Will offered Elizabeth a ready hand up. In their standing, the sand was its own welcome distraction. Legs had become caked thick with grits clinging to the dampness of their skin and clothes. Will's breeches had gotten an especially bad treatment, and he now regretted somewhat lying on the ground the way he had, regardless of its benefit to the fire.

'At least she isn't cold…' he told himself, eying Elizabeth while attempting to dust himself off.

"Attempt" being the operative word. The finest bits of earth clung to him like silty minuscule leeches. And a round of baffled giggles from Elizabeth signaled she was caught battling a similar plight along the hems of her smock. It probably would be more effective if they stayed beside the fire and dried off first, to give the grains a little less to cling to. Especially because he was even more covered, with grits running under his fingers even as he coasted a restless hand across the back of his neck.

But Will needed some movement, and some cold, even more sorely than any dusting. Even with their momentary distraction, his heart continued to feel frantic with forebodings and fancies—and he could feel how the two sensations were combined in devilish conspiracies to reanimate the baser parts of his anatomy at a moment's notice.

'Not yet,' Elizabeth had said, and the implications behind that topic made the knots in his stomach twist even tighter.

So he set his jaw tight and faced the open darkness curving along the island's edge, which appeared even blacker against the glowing blue-violet sky. While Elizabeth was occupied behind his back, he discretely adjusted his breeches to give himself a little more comfort and relief from the soggy wool rubbing against his intimate bits. Even then, the heavy tackiness of the fabric was unpleasant. If he were on his own he would have preferred to doff everything to walk about in just his skin.

Too bad his company made doing that a risky venture.

But it didn't matter in the end. Though chilled compared to the day, in truth the night was warm. There was a breeze blowing. With clothes on or off their bodies, they would be able to dry off soon enough, and these problems would be all sorted one way or another. For now, what he really needed most of all was some room to breathe and to think…

Yes, thinking clearly again would be very good.

Eventually, he plucked their swords back up so they could don them anew. When he stretched out his hand for an offering, Elizabeth re-accepted it without hesitation.

Linked together they set out from the glow of the fire, wandering along the wider stretches of sand beyond water and forest's reach. While his vision fought to re-familiarize itself with the night, Will stepped gingerly, enjoying the cool silkiness of the sand against his soles, interspersed with fragile cracks of shattering seashells crunching under him. Her walk was timed to his, and his to hers. The waves seemed like frothy ribbons of palest blue sweeping for his heels, though this time he was certain they could not touch where he and his companion walked. Night's breath chilled him with a grateful welcome, even as he felt it making a more terrible mess of his hair.

How hot he'd been burning from her fingers' touch, being pulled high and low beyond his ken, only moments before they…

Well, before they were ambushed. Speaking of which:

"I think we should keep away from the water…" he remarked, somewhat uselessly. "We probably shouldn't have been that close to begin with."

It was something that didn't need saying. However, he felt himself still fumbling about for the right way to speak about the new, inconvenient topic now looming over them both like the smoke of their fires' surprise quenching. His grip remained locked with hers, determined and fast.

"You're right," Elizabeth agreed with an appreciated graciousness—until she tugged on his arm, and pressed the finger of her free hand into his shoulder with an accusation he could feel. "And now that you mention it: you shouldn't have gone out there at all! What were you thinking?!"

"That I didn't want you to lose your favorite jacket," he answered honestly, granting the slimmest peek at how near-sighted his thoughts had become while entwined with her. Thankfully, he'd recovered enough to offer a counter, "Besides, you went wandering by the forest without your sword, going after my shirt. What were you thinking?"

He could see the whites of her teeth gleam for a passing instant, as she chose to forgo any witty retort, for once.

Instead, she conceded with airy notes of humor, "…I suppose we both lose some sense when it comes to each other."

Will's own lips twitched. If that wasn't the truth, he doubted truth could exist at all.

Before he expressed any part of his agreement, Elizabeth jumped to protest once more, "All the same: you could have been eaten or swept away!"

Initially, all he could think to offer back was a shrug.

That was also the truth. But he hadn't thought of it at the time, consumed and riveted as he had been to the distraction of his dreams unfolding for him like a moon flower across his lover's skin, at her equally eager bidding. Ah, and here he was already falling back into the trap just thinking back on it. The bewitchments of her touch were hard enough to free himself from, he could hardly retain focus on what had driven him into the water, and what the danger of it even mattered anymore. It was foolish, yes, but it was already done.

"I won't do it again," he assured himself as well as Elizabeth, while trying to anchor his mind to those perils laying in the surf and not those he could feel creeping back into the atmosphere between himself and her.

In the silence.

And the warm clasps of their hands.

A swift and sudden movement from Elizabeth drew his attention, as she lifted her free hand to try and tuck her hair behind ear.

"How-how's your… candle…?" she asked, in a voice that sounded like she was fishing to change the subject.

It was an odd subject.

"My candle?" he echoed back to her, wondering what that mattered. The lantern was still lit, so obviously it hadn't been caught by the water. But now that she pointed it out, it was nearly time to replace it with a spare or cut its wick… Or was it the spare that she was asking about? "It's probably alright. We got the basket out of the way quick enough."

"No, not—! I don't mean the candles. I mean…" She dipped her head to emphasize the way she cast her eyes down in the direction of their joint hands pointedly.

His arm?

Now he was beginning to feel truly lost. What did his arm have to do with candles? "Fine…? I'm fine. How's yours?"

Now it was Elizabeth's turn to look a little bewildered. Or was it flustered? This darkness made it difficult to tell exactly.

"Oh, I'm alright!" she stammered back with a wave of her hand. "It's just… I was only wondering whether I might have been too… Heavy? I suppose…"

Ah! So she was trying to joke about the prickling of his arm falling asleep from her lying atop it—like a candle's burning or flickering. Or something along those lines. That wasn't quite how he'd describe that sensation. Still, however it was said, she was trying to be mindful of him.

With head shaking his answer, Will offered her a smile of reassurance in return.

"No, you hardly weigh a thing," he replied, mostly honest. Mostly. She was relatively light to him most of the time, but that didn't mean she was altogether weightless. Hauling her up the mansion's wall hadn't been an effortless task. And her willowy build didn't necessarily promise that he wouldn't have noticed the crush of her pinning his arm to the ground. Except, "Even if you did, I pushed the sand around so there was a nice hole to rest it in. I thought it worked out nicely."

He expected Elizabeth to look relieved.

Instead she looked utterly bewildered. "…What?"

Now he was the one screwing his face up with absent comprehension. What did she mean, "what?" It wasn't that hard to understand him, was it? Just in case, he demonstrated for her what he meant by bending his now un-snared forearm in front of him, wiggling it about by his elbow as though he were burrowing it into the air.

"I just wriggled into the sand until…" his words tapered away. Somehow she looked even more lost than before. And it occurred to him that this probably had nothing to do with his arm falling asleep at all. And apparently real candles were also not the topic in question… He gave up guessing. "What are we talking about?"

"What are you talking about?" she pressed back.

"My arm?" He was starting to feel foolish, realizing how off course he'd gotten.

It wasn't helped by her face contorting in astonishment at what was now clearly a gross miscommunication. "Why would I call your arm your 'candle?'"

"I don't know!" That's what he'd wondered the first time!

"That doesn't make any sense!"

Yes! Exactly! But that didn't explain what she actually was talking about, since it wasn't the real candles either. Unless…

No. A flush rose in his face as he pushed that possibility aside.

'Don't assume. Ask.'

"Well, what other parts would I need to be alright? I was holding you nearly the entire time. And you just said how you worried you were heavy, didn't you…?"

Her astonishment melted into an openly irritated fluster, as at last Elizabeth clarified, "Your prick, Will! I was…" She wrested her hand free from his, to join its twin in a clap across the lower half of her face, concealing upon her mouth what was now a clear embarrassment. Her voice dropped to a muffled, meek confession, "I was talking about your prick."

Will felt his face begin to boil as his fleeting suspicions were confirmed, flustering him alongside a renewed, unwanted awareness of how the thing in question was sitting down below. He hated these goddamn breeches.

"That does make more sense," he admitted.

It wasn't all that odd he had refused to consider that would be her topic of choice, was it? Regardless of her own quirks or preferences, her father had ensured she lived the life of a lady. Will seriously doubted pricks of any kind were intentionally featured topics of her studies in poise and propriety. It hadn't occurred to him that there would be any other opportunity for her to know anything about such things yet—or that she'd be interested in speaking about them with him so soon. Only now was it clear why his doubts had been misplaced: she had always been a wildly curious sort, treating her father's barriers as suggestions to be ignored or challenges to overcome as secretly as possible. If she had wanted to know what different sorts of machinations moved the sexes, male or otherwise, there would have been no real stopping her.

And who could blame her, truly? It wasn't like she was alone, if she was truly wondering so. Wasn't it his hands which had been seeking out their own share of such mysteries not five or ten minutes ago, as wildly inappropriate as it had been? It was harder to resist than he cared to admit. The hairs on her legs had been so fine, her thighs, her bottom so supple and smooth. Those discoveries had been a delight, and those were the just parts he could have already pictured. But if they'd spent a minute more… if she hadn't wanted it…

No-no! Cooling down! This was supposed to be a moment for cooling down! And yet he could practically feel his blood pumping a flustered cocktail through his veins about his face in a flood of churning emotion. And not just his face: in his arms and fingertips. And…

He ran his hand along the back of his sweaty, sandy neck and took a single calming breath.

It was fine. He was fine. Everything was fine.

Until his eyes met Elizabeth's again. He saw in them reflections of the way she'd looked hovering over him, with her hands and her lap running across his skin, pressing into him…

Heavy.

He felt a pulse.

"So you're—?" Elizabeth began.

"Fine, yes! I'm fine," he stammered back, desperate to make it true to himself and her at once.

"Good!" she answered, on the heels of his response. "Good. I'm glad!"

"It was… different? But it wasn't…"

"Because I was worried that I was—"

"It didn't hurt," he declared with hasty finality. And he prised his gaze away from hers, re-affixing it to the dim path before his feet.

"Alright. Good," Elizabeth repeated yet again.

A pause was taken, and he heard it come and go through her in the form of a deep breath.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod to herself. "That's what I was hoping."

