A/N: The gorgeous cover was so generously made by Florencia7. Thank you, dearest! :)

PART II

Jack slammed the door of his cabin, leaning against it as though a herd of howling natives pursued him across his ship.

Rum.

Quickly he flung open the doors of his liquor cabinet, clasping a bottle of kill devil and wrenching free the cork. A few swallows later the world seemed to spin with a little less fervor, but it certainly hadn't stopped completely.

What the bloody hell had he been thinking?

He hadn't been thinking, he amended. Well…not with his brain, he realized with a wry glance down to the appendage between his legs that still stood at full attention, and was quite annoyed the rest of Jack had put an end to the fun.

Which, as one would have it, was always what got him into trouble with that blasted girl. His cock and his…well, he could admit it in the confines of his own skull. His heart, always got the better of him, when Elizabeth Swann was involved.

Jack took a seat behind his desk, slumping back in the chair. There would be hell to pay tomorrow. Or perhaps he would get lucky and Davy Jones and Beckett would blast him to smithereens, and spare him the pain of whatever Miss Swann undoubtedly had in store for him now.

Or perhaps ol' Davy and that nasty little Lord Beckett would never get the chance, because he quite distinctly heard the sound of boots fervently clacking across the deck in a hurried line towards his cabin. Captain Sparrow took another drink of rum and said goodbye to the world as he knew it, again.

As she burst in upon him he made certain to assume a mildly amused expression, the one that always seemed to infuriate her most. His eyebrows raised high as she closed the door, not only latching it but turning the key in the lock as well.

"Well, well. I see you still don't know when you're better off, Miss Swann."

Absently he sucked upon the finger that had been so intimately acquainted with her secret treasure, as though having just enjoyed a most delicious meal.

Even in her deliciously disheveled state, the chit still managed to look positively regal, lifting her chin in that infuriating way. Damn this girl! his thoughts hissed. Any sensible pair of people who had engaged in the opposing roles of an act of murder would be doing something logical right now, like dueling to the death, or at least at each other's throats, and not running in circles eternally undecided in whether or not they really wanted to fuck each other.

His cock twitched in his breeches with the thought, weighing in his vote on the subject.

"And I see you still run from the things that scare you, Captain Sparrow."

He wagged a bejeweled finger in her direction. "An entirely sensible course of action when faced with ravenous giant cephalopods and fiery young maidens who have succeeded in feeding you to the above mentioned beastie in the recent past."

She stamped her foot like a petulant child, clenching her fists with barely tamped rage. "I brought you back," she insisted, pointing right back at him. "Without me you would not be sitting in that chair, smiling smugly with a bottle of rum and licking your fingers like a cretin."

Jack doffed his tricorn in her direction. "The least you could do, if ye ask me. And may I ask, what the blazes do you think you're doing in here?"

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, taking another step into the room. Her limbs positively trembled, and she wasn't sure if it was from anger, fear, or desire. Probably all three, she reasoned. Jack had a way of tying up her insides just so. It seemed dying hadn't changed that.

Though he raised a very good question. Just what the hell did she think she was doing in here? What did she want? What did Jack want? It had seemed he might want to take his revenge upon her, but had swiftly changed his course. When you wrapped your legs around him like a two-bit hussy she realized. As though his earlier administrations hadn't been enough of a clue, it truly dawned on her that Jack still wanted her. It caused a flutter of hope, deep down in her chest, that he did not hate her after all.

Yet, unless she forced the insufferable pirate to show his cards, something he was always positively loathe to do, she doubted he would act upon it again on his own. He would run his mouth and run circles about her, playing his games and spouting all sorts of innuendo—yet in the end she had been the one to take action last time they shared a moment of passion.

So what will you do? she asked herself. Slink away like a coward, or take charge?

She bit her lip as she began to formulate a plan. The worse that could happen was Jack would throw her out on her arse. Or…try to kill her again. Either fate she might even deserve. She realized that even if she felt Jack also owed her an apology, she wanted to offer some sort of penance for her own crime, for her own conscience as much as Jack's gratification.

