Chapter Edited 10-16-08
Many, many thanks to reviewers willabeth0906, Nicole Kazan, Calenlass Greenleaf1, lady angst, AKA Parfait, lynxlan, WillsElizabeth23, master of time, Smithy, shewhoshallwrite, Telcontar Rulz, and Lauren! You passed 100 reviews! Thank you, thank you!!
And thanks also to all of you who are reading this! You've given this story over 100 hits for every chapter so far!!
Apologizes to all my anonymous reviewers last chapter! I completely spaced your replies! Hopefully this longer chapter will make up for it!
AKA Parfait: I think several people want to slap Elizabeth right now. :) Yay!! Excitement is good, very good! Thanks very much for the review!
WillsElizabeth23: :) Their unconventional reunion was actually one of the mental images that sparked this entire story. I know...bad cliffie. But I couldn't help it! You've been wonderful to wait a whole week and I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations! Thanks for the review!
master of time: Thanks for the review! Emotions are indeed running high, but we get a few calm spurts before another storm. You didn't expect me to let them off easy, did you? :)
Smithy: Thanks for the review! I'm a firm Willabether so no matter how terrible things get...at the end of the day they'll be back together again. :)
Lauren: Wow! I'm so glad you are enjoying it so much! Updates are on Thursdays and I try to get them up as promptly as possible. Thanks for the review!
A/N: "Amarantine" (also spelled "Amaranthine") is derived from the Greek "amaranthose" and means "unfading".
Chapter 22: Amarantine
You know when you give your love away
It opens your heart, everything is new
And you know time will always find a way
To let your heart believe it's true
You know love is everything you say
A whisper, a word, promises you give
You feel it in the heartbeat of the day
You know this is the way love is
Amarantine
Amarantine
Amarantine
Love is, love is, love...
You know love may sometimes make you cry
So let the tears go, they will flow away
For you know love will always let you fly
How far a heart can fly away
Amarantine
By Enya
Elizabeth couldn't formulate the terms quickly enough. Here Will lay, before her, in excruciating pain she had inflicted, her beloved who had never wavered in his devotion.
Her shoulders shook with the ease of burden, and as she wept the tears bathed away all the hate, all the mistrust, all the worrying, soothing it with a balm of love.
True, unfading, deep love.
Love that encompassed the moment and brought her to her knees at his side. Kisses flew liberally from her lips on each abrasion she could see, the scrape on his cheekbone, the bruise on his chin, the swollen mark near his hair line, the battered state of his hands.
Though her patter of tear-stained kisses, the warm brown fingers closed around hers, easing her closer, "Elizabeth,"
"Will," Elizabeth let her shuddering self lean against him and savored the embrace she had longed for so long.
One hand shifted and a finger stilled her lips, blabbering apologies, "I love you." He whispered.
"And I, you."
For many minutes they lay there, sharing quiet words, gentle touches, relishing the other's presence, and enjoying preciousness of the moment itself.
Will's shoulders were leaning against the stone wall, Elizabeth's head nestled against his chest, her large belly curled against his side. He would have liked to stay that way for eternity but his back was screaming in pain and the protestations were getting harder to ignore. Not only that, but the sounds of battle drew closer at each turn.
"Elizabeth?" he resisted the press to wince and struggled to keep his voice steady. "I need you to do something."
"Of course."
"Duck."
"Wh-" she began to say but his strong arm came down across her back and gently but firmly pushed her over his lap. There was a crack of a gun and the weight of his arm vanished, allowing her to sit back up.
"Will?" she questioned softly, peering around them.
Her husband held her forgotten pistol, wisps of smoke curling up from the barrel. The entire picture made not even a fraction of sense until she turned the opposite direction to see a soldier, slumped forward, dead by a gunshot wound.
When she faced Will again, she was shocked to see his eyes closed, the dark fringe of his eyelashes virulent against the pale, bruised flesh of his cheeks. The rain had washed away any dirt that might have been there but that didn't stop Elizabeth from wondering when the last he slept in a real bed was.
She noticed, also, how gaunt and hollow his face appeared, and the thought of how often he had eaten pricked at her mind. "Will?" she began, unable to stifle the way her voice trembled. Her blow had been strong but not that strong. She knew the power within his arms. After all, she had learned her skill in his shop each day for a year, each class one hour long. She knew his style, his prowess, and strength. A short bout like the one they had fought would not have brought him to this state.
