Elizabeth stayed in there long after Will had left, thinking over what he had said about Jack. She pondered her feelings for him, and wondered about his feelings for her. The sun had long since set when finally left Jack's cabin.

No time like the present to find out, she decided. But there was no one on deck. She glanced around, then looked up at the quarter-deck. Mr Gibbs was on watch.

"Evening, Mr Gibbs," she greeted him. "Where's Jack?"

Gibbs pointed silently upward. Elizabeth peered up and could just barely make out the silhouette of one of Jack's boots, sticking out from the crow's nest. She sighed.

"Might have known nothing would ever be easy, with him," she grumbled, mounting the gunwale and swinging around to climb the ratlines.

Elizabeth swung up into the crow's nest next to Jack. "Budge up," she ordered.

He gave her a suspicious glance and moved over a fraction. She squeezed in next to him, shoving him over a trifle more, to make room.

She studied him for a moment. His face was expressionless, his hat tipped low over his eyes. He was drinking.

"So it's really true," she told him. "Will confirmed it: I'm either a young widow, or a strumpet with a bastard child."

"I'd go with widow, were I you," he suggested. "More respectable."

She nodded. A silence fell. Jack tipped up the bottle again, and she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. He said, "So you were in there together for an awfully long time. I assume you and your 'sweet William' reached an accord?"

"We did, I think."

"Congratulations," Jack said sarcastically. "When is the wedding to be, then?"

"What wedding?" Elizabeth asked, startled. Will had only said there might be something going on with him and Calypso. Certainly nothing about a wedding! "Whose wedding?"

Jack gave her a long, sidelong look. "I had assumed that you and William, after having re-consummated your relationship, as it were, would also be reviewing or remaking or re-vowing or remarrying or finding some other damn-fool way to ruin your life by legitimizing your marriage and therefore your son."

"Are you serious?" she demanded.

"Are you?"

Elizabeth started to flare up, but then remembered what Will had told her and took a deep, calming breath. Looked at from Jack's perspective, it might very well look as if she and Will might have borrowed his cabin for other purposes than conversation.

"First of all," she said quietly, "We're not going to remarry. Much of our discussion centered on finding other people. Second, we did not re-consummate anything. All we did was talk for a long time and then kiss each other goodbye. If we're not married, it wouldn't have been right for us to do anything more, even if we wanted to! Which, to be quite frank, I didn't. I haven't even seen him in a year and a half. Not to mention that even touching him felt a little creepy when he's all dead and clammy now. Third, if I were to engage in that sort of activity with someone else, you think I'd do it in your cabin? Fourth—"

"Hold it right there on number three, darling," Jack interrupted. "If you were to engage in that sort of activity with someone else, you say? Someone other than whom?" He blinked at her in mock-innocence. "Could there be anyone with whom it would be proper to engage in those sorts of activities in my cabin?"

She smiled sweetly. "Well, you did tell me to make myself at home, Jack. Now hand over the bottle."

He sloshed it for a moment and licked off a stray drop from the lip of it. "Dead and clammy, eh?" he said with a smirk, and handed it to her. "Here y'are, love. Wash the taste of dead husband from your mouth."

Elizabeth did so, reflecting for a moment on the intimacy of sharing a bottle with someone. She and Jack had shared bottles dozens of times before, but she had never had any thought cross her mind before, of her mouth touching where his mouth had just been. Where his tongue had just been, in fact. She nearly blushed as she tipped it up and drank, and then handed it back.

"So you talked about finding other people, eh?" Jack asked. "That must mean he told you about Calypso?"

"Yes," she replied. Taking a deep breath, she continued, "And asked me about you."

"Oh?" Something in Jack's tone, just in that one syllable, sounded faintly nervous.

She smiled to herself, tipping her head back against Jack's upper arm so she could look up at the stars. She nodded against his arm. "He asked me if you and I had anything going on between us, and I told him you had been a good friend to me."

"That's it?" he asked, tipping up the bottle again.

"Well, you're an incorrigible flirt," she said. "Hard to tell if any of it's real."

"Real as you want it to be, darling," Jack said seriously. Hastily he continued, "Anyway, the flirting's one of the things you love most about me."

Elizabeth had to admit he was right. "Maybe."

Jack apparently hadn't expected her agreement. "Oh? So what about the rest of the things you love about me? Let's hear 'em, dearie." He grinned.

"Well, your ego certainly isn't one of them!" she snapped.

He gave her a knowing look and tossed his arm over her shoulders. "Oh, I think it is. You like the 'Captain Jack Sparrow' about me. Admit it."

"Perhaps I do, a little, but to be honest, I prefer just Jack."

"Aha! So you want to know my secrets then, is that it? You seek to know the man behind the legend!" Jack's tone was light, bantering.

Elizabeth made herself a little more comfortable, nestling into the arc of his arm. She rested her forehead against the side of his neck. "I think I already do know that man. He's why I put up with the legend."

For once, it seemed as if Jack could think of nothing to say. Elizabeth felt his lips in her hair, giving her a single kiss on top of her head, and then he rested his head on hers and tightened his arm around her.

She reached over and traced the back of his other hand with her fingers, where it rested on his thigh. She toyed idly with his rings. He allowed this for a few minutes, stroking her wrist with his thumb, and then he opened his hand out flat on his thigh. She ran her fingers down the back of his hand between his fingers, and he closed his fist trapping her fingertips inside. He lifted her hand to his lips for a long moment, then released it.

"I'd better get you back to Teague's," he said. "Especially before we drink too much to climb down."

Elizabeth snorted with amusement. "Imagine how Aunt Agatha would scold!" She swung her legs over the side of the crow's nest, feeling for purchase on the ratlines.

"She'll probably give me a scolding as 'tis," Jack said. "Keeping you out so late, and you with a baby an' all." He took one last gulp, corked the bottle, and shoved it into his shirt before following her down.