They settled on watching the first movie in the living room. That was where the biggest television was, and she supposed it wouldn't be terrible for her father to join them - but only for that movie. The second, perhaps, would be the most difficult for James, even more-so than the third, and she knew he wouldn't wish for her dad to be there when he saw it. In any case, she wasn't exactly raring to be separated from her father so quickly after their reunion, and what were they to do? Kick him out of his own house?

So when he returned with an absurd array of fast food, they settled down into the living room, and Theo got the movie going. After a brief discussion with her husband on why her home did not boast a dining table, and the rise of people eating their dinners from plates on their laps these days.

The film was slow going. In hindsight, maybe she should have eased him into the concept of films in general before they dove right into this - showed him Elizabeth: The Golden Age or something else with a plot more easily comprehensible to a historical mind, so he wouldn't be left trying to understand movies and these movies in particular all at once. Or, more likely, perhaps he'd have just ended up in stitches over the modern world's attempts at portraying what history was like.

But hell, if they hadn't done a good job with Pirates. He had questions. Of course he did, and every time he asked one, Theo would pause the film to answer it to the best of her ability. That in itself gave way to a whole tangent where she had to explain to him the concept of fast-forwarding, rewinding, and pausing a film, all while marvelling at how the motions felt foreign and eerily familiar to her all at once, like a strange sort of deja vu.

And he had problems with them - unsurprisingly. The first came with the very opening scene, where he wrinkled his nose and asserted that he'd been a fair couple of shades younger then than he appeared on-screen. His food already sat forgotten in his lap. However distasteful he found the change, and the implications of the change, and however much she herself agreed with that point…Theo was oddly relieved at it, for it showed the brushstrokes that went into the metaphorical painting. It proved (somehow more than the fact that she'd seen the actors and actresses in plenty of other things) that it was a movie, and not a weird window into a different world.

But the movie pressed on, and it soon became more true-to-life as he had known it, and even the more minor problems he had - the music was too loud, and too distracting (not least because he realised he'd heard her humming bits and pieces over the years many a time), and the camera-work threatened to dizzy and nauseate him at times - fell by the wayside as he watched the production, silent and solemn.

Well, except for the long-suffering sigh he offered when Jack first appeared on-screen. It was difficult to say whether it was the mere sight of the pirate that had induced it, or all of the production that surrounded his arrival. The dramatic music, the cinematography, the narrowed and heroic gaze cast out to something just off camera. Theo suspected it was how Jack imagined he came across in real life at all times.

Before long, even Theo had lost her appetite, and the only talking came in the form of her whispering to her dad to fill him in on how things had really gone. Achtland hadn't shown him everything in a step-by-step replay - thank god - and so it took a fair bit of mumbling for her to explain how she'd slipped onto the Interceptor, or how she'd robbed a man in Tortuga. Although he had been shown the attack on Port Royal. She knew that because when it was shown on screen, James' hand found her own while her father's found her shoulder and he mumbled something about her being a damn good fighter.

From the likes of her dad, that was practically being handed a big ol' gold championship belt, standing next to Dana White.

And then…then came Elizabeth's rescue from the island. Jack's, too, but when did Jack ever really need rescuing?

"It's a bit more romantic without me spewing in the background, isn't it?" she snorted, keeping her voice light despite how James' hand squeezed hers where their hands sat between them.

Contrary to her usual need to joke away everything under the sun, she spoke now solely to hint at the others that she wasn't about to have some massive nervous breakdown over the whole thing. No, she'd done that quite enough at the time. This movie - Christ, this whole visit - was going to be difficult enough for James as it was. She didn't need him worrying about her state of mind while he tried to grapple with being displaced by three centuries.

"I should say I largely preferred the truth of the matter," James returned flatly "Vomit or no."

She couldn't blame him for that, and she suspected he meant it in more ways than one. Sure, while there was a compliment nestled in there - a lovely little 'I'm pretty glad my wife existed', sure to brighten any woman's day, she also knew it can't have been easy for him, nor his pride, to see the full extent of just how in love Elizabeth was with Will when she accepted his proposal.

Things…were mostly silent from then up until the end. Although his thumb did stray across her knuckles when the battle aboard the Dauntless ended, and she knew he was remembering that same kiss that she was. The memory wasn't quite so bittersweet anymore, considering things hadn't ended so hopelessly as she'd once feared.

Jack's would-be hanging blazed on, Elizabeth broke off the engagement, and James offered not a hint of a reaction at all. She was hardly surprised by that - although she was glad to find that her dad didn't look at him at all for any kind of reaction. Nor did he appear to feel awkward, though, just watching the whole thing with thinned, downturned lips.

