Shackled - An AWE Rewrite, Ch.2
Title: Shackled - An AWE Rewrite
Chapter 2 - Splitting Seams
Author: Sage_Laurel
Rating: range from a heavy PG-13 to very NC/17 in later chapters - this one is an R, for language.
Pairings: Jack/ Elizabeth, with other characters as canon/fanon dictate
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the smut in my brain.
A/N: This one is a long one, kids. Sorry it has taken me so long to get rolling, but now that the Muse is back in residence, I've been writing like a madwoman. Many, many thanks to
djarum99 for her tireless late-night beta assistance, her gift of a couple of the choice phrases in Will and Elizabeth's conversation, and the lending of her creative brilliance to jump-start my Muse's engine. Many thanks, love, and thanks to all who have waited so patiently for me to update. I appreciate it!
Shackled- An Awe Rewrite, Ch.2 - Splitting Seams
So here I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seams
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive - Vertical Horizon, Shackled
Elizabeth Swann could never remember being this cold. Air as frigid as ice seared her lungs with every breath. Ice slicked the decks and froze the sails, turning fingertips purple with frostbite and freezing tears onto her eyelashes like tiny icicles. She supposed she ought to go below and warm up, but she didn't trust the new crewmen they'd picked up in Singapore, who watched her every move like a pack of wolves would monitor the path of a hare. Will was bent over the charts, discussing details with the pirates that mattered naught, if Barbossa was leading them. She felt that he was trying to make himself busy, so as to not have to actually interact with her.
She'd held Jack's eyes in hers as the cold sound of metal clicking shut reverberated in their ears. His eyes had simmered with lust and passion, but she also saw in them genuine admiration. His feline smile - "Pirate" - had thrown open the doors of her perception, and at that second she saw herself in his eyes. He saw her, really saw her, without artifice or falsehood. He saw her as a woman, and not a sheltered porcelain doll playing at pirate. He'd tasted her passion and was not afraid. Never before had she felt so exposed, and her soul shook with it.
After she climbed into the longboat with the Pearl slowly being devoured behind them, she'd felt Will's eyes on her, burning into her. 'Where's Jack?' The moment he'd spoken the words, she knew that he knew precisely where Jack was, and why he was there. The judgement and anger in his eyes had scoured and shocked her. It was all she could do not to cry, and not simply because of his anger. As the Kraken pulled the Pearl down, she could not brush off the burnt-sugar taste of Jack's mouth, or the way her heart had swooped and careened when his tongue touched hers. She'd only done it to save them all ( hadn't she? She wondered with sinking doubt), but had never expected her body to agree so heartily to the proposition. Now she was on a strange ship bound to sail for the end of the world to retrieve the man she'd killed, and she was watching her entire world turn upside down.
Will no longer seemes like the Will she loved. He barely looked at her, and if he did, he turned quickly back to his work if she caught him. She was reminded of the boy he'd been long ago, the boy who would stare a hole right through her skin when she gave him her back, but as soon as she would turn, he'd busy himself in his work, his errand, his hands, as if it pained him to look her directly in the face. But that had been a shy boy's infatuated admiration then. This was something else entirely.
The trip to Singapore had been undertaken in near total silence, except for the constant chatter of Barbossa's undead monkey. Even Gibbs was uncharacteristically silent, every movement as he worked flavored with the somber reality of the task that lay before them in retrieving his captain and dearest friend. There were moments that Elizabeth would have given her soul for a song, a bit of Gibbs' foolish pirate lore, but neither were given. The pirates were a susperstitious lot, as pirates seemed wont to be, and maintained a cautious distance from the newly resurrected Barbossa, who in turn spent his time settling back into his role as captain with shouted orders and gruff demands. Will had not spoken to her except of trivialities, and instead spent his time planning how they would execute their plan to get a ship and a crew. Barbossa spoke of a man, one of the Pirate Lords, by whom he was owed a great favor. If anyone was in a place to procure them a ship and crew, Sao Feng was that man.
Singapore had been just like Jack had described - a bustling hornet's nest of iniquity reeking of fish and refuse, despite the ominous presence of the EITC. She'd done her best to forget what they'd had to do to procure the vessel they now sailed on, the bargains they'd made, what they'd had to promise to the malicious, scarred man known as Sao Feng. She was having a harder time forgetting what he'd promised to do to her if they did not return with the treasures of the underworld they'd promised him.
