Jack collapsed onto Elizabeth's bare chest, his sweat trying to flood the slowing heartbeat dazzling his ear. He closed his eyes, listening to it trying to soothe itself, the rhythm of it calming his own. A hand clasped the back of his neck while another one traced his backbone. Loving hands, his wife's hands, he reminded himself with a tired smile. Sliding out of her, he rolled over next to her on the bed, half on his back, half on his side, and gathered her up to him, her head resting just above his collarbone.
"We be gathered here today to join..."
"Elizabeth Swann."
"Elizabeth Swann and Jackie..."
"No."
"Son, ye impossible shit! Jack Sparrow."
"It is me legal name, ye know."
Her hands continued to memorize him, dancing over his knuckles and the bones in his wrist. Burrowing into her hair, he exhaled, his body so heavy it felt like he was made of lead.
"Where did you learn that?" she yawned.
"The whole thing, or the variation?"
"Variation?"
"Of course, love. I picked it up and added my signature expertise to it." Holding her combined with a soft solid mattress underneath them was lulling him to sleep faster than he expected. He could hardly remember what he'd just said. "One might say I invented it."
"One or dozens?"
"Oy, now, don't think I squandered my best on whores. This was saved for you."
"Just like a husband, weaseling out of trouble." She snuggled deeper into him.
"I do."
"I do."
"You may kiss your bride."
"Just a like a wife, to nag." Waiting to be elbowed or slapped or at least given a stern glare, he lowered his face just enough to find her already asleep. He brushed a strand of hair out of her face and resumed his position, closing his eyes. "I've saved the best of me for you."
Right. Jack had been right, Mary thought, her lips tucked into her mouth in worry. Who was to say what Calypso might have in mind once there was no human body to limit her? The speculations of raging whirlpools and howling winds had kept her awake all night, although the actual need for sleep had fallen by the wayside long ago.
Her pounds on the door would sound like casual taps, she knew, hearing a groan, a stifled giggle, and then some shuffling before Elizabeth opened the door in nothing but a shift.
"Mary. Is everything all right?" Her hair tussled over her face with an all-too-obvious afterglow, there would certainly be no prizes awarded to anyone who correctly guessed why Elizabeth had only opened the door a crack, Mary thought.
"Not meanin' to disturb ye, Sire, seeing as how it ain't dawn just yet. What be your plans for Calypso?"
"Calypso isn't part of any plan," Elizabeth said. "She might as well stay on the Pearl so no one will have time to free her."
"And what of Beckett? He'll be expecting Captain Norrington to hand something over to him."
That shook the Pirate King, she thought with a smug satisfaction, watching her bite her lip and set her jaw in contemplation.
"He doesn't know about you," she whispered to herself. "That's good…" She craned her long neck back into the room. "Not much longer until dawn. Ready Will and James. And Barbossa. And Mr. Gibbs." She slanted into an apologetic stance. "I'll have it settled. Then go keep an eye on Calypso. We'll have to leave her somewhere after it's all over… Never mind. Wake up everyone I mentioned and have them meet me at the docks."
Quite the entourage approaching, Beckett thought, smirking at the six silhouetted figures approaching. His hands behind his back, eyes used to the overpowering sun hitting the white grains of the sandbar, young Miss Swann stood in the center, the smallest of them protected somewhat, if pirates could be considered protectors. It wouldn't matter. Not one among them would be worth sparing. Davy Jones, sloshing buckets of water strapped to his legs, and Mercer next to him had to be thinking the same thing.
"Miss Swann," he hissed when she came the closest to him. "Not in a tattered, waterlogged wedding gown this time, I see."
"It's Captain now, actually," she said with a detached coldness.
"My, my, moving up in the world. Hello, James." He geared his attentions to her right. "Not a bad start. You made a deal with me to deliver the pirates and here are quite a few notorious ones served directly to me on a not-so-silver platter." He shuffled the toe of his boot into the sand. "I can only imagine what such a dish would do to Mr. Mercer's appetite."
"Not that one," Jones said, pointing to Jack. "Your debt to me is still to be satisfied! One hundred years aboard the Dutchman as a start."
"That debt was paid, mate," Jack said.
"But not in full," Beckett interjected. "It turns out, Jack, combining the information you gave me with Norrington's was most beneficial. But that's undeniably all you had to offer and it seems now you must pay your piper."
