A/N: This one requires some explaining. It's the product of a request by a lovely reader called Rath101 over on AO3 where they suggested an alternative scene from the end of the first movie where, after Elizabeth breaks off the engagement, James manages to get home in time to catch Theodora before she runs off to escape with Jack.
So the timing of this oneshot really doesn't shape out in terms of technical story-telling. Theo would have had to have left pretty quickly after James did in the "official" story, as she'd have been aiming to swim out to the Pearl more or less the second it appeared, arriving aboard before Jack. After all, it's not like it would've hung about after Jack was aboard, and what is she going to do? Swim after it? If things shaped out how they do here, she wouldn't have gotten to the Pearl in time, but let's just suspend our disbelief for the sake of hurting our own feelings.
Theo moved down the stairs as quietly as possible, staying on the balls of her feet and doing her utmost to avoid Hattie spotting her. There'd be a scene and a half if she spotted her – dressed for action and with a pack, too, with whatever she had that she thought might get her through the next few, well, however long of pirating and clawing her way back into Jack's good graces. She'd had to wait until the maid was fully occupied stripping the bed in James' room, and even then she didn't dare call out until she was near the bottom of the stairs.
"Hattie! I'm going to Fort Charles after all – if I hurry, I can be there in time."
Footsteps drew nearer, moving from James' bedroom to the hallway – the wince on Theo's face was saved from becoming an outright grimace when they didn't continue down the hall, though, as she seemed to linger in the doorway to make sure she'd heard her properly.
"Are…are you sure, miss?"
It was clear the decision wasn't one she particularly agreed with, but propriety stopped her from voicing it plainly.
"Yeah- yes. It's…it's something I need to do. I'll see you later, all right?"
"Very well. I'll see to your chamber while you're gone, then."
"Thank you, Hattie."
There was a weight to the words that had her worrying the younger woman would smell a rat, but thankfully it turned out that it was just her guilty conscience speaking. Stepping out of the front door, she pulled her pack about her to make sure it was secure, and then toyed with the hood of her cloak, readying to pull it up. She'd abandon it once she hit the beach – mostly because she didn't fancy her chances at swimming in it – but it was just to hide both who she was, and the fact that she was dressed as a man.
A horse was coming up the road, she couldn't yet see it but she could hear it, and otherwise all seemed to be quiet. The entire settlement would be down at the fort to witness the hanging, so once this rider passed, she'd take her chances and run for it. But when the horse galloped into sight – and then towards the house rather than past it – her heart dropped. When she saw who sat atop it, her heart continued to drop until it was at risk of falling out of her backside.
James caught sight of her and his face brightened – and she knew then that it had all happened as it was supposed to, and why he was so excited. And it broke her heart.
"Theodora," he breathed, leaping from the horse and striding towards her.
In his excitement, he had not yet noticed her dress. But he was an observant man, and when he saw the look on her face (no doubt very much looking like the kid with their hand in the cookie jar), his eyes trailed down to her cloak, and the fact that it was very clearly not disguising a wealth of skirts. Taking up a part of the fabric between his fingers, he pulled it aside to reveal her clothing. Or rather, his clothing. One of his shirts and a pair of his breeches.
"Where were you going?"
Given that he'd said were and not are, she suspected he knew damn well where she was headed – for he had no intention of allowing it.
"Swimming," she lied, her voice thin.
He tugged at the strap of the pack where it sat on her shoulder, and the weight alone proved her words to be a lie. Worse still was that he was too determined in his cause to even be angry with her.
"Elizabeth broke off the engagements. She declared herself for Turner for all to see, it's over," he said, his hands hovering about her shoulders as though he was scared she'd shrug him off, before they finally – painstakingly gently – took her hands in his instead, squeezing them. "We- I…I am free to…"
Theo's eyes fluttered shut, a vice squeezing tightly in her chest in tandem with his hands until she was sure something inside her was going to break. She couldn't stay. She couldn't. Before long, Beckett would be here – and he'd want to see her hanged the same way he threatened Elizabeth and Will with the very same. And if James was still here…
"Do you hear what I'm saying?" he asked, when he didn't receive any of the smiling or singing or dancing that he'd evidently expected.