She was hoping…

Will took a moment to himself, pushing his focus forcefully towards feeling the night swimming around him: the way its quiet crispness contrasted with the sweltering chaos racing through him, still determined to overtake him from… from before. Another deep breath, another foot step into coolness, another listening in on dueling melodies between cricket choir and seaside symphony, to allow himself to wrap his mind around this conversation at last.

She'd touched him with intention tonight, as he'd done with her. It had been thrilling, and unexpected, and brought to far too abrupt an end. But if her question spoke of anything it was that her curiosity hadn't ebbed anymore than his. And with the hot wave of surprise from this revelation finally receding, Will was able to look back and see, able to hear in his mind the subtle sweetness in her question, repeating itself in his mind once and twice over now: "How's your 'candle?' How are you?"

Under a sigh, he risked glancing at Elizabeth again, and found her expression down-turned with her lower lip worried between her teeth.

"Thank you for asking… I hope you are as well as I."

Her eyes blinked when she looked at him, as though she hadn't quite heard or understood him—at least, not right away. Then her lip popped back into its rightful place, as her expression softened and her gaze drifted to one side.

"You're welcome." The lowness of her voice was uplifted by the lightheartedness of her own appreciation.

When he reached out to her again, her fingers wrapped between his readily. And together they walked through a moment of contented thoughts and restless hush.

Eventually, the same temptations summoned his mind back to rogue wanderings. Her hand felt so soft in his, and he knew now much better than ever how far that velvet smoothness traveled: beyond palm, wrist, and arm. As he fought to pull himself back from recollections of her texture and her taste, a tinge of aggravation began to pluck at his errant thoughts. Why couldn't he master himself for just ten minutes? What sort of distraction would it take to come back to more honorable senses, now that he knew how she felt to him, about him? Would the rest of their year courting be like this? Would he be as embattled with his honor as this? What a torment! What a shame!

Determined not to let the mood inside sink back to unwise or unwanted places, Will cleared his throat and attempted a shift through light-hearted observation.

He chopped his hand towards the path before them, and noted loudly, "So, crocs on the left. Boars on the right. We're here in between. It seems we have little choice but to walk in a straight line down the center of the sands."

Another soft breath bubbled out her agreement, like the frothing waves creeping in. "Hands locked tight. Swords at the ready."

Now it was Will's turn to give a chuckle back, although his tumbled into the dark like the sea's retreat from the sands. Boars and crocodiles—monstrous beasts on either side, in the dead of night, with no one to know they'd come here to begin with? A realization slipped from his lips quietly, "What was I thinking?"

With hardly a moment's notice, Elizabeth was leaning back into his shoulder. "I have a solid guess."

A shiver coursed down his spine, one driven by lingering fever instead of chills. Could he admit he relished it, after he had meant to walk so far from the fireside?

Whether or not she noticed his weakness or cared, her hands had already drawn him closer to her, tucking herself against his arm. And when he looked at her, he saw her eyes recapturing her midnight mischief, glazing enticing hues across her simple question: "Would you like to hear it?"

He didn't feel he needed to, with that tone. He could guess it well enough himself. His heart was pacing about again, with the pains of his own patience pulled thinner and thinner by the minute. The feeling of her fingers pressing gently into his arm reminded him again of the sensations they drew along his back. In the sea's shadow, the jungle's echoes, he remembered how she sounded while wrapped around him, how she smelled, and moved, and …

He swallowed the tides shifting inside his mouth. "When you ask like that, I can't decide."

"Why? Because I'd be right?"

He squeezed her hand. "Because even in this dark, I can see you looking to start something."

More flashes of porcelain flaunted an unbroken sense of play, as Elizabeth tried to lean even closer to his ear. "Oh no, it's perfectly appropriate!"

"No, it's not."

He could hear the mischief of her smile, hiding her intentions terribly. One of her hands was creeping after his collar. And though the hairs on his neck were beginning to stand on end in anticipation of what she might say or do, he drew his head away from her.

'Not yet…' his mind repeated her words from before. His stomach twisted.

"Will," she insisted now, and hugged his arm more tightly in her effort to reach his ear. "Let me whisper something to you, please."

Though the wind made her hair flutter and tease him, she was warm and soft as ever. He could feel her breast pressing against his arm now, however subtle, and her breath was setting his skin a-prickle, his heart beginning to drum deep—

"No-no!" he choked, and began a frantic effort to wrestle himself free from her hold.

Her grip tightened around him, and her voice tightened with the threat of her giggles overtaking her, while she tried to insist over their impromptu wrestling match, "It's an important point of conversation—please!"

He pulled. "You're trying to rouse me again, and I can't—!"

Her grip slipped some, but she held on. "No, I'm not! Will!"

Then with a hearty yank upward, he was able to slip free. Not willing to take his chances, and needing to let loose the restlessness stirring again within, Will dug his feet into the sand and set off on a wild sprint down the shadowy beach.

"Will!" he heard Elizabeth shriek behind him, and could tell she was making chase. "Say you want to fuck me!"

Ha! What was going on here? How was this not a dream? This wasn't a chase he'd ever predicted starting. Now that he had, his heart cackled madly, his body set aflame, and he couldn't hold back the wideness of his grin despite the loudness of his protest, "I'm not listening to you anymore!"

Her laugh caught up to him. "You cannot abandon me to the beasts! Come back here!"

His heart's song broke free, and he was giggling like a child at the same time as trying to keep her at his back. She was fast, just as she'd claimed. But he was taller, his stride longer, and somehow their differences added up to keep their sprints mostly even, with him hardly gaining any distance beyond what his head start had granted him. That is, until the sand's expanses finally began to taper and curve back into the thick growths of the jungle's tree line—he was running out of beach. And unless he wanted to risk going back by the water, bringing her with him this time into the biting reach of hidden monsters, he would have to turn back.

So he spun around and jogged backwards to a halt.

Elizabeth matched his pace and also stopped slowly. Even without truly seeing her, it was obvious that she'd noticed she had him cornered, and was preparing to catch him once he made his efforts to double back.

Will took his time weighing out his options. The beach was wide enough that there was space to either side of his huntress. He could attempt a pass. But she was agile and long-limbed, and he doubted it would challenge her to leap at him as he tried to overtake her. Just to be certain, he shuffled to the left—and sure enough, she mirrored his motion. He shuffled a little right again, she followed suit. She was primed and ready to spring on him, to trip him, or whatever it would take to stop him from bypassing her touch. That was how she played. Any of the things she'd already thrown at him before were on the table.

Not that he cared anymore. Running from her had only made her give chase, launching them into yet another game from times well past. And the notion that she might catch him again provided its own thrill, drumming loudly inside his bones. It had been years since they'd had the freedom to play games like these again—and he doubted it had ever been with this particular appeal.

There was only one thing that sounded as fun as making Elizabeth Swann chase after him: and that was turning the tables to catch her first by surprise.

So, mimicking her past antics in the smithy, Will dug his toes in the sand and charged her head-on, as fast as he could go in the shifting earth.

Though hesitation slipped into her outstretched hands and shoulders, Elizabeth stood her ground—possibly thinking she might call him in a bluff, if a bit uncertain whether he would veer left or right at the last minute.

But he saw her realize the truth a second later. By then it was a second too late.

She screamed in equal parts shock and sport, as he bent his torso down, then with a tackling posture, snatched her about her waist. With a little effort, he lifted her up, over his shoulder.

"Alright, I'm back!" he declared, like he'd just returned from the market with a barrel of rice or barley for their pantry.

If it had been such a delivery, he might have drummed on the lid. He resisted the impulse to mimic that action upon her bottom, this time, and instead simply counter-balanced the weight of her upper body dangling behind him by draping an arm and hand across the backsides of her knees, suspended at his front.

Though he thought she might demand to be put down, he was pleasantly surprised when she seemed too caught up giggling to say anything remotely resembling a protest. Instead of reaching for him with her words, she reached out with her hands, which fastened themselves around his stomach and sides, as though to steady or secure herself. Which was just as well—he'd built up a strength for lifting things, true, but she was awkwardly shaped enough to be a strain on his shoulder. If he wanted to carry her back to the fire, it would probably be better done in a different position.

Still, it was worth a moment's joke, he thought, and seeing as she was playing along for said moment, not saying anything else, he offered Elizabeth a prompt by wondering aloud, "Now what shall I do?"

She broke into yet another burst of breathless laughter. "Put me down!"

"What'll you give me if I do?" His hand began to wander a little higher along her thigh. He caught himself, and sent it back down to a safer place.

"I'll give you—!" she returned in sharp retort, before cutting herself off to again speak with her hands, which were making a grab for his sword's hilt.

It was easy enough to bat her attempts away. Next her fingers tried to attack his sides again, but he saw that coming and made his own attempt to clutch her flailing wrist, to stop her effort.

But once he'd done that, she apparently changed her mind and shifted tactics. She slipped her hand free, then grabbed his shirt again—only this time from behind, where she could lift his shirt tails up and expose his back. He thought for a moment, stirred up in hope and panic, that he might feel her hands seeking out the weaknesses in his skin once more…

Until he heard her begin to gargle up some spit in her mouth.

"Oh, no you don't!" he warned.

Then he spun himself, and her with him, in a tight circle, two circles, three.

Another shriek pierced the breezes, as the mounting force of their faster and faster turns began to lift Elizabeth's head and arms up away from his body. She refastened herself about his waist, holding on for dear life and laughing so much he could no longer tell whether or not she was still calling out his name.

They spun, and screamed, and spun, and hollered.

Eventually, the speed and number of his rotations, and the pull of her figure on his shoulder, tipped Will over. He fell to one side, though he caught himself on his knee, avoiding a painful tumble that would land his head on Elizabeth's unshielded gut. The catch brought her feet back within reach of the ground, and she was able to begin trying to stand, however clumsily. Not a moment too soon either: the earth continued to spin without him, rapid and uneasy—it was likely he would be falling over after all. He let her go, trying to put his arms to a better use, steadying himself against a dark, rocking world.

This was no easy feat, as she too was dizzy and had resorted to digging her hands into his head and shoulder in her efforts to rise to full height without turning topsy-turvy. Once she found her footing enough, she offered him a swaying hand up between her giggles, and helped him to join her on his feet—though they tottered and tripped and nearly keeled back over in the process. Right was not right at all anymore, but left and more left than that, until it was right again for only a second, then left and left and left…

But together they managed to hold their ground overall, and instead made another racket of cackles as they stumbled back into eight year old antics, trying and failing repeatedly to take steps without falling or tumbling astray.

