Thank you, Sophies-Welt. I'm so glad you're enjoying it as much as I love writing it, Sparrabeth deserves a second chance I think lol.

New Chapter, based on Coldplay's brilliance. :) (Small note: Parrot's are annoying to write.)

Chapter 10: Y Marks X's Attempt

Hours of senseless planning, charting, melding of piratical minds had thus continued into the night. Jack had returned to his cabin to find Hector slumped at the edge of the bed, chart in hand, and a weary typhoid glint in his eye; it was unsettling, distracting for anyone interested in rest. But just as he had supposed, his colleague had come to discuss all possible outlets to their destination, despite the constant reminder of it being in a place too far to easily venture off into. 'It's Hell Jack.' She had been right, somehow using what skills and intelligent bearings she had collected over the years to determine the puzzle that had left two of the world's most feared sailors in the dark for months. Lizzie solved it.

As he swiftly moved across the room and towards the table, Barbossa stood to meet him with interests that Jack was in no mood to dwell on. "Right lad, don't it be bout' the time fer ye t' be getting t' business on this path o' ours. We can't afford t' just sail in circles fer weeks Jack."

"O' said anything of circles mate, I intend on following a direct route."

"Direct?"

"Aye, straight t' the source."

"Source?"

"Is me cabin a hollowin' cave? Yes…direct." Kicking his boots at the corner of the charting table, Jack ripped the cork from a stubborn bottle and tipped it back. The sting of aging, nearly unfamiliar Shipwreck rum always brought him out of any slump quickly, it was pungent, sickening. Barbossa was sprawling the chart out across the tops of books and papers when he tore the bottle form his lips, and with a smug roll of his eyes, he tried to hold some sort of focus on the situation. "We be a third fortnight from Hispaniola…which is ere'." He pointed to the shapely island on the map, the grit beneath his nail beds becoming cause for distraction with Jack, as he compared his own nails, and quickly slid his index finger between his teeth, cleansing them sloppily. As he nodded to his companion, the chatter continued on distances, paths, and the proper settling ground on the Florida coast. "There's t' be a might bit o' trouble should we be landin' on the wrong beach, Sparra…"

"An' why is that?"

"Ye bloody know as well as I, why…that be." Jack pondered it in custom, the very nature of Florida, a coast he had twice sailed to, and only once gotten away from on both feet. The tales were endless on that striking peninsula, a rush of blood to the head with the very intention of setting foot on the sand. "Think the natives'll mind if we…take a look round'?" Hector let his eyes fasten into the back of his skull, while trying to comprehend the motives of the delicate force in front of him. Jack Sparrow, like Barbossa himself, wasn't quite the same as most men, he'd experienced death first hand, and wouldn't mind walking the fine line to the inevitable again, if only for legends sake. Becoming a human sacrifice didn't bother him, having his scalp tampered with, or a stake driven through his heart, for none of it was as bad as what he had already forsaken in his life. But with precious cargo aboard this round, he felt an odd stab of something course through his veins, as if being careful meant everything now, and solicitude was the order of the journey. It was a girl, turned King, turned prime specimen of a woman. "South coast then?"

"Unless ye'd like t' take yer ears ome' in a satchel." He gulped, leaning back again to the chair, and casually letting his fingertips caress the soft skin of his earlobes. "I rather enjoy them where they are."

When given the acceptance of his claim, he stood fiercely and nodded off to take a leave from the cabin. He had wanted to get at least an hour's good rest before having to fill his gut with more rum or sea spray, when he knew that sun burn a hole in him. That however, was not bound to happen with Barbossa shadowing his every move, and he would have rather enjoyed spending the last shade of night behind the wheel. Nearly as soon as the door opened to mid deck, he was met by the curious linger of Gibbs', always on his heels. "Jack, we're t' be hittin' roughs waters soon enough, the shoals are choppy already."

"Ah, sound the alarm mate. Thrust the cannibals from their wake, if that be the case!" Flailing his hands about crazily, Jack let the man follow him to the helm, always a mark behind. After a dozen quick steps, he came to the ever present sight of Mr. Cotton and his wiry hands fixed upon the spindles of the wheel. "Cotton…and feathered friend… Mr. Gibbs as' just informed me person, that a storm is likely t' brew o'er head sooner than expected. Can ye handle it?"

"Yawwwk, wind in t' sails!" The chiming jab of the parrot was convincing enough, and with a slight twist of his head, Jack turned back down the stairwell, with Gibbs still sauntering nearby. "Captain, the coast o' Florida…"

"Yes…?" He responded exhaustingly. "Ave' ye thought o' wot…err rather who, we be in haste t' come upon?"

"Meaning what?" The shuffle from the stairs to the outer deck was a slow one with the inquiry, as well as Jack's constant revival of fellow crew, the shift of nets here and there, a glance or two into the sky, all done in retrospect of what he knew was coming. "Meaning those black aired' men that was so…fond, o' us on the last venture?" Shifting his weight to look into the fearful glow in his friend's eyes, Jack let a smile dance at the corner of his mouth before responding, "If we should come upon yer…blackened…men again, I've thought up a plan." Ridicule was a strong point in the master mind of any Sparrow, especially the one who had bested the devil in numerous ungodly forms, and been finally taken to the grave by the slight of a woman's hand. His life was ridicule.

"A plan o' wot?"

"Citrus and clove." The answer didn't make a stitch of sense, to Gibbs or Jack, but with a healthy grin he turned on his boot heels once more and walked off into the direction of a certain long legged guest. Gibbs mouth fell to a response, "Sir?" but it didn't make a difference and he soon went below deck for sleep. Jack wandered aimlessly in haphazard circles, as if dancing some sort of ancient jig on the planks outside her door. Tension grew in his knuckles, bone marrow tightened at his knees, and his eyes remained fixed on the flickering light between window panes in the door. When his ear finally made it to the glass, not a sound could be heard which gave the impression that either Elizabeth had fallen asleep with a locked door and burning flame beside her, or she was merely insane. 'Well she did marry the whelp. Sanity doesn't exist much further past that…'

Just as his hand reached for the knob, there was a side splitting collision of thick bottled glass to wood, one he knew all too well to not have rendered it of importance. When he turned around from the door, he saw the shattered blue halfway across the deck, and to add to the queerness of it, there wasn't a soul standing in its wake. The break was far too explosive to have come from a still position, and when his eyes began to slowly drift into the moonlit canvas of a half dozen fluttering sails, he saw the missing piece to every enigma he had suffered the last three years. Dangling in the cool air. Two feet, slender, scant of any protection, and golden against the black drapery. "Gettin' creative on me, eh love?" Whispering to himself, he let his boots snap handsomely over the bits of glass as he made his way to the crows nest's adjoining rope ladder, and inched upwards into the fading stars. The task was done without a single startling wake from above, and once Jack had reached the top knit of the ladder, he realized exactly why. In all honesty, he had seen wild dogs degenerate in the streets of Tortuga more gracefully than the hopeless scene before him was capable of providing. Elizabeth, dressed less casually than Jack would have preferred, had somehow managed to weave her body around the mast pole of the small nest planks, her waist twisted uncomfortably, legs hanging off the edge, and her right arm draped in distress over her face with the grease of her golden hair sticking to cheeks, ears, lips, and wood. Women and rum…can ne'er trust it.

Moving in to take a miserable seat at her side, Jack allowed his own feet to fall down from the planks in meeting of hers in the cold breeze. He didn't know if she had fallen into stupor to the point of no resistance, or if she had simply gotten lost in the toxicity of the empty bottle stuck in her firm grip. Either way, it was a side to Elizabeth Swann…Turner, that he had been greedy to believe could exist. This hapless, drunken, insinuous form of a woman, draped at his feet, longing to be fixed, although she hid it well. Months of pent up frustrations over a worthless marriage made in haste of death's call, her spirit trapped on the beaches of the Cove much the same as his own had been for far too long, and her heart drowning somewhere no one knew anymore. 'Kiss her mate…steal a taste of youth.'

Go away.

