"As you were, Captain," Elizabeth breathed as she found the strength to straighten herself up against the door and make a swift exit. What she did not have the strength for was divulging any sentiments she may have had on the subject matter of the last several minutes.
Jack wasn't used to feeling this way, a rather miffed feeling, like his torso was being trampled on and he wanted to shove the bloody bugger off! Used, as it were. Now he understood why those feminine creatures were always slapping his poor vis-age. Come now, chin up. He had been made satisfied, oh yes. But nowhere near completely. He couldn't figure out what that incompleteness was and it bugged the ever-living hell out of him. No matter. He wouldn't be providing any more services for Missus Turner. Not unless he received a little compensation in return. Tit for tat, as they say. He was the Captain of this ship and wouldn't be made to feel as if he were some green boy. No... He wouldn't provide until she was a raw bundle of nerves aching to be plucked. And that thought put a smile on Captain Jack Sparrow's face.
"Oh, what have I done? What kind of wife- what kind of person am I?" Elizabeth breathed once she was in her quarters. Her heart struggled to return to its usual pace. "I was just curious. I never touched him," she affirmed to herself, "Right, it's just as if I'd walked into a brothel and observed the patrons." She placed a hand on her mouth in thought, if those patrons were dashing and dangerous pirates with members the size of a- No! No. It wouldn't do well to dwell on that. "Then again, I told him to- to- oh dear." Thoughts of his seed spilling into his palm filled her with terror and elation. What would Will think? Poor, handsome, dedicated Will. Saintly Will. Quick Will.
That night they'd spent on the beach was the only intimate one she'd ever known. There was a lot of anticipation leading up to the moment, finally being together with someone you'd fantasied about for years. They'd barely taken off their clothes when they'd laid together. In Will's case, his years of yearning were longer, and well, the moment the two were joined it seemed to be over. Without much experience to draw from, Elizabeth had thought that was it: that was marital bliss. And yet, she'd just stood in the Captain's room for near thirty minutes before he was spent. Think of all the possibilities one could accomplish in thirty minutes… She swallowed bitterly against her thirst. There was so much more that Jack knew in that area, so much expertise he'd had- and she was jealous! She hated to admit it, but she was damned jealous of the multiple positively satisfying encounters Captain Jack Sparrow had certainly encountered in his relatively short life. And she'd only had one sweet, yet positively disappointing coupling. And he just had to go and flaunt it in front of her again. Stupid pirate! I bet you were sure to encounter some horrible diseases too! The ache in her heart spat. But his member, it was so smooth, so rigidly healthy and unmarred. It was no wonder the women wouldn't turn him down. But she would. Jack could fuck every woman in the world for all she cared. She refused to be a part of his never ending, dispassionate conquest.
"Missus Turner," Jack looked Elizabeth up and down as the two met at the gangplank.
"Captain," she eyed him warily, straightening her posture.
"Those two have a fight 'er something?" Ragetti leaned towards Pintel, who shrugged in indifference.
"Don't know, don't care. I'm getting off this boat," the man walked straight towards the two standing in his way.
"Hey, wait for me!" Ragetti hollered as his enthusiasm knocked the woman into the Captain's arms. Jack caught her readily.
Elizabeth could feel his biceps, taut beneath his jacket at her weight. Her hands explored them as she looked up at him with a slow curiosity. At the sight of his cocky half-grin, she pressed herself from him swiftly. Her flushed face gave a, "Hmph!" as she walked down the gangplank ahead of him.
"What's she so miffed over?" Joshamee questioned the wistfully glancing Captain.
"What does anyone who's got everything they ever wanted have to be miffed over?" Jack spoke as he watched Elizabeth's confident strides on the dock.
"That'd be something they didn't get, Sir." Joshamee looked on with him.
Jack turned back to his first mate, "Can't be, Mister Gibbs. She's gotten everything."
"Then, mayhap, the lady is disappointed with something she already has?"
"Ah," Jack looked back towards the shore. "Now there's something I've heard tell of before." So that's why she was using him. She hadn't been satisfied by the whelp. If that was so, then why in the seven seas was she on her way back to him now? …No matter. It wasn't his job to pick up the pieces. He was on a new isle full of women and rum and he planned to explore them all with the coin he had stashed on his ship. Not one of them would be named Elizabeth.
Elizabeth ran her fingers over the white linen hanging from a makeshift stall in the harbor town. She was in desperate need of all manners of clothing. As she looked at the clean fabrics she debated whether or not to throw her borrowed pants overboard.
"Try anything you like, love," Jack intoned.
"I planned to-" Elizabeth spoke as she raised her head to see a buxom, olive-skinned woman hanging from Jack's arm. She had to close her mouth as quickly as it opened. Well, he's awfully fast to recover. She was suddenly glad for not going any farther than spectating. It would crush something inside of her to be another card in Jack's deck. This was the thing she kept telling herself when those feelings would bubble up inside of her on deserted isles and empty decks.
The woman squealed as she rummaged the clothes in delight. Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she approached her Captain. "Nice work, Jack. I'd say she'll be in the palm of your hand by tonight." She looked up at him, her chin tilted, "And I've seen how hard those hands can work."
"Trust me when I say, Missus Turner," he smiled down at her, "you've not seen all my hands can do. Maybe I'll show Joanne, here." Jack watched as Elizabeth's eyes squinted and her mouth turned into a thin line.
"You're deluded," she pushed past him. "I need a drink."
He caught her arm, "Careful now, darling, I've seen what a bottle of rum can do. Not that I mind the view."
She tugged her sleeve out of his grasp. "Maybe I'll show someone else as well, then," she snapped.
All of Jack's cockiness disappeared from his face, "You wouldn't…"
"I think I would."
"It's too dangerous."
"What's it to you if you have Joan, or whatever her name is."
"What's it to you if you have Will?"
Her jaw dropped open and she stared. Just stared, until her eyes glossed over. The look was enough to nearly force an apology from Jack. Though he bit his tongue for his words were true. "I don't have him, now, do I?"
A lump grew in Jack's throat, "Elizabeth…"
"No!" she growled quietly, "Go fuck your whore, and I'll go do whatever it is I want because you're not my husband, now, are you?"
"…No," Jack gazed at her sad, brown eyes.
At that admission, she turned and sped off.
"Elizabeth!" He called, chasing after her, "What's the matter with you?"
A tear escaped her eye, which she angrily swatted away.
"We will find William, I promise you. We're here in this town gathering a crew to do just that. I'm doing this for you!"
"I don't know if I want to find him!" She turned to Jack, tension radiating from her body as more tears fell from her cheeks. After that outburst she took a deep breath, hoping to swallow all of the words she'd just said.
"What?" Jack's brow furrowed.
"I don't know if I want to find him." She chewed her lip, "I've been thinking about what you've said, Jack, and I don't want to be cooped up in that house again. I don't want to be the mother to his kids. I still love him, as a person I will always love him. But, how," the tears were falling freely now as she took another swipe with her sleeve, "how can you be passionately in love with someone you haven't seen in five years? I'm a different person now. God only knows what Will is like, he could be another Davy Jones for all I know!"
Jack shivered at the thought.
"Oh, who am I kidding?" She took a seat on the dune of a sandy shore. "We've been different people all along. Our perspectives were getting more and more distant as our adventures grew. He was after his father, he got what he wanted. And what- what was I after?"
"Freedom," Jack supplied as he took a seat beside her.
She looked up at him from her red-rimmed eyes. "…How do you know that?"
"Elizabeth," he sighed, "you may not have been very honest with me when we were stranded, but I was honest with you." His eyes met hers as he brushed her drying tears with his thumb, "The Black Pearl is my freedom. The horizon is my freedom. That's why I fought with everything in my power to keep it."
Elizabeth spoke slowly, "Then, what's my freedom?"
"That, as they say, you are free to decide."
The two stared out onto the horizon, watching the sunset as they listened to the waves lap against the rocks. "I think I have to find it Jack. I think that once I find it, I can face Will again. But it won't be as my husband. Things have gone too far to go back to that."
The two looked out at the clouds, now purpling in the sky. "Well," Jack spoke after some time, "The vows do say 'until death.' Nothing about the undead in there. I've looked."
Elizabeth laughed through her nose, "Why, did you marry a zombie?"
"Never once married." Jack tapped his chin, "Almost forced into several marri-ages."
Elizabeth gasped, "Children out of wedlock?"
"What! No." He shook his head, "No, no. no. You can trust there ain't another Sparrow out there." The sun had now completely set and the air was growing cool. Jack stood and brushed the sand off, offering his hand, "Why do you ask, Miss Swann?"
She flushed at the use of her maiden name. That was who she felt like, who she was. "Because I shouldn't want to meet another Sparrow," she smiled as he pulled her up, "the one in front of me is enough as it is."
"You know you love me, Lizzie," he joked, but the smile was quick to fade from his face.
"You wish," she teased as she headed for the bar.
And somewhere deep inside the jaded heart of Captain Jack Sparrow, he admittedly did.