Elizabeth managed to catch her balance and breath enough to cry, "We were supposed to go for a walk! What is this?!"

"You started it!"

"I did not! You were the one who ran away and decided to spin us about! Now look at you!"

Will bat a dismissive hand at her through the dark. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm still walking—that way!"

The imbalanced cyclone around him had begun to settle enough he could mostly tell which direction was which again. The fire was only sort of drifting from side to side. So he pointed confidently with a finger extended like the barrel of a pistol leveled between his eyes, then took a big, certain step…

… and promptly lost his balance and stumbled sideways down the beach's slope towards the water.

He heard Elizabeth gasp. "No, not tonight! You're not going back over there again!"

Then her fingers were in his sleeve, and he was swinging back around and away from the tides' reach in a dance that felt old and new at once.

His hand found her waist, and the momentum of their turn carried them in yet another spin once, twice more slowly, until they arrived at a much gentler standstill, with hands holding onto hips and shoulders for balance in the middle of this hurricane. Nose pressed to nose. The hiccups of their laughter settled back into billowing aspirations, coasting along each other's lips as the world twirled about them a little less, a little less, a little less…

Suddenly everything was still, and Will was swimming in the darkness of Elizabeth's eyes again, so deep and breathtaking.

He kissed her as she kissed him. In a single instant's spark, he felt them falling into the same passion from before. Her arms were wrapped in that quenchless clasp she was wont to make about his head and neck. He drew her back against him completely, and felt himself flare furiously over the feel of her so maddeningly close. His body pulsed to life from the heat and beat of his blood flowing closer and closer back toward his basest yearnings…

And it was with a sound of deep regret buried in the hollows of his throat that he pulled his lips away from hers, before the flow became a flash flood.

Rising on her toes and tightening the circle of her arms around him, Elizabeth gave chase, brushing her mouth to his insistently.

But: 'Not yet.'

It was again with her own voice in his mind that he summoned the strength to shake his head. "Hold on. We've headed right back to the same place we were headed before."

That persuaded her to ease up her pursuit some. Instead of her lips it was the sigh of a laugh that met his mouth and cheek. "And whose fault is that?"

"Yours," he dared to challenge her once more.

She drew back far enough to try and send him an offended look through the flickering umbra between them. It was the sultriness barely dressed up as consternation in her voice, whispering against his skin, which told him better what that signal was meant to be, "You are being so rude to me right now."

It was too much to resist. He'd never wanted to resist it to begin with.

"Then perhaps we're both a little at fault," he conceded, and bent back down to kiss her again…

'Not yet…!'

Will held back not a hair's breadth from her flavor, hovering like a ghost along the boundaries of his tongue. How long had they waited to indulge themselves in each other? It would be nonsense not to revel to the end of this most opportune of moments. What harm was another kiss, one more tiny taste of their hard fought freedom?

He brushed his lips to hers, and his heartbeat sent a warning shot through his fingers and tail: a kiss was harmless; what it led him tumbling into was less so. More than mere indulgence, he'd already very nearly lost himself in her. And now he could not entirely shake from his mind the way that there were things that could grow from a little indulgence, consequences heavy enough to crush them both, if they were not careful.

But, oh, how hungry he was for her!

And yet even though he could not indulge himself, he could not yet tear himself from her touch so easily, as long yearned-for as it was. The pull of her sex was just as mighty as the push he felt for her sake. So he remained suspended and torn in a heavy, pathetic-feeling impasse, nuzzling his nose against her cheek as he wrestled to let his better parts be stronger than his so very touchable dreams.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth wasn't helping with those cheeks of hers perked into a grin against his touch. The way she closed the circle of her arms around his neck in an even closer embrace was certainly not anywhere near the category of 'helpfulness' either.

He groaned a bit. "I can't go anywhere with you now, can I?"

"You can, actually," she whispered back, and turned her head to brush her nose to his in a playful greeting. "It's going without me I believe that is the problem."

"That is painfully true…" he agreed. Then he pulled back enough to look her feelings in the eye, though his hands remained behind, running absentminded paths across her back. It was too late to stop his wanting—moments too late by the most tangible accounts, and years too late by the most intangible. How could he deny it? Should he even try, when she had confessed her own similar truths already? No. "I do want to fuck you. I never said I didn't."

The tips of her snaggled teeth emerged brightly from behind the curtains of her lips. She was all sparkle, as she answered, "I know. But you never exactly said you did either. Now you have." Then with little mind for the crumbling state of his defenses—or perhaps with all the mind in the world?—her mouth pressed a question into the flesh beneath his jaw: "And was it so hard?"

Yes, it was. Or soon would be. But he wasn't about to tell her that. Especially when she seemed to take so much pleasure in tormenting him of late.

Instead, he closed his eyes, and reveled and lamented all at once over the flimsiness of the fabric separating her skin from his palms. Yes, he closed his eyes, as though it would help shut out the visions being conjured back up from his wandering mind and fingers.

He dared to admit one small part, "It is, when I still can't have it."

"But you can. We can. The question now is only when we should?"

Her words rattled his bones, while the sliding of her hands from around his neck and the settling of her face against his throat, weakened his knees. Deep breaths became accented by the warring beats of their hearts, as they simply stood together, caught by each other's bodies and thirsts and frustrations. When should they? When? Not yet, perhaps, but then when?

There was nothing else for it now, except to ask her the question he felt paired and hovering so tenuously around them: "And what are we to do now?"

Elizabeth drew back once more at this, to pin him instead with a certain intent look. "No. You always ask me what I want. This time, I want to know what you want first."

At this Will had to shake his head. "I am not the one who will suffer if things go awry."

The knots in his stomach were coiling tighter than they'd been in days, his mind tripping over the memories summoned by her earlier whispers—warnings of one particular consequence they could face if they let the fervor in their chests and bellies ravage them both entirely.

But her eyes seemed to flash with resilience at his insinuation.

"Yes, you are," Elizabeth insisted. A pleading frown pulled at her expression as she touched his cheek with strokes of sympathy. "I already know well what suffering I would face, Will. It is a threat that has hung over my head since I was molded under the name 'woman,' with all the meanings the world has seen fit to assign it. You know what would happen to me, truly?" She shook her head to herself. "Father has enough means to sort out the most egregious of my mistakes. He would give me the money, give me the house, give me anything we needed, if it would protect my reputation or my life. In many ways he's lucky you aren't more of a charlatan than you are—bedding me and getting me with child would be a sound plan of blackmail for an easy financial start."

"Ha!" Will breathed cynically, as the words he'd been avoiding struck him in the chest with the same force as Elizabeth's misplaced praise.

Perhaps he wasn't a true charlatan, but that didn't necessarily make him a saint or anything else her father would realistically develop any lasting care for once discovered. He'd still met a woman not his wife, outside her home in the dead of night—and while he hadn't exactly planned for anything truly untoward to happen, once the course had set itself in that general direction, he'd hardly resisted it. And if the sea hadn't cut its way through them before…

She didn't let him finish the thought. Two taps of her hand on his cheek summoned his attention back to the present, real moment between them. "We may discuss that part of mine in a moment. For now, I only want you to tell me what it is you want, forgetting my potential sorrows."

Oh, no. No-no.

"I cannot," Will answered in full truth. "What I want…"

He saw the way her face fell and her lips pressed themselves together, as though preparing for a fight. And his words faltered as his thoughts began to rush and swirl about wildly.

How could she pretend that their choices in these matters would not affect her so much more significantly? Exactly how different did the world look to eyes who never witnessed the shadows of a landlord looming just outside the door? What did life taste like when every instance of bitterness could be chased away with wine or chocolate, every harsh coldness bathed and buried in perfumed waters or freshly fluffed bedding? Was she the one who saw things with too much hope, or was he the one blind to easier paths out of the thorns he'd already seen snaring women he knew for lesser weaknesses? Was he wrong to remember his own mother now, to see again all she fought and felt in his father's absences? Was he wrong to remember his own hungers and all the ways his mother was compelled to feed them before he himself was consumed in bites and pieces?

Will swallowed the past whole, and looked Elizabeth in the eyes. "What I want is to be with you forever, not just tonight—and not in ways that could bring us sorrow. I want to be joined with you in joy." His throat tightened around his words, as he pushed his gloomy recollections farther down, and reached up to cup the future that shone in the face before him now. "It is because of that I must know what you desire and fear. It is not enough for me to simply have you—I want you to have me: on your right hand, at your back, or your front… or wherever it is you need me, always."

It was an echo of what she'd said to him before, with that spear in her hand. In answer, Elizabeth's lips moved in the shape of a word he could not hear, and her fingers stroked a new soothing pattern across his skin.

Again he fell for her a little farther, enough that his forehead met hers again in what was now beginning to feel like the most natural end to his heart's deepest plunges after her own. Despite the monsters on their borders, they were safe in each other, here. And though Will wondered what she feared, craved to offer her that peace in a permanent place, he was beginning to realize fear was the very thing that had been twisting in his stomach these past few moments—one different from the frantic scrambles to sweep her life from death, but no less surprising or tightly gripping.

Now it was a sliver of that fear which he allowed to slip past his lips in a new confession, "It would break my heart to break yours. I simply cannot push forward without hearing what you want, it would never sit well with me."

There was a glimpse of her lips twitching upward in the curve of her cheek, her half-moon happiness creeping back into her eyes for a sign of the joke to follow, "Oh, I think I already wrote a letter about that at some point. It might be worth discussing."

This made him laugh with her, softly.

And as though she felt her point wasn't clear enough, Elizabeth set her fingers to trace his lips while hers repeated frankly, "I already feel like I'm telling you what I want all the time."

"I want you to. I need to know it," he whispered in a voice strained with the pull of his earnestness, until a thought bent his lips upwards a nudge. "Or else I'll start making assumptions. And you know how gifted I am at that."

"Oh, we can't have that, can we?" Elizabeth chuckled back. But while her laughter mingled with his, it tapered swiftly into a calm. Her fingers still danced lightly with her eyes still flitting and feathering across his mouth. "You're not actually all that terrible at it, you know? I'm sorry if I've made you feel that way."

