The next morning, after he woke on the sand at dawn, Jack cracked open a coconut for himself, drank its water, and ate its meat. Then he walked around the island, which wasn't very large, until he reached the other side. He intended on sitting for hours and staring at the sea on the off chance that a ship went sailing by. He finally reached the far shore of the island, and when he did, he saw something quite large out in the reef.

A barracuda.

Jack pulled out his cutlass and wandered close to the edge of the water, watching the barracuda dart back and forth in pursuit of its fishy prey. Jack stepped out into the water, careful not to startle the barracuda. He couldn't miss. If he missed, the four-foot-long fish would attack him and likely wound his legs badly. But if he managed to kill this fish, and smoke its meat, he and Elizabeth would have food for two weeks. He gulped and approached the area where the barracuda was darting about. It seemed to catch his scent, and he murmured,

"Here you go, 'cuda. Come here, lovely. Swim right this way, then."

The barracuda slowed down and began to swim in Jack's direction. He shut his eyes for a split second, steadied himself, and then brought his cutlass straight down.

Blood.

The fish flailed on the end of his cutlass; he'd gone straight through it behind its head. It didn't struggle for long. Soon enough, it was dead, leaving behind a massive eking puddle of blood spreading like ink in the seawater.

"Now to carry this damned thing back to camp," Jack lamented. He yanked his bloody cutlass out of the barracuda's corpse and realised he needed to hurry. All this blood would attract a bigger predator - sharks - and he had no interest in meeting up with them.

He hoisted the dripping barracuda carcass out of the water and heaved it around both of his shoulders. He struggled to make his way out of the water with its weight on him, and as he staggered back toward the camp he and Elizabeth had made, he began to wheeze just a little.

She was awake, he could see, and was building up the fire that had burned down to embers overnight. Good girl, he thought, not letting their fire burn out. She would save him the trouble and energy of having to light a new one by burning dried fronds.

"Jack!" she called, shading her eyes and watching him approach. "What is that thing?"

"Barracuda," he huffed as he approached. "Big fish."

"Yes, I can see that it's a very big fish," she chuckled. "My goodness. How on Earth did you catch it?"

"Stabbed it through its neck. Easy peasy," Jack japed. He walked over to the boulder where she'd cleaned up their little red snapper, and he heaved down the giant barracuda. "Getting this ready will take a fair bit of work."

"I'm up for a fair bit of work," she assured him. "Do we fillet it, or…?"

He eyed her curiously. "You know how to fillet a barracuda?"

She rolled her eyes. "I told you; I always worked with Cook in our house. I know more than you think I do, Jack."

"Right. Fillet away." He flicked his fingers at his forehead as if to tip his hat to her, and he turned to the fire to begin constructing a roasting spit for the barracuda meat.

"Jack?" asked Elizabeth cautiously. "Not that I'm not grateful for you catching this, but Cook told me once that barracuda meat can make you terribly ill. That it can make you retch and worse, that it can make you shake and feel cold and feverish all at once. It's some kind of poisoning."

"Only happens very rarely with barracuda," Jack assured her, "and it isn't as though we have our pick of food on this island, lass. That poisoning you speak of can happen with any reef fish; just gets a little more likely as you clamour up the food chain. But as for me? I'll be eating this here barracuda, because I'm hungry. And if I quiver and catch the runs for it, well? It's a price I'll pay."

Elizabeth looked awfully uneasy, but she stared at the large fish Jack had brought back and sighed heavily.

"I'm all in on this, I suppose," she mumbled, and she began to use Jack's dagger to scrape the scales off the barracuda carcass.

She did a fine job of creating thin fillets, and Jack drove a spike through them before placing them high above the flames to smoke. This would preserve the fish meat so that they would have enough to eat for quite some time.

"And now," Jack said rather triumphantly as the fish smoked, "We make baskets to store it all. And for catching water; if you weave them tightly enough; they're waterproof."

"Basket-weaving?" Elizabeth raised her brows, looking baffled. She followed Jack to the tree line, where he grabbed a few branches of supple leaves. She demanded of him, "What don't you know how to do?"

