Silent Night
Title: Silent Night
Words: 2.701
Summary: After Will sails away on the Dutchman, Elizabeth is left behind with a broken heart. In search for a home, she sets out to Shipwreck Cove, finding comfort in a pirate's arms.
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine exept for the plot.
A/N: Inspired by Damien Rice's version of Silent Night, performed by the wonderful Lisa Hannigan - she sings like an angel, I swear!
Silent Night
As night fell she sat shivering, her bare toes buried in the cooling sand, her freshly wed’s husband’s heart pressed against her chest. Not a sound was to be heard except for the rushing of waves, accompanied by the steady beating of William’s heart.
She clutched the chest closer to her, the only thing, no, the only part of Will she had left. Ten years at sea, one day ashore.
Of course she had thought about chasing the Dutchman and climbing aboard. If he couldn’t be on land with her, maybe she could be on a ship with him? But she couldn’t live without oxygen and the Dutchman was below the surface most of the time.
So she was left here, all alone, feeling cold and empty. But she was King, wasn’t she? She might not have a real home anymore and her ship was broken, but she could still go to Shipwreck Cove and live there, couldn’t she? She had to. She had to move on.
And Jack, her pirate friend? He had deserted her, too. Why hadn’t he stayed? He could have, no, should have asked her to sail with him. He was supposed to be her friend, wasn’t he? Then again, she had betrayed him, left him to die. Of course he wouldn’t want a murderess on his ship.
Her mouth formed a bitter line as she brushed away the wetness on her cheeks. Slowly, she stood, the chest held tightly in her arm. She didn’t want the truth. It was so much easier to hate him for leaving her behind that to miss her two captains or feel so wretchedly left behind.
Jack had unmistakably pushed her away. He had rejected her, though she knew he had found some love for her before and still harboured some of those feelings, even after all that had happened. His eyes told her so. But could she really hate him for that? For hoping she’d just go? For rejecting her? For trying to live his life without her?
Maybe. She had to. So she wouldn’t think about William. Ten years at sea, one day ashore.
But life would go on. And so would she. Determined, she placed the chest in her dinghy, sat beside it and started rowing back to the Cove.
***°°°***
The room she had been assigned to was spacious with a soft bed and a wrought iron chandelier, a paraffin lamp on the richly ornamented nightstand. At the foot end of the bed there was a wooden chest and a washing bowl took up one corner of the room.
All in all a rather luxurious bedroom. Elizabeth had sought out Captain Teague, asking for a place to permanently stay. He had shown her the way to this room in his own house and had promised to redecorate the room the next day so it would fit a true Pirate King.
But now she was alone again, wrapped up in the cotton blanket on her bed, clambering to the cool iron chest like a drowning man to a single plank.
Ten years.
The tears just wouldn’t stop. Ten whole years. One single day.
She reached over and killed the light of the lamp. It was late; she should at least try to get some sleep. But even with the darkness enveloping her, sleep wouldn’t come. Images of William kept on dominating her thoughts, denying her the bliss of sleep’s unconsciousness.
Alone. She was all alone with her grief. No one to hold or offer her comfort apart from the smooth metal in her lap. And this chest did nothing but drain all the warmth from her body. In the silence she could hear Will’s heartbeat; strong and even. So close and even as though she were pressing her ear to his warm body and not a hard, edgy container.
Another series of sobs tore though her as she rocked herself, unchecked tears staining her grief-stricken face, her vice-like grip crushing the chest to her torso.
So consumed was she in her desperation that she didn’t notice how the door was opened with a soft creaking sound and the dark silhouette of a man appeared in the doorframe, only gradually outlined by the dim light pouring in from the corridor.
He gently shut the door behind him, his worried frown swallowed by darkness as the lock clicked shut in his wake. Soundlessly, with the nimble grace that was his alone, he made his way over to the bed that - years ago - used to be his own.
Movement on the bed made her start as he sat down, a tear-soaked sob catching in her throat when she turned to face the intruder. She could barely make out his face in the lone ray of moonlight that weakly wound its way through the drawn curtains and gasped.
He was supposed to sail the sea at this moment, wasn’t he? Why was he here? Why had he come back?
