Will was right: it was the Pearl, high and dry and leaning crazily askew on the bottom of a dried-up lake. Elizabeth sprinted over the caked mud, wheezing, not looking back to see if she was pursued; she could hear the thuds of heavy feet behind her as clearly as if she was seeing it for herself. A rope was cast over the side: this she grabbed a hold of, swinging wildly before gaining footing on the side of the bulwark. Willing her tired arms to heave her exhausted body up the side of the Pearl, Elizabeth finally made it over the stern.
Looking down, she could see two red-eyed figures staring up at the rope. Hurriedly, she pulled it up and set it on the deck, making sure they could not follow. It was only then that she straightened and looked around, leaning tiredly on the ship's rail.
She could have sworn that the ship had been askew when she had scaled it, but here the deck was level as if it were moored in the Port Royal harbour. The Pearl looked surprisingly good for a vessel that had been crunched to bits, essentially, by a monstrous Kraken. In fact, it looked almost better than it had when she had voyaged on it for the last time. It was also completely empty.
Elizabeth was not sure what to do. She wanted to go back and help Will...she looked towards the forest.
There was no forest. She was afloat on a vast body of water: on the horizon she could see hills...or was it just clouds? The water was as leaden as the sky overhead, and the black-painted Pearl was an omen in seas locked by doldrums. Elizabeth sank to her knees. She was alone, Will was in danger, and she had no idea how to sail a ship by herself, damn it! Frustrated, she felt tears well up in her eyes, but willed them to go away. Crying would not help her situation at all. But...the thought of never seeing Will again...or of Will having been killed without her there...it was nearly unbearable. She buried her face in her hands, lost for what to do.
"Well, if it isn't Miss Swann," came a lilting, derisive voice that she knew all too well.
"Jack." She said tonelessly, without looking up. It figured that he would take this chance to appear, and she knew where he would be. A rattle of metal confirmed this knowledge.
"It's nice to see you too, love," Came Jack Sparrow's voice, "I'd come and give you a hug, I'm that glad to be graced with your presence, but I seem to be chained to the mast."
Elizabeth turned around, resting her back against the ship's side with her legs folded under her. Captain Jack Sparrow looked the same as he ever had. "Jack. You look good." She commented, for lack of anything else to say. There was too much...
"Elizabeth. You look...stunning," He mocked her, with one of his roguish smiles. "Be a love, and help us out? It's only fair, after all...you were the one who put me here." His tone became darker, more dangerous. Elizabeth held back a shiver.
"No. I did what I had to do, and nothing I do now can undo that."
"Well I'm not asking you to symbolically repent of your dastardly deeds or anything, I just wanted you to let me out because it chafes my wrist something awful." His voice was light once again. "Ah well, I don't need a key..." he slipped his hand through the cuff, and for a moment Elizabeth saw a broken lamp, spatters of oil, and the maw of a monster looming behind Jack, ready to devour. As soon as it had come, it was gone again, leaving her feeling shaken, and as if she'd been drenched in cold water.
"Now what brings you to my humble abode?" Jack asked, tying a complicated knot in the rope of the mast's sail; seemingly only paying minimal attention to Elizabeth. Still, she watched him warily.
"We came to get you."
"We? Where is your entourage? Because unless Will is hiding behind you, I see only you." He gave her a glance and then returned his attention to the knotwork.
"I...the soulless men attacked us, and Will told me to run to the Pearl, and so I did, and...well..." She felt foolish in the special way that Jack was able to make her feel, a feeling which was made worse when he uttered only "Ah."
"We came to bring you back with us. The crew and Will want you back."
"But you don't." Jack said shrewdly, giving her his uncannily intense stare.
"Does that matter?" Elizabeth asked, getting up. She had recuperated from her run across the lake bed, and standing made her feel less...picked on than when she was sitting down. After all, Jack was a small man, only few inches taller than she.
"Well since you killed me, I'd think it matter to us, eh, love? Now I'm not gonna ask why you did it, cause that's obvious to both me and you...you were nice enough to tell me that before you shackled me to my fate." Jack turned and looked her up and down with appraising eyes, before walking towards her. "But tell me...don't you feel any remorse whatsoever for having put me at the mercy of Davy Jones? Both literally and figuratively, as it were..."
"None," Elizabeth said coldly, striding away from Jack and towards the main mast. She didn't want to back up, but she did want to put a good distance between them. Jack, she noticed, was not armed: no sword or pistol was in evidence anywhere on his person. That made her feel only marginally better.
"Are you sure, love?" Jack Sparrow altered his course, following Elizabeth at a slow saunter. "You didn't come all this way for nothing."
"I came because of Will." She said, putting her back to the mast and staring away from Jack, out to the waters.
"I think you came because you feel guilty..." Jack stated, drawing level with her. Elizabeth was too proud to back up, and so remained where she was, gazing straight ahead. "Or perhaps...because you had a taste of something...and you wanted more..." He said this last softly into her ear, and Elizabeth caught the scent of rum and salt and unwashed Jack Sparrow. She said nothing, because she couldn't deny that for a while her imagination had run wild and entertained thoughts of what it would be like to dally with the Captain. It was doing so now with alarming enthusiasm.