"I have a proposal," Elizabeth said. "One of us." She saw from the corner of her eye Barbossa jolt. His monkey gave out a screech. "James Norrington."
"Done," Will said, meeting her adopted sneer with a smile.
"Not done!" James shouted.
"Where's your head, missy?" Barbossa lunged at her, bent down into her face. "Norrington is one of the pirate lords now. You've no right…"
"King!"
"Is that so?" His hand flew to his sword. Taking a step back, she saw Jack had his hand on his as well, only to see Barbossa swing it at James, slitting open the pocket of his coat. The pewter goblet thudded to the ground. Leaping off his shoulder, the monkey scampered over to it and guarded it with a fierce showing of teeth.
"You won't be on land forever," Davy Jones said to Jack as Mercer handed off James to him. "Whether I have you now or later is immaterial."
"That tastes like bleak obsession, mate, and we all know you already have one of those." Jack smirked at him and circled around the goings-on like a vulture. He stopped in front of Elizabeth. "Send me over," he whispered, ignoring her brief look of terror. "Trust me."
"You shan't have to wait then," she said, composing herself. "We know a liability when we see one. You can have Jack."
"What?" he balked, savoring Barbossa's rolling eyes. "I'm to be stationed with that petulant git?"
"It would be far from a romp for me as well, Sparrow," James sighed.
"Done!" Davy Jones agreed. Beckett stepped forward to her.
"You can advise your brethren court—you can fight and all of you will die, or you can choose not to fight in which case only most of you will die."
Will sauntered to them.
"My father will be free, one way or another, and it will be all you can do to watch everything you've planned fall out from under you." He stomped back towards the longboat they'd all arrived in, Gibbs hurrying along to catch up with him. Jack gave Elizabeth one last wink before the monkey climbed up onto his shoulder and tugged on his hair. Wincing at the sudden pain, he grimaced when it held up his Piece of Eight.
"Thank ye, Jack," Barbossa said.
"Tha…oh. Right. Not me." The monkey slid down his arm and ran up onto Barbossa. He bent down to retrieve the goblet, and then caught up with the others.
Entrusting the Empress to Heng, Elizabeth climbed up into the Pearl, creaking at her with what Elizabeth imagined to be jealousy.
"She'll have to be the flagship. She's the fastest," she said, bouncing her plan off onto Will.
"Calypso's still in the brig."
"Not anymore!" Will and Elizabeth jumped at Barbossa's booming voice, pulling a rope that led to Tia Dalma, bound so tightly she could have been a rope mummy, only her head and bare arms visible through the dried ropes. Pintel and Ragetti followed, taking the slack and winding it around the mast.
"What are you doing?" Elizabeth demanded.
"My apologies, your Majesty. Too long me fate has not been in me own hands." He snapped her Piece of Eight right off her neck and dropped it into the bowl with the others.
"You can't be serious! You can't free her now! We're about to go into battle!"
"Aye, I won't be the one freein' her. But seein' as you said MY ship is to be the flagship, I figure if the need should arise, this be a closer walk than to the brig. As for you." He swaggered up to the mast, Tia Dalma's expression unreadable. "Stand quietly and do what ye can to not let us all capsize and we'll see ye good and freed before the day is out."
About to make the final preparations for casting off, she looked over at the side of the ship. "Father?"
Swann threw himself over the side and crashed onto the dock, a pistol holstered in his belt. Heaving himself up, he brushed off a bit of dirt and met her wide, stricken eyes with his sheepish ones.
"Governor! We thought you would be stayin' away for sure," Pintel said, shaking his hand, Ragetti nodded his head in violent agreement.
"At last we're all a big happy family just like we should be," he sniffled. Elizabeth scrunched her mouth up into a ball wondering what it would do to Ragetti's mind once he learned he was more right than he knew.
"Well, Elizabeth." Swann opened his hands and shrugged. "I do have valuables in need of much looking after. If I'm to have any grandchildren…"
"Father," she sighed, laughing away her worries. "Pintel and Ragetti are our children." Shaking her head, stupefied, she ordered the colors to be hoisted, noticing the other ships in the harbor following suit.
A/N: Oh jeez, this chapter makes me nervous. In case it's not clear, only their fathers, Gibbs, and James know that Jack and Elizabeth are now married, so they're kind of keeping it under wraps until things blow over. We'll see if that works or not. I couldn't redo AWE and omit the parlay scene. It's one of my favorites. "To unpathed waters and undreamed shores" is from A Winter's Tale.