Elizabeth clutched the fur around her thin shoulders, trying to drive out the guilt and worry from her mind. What if we don't make it to the Locker? What if we can't find Jack once we're there? What if we find him, and he's turned into something...horrible? Images of undead pirates cursed by Aztec gold came flooding back, rotting flesh dripping from skeletal fingers, garishly round eyeballs staring out of ghastly black sockets. Shivers coursed through her, not from the cold. Please, she begged to whatever God was still listening, please let us find him...
Across the deck, Pintel and Ragetti fumbled about with the tasks they'd been assigned, finding it nigh impossible to work with fingers rendered stiff and clumsy with cold.
"No one said anything about cold," Pintel grumbled, tossing the mess of torn sail he'd been trying to mend onto the ice-slick deck, "Wish Davy Jones had had the bloody consideration to put his Locker somewhere fine and toasty, like India."
"I’m sure there’s a good reason for our suffering," Ragetti replied, and Elizabeth smiled in spite of herself as Ragetti again launched into his own peculiar explanation of Biblical doctrine. Trust a simpleton pirate to make such astute observations on divine providence, she mused, watching as the strange crystalline snowflakes fell and melted against the scar on her palm, disappearing into the unnaturally smooth skin.
Pintel silenced him with a elbow to the side. "Why don’t that obay woman bring back Jack the same way she brought back Barbossa, then? Seems that would be the way to go, easy and quick, a little spell and some How've Ye Been, and we're off."
Tia stood at the rail, her dreadlocks frosted with ice, seemingly unencumbered by the cold. The voodoo woman rolled her eyes at Pintel, but when she spoke, they settled on Elizabeth. Her tone wore heavily of Elizabeth's silent secret. "Because Barbossa was only dead. Jack Sparrow be taken, body and soul, to a place not of death, but of punishment. The worst fate a person can bring by themself.. stretching on forever. That’s what awaits at Davy Jones’ Locker." She knows, Elizabeth realized. She knows the beast that eats away at my soul, yet she was leagues away from the Pearl that day. This is a woman not like me, not fully in this world. "Bringing him back be no easy thing. It mean danger, sacrifice, abandonment of all we know to be de truth."
Ragetti cast a knowing look back at his comrade. "Well, I knew there was a good reason." He settled back into his task, momentarily satisfied.
Tia Dalma's words abraded Elizabeth like a grinding stone, wearing away her resolve to not be the one to break the stalemate she and Will had maintained since Jack's death. She was as guilty as sin in sending Jack to that horrible place, and she couldn't pretend for another second that she wasn't. The weight of the lie was crushing her, like a cannon slowly falling from the rigging. When Will stood from the charts and began making his way belowdecks, she rose to her feet and followed him, willing her back to stand straight and proud. I've no reason to be afraid. this is Will, only Will.
Snowflakes swirled down in the the darkness of the hold as she descended behind him. Will prodded amongst the crates, the darkness obscuring his face. She did not know if he saw her, though her footfalls certainly should have announced her. Seating herself on the bottom step of the ladder, she waited for Will to speak. When the moments ticked by in silence, save for her breath and the muffled sounds of the crew above, she could bear it no longer.
Her voice sounded rough from disuse, even to her own ears."How long do we continue not talking?"
Elizabeth heard Will's long exhalation of breath as he remained secreted in shadow. After a moment he turned, his face still hidden, the light falling instead across his fine chest, his arms crossed in front. He'd never before taken up such a stance with her, such an air of defense. "So long as we continue to keep the truth from each other, Elizabeth, there is no need for talking."
"I have no desire to keep anything from you, Will. I know you saw...what I did, the day he died."
"Yes, I saw. You kissed him."
Elizabeth gathered a deep breath. "I did. I kissed him.. to distract him, while I closed a shackle around his wrist. I chained him to the mast, Will, so we could make our escape. There was no other way. The beast wanted Jack, not us, and would never have let us go. We'd all be dead for certain, if I'd not done it."
Silence rang through the small space. She'd figured he hadn't known of her perfidity, of what she'd done to the man he'd once called friend. But now the secret was out, her guilt laid bare.
