FIC - "THE WAY IT SHOULD BE" - PART 3

[roseoluray]

FIC - The Way It Should Be by Michelle Kinder
J/E Pairing I promise
Part 3
PG-13 for now

Ok, so here is the third part. I'm a little disappointed in this one, but it was a necessary one to explain how one part reaches a new part. It's just difficult to formulate this chapter well.  So, good luck!

BEWARE - SPOILERS INCLUDED

She looked at him, meeting his eyes, not certain where the conversation was going on their day together. He moved her to sit down on a rock and took his place by her side, reaching over and taking her hand in his. “Are you sure of this, Elizabeth?”

“Of course, we’re married.”

Will paused for a moment, formulating in his mind what he wanted to convey. “That was before Jones,” He started. “Before I stabbed the heart.”

Elizabeth sighed, realizing what he was suggesting. She covered their entwined hands with her other. “Will, listen to me. I made a vow to you.”

“Yes, you did. A marriage is until death you part, isn’t it,” He asked her. Her mind froze on the thought she’d had aboard the Pearl just before saying goodbye to Jack. “I died, Elizabeth, before I became the Captain.”

She couldn’t believe her ears as she stood up and began to pace. Was he suggesting to her what she thought he was? They’d both wanted to be married for so long and now he wanted to release her. “Will, I love you,” She managed to say while contemplating over her next course of words.

He rose and followed her, meeting her on the sand. He wanted her happy. Yes, he wanted to be married to her, but when they married on the Pearl in battle it was not with this lifestyle in mind. He couldn’t bear to be just like his father again. He knew how it hurt him growing up and he saw how it ate away at his mother as she sat and waited for Bootstrap to return. Even though he would love for Elizabeth to be waiting for him, Will knew it was selfish of him to ask. “I know you love me,” Will said. “But you’re not in love with me. I want you to go back to the Pearl, find Jack.”

It was a slap in the face to her. Her heart stopped beating for a moment when he spoke Jack’s name. She turned to him and raised her eyebrows, “Jack Sparrow? You’re telling me to go to Jack Sparrow? Will, he’s a pirate.”

“And I’m no different,” He replied. “He can give you a life, Elizabeth, that I cannot. When you married me you did not know that I would be gone to sea forever with only one day together every ten years. In fact, when we married, you more then likely assumed it was the end for all of us, including that it was probable Jack was dead as well aboard the Dutchman.”

His words stopped her. During the battle they’d all been so caught up in emotions, so caught up in the possibility they would all not make it by the end. Will grabbed her arm and asked her to marry him, telling her it would be their only chance and that he loved her. He’d made his choice and wanted her to make hers. Staring into his eyes, Elizabeth knew she could not let him down. After all, she’d spent the last ten years of her life telling him she loved him. Yet, she’d also spent the last ten years of her life waiting for him too.

“I told you I would wait for you, even when you left to find Jack’s compass,” She plead.

“It was wrong of me to ask you to wait,” Will began. “Elizabeth, I love you more then I could ever say and I know you love me. I’ve never doubted that. But you have an entire life waiting for you. You’re the pirate king for goodness sake. It’s the life you’ve always dreamt of.”

She stared at him, incredulous. It was making perfect sense but going so far against all she’d been told her entire life that it was still managing to catch her off guard. “Dreams can change, Will. I’ve dreamt of being your wife as well.”

He sighed, “And you were my wife, now my widow.”

All they could do was stare into each other’s eyes for a spell. So many thoughts were plaguing her mind. Will was right, but Elizabeth wanted to prove to him she loved him and was doing the right thing. “And now you’d send me to Jack Sparrow,” She inquired.

“He loves you, Elizabeth,” Will told her, matter of fact. “He always has.”

Her eyes grew wide with Will’s words. She knew that Will saw her kiss Jack aboard the Pearl and they’d addressed that issue between themselves. “Jack Sparrow could not love me, not as you do.”

“Everything he did was for you, to see you happy,” Will added. “But you never did tell me one way or the other if you love him. You simply said that I thought you loved him.”

It was all becoming too much to hear. Elizabeth was being forced to face the tide of emotions that enveloped her aboard the Pearl with Jack as they sailed for Las Cruces as well as their faced near certain death with the Kraken. She’d found him amusing and kept being pulled toward him. Jack was right. Her curiosity did take over. The compass supposedly never lied and it was always leading to Jack, pointing out the thing one wants most in this world. She’d tried to deny it, believing she was being disloyal to her feelings for Will. Could it be possible for someone to love two people at once? They were so different, yet both pirates.