Jack interpreted her silence for affirmation, and, grasping the jib-lines on the mast beside her head, swung round to stand in front of her. She glared at him silently, willing her imagination to knock it off, and wishing that her shirt was less...open than it was at the moment, because she could feel his eyes roaming over her torso. He brought one hand up to cup the side of her face: she brought hers up and slapped him, hard.
"I will thank you not to undress me with your eyes," she informed him in a tight voice, wishing more than ever that Will would suddenly show up and deal with both Jack and the wild fantasies that she could not get out of her head.
"What if I use my hands, then?" He straightened up and met her eyes for the first time: immediately Elizabeth sidestepped and put the mast in between the two of them. Jack did not, after all, look the same. There was a spark in his eyes that had not been there before; a dangerous glitter that the old Jack had not possessed, and so had never unsettled Elizabeth in quite the way he was doing now. The old Jack would not have said things in the tone he had just used: he would have said it in jest, not as a threat.
The old Jack would not have, also, followed Elizabeth, planted both hands on either side of her head and borne down on her until they were inches apart; hips touching his, herself flattened against the mast, still staring into his eyes. She could feel the warmth of his body, she could smell the overpowering scent of him, she could feel her own body responding on its own; she scrabbled in her belt for her knife.
"Elizabeth...I'm not dead. But I'm not alive either; I don't know what I am and frankly I don't care. But you left me on that ship after making an offer that I find myself unable to refuse." His voice was a low, purring growl, and this time Elizabeth did shiver, feeling goose bumps on her skin.
"It wasn't an offer, Jack." She injected as much steel as she could into her voice to keep it from wavering, speaking through clenched teeth, and finally got the knife free and pointed at a very vital area. "Now back away, or I think you'll find that you'll have no means or indeed desires to carry through on your threats." Think about Will, think about Will...
"I'm not threatening you, love," Jack said, still in that dark tone, but took two steps backwards. Elizabeth remained holding the knife. To her chagrin, she found she was breathing heavier than normal, and tried to convince herself that the flutter in her stomach was bravery in the face of danger, rather than desire and fear mixed together.
"Jack, I knew you to be a good man. You saved my life that day in Port Royal when it all began, and I had done nothing for you. You helped Will to find me on the Isla de Muerta, and even though you had your own agenda, you made sure that he did not get killed. You have helped us countless times, and even if many of them were motivated by your own needs and desires, I still believe that it shows you to be a good soul." Elizabeth shifted her grip on the knife and took a small step away from the mast: now she did not feel so cornered. "Do not prove me wrong on this. On the Black Pearl I gave you a chance to prove your own mettle. Why do you think the crew still wants you back among the living? Because I killed you. I won you their hearts by telling them you went down with your own ship, to better allow us to escape. You are a hero to them."
"And why exactly are you telling me this, love?" Jack asked, still eyeing the knife.
"Because you owe me. You can't tell them I killed you because that would make you a coward. I didn't tell them, and they think you are everything. Also, I'm telling you this because I still believe that deep down, you are a good man. Deep down, there has to be some remnant of decency." Elizabeth's voice became persuasive, convincing.
"If you believe that about me..." Jack tilted his head to one side. "You wouldn't be holding that knife."
The weapon clattered to the floor. A foolish display of confidence and bravery, Elizabeth knew, but her pride would allow her to do no less.
"Ah." Jack took a step towards her and then halted. Elizabeth watched the inner struggle: follow his natural inclinations, or live up to the noble version of himself that Elizabeth had painted, that others believed in, too. The dangerous spark in his eyes had dimmed, and hope rose in Elizabeth's spirit. She looked away, to the horizon, and then focused back on Jack. Her stomach jolted in fear: the spark was back, only now it was a blaze, and Jack was grinning at her in a most inappropriate way. She dove for the knife: Jack got there first, and kicked it hard enough to make it skitter all the way across the deck to rest in a pile of rope.
Landing hard, Elizabeth rolled on to her side and began to get up: Jack hooked his ankle around her arm and jerked her support out from under her. He was sitting beside her in a flash, hand gripping the wrist of the hand she had attempted to slap him with.
"What's happened to you?" Elizabeth demanded, struggling to sit up and failing to break the hold he had on her. "You weren't like this when you were alive!"
"Elizabeth, you can't expect me to be perfectly fine after being shoved off my mortal coil in the way I was," Jack leaned over her, his mood as dark as the sky. "I was devoured by a monster. I was not given a chance to get away. I was shown a world of...enticing possibilities before they were taken away by the very person who gave them to me in the first place. That was cruel, Elizabeth. Crueller still to make me die with thoughts of another man's fiancee in my head...in my soul..."
"The thought of Will stopped you once before: I don't see why you would cheapen him so much so that you would dare to–"
"It's never stopped me!" Jack growled, cutting her off: heat flooded Elizabeth's body and a tiny finger of fear wormed its way into her stomach. "Any loyalty to Will was gone after our conversation when we sailed away from Tortuga. I didn't know it then, but I wanted you, Elizabeth, and you've just made it worse ever since."