"You could have found another way.You chose to kiss him. There must have been a dozen other ways to keep his attention while you chained him." There was no trace of concern for a friend in Will's tone, only that of a man imprisoned by a jealous heart. Elizabeth was shocked to feel contempt rising like bile in her throat. He only cares that I kissed him, not that I killed him. She pulled herself to her feet, finding strength in her voice that surprised even her.
"For survival, Will. I did what I had to do. We would all be dead now if Jack had come with us, we'd all be rotting in the Locker. I would have taken another way if there had been a better one apparent at the time. You know me."
Will finally stepped forward and allowed his face to emerge from the shadowy recess. The set of his jaw made her skin chill. "What I saw, Elizabeth, was not you. I saw a woman who let her infatuation with a man who was not her fiancee overrule her and cloud her better judgement. You had your hands on him. You had your mouth open like a harlot!" He spat. "That was no proper simple kiss. That was a tavern girl kiss, a whore's dirty trick. I think all this time around pirates has corrupted you."
Elizabeth had never heard such venomous words pass her fiancee's lips, and though she felt she should have been shocked and terrified, all she felt was annoyance at his petulant jealousy. "And how would you know these things, Will? Have you been spending time in taverns of late? Why is it that a woman's every action must be undertaken with her virginity and virtue held paramount, while a man may behave as he pleases without even a passing thought to decorum or fidelity?"
"Thats not the issue." He shook his head dismissively. "The issue here is that you sullied yourself not twenty feet from my eyes and have the gall to say you had to. Admit it, you enjoyed it."
The reality of the accusation hit her, and suddenly all made sense. "You think I love him, don't you?"
"Do you?" Will stood squarely in her path, his eyes almost black as they bore into hers. Elizabeth swallowed, feeling the thick lump in her throat threaten to constrict her breathing. She begged herself to look dismissive, as if his words were nonsense of the highest kind. She was well aware that she would likely fail miserably.
"I love you, Will."
"Don't lie to me, Elizabeth. You can lie with your mouth, but your body and your face can't." With those words he tuned on his heel and made his way up the ladder back into the blinding white glare.
"Why does this matter so much, Will, if you truly love me like you've claimed?"
He turned to face her, arms crossed. "Because I'm not entirely sure I want to spend the rest of my life eating off a plate that isn't clean."
"Not clean - not clean? When I chained Jack to that mast he looked at me with admiration, with respect, Will, for a woman who could do what's necessary. For a woman who'd betrayed him. You look at me as though I'm a whore, and for saving your life - you dare to call me dirty, for a kiss." Her cheeks were red with rage, and she fought the urge to strike out.
"What am I supposed to think, Elizabeth? For the last year you've tried to coax me into committing sins of the flesh with you, tempting me beyond my own tolerance, and then at the moment of our peril I find you in an incredilby improper and scandalous position with a man who is... who is.. not me. The logical conclusion I have come to is that you've allowed your senses to overwhelm you, and when I refused your advances you took the first opportunity to sate your sinful lust that afforded itself. You've forgotten who you are - a lady, and a governor's daughter, and a betrothed woman. It would do you good to remember."
White hot rage seared into her as she watched Will's retreating back.Whatever doubts she had harbored about the man Jack Sparrow was, they were no more. Jack knows exactly who I am, no pedestals or corsets or fairy tales. I am no one but myself for him, flesh and bone, and he expects nothing. I know that he is a pirate and a good man, a man who turned around to face the devil, who came back for me. I will never try to be anything for him but who I am. I owe him that much.
With an abrupt kick to the closest solid object, Elizabeth climbed the ladder and retreated to the quarterdeck, where she could nurse her wounds in secret.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The night song of the ocean was eerily absent, the waters mirror-still. No waves lapped the ships hull, no songs lilted in the night. The lack of these now-familiar comforts did nothing to soothe Will's spirit. Sleep was an elusive mistress, as ithad been for many weeks now. All he could see when he closed his eyes was the pair of them, Elizabeth's hands clasping the lapels of Jack's filthy coat as her beautiful mouth slanted over Jack's, Jack's eyes closed as her body pressed against him. She'd never kissed him that way...she'd tried, but he'd always delicately rebuffed her, uttering his pleas to save such passion for their marriage bed. She'd said she understood, and had stopped pressing him to kiss her deeper, longer, hold her closer. He'd figured she'd come to her senses, buried her lusts as she'd done before. He wondered now just where she'd hidden them.