"You said it yourself, Jack. We have unfinished business, you and I."

The pirate captain swallowed hard, his own insides knotted in a similar fashion. After coming back from the Locker Elizabeth inspired dueling urges to run towards her with open arms and run away as fast as he could. As she neared closer, he felt both with alarming urgency.

And so he remained in his chair.

"Me memory may be dodgy, having died, but I do seem to recall someone giving me advice about seizing opportunities to be a better man as they come to me." He made a flourishing gesture with his hands, rings glinting in the candlelight. "Yet after I have done so, said advisor has presently and quite improperly followed me into my cabin, while her fiancé sleeps below in a hammock, snug as a babe in his crib, no doubt dreamin; o' married life with his bonny lass. Fool that he be."

A bitter laugh fell from Elizabeth's lips that surprisingly squeezed Jack's heart, a painful little zing that made him twitch in his chair. Unable to meet Jack's eyes, her gaze fell to the floor. "My. It seems like a lifetime ago that I would consider myself even mildly qualified to lecture on what is good and bad. Now I think there is only what you can do and can't do. There is what you can live with, and what you can't live without. Those are the questions now."

She dared look up at him from beneath her lashes, and found a rather solemn Jack Sparrow staring back at her. He seemed almost etherealin the candlelight, a creature made of gold and shadows. Jack's heart pounded as her words rained upon him, and for once he had nothing to say for a good long while.

Pirate, he thought. She's a pirate through and through, now.

Elizabeth broke the silence, her voice ringing hollow and dispassionate as an assertion about the weather. "I'm not going to marry him."

By the stone cold resolution in her words, Jack actually believed her.

Well, thank fuck for that, he found himself thinking, and then was instantly annoyed with himself. Why the bloody hell should he care whether she did or didn't marry the whelp?

Why indeed.

"Told the whelp that yet?"

"I think he knows."

She and William hadn't really spoken since the kraken took the Pearl, and Elizabeth reasoned it was for the better in the end. She had realized since that her heart didn't belong to William anymore. Perhaps it never really did.

"What made ye change yer mind?"

Elizabeth pressed her lips, flexing her jaw with thought. "I'm not the woman he thinks I am. He's never seen me for who I really am. Until recently, I don't think I had either."

Jack took a bolstering swig of rum. Was it just him, or was it suddenly unbearably warm in his cabin?

A quip of you mean, he doesn't see ye for a charming little murderess? died on his lips. He surprised himself with the words he spoke instead. "It's a rare thing t'find a person who really knows themselves," he answered, fixing her with eyes that burned like twin black suns. "Rarer yet t'find someone who sees ye for who ye really are."

Suddenly Elizabeth was very interested in the toes of her boots. "You've always seen me for who I really am," she said, her voice so quiet Jack barely made out her words. Yet still their power managed to send a frisson of gooseflesh across his skin, causing his grip upon the neck of the rum bottle to tighten.

A long silence passed between them, during which Elizabeth felt certain the pounding of her heart must be audible in the confines of the Pearl's great cabin. And then Jack's eyebrow rose a notch higher, as Elizabeth removed her coat, hanging it upon the back of a chair. The eyebrow reached its absolute apex, when she stepped out of her boots as well.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, rather meekly for the captain of the ship, unable to tear his eyes from her. Where candlelight made Jack appear a little more sinister, deepening the shadows of his swarthy features, it gilded Elizabeth like an angel, catching like fire in her tousled golden tresses, making her eyes shine like burnished coins.

"Getting comfortable. I'm going to be here for a while."

"Oh, ye think so?"

She seemed impervious to his jibes, her eyes glinting defiantly in the candlelight. With a glare across the room she dared him to say nay, as she pulled free the loosened bindings from beneath her shirt, unwinding them from her waist foot by foot. She draped them across the back of the chair as well, and Jack felt the tempo of his heart increasing with the size of the pile of garments upon the chair.