She saw him take a deep breath, his expression worried, concern evident in the onyx depths of his eyes. Her unasked questions were answered when he scooted closer to her, brushed a tear from her wet cheeks.
“Lizzie,” he breathed barely above a whisper as he pulled her close, wrapping his arms securely around her, his back against the wooden headboard. He guided her head to rest on his shoulder, the gesture promising solace.
Tears took over again then, as she leaned onto him, one hand clutching the chest, one hand gripping her pirate’s neck for support. “I m-miss hi-him,” Elizabeth chocked out, her voice strangled, throat constricted with the emotion.
His only answer was a deep rumble in his chest. “I know, luv, I know . . . .” And he rocked her gently, stroking her tangled hair with careful fingers.
They sat like this, huddled together as the night hours ticked by. She cried her tormented heart out, soaking up all the comfort he offered. The left side of her body was entirely pressed up against the pirate’s warm figure that radiated soothing warmth like the heated beach that was warm beneath your feet even after sunset. The right side of her body, though, was without shelter, freezing from the wintriness the chest seemed to spread.
It was a curious contrast; left and right, hot and cold, good and bad; and she was right in the middle of it - as always.
The thought of just letting the heavy weight of the chest go, dropping the rigid container and curl into the welcoming heat that was Jack Sparrow was oh-so-tempting. A relief.
But she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t. So she didn’t.
As sleep gently tugged at the corners of her consciousness, her hold loosened, though, lulled by the comforting embrace of a set of sinew arms.
“Thank you,” she slurred, oblivious to the pained expression that crossed his handsome face for the blink of an eye. I always knew you were a good man.
***°°°***
The night was silent and calm, moonlight illuminating her bedroom and all that disturbed the serene atmosphere was a sudden sob. Lips trembling, Elizabeth stared at the vacant space next to her on the bed.
Again, he was not there. Like so many other countless nights she awoke to an empty bed, frantically searching fingers grasping at nothing but thin air and cool linen. The realization that it had once again been nothing but a dream hit her hard. The desperate longing for her wish to come true - William sharing her bunk when she woke up - drove the tears into her eyes faster than anything else ever could.
Even though it had been two months since her husband’s departure, nothing had changed since that first night at Shipwreck Cove. The dead of night still found her realizing that nothing was right, crying afresh night and night again.
She hated crying. She was Pirate King and she really shouldn’t be sitting here, weeping alone in the darkness. She should be a lot stronger than this, finding a way to cope with it.
But she wasn’t. Not yet. Right then she felt miserable, useless, weak, and powerless; her spirit broken like a mirror smashed to pieces.
What could bring her consolation was not the beating heart in the metal chest under her bed, but the beating heart in the warm chest of a man she had come to value as a great friend.
And so, like many nights before, Elizabeth got out of her bed and left her room, not even bothering to put on her coat over the flimsy nightgown. Her vision blurred by tears, she turned right and knocked two doors down the corridor. Almost instantly the wood swung open to reveal the sleep-clouded face of one Captain Sparrow.
He let her in without a question, the mere look on her tanned features all the answer he needed. Wordlessly, he closed the door behind her and lit the candle on his bedside table. Waiting for her to settle next to him, he sat down on his bed again. For the ump-tenth time, Jack took her in his arms; stroke her hair, offered silent comfort.
It had become somewhat of a routine since William had sailed off, leaving his heart behind on the spit of land. Elizabeth would seek him out in the middle of the night, crying, and he would do all he could to calm her down and lull her to sleep.
He hated himself for coming back by now, but more than that he hated that he couldn’t find the heart to leave again. And even more than this, he loathed seeing her this broken. So he stayed, torturing himself to make her feel better. Not that she knew this.
But this time around it was different. For, after a while, she lifted her head from where she’d buried her features in the crook of his dirty tanned neck to face him. Eyes puffy from weeping and cheeks still stained with tears she looked directly into a set of ebony orbs for an interminable moment.
The expression washing over her eyes came and were gone far too quickly to keep track of. Slowly, tentatively, she lifted her hand to brush her fingertips over his stubby jaw. Holding her breath, she admired how his eyes closed when she cupped his cheek.