When Gibbs would no longer suffer his tossing and turning in the hammock next to him, Will escaped to the silent quarterdeck, his breath steaming in the biting cold.
I've been too hard on her. She only did it to save us all. It couldn't be that, she couldn't be in love with him. I'm a fool for thinking she would. Its all just a mistake, a vile horrible mistake. I've go to make amends.
Like a gift from above, Elizabeth suddenly appeared through the door of the first mate's cabin where she'd taken berth. The same demons of sleeplessness must have chased them both this night. She wrapped her coat tighter around herself and wandered to the starboard deckrail, unaware of Will's presence. Will's heart constricted as he heard her long exhalation, her eyes searching the vast starless night as if seeking absolution in the inky black.
"Elizabeth." Will sidled up to her, taking his place beside her at the rail. "I need to apologize, for before." Elizabeth said nothing, simply stared ahead at the unchanging water as he spoke. "I think this has all just been a terrible mistake. You did what you had to do to save us. I was a right fool to think...to think you have feelings for Jack. I know your heart is true to me. I am sorry for doubting you."
Elizabeth's stoic pose gave Will no insight at all to her reaction to his words. He'd expected her to fall into his arms, pretty tears on her cheeks, and apologize for all her own misgivings. He'd expected this to fix everything, to tidy the loose ends. This was not what he expected at all - no emotion on Elizabeth's face, her form retreating when he tried to draw her near. It was wrong, all wrong.
"Say something, Elizabeth." She had turned from the rail, and Will backed away from her, afraid suddenly of things he wasn't sure of. No drawing of breath or hesitation marked the words he heard.
"Once we rescue Jack, everything will be fine." Elizabeth's voice was even, clear, and emotionless. Having spoken, she turned back to her post at the rail, her face resolute.
Will sighed, realization of what he'd done settling deep in his mind. "Then we rescue Jack." With that, he retreated back to his hammock, leaving the woman who had been his to seek her own truth in the dark.
---To Be Continued
Concrit greatly appreciated, and comments are the only way we get paid!
Ch.3 to follow... and there WILL be smut in the future, trust me! Thanks so much for being patient when life has gotten in my Muse's way! - Laurel
Chapter 2 - Splitting Seams
Author: Sage_Laurel
Rating: range from a heavy PG-13 to very NC/17 in later chapters - this one is an R, for language.
Pairings: Jack/ Elizabeth, with other characters as canon/fanon dictate
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the smut in my brain.
A/N: This one is a long one, kids. Sorry it has taken me so long to get rolling, but now that the Muse is back in residence, I've been writing like a madwoman. Many, many thanks to
djarum99 for her tireless late-night beta assistance, her gift of a couple of the choice phrases in Will and Elizabeth's conversation, and the lending of her creative brilliance to jump-start my Muse's engine. Many thanks, love, and thanks to all who have waited so patiently for me to update. I appreciate it!
Shackled- An Awe Rewrite, Ch.2 - Splitting Seams
So here I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seams
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive - Vertical Horizon, Shackled
Elizabeth Swann could never remember being this cold. Air as frigid as ice seared her lungs with every breath. Ice slicked the decks and froze the sails, turning fingertips purple with frostbite and freezing tears onto her eyelashes like tiny icicles. She supposed she ought to go below and warm up, but she didn't trust the new crewmen they'd picked up in Singapore, who watched her every move like a pack of wolves would monitor the path of a hare. Will was bent over the charts, discussing details with the pirates that mattered naught, if Barbossa was leading them. She felt that he was trying to make himself busy, so as to not have to actually interact with her.
She'd held Jack's eyes in hers as the cold sound of metal clicking shut reverberated in their ears. His eyes had simmered with lust and passion, but she also saw in them genuine admiration. His feline smile - "Pirate" - had thrown open the doors of her perception, and at that second she saw herself in his eyes. He saw her, really saw her, without artifice or falsehood. He saw her as a woman, and not a sheltered porcelain doll playing at pirate. He'd tasted her passion and was not afraid. Never before had she felt so exposed, and her soul shook with it.