The thump of her gully knife from her boot being thrown upon the table caused him to jump in his seat, and the corner of her mouth twitched. But the coup de grace came as she loosened the ties of her breeches, stepping out of the oversized garment, and placed them like a cherry on top of the pile of clothing. Her hands shook a little as she did so, and she hoped Jack wouldn't notice.

Her shirt hung down to her thighs, still covering everything…pertinent, and yet Jack's mouth went dry as she came to stand before him, a hand upon her hip. Her bare legs seemed to go on forever, and the curves of her figure were hardly disguised by the voluminous linen shirt. Jack found himself gripping the arms of his chair, unable to tear his eyes from her.

For a long time she stood still as a statue before him, curious what he would do. Hoping, she realized, that he would grab her up and fill the gaps where her knowledge sadly lacked.

However, he would not prove so cooperative, sitting back as far in his chair as he could from her. It was almost comical in a way, and simultaneously heartbreaking. He flinched as she lifted a hand, yet watched with abject fascination as she loosed one more button of her shirt. Intrigued, she tilted her head to regard Jack, her hair spilling down over her shoulder. Apparently she had a lot to learn about men. They said one thing when their bodies very much meant another.

Appropriating the bottle upon the desk, Elizabeth took a fortifying swig of rum without flinching.

"I believe you owe me a hat, Captain Sparrow."

She could have pushed him over with a feather as she plucked his own tricorn from atop his head, relocating it upon her own. It was too big and sat low over her eyes, throwing her face in shadow. Before he could regain any semblance of his wits Elizabeth turned for the berth. The sight of her glancing invitingly over her shoulder at him, his hat slung low over her eyes, the barest hint of round buttocks visible beneath that damned shirt…it was enough to drive him madder than the Locker ever did.

Where did she learn to look at a man like that? Certainly not from the whelp.

A pirate and a maiden. A deadly combination indeed, as she'd already proven.

Elizabeth curled upon her side on the berth, propping her head in her hand. She gave no indication of how truly nervous she felt inside, levelling her caramel colored gaze at Jack. They sat caught in limbo for what felt like an eternity, the seemingly short space between them stretched wide as an ocean.

She wondered if he would throw her out on her bare arse after all, for the stone-faced way he looked upon her. She'd never seen such a look upon his visage before, his dark eyes filled simultaneously with hunger and dread.

Not so long ago, Jack remembered hearing his crew members commenting on Elizabeth's figure. Skinny as a lad they'd chuckled under their breaths while coiling line. Nothin' t'hold on to. But Jack had always suspected different after pulling her sodden form from the bay that fateful day, and he could see now that he'd been utterly correct in his assessment. The mound of her breast threatened to spill from the unbuttoned collar of her shirt, and the curve of her hips and buttocks was utterly breathtaking.

Sufficiently flummoxed, Jack took a swig of rum.

Who was this girl? Certainly not the coy young thing he'd sparred with upon his ship, with whom he'd traded barely veiled propositions in words such as persuasion and mar-i-age. Or hardly even the sad-eyed woman he'd just encountered upon the deck, who he'd left flustered in the forecastle.

Was it even real? The line between reality and his dream scape had been quite thin since his return from the locker. He squeezed closed his eyes, chanting wake up wake up wake up in his head. Upon opening his eyes, he found Elizabeth still lay there before him, lounging upon his berth like a half-clothed odalisque.

Elizabeth drew figure eights upon the bedspread with a long finger, looking up at Jack from beneath her lashes. "Am I to have the bed all to myself tonight, then? It is a sight more comfortable than a hammock, I suppose it wouldn't be a tragedy after all." She fluffed one of his lumpy pillows, propping herself upon it. The motion caused the hem of the shirt to ride up torturously high, her breasts nearly spilling from her shirt, and Jack groaned, unable to stand it any longer.

He rose from his chair, putting down the bottle of rum with a thump.

Well, God damn, he thought. This is really, truly, inexplicably, happening. Now.

Elizabeth watched with a mixture of trepidation and poorly disguised hunger as he shrugged out of his coat, tossing it sharply upon his chair. "Ye can't take this back, ye know. It's quite…permanent."