'Can't do that till ye make yer move Jacky, we're looking out fer ye.'

Bothering me is a more approximate definition.

'Kiss er' and we'll be on our way.'

'We know ye can see those rosy buds peeking out o' that shirt…boys shirt nonetheless.'

'Didn't know ye liked boys Jacky, goats sure…but little boys too eh?'

Shut it.

'Make us…'

Without thinking, Jack let his hand wander through the wind between them, finally moving in upon her cheek, brazen with heat and dried tears. With a silent stroke he brushed down the length of her face, the cool pressure of his jeweled digits relieving the burn of her skin. At this, her breathing stretched into a normal pace, coming too quickly when her eyelids shifted, and lashes quivered. He pulled away, leaning back against the ropes binding them in safely, and took on the show before him. The draping arm fell first to the wood, her knees wavered, hips rocked into a comfortable place and eyes finally and awkwardly fell to the right, to him. She wasn't afraid, she didn't shutter or turn away in nervous reaction, she only stared, as if looking into the eyes of her substantial demon, her plighted fate.

Trying hard to speak
And fighting with my weak hand
Driven to distraction
So part of the plan

"Th' dead rest more exquisitely than ye I'm afraid."

She didn't answer. Jack tapped his fingers against the side of his hip.

"Although I ave' to admit, I'm rather fond o' returning the favor in due time, and an untimely death…would prevent my immoral happiness." Still she stared, but now with a lightness to her callous grin. Jack made one more attempt, the weak knuckles in his hand pulsing at the constant movement. "I find meself somehow believing though, that ye would welcome death. Open arms an' all."

"W-why do you believe that?" Struggling to cough up the question past the throaty burn of the lasting rum, and her own savoring intoxication, she smiled while waiting for his response. "Seems to me…" he began, stretching out further to reach her positioning with their hips lightly brushing in obvious need, "that a marriage t' the dead, can only be as strong as its…ghostly bonds." This thought was met with a long waves of pondering shuffles, from her eyes to his, his to hers, until finally she decided what it was she wished to confess through innocent inquiry.

"And what if one of the ghosts, decides that they don't want to be a ghost anymore?" Clarity was present again as she rose to sit beside him, her hand rubbing her temples and hair finally falling into decent place. He understood her rationale perfectly, and was more than willing to oblige in the answer he most wanted to hear himself repeat. "Escaping s'good. As' always worked fer me." His grin was handsome in the light, not fearing or demonic at all, just Jack, and that was something Elizabeth never tried to advantage of. His smiles were as rare as women aboard the Pearl, and oddly enough, one usually followed the other. "Yes, escaping seems the best option. But…what about the other ghost, what happens to them?" It was an inevitable conversation, but the supernatural references made it slightly easier to deal with. Somewhere in her hazing eyes he saw the ghost of William Turner, the ghost of his passion, his love, his care. But now it was merely just that, a ghost, and nothing more for the distance of a decade.

When something is broken
And you try to fix it
Trying to repair it
Any way you can

"Not sure Lizzie, it's possible they dwell on th' loss forever." And there it was, the regret settled just beneath the lingering memory, where the Caribbean sand met the surf in her eyes. She wasn't trying to fix her marriage; she was trying to fix herself, trying to mend Elizabeth Swann. She just didn't know how. "Jack…?" A swagger in her movements now made him realize the high tone of mindlessness she had entered, one he recognized without a beat. And while she came closer to his face, her hand finding an unknowledgeable place on his thigh, he realized that he hardly saw Elizabeth Turner anymore, the desperate lover set out to save her blacksmith caretaker, this wasn't who she was now. The youth had all but gone with the final sip of her bottle. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Wot?"

"Are you…are you afraid of ghosts?" Her breath was burnt and sweetly rancid, and when it landed on the soft spot of Jack's neck, he felt a twinge against the lining of his loose pants, and a shiver run between his toes. The question was clear, understandable, and completely seductive in a strange, besotted manner. Whether it was in reference to the whelp's handy sword tricks or not, it was perfectly world altering, spell binding, bewitching as her warm breath still hummed at his throat. "No." He didn't want to draw the answering tone out any further, and watched as Elizabeth's hand wove tighter into the cotton of his upper thigh, digging almost, as she leaned further against him and let her lips lightly graze the air in their wake.

