A/N: Thanks to the thoughtful reviews for the last chapter, everyone! I really appreciate it. And now, I post a chapter that was very fun for me to write, and hopefully fun for you to read!

Chapter 9 – Beckett. Shirtless.

Warnings: see title, matey

After Elizabeth thanked Beckett, he stood up and proceeded to move away from the bed, immediately feeling strange for having gotten so physically close to her with her in such a state. He turned and walked towards the door, oddly unable to look back at her.

"How has your shoulder healed up?" she asked him, recalling his gunshot wound he acquired from a newly recruited pirate from the Merry Murder. The past month and a half during their trip to Greenland, and the month they had spent off the coast of Greenland, Beckett and Elizabeth had never spoken at length enough for her to ask him.

He froze in place, reaching his right hand behind him to touch the spot where he had bunched up a lump of the cleanest clothing he could find over the still-mending flesh wound.

"It's healing," he said.

"Shouldn't it be healed completely by now?" she responded.

"I don't know. It still itches a bit, but that's all."

"It looks puffy," she replied, noticing a hump on that side of his back as he retreated. The fact that he wasn't wearing his frockcoat made the hump more obvious. She had seen the unevenness of his shoulders before, but simply attributed it to poor posture or whatnot.

"Well, that's not due to swelling; I put some dressings there," he said, feeling uncomfortable.

"It doesn't look like you did it very neatly. Let me see it."

He stayed facing the door, rendered immobile, shock and disbelief written all over his face. She was actually asking to help him?

"Come on, Beckett. It's the least I can do for you bringing in something to help me. I can put the bandages on better than that."

"They aren't bandages," he said, refusing to face her.

"Then what is that puffiness there?"

"Clothing. I could not find a single bandage aboard this bloody ship," he replied bitterly.

"Well, you should have asked me. I happen to have a couple under my bed, for when you had the wounds from the…." Her voice trailed off, as she remembered the flogging that would occur later on that day. She wouldn't be able to go through with it, but she also couldn't let Beckett be thrown off the ship.

"I should leave, before someone sees me," he said, realizing that he was avoiding allowing her to change her mind about the later flogging. But that was his original purpose coming down here, he had decided in hindsight.

"Please let me fix the dressings," she said.

He wanted so badly to say what was the use; his back would be destroyed later that day, but resisted the urge. Instead he sighed, hearing the bed creak behind him.

"Please, Beckett." Elizabeth had fixed her nightgown as he faced away, and was prepared to examine the gunshot wound. It would be terrible having to go through caring for an unconscious and starving Beckett again.

His eyes downcast, he turned around, looking up briefly to see Elizabeth's face by the glow of the candlelight. Begrudgingly he started to walk back over to the bed.

"Here," she said, patting the bed beside her. "Sit here."

"Really," he replied blandly. "This is not needed by any means. I am managing just fine."

She patted the mattress again, flashing him a warm smile.

"I promise I won't hurt you," she said.

His face lit up with amusement.

"Oh? So you're not going to pour rum all over the wound?" he ventured to ask. She looked embarrassed. He sighed quietly, turned around, and sat down on the indicated spot, facing away from her.

"Let me see it," she said quietly but insistently.

He stood back up, hearing her moving behind him.

"Come on, you proper gentleman," she said in a gently mocking tone. "I won't tell anyone of this most scandalous event."

He was suddenly reminded of her. She had treated his wounds as well, but she most certainly did not beg to treat them. Instead, he had to call on her directly, for that meddling doctor always had salve and bandages on his person for the wounded Royal Navy men. He wanted her to touch him, to rub the salve on his sutures, to gently pat the bandage down onto the sutures sewing up the sensitive skin of this thigh….

Beckett sighed again and sank back down onto the mattress. He felt Elizabeth messing with the fabric at the bottom of the shirt and knew what was coming. She wanted him to lift his shirt. The fact that she wanted to help him made him want to acquiesce to her wishes. Mayhap she can make it less itchy, or make me look less like a bloody hunchback.

Before she even had to ask, which she was prepared to do, Beckett lifted his shirt, even removing his arms from the baggy sleeves, until the fabric was only attached to him via the collar. He allowed for the shirt to hang down the front of him, exposing the poorly positioned dressings as well as his bare back, to Elizabeth, as she sat behind him on the bed.

She watched on in great interest. There was definitely a good deal of trust in this relationship—friendship? How did he know that she didn't have a dagger waiting to be stabbed into his bare back? He didn't know for sure, and so it could definitely be said that he trusted her. And yet, she trusted him as well, having eaten something he had insisted on without her even knowing exactly what it was.

He had certainly done a poor job of applying the clothing to the wound. Elizabeth leaned forward in bed, peeling the layers of clothing off the wound, one by one. Eventually the wound was bare. She shifted in the bed behind Beckett, rousing his curiosity.

"What does it look like?" he asked, trying to peer behind him to no avail.

She glanced at the wound, which had been stitched rather crudely with some sort of stiff black thread, a brownish crust lining the trail of sutures. The area around the sutures was pink and slightly inflamed-looking, but there was no foaminess or yellow colour indicative of infection. It looked as if the skin around the sutures had healed and that now the sutures were only impeding the complete healing of the wound, and thus, needed to be removed.

"It's healing up rather well," she said, unsure of exactly how a nicely-healing gunshot wound was supposed to like. "They sewed the wound up," she added, wondering if he knew this.

"Ah, yes," he drawled dryly. "I remember being utterly confused when the medic told me they intended to repair the wound, being as I was certain to be executed within the week. He insisted anyway. Before he began, he had me drink several bottles of some sort of alcohol. I remember not feeling well at all the next day, but I don't recall the actual sewing of the wound."

"You were probably unconscious, then," she said, shifting to the other side of the bed to reach underneath for appropriate wound dressings.

"Most likely, yes," he replied, turning slowly to see what all the bustle was about. "What are you doing?"

"Fetching you better dressings," she said, pulling out gauzy strips of white cloth. She also had a sort of adhesive in her possession.

After acquiring all that she needed, she shifted back over in the bed so that she was once again behind him.

She couldn't help but look at him as he sat in front of her, for what would be several minutes, and then he'd be clothed again and leaving her cabin. Beckett was rather slender, more so than his bulky layers of clothing would allow to be seen. His back was free of all tattoos and hair, but several faded scars remained from the flogging she had given him, several purplish gray worm-like lines cut across the perfect skin, one scar in particular an ugly purplish line snaking under his armpit. She immediately felt guilty for having been responsible for marring previously perfect skin.

Elizabeth couldn't see Beckett's bare chest and abdomen, or else she would have observed a decent amount of wavy, light-colored chest hair and good musculature throughout his entire upper body. There was a large and rather smooth scar across his abdomen indicative of the sweeping motion of a sword, but this had been acquired years ago and had healed thoroughly, save for the visual reminder he'd had to live with ever since. Hidden beneath his breeches had been a gaping wound on the front of his thigh, one that had needed to be sutured together, and had been done very well. Although it wasn't exceptionally noticeable now, a slightly wavy line with angry gray borders, he still bore a physical reminder of why he and his crew had had to seek treatment in the Azores.

Suddenly Beckett felt a timid tap on his shoulder.

"What?" he said, turning his head slightly to give her a sidelong glance.

"I think that the sutures need to be removed before your wound will heal any better," she replied quietly.

"Are you saying that the sutures are still there?" he replied, his voice louder than usual. "No wonder the bloody thing itches so much!"

"Yes, they are still here."

"Damn. They need to be removed, or else the wound is never going to heal."

A very awkward pause followed, in which neither Elizabeth nor Beckett spoke or moved. Suddenly Elizabeth shifted behind Beckett, startling him to speak.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, a bit troubled.

"Looking for something to remove the sutures with."

He turned around so that she now could see a side view of his upper body.

"That's not your job," he said, unable to look her in the eye. Her willingness to help was… unnerving.

"Well, then, how is it ever going to heal?"

He suddenly recalled something.

"I'll have the sutures removed when we visit that doctor in the Azores," he replied, his face stoic.

"Alright." She sounded convinced. "Well, for now I'll put a better covering on it, until it is looked at by the doctor. Turn back around."

He didn't move, looking totally lost in thought.

Without thinking, she touched his side, several inches under his arm, yet still over his ribs, in order to get him to return to his original position.

He pulled away immediately from the light touch, revealing his teeth in an unexpected smile and short sneeze-like bout of laughter. She was intrigued.

"What was that all about?" she said, the tone of her voice more than friendly.

He closed his mouth, yet a ghost of a smile still remained.

"That tickled," he replied, feeling vulnerable and yet, strangely not paranoid as he supposed he should be.

Oh, if only she would have touched me in this way… But, bygones be bygones; Elizabeth is now doing so.

She reached out again teasingly, and he flinched away, again flashing the rare toothy smile she had just had the opportunity to see.

"You really don't smile enough; you know that?" she said to him.

"Well, what exactly have I got to smile about?" he replied, his impromptu grin fading rapidly.

No, he can't be resorting back to his stuffy arrogance again, she mused, disappointed. She'd keep his entertaining self around for a bit longer.

"I can think of at least one thing," Elizabeth said, holding up one finger.

"And what would that be?"

Really though, what can she possibly say? I'm a wanted man; I have no friends, no family, no allies, and my reputation is forever destroyed…. I am stuck on a stinking pirate ship with people who hate me—and who I hate in turn, of course… And, on top of that, I have this itchy crater in my shoulder that will never heal!

"This," she said, a matter-of-fact smile on her face. He glanced at her very briefly, a look of confusion on his face, not seeing that her hand was now nearer to him.

His reverie had cost him dearly. Suddenly Elizabeth's finger was tickling the skin under his arms, wriggling across his ribs like some sort of hyperactive worm. He nearly doubled over in a fit of rather embarrassing giggles, his full toothy smile making a reappearance.

He tensed his arms against his sides as he leaned forward, burying his face in his hands as he tried to stifle his laughter.

"See? That was easy enough, eh?" he heard her say.

All of a sudden, he turned and caught her hands as she went to tickle him again. They both sat there for a few seconds, him panting from all the giggling as he eyed her warily, trying to regain his composure, her reddened face smiling at him. Both of their hands were intertwined, although he was at an angle to her. Simultaneously they looked at their hand-hand contact, Elizabeth's gaze drifting to the now visible scar on his abdomen. He saw that she was glancing downwards and felt an odd turning of his stomach. Suddenly she looked up at him and their eyes met, hands remaining intertwined.

This little game was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Barbossa at her now slightly opened cabin door, the expression on his face more frightening then when his previously cursed body was exposed to moonlight.