Will shook his head. "It's a fair criticism. I've misunderstood you many times when it should have been clear."

"Well, some of those times there were things I could have said to make myself more clear to begin with," she conceded softly, and it was a sweet reassurance to hear. But best of all was the clarity that came after, purer crystal than ever, "So now I will tell you again: I want to fuck you too. Immensely. But I want to marry you, most of all."

She'd said it once before. Yet somehow this time he felt the significance of what she meant race like bolts of lightning through his limbs. She wanted it all as much as he did—to have and to hold each other in every possible loving sense, from one perfect dawn until their final dusk. In hands and heart, a trust and closeness that would never slip, never falter, never fail.

Or so he thought—until she started to laugh, "So I can fuck you everyday."

Ah, he had to laugh with her. Whether or not she was joking, she was determinedly single-minded tonight. And what a point it was for a supposedly high class maiden to fixate upon! Especially because, "You say that, but you don't even know if you'll like it."

Her mirth again quieted, though a lightheartedness carried the sincerity of her thoughts. "I've spent plenty a time speaking to other women to know that, when done right, it is a perfect pleasure. And I know I liked what we were doing just now—as well as where we were going."

His heart tripped a little over itself. "Did you?"

Her hand combed a halting path through his tangled, salted hair. Though her lashes fell low and thick, he could catch the twinkling in her eyes as she nodded against his brow.

There was thunder in his chest, rolling out a deep, satisfying thrill to every tip of feeling he had. He cupped her head in answer. "I did too."

"Even though I bit you?" Elizabeth's thumb and forefinger shifted to gently pinch his previously assailed earlobe.

His stomach clenched, though this time fear had no part in it. His lips curved upward with his admission, "I kind of liked that."

"Really?" She tipped her head back away from his at last, seeking out a renewed, improved view of his face, and offering him a renewed, improved view of her amusement in return. "It sounded like it hurt."

"It did, a little. But It was a good pain," he answered truthfully. Then he paused as a second, stranger truth loaded itself onto his tongue. Was it too strange to say? It was hard to tell. But here they'd found the one chance they had to say anything they wished, at last. And her eyes and ears and heart were so open. Perhaps risking a little strangeness would be worth it. He took a breath. "I… like it when you push yourself over me, and kiss me the way you do when you're excited. It makes me feel like…"

He faltered. A slow, subtle flush crept back up his neck and into his cheeks.

"Like what?" Elizabeth prodded gently, and her voice was as light and smooth as the soothing brush of her knuckles along his jaw.

He wanted to say it, but, "It's silly."

No, that wasn't the right word at all, "silly." In truth, he didn't think there was anything silly about what he felt, nor was there anything wrong with saying it. Perhaps it was his own hesitation that was the silly part. But regardless of the reason, there was something here he was realizing he'd kept locked away so deep inside it had never been uttered to anyone before—in some ways not even to himself. Doing so now almost felt like he was bearing his breast before the point of a freshly sharpened sword.

Except its wielder was not his enemy.

It was her.

"Tell me anyway," Elizabeth implored him softly. Even though she did not know his thoughts, her hand found that place where his heart lay, shying away. She settled her palm atop its beating. "Please."

And suddenly it was like they were back upon the blanket, playing truths and lies again. How many secrets had he already confessed tonight, without a whit of scorn? The locked up contents inside his chest were safe with her—she had proven it a dozen times over. For each tiny piece of his heart he gave to her, there was never a sting that followed, no broken void left behind. Instead, he'd watched her take his pieces up into herself like they were her own treasures, then answer him by placing a little of her own heart inside his emptied spaces…

He was safe here. There was no fight to defend himself from anymore. And even if there were… he could never turn her down.

So he shrugged, and let the truth free. "It just feels nice to be wanted so fiercely. By you."

It was a feeble and gross understatement. But ah, if he could have predicted the spark ignited in her face at that revelation, he would have said it long ago. The sight of her grin blooming wide and full warmed him so completely, he could have forgotten the fire they'd left behind altogether. What could the night or the wind or the sea do in the face of someone as radiant as this?

She seized the opened collar of his shirt, and tugged him a little closer. "Oh, then you are in very good luck: you have hardly any idea yet how fiercely I truly want you."

He'd misspoken. It didn't feel nice to be wanted by her. The feelings summoned were beyond compare.

A dozen different impulses brawled within Will, making him want to laugh and leap and gasp and dance all at once. He wanted to somersault into the ocean the way it felt like his heart was doing now, then wrestle a crocodile for real, even though it made no sense. He wanted to take both their swords, and from where he stood, utterly blind, fling them both deep to the same tree trunk—just because he felt like he absolutely could. He could do anything now. Elizabeth loved him! And if he could do anything, he wanted to lift her back up and spin her around until the world stopped turning first, to challenge her to a duel that left them spent in the sand, to hold her close and kiss her madly everywhere, anywhere she wished. He wanted to make her laugh and leap and gasp and dance all at once, for forever and a day—because she wished to stay with him. And he would treasure it until time ran out.

But first, she'd said she wanted to know when their final restraints were meant to fall. So for now, he settled with trying to make her smile a little more, as they searched out the right answer together.

"Well," he mused slowly, trying to will his beating heart to calm itself one more time, "if I understand your stories right, you burnt down your own deserted island and all its drink for me, so… I think I have a hunch."

He heard her breath bounce on the wind, while her mouth lit her face up like the moon.

He cupped her face, and ran his thumb across the lips that made him into this mess to begin with. "I like tipping the velvet with you."

"That's fantastic to hear, considering I'm quite addicted to your mouth," she quipped back in an instant. Her fingers curled into his shirt and her toes raised her face back up to his as she said it. In a rush, he knew his heart would not be calmed any time soon. "Not very ladylike of me, though, is it?"

"No, not at all," he answered with a grin of his own. "However, I believe I have a different image of you than everyone else. To me you've hardly ever been a perfect lady."

At this, Elizabeth dropped back onto the flats of her feet, from which vantage she tossed her head in exaggerated consternation. "I don't know what you're talking about! Until tonight I've always been the perfect lady."

Perfect? In many ways, yes. But a lady, true and in her heart, not just one shaped by her father's rules…?

"Oh aye," Will countered sarcastically, "especially when you're whacking me in the shins to become King of the Pirate Hill or whatever it was we used to do, back when."

"Pirate King of the Mountain," she corrected as though it were the hundredth time. It may have been—he'd often gotten the name wrong in the years since they'd actually played it.

He had to roll his eyes a little, all the same. "Right." She knew what he meant, either way.

In response, Elizabeth prodded him with the tip of her finger. "And I'll have you know that that really was an accident!"

"I know it was," he conceded. "My point was that a 'proper lady' wouldn't have even been in a scenario to whack me in the shins to begin with, accidental or otherwise."

A smirk crossed her face at that.

"Well, I never said I was proper, did I? Just that I was perfect," she joked. Then once more she flattened her palms against his chest. With her eyes falling slowly over him, she gave him a rather distracting stroke. "And now that we're older you can just wap me in return and see how I like it."

Though another pleasant rush ran down his spine and sparked a silent chuckle at her choice of words, he shook his head and placed a hand atop hers to still her petting motions. "That sounds terrible when you say it that way."

"Well, you know which ways I meant it!"

"I do." He nodded, thoughts now filling with imaginations mixed between their crossed swords and crossed bodies. And just like that, he felt warmth begin to return to the space between his hips, in a warning to go no further. He tore his mind away from its path, forcing himself to consider how he was standing now, in the dark. But his eyes he kept fixed on Elizabeth's shaded shapes, as he teased her back, "And I'm wondering how in the blazes we're ever meant to cool down when you keep speaking that way."

Her hands stilled their motions, and he could just make out her lips puckering around her giddiness, in a vaguely noble effort to return to some semblance of dignity. "I know, I'm sorry. I can't— It's just so hard to stop right now. No one's here besides us. And I can't resist…."

Her words slipped away, replaced by a single, breathless laugh as the night danced on around them both before slipping inside him.

She was right: it was so very hard to stop. This freshest reminder that they were alone was an intoxicating one. And if the truth were to be told fairly, she wasn't the only who couldn't wholly resist its call. With little thought or regret, Will ate his chiding words and risked becoming burned by drawing closer, and kissing her once more. She accepted him readily, her lips taking his into another eager embrace, and oh, who was he kidding? Once was not enough. It was never enough. How could he ever, ever, ever possibly resist? He kissed her twice more, slow enough to make each last through several clipped races of heartbeats. Then when their lips parted, and it still was not nearly enough, his hands ran along the lengths of her back, searching hungrily for other ways to have a little more of her now without losing track of this conversation… or himself.

Ha. Impossible tasks.

Elizabeth pressed the bridge of her nose against the side of his face, then whispered like she had a terrible secret, "Do you know what else is funny?"

"What?" he hushed back in the same, low tone, deeply aware of the way the rhythm of his heart had fallen lower and lower with him, tumbling towards the seat of his body.

Her lips found his ear, and brushed against its shell. "I quite liked it when you did the same thing."

Though he held her closer, confusion pinched his brow and made him draw his head back, in search of her face.

"What thing?" Their conversation had meandered enough, he could no longer tell what she was referring to anymore. "Telling horrible jokes? Or striking your shins?" He'd never done that before—she was the shin whacker.

"No, neither!" she tittered. Then her hands resumed their prior, tantalizing vexations against his thinly-clothed breast. "I meant when you pushed yourself over me, and you pressed both my hands into the sand where I couldn't reach you."

Will felt a little bump of surprise jar him. After being bound and kidnapped? After all her talk of feeling trapped by her overbearing duties and limited expectations?

"You liked that?"

He would have thought she would have loathed anything approaching senses of confinement.

But she nodded. With eyes turned downward in thought, she began to use her finger to trace tickling, pensive figures into him. "For a few seconds I thought you might try and get me back…"

Now he was even more confused.

"I let you go because I thought it would put you off." She'd said she didn't want to be tickled, after all, hadn't she? Had he misunderstood her?

Her answer came with a shrug. "It might have, if it felt like a trap. But it didn't. It only felt like a fun little challenge."