The only real comment thereafter came from her dad himself, quietly asking how it was she'd gotten to the Pearl.

"I, er," she cleared her throat and continued, speaking softly "I swam out. Got there before Jack. He wasn't too surprised to find me there."

As she answered, she was painfully aware of the fact that during the events she was describing, James had been racing home to inform her that he was now a free man - free to marry whomever he chose. It had all happened as it had to. She knew that, he knew that, and she knew that he knew that. There would have been no going forward if they'd been in Port Royal for Beckett's arrival. Things would have ended up even more messy than they really had been. But this whole thing was an endeavour in prodding at old wounds, and for one so proud and restrained as James, she knew the last thing he would have wanted was for this play to be common knowledge among the modern world.

Dead Man's Chest was going to be very difficult indeed.

"I think I should like to retire," James said finally, turning to her father with sincerity that wasn't impeded by the distinct stiffness in his shoulders "Thank you for your hospitality. I am very grateful for the welcome I have received here."

"Anytime - really," her dad said.

At Theo's nod, he turned and made for the stairs, and she remained for just a second to say her own goodnights.

"It was always going to be rough," she sighed quietly.

"He handled it well, all things considered. I like him, Theo - really, I do," he replied "Go on, you should get after him. It's good to have you back, kid."

They hugged, Theo lingering in it for a moment and feeling very much like a child again, before she finally pulled away and set off after her husband.

She entered her bedroom only a couple of minutes after James, finding him eyeing the pair of boxers she'd left out for him with a dubious sort of expression.

"You can just sleep commando if you want. My dad won't come in here, the door'll be shut."

He made a noise that seemed to have no real sort of meaning at all, closing the curtains before he shrugged off his shirt, but left his breeches as they were. Closing the bedroom door, Theo moved to turn the big overhead light on - but then he did speak.

"Do not - please. The lights here are…abrasive."

There was little disagreeing on that score. Theo's eyes were already burning and foggy from staring at the screen for so long. Instead, she went to the stash of tealights she'd always kept in one of her drawers, lit one and set it down far out of the way of the bed, and left it at that. James watched the process in thoughtful silence, and she realised that the way he watched her had more to do with any mere fascination over the lighter in her hands when she sat down beside him, and he continued to watch her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked "I'm sorry if my dad being there made it more uncomfortable for you…"

"It's his home," he answered "And I would not hope to part you so quickly after our arrival here."

But he didn't answer the question. At first she thought he didn't mean to, and busied herself with plucking an old dramatically oversized t-shirt from a drawer. She had so much clothing here that she couldn't even begin to comprehend how many pieces she'd forgotten all about in the first place - and she'd always considered her wardrobe modestly sized. This shirt, however, she'd missed sorely back when she was first adjusting to dramatic frilly nightgowns of the eighteenth century.

James was clearly reluctant to give up the breeches, and it wasn't something she'd ever begrudge him if they would offer even a shred of comfort.

"I know not how to feel," he admitted finally "I had expected it to vary far more greatly from the truth of the matter. Instead, for much of it, I could almost deceive myself into thinking that you were there. That I would spot you in the background somewhere, and watch matters unfold how they did in reality. But then you did not appear. Or there would be a change in what happened - you were not aboard the Dauntless during the battle, so we lost more men. I was more affected by the broken betrothal at the end than I was in reality."

"I was always impressed with how you took it in the film," she murmured, joining him on the bed where they lay atop the covers "You were a real gentleman about it - even in a world where you still loved her when she did it."

His eyes were shut as he spoke, trying to recover from the numerous glares he'd been subjected to across the day, no doubt.

"It could hardly be considered a worthwhile love - to use your word - if I were to rail against her choosing a future that she believed would make her happier. Even if it were not with me. To stamp my feet would be unbecoming. Embarrassing, even, for all involved."

"Spoken like a man who has no idea how many women have been called ugly whores by men who were trying to charm them two seconds prior to rejection."

"You've experienced such a thing?"

"You'd struggle to find a woman in this time who hasn't."

"Then, my dear, it is little wonder you had to travel so far to find a man worthy of your time. But my point remains. Your absence was almost as tangible in…in that as your presence is here and now. Even 'til the end, despite my differing emotions, I half-expected the…the…"

He paused, then, gesturing towards the television in her room for the vocabulary he lacked.

"The camera? The screen?" she guessed quietly.

"Whichever, to follow me home as I raced to return to you, ready to get down on one knee and ask for your hand."

