a very fine idea. We'll leave Beckett's boat to rot where it is, and the two of us'll go on together as equals. That's what I say. Do we have an accord?"
"Aye, Jack, we have an accord." As they shook on it, Barbossa warned, "But this one better not end with your puttin a bullet through me."
Jack threw an arm around him. "Oh, don't worry about that, mate," he said cheerfully. "I only had one shot, and I used it already."
Barbossa knocked his arm off and considered the benefits that a cuff to the face might bring. He growled something incomprehensible under his breath that contained several arrr's.
But he knew no amount of snarling would be enough to mask his good mood. Back aboard the Pearl in the sun, Jack by his side and Jack on his shoulder, all the vexing females out of his hair... the world was as it should be. Yarrr.
The End.
Yes, I know, I know, the ending was supersyrupy sweet, but it had to be that way for the same reason Will and Elizabeth had to get married at the end: it's a bloody Disney movie, people, and there's always a happy ending and the good prince always gets the girl! To all JxE or BxE or NxE shippers out there... sorry!
Now, please, everybody, if you haven't reviewed yet, do it now! There has to be something to say about a 100,000-word leviathan (haha kraken) of a fanfic!
A giant thankyou to everyone who did take the time to send me ideas and encouragement. Doublegiant thankyous to the dedicated readers like Asteria, Saishlyimna, JeanieBeanie33, xthexstarlettex, CaptainTish, Captain Uschi and Coldharbour who had plenty to say about each and every chapter. You guys have been especially great and I hope you've enjoyed the story.
Thanks for reading!