The only answer was that he had attained some hurt before encountering her…but what? He was not hurt beyond the point of healing…wasn't he? "Will," the timbre of her voice tightened.
The eyelids fluttered and the deep brown orbs stared back at her, bleary but alert. A brief smile fluttered across his face before he shifted, preparing to stand.
The actual action itself was more difficult than he thought it would be. He managed to straighten completely before letting his weight come to rest against the wall, noting Elizabeth's curious and worried stare following him.
"Will?" she stepped forward, one slender hand coming to rest on his arm, "You are in pain!" she declared a moment later, upon scrutinizing him.
"It's nothing." He tried to wave her concern off. It would do them no good now.
"You can barely stand, William Turner. It is too something." Her words were firm and her gentle grasp on his forearm had tightened stubbornly.
"Elizabeth, there is nothing to be done for it at this moment, therefore I would not have you fret. A more pressing matter would be the battle that is rapidly approaching us."
"I will let you have your way this time. But, remember this, William Turner, you will show me those wounds when this business is concluded."
"Very well," Will relented, knowing he would never talk her out of it. Once Elizabeth Turner made up her mind there was no changing it.
Lifting her blade and handing Will his, they began the lengthy process of picking a street to traverse as remembering which street the Wood's girls choose was nigh to impossible. One wrong choice could end up costing them their lives and that was not a choice they would accept.
Jack stooped as Gibbs fired his pistol and resumed his sauntering march even before the first mate could see if his shot had hit its mark.
"Excellent aim, Mr. Gibbs." He drawled lazily, never glancing towards the fallen man. "Now, we'll be getting ourselves off this bloody island. I'm feeling a bit crowded."
"But Cap'n, didn' ya hear Jones?"
"I did, but I thinkin' now that when pirates gather together I'm pointin' me ship the other way."
"But Cap'n-"
"Mate, there is a time and a place for all that fightin' heroism claptrap…'owever, why fight when one could negotiate?"
"Cap'n, we have naught to be negotiating' with…"
The gypsy-like man leaned in, as if he was to impart some treasured secret. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?"
Hawthorne grinned madly as another house was swallowed in a cloud of smoke and flame. Redcoats dotted the narrow dizzying streets and swarmed through the rickety establishment like locusts over a ripe wheat field, leaving nothing but devastation.
Pirates fell as easily as flies to a zealous house maid, annihilated with the switch of firepower he flourished. The cobblestones were littered the bodies of dead scallywags, many with a pipe and weed still in their mouths.
To others it might have been a shocking, even gruesome sight, but to him it was the essence of success. It was the matter that made promotions. The very blood that stained the gray stones would feed his parched appetite for power.
Now all that mattered was to rid himself of Sparrow and Turner.
Will's strength was almost entirely gone. There were simply too many demands on his worn body. Slumping to his knees once more he pressed his eyes closed and turned his full attention on getting his breathing down from its current state of ragged gasps.
"Will?" Elizabeth's voice sounded faraway, so faraway…
For several terrible moments, he thought his reunion with Elizabeth had all been a wonderful dream from which he was about to wake. Some beautiful and terrible ghoul sent to torment him.
Her smooth palms cupping his face brought him to reality. "Will, come on, just a bit farther, that's all. Just a few more steps and we'll be safe."
It was for her sake that he nodded numbly but deep in his heart he knew better. While they were in Alabanza Vacía they would never be safe no matter how far they ran or how well they hid. This was a place that reeked of death and destruction. It was as inescapable as Jack keeping from discovering rum.
Gently pulling him to stand, she wrapped her arms round his waist, letting his weight rest almost entirely on her pregnant form.
"Elizabeth…no…" he rasped, feebly pushing at the aid she was giving him, "the baby…you can't…"
"Please, Will, just this once. We'll be fine."
"Elizabeth…"
"We'll be fine." Elizabeth assured him firmly, forcing out the quaver that threatened to spoil the comforting effect. Yet, she couldn't help thinking, would they be?
"Oi! You!"
The gunfire ceased as a queer man with tri-corn hat perched jauntily on a veritable mane of dreadlocks sauntered from the shelter waving a yellowish hanky.
"Where's the 'ead of this 'ere welcoming committee?" he asked, flashing them a rakish gold-toothed grin. "I've a need to speak with 'im."