It made more and less sense all at once. He still couldn't see how it would feel any less of a trap, when that was exactly what it was. Yet with the methods of battle she'd chosen in their smithy's duel, he could very easily see how she might revel in the chance to best him at a wrestling match, regardless of their disparate levels of strength. However, they hadn't been talking about contests of strength, they'd been talking about gratifications and touch and… now apparently the literal sport to be found in it all. It made little sense.

No, it did make a little sense, on second thought. How could he be surprised? After all, what was life with Elizabeth without a bit of sport thrown in?

His lips pulled to one side, as he reached out and stroked her hair, feeling suddenly and strangely reminiscent. "You really like to make a competition out of everything don't you?"

"Why wouldn't I? You make the most stimulating opponent… and offer such tempting prizes."

The last of her words were said with another one of her more sultry-sounding whispers, peppered by the movements of her parted lips. And when she lifted herself on her toes again, wrapped her arms back around his neck, then the warm touch of her nose, the teasing sweep of her breath, the soft press of her body against his sent him back over the edge. He felt warmth and tightness return to parts below. That little battle was finally lost. It had been a futile fight anyway. Now there was nothing left for it in this moment but to let it be until he could let it go.

Which was much easier said than done when Elizabeth was still flush with him, breathing so enticingly into his ear. "To be honest, when you held me, it made me a little hopeful you would…"

She paused, let out a deeper sigh, but said nothing else in favor of keeping 'it' a secret. But now the visions and sensations of them tangled in the sand were back in Will's mind, and he couldn't resist wondering what parts of their meshing most made her blood boil the way his was now. This was their night of secrets, wasn't it? He certainly wouldn't make her say anything she did not wish, but…

"I told you mine. Now you can tell me yours," he pressed her gently, with one hand running an attempted soothing path along her back yet again. "If you want. I won't laugh."

Yet she did—a little puff that sounded equal parts amused and uncertain. "Well, this one's a little strange."

Oh? Certainly not more strange than enjoying being bitten? "Try me anyway."

The same quiet breath touched his skin.

"I liked…" A beat or two passed while she weighed and matched her thoughts to her words. Then she tried to say it a second time, "… I rather liked the idea of you caressing me in indecent places, while I fight for my chance to turn the tables and touch you back."

His brows furrowed as they puzzled over her description playing out in his mind, weighing whether he could pin her to her pleasure in such a heavy-handed way. Perhaps the challenge of slipping her hands free from his would be a little thrilling to her… But whether or not she intended it to mean such things, the most 'indecent' touches he could think of were those he'd been dreaming about lately, the ones that warmed and primed her secret parts for their melding. And in those moments, he always relished the thought of her wrapping herself around him, welcoming and keeping him as close as either of them could hope.

What a dream to dwell on while holding her here, welcoming and close in reality. His body pulsed a little louder, his fingers tightening their fastenings on the shape and scent of her, as he appeased himself by dipping his face to touch his lips to the heated, tender skin joining her neck to her shoulder.

"Whatever happened to wapping each other back?" he wondered out loud.

Her fingers balled themselves into fists, and she brought her mouth back to his ear.

"Entice me well enough, and it goes without saying." And if that taunt weren't already enough to make him stand at attention, her next sigh certainly was, "Can you imagine the duels that lie ahead for us now…?"

"Ha…" He could hardly laugh from the way his breath was stolen away at the thought. Admitting his desires to her so soon in their courtship may have been a mistake—for now he knew she would accept him completely in a heartbeat. Mixed in between the whirlwind of wild wants that was rising him, a silly name for the more-than-friendly competitions he pictured rose to his mind's forefront, and he had to joke back: "'Pirate King of the Mattress?'"

She released him at last with a full and proper laugh, hands sliding back down his chest yet again, as she leveled him with a playful accusation. "Now who isn't helping?"

"And who really started it this time?" he retorted readily—after all he could hardly ignore the sensations of himself standing up so raptly.

"The One who invited me here with a salacious letter in his pocket," her own riposte came as easily.

"Not the One who wrote said salacious letter?" He gave her waist a little squeeze for emphasis.

She pet him a little again, making him tingle and burn in her pretenses over being lost in thought, despite the swiftness of her continued argument, "No, because you see: it was inspired by the same One who did the inviting."

"Ah," he acknowledged, partially to fight the fuzziness building on the edges of his mind. "But no matter the inspiration, the letter's writer still chose to jot, and sign, and seal it with her own hand, of her own accord, didn't she?"

Elizabeth lifted her chin sharply at that. "And what if she did? She was bewitched. Could anyone truly be blamed in such a state?"

The impulse to enter her open mouth again was mighty, but so was the urge to take that tempting kiss past its reasonable boundaries. He held himself back, reminding himself the 'when' had still not been answered—'not yet.' But his opposition felt like a mad endeavor. Bewitchment she claimed? What an irony…!

"Then her inviter cannot be blamed anymore than she, for he was entirely possessed eight years ago, and thereby was compelled to bring her to this secluded place by that madness first and foremost."

Her face tipped even closer to his, until he could again feel her lips brushing his, making his body hum in tune with her question, "Are you picking a fight with me?"

"Depends on how much you like it."

It wasn't exactly what Will would have called a winning blow—if anything, it felt to him akin to swinging his sword in the wrong direction, and realizing after the fact he'd left his flank exposed to an easy counter-strike. He could make out the same recognition flickering in Elizabeth's face, as the thrust of her answer was drawn upon her tongue.

But Elizabeth's return attack was not launched. Instead, Will watched as she held it between her teeth, simpering and grinning through a hidden debate. Then as though she'd decided to extend him a mercy, she pulled her words back behind closed lips, turned on her heels, and stepped out of his embrace at last.

"Perhaps we should keep walking?"

Ah, how cold and bereft he felt when she left him! And still in a state of unfulfilled longing, burdened by that awful proverbial itch…

Fortunately, the steps she took were purposefully small and slow. In only two strides, he was back at her side, where he caught hold of her hand before she could be too far gone. Perhaps the walking and the wind would help cool him back down again… or a real, actual surprise crocodile.

"Let's check on the fire—and dry off before we catch our deaths," he agreed with her.

And together they walked a little longer in a newly comfortable silence.

"What do you see, Will?"

The question had come so suddenly, he almost answered it literally, looking around for what he thought she was indicating to, and failing to find it.

But it turned out she wasn't done asking, and he was saved from a fresh misunderstanding as she went on asking dreamily, "When you close your eyes and think of what it'll be like to be married, what do you see?"

That made much more sense. And yet… he still found himself groping in the dark for the right answer.

For years, he'd drifted often into dreams, night and day, of sharing the greater parts of his life with Elizabeth. But it was all done in snatches and glimpses of time spent together, in ways that were exceedingly simple. He wondered: what would it be like to be able to find her every day at the shop across the street, and chat with her to his heart's content? Or how satisfying would it feel if he could meet her at the docks near sunset, to go on walks together in a slowed-down chase of the same memories and imaginations they always pursued when they were children? What if they could trade stories by a fireside dinner table, or huddle under the same sheet in rainy weather, or even share a pillow come night…?

Any task or moment he had to himself, his mind inevitably devoted some part of its faculties to thinking how much better things would be if he didn't have to go at them alone—to instead face life with the person who had become his heart's friend.

But what sort of fragmented picture of a marriage was that? Until recently, he'd never thought about where it was they could ever live to begin with, only that he wished they could be together so much that it physically pained him. Now with their prospects newly improved, their visions slowly becoming stitched together, he'd begun to picture a house on the hills somewhere, yes. But its rooms were still empty. Would the plates they eat off of be worth her showing off? How bare or burdened would the mantelpiece of that fire they sat beside be?

He didn't know yet. There was only one thing Will saw for certain every time he allowed himself to hope enough to genuinely dream about where they were headed. And that was…

"You."

He knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear. She made it obvious with the unimpressed expression upon her face. But what else was there to say? It was the truth, the most honest and straightforward truth.

Even so, it seemed to be too little.

"You know that wasn't my question. Besides that," Elizabeth pressed him anyway. "What is our life like in your mind?"

And for a few fleeting seconds, all he could do was flounder and shake his head. "It's just you. It's…"

The same things again fluttered through his mind like butterflies over passion flowers. In every thought was she, she, she: laughing, dancing, singing, fighting, always alive, always well, always at arm's reach. And so ran his thoughts, until his imagination had once again brought him back to the picture of him sitting with her, near a fireplace. In that moment, something odd finally struck him: they would never sit so close to a roaring fire in a house here in the Caribbean. It was far too hot most of the year. The one time he even considered it in recent memory had been the fateful night a ship's curse had blanketed their port in an unnaturally cold fog, prompting him to keep the smithy shuttered. Any other night, he sat as far away from the hearth and as close to an open window as he could get.

So why did he keep picturing a scene like that?

Because that was how it had been in England.

It was the fireplace of his childhood he envisioned him and Elizabeth sitting beside, the one from the home he'd been forced to leave behind—pushed onto the streets as a foundling wondering where else he had left to go. It was the fire from the home he'd slept in through safer years, listening to winter whisper through their window shutters, only to be out-cackled by playfully popping logs and spitting embers. It was the home where the most kisses he'd ever known had bid him good night, every night, until his world began to unravel.

Until the fire was no longer there to keep him from the fog along Falmouth's docks.

Until the fog and fire followed him to sea, and laid before his path more than one unexpected, precious pearl…

Until a new life began to unfold, slowly through that fog, out of fire and ash…

And what did that life look like, she asked him?

"It's hard to say," he confessed honestly. "When I think of the things I look forward to the most, they're mostly little moments day-to-day—all the places and times we've been apart where we'll get to be together from now on."

He'd meant for that to be all. But Elizabeth watched him with such expectant eyes, he felt compelled to try again and satisfy her. What parts of the mosaic in his mind were easiest to express first…?

"When I go to sleep at night, I wait for the chance to slip beside you, and hope you'll be happy with the things I want to whisper, or ways I wish to touch you."

Her eyes turned on him shining at that, like precious stones of delight itself had crystallized to make her what she was. And he suddenly wondered what it was that had made telling her these things seem so hard, when loving her came so easy.

