Major spoilers for Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I watched it last night and this sort of happened. You have been warned.


She was trying to be subtle, but Edmund heard her from the moment she stepped on board. He was standing at the railing, but bathed in shadow, and holding himself very still.

She came close, movements hesitant as she tried to conceal herself. Visually, it worked. The sound of the ship creaking softly did not mask her footsteps as much as she thought they did, and it was by sound that he tracked her. She still had no idea he was on the ship: probably thought herself alone.

Without moving anything else, Edmund said, "Elizabeth Swann."

She jumped violently and turned to stare at where his voice had come from. He could see the exact moment she recognised him in the way her expression changed.

"Edmund." Elizabeth stared out to sea in silence, an unfathomable expression on her face.

"What did you need me for?" He neither sought nor desired eye contact.

"I didn't." Her voice caught in a sob, and Edmund wondered at it. It was so difficult to cross worlds voluntarily like this, he was curious as to her reason.

"Who did you need?" He was being too gentle, and he sharpened his tone minutely.

He did not wish to make her care for him in any way. He was there as a last resort, the person she ran to when all else was lost. And she hated him for it: hated him for being the man she saw. She had never seen King Edmund the Just, never realised that the edge of menace and danger he always held around her was a front. Really, knowing Jack Sparrow—Captain Jack Sparrow—she should have known better.

Edmund protected himself this way. He was a man of too much stubborn will to allow himself to actually fall in love with Elizabeth, but he admired her greatly.

"I don't know." She was looking on the edge of breaking down, and he had to somehow protect her from that awful humiliation, in front of him of all people.

"Explain."

She turned and darted him a glance. "You—"

"What?" His eyebrows rose, and he stepped out of the shadows, face properly visible for the first time. "You come onto my unguarded ship in the dead of night and expect me to believe that you did not intend to meet somebody?"

"I just needed to talk to someone." The confession, blurted out without intent, startled him. Maybe she was beginning to appreciate him. He needed to be more careful.

"And why not Will? Or Captain Jack Sparrow?" There was a touch of mockery in his tone, meeting her gaze as he spoke. To his astonishment, Elizabeth burst into tears and stormed off.

He waited for her to return, idly noting the Leopard and the Bear in the sky above and calculating the time and season from their rotation.

Her face was tearstained and her voice unsteady, but she held her head high. "I can't talk to Will because he would think it unforgivable."

"Why, what in Narnia did you do?" he asked casually, every sense on alert as he tried to figure out what was going on.

"I—the kraken was pursuing Jack and so I—chained him to the mast of the Black Pearl so he could not escape with us and doom us. And I tricked him into handcuffs by kissing him. And—" She took a deep breath. "Will is distrusting me, I can see it in the way he looks, and I can't tell him about any of it—and of course I can't talk to Jack—"

"Why not?"

"The kraken, Edmund." Taking refuge in anger to hide her real grief, he could see. Good. It was when Elizabeth Swann got the most angry that she was the most capable of figuring out solutions. "It ate him. I doomed my—friend."

He wondered at the break in her voice and what it meant, but brushed off the query as unimportant. "And so, is this going to last forever?"

"No. We have a plan."

"Then why have you come to me?" He took a step closer, studying her expression.

"I needed to talk to somebody, I suppose."

"And you selected me?"

"Just like Jack, you are a man of no moral compass or decency," she snapped back.

Edmund took a step back, almost wanting to laugh, or cry. It had worked. The persona he used to force Elizabeth Swann to fight her own battles and yet be encouraged by him, was working. She hated him, but she drew strength from him: a strange dichotomy. And it was his whole intention when working with Elizabeth Swann, and it seemed he was succeeding.

Having fallen down himself, he had to make sure anybody he could possibly reach was lifted back up again, even if it meant losing himself in the process.

"You do not know me."

"I know all I need to know about you."

"What is your plan?" he deflected the conversation, with narrowed eyes.

She turned away. "We're going to rescue Jack, with the help of Barbosa."

His eyebrows rose again. "I thought he died. I thought Jack killed him."

Her gaze flicked to his, exactly as he had planned. "He did. But somehow he's here, and he's going to help us. I don't understand it."

"Nor do I." There was silence. "Did you have any other problems you needed to talk about?"

Elizabeth's tone was cold, matching his. "Not a one. I'm going."

"Excellent. You'll see yourself off, I suppose."

"I shall. Honestly, I don't know why I ever came. Not like you've done anything."

"Did you expect me to be able to do something?"

"No. I—I just needed to tell somebody who still lived and breathed, I suppose."

"I live, I breathe—you have told me." His voice grew gentler towards the end. Perhaps all that she had really needed was a moment to cry, then to get angry at somebody, without consequence. Stress reliever, maybe.

Grimacing as if it physically hurt her to say, Elizabeth said, "Thank you for listening. I don't know how, but it—really helped."

Edmund turned away without answering, and heard her footsteps recede with a mixture of relief and sorrow. He hoped he had helped her, and knew he might never know.


Please review! This just sort of appeared in my brain and I don't really know what it signifies but I had fun. I would love to know what you think of it. How could I have made it better? Do you want more?

Also note that I've not yet watched the third and have only watched the first two once, and I didn't really quite get the ending of this second one. Anyway, feedback would be vastly appreciated.