I dive in at the deep end
You become my best friend
I wanna love you but I don't know if I can

Kissing her would be another wish granted from somewhere deep within, but when he saw a rush of heated white plaster her cheeks and felt the numbness in her fingertips at his thigh, he knew a kiss was a long way from truth. A second later her face fell back from his, lips pursing together in imitation of a stronghold and her body whipped back away from his lap to the clear space of wood. Gagging ensued, a near attack of her lungs and gut as well, and Jack realized the only thing he could do, was take the mass of dirt sodden curls into his palm and hold them neatly at the nape of her neck, while she let the rum come out the way it had gone in.

"That's uhh…quite a fine mess Lizzie." Trying not to laugh or gag himself, he sat behind her, letting his free hand caress her back with each passing moment. Soon enough though, everything was gone, more even than the bottle could have allowed, and she fell back into his arms with her head slamming to the mast. "Kill me, please."

"Not likely. This is hardly the opportune moment I had hoped for, love." When she didn't respond with laughter or a vex, he noticed her head lolling back and forth in agony against his shoulder, and knew that her tiff on the wild side had come to an end for the night. Helping her find what little sea worthy legs she had left in her, Jack led her slowly to the step ladder and made due in getting her to drowsily straddle his back as he descended carefully, one step at a time, one warm breath on his neck at a time. To ensure she didn't suffer any quick spurts with the devil from the heady blow she took to the back of her head, Jack talked to her, responded to her lack of sense all the way down. "You smell like dirt. Why are we flying, don't you know…it's going to rain?"

"I'm glad ye checked the storm potential before coughing up yer liver on me ship."

"Don't yell at me. I'll bite you." And I'd welcome it. Once his boots hit the safe deck, he turned to see Pintel and Ragetti, curious and desperate to help. "Wot' appened' to er'?" Sarcastically he answered.

"She tried t' be me. Listen…" he began, holding Lizzie's thighs tighter around his waist to hide the growing fact of male sensitivity below, "Ye two ave' a bit o' cleaning to do up there." All three of their eyes darted towards the sky and sails, while Elizabeth breathed deeply in exhaustion and apologized wearily. They smiled at her and ran off past Jack to complete the less than interesting task, while the he slowly carried his muse, his every attention to her room. They seemed to work better as a drunken team than anything else before it, and as Elizabeth twisted the knob of the door Jack kicked it open, noticing the last flicker of her candle glowing in the corner and the comfort of her bed trashed heavily with clothes, papers, and trinkets of all sorts. "Good t' know ye could ne'er be a housewife, Lizzie."

"Isn't that just what you hope for...?"

"Dear, ye know it is. Here…" He let her body slide into the open space among the piles of treasures, and quickly began to move everything off to the side table and floor. Her eyes were closed immediately, hair covering her face again, and bare feet braided together in a fetal form. When finally he had finished, he found an older, but nice quilt that Teague had lent her for their journey, one of his mother's own hands. Jack took in the faint aroma of a memory before draping it over her frail body, and brushing the few strands of hair from her eyes. He didn't say a word, only turned back to the door and back to the coming light of day. It had always appeared to him after any fading moment spent with her, how he became an entirerly different animal in her presence, something softer, something ancient from a time of storytelling and a mother's care. In any other instance it would be unnerving, too disquieting an experience to care for, but when it was Elizabeth, he had no choice but to welcome it, to ask for seconds.

I know something is broken
And I'm trying to fix it
Trying to repair it anyway I can

And now the feat was conducive, it was present and willing to cooperate with his need to mend, to remedy, patch, amend every last crack and tear in her. It wasn't something he knew how to do, this genteel manner that had come over his step, the tenderness that washed over his eyes now, but if it meant that Elizabeth wouldn't have to fear her ghosts anymore, he felt every need to try.

X&Y by Coldplay