He held her hand a little tighter, saying to himself a little prayer of gratitude that he now could lose count of the number of times he'd gotten to do such simple things, all in one night. "But mostly I wonder. In the mornings, I wonder whether you'll wake and rise with me, or if I'll get lost watching you sleep a little longer than I ought to, before the day can begin."

"Well, of course you're going to wonder about times like that!" she retorted suddenly, then shot him another one of her more impish grins. "You're missing a most crucial third option."

Ah, yes! That singular focus of hers again. The skin about his eyes crinkled with bliss-blessed amusement, as he decided to return her persistent playfulness with some more of his own.

"Hm, I'll have to consider what that could be…" he pretended not to understand.

Against his expectations, her tongue did not strike him back at this time. She bit her lip and shook her head. In place of teasing or retaliation, instead she freed her hands from his, so she could snake her arms about his waist and cuddle herself into his shoulder, asking, "What else?"

He wrapped his arm about her too. And even though it forced them to sway a little off-balance in their tandem walking, he bent to bring his mouth to her forehead—the closest to her ear he could reach.

"I like to daydream about…" he mused quietly, "…about showing you my work, and hearing what it is you think. I like to pretend we take up our swords when the shop's been closed, and that we can disappear to secret places to take our time together in our own ways, like we used to do but better. Challenging each other. 'Wapping' each other."

A snort accompanied the accusatory prod of her fingers into his flank, the sparkle of her amusement. "Your words this time, not mine!"

"Yes. You've pulled me under," he smirked back, pleased at the way he could feel the persistence of her giggles rippling through her ribs into his and yet aware of the ways they kept drifting off course, like ships drawn to each other's siren songs. Was that really all he could tell her of the life they shared inside his mind? "I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say, when it's all so simple. Sometimes I just think of you with the wind in your hair, just like this. And I hope you are happy." A knot formed in his chest saying that, as an image of another woman he'd loved, standing listless by much colder seas, lingered like a ghost in the back of his mind. "I want you to be happy, most of all."

"Well, I am told that a good wappi—"

"You know what I mean!" he laughed. "Let me be sincere with you about this!"

"You're always sincere about it!" she returned, then with her hands trading his arm for his fingers, she skipped and turned about to face him, walking backwards for a few paces. "Let's have some more fun while we're at it. Tell me more: where do we live? Have you dreamed anything about that? If you haven't, just make it up now."

She dispelled the cold lingering in his mind so effortlessly. And when he glanced over her shoulder to make certain her path behind her was clear, his sight caught hold of the "fireplace" they had made tonight on this beach, drawing close enough to begin warming him outside-in.

"Someplace like this," he answered. "But instead of the forest behind us, there's the house we've wished for overlooking the shore, on the hill."

Though the fire's glow had cast a halo upon her back, it was Elizabeth's face which had lit up the most with that thought. Yes. This could be their way for now: bonfires on secret beaches. Who needed a living room, when they had found room to live at last?

Yet she sighed a dreamy little sigh as she turned back in the direction of their walk, to fall back in step with him, just as they were returning the fire's side.

"I've pictured us with a house in town," she said, and for some reason it was not what he'd expected. But then… what else did he expect? That they would take to the seas and live in a pirate fortress? Or under her father's nose their entire lives? No. On second thought, the picture she painted made perfect sense, as she went on saying, "Somewhere close to everything—like the place you're in now, only it's ours. That way your forge is at our doorstep, with clients all around. And there's no need to turn each shopping day into an expedition. Instead of walking to work for an hour, we can sleep a little longer in the mornings… or simply have a lie in and make love, just because we feel like it."

He laughed a little louder than before. "Your third option?"

She really wasn't going to let it go—and it was starting to become more and more funny as the night progressed.

"Of course. What else would it be?" she asked with a dismissive air, as they came to stand by the fire again, now burning very low. While Will reached for some spare branches to toss into the pit, Elizabeth presented her back to the embers in anticipation of their resurrection. And she pressed on with her imaginings as though what she'd just spoken of was as typical for them as breathing, "And when our work is done, I like to think we might pack up our dinner and take it to eat by the shore. Here, if you like—sometimes I like the idea of it being just you and me. But other times I imagine we are joined by the friends we've made together. And we go to that beach where all the townsfolk gather, so we can trade meat and drink and gossip."

"You like to be close to people," Will surmised, and wondered how he had not noticed it before.

She didn't nod. Yet something about the pensive way she stared back into the night made it feel as though she had. "It's peaceful on the hill. But…"

But her words faded away as her thoughts overcame her.

The burnt remains of the fire's first meal buckled under the second and third batches of wood Will laid atop it, criss-crossed and steepled. A small puff of ashy smoke, a breath of surrender, was swept away effortlessly by the sea's gusts. Then after a moment's darkness, the starving, gasping flames caught proper hold of their new feast—they began to eat and grow in a cackling, broiling crackle.

He looked to Elizabeth and watched the way the orange-framed shadows flickered over the sand still stuck to her gown, the wrinkles pressed up and down her back, the gold spun through her tangled hair.

Eventually, she turned to look at him, and her lips turned upward with a subtle somberness. "I've always missed how it was when we lived down here in the old mansion, and I could throw my bedsheets out my window and wander around with you on a whim." When she looked away again, Will realized her eyes were fixing their gaze to the top of the hill, where her father slept in the great house they had once called 'new.' "I hated moving up there and losing that time with you. Especially because the mansion always felt so far to escape from—it's almost like a childhood dream doing it again tonight. At last."

She looked back at him, the hints of sadness had been pushed aside to make room for the return of that joy that took his breath away.

"I'm glad," Will answered readily, and he cheered inside himself over the accomplishment of having managed to bring a small part of her dreams to life.

It was small, perhaps even insignificant to most. But if he could point his life in the right direction, then there were other, greater parts of her dreams that he could devote himself to bringing to life with her as well. In that way, they could live this small slice of their dreams over and over again, for as long as it felt worth dreaming about.

So with his thoughts weighing their visions against each other and the price of this little dream, he made a gentle counter suggestion, "You know, even if we find a place on the hills, I think we could come close enough to town you wouldn't have to feel so isolated. The walk is only a few minutes from here. And if you think about it, we could have that boat we've spoken of moored nearby. You said you wanted your own dock."

Elizabeth looked a little surprised by that, as if she'd forgotten she had said it, somehow—although he very much doubted she had. Still, it was with a renewed air of calculation that she cast her eyes around the stranded beach, musing, "This could be a lovely spot for us, couldn't it?"

"Or someplace like it," Will affirmed with verve, happy she agreed. "As long as it can be up away from the water during storms, we can be close to the water."

"And the crocodiles," she responded back with a smirk, as she turned about to start warming and drying her front. She plucked up her skirt a bit to hold it a little closer to the fire. "But I don't want our babies playing anywhere near those."

That suggestion seized his heart tightly. Its grip felt like a cold, terrible fear and a warm, whispering hope at once.

But before he could assemble any proper, completed reaction to it, she was already speaking again, while leveling him a very pointed look, "Or either of us, for that matter."

His lips tugged themselves to one side, as his answer shifted back, "Well, I'm sorry to report that there are few beaches on this island that aren't prowled by beasts of one type or another. We live in a wild world here. If you're looking for a place for us to play without danger, we may have to look to different waters entirely."

And with that, an idea began to shape in Will's mind of another place they could escape to, if he could convince Elizabeth to run away with him another time, in broad daylight…

However, Elizabeth's thoughts were revealed to wander down a completely different path. "I suppose that explains a bit more of my father's reaction that last time we took to the water."

Ah. Yes, that would make it make it feel a bit more sensible, wouldn't it? It had been the last time they had been allowed to play together like children, and the last time her father had permitted their time together to go unsupervised. They'd felt playing on that beach had been fine, considering they had another they loved to haunt—the dangers of playing by the sea had never crossed either of their minds. But if a fear of his daughter being eaten up alive had fueled the governor's fury over that day's play, he'd never mentioned it. Not when he'd pulled Will aside and berated his sense of propriety, and certainly not when he'd sent him to work with Brown a week later…

Again, Elizabeth's mind moved without concern for Will's separate, silent musing. "Although, it is nice to have some privacy, I have to admit. And if it's a short, reasonable walk into town…"

Will followed her lead and pushed that bit of their past aside another time, to come back to his vision he was building with her, slowly.

"Plus we could get a horse, one day—with a nice wagon," he offered, happy to push aside that unpleasant memory as he rose to his feet at last. He presented his still-damp and sand-plastered posterior to the fire. While his hands tried again at dusting himself off, he considered he ought not to dry himself in such a manner, to avoid risking the wool's shrinking—but his breeches were a bit over-sized for him to begin with, and he dismissed the thought. "Or if we feel we really need it more immediately, a good, old-fashioned ox and cart would do at first."

"Either way," Elizabeth agreed.

As they spoke, they each turned about every few minutes like slow rotisseries, steaming the last dregs of water from their clothes and exchanging similarly softly heated glances with eyes which wandered up and down in wordless, more enticing secondary conversations.

"We should have our own forge," she declared. "No Mister Browns to deal with. Only your partners and clientèle."

Just the thought of that possibility felt like a real weight lifting off his shoulders—although for reasons Will could not explain, he felt a little ashamed feeling that way. Still, he agreed with her and the tenuous ideas he'd just begun to shape into a plan, "I want a forge with our own name on it, for certain. But for a while it would be wise to join another master's workshop, I think."

"Even so, you shall become a master in your own right, swiftly," she insisted. Then she tossed her nose into the air on his behalf. "You're far too talented to remain a journeyman for long. And we'll need our own shop if I'm to become your apprentice, yes?"

Swells of pride mingled with the thrill flooding Will's chest. "You're serious about that?"

Her own pride and surprise shone back in different colors. "Aren't you?"

"I am! I just didn't believe it would interest you to be stuck fiddling around in a workshop all day."

He knew what she would say the moment her lips curled again like a cat. "Why wouldn't I when I'd be fiddling around with you all d—"

"Elizabeth Swann!" More laughter burst from him without warning, and went ringing into the night. "You are especially incorrigible tonight!"

"Well, would you have me any other way?"