All thought fled her mind as she eliminated the space between their faces and kissed him with feverish intensity. His response was pure instinct, instantly holding her closer, not accepting even a hair’s breadth between them.
Elizabeth’s delicate hand was trapped between their bodies, right on his bare, lean chest, feeling his heart beat faster when their kiss gained need. She shifted, forcing Jack down on his back, their lip-lock savage.
Her hand moved down his torso, her fingers hooking in the waistband of his hastily-pulled-on breeches. She tugged at the faded fabric-
And Jack broke the kiss, catching her hand and preventing her from undressing him. Breathing shallow, he shook his head in opposition. “No.”
Elizabeth knitted her brow in a flurry of emotions. Confusion and offence were replaced by hurt morphing into realization, washed away by sadness.
She sprung the question at him without warning, straight from her guts. “Don’t you love me?” Her voice was small and fragile.
The pirate sighed, averting his gaze with a pained expression. “You know I do.”
“Then why? Why do you push me away again?” Her tone was close to desperation, her voice shaky.
“I can’t do this because I feel for you the way I do. I can’t -- If I hadn’t stopped us - You know exactly what this would have led to.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to commit adultery with the woman I care so much about. You’ve made your choice, Elizabeth: you married Will. We both have to cope with it and it’s hard, but this isn’t the solution.”
She got off him, almost ashamed. Jack sat up. “You must understand that I can’t keep comforting you forever - or nine years and 364 days in a circle for that matter.”
Understanding dawned on her features and was swept away by shame, over-layered with fresh grief. She felt wretched for trying to use Jack like this when she really knew that he had more than a soft spot for her. When she should have realized just how much she must hurt him with this. Jack didn’t deserve to be used as a substitute for the man she married.
The man she’d married was the man she loved, she said to herself, Jack she only lusted over. But his honest, rational words stung. More than she would admit. Because you love him, too, a small voice in the back of her head told her.
But Jack felt just as bad. It hurt him to see her like this, it hurt him to be so helpless and without a chance to take the pain away from her. Should he have granted her this night in his arms in a different fashion than before? At least it would have taken her mind off her grief and worn her out enough to find peaceful sleep.
Pirate. He was a selfish person and not too much of a masochist. All he would do by sleeping with her was hurt himself and make everything so much more complicated. Of course he had dreamed of it many a time, but not like this. No. He wasn’t willing to do it.
He felt like he was being swept out into the open ocean, not knowing how to swim anymore. If he wanted to survive, he had to grab the only plank afloat, no matter how rotten, lest he’d sink to his watery grave.
Jack looked at her, searching her eyes. “Either we are together, or we’re not. And since we can’t be together without cheating on Will . . . . It will be best for us not to see each other at all. I’ve pushed myself too far by coming back for you.” He swallowed hard, shifting, so he now sat on the edge of the mattress, facing away from her. “I think it’s probably best if you leave now.”
There, he’d done it; the ultimate rejection. And the second this last line left his lips he wanted so bad to take it back and let her know just how sorry he was and how much she meant to him, how hard this was on him, how he didn’t want to be without her.
But he didn’t. If he showed any sign of weakness now, she’d come after him once she regained her strength and will. And if she wasn’t faithful to William he would become a second Davy Jones. He couldn’t allow that. What was a single man’s suffering compared to that of millions of souls?
Just for this once, he had to be reasonable and to the right thing. This was the chance she had predicted half a year ago on the Pearl. This one chance to do the right thing. Only he couldn’t see any rewards to follow or admiration at what he’d done.
Finally, he knew what it tasted like to do what’s right. It tasted foul, as bitter as bile. Why ever would anybody do this out of their free will?
Fighting back tears again, Elizabeth stared at this back for a second, before she stumbled to her feet and, without another word, fled the room.
He didn’t turn around to watch her leave.
***°°°***
Dawn found the Pirate King crying silent tears on her bed, an iron chest clutched tightly in her bare arms. And this time, no one would seek her unexpectedly to offer comfort; nobody would lull her to sleep. For two doors down the corridor, the chamber lay vacant.
The legