"You came back."
Jack looked to Elizabeth. She hoped he would smile that barely-there smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth like a secret between just the two of them, but he didn't. Instead Jack wore a sullen look, resolute, accepting his fate of imprisonment in the Locker—a fate said worse than death itself according to legend.
"Even though it's after you. You came back."
Elizabeth's voice shook around the word. "It." She recalled the tentacles from moments ago, the all-consuming fear that overcame her at the sight of one reaching for her, at the sight of Will hanging mercilessly from one. They barely survived even on the Black Pearl, a mighty ship. In a longboat, they wouldn't stand a chance.
"A Captain goes down with the ship, after all," Jack muttered.
Elizabeth could tell Jack wanted to pull a face. He wanted to lament, "But why me? Why this ship?" But his jaw was set strong and eyes cast downward, more serious than lighthearted, a time for graveness instead of theatrics.
"Go on, Swann." Jack gestured with a nod towards the longboat.
Elizabeth's jaw jutted forward defiantly as she disregarded the instruction and reached for Jack's compass. She opened it instantly and when the arrow landed unmistakably on him, Elizabeth met Jack's eyes then met his mouth with her own in a searching kiss.
If he returned it, she would save him, she decided. If he returned it, there was a silent kind of promise there.
Elizabeth pressed against Jack, smiling some around a rushed breath when they stumbled into a mast, forgetting momentarily the tense moment as she thought of him and only of him. Jack steadied the both of them then framed Elizabeth's jaw with strong hands, tender yet desperate to be the one to claim her mouth this time, still open from shock—more so from kissing Jack than the near-fall. Jack pulled Elizabeth closer by the waist and she threaded her fingers into his hair and worked to become closer still until pausing suddenly, a chill running down her spine at the recognition that Jack kissed her back. Her choice to take his place was now set in stone in her mind. Elizabeth would soon be isolated from him, from all of them. But they would be safe and the crew would have their Captain.
Unaware of Elizabeth's internal battle and only aware of her soft and showing a sense of caring for him, an instinctive low and wanting sound fell from Jack's mouth into hers, hungry for her, for life. Elizabeth turned her head away with a shuddering exhale just as she felt the smooth glide of his tongue against hers. She came to, remembering the ticking clock that was the sea beast beneath them, soon to attack once again.
"You go instead," she countered in a whisper.
Jack took Elizabeth by the shoulders and his eyes told a story, displaying a clear wash of emotions as they always did against his liking—from sultry interest to lost in a moment of confusion to determination to fight her on what she implied, sacrificing herself to the beast in his place, all in a matter of seconds.
"Don't be senseless, Swann. You and I both know the beast is only after me."
Elizabeth looked to Jack's hand, her eyes landing on the ring he stole from a witch doctor she heard whispers of but never met.
"I'll wear the ring. I'll take your place."
"What do you know of Tia Dalma's spells—?"
Elizabeth forced the ring from Jack's hand on onto her own.
"Enough to know the kraken won't tell the different between the two of us if I wear her ring and something of your essence," she said. "I heard your initial plan to use someone to take your place. I listen when you prattle on new plan after new plan under your breath at night, you know. I do more than mindlessly daydream on deck. I'm more than a female fixture carved into the wood of the Pearl although most times I'm treated as such," she spat out the accusatory words in a rush, sure to throw him off.
Jack seemed to stumble over a reply at her intensity and she took the moment to steal the hat from his head. His hands fluttered helplessly at air, too late.
Elizabeth knew Jack would try to stop her, to make well on going down with the ship if nothing more than to protect his fragile masculinity. But she hoped there was more to it. There had to be more to it. She felt it in his embrace, in the way he kissed her just then, holding onto her and urging her close, chest-to-chest, the act a nonverbal confession. Elizabeth hoped she wasn't alone in feeling this. Either way, the decision benefited her even in its darkness, especially in its darkness. To choose the Locker was to choose Jack yet avoid the repercussions from it. Jack could live on adventuring and Will could live on, none the wiser of her fleeting love for him, finding home in another. In one way, she would be imprisoned, in another way free. The decision wasn't senseless as Jack said, she thought. It made a world of sense.
"Swann, don't do this. You don't know what you're promising yourself to."
Elizabeth kissed Jack one last time, stealing the sword from his waist before Jack could make sense of it all. She huffed out a breath of satisfaction but her smile fell at Jack's eyes, holding a layered sense of betrayal. How could she show she cared for him yet, by doing so, take herself out of this world from him? She wondered if he would rather have succumbed to his fate, swallowed by the sea beast, not knowing Elizabeth cared for him deeply enough to make trade of her life for his. But it was much too late for that.
"Let me do something courageous for a change, will you?" Elizabeth whispered, placing his hat on her head.
The action made it real to Elizabeth she was to be apart from Jack and running into uncertainty. The Locker. Was it death? Was it hell? She wasn't sure, but she couldn't bear the thought of Jack there and her going about life as if he hadn't changed her, left a more than welcomed Sparrow-shaped mark. She would be more miserable in a life returned to normalcy than in the Locker even, she was sure.
"Go," she said, her voice softer than Jack ever heard it, the word nearly swallowed up by the unrelenting wind.
"Elizabeth—"
"Go!" she repeated, speaking through her teeth, trying to appear brave even as she trembled, extending the blade forward, earning space between them.
Jack's eyes met Elizabeth's, seemingly icy to anyone who hadn't spend longer than a handful of moments with her but after days upon the sea with the lass Jack caught onto the concealed warmth hidden there. Heat, actually. Heat for him, against all reason, against the tidy life she envisioned as a young girl of her and Will, against all she thought she wanted for years which she realized wasn't even her desires to begin with but instead a force-fed, digestible future. Now that she was charting new waters, there were entire new worlds of true feeling, true passion. What was more passionate than her truly saving his life?
I saved your life, you save mine, we're square, Jack said once at a time which now felt like ages ago. Elizabeth she was never quite fond of what Jack considered her "saving his life"—a chain around her neck and barrel of a gun awfully too close to her head, wet and shivering before him. No, this was much more courageous.
Jack's eyes pleaded with her in one last attempt to sway her until his gaze drew up to tentacles rising behind Elizabeth her. A flash of cowardice got the best of him, and Jack stumbled backwards then climbed in a rush down the rope that lowered the longboat. He dove into the sea and swam towards the small vessel the rest of the crew escaped on.
Jack clutched onto the sides of the longboat, gasping for air and pulling himself up. Gibbs helped him the rest of the way aboard and he caught his breath, for once speechless, shocked still. It was so unlike him. He was marvelous at speeches. Then again, letting a woman—not just any woman, but Elizabeth at that—take a fall for him was much unlike him too.
He was instantly met with a shrill questioning from Will, the last sound he wanted to take the place of his memory of Elizabeth's voice and her eyes, those eyes, intense and—Dare he say?—loving, curtained by her flowing hair.
"Jack, answer me," Will snapped. "Where's Elizabeth?" he asked the question once more, well, less a question than a demand for an answer.
In a phantom feeling, Jack reached up to fidget with his hat but, upon recalling why it wasn't there, his heart sank.
"She, well, Elizabeth, she," Jack cleared his throat. "She took my place."
Jack ignored the string of questions and speculations the duo he always did his best to ignore went on about. They should have been the fish food, Jack thought sourly, resisting the urge to strangle the lanky, inquisitive one. The little fellow interjected their already seemingly endless back-and-forth, insisting they wait to hear from their Captain. The parrot on Cotton's shoulder squawked and, out of Jack's peripheral, he noticed it ruffled its features. Cotton, now that was a good man. Nice and quiet. He had no choice to be, though, did he?
"What?" Will shouted, disbelieving. "How?" He seemed not to care on this point too long, however, when he followed the question with another. "Why? Why would she," he trailed off upon looking to the Black Pearl, turning as white as a sheet of parchment.
Jack looked over his shoulder and he turned fully in an instant, his hand grappling at the front of his coat, just before his heart. Jack watched wordlessly as the beast that was meant for him rose fully from the depths revealing its full menacing size.
Gibbs focused on rowing them to shore, hiding his face into his shoulder, refusing to watch. The rest of the crew watched on, as silent as their Captain. The group of men started when a tentacle fell into the water, sliced clean off. Then the longboat was drawn forward by a sonorous noise from the sea creature, interrupting the pattern of waves with a notably unnaturally strong one. Jack leaned over the edge of the longboat and he swore although they were nearly to land that he heard Elizabeth's last cry meld with the monster's just as the Pearl was swallowed whole.
She went out fighting. Of course she did.
Jack was jarred out of his reverie when the longboat hit earth, the stillness of land unsettling his spirit even more so than usual. Jack practically leapt from the boat, walking into the ocean in long strides, driven by nothing else outside of regret.
"Are you mad?" Gibbs called out to his Captain. "Not after she sacrificed herself for you, you don't."
Regret and madness, yes. Plenty of that.
"I must be. I have to be mad, don't I?" Jack asked no one in particular, perhaps himself. "Only a fool of a Captain would let a woman bear the weight he was meant to. And not just any woman, any person, but Elizabeth." Jack's voice rose, full of venom directed at himself as he walked forward, shrugging off Gibbs. "It should have been me. It should have been me," he muttered.
Will looked between the two, trying to sort out if Jack was about to drown himself, how to rescue Elizabeth, and if he wanted step in to help Gibbs or wanted to relish in Jack removing himself—the usual problem—in a matter of seconds.
It was when Jack reached full hysterics, shouting Will's lover's name at the sea that Will finally stepped forward and wrestled a hold on Jack's other shoulder. The pleading calls sounded too much like his own, Will realized. Jack had mocked him once over drinks, mocked the way he shouted out her name in times of distress. Jack had mimicked him, earning a roar of laughter and claps on the back from other crew members as he grinned widely, looking pleased with himself like a spoiled house cat around his glass of liquor. Will pulled a sour face, knowing this wasn't a moment for an, "I told you so." Even so, he wanted to teach Jack a lesson awfully bad. However, Jack taught himself a lesson all his own, Will reasoned, his now undeniable pattern of cowardice and selfishness finally besting him.
Gibbs and Will effectively managed to seat Jack on the shoreline and Pintel and Ragetti sheepishly stepped forward, offering a flask of alcohol to Will. He took it and pressed the flask into Jack's hand who wordlessly accepted. Jack took a long, silent drink then continued to stare at the shoreline. Cotton's parrot flew down and sat next to him but Jack, his eyes unwaveringly still on the sea, shooed the animal away.
"She was the only person I ever cared about more than myself," Jack admitted in a low voice, staring into the ocean.
"I know what you mean," Will said, and Jack turned to him, his eyebrows set in a pitiful kind of expression that he never saw the Captain wear before, not in his presence.
"Well, then we save her, damn it," Gibbs interjected.
"You saw the ship go down like the rest of us," Ragetti chimed in.
"Yeah, the girl is," Pintel crossed his eyes and made and unintelligible sound, his tongue shooting out of his mouth. He then rubbed at a smarting spot where Ragetti elbowed him in the side.
"Empathy, Pintel. We've worked on this," Ragetti hissed in a whisper.
"No, no, the imbecile's right." Jack waved off Ragetti without looking. Pintel looked pleased at being deemed right then narrowed his eyes and huffed when he registered the insult. Jack downed the rest of the flask in one last swing. "Elizabeth. She's gone."
"But Jack," Gibbs shook his shoulder and Jack shrugged him off. "Tia Dalma."
Jack's eyes lit up. His expression softened and his posture straightened, the name breathing hope into him.
"Tia Dalma," Jack echoed.
Will hung onto the hopeful energy in the air, making a mental note to himself that once Elizabeth was saved, he would take her into an intimate vessel alone, marry her, and build them a house on land as soon as possible, as far away from the sea as possible, as far away from pirates as possible.
Pintel drew a hand over his face. "Can we not ever take a moment's rest?"
Jack stood and shoved the flask into Pintel's chest, earning a huff. "Then don't come," Jack said, his voice as threatening as his narrowed eyes, "and rot away for all we care," he finished, before pacing, muttering a plan under his breath complete with questions which he answered himself.
Will rolled his eyes at Jack's changing inflections, floundering between defeated and positive, engaging in both negative self-talk and consoling words.
"I think I quite like not rotting, thanks!" Pintel chirped.
Pintel shook out one last drop of alcohol from the flask into his mouth and tapped his finger against his head thoughtfully before following Jack in his pacing. Ragetti fell into line, joining in after Pintel, the pair like two chicks following a mother hen.
"They're ridiculous," Will muttered, looking to Gibbs who only shook his head, smiling some to himself.
"They're family," he corrected, clapping Will on the shoulder before pulling a folded map out of his sea journal to chart the quickest path to Tia Dalma's hideaway.
Will watched Gibb's silently for a moment until Marty stepped in to help Gibbs with charting then looked to the three pacing then to Cotton who was scratching his parrot's neck. It was then that Will realized how out of place he truly was. He didn't view any of them as family in the slightest. He might have viewed Jack in that light, once. Certainly not now.
No matter, he thought. He was to save his own family. His father. And Elizabeth, of course.