Letting her hands slip from his, he lifted one to her shoulder and the other came up, faltering and then picking up her hair where she'd bound it into a thick plait. It was obvious he wanted to touch her – to hold her, to do something, but while she would only stand in silence he feared doing so. Theo blinked, and a few tears slipped down her face. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to be gone before he realised she was even leaving. Selfish of her, maybe, but it was supposed to spare the both of them from…from this.
He was wiping away her tears before they even had a chance to reach her jaw, and when he saw she had no desire to push him away, he kept his hand there, cradling the side of her face.
"Theodora," he murmured "Marry me. Please. Marry me, and I will see to it that all ahead of us far outshines the troubles behind us."
"You can't promise that."
"I can," he said firmly. "I am. And not- not out of some self-flagellating desire to pay reparations, but because I want to give you that. Because I will give you that."
"James…"
"Marry me, Theodora."
"I want to."
She regretted the words as soon as she said them – worried that he would take them as a yes and begin celebrating. But evidently he saw that what he was clearly viewing as the time for convincing was not over.
"You can," he urged. "Say yes. We can be married before the year is through – before the month is through, propriety be damned. We can go to the chapel now and harangue the priest until he agrees to marry us now just to be rid of us."
How long had she spent pining for a gesture like this from him? For him to throw caution, propriety, the 'done thing' to the wind and do something…something unrestrained. Now here he was, doing just that, and she knew full well what it took for him to do so, and she couldn't accept. Because Beckett. Because Beckett would soon be here with his men, and his warrants, and his nooses, and she couldn't be sure that they wouldn't hang if either of them were still here. Because none of this was even close to over, and before it was done she had to make sure that the man before her, the man she loved, didn't die.
She tilted her chin upwards, half-considering kissing him – and whether he'd allow it – before he was closing the gap for her, kissing her like it could persuade her to stay where words would not. It was tempting. He pulled her against him like it was impossible for them to get close enough for his liking, like they could merge into one and the proximity still wouldn't be enough. The way she was dressed only amplified it, too, with no corsets or skirts or stupid amounts of layers to stop her feeling him – really feeling him, and not just some vague sense of pressure over a corset – where they were crushed together.
They finally parted, but they didn't really part. They stayed just as close as they had been, their noses brushing as she fought the urge to kiss him again. There was no time.
"I can't stay here, James."
"You cannot go with Sparrow! If…if the idea of your remaining in my home is too distasteful for you, if you have no wish to accept, I will see to it that you are given other accomodati-"
"It's not," she interrupted. "It's not – at all. If I could, I'd stay here with you forever. Forever, James. But I can't."
"Why not? We both want it, we can both finally have it, what could possibly be stopping us?" he entreated.
It was then that it hit her. She couldn't stay, but she didn't need to lie, either. She could break his heart and pretend she didn't love him, that she didn't want him, but that would never be enough to have him letting her go and run off to live among the pirates. She could pretend she hated him, and he'd still never allow that. Only one thing could convince him, and it was the one thing that had her leaving in the first place. The truth.
"This isn't over!" she said, eyes boring into his so he might see how serious she was being. "None of it! Any of it! It's not even halfway done. Do you think London will ignore what happened here today? No. Men will come, terrible men, and if I am here when they do, there's every chance that I'll be hanged."
Telling him was the only way he might ever possibly let her leave. His eyes flickered between hers in disbelief – but there was enough doubt there for her to work with. Maybe he saw how serious she was being, maybe he didn't, but she knew he saw her fear, and her desperation. Her desperation to leave, her desperation to stay, it didn't matter, it was all there on her face. It was almost a strange relief to be able to show it.
"What? Of course you won't be, I wouldn't-"
"You wouldn't able to do a thing about it," she interrupted. "Not with this man. He's…he's terrible. He makes Barbossa look like a grumpy old uncle. He makes Davy Jones look like a kitten."
"Davy Jo-"
"Will and Elizabeth, they can negotiate with him. They will. They have bargaining chips, they know how to politic, they know how things work here. They have standing. Me? He'll torture what I know out of me, and then discard me. Christ, he might hang me just to prove a point the day he arrives. I know he can, I know he happily would, and while I might have a lot of confidence in my abilities, I know where they're limited, and they're limited with people like this man. I need to leave, James."
