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Disclaimer: POTC belogns to Disney
Elizabeth stared into her bowl. "Barbossa was angry when the curse didn't lift. He hit me, and then you came."
She knew he was considering her. "That gunshot," he finally said, "it hit the short pirate in the chest?"
She nodded. "Straight through the heart."
He grimly processed this. "And they didn't hurt you beyond that cut and Barbossa's blow?"
"No." She met his scrutinizing gaze firmly.
"Gibbs has to know about all this," he said. "I'll ask him, though he'll likely tell the same curse story that you did."
Elizabeth dipped her roll in the last of her stew, then quickly withdrew it and tapped it on the table.
"It's clean, Miss Swann; I checked for weevils before I brought it."
His eyes were crinkling at the corners. "Oh." Self-conscious, she dipped it back into her bowl. "Thank you."
She took a quick bite, and a fleeting glance upward showed he was watching her intensely. Oh. "Isn't Norrington looking for me?" she asked quickly. "How did you get here first?"
Will looked at her with a mixture of guilt, frustration, and dread. "The Commodore is out looking for you. So is your father. As for your second question…I hardly know."
In a quiet, halting voice, he told a story that made Elizabeth completely forget her stew. By the time he closed his tale, she was gripping her spoon in an effort to restrain herself because she wanted to hug him and she knew doing so would traumatize him. Oppositely, she was having a hard time not just staring into his sheepish eyes and letting her mind go blank to everything but their color…but this was highly improper, and his eyes were flicking everywhere except hers, so she stared at her poor spoon instead.
The medallion was heavy around her neck and getting heavier as guilt added its weight.
She hardly knew what to do.
"I made my way though the caves and arrived at the shore just when he knocked you down, and then, well, you know the rest." Will massaged his temple, and Elizabeth watched his fingers rub his skin. Her own fingertips tingled. Had he heard Barbossa demand the location of William Turner's son? He had to have…why didn't he say so? Elizabeth realized she didn't want him to and she couldn't make herself ask. So she made herself smile; it was easier. "Well," she cleared her throat; "I suppose we're even then, aren't we?"
"You saved me, I saved you," Will confirmed with his usual forthrightness.
It almost brought her to tears. She shook her head at him, and said, as earnestly as she could, "Thank you."
"Y-you're welcome." His tan and the dim light didn't quite hide his blush. He picked at the table. "And like I said, Norrington is doing everything he can, and I'm sure it's all legal. He was very worried." He tensed as if to stand.
"But Will," she said urgently, "it wasn't he who rescued me, was it? Can you imagine the way he'd do it, with troops storming the caves and getting lost and slaughtered by those monsters? In a way, you've saved Norrington's life; he never survive such a situation." He was giving her a disbelieving half-smile. She fidgeted with agitation. "And what you did, all those illegal things…you did to save my life! Legal or not, my father won't care. In fact, he'll be thanking you."
He absently ground his teeth. "It's not him I'm worried about."
"Norrington." A flick of his dark eyes and she knew she was right. She pursed her lips, acknowledging the merit for anxiety. She pulled the cup of water over and dipped the rag in. "I'll talk to him." She squeezed excess water from the rag and, braced herself, glanced up.
He was smiling mirthlessly at her determination. "He's not going to forget how we made him sail straight over his own lifeboat. I saw him glaring, Miss Swann."
I wish I had. Elizabeth banished the shameful thought by pressing the cloth to her hand. She kept her head down, holding her breath as agony lanced through her hand.
Will leaned forward as pain drained her face, then sat stiffly back and crossed his arms.
"He prizes his reputation, it's true. But if he doesn't recognize the bravery of what you did, he's a fool," Elizabeth said through gritted teeth. "Besides, he's probably going to be more angry with Jack, who's the more experienced and famous of the two of you."
"He will be angry with Jack," Will agreed flatly.
As he should be, Elizabeth thought. The cretin was going to trade Will for the Black Pearl.
She tossed the stained rag aside and breathed deeply. She kept her head down, and through the haze of pain she saw Will's foot an extremely safe distance from hers. His shoe was scuffed; one side had a jagged rip, and the buckle was nowhere to be seen.
Elizabeth tried to fathom what the lowly apprentice had given up for her and how it made her feel, all in two seconds. It only left her breathless and dismayed at the inconvenience her feelings were sure to cause in the future. But these weren't new feelings, she realized, they were just a stronger continuation of what she'd felt when he'd first opened his eyes on the Dauntless so many years ago…heaven help me, it's true.