"I saved you the trouble on that score," she said.

"I'm not sure I ever would have described you as saving me any trouble," he teased lowly, but it was a half-hearted attempt at levity more than a display of real humour "Although no doubt I'll eat those very words when we see the next instalment…"

"It'll be difficult," she said quietly, mostly because she knew he wouldn't thank her for lying about it "Are you alright? After that one?"

"I went into it thinking it may help me better understand what once would have been my fate," he said slowly "And instead, I ended it with a better understanding of your past actions."

"Oh?"

"Mm. I confess, at that time, I was often impatient with your…doubt," he settled on the word cautiously, and then sighed "How furiously you would refuse to believe that my feelings for you were not less than whatever infatuation I might once have held for her. Of course, then I did not understand just how foreign the rules of betrothal would have been to you, either, but…having seen this - and knowing how many times you had seen it before we even met…I'm sure I would have driven myself quite mad were I in your shoes, had I gone into that first tumultuous year we spent together after meeting being entirely certain of your love for Groves, or Turner, or…or Sparrow."

"I'm not half so masochistic as that."

"Thank God."

Theo let the silence lie for a few moments - waiting to see if he would bring up what she intended to. But he didn't, and she knew he wouldn't, and so she took it upon herself.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"For the way you were treated in it."

For a moment it was like he had made his mind up not to answer, but finally he did - quietly.

"From what I gather, the next will be worse."

"In the…in the obvious sense of the word, yeah. But that one…it's still not right."

"She did not wish to marry me, Theodora. As was her right. Something I thank God for now. I did nothing but what was right throughout the entirety, and if that is what was witnessed then I suppose I must take solace in that."

"Of course, and I'm not saying she should have if she didn't want to - and I'm absolutely thrilled that, in reality, she didn't - but I am saying that you deserved far, far better than that. It might not have been anybody's fault in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't change it. And I know that all of the- all of the film-y people would sit back and wax poetic about the roles fulfilled by different characters or whatever, but that doesn't make it right. Any of it."

He breathed a tired laugh, but she'd realised belatedly that she was midway through a tirade (albeit a stage-whispered one) and now there was no stopping. It wasn't even just spurred on by that one movie, but by the two that she knew still awaited them, and how utterly unfair she found the whole thing.

"You are good. You're right, that was shown perfectly clearly. And I don't mean that in a flimsy, weak oh yeah he's a nice guy kind of way - I mean in the strongest, fullest sense of the word. You are good, James. So damn good. And you are loyal, and strong, and scarily intelligent, and brave, and capable, and funny, all while being - no exaggeration - the best looking man to walk the face of the planet," at that point she only stopped listing all of his finer qualities (although she could think of countless more) because she was running out of breath and fainting would probably ruin the impact of her speech "So I don't really give a damn about narrative arcs, or plot devices, or filming constraints, and I don't even care that that version of things wasn't real in the end. If it were any other film, you'd have been the hero of the damn thing, and you won't say it because you're you, but I will say it all day every day while there's breath in my body. You deserved better, and- mff-"

It was likely a good thing that James saw fit to stop her then - not least because if he hadn't, she never would have stopped - and the fact that he stopped her by giving her a kiss that threatened to rob her lungs of whatever air remained in them just sweetened the deal. Her impromptu yet impassioned speech hadn't failed to impact him, that much was clear from the way his lips moved over hers. Rolling over so he was atop her, the angle made it much easier for him to pour everything into that one kiss - because it couldn't lead anywhere, not tonight and sure as hell not with her dad just downstairs, but she didn't need it to. The depth of emotion with which he kissed her was more than enough. She didn't know if it was because of what she'd just said, or because he needed to remind himself that she was here, and that she was real, and they were together in this, but she accepted it all very willingly and returned it in kind, hooking her legs around his hips so he would feel her body pressing tightly against his.

They only stopped when the need to breathe became far too pressing, but they hardly parted. Supporting himself on his elbows, he looked quietly down upon her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear with one fingertip.

"However did I find you?" he asked softly.

"Doesn't matter how," she replied, pressing one last lingering kiss to his lips "You did."

A/N: Next chapter = Theo is reunited with her loved ones, and James meets them for the first time. With…mixed results. Things aren't exactly going to get easier for James in this little storyline, because I really struggle to imagine him liking all that much about our time. I imagine him being genuinely interested in some areas from an academic standpoint (because he's hardly stupid) but otherwise mostly tolerating a lot of it for Theo's sake so she can say a proper goodbye.