And so did he. He'd never turn to Tortuga if it would mean bringing her, his fiancée, with him. And if they were both still here when Beckett arrived, everything would go to real shit. They wouldn't stand a chance. His hands still clung to her, and hers were no better, the fingertips of one hand remaining where they'd inched beneath his wig at the nape of his neck while they'd kissed, the other gripping his shoulder.
"We can hide you. The Governor can-"
God, she loved him. She'd expected a diatribe on how she was mad, or how she couldn't trust these 'visions' of hers, but instead he leapt into problem solving.
"The Governor can do nothing. Not against him. It has to be this way," she shook her head. "There isn't time to explain why, but it does. We will meet again, and afterwards we can…I…if you still want…I left something for you. In your study. And I mean it. Every word. But I need to go."
"I shall have to give chase. You know I must – I'd have no choice. I wouldn't want a choice, if it was between that and watching you disappear with Sparrow."
"I know," she said. "You should. Give chase. Exactly as you would have done before this."
Of all the things she'd done since arriving here, those words felt the most like a betrayal.
"In such a case, I was hoping to do so as your fiancé. It would certainly hasten my journey home again."
She choked on a sob. "I want to, James. I wish I could. You have to know that."
"And yet it changes nothing," there was a faint note of accusation in his voice.
"If you still want to, when we next meet, I'll accept."
"I shall – how couldn't I? After all the impediments we've faced?"
"I'm not holding you to that. I won't hold you to it. My mind won't change, but if yours does, I won't hold you to anything you've said today."
He kissed her again, just as intensely as before, but this time it felt like a goodbye. When he pulled away, he was speaking before her eyes had even opened.
"The secluded beach. Sparrow will have to sail by it as he takes his leave. Go that way, and you shall intercept him."
Theo stared at him.
"Tell me we will meet again. Your word, Theodora – give me your word. Before I change my mind."
His grip tightened on her as though to emphasise his point.
"I swear."
"When?"
"I don't know."
"Years?"
"One at most, I think. Maybe months."
"And leaving – life with the pirates will be safer than your remaining here?"
"A thousand times over."
It would be a different kind of dangerous, but one she was more familiar with. A rough, common criminal sort of dangerous. So long as she could get by in a scrap, which she'd proven she could, she'd be fine. The sort of danger Beckett was bringing was much more foreign to her, and one she couldn't navigate.
He kissed her again, that iron grip remaining on her hips – and if she wasn't so preoccupied with kissing him back, she'd be wondering if his tactic was to kiss her stupid until she could no longer leave. If his life hadn't been on the line, it might've worked.
"Your study," she breathed when they parted. "I mean it."
Such was their proximity that she felt the deep, steeling breath that he took in. And then he nodded and pushed her away. The sudden lack of his hold on her only drove home the sudden feeling of loss that hit her, and she knew she'd miss him badly before this was through. And there was every chance that he'd hate her when they next met.
"Go."
"Thank you," her voice wavered.
"Go," he repeated firmly.
That time, she obeyed.
James did not watch Theodora as she fled off into the wild of Port Royal, no doubt making for the secluded beach as he'd instructed. He even tried not to hope that she had missed her window of time – that she would be back within the hour, and they would be forced to construct some other plan. One that involved her remaining here. With him.
If he watched, he might end up following the voice within him that screamed for him to give chase. For him to put her in shackles and lock her in the house until reason prevailed for the both of them – until she no longer wished to flee for a life of piracy, and he was no longer daft enough to allow her to do so under the word of prophecy. As if that would end well.
Instead, he turned and shut the door firmly behind him. And then he made for his study, his fists clenched so tightly that he kept expecting his knuckles to crack. Having expected some long and infuriating letter filled with apologies and explanations that he'd just heard in person, he paused when instead he saw a book sitting neatly atop his desk, a gap in the pages where something had been wedged within.
He approached more slowly than he expected, reluctant to look at what she'd left because it would make this real…and might have him running after her after all. Hamlet. A strange choice. Opening the book, something in his chest clenched when her necklace – the silver one that had sat at her breast the entire time he'd known her, with the neat heart-shaped pendant – slid easily down the pages and clattered to the desk below. A desire not to lose the page was the only thing that stopped him grabbing it immediately. She'd chosen this one for a reason, and he needed to see what words were apparently better than whatever ones she refused to write herself.
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
Four times. He read it four times, each rendition sending his heart racing more than the last. Give chase, she'd said. And how could he not, after this?