She saw again that little smile he'd given her in the cave, and blushed. She cursed herself, not wanting to lift a beet-red face for Will to look at. Her thoughts then turned to Jack Sparrow and she cooled right down to a frigid anger. She lifted her head, saw Will look away, and grabbed the bandaging. It looked like it had been ripped off a shirt. I wonder…
She refused to let herself inspect his shirt for tears and started to wrap the strip around her hand. She glanced up. He was staring at his hands. She almost paused at the sight of him, but caught herself sternly and continued to wrap. Seconds later, she peeked again. He was still inspecting his hands, his eyelashes dark crescents over tan skin.
Think about Jack and all he did to Will!
"What sort of a man trades a man's life for a ship?" she demanded.
"Pirate," was his soft reply.
Her eyes sparked but she said nothing, resorting to angrily tending to her hand.
"Here." Hands–his hands, captured hers. "Let me."
Oh. He had to have a dozen calluses; they rasped on her skin, jolting every inch of her awake. She felt acutely dismayed as heat like she'd never felt before rushed to her face. "Thank you."
Her hands were so smooth. They went limp in his, just like Abbey's fluffy chicks did. He gently began to wrap the linen around, around, as carefully as if he were holding one of those innocently yellow baby birds. He looked at her; she was blushing fiercely. Pleased and needing to save her pride at the same time, he asked the question that had been burning holes in his mind. "You said you gave Barbossa my name as yours."
Her eyes came up, startled. He looked into them, singed by their perfection yet needing to understand what she hid inside them. "Why?"
She looked down. "I don't know," she mumbled. His stomach churned. She wasn't telling the truth. She didn't want to tell him something...
He carefully began to make a knot, frustrated. Now he wanted to know what she was hiding more than anything else. How could he pry the truth from her without being rude or hurting her feeling–
She gasped, yanking her hand back. His own breath caught; he'd tightened the knot too tightly. And hurt her. "Blacksmith's hands," he said to his lap. "I know they're rough."
Through the clamor of berating voices in his head he heard her murmur, "No. I mean yes, they are, but…"
Her hand relaxed, slender fingers resting in his palm; he could feel the warmth from her palm radiating against his own fingers. The floor seemed to drop out from under him. Elizabeth Swann, toast of Port Royal, daughter of the governor was, despite his blunder, letting him hold her bare hand, perfectly complacent…trusting. He stopped breathing altogether when he felt his spirit rise terrifically into the rays of her trust, transforming him into a new being…
A man?
He felt every juvenile binding give way to the power of this new creature in his chest, the person he longed to be, and he wanted to build himself as a castle around her, so she would never have to be afraid again. Instead, he reverently enclosed her precious hand in the safe shelter of his own. He brushed the back of her hand with his fingers as softly as he would the feathers of Abbey's little ones.
She didn't pull away; instead she whispered, "...But don't stop."
That brought his head up. She was looking at him with a mixture of gratitude and happiness that made her look both luminescent and ready to cry, and when he realized with a shock that her face was getting bigger, closer, he felt her name swell again on his tongue, sweeter than before, overwhelming. He slid his hand along her cheek, palm flaring briefly at the incredible softness of it, and, putting away the youth who never stepped outside the lines, he spoke her name to her, unable to keep it inside his lips as he leaned forward to meet her–
"Elizabeth."
She recoiled with a gasp. He tore his eyes from her lips, crushing the expectancy he'd felt. He glanced into her eyes–we can't, they said, echoing his own thoughts. He was a blacksmith. A hunted blacksmith. The knowledge smothered everything and he began to sit back without another thought, marveling at the devastation ripping his insides.
Her fingers went around his wrist, catching it as it retreated. She pulled it down to the chain that disappeared beneath her gown, where she let him go and pulled free something so familiar he forgot where he was.
The medallion's grin. He'd looked at it so many times, felt it against his skinny boy's chest, reassured by its presence. He'd actually been proud of it. He cupped it in his hand and its touch brought back a hundred feelings, smells, subconscious impressions.
"It's yours," she said sadly, and yanked the chain loose.
He withdrew, eyes fixed on the medallion in his palm. "I thought I'd lost it on the day they rescued me. It was a gift from my father; he sent it to me." He looked up. The guilt on her face was like a slap. "Why did you take it?"
"Because I was afraid that you were a pirate." Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. "That would've been awful."