After she climbed into the longboat with the Pearl slowly being devoured behind them, she'd felt Will's eyes on her, burning into her. 'Where's Jack?' The moment he'd spoken the words, she knew that he knew precisely where Jack was, and why he was there. The judgement and anger in his eyes had scoured and shocked her. It was all she could do not to cry, and not simply because of his anger. As the Kraken pulled the Pearl down, she could not brush off the burnt-sugar taste of Jack's mouth, or the way her heart had swooped and careened when his tongue touched hers. She'd only done it to save them all ( hadn't she? She wondered with sinking doubt), but had never expected her body to agree so heartily to the proposition. Now she was on a strange ship bound to sail for the end of the world to retrieve the man she'd killed, and she was watching her entire world turn upside down.
Will no longer seemes like the Will she loved. He barely looked at her, and if he did, he turned quickly back to his work if she caught him. She was reminded of the boy he'd been long ago, the boy who would stare a hole right through her skin when she gave him her back, but as soon as she would turn, he'd busy himself in his work, his errand, his hands, as if it pained him to look her directly in the face. But that had been a shy boy's infatuated admiration then. This was something else entirely.
The trip to Singapore had been undertaken in near total silence, except for the constant chatter of Barbossa's undead monkey. Even Gibbs was uncharacteristically silent, every movement as he worked flavored with the somber reality of the task that lay before them in retrieving his captain and dearest friend. There were moments that Elizabeth would have given her soul for a song, a bit of Gibbs' foolish pirate lore, but neither were given. The pirates were a susperstitious lot, as pirates seemed wont to be, and maintained a cautious distance from the newly resurrected Barbossa, who in turn spent his time settling back into his role as captain with shouted orders and gruff demands. Will had not spoken to her except of trivialities, and instead spent his time planning how they would execute their plan to get a ship and a crew. Barbossa spoke of a man, one of the Pirate Lords, by whom he was owed a great favor. If anyone was in a place to procure them a ship and crew, Sao Feng was that man.
Singapore had been just like Jack had described - a bustling hornet's nest of iniquity reeking of fish and refuse, despite the ominous presence of the EITC. She'd done her best to forget what they'd had to do to procure the vessel they now sailed on, the bargains they'd made, what they'd had to promise to the malicious, scarred man known as Sao Feng. She was having a harder time forgetting what he'd promised to do to her if they did not return with the treasures of the underworld they'd promised him.
Elizabeth clutched the fur around her thin shoulders, trying to drive out the guilt and worry from her mind. What if we don't make it to the Locker? What if we can't find Jack once we're there? What if we find him, and he's turned into something...horrible? Images of undead pirates cursed by Aztec gold came flooding back, rotting flesh dripping from skeletal fingers, garishly round eyeballs staring out of ghastly black sockets. Shivers coursed through her, not from the cold. Please, she begged to whatever God was still listening, please let us find him...
Across the deck, Pintel and Ragetti fumbled about with the tasks they'd been assigned, finding it nigh impossible to work with fingers rendered stiff and clumsy with cold.
"No one said anything about cold," Pintel grumbled, tossing the mess of torn sail he'd been trying to mend onto the ice-slick deck, "Wish Davy Jones had had the bloody consideration to put his Locker somewhere fine and toasty, like India."
"I’m sure there’s a good reason for our suffering," Ragetti replied, and Elizabeth smiled in spite of herself as Ragetti again launched into his own peculiar explanation of Biblical doctrine. Trust a simpleton pirate to make such astute observations on divine providence, she mused, watching as the strange crystalline snowflakes fell and melted against the scar on her palm, disappearing into the unnaturally smooth skin.
Pintel silenced him with a elbow to the side. "Why don’t that obay woman bring back Jack the same way she brought back Barbossa, then? Seems that would be the way to go, easy and quick, a little spell and some How've Ye Been, and we're off."
Tia stood at the rail, her dreadlocks frosted with ice, seemingly unencumbered by the cold. The voodoo woman rolled her eyes at Pintel, but when she spoke, they settled on Elizabeth. Her tone wore heavily of Elizabeth's silent secret. "Because Barbossa was only dead. Jack Sparrow be taken, body and soul, to a place not of death, but of punishment. The worst fate a person can bring by themself.. stretching on forever. That’s what awaits at Davy Jones’ Locker." She knows, Elizabeth realized. She knows the beast that eats away at my soul, yet she was leagues away from the Pearl that day. This is a woman not like me, not fully in this world. "Bringing him back be no easy thing. It mean danger, sacrifice, abandonment of all we know to be de truth."