"I learnt this particular skill from some very kind island women in the Bahamas," Jack said simply, remembering the old ladies who had taught him as a teenager how to weave baskets out of palms. "Now, take a seat."

Elizabeth sat, and he wondered whether she was going to bring up the fact that he'd kissed her. She didn't seem to want to discuss it. She was patient as he showed her how to strip the branches just so, how to slip a leaf through and weave it back and forth, then repeat that process with another one. She was clumsy at first, but quickly caught on. Jack's creation was tight and competent… hers would be used for the fish. Still, when she'd finished her basket, she held it up with all the joy of a child and giggled,

"Look what I've made!"

"Indeed. You're a fair weaver; you've got quite the career ahead of you should wife of a Commodore not pan out as hoped," Jack said, and suddenly Elizabeth's face fell a little. She lowered her basket and gave him a sad little smile.

"Wife of a Commodore," she repeated, and Jack tipped his head as he fingered the edge of his own basket.

"Follow the command of that thing beating in your chest, love." He stared at her, and she pinched her lips into a line as her hair blew across her face in the breeze. Her eyes watered heavily, and she said in a thick voice,

"I'm not sure what I want anymore."

"Hmm." Jack pushed himself up to stand. "I want fish."

They didn't get sick from the barracuda. Not even eight hours later, when they were reclining in the afternoon sun on the sand with coconuts in their hands, did they feel unwell. Elizabeth seemed much more at ease knowing that the fish wasn't going to poison them. She finished off the last of her coconut meat, and Jack carried her shell and his and and tossed them onto the fire for fuel. He came walking back to where she reclined, and he noted,

"More clouds on the horizon. There will be rain again this evening. I'll be sure to set my basket out to collect the water, eh?"

"Jack," said Elizabeth in a cautious tone, "You know you don't have to sit out in the rain, right?"

Jack smirked at her and asked,

"Is that your roundabout way of inviting me into the humble abode I've constructed for you, Miss Swann?"

"Perhaps it is," she nodded, biting her lip. Jack's smirk grew. He spent the next two hours preparing for the rain. He dragged the basket of dried barracuda meat under a coconut grove and covered the basket tightly with five layers of palm branches to shield the fish meat from the coming storm. He put out his tightly woven palm basket to collect water, and he sat and watched the dark grey clouds roll in. Finally it began to rain on him, and he made his way to Elizabeth's shelter. She was already inside, lying on her side, and as he took off his effects and lay them near Elizabeth's bare feet, he asked her,

"Are you entirely certain, my dear, that you want a blackguard such as myself sullying your lovely little cottage?"

"Come on in, Jack," said Elizabeth, and she patted the fronds beside her. He smirked a bit and bent down to climb into the shelter, realising just how very small it was in here. Couldn't he have built it any larger? Surely he could have done. He lay on his side facing Elizabeth, and suddenly the two of them were awfully close together. He stared into Elizabeth's honey-coloured eyes and was shocked when she reached up and pressed her fingers to the part of his chest that had been exposed by how he was lying. She touched at his gunshot wound scars and whispered,

"What happened to you?"

Jack sighed a little and said quietly,

"I wish I had a fantastical fairy tale for you, love. I could tell you that I was shot by the magical shot of a perilously armed mermaid who took a liking to me, or -"

"Jack, what happened to you?" Elizabeth asked again, staring up at him and rubbing at his flesh. That made him shiver, and at last he shrugged and told her,

"You know the story. Twenty-year-old first mate Jack Sparrow helped capture a ship meant for the Spanish King himself, with all its gold aboard. And when I did that, love, the crew of La Princesa Morada didn't take kindly to my presence. The truth is that I took two gunshots to the chest and spent nearly the entirety of the raid lying on my back on the deck of my own ship while my crew did the pillaging. But it was my name that got the glory, and I was lucky enough to heal thanks to a very competent ship's doctor."

"When was that?" asked Elizabeth, and he realised she was trying to figure out how old he was. She was so very young, and she wanted to know just how much older he was than her. Why did it matter? Norrington was at least fifteen years older, he reckoned. And, anyway, it wasn't as though Jack was some sort of romantic suitor for her. Still, he found himself informing her,

"Not quite twenty years ago, love."

