Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Disney. All Shakespeare quotes belong to…whoever it is that owns Shakespeare.
A/N: Again I'm sorry for the fairly long wait. This chapter gave me some trouble, and what finally got me to sit down and finish it is slightly embarrassing – I spent a few hours watching J/E music videos on YouTube. Everyone needs a guilty pleasure. I also apologize in advance for the Shakespeare. I know it's terribly kitsch, but I really couldn't leave it out. The idea of Jack quoting Much Ado About Nothing just tickled my fancy. Enjoy!
Summary: As Jack ferries Elizabeth Turner between her island and her husband, their relationship grows into something no one could have ever foreseen. J/E.
Between Dark and Light: A Decade of Love
By: Sinnamon Spider
Year Eight
Despite her certainty that Jack would not return to her island, Elizabeth packed her things anyways, around the time he was due. But he never came, and while William amused himself through the heat of the summer, she waited every day by the window with bated breath.
But soon, summer was turning to fall, and one day, Elizabeth could take it no longer. She threw a shawl on, wrapping it around her head and shoulders to shield her from the driving rain that had been falling for hours. William was gone, playing for the day at one of the village houses, and Elizabeth had been eternally grateful for the mother who was willing to sacrifice her home to two rambunctious seven-year-olds.
Squinting against the rain that pelted her face as she opened the door, she made the trek to the village at a near-run, darting inside Christopher Able's store with a shiver. Miriam Able poked her face out from the back room. "Liz, darling, where've you been?" The older woman disappeared before Elizabeth could answer, then reappeared with a steaming mug of coffee. She handed it to Elizabeth, who took it gratefully, wrapping her hands around the warmth. "I need a favour, Miriam," she said breathlessly.
Miriam smiled at her. "Anything for you, lovey. What's afoot?"
"I need to find Captain Sparrow."
Miriam's expression saddened as she heard Elizabeth's voice quiver. "Now, sweetheart, don't you fret. I'm sure Will would understand if you couldn't come this year."
Elizabeth shook her head. It was time to confess. "It's not about Will, Miriam, it's about Captain Sparrow. He and I…" She trailed off, unable to speak the words, not to this woman, whom she saw as a mother. But Miriam was nothing if not intelligent. She wrapped her arm around Elizabeth. "Oh dear. You've got quite a mess on your hands, lovey."
"I made him so angry last summer," Elizabeth continued, twisting her hands around the handle of the mug. "I don't think he's coming back. I have to find him. I have to set things right. I love…" Again she trailed off, biting her lip. Miriam nodded. "You love him. And Will too, if I'm not mistaken."
"Yes."
Rocking the younger woman gently, Miriam sighed. "Well, lovey, I'm not certain how to go about finding Sparrow. Willand is due in an hour; we can ask him if he's seen Sparrow, but aside from that…"
Elizabeth shook her head. "Finding him won't be a problem," she said. "I know where to start looking, at least, and he usually leaves a trail of angry people who are more than happy to rat out where he's hiding." She looked up at Miriam. "No, I need you to look after William while I'm gone. I can't bring him with me, not while I'm in Tortuga and such places."
"Don't worry, Liz," Miriam said comfortingly. "Chris and I will keep him here long as you need. I'm sure Jeremiah and Lacey would love to have someone else to play with, 'specially if this rain keeps up like this."
Elizabeth set her mug down on the store counter and turned to embrace the older woman. "Thank you so much, Miriam."
"You just be careful," Miriam warned her with a mother's insistence. "I'm not very fond of the idea of you mucking about with pirates and such rot."
Elizabeth smiled weakly. Pirates didn't scare her. After all, she was still technically their king – she had never relinquished her power, in all these years. She didn't know how much sway the position would give her, but after tangling with the likes of Barbossa and Jones, the common bilge rat didn't worry her at all.
Thanking Miriam again, she stepped back out into the pouring rain, hurrying back to her cottage. Inside, she dug through her trunk of clothing. "Ah!" she exclaimed aloud, pulling the boy's clothes she had worn to hide on the Edinburgh Trader from the bottom of the trunk. They still fit; she had not gained much weight carrying William, and had dropped it soon after he was born, and even now she was as slim as she'd ever been.
She also removed a thin leather pouch, into which she stuffed all the money she had, kept buried under a floorboard, far from Will's heart. Along with the money, wrapped carefully in a soft cloth to keep it from breaking, was the tiny glass bottle of Aqua de Vida. She hadn't even looked at it since burying it here. She slipped it into the pouch, and tucked the pouch into her breeches, strapping it to her thigh.
Her high leather boots and her sword and belt were stashed behind a board in the tiny closet. She strapped the belt around her waist, feeling the familiar weight of the hilt against her hip. It was the sword she had taken from the Empress, Sao Feng's ship, after he had named her captain; the same sword she had used to claim his place at Shipwreck Cove, thrusting it into the globe as Jack squawked his disbelief. It was the same sword she had battled Jones with, until he knocked her aside and stabbed his own sword into her new husband's chest. It was the same sword she had stuck in the sand on the beach of this very island, eight years ago, when she and Will spent their single day together.
She quickly braided her hair and stole William's leather cap before heading out. But she paused at the door, looking back at her son's bed. She couldn't spare the time to stop and see him, and it would only lead to questions as to why she was dressed like a man. But it was breaking her heart to leave him without any word as to why she was gone.
She shook her head fiercely. Willand was due in an hour, Miriam had said. She peered over the ridge, searching for his ship at the dock, and once she glimpsed white sails, she hurried down the ridge to steal aboard the ship.
After spending six months traversing the seven seas, Elizabeth was one step behind Jack and the Black Pearl. Travelling on her authority as Pirate King – which she often had to fight for, crossing blades with over half the Pirate Lords – she had traced the Pearl nearly in a full circle around the globe to where she had started, in Tortuga. Barbossa had brought her the last leg of the journey, and they were now approaching a small island off the coast of Cuba, which was rumoured to be the last place the Pearl had been seen. As they came up on the coast, Elizabeth's heart swelled. "Finally," she whispered.
The Black Pearl was anchored in a shallow cove. The crisp sea breeze was snapping the black sails and the crew was swarming around the decks and in the rigging. Although it had been only a year since she had seen her, the ship was more beautiful than she remembered, floating in the green-blue water.
Jack was aboard her. Hopefully he would consent to speak to her.
"Be ye sure this is what ye want, Elizabeth?" Barbossa had appeared beside her, as grizzled and foreboding as ever. He had demanded to see her piece of eight before allowing her aboard his newly commandeered ship, the Lady's Emerald (he had spun her a wonderful tale about the dowager duchess he had seduced and robbed of her prized jewel and her dead merchant husband's ship).
After destroying the Endeavour and seeing the armada out of the Devil's Throat, the Brethren, along with Will (who was to be sworn in as the Pirate Lord of the Sea Beyond the Sea), had met briefly aboard the Dutchman to discuss their future. Without the pieces of eight that had bound the sea goddess, they had no way of confirming their lordship and passing on their status to others. So once again, the royalty of the pirate world dug into their pockets and bodices to produce random trinkets that would become their talismans. Elizabeth had contributed her family signet ring, Will selected his father's knife, and Jack produced a fearful looking Kraken tooth he had ripped out as the beast had swallowed him whole. They had also taken this opportunity to allow Elizabeth to remain Pirate King until the next meeting of the Court – something they had all conveniently forgotten when they were faced with her – but with severely reduced powers, including the necessity of a majority rule for any key decisions.
After closely examining the ring that Elizabeth now wore on a chain around her neck, Barbossa had ushered her about the Emerald with his usual sinister pageantry, and agreed to assist her in finding Jack, if only "B'cause the swine made off with me favourite hat, and I'll run him through fer it."
His vicious-looking crew, which made Elizabeth more uncomfortable than any pirates she had ever encountered, treated her with deference, and she assumed that their captain had drilled into their heads that she was their King.
She looked at him, and she could swear there was concern somewhere deep in those arctic blue eyes. She smothered a smile. "Yes," she said seriously. "I've got to talk with him." She withdrew the bottle of Aqua de Vida from her pocket. "And return this to him."
She had been reluctant to mention the bottle to Barbossa, afraid he would steal it from her, but he reminded her that he'd already had a taste of eternal life, and would be quite happy to pass on to the next world when the time came.
"Frightful stubborn jackass, he is," Barbossa commented conversationally. "He won' look kindly on ye. Y've done him harm; he let ye get too close, and we all know what happens when Jack Sparrow lets people get too close." He followed his words with a vicious grin of yellow teeth – Jack had let him get close, and he had betrayed his captain in the worst way possible. He never was remorseful, Elizabeth noted.
"I know," she said, squinting at a tiny figure at the helm of the Pearl and wondering if it was Jack. "I've turned him into a shadow of himself. I owe it to him to give him back his soul."
Barbossa snorted indelicately. "He won' take it from ye." He pierced her with those sharp eyes. "He's tied into ye now, lass, and he's a selfish one, don't let go easy. Only once ever I seen him so close with a lady as he is with ye."
"Who?" she asked, curious. Jack had never seemed to be a one-woman man.
'Then what made you think you could make him one?' that merciless voice in her head whispered. She ignored it.
Barbossa nodded in the Pearl's direction. "The Pearl," he said. "His first love, she was, when she was still the Wicked Wench. He loved her so much, he sold his soul t' the devil t' get her back. Then he sold it again – t' ye."
"And I may as well be the devil, for all I've done to him," she said sadly. "I'm worse than Jones."
Barbossa shrugged, not one to argue with the truth. "Aye, that be true. But he loves ye still, he does. He's a stubborn jackass, though, and he'll fight it t' the end, but he'll come 'round sooner or later."
Despite the harsh words, Elizabeth took heart. Jack had forgiven her for the most heinous crime committable – his own murder at her hands. If she could not free him from herself, at least she could seek his forgiveness for her crimes.
'His precious Pearl never betrayed him like you have,' the ruthless voice hissed. She shook her head, willing it away.
One of Barbossa's crew rowed her to the shore, and she crossed the white sand toward where the footprints of the Pearl's crew led into the dense jungle. But just before she reached the copse of trees, she noticed a familiar figure examining a pile of stones a few feet from where she stood.
"Jack," she breathed, and his head lifted from its concentration. He didn't turn, but she watched his shoulders stiffen. His voice sounded sharply across the sand, carried on the sweet breeze. "What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?"
She blinked, astonished – had he just thrown Shakespeare at her? She knew he was clever, but Shakespeare committed to memory?
She held out a hand, replying with her own quotation. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." Her voice was soft.
He turned, and his face was expressionless. "Frailty, thy name is woman."
Stung now, she returned the barb, her words sharp and sarcastic. "O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!"
He took a step toward her, purposeful and determined. "Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."
She broke the battle of wits. "Jack, please…" She had planned a whole speech, but the words had left her.
He took another step towards her, tilting his head. "How did you get here?"
She waved a hand behind her. "Barbossa. He brought me."
"Ah," Jack nodded. "Revenge for me liberating him of that ridiculous hat, I suppose." He gestured at his head, but the hat he wore was his familiar old leather tricorn. Elizabeth absently wondered what he'd done with Barbossa's hat. She had spent too much time and energy to get there to allow Jack to be skewered.
He was still talking. "Did he tell you how he acquired the Emerald?" he asked, squinting at her.
"Of course."
"And you found no issue with his methods?"
She shrugged. "It's Hector Barbossa. He is what he is; I would have expected nothing less than seduction and pilfering."
Jack nodded agreeably. "He is what he is," he repeated. Elizabeth frowned, wondering where he was going with this. He was acting the same way he had when they'd found him in the Locker; slightly off-kilter, highly suspicious, and aggressively dispassionate towards her.
"He is what he is, and I am what I am, and you are what you are, and we're all here happy to be what we are, is that it?"
She was still confused, but that was a question she could answer. "No, Jack. At least I'm not happy being what I am." She closed the remaining distance between them, disguising the hurt she felt when he flinched away. She looked down, speaking her next words to the sand.
"I know what I've done to you, Jack, and I'm sorry. I never intended for it to go this far. I never intended to shackle you to me."
"The road to hell, love," he returned absently. She looked up; he had gone back to staring at his rocks. She followed him. "Please, Jack. I came to find you – I couldn't leave things the way they were between us. If you can't bear to be with me anymore, then at least forgive me for what I did – what I never meant to do."
Again he didn't bother to look at her, issuing his words to the blasted rocks that held his attention. "And how many times must I absolve you of your sins, Elizabeth?"
"I…" She couldn't tell him, couldn't bring voice to how many times she had wronged this man and asked him to exonerate her, and how many times he had done so. Every teasing glance, every "accidental" touch, every excuse she made to be near him; her very presence was betrayal to him.
Blinking back the tears that were welling in her eyes, she brushed past him without looking at him, setting the tiny glass bottle on the pile of rocks he was so enamoured with. "This belongs to you," she said, still not meeting his eyes, afraid of what she would see in them. "I can't express what it means to me that you would choose to give up your own chance at immortality for me, but I can't accept it." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "A neverending life would be nothing without you, Jack."
She lifted her head proudly, and walked away across the sand. Every step without hearing his voice was hell on earth. She walked on.
"Come back to me, my Elizabeth," he called to her, mockingly, but under the sardonic words was truth, longing, sincerity. She paused, hardly daring to hope.
He grabbed her hand and spun her around to face him. He had a strange expression on his swarthy face; a mixture of hatred and worship, fear and hope, distrust and joy. "You would condemn me to a neverending life without you? What's good for the goose is no good for the gander, eh?"
She stared at him, perplexed. "You hate me."
He nodded. "I do. But flip that coin over, Elizabeth. What's on the other side?"
"Love…" she answered, her lips moving of their own accord. But she shook her head fiercely. "I can't stand that, Jack; I can't have you hate me one second and love me the next. You're impossible to follow as it is."
He scowled at her. "It's always about you, isn't it? Conceited." He reached out and grasped her chin firmly. "You've tied me to you now, Elizabeth Swann, and you'll not rid yourself of me that easily, nor me of you."
She barely heard what the rest of what he said. He had called her Elizabeth Swann. Her maiden name, the name she wore when he dragged her onto the pier at Port Royal and breathed life back into her staid, formal world.
How many names had she carried since that day? She had nearly been Elizabeth Norrington, until James had freed her from her hasty promise. She had been Elizabeth Swann, Pirate King, a title bestowed upon her by a darkly intelligent man with his own agenda. She had become Elizabeth Turner in the middle of a blinding storm, fighting for her life while pledging it to Will.
But what of Elizabeth Sparrow?
She remembered that day on the Pearl, when she had sat on the stairs and pouted. 'I just thought I'd be married by now,' she had whined to Jack when he came over, bottle of rum in hand. 'I'm so ready to be married.'
She remembered his seemingly-casual offer of the rum bottle, his seemingly-offhand remark about being captain of a ship. 'And being captain of a ship I could, in fact, perform a marr-iage right here. Right on this deck. Right…now.' And he had leaned into her, smelling of rum and excitement and danger, and she had been sorely tempted to accept his offer. Her weakness, her near-miss with his charm and his smile, had inspired the venom behind her turndown. 'No, thank you.'
She had regretted that no; regretted not being able to be spontaneous and live for the moment, not being able to accept him and his world of adventure and danger. She had passed it off as simply his usual rum-fueled insanity and tried to push it from her mind.
Tried, and failed.
Could she ever be Elizabeth Sparrow?
She looked at him. He was silent for once, waiting for her to respond, his fingers still strong on her chin. He was all seriousness, but there was a spark in those mahogany eyes that she hadn't seen in a long time.
'Not now, it's all too much too soon. But perhaps one day…'
"Jack Sparrow!"
The gravelly shout broke the spell that had been cast, and both of them jumped, Jack peering over her shoulder to see Barbossa striding across the beach, sword in hand. "Ah. Hector."
Elizabeth turned to face the older man, and blinked as he raised his sword to point at Jack, cowering behind her. "About me hat."
Jack gestured to his head. "Haven't got it, as y'can see. Pity you've lost it, though." He nodded conversationally at Elizabeth. "Very nice. Lots of feathers."
"You have it, ye thievin' wretch," Barbossa snapped. "Probably squirreled it away on my ship." He waved a hand at the Pearl.
Jack pointed from behind Elizabeth toward the Lady's Emerald. "That's your ship. Lost it on your own ship, have ye? Frightfully careless of you, mate." He dodged the slash Barbossa made at him, skittering away across the sand like a weird crab, with the other pirate in hot pursuit. Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but her laughter rang out. This was where she belonged.
After Jack had produced the hat, which, inexplicably, had been stuffed into his left boot, Barbossa left, bidding Elizabeth a leery goodbye. "Told ye. Stubborn ass, he is; he'll never consent to bein' freed from you."
Elizabeth smiled her thanks. She watched the pirate climb into his longboat, wanting to make sure he was on his way before she turned her back on him. She trusted Barbossa when it came to herself, but not so much with Jack.
'Speak of the devil…'
He had ambled back to the pile of rocks she had found him at, kneeling beside them now and making curious gestures with his hands. She sat down beside him, pulling off her boots and stretching her toes in the white sand. "What on earth are you looking for?"
"A sign from the gods," he replied, standing and measuring the height of the rocks against his legs. "There's a temple on this island somewhere, hidden away, and it's rumoured to contain a very special sacred item."
"And you're planning on stealing it."
He was walking around the pile of rocks toe-to-toe to measure its circumference. "Of course not. I'm going to borrow it for the purpose of study and analyzing." Suddenly he paused and looked around. "Where's young William?" he asked, only just noticing that the boy was not there.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Obviously I wasn't going to bring him with me while I traipsed all over the world looking for you." She trailed her finger in the sand, drawing abstract designs. "Besides…there's too much he doesn't know, too much he's still too young to be told. I had to confront a lot of my more unsavoury past on this trip, it was best he didn't see it."