As he came to stand beside the bed Elizabeth tilted her head back to regard him. "You mean like killing a man?" she deadpanned, in a tone so barren of emotion Jack's gut clenched.

He caught her chin in his hand, turning her gaze to him none too gently. "Decidedly more so…or so it would seem."

"I know at least that much about it," she retorted, pulling free of his grasp. "Are you coming down here, or are we just going to glare at each other all night?"

Annoyed, he took back his hat, tossing it upon a side table. It was like lifting the lid off a chest of gold, the sudden revelation of her gilded beauty stealing his breath away. Further vexed that she affected him this way, still, after what she had done to him, he shot back, "Are ye in that big of a hurry, luv?"

Elizabeth froze, something inside bursting with warmth as that last word settled over her. She closed her eyes, as though savoring a warm ocean breeze. "Say it again," she whispered, as Jack watched her with even more befuddlement.

"What?"

"Luv," she repeated. "Luv and Lizzy and darlin', all those infuriatingly familiar names you used to call me. I miss hearing them."

The pirate captain's expression softened, waylaid by her unexpected sweetness.

She'd never really ever been sweet to him before, he realized. Always, even when they were on good terms, it felt as though they were locked in the full pitch of battle.

He felt that roiling pit of anger damper inside, replaced by something decidedly more pleasant, though just a befuddling. "Lizzy," he said, coiling a lock of her golden hair between his fingers. "What do you really want? Hmm?"

She looked down, suddenly quite interested in the weave and weft of the bedspread. "Your forgiveness," she answered quietly, unable to meet his eyes. A small little laugh escaped her, the first trace of nerves in her performance. "And…I think you can guess."

"Ye don't even know what to call it, do you?"

She shifted to kneel before him, tentatively reaching for his tunic. "Does it matter?" As she began to unfasten his buttons, Jack wasn't really sure it did. His fingers traced the line of her jaw, down to rest upon her slender throat. His large hand engulfed her svelte neck almost entirely, and though he knew she was not fragile, she certainly felt that way. Delicate. Petite. Remarkably fine. Too fine for the likes of him.

He was a pirate, and he'd always relished taking that which he could never ever dream of owning otherwise. Gold. Jewels. Ships. And now Elizabeth Swann, Governor's daughter.

She took a deep breath, her eyes sliding closed.

Waiting for him to change his mind, and take his revenge after all.

All he had to do was squeeze.

Perhaps he'd thought about killing her more than a few times while trapped in the Locker, yet now that kind of revenge didn't so interesting. It was entirely too…predictable.

His fingers slid up into her hair, gripping that golden mane at the base of her neck, pulling her head back to look at him. "I wouldn't confuse this with that, darlin'. They are decidedly not one and the same."

Elizabeth clenched her jaw, unsettled by how much she liked Jack's rough hands upon her, tangled in her hair, making her his. Her hands paused upon his buttons for the briefest moment, before she shrugged, the neck of her shirt falling down her shoulder. "It can't hurt."

Jack's grip in her hair softened, grabbing fistfuls of soft waves, pulling her to him. "It will hurt, Lizzy. You know that, don't you?"

"Everything about being a woman hurts. Why should this be any different?" Jack heard the disappointment and anger for the world in her words, and he felt sorry that at long last the governor's daughter had learned the lesson. More often than not, life chewed you up and spit you out, laughing all the while.

It made his heart ache, and he leaned down to kiss her, holding her close with hands upon her cheeks. He was surprisingly sweet, his tongue stroking her lips slowly, asking for entrance. All too gladly she granted it, opening beneath him, and Jack kissed her silly, his hands sliding down her body, dragging against the ladder of her ribcage to her waist. "I'll make it good for you, luv," he promised, hoping he wouldn't be made a liar.

By the way he'd nearly taken her upon the gunwale, Elizabeth believed he could. She doubled her efforts, unwinding his sash so that she could make short work of the remaining buttons of his tunic. As he felt Elizabeth's deft hands divesting him of his clothing Jack vaguely wondered again if this was even real, or yet another fantasy that had haunted his dreams while in the Locker. It was a fantasy he'd visited, truth be told, as both a living man and a dead one.