Will had been punched in the stomach once, by a bully called Charles Thatcher. He was feeling the blow all over again, the world slamming backwards, as his mind raced to put everything together.
"It wasn't your blood they needed." He stared at the medallion. "It was my father's blood…my blood."
She didn't even look surprised. That hurt, but it couldn't compare to the pain of the next words that fell like stones from his mouth. "The blood of a pirate." He squeezed the medallion in his fist as if he could kill it.
"Will, I'm so sorry," Elizabeth cried softly. "Please forgive me."
A pirate. All the laws he'd broken and the personal standards he'd shattered had bothered him because he'd been proving Jack right. He had been 'well on his way' to being a pirate, and he'd hated it.
Hop, skip, surprise around the corner–he'd had the despised blood he running through his veins even as he hated everything it stood for.
He slammed the cursed gold to the table, unable to speak. He heard Elizabeth's gasping, and then the rustle of that awful-wonderful red dress as she fled. His eyes followed her out of sight and then he was alone with the medallion and his crushing thoughts.
"So. You expect to leave me standin' on some beach with nothin' but a name and your word it's the one I need, and watch you sail away in my ship?" Barbossa chortled, rugged face lit bleakly. The light wasn't the only bleak aspect of the situation; Jack Sparrow had given no quarter in this verbal battle of wit and thanks to him, Barbossa had manipulated himself more than once while under the impression he was manipulating Jack instead.
"No!" Jack exclaimed, seemingly surprised. "I expect to leave you standing on some beach with absolutely no name at all, watching me sail away on my ship." He stood. "And then I'll shout the name back to you." He leaned forward, supported by rigid arms. "Savvy?"
"That still leaves us with the problem of me standin' on some beach with naught but a name and your word it's the one I need," Barbossa said thoughtfully.
Jack considered the bowl of apples in the center of the table. "Of the two of us, I am the only one who hasn't committed mutiny," he plucked up three bright green apples, "therefore my word is the one we'll be trusting."
Barbossa had no response.
Jack two of the apples and sat back down. "Although, I suppose I should be thanking you because, in fact–" he heaved his booted feet onto the table "–if you hadn't betrayed me and left me to die, I would have an equal share in that curse, same as you." Jolly, he bit into his apple and grinned at Barbossa, eyes glinting. "Funny old world, isn't it?"
That was below the belt. All Barbossa could do was mentally call Jack offensive names and watch in agony as the pirate chewed. Jack noticed this. Eyebrows up, he innocently held the apple out.
The doors at Jack's back opened to admit the bosun. "Captain. We're coming up on the Interceptor."
Barbossa could not have asked for a better reprieve. The monkey was already leaping across the table, causing Jack to flinch back with a grimace of disappointment. The monkey led the way up to the quarterdeck; Barbossa followed. Jack leaned unsteadily over the railing and looked ahead.
There was the Interceptor, a smudge of white. In the seconds Jack gazed at it, he could see it grew significantly larger. Part of him swelled with pride. That's the Pearl for you. The Interceptor was a falcon, but his Pearl was a golden eagle, highly extensive wingspan, arrow-straight direction, and heartless talons included.
Barbossa snapped his grimy spyglass open and directed it ahead, filling his gaze with the Interceptor. She wasn't flying full canvas; her passengers hadn't noticed the Pearl, though it was only a matter of seconds till they did, but it would make no difference. It wouldn't have made a difference if they'd noticed earlier, either. Cold satisfaction cleared a space in his chest that slowly welled with delicious bloodlust. The filth would pay a price even they could not comprehend. Yet.
Jack's blurry mouth and nose filled the magnified circle. "I'm having a thought here, Barbossa."
Barbossa lowered his spyglass and glared.
"What say you we run up a flag of truce," Jack gestured, "I scurry over to the Interceptor, and I negotiate the return of your medallion. What d'you say to that?"
He could not stand the way the man flapped his hands about; it was practically obscene. "Now, y'see, Jack," he said, "that's exactly the attitude that lost you th'Pearl. People are easy t'search when they're dead." He snapped his spyglass together and spoke one of the most satisfying phrases in the world: "Lock him in the brig."
The huge bosun grabbed Jack's shoulder with a vengeance. Barbossa snatched Jack's apple as he was pulled away.
Barbossa's eyes burned at the white flesh of the bite mark; saw juice running down it, and he hurled it through a tattered sail and into the sea.
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