A/N: Prompt Open water. Originally posted 18/5/07. I wrote this as a post-CotBP AU, but I suppose you could also look at it as post-AWE-or even, if you squint hard enough, as fitting between CotBP and DMC.
Thanks so much for the reviews; it's lovely and encouraging to know people are actually reading this thing =) In response to the anonymous review on the previous chapter: who said anything about ending? ;) Although...you may not want to read the part after this...
The wheel is smooth beneath his fingers, polished by dead men's hands. His heart sings to the rhythm of the ship—to the steady crack and whip of canvas overhead, to the splashing of the wake, to the creaking of the keel; she is mine, is mine, all mine! He revels in the sensitive response of the wheel, feeling his unexpected command of the ship. I am hers.
They have the whole world before them, open water and a lifetime to discover it. Apart, they are incomplete. Together, they are free.
He feels her presence drawing near, and smiles.
"Elizabeth."