Ragetti cast a knowing look back at his comrade. "Well, I knew there was a good reason." He settled back into his task, momentarily satisfied.
Tia Dalma's words abraded Elizabeth like a grinding stone, wearing away her resolve to not be the one to break the stalemate she and Will had maintained since Jack's death. She was as guilty as sin in sending Jack to that horrible place, and she couldn't pretend for another second that she wasn't. The weight of the lie was crushing her, like a cannon slowly falling from the rigging. When Will stood from the charts and began making his way belowdecks, she rose to her feet and followed him, willing her back to stand straight and proud. I've no reason to be afraid. this is Will, only Will.
Snowflakes swirled down in the the darkness of the hold as she descended behind him. Will prodded amongst the crates, the darkness obscuring his face. She did not know if he saw her, though her footfalls certainly should have announced her. Seating herself on the bottom step of the ladder, she waited for Will to speak. When the moments ticked by in silence, save for her breath and the muffled sounds of the crew above, she could bear it no longer.
Her voice sounded rough from disuse, even to her own ears."How long do we continue not talking?"
Elizabeth heard Will's long exhalation of breath as he remained secreted in shadow. After a moment he turned, his face still hidden, the light falling instead across his fine chest, his arms crossed in front. He'd never before taken up such a stance with her, such an air of defense. "So long as we continue to keep the truth from each other, Elizabeth, there is no need for talking."
"I have no desire to keep anything from you, Will. I know you saw...what I did, the day he died."
"Yes, I saw. You kissed him."
Elizabeth gathered a deep breath. "I did. I kissed him.. to distract him, while I closed a shackle around his wrist. I chained him to the mast, Will, so we could make our escape. There was no other way. The beast wanted Jack, not us, and would never have let us go. We'd all be dead for certain, if I'd not done it."
Silence rang through the small space. She'd figured he hadn't known of her perfidity, of what she'd done to the man he'd once called friend. But now the secret was out, her guilt laid bare.
"You could have found another way.You chose to kiss him. There must have been a dozen other ways to keep his attention while you chained him." There was no trace of concern for a friend in Will's tone, only that of a man imprisoned by a jealous heart. Elizabeth was shocked to feel contempt rising like bile in her throat. He only cares that I kissed him, not that I killed him. She pulled herself to her feet, finding strength in her voice that surprised even her.
"For survival, Will. I did what I had to do. We would all be dead now if Jack had come with us, we'd all be rotting in the Locker. I would have taken another way if there had been a better one apparent at the time. You know me."
Will finally stepped forward and allowed his face to emerge from the shadowy recess. The set of his jaw made her skin chill. "What I saw, Elizabeth, was not you. I saw a woman who let her infatuation with a man who was not her fiancee overrule her and cloud her better judgement. You had your hands on him. You had your mouth open like a harlot!" He spat. "That was no proper simple kiss. That was a tavern girl kiss, a whore's dirty trick. I think all this time around pirates has corrupted you."
Elizabeth had never heard such venomous words pass her fiancee's lips, and though she felt she should have been shocked and terrified, all she felt was annoyance at his petulant jealousy. "And how would you know these things, Will? Have you been spending time in taverns of late? Why is it that a woman's every action must be undertaken with her virginity and virtue held paramount, while a man may behave as he pleases without even a passing thought to decorum or fidelity?"
"Thats not the issue." He shook his head dismissively. "The issue here is that you sullied yourself not twenty feet from my eyes and have the gall to say you had to. Admit it, you enjoyed it."
The reality of the accusation hit her, and suddenly all made sense. "You think I love him, don't you?"
"Do you?" Will stood squarely in her path, his eyes almost black as they bore into hers. Elizabeth swallowed, feeling the thick lump in her throat threaten to constrict her breathing. She begged herself to look dismissive, as if his words were nonsense of the highest kind. She was well aware that she would likely fail miserably.
"I love you, Will."
"Don't lie to me, Elizabeth. You can lie with your mouth, but your body and your face can't." With those words he tuned on his heel and made his way up the ladder back into the blinding white glare.
"Why does this matter so much, Will, if you truly love me like you've claimed?"
He turned to face her, arms crossed. "Because I'm not entirely sure I want to spend the rest of my life eating off a plate that isn't clean."