Never. It wasn't even a real question, he felt the answer was so obvious. And she knew it. He could see the foundations of her certainty as he fell back into the amber iridescence of her eyes, sparkling as richly as polished cinnamon stone and burnt amber. In the end he only spoke the obvious, even though it dove into that truth they'd been dancing to and from this entire evening, like the waves that kissed the shore:

"… I'd 'have you' however, whenever, and wherever you want me to. In one whispered word."

If Elizabeth wanted to say the word, or anything else like it, it was again caught with her tongue between her grinning teeth. She appeared content to bask in the glee of his playing at her little game, alighting her with his own fires at her back, her heart.

She took and released a breath, then deftly took her own turn at redirecting their topic. "I'd like to give it a try. Smithing. Being in town is quite different from being sequestered in a mansion—more, different people are always milling about. And apprentices don't have to be in the shop all day, do they? I could run your deliveries for you, so you're stuck in the shop all day!"

He scoffed, and offered up a gratitude dripping with sarcasm, "Oh, thank you, that's so thoughtful. My least favorite part of the day is leaving the shop."

There was pleasure on her face over having successfully delivered a jab. But the raillery in her eyes calmed a little, as something earnest seemed to take back her thoughts, calling her vision into the leaping flames at their feet.

"I do have to admit, a part of me wonders how long it'll be before I'll be of any use to you there. I've never done anything like forging, except maybe for playing rounds of battledore or pall-mall …"

"That's good enough," he reassured her truthfully. Doubt did not become her. There was far too much of that weighing him down to entertain its presence on her shoulders. "I'd never held a hammer in my life when I first started."

However, her face turned sober. "You'd done lots of other work, though."

Yes, he had. He'd practically been born working. He still remembered helping his mother with her sales. But what did that matter? Elizabeth was stronger than any child, no matter how much work they were used to doing.

He tipped his head to the side, dismissing her worries. "It'll be alright. I'll teach you."

"I know you will," she concurred, but her voice was unusually meek. It made his brow furrow. Yet he wasn't able to mull it over long, as she continued to speak more strongly before he could string any thoughts to his confused feelings. "Still, I wonder whether I'll be able to put in the practice you need for a proper help in the beginning. You may want a 'real' apprentice—at least for a few years."

Now he was even more confused. Was she really doubting herself this much? "You are a real apprentice. Or will be. Why wouldn't you be?"

"Time, Will," she sighed with some exasperation. "Proper practice for anything takes time, doesn't it? And when our children begin to arrive, I'll need to devote the greater part of my time tending to them."

His heart stopped for a moment. Here it was at last: the one piece of their future that could move him in such startling ways. Or… not move him, in another manner of speaking. Was it again fear that froze him like this? He wasn't certain. Whatever it was, the hint in her words becoming more of a promise had blocked his mind's thoughts and struck his tongue dumb for a moment.

"Our children," she had said. And, "our babies."

"Ours."

When he could feel his heart beating again, it felt aflutter. He could sense Elizabeth looking at him from the corner of her eye. And when he mustered up some words to say in reply, they made him sound and feel stupid.

"Our children?"

Elizabeth's eyebrow rose in slight bafflement, reacting as though he had forgotten her name.

"Yes. Our children," she repeated slow and clear, as though ensuring she could not be misheard or misunderstood. His heart pattered again, butterflies stirring his gut. Then with another toss of her hair Elizabeth turned herself around again. "They do tend to come with a great many marriages, you know. As a course of nature." That eyebrow of hers raised itself to newer, more playful heights as she gave him another pointed look. "And wapping."

The repetition of her favorite joke of the night eased the tension inside him. This time Will rolled his eyes in reply, and answered her with more sarcasm dripping from his words, "Oh, thank you, I did not know that's how it worked."

Her voice bounced as she bubbled, "Well, you sounded like you were genuinely taken aback."

He was. And he wasn't above admitting it, though the words came to him shyly.

"This is the first time I've ever heard you say anything about the matter. I wasn't certain…" Should he say it? It was an assumption—perhaps another wrong one. Or perhaps that was just really, truly the sum of his hesitation: being uncertain? But why? She was right: children came from marriages—hell, they came from far more fleeting and unfeeling unions all the time, as well. It was just the way of those most peculiar relations between their sexes. And he'd considered its possibilities a handful of times, briefly, when he was bold enough to be willing to see that type of future as something his hands could actually grasp onto. But… "I think I'd convinced myself that we would not be prepared to speak about such things for some time yet. Or that it could be an afterthought for you."

"An afterthought?" Elizabeth parroted again, this time with more intensely distinct tones of astonishment.

Will felt himself flush in a dither.

"Well, perhaps not an afterthought, but rather something… less worthy of your consideration," he tried to clarify without grace. Then when the lines of bafflement on Elizabeth's face deepened, he in eddies of apprehension, "Is that strange?"

Now both her brows rose in a wordless confirmation. "Well, considering it's the entire reason people make all the fuss over who you and I are, and whether or not we ought to marry at all…"

"That's true…" he admitted to himself as well as her, while the few biting words they'd been dogged by lately began to return to his mind, from the mansion's office, its dining table, its upper chambers. He could feel himself scowl. And the bitterness of those remembered words were spat from his lips to keep them from seeping into him, deeper, "Your father has already made it clear enough what his concerns on the matter are."

Elizabeth's face darkened in its own grave seriousness.

It probably sounded like an accusation. In a way it was one, returned long-distance for the string of nicks and bruises Will had been forced to take to his pride, such as it was. It was remarkably difficult to avoid the stings in the ways the governor sometimes spoke. They'd made progress at making peace last time, yes. And if those efforts remained sincere, he was certain old wounds would heal in the days and years to come. But in a way, it felt like the effort of hiding them to himself in the days and years before had begun to make them fester. There had not been enough time, not nearly enough healing yet, to have forgotten how his and Elizabeth's potential future offspring had been quietly named Elizabeth's alone. And that had come after the fleeting arguments about her inheritance, after the potentially perceived distastefulness of her "condescending" herself to be his mate, after the harsh reminder how he was 'not ready to be a husband'—which all but condemned his perceived abilities to be a father, as well.

But the worst part of it all was the way he was not sure whether such assumptions stung more because the governor seemed unwilling to see his capabilities of achieving a greater … well, anything, or whether it was because the governor's words struck so close to deeper doubts he already felt and fought inside himself.

For if two men of such different views could see the same failings in him so clearly… then how false could they actually be?

With a small jolt, Will realized he could feel Elizabeth's eyes were still studying him, searching something out in his expression. Her visage was stern, perhaps even a little angry. And as though she'd jabbed him in the side, he was suddenly, sharply reminded of two things: first that she'd requested him to think and speak more highly of himself… and second, that he'd managed to somehow start a fight with her father without the man even being here to provoke it.

The shame radiating across Will's nose stretched down his neck and into the pits of his stomach. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"No. You're right," she said. And as quickly as it had come, the shame in him was soothed by the balms of her commiseration, "You know he felt the need to remind me how 'careful' I ought to be of you, this past week?"

Will shook his head, as relief and frustration began to mix and churn inside him in a distasteful tonic. She had failed to mention that in her letters or their ill-timed meeting. But it didn't surprise him.

He wished it did.

Apparently, so did she, as she let out a frustrated breath and turned her face towards the diamond encrusted skies. "Lately, it feels like everyone is placing bets in their minds whether I'll be able to guard my precious maidenhood from my rustic, lusty gallant."

She rolled her eyes for the both of them, though it was done with smirking lips.

Will offered her half a smile. "I fear you overestimate people's perceptions of me. Half my youth was spent dodging interrogations over why I had no taste for anyone's tail."

"Well, the people that know you are one thing," she countered. "But to all the rest of the empire, reading their broadsides and pamphlet stories in taverns and ports worldwide, you are now a thief of ships and a crafty slipgibbett bold enough to pilfer and pinch the Navy's best prizes right from under the admiralty's favorite nose. It's enough to make a stranger wonder: who could stop a man like that from slipping a woman like me from my bed and stealing my virtue under the cover of night?"

It was a joke and a razor-sharp point folded into one. The things he'd done of late had somehow transformed his public image from a hapless boy with no name to a man with a whispered reputation just illicit enough to precede him—a reputation that was not altogether incorrect. He still saw himself as honest, and decent, and just. Or at least, he felt he tried to be. But while Jack Sparrow may have crafted the plan for the Interceptor's "pinching," it was he, Will Turner, who had first chosen him to do it, who had sprung him from prison, and who had eagerly tread in the captain's every step of the process.

Jack Sparrow may have been the one to sermonize about a free man's place in the world, but it was he, Will Turner, who had chosen to stop his hempen jig and cut his noose away.

And while Jack Sparrow may have questioned the honor in waiting to woo his heart's desire, it still was he, Will Turner, who had brought Elizabeth Swann out of her mansion to tarry with him here tonight.

So, yes, she had another point.

"It is hard to refute the deeds I've done or avert what assumptions may be made of them." And he didn't even want to anymore, when speaking on it made her eyes crackle like burning charcoal, making Will's innards boil and churn a little wilder in their sight. "But I still think my dealings with piracy should not have anything to do with how you conduct yourself in our personal affairs."

"It isn't all that surprising if you think about it, though, is it? You just said you've been hounded for years over whether you'd finally find your way up cock alley, even though you've no inheritance on the line to speak of. Meanwhile, more than once I've felt like the most pressing purpose behind my ladies' training was to ensure I one day produce the highest quality progeny possible for the smartest pedigree I could be hitched to. All those hours of talk of what a service I'll be to my future husband and children… Regardless of whether or not I agree, it's tiresome to hear so often. And it's a far cry from the way people speak about a youth who has yet to go wenching."

It was subtle enough it could have been a mistake of his own jealous feelings, still reaching out from the past to lay themselves over hers. But a part of Will thought her words sounded laced with a biting bitterness of their own—especially those final few. And he realized with some sheepishness that he wasn't sure what he could say in return, let alone should.

While it was true he hadn't given himself permission to entertain thoughts on the matter until recently, the truth was he'd always held in the hindmost reaches of his heart a quiet hope to one day be a father, to have the chance to give his own children all the things, the places, the time he'd missed with his own. He wanted that fireplace in his dreams to be a refuge, not just for himself but for every person he let into his life to stay. And perhaps it didn't need to have a fireplace. Perhaps it could be besides his forge… or a beach bonfire. But whatever, wherever it was, it would be his family's haven. As long as there was someplace warm and dry and safe to gather together in the arms of those he loved, he would be happy.

It was all he'd ever really wanted.

And Elizabeth was the one he'd most hoped to share in that peace.

Yet hearing her now, the way she spoke of husbands and children made that vision sound less like a joy to partake in together and more like a duty to him she was expected to fulfill. And if that was the way she felt… could he really call that home they'd share a true and proper haven?

He wanted to ask.

But she was shrugging the matter off already, practically insisting on dispassion with the way she pressed ahead, saying, "We've wandered very far off the topic again. The point is: I very much doubt I'll be as keen to swing a hammer around while carrying a child—in my arms, or my belly, or otherwise."

And now he felt twice the selfish fool. He'd been so enchanted by the idea of working together side-by-side, swords drawn aplenty by fire and flesh, he'd forgotten what it would actually mean to have her to labor beside him, regardless of his own dreams. After all, whether and when children came to them or not held a different bearing over his daily business. All that would change for him was whether or not he'd have more hands at the forge, more feet to run errands, more cheeks to kiss, more mouths to feed. Down here, people worked around the changes life laid upon their bodies, big or small. If he were ever to lose a hand entirely, he'd still be expected to find a way to work for a living—and he would, one way or another. That was the way life was for every soul in the low towns. It seemed so natural that he and she would tend to the forge in tandem, he'd hardly given proper consideration to the cumbersome demand bearing actual babies could be for her, in particular.

The only way around it would be to never conceive a child at all. Unless…

"Would you want to hire a nurse?" he suggested, eager to chase that possibility away, if it would make her feel a little less used or overtaxed or… anything worse than she deserved, really.

There was a split-second's hesitation before she answered, "Well, yes. That would be lovely. But…"

Crackling wood, shushing waves, and singing crickets all filled the space between them, as that split-second returned and stretched itself over many passing seconds. Elizabeth turned herself to face the fire. And as she did so, he saw her detangling difficult words upon her tongue. It was as though she did not wish to utter the thought she'd started at all.

But Will felt certain he knew what she was thinking. So he broached the subject for her: "You think we will not be able to afford it."

"No, it's not that…" she insisted. But it lacked her usual conviction, with her eyes averting towards their footprints in the sand.

"Then tell me."

She could not. And the look upon her face, the tight closing of her lips, made her admission clear even without words: it was that. She simply didn't want it to be.

And why would she? Why would anyone, let alone those who lived as she had? Hers was a higher world strange to him—one where carriages carried her up mountains, beds were feather-filled, tea was laid at the chime of a bell, and baths appeared behind curtains of steam and silk. And all of it was paid for, secured by a salary so certain, he doubted she had ever once had to think about what it all cost.

Until tonight and that stupid conversation they'd had about how little he made in comparison. He should have waited until he had something to offer before bringing money up at all.

The heat of his shame burned hotter than the flames before his outstretched hands—but the fires of his conviction spat higher and hotter still.

No. She'd been right before: there was no point in dwelling on his weaknesses. It was time to start putting all the doubts dogging him to rest.

Will took a breath and a sideways step, bringing their elbows into a brush against each other.

He spoke low and shaky at first, but as his words tumbled free they found surer footing. "I will admit: much of what you have now we will not have in our own home. I cannot see any future where we keep footmen or porters or valets. I do not know whether we will keep any hire living with us, day to night, for a long time. But should we need the help—should you need it—we should be able to hire someone for whatever needs you have. At least during the day."

To his chagrin, Elizabeth did not yet seem reassured, still avoiding his eyes altogether as she muttered, "Or I can try and learn to live with less."

A spark of frustration flew off the roughly sharpened edges of his battered pride. "And I can make sure that does not mean you need to live with nothing."

"I never said it had to be nothing," Elizabeth insisted. "I only mean…" Again she paused as she sifted through her thoughts, before finally launching into an explanation—one he'd managed to expect, for once: "You said you make about twenty-six pounds a year."

"Now," he conceded. Then he reminded her, "When I am master, it will grow. I can make fifty to a hundred, with the right following."

"But you will not be a master right away—you've just said as much."

Ah, how he hated being unable to deny these things completely. "… No, I won't."

They were in a proper verbal tussle now, and she was quickly backing him into a corner.

"So our life together will be a little more humble in the beginning—which I am willing to accept. And if that means we have to choose in the beginning between a maid and a nurse, for example, then I would take the maid."

"I'll get you both," he pressed back, unwilling to admit defeat in this. The details of a plan could come later. It was the goal that mattered—he was certain he could achieve it.

"Or I will use my dowry to find myself the help I want, if I must."

Oh, no! He'd rather sell the clothes off his back than ask her to give her savings over to such menial things.

She cut him off before he could say as much, declaring with every air of authority he'd ever seen or heard in her before, "We shan't argue again on this! You agreed I was to use my money how I please. And if that is how I please, it is what shall be done. I'd rather pay out of my own pockets or nurse my own babies for a while to have you home for it. Far better than seeing you bound to working away from us for years on end."

As she spoke, Elizabeth's brows were pressed under weights of calculation and determination. In the firelight Will could practically see her thoughts flying through her mind like seabirds diving after a fisherman's catch. Her words were sharp as a tern's pointed bill, making stabs at the shifting waters of his logic. And with each dive, she came up again with another little catch worth its weight in silver.

He wanted to kiss her again.

Instead, he stepped between her and the fire, and grasped her arms with both his hands, practically begging to be seen and heard properly.

"I won't be. We will not be poor, Elizabeth," he insisted with all the conviction he could muster. "I admit that I'll never earn anything like what your father makes, so I know it may feel less-than. But you will see: we shall be comfortable. Everything we've mentioned I can get us. I will get it all—" when she opened her mouth to protest, he dodged her cut-off with an even stronger emphasis on his final reassurance, "—without overworking myself."

"And I will help you," she responded no less firmly. Her hands found their way to rest upon his shoulders. Then with a twitch to her lips, she sweetened her argument a little, joking, "If only to keep you to your word of coming home on time."

"I always keep my word." He shook his head to himself, over her arguments as well as the way he felt his skin begin to tingle at the return of her touch. His fingers reached to rest upon her hips. "But whether you wish to hold me closer to it or not: when I am my own master, I will have the final say on which orders are due when. I shall not be chained to the forge into the night. And you'll be able to use your money on things you enjoy instead of the things meant to keep us afloat. You will see."

It felt like leveling a challenge, saying it like that and pulling her in so close.

"Good," she tossed back, arms winding back about his neck in ready acceptance of him and his challenge. "If I'm to help you at the forge by day, then I expect an equivalent assistance with our nurslings come evening."

At last, she found a way to make him falter—though not from any distaste or unwillingness for her suggested bargain. But rather…

"Of course," Will answered, though it came a little late and he saw her note it. Then not wanting to appear deterred, he raised his chin and pledged with a puffed out chest. "If there's ever anything I am able to do for you, I will do it, yes."

"You sound so confident," she twittered, and reached up to run her thumb across the worries betraying him in his brow.

"I'm not," he admitted. "I've never even held a baby before, let alone cared for one. I'm not certain there'd be any proper good I could do for either of you, for some time."

It sounded awfully familiar—like an echo of Elizabeth's own excuses mere seconds ago. But no matter how true he felt his excuses were, it didn't mean he was unwilling to give his best try.

Thankfully, Elizabeth seemed to get that unspoken part of his message. Her fingers traced a soothing path down from his brow, over the edges of his face. "Oh, I'm certain there's plenty you could help with."

"Like what?" he asked. He took her hand by the wrist and pressed his smirk into her scarred palm. "Giving them a tiny hammer to wave around, for a head start?"

"What?" she laughed. "A head start on what, exactly?"

"Working the forge," he returned, breezily. It was actually true, if somewhat exaggerated by the tenderness of the suggested age. "I could always use an extra nail maker."

"Oh, yes," she agreed in blithe continuation of the satire. "I'm certain as soon as they can walk steady, they'll be a perfect set of ready hands for you to use."

"Well… yes, actually." A beat passed between them, as the lines between their jest and the truth began to blur. Eventually, the lure of truth won out, and Will broke from the banter altogether by turning their topic to explain, "I wouldn't have them handle anything hot or sharp for a while, of course. But there would be plenty of chores for them to do right away."

Elizabeth seemed wont to believe he was still continuing with their joke, as her reply bounced in a playful chiding, "Not while they're wee, Will!"

"Why not? It wouldn't have to be all day long. We'll send them out to play as well. But at the very least, they can fetch things and help us keep tidy."

The grin she'd been holding slipped away, as it finally dawned on her: "You're serious?"

"Yes," Will confirmed again. Then when disapproval began to cross his companion's expression, he hopped to explain, "It'll give them a head start on a good apprenticeship, no matter what path they choose to lead their lives. They can learn good habits, good manners, some humility… hopefully. And they'll be more capable of managing things on their own, of helping neighbors and friends…"

Elizabeth shook her head at him. "When they're grown, perhaps, yes! But toddlers will only get in the way, I promise you."

"Well, that part was mostly a joke," he stated, though it felt obvious… It was obvious, wasn't it? "You don't really think I'd put a toddler to work in a smithy, do you? I know enough about children to know that much of its harshness, at least."

"I certainly was hoping!" she laughed back. "Sometimes you switch from jokes to frankness so quickly, it makes me wonder for a moment." Then with a few pats against his chest, she suddenly signaled she wished to step free from him.

His fingers held back their protests and she slipped out of his grasp.

"So when exactly do you intend to give them their first hammers, then?" she asked, as she again lifted her gown's sandy hems for better drying.

Ah, yes. He should do that too—before his ass started to bake.

He faced the fire and bent to squeeze out the water which had drizzled from the tops of his breeches, down into a hidden collection inside his equally sandy knee bands. The grains stuck to his hands. "Their second birthday perhaps?"

"So late?!" Elizabeth gasped theatrically.

Will tossed a smirk back up in her direction. "Fine, I'll put it in their hands as soon as they're first settled in their cradle."

"Hm…" she acted out considering thoughtfully. "No, that's a little too soon. They need a bit of time to think about it. After all, they might favor a quill over a hammer."

"Alright, their first birthday then."

She lit her face up like it was the best idea in the world. "Perfect!"