Jack snorted from his position, now standing on his head to observe the rocks upside-down. "What boy wouldn't be delighted to know his mother was a rogue and a ruffian?" he demanded. He rolled neatly over his shoulder, and she was again reminded that his clumsiness was merely an act to throw people off. He removed his hat to dust the sand from it. "Well, I'm convinced," he said matter-of-factly.
"Of what?" she asked.
"Of this being just a pile of rocks and in fact not secret and ancient directions to the temple."
"Oh dear," Elizabeth commiserated, but brightly. "Shall we be off?"
Jack squinted at the jungle. "Aye, I suppose," he said, not sounding overly disappointed. "We can always come back another day. Just have to wait for the crew to return." He settled down beside her, tracing her lines in the sand with a dirty finger. She continued her line in a spiral until her hand collided with his, and was rewarded when his fingers tangled with hers. She leaned in against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Jack," she said softly. "Why are we destined for so much trouble?"
He shrugged, but gently, so as to not jar her head. "I'm supposing it's to atone for a lifetime of wickedness – for my part, at least. You haven't quite led a lifetime, but you have made up for your late start with a few very busy years."
Elizabeth didn't reply, but instead mulled over his words. She didn't consider herself overly wicked, but it took only a few seconds of proper thought for her to change her opinion. She had killed many, been at least partly responsible for the death of her father, committed countless acts of adultery, and abandoned her child. She had cheated and lied and swindled and deceived her way through the world, leaving scars on lives that would have been otherwise untouched.
"That statement was meant to lift your spirits, not depress you," Jack admonished, giving her a look of mock annoyance. "It's hardly proper for a pirate to be depressed. Especially a Pirate King."
She sighed. "It's not so simple. You just made me think of all the wicked things I've done. And it seems there are more than I thought, and they're worse than I thought."
"No one lives a life completely devoid of evil, Liz, least of all a pirate. Most of us don't even try anymore."
"Mmm," she hummed. "I suppose there's nothing I can do about it. At least until Judgment Day."
Jack suppressed a shiver. "Not my favourite topic of conversation, love."
She shook her head. "'Nor mine."
"Jack! Elizabeth!"
The crew had returned. The couple on the sand hurried to their feet. Elizabeth was hesitant to make eye contact with Gibbs, but when she did, she was relieved to see a similar look of relief on his craggy face. "Jack," the First Mate addressed his captain, "we found the temple."
"You what?" Jack gaped at the older man. Gibbs shrugged. "It's the same one we visited on the way to the Isla de Muerta, the first time we went. You took the idol and then it was stolen when we were waylaid by those Turkish boys."
Jack continued to stare, open-mouthed, at him. "Didn't you recognize the island?" Gibbs asked. The captain didn't answer; instead, he spun around to stare at the pile of rocks. "Of course!" he yelped. "This pile of rocks was in fact secret and ancient directions to the temple. Then I moved them around." He whirled back to glare at Gibbs. "Why did you let me sit here and try to steal something I'd already stolen?"
Gibbs gestured helplessly. "I've never been one to question your motives or actions, Captain. I figured you knew what you were doing."
Jack sniffed. "Well, perhaps it's time you did start questioning me, Master Gibbs," he ordered, rather petulantly. He waved an imperious hand at the rest of the crew. "Make ready to cast off."
"Are you sure, Captain?" Gibbs asked, affecting a look of skepticism. Jack glared again. "Don't question my motives or my actions, Master Gibbs." He set off across the sand, leaving Gibbs to stare after him, hands spread in supplication, and Elizabeth trying unsuccessfully to smother her laughter.
Jack and Elizabeth climbed the sandy ridge to her cottage in silence. At the door, Jack spoke. "Are you sure y'don't want to see if we can't find Will? We've still got a ways before winter sets in."
Elizabeth shook her head. "It can wait. I'd rather not get caught in a storm or something of the like." She tilted her head sadly. "Are you sure you can't stay?"
He smiled ruefully. "Wish I could, but I have a number of interests in play that need my attention." He brushed his fingers along her jaw, and was rewarded when she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely. "Here," he said when they broke apart. He reached into his vest and drew out the bottle of Aqua de Vida. "You keep this."
She shook her head violently, opening her mouth to argue, but he placed a gentle hand over her mouth. "Just to keep it safe, you infuriating girl. You seem t'be good at guarding important things."
An impish grin flickered in her eyes and she suddenly licked his palm. "Ugh!" He snatched the hand back, making a show of wiping it on his filthy shirt. He tapped her on the nose. "I'll be back at the usual time." Giving her a wink, he disappeared down the ridge.
Her heart lighter than it had been in months, Elizabeth tucked the Water of Life into her bodice and set off to collect her son.