"Not clean - not clean? When I chained Jack to that mast he looked at me with admiration, with respect, Will, for a woman who could do what's necessary. For a woman who'd betrayed him. You look at me as though I'm a whore, and for saving your life - you dare to call me dirty, for a kiss." Her cheeks were red with rage, and she fought the urge to strike out.
"What am I supposed to think, Elizabeth? For the last year you've tried to coax me into committing sins of the flesh with you, tempting me beyond my own tolerance, and then at the moment of our peril I find you in an incredilby improper and scandalous position with a man who is... who is.. not me. The logical conclusion I have come to is that you've allowed your senses to overwhelm you, and when I refused your advances you took the first opportunity to sate your sinful lust that afforded itself. You've forgotten who you are - a lady, and a governor's daughter, and a betrothed woman. It would do you good to remember."
White hot rage seared into her as she watched Will's retreating back.Whatever doubts she had harbored about the man Jack Sparrow was, they were no more. Jack knows exactly who I am, no pedestals or corsets or fairy tales. I am no one but myself for him, flesh and bone, and he expects nothing. I know that he is a pirate and a good man, a man who turned around to face the devil, who came back for me. I will never try to be anything for him but who I am. I owe him that much.
With an abrupt kick to the closest solid object, Elizabeth climbed the ladder and retreated to the quarterdeck, where she could nurse her wounds in secret.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The night song of the ocean was eerily absent, the waters mirror-still. No waves lapped the ships hull, no songs lilted in the night. The lack of these now-familiar comforts did nothing to soothe Will's spirit. Sleep was an elusive mistress, as ithad been for many weeks now. All he could see when he closed his eyes was the pair of them, Elizabeth's hands clasping the lapels of Jack's filthy coat as her beautiful mouth slanted over Jack's, Jack's eyes closed as her body pressed against him. She'd never kissed him that way...she'd tried, but he'd always delicately rebuffed her, uttering his pleas to save such passion for their marriage bed. She'd said she understood, and had stopped pressing him to kiss her deeper, longer, hold her closer. He'd figured she'd come to her senses, buried her lusts as she'd done before. He wondered now just where she'd hidden them.
When Gibbs would no longer suffer his tossing and turning in the hammock next to him, Will escaped to the silent quarterdeck, his breath steaming in the biting cold.
I've been too hard on her. She only did it to save us all. It couldn't be that, she couldn't be in love with him. I'm a fool for thinking she would. Its all just a mistake, a vile horrible mistake. I've go to make amends.
Like a gift from above, Elizabeth suddenly appeared through the door of the first mate's cabin where she'd taken berth. The same demons of sleeplessness must have chased them both this night. She wrapped her coat tighter around herself and wandered to the starboard deckrail, unaware of Will's presence. Will's heart constricted as he heard her long exhalation, her eyes searching the vast starless night as if seeking absolution in the inky black.
"Elizabeth." Will sidled up to her, taking his place beside her at the rail. "I need to apologize, for before." Elizabeth said nothing, simply stared ahead at the unchanging water as he spoke. "I think this has all just been a terrible mistake. You did what you had to do to save us. I was a right fool to think...to think you have feelings for Jack. I know your heart is true to me. I am sorry for doubting you."
Elizabeth's stoic pose gave Will no insight at all to her reaction to his words. He'd expected her to fall into his arms, pretty tears on her cheeks, and apologize for all her own misgivings. He'd expected this to fix everything, to tidy the loose ends. This was not what he expected at all - no emotion on Elizabeth's face, her form retreating when he tried to draw her near. It was wrong, all wrong.
"Say something, Elizabeth." She had turned from the rail, and Will backed away from her, afraid suddenly of things he wasn't sure of. No drawing of breath or hesitation marked the words he heard.
"Once we rescue Jack, everything will be fine." Elizabeth's voice was even, clear, and emotionless. Having spoken, she turned back to her post at the rail, her face resolute.
Will sighed, realization of what he'd done settling deep in his mind. "Then we rescue Jack." With that, he retreated back to his hammock, leaving the woman who had been his to seek her own truth in the dark.
---To Be Continued
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Ch.3 to follow... and there WILL be smut in the future, trust me! Thanks so much for being patient when life has gotten in my Muse's way! - Laurel