She nodded a little as the rain began to fall harder outside. There was no thunder today, only rain, and Jack found himself huffing out a breath and declaring,

"I think I shall wait out this rain outside."

"What?" Elizabeth tightened her fingers on his chest. "Why? Why are you going?"

"Because," he whispered, "you're a bit too lovely to be lying so close, Elizabeth."

Her eyes flashed, and her full lips parted, and she murmured up at him,

"I liked that kiss. I didn't want it to stop."

"I could tell," he nodded. On instinct, he brought his hand to carefully cup her jaw, and he said softly, "I've told you my stories, love; give me one of yours."

"A… a story?" She sounded shaken as her eyes fluttered shut. "One time I snuck all the way down to the shore in the middle of the night, going through the town in a simple dress, just because I wanted to feel free."

"And did you feel free, standing there on the shore in the moonlight?" asked Jack, studying her beautiful face. He felt himself start to flush hard with want, and he edged his hips away from her. Elizabeth nodded and sighed,

"There is nothing better in all the world than to be free, I don't think."

Jack was silent at that. As soon as they were rescued, she'd marry James Norrington, and then she'd never be free again. And he'd likely hang and never be free again. This island was the last taste of freedom either of them would ever possess. They both knew it. Elizabeth opened her eyes and stared up at him, and she whispered,

"Hold me, Jack."

"Mmph." He pulled her close against him, knowing she'd feel his erection against her belly and wondering what she'd think of it. He got his answer when he felt her hands drift between them and start playing with the hardness in his breeches. He gulped and tipped his head back, whispering,

"No, Lizzie; if you do that, this'll turn into a great big mess in more ways than one."

"What do you mean?" She was wide-eyed as she gazed up at him, and he realised she had absolutely no idea how to do any of it, how any of it worked. He let out a long breath and guided her hand against his cock through the material of his breeches, whispering,

"Poseidon's wrath… that feels good, Elizabeth."

She smiled a bit, looking nervous. She looked something else, too. Pink-cheeked and panting… she was aroused. She wanted him.

She wanted him.

Jack yanked her hand off of his hard cock, and he shook his head desperately. He pulled her back inside the tiny shelter, and he could see her peaked nipples poking through the thin material of her underdress. Yes, she was aroused. He let out a shaking breath and mumbled,

"A ship could be on the horizon in the morning."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Elizabeth demanded, and Jack just shook his head again. He couldn't be the one to make a woman out of her. Not when she had one man, Will Turner, desperately in love with her, and another man intent on marrying her. She was more than spoken for. She was taken, thoroughly. She was not his in any way. So he slithered out of the shelter, and as he went, Elizabeth called after him,

"Jack, why are you going out into the rain?"

He gave no reply, deciding to trudge through the sheets of falling water to a grove of coconut palms. He leaned against the trunk of one and shut his eyes, trying to pretend he was at the helm of the Black Pearl. If he pretended hard enough, he thought, perhaps it would come true.

But when he opened his eyes again, he was just standing in the rain, stranded on a tiny island with a woman whom he desired very fiercely, a woman who wanted him back.

And then he felt like a fool for not letting her touch him, for not putting his hand up her skirt. He should have used his fingers on her, he thought, and brought her to ecstasy. He should have let her open his breeches and pull him out and rub his cock until he came all over her pretty little fingers. Why hadn't he done that?

He slammed his fists hard against the palm trunk behind him, and was rewarded with the thunk of a coconut falling straight onto his head. He collapsed, knocked out by the blow, and the last thing he thought before his face hit the sand was how very beautiful Elizabeth seemed whenever it rained.

Author's Note: 1) The poisoning Elizabeth was worried about is Ciguatera fish poisoning, a toxin-based poisoning that occurs in reef fish and is more common in larger, predatory fish. It wasn't named until the 1780s, but was known in the Caribbean at this time.

2) Poor Jack, running away from Elizabeth because she's engaged and has a man in love with her. He's so damned decent… for now. But I'm sure Elizabeth will get what she wants, no?

3) I'm changing the rating of this story from M to E on AO3 due to upcoming chapters. Make of that what you will. :}

4) Thanks for reading - REVIEWS ARE VALUED LIKE AZTEC GOLD!