She worked the buttons of his shirt, pushing the time-worn garment from his shoulders, and gasped a little for the sight before her. Elizabeth realized she'd never actually seen Jack without a shirt before, though she wasn't sure why that should come as such a surprise. Surveying the map of scars and tattoos written across his tanned skin, her fingers brushed a scar upon his ribs that looked fresher than the others, a circular mark bigger than her fist with a gash in the center.

Lizzy realized it was a mark left from the tentacles of the Kraken, those wicked appendages fitted with suckers and teeth in the center. Chewing her lip, she traced this mark, the sting of tears filling her eyes. "Did it hurt?" she asked quietly, daring to turn her gaze up to Jack's.

He'd been eaten alive by a giant squid, before being sent by whatever means of magic to Jones' Locker. Of course it bloody hurt. A lot. Yet Jack was never one to admit weakness when he could help it.

"A little." He brushed the tears away from her cheek, and chucked her under the chin. He did not enjoy seeing a woman cry, and yet the sight of her remorse moved some mountain deep inside him. I'm not sorry, echoed in his memory. At the time he'd believed her, down to the marrow of his bones, but perhaps she'd been lying after all?

"Come now, luv. No tears. We're fierce and fearless pirates, remember? Shameless and remorseless sea dogs."

Elizabeth laughed a little, leaning her forehead upon his breastbone, clutching him to her as though she feared the arm of the Kraken might come through the stern windows and snatch him from her again. "Quite so," was her muffled reply against his chest. She didn't sound terribly convinced at the moment, and Jack watched with amazement as more of that roiling pit of anger he held deep inside began to dissipate.

He kissed her once more, coaxing her back upon the berth with his body over hers. Elizabeth watched with some puzzlement as he went to his knees beside the bed, pulling her closer. She had expected he would have fallen upon her by now. That telltale bulge in his breeches had not escaped her notice, and she at least vaguely understood what that meant.

Her maid, Molly, who had been more of a friend than a servant, growing up beside Elizabeth in the Swann household, had told her all sorts of things about her experiences with men as they reached puberty. Men of the docks who were nothing like what she knew at the time in her gilded cage, yet perhaps so very like this man before her now. Yet as Jack kissed the skin of her inner thigh, eliciting the most delicious thrill that ran down her spine, Elizabeth reckoned Molly had never mentioned anything about this.

"Jack?"

He rolled his dark gaze up to meet hers, black eyes glittering. The sight caught her breath in her throat, Jack hovering above her most private area, with that mischievous light shining in his eyes once more. Ever so slightly, the corners of his mouth turned up, the vaguest hint of a smile. She realized she would have given anything to see that light, that smile, returned to him again, the very least of which was offering her innocence up to him on a silver platter.

"Hush, luv, and lie back."

For once she did as she was told, and when Jack's mouth touched the flesh between her legs she sighed with surprised relief, his lips and tongue dong the most inexplicably wonderful things. Again that nagging pressure built within her, that nigh unbearable tightness that was both the most awful and most wonderful thing she'd ever felt. She waited for him to draw back, to leave her breathless and unfulfilled on the cusp of her peak as he had before, with a wicked gold-glinting smirk.

He did not.

He licked the pink oyster between her legs with that clever tongue until she exploded, her spine bowed like a puppet upon a string, a ragged cry she could not hold in seeming to rock the walls of the cabin. Those who slept below stirred in their hammocks, but soon drifted back to sleep. And those who worked the last watch upon deck exchanged knowing looks, but hardly batted an eye.

They had seen the shadow of Miss Swann chasing their captain across the deck, disappearing into Jack's cabin. Those who knew them reckoned it was only a matter of time. She'd sailed to the ends of the earth for that man, and the captain had let himself get eaten by a giant squid for her. Too bad for young Turner, but those two had fates that were twined and written in the stars.