When their lips touched aboard the Pearl, Elizabeth could not believe the power that raged forth in her. She thought Jack would urge more from her, but instead she flowed forth with passion on her own, pushing him back and spurring the kiss deeper. Jack met her with every bit of fury as her own. When she’d begun to look back on it, she’d merely told herself that it was the scandalous rogue in him. If he could bed every woman, he would. She was no different.

Then she stopped and remembered the expression on his face as he watched her when she pulled back, his hand shackled to the mast. He’d smiled at her, gazing at her with such adoring pride. When she’d told him to understand it was the only way, he didn’t beg her to release him and to rethink it. He’d accepted his fate. She knew then as she thought it over that Jack planned on staying aboard the Pearl and fulfilling his debt to Jones. She’d merely insured it and lived up to his expectations about her, that she was a pirate just like him. In fact, when he whispered the word to her, it was not in vain or contempt. He did not try to insult her. Instead, he said it appraisingly.

But when they found him in the Locker, he made his rounds among the others, believing them all to be hallucinations. She’d stepped forward, reassuring him they were real. The expression that washed over his face surprised her. The pride and praise were absent, replaced by questioning eyes that filled with caution and he looked unsure about her. He’d walked away from her. She’d held herself back from running to his arms that day, so relieved he was there and they could bring him back. She didn’t want to hurt Will. And then to see how Jack responded to simply seeing her, it tore her. Part of her wanted to yell at Jack and demand that he see it was her just being her pirate self, willing to do whatever was necessary as he suggested aboard the Dauntless on their way to rescue Will from Barbossa. He’d told her they were two peas in a pod and so they were. She couldn’t risk him running away again and all of them being killed. She wanted desperately for Jack to understand that and to not fear her. Needless to say, could she have expected the same of herself if the roles were reversed?

It’d been her distress at Jack’s lack of gratitude in seeing her that led her to sit on the steps below decks aboard the Pearl when Will found her and confronted her on her participation in Jack’s death. She’d tried to protect Will. She’d told herself for months that she did what was necessary to protect Will, but maybe she’d only done what was necessary to protect herself from going against what she’d always known and been told to be the right way, to go along with the ideas she had in her head. Will asked her then if he could trust her and she’d told him that he couldn’t. Why had she said that?

“Will, what are you asking of me?”

He sighed, “I’m telling you I release you from our vows,” She locked her eyes fiercely on his, ready to protest, but he beat her to it. “You’re young, Elizabeth. You’ve always wanted a life of adventure and freedom.”

Her eyes were gazing over his shoulder, watching the Pearl as she made her way off into the horizon. Will took note and added, “I see the sea calls you. Jack Sparrow beckons you.”

“Will, I love you. I married you,” She remained persistent. “He would have had no mind to sacrifice you -”

“But he didn’t. He gave up his chance for immortality to give us more time,” Will interrupted. “Elizabeth, I could never expect you to be content waiting for me forever. I just ask that you meet me when I return for our one day together in ten years.”

She remembered the curse of Davy Jones. If she was unfaithful to Will at all, would he be able to end his curse? She didn’t want Will to end up like Jones. If that were the fate that awaited him, she would rather he had stayed dead aboard the Dutchman instead of Jack ever helping him stab the heart. “What about the curse,” She asked.

He leaned his forehead against hers. “It was Jones feeling betrayed that lead to his demise. Calypso was not there for him when she’d told him she would not ever leave him. I am asking you to live your life, Elizabeth, and not expecting you to wait for me. I just ask we can reunite in ten years.”

Elizabeth could not allow herself to begin thinking of a life without Will. What would that be? Where would she go? Would Jack even take her aboard the Pearl? He’d already told her that one kiss was quite enough before she said goodbye. She’d told him it would never have worked out between them. There was no life waiting for her in Port Royal. Her father, the governor, was dead. James Norrington ran through by her father-in-law’s own hand. She was a pirate herself and no doubt on the run as well from the East India Trading Company. After all, she’d played a hand in Lord Beckett’s death and was even a pirate king as Will pointed out. She was pirate king with the help of one pirate captain, Captain Jack Sparrow. All she had left for her was the sea, was her promise to Will.

“It’s not your place to be sitting here, wasting your years away,” Will started. “You belong out at sea, being as wild and as untamable as the sea. It’s who you are and how could I ever ask you to be anything less then what you are? How would that be letting you be the woman I love?”

Tears threatened her eyes. In spite of everything, she did love William Turner. She always had from the moment she saw him floating on the debris on the crossing from London. Even when she’d taken his medallion to protect him from being discovered a pirate. As she gave Barbossa his name she was trying to protect him even. In fact, as she stowed away and reached Tortuga, desperate to find Jack, she was even then watching out for him. He’d been one constant in her life, a tie to her father, to the world she’d known. She was at her world’s end.

“But what about us?”

Will embraced her. “I will always love you, Elizabeth, and I want you. But more then that I want you happy and free. I know Jack will look after you. He’s done so well in the past,” She laughed softly with him, thinking of how Jack rescued her from the sea with her corset, the night on the island with Jack, the days out at sea, how Jack shot Barbossa as he threatened her life, how he’d come back to save the day in time when she couldn’t shoot the barrels against the Kraken and how just as Davy prepared to run Will through, he’d arrived with the distraction of the heart, and how when Davy still killed Will, Jack brought him back with the heart. “We’ll always have our one day together for every ten years.”

It was of little comfort to her, thinking of one day every ten years. Still, it was better then never. She allowed herself to fully take in what Will was saying to her. He was right that she could not be content passing her time alone waiting on him. All her life she’d wanted more, desired adventure. It was why she grew up reading of pirates, why their stories interest her. She longed for freedom, to do what she wanted to simply because she wanted, to act sometimes on selfish impulse. Jack Sparrow had been right in his interpretation of her. They were very much alike. Two peas in a pod.

Still, she knew she would never stop loving the blacksmith turned captain that caught her heart years before and she would miss him greatly. “Then we best make today count.” She smiled at him.

“And tomorrow you’ll head off to find the Pearl, to find Jack?” He asked and she nodded.

They spent the day together, laughing and loving one another and soon the sun in the sky was nearing its descent. She watched her husband as he pulled on his boots and sighed. What would have happened if they’d married that day in Port Royal instead of being arrested? Would everything work out? Or were they both meant for more all along?

“I’m going to need the other one,” Will voiced as he reached and noticed his boot was gone.

Elizabeth stretched her leg out to him to reveal his boot was on her. He smiled at her and came to retrieve it. She loved feeling him close, knowing their moments were almost gone. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to dream of home, back before the world changed and her girlhood dreams vanished. And for a split second, she imagined in her mind’s eye that the breath on her leg came not from her husband, but from the man he’d told her to go see, the man’s whose breath she felt across her cheek as he rescued her from the sinking Dutchman. And she started reeling from remembering the kiss and from realizing he’d given her more time with Will, proving he was a good man after all.

“It’s almost sunset,” Will’s voice broke her from her thoughts.

Her eyes opened and watched the sun fading into the horizon beyond the sea. She could not see the sails of the Pearl any longer and wondered how long she’d have to row before she’d find them again. But the Dutchman’s sails were in clear view. Part of her felt contempt for snatching away one of the men she loved, but the other part of her felt grateful. For it was the Dutchman that allowed her to keep him somehow in her life forever more instead of losing him that very morning.

Will walked down to the shore and looked toward the chest that held his beating heart. There was no one else he’d trust more then Elizabeth to guard it for him and he knew Jack would honor that. “It’s always been yours,” He told her, indicating the contents. “Will you protect it for me?”

“Yes,” She told him and then met his questioning eyes. He was scared of what lay ahead for him as well, uncertain. Neither one of them anticipated this road once they’d returned from the Isla De Muerta and freed Jack from his hanging. Yet, fate intervened. She wanted to reassure him of her love and the fact that she believed all would be fine. So, firmly she stated again, “Yes.”

She closed her eyes, anticipating a farewell kiss, but it never came. All she felt was the wind on her face and for a fleeting second she thought of Jack’s words of how once was enough. She’d gone to thinking it meant he did not care for her as she thought and now her own husband was doing the same at his own impending departure. Could it be that it was too painful for them? But she needed the reassurance of Will in her life and that he would be all right.

Her eyes flew open and she called after him, racing to his arms and kissing him one final time. He met her back, but she knew it was different. It was a kiss with a promise of one day. Yet, she felt that he was releasing her, wanting her to go on. “Keep a weathered eye on the horizon,” He told her as he disappeared into the sea, a piece of her vanishing with him, and the chapter of her life pertaining to her old life vanishing forever.

She stood there on the wet sand and watched as the sun reached lower and lower in the sky. A bright flash of green in an instant and the Dutchman was gone from sight, along with it the dreams of her childhood. Elizabeth felt the pain of the unwept tears behind her eyes. What would be waiting for her?

Before her she suddenly saw the shape of sails on the horizon, but they were not from the ship carrying the man she married, but she’d know those sails anywhere as well. And she grabbed the long boat and started to push it off into the sea.