Hawthorne felt oddly interested in what this obvious vagabond had to say. "I am!" he called out, moving from the lines of soldiers.
"Ah…you must be Hawthorne."
Hawthorne smiled smugly. So the vagabond knew his name. Excellent. "May I ask of how you know of me?"
"Mutual acquaintance."
That was not the answer he'd been expecting. "And what acquaintance could a ruffian as yourself share with my own?" he demanded, highly insulted by the 'slur'.
"William Turner."
Hawthorne didn't answer.
"The bloody whelp's hard to forget. 'e's annoying, bloody intolerable if you ask me, and stupidly honorable…'e's useful though when it comes to swordfightin'." the pirate paused, dark eyes sparkling with some unreadable emotion, "any o' this sounding familiar?"
"In fact, it is. He is the man responsible for this invasion."
The pirate laughed. "Will? Responsible for this? Mate, 'e's accident prone but not this bad."
"Believe it or not. He is the one who led us here." Hawthorne knew he was stretching the truth more than just a little but what did it matter? This was a pirate and didn't their 'code' speak of each man for himself?
"Oh, did 'e?" The pirate didn't even sniff at the bait laid tauntingly before him. "I must be rubbin' off on 'im." He grinned at Hawthorne brightly.
"You came here to negotiate, vagabond."
"Ah, so I did." The scoundrel dusted off his hands and then began to thrown them about as he spoke. "You can sit here all day and blast the bajeezes out of me mates. But what good's that gonna due you…really. We're a bloody slippery lot, lemme tell you. In the end, you're just gonna end up using a whole slew of gunpowder and cannon what-not. Why not just tell me what it is that you want, stop blowing 'oles in this lovely town, and then I'll get whatever it is you want…for you, aye?"
"Why would I trust you? I don't even know your name?"
"Names, I find, are rather superfluous actually, I mean think about it. I didn't name meself, and you didn't name yourself. Therefore it's your parents who named you and me parents who named me. And they hadn't even known you or me for more than a few hours, savvy? How's we to know if they…really knew what we should be named?"
Hawthorne felt strangely amused by this pirate's eccentric charisma.
"As for the trustin' part…I'm a pirate, I'm always dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you need to watch out for."
"And why is that?"
"Because you never know when they're gonna decide to up and be dishonest."
"Indeed?"
"As sure as Fanny's your aunt."
"I cannot help but wonder why you are so obliging?"
"That…is a very good question…let's just say that I coincide with the highest bidder."
"And I am the highest bidder?"
"Whadda you think?"
"Very well. You bring me Sparrow and Turner, and I shall pull my troops back, agreed?"
"Agreed."
The little shelter was only a few yards away.
It was fascinating how such a short amount of ground could seem so impossibly far away.
Elizabeth tightened her grip around Will's waist and took a few stumbling steps. "Almost there." she panted, mostly to talk herself into traversing the distance.
A steep dip in the ground sent her forward faster than she'd originally estimated. Will's body jerked at the motion and a sharp intake of breath followed only an instant later.
"'lizbe'h,"
"You're going to be alright, Will. Stay with me."
"Bu' 'lizbe'h…"
"Just relax."
A faltering step led them into a stone stairwell leading to a little cellar. Elizabeth could not have been more relieved to let Will sink to the straw covered floor and sag down next to him.
"See? We made it." She took his face gently in the center of her palms. Her deepest fear was that he would fall into a sleep that he might never wake from.
Will seemed to gulp at the air but sent her a quick, half-grin.
His eyelids began to droop and she panicked. "No! Will! Stay with me!"
"So tired, 'lizbe'h…so tired."
"Will, no! You mustn't sleep! Not now!" She patted his cold cheek lightly but Will's eyelids continued their descent.
"The baby, Will! Think of the baby!"
That did it. His eyes slowly lifted and he stared back at her. The gaze was bleary and filled with exhaustion but he was awake.
Resting more fully against the wall behind them, Elizabeth allowed herself to slowly ease the tension in her muscles.
Jack was out there somewhere with the Pearl and her crew. The only problem was how to get to them. Alabanza Vacia was massive and not the least bit helpful when it came to directions.
She had tried to remember which way the old tavern was but it would have been easier to turn the whole city upside down. Everything from Cotton's death seemed a blur in her memory and nothing wanted to be put to rights.
Pressing a hand to her aching head, she tried once more to pick out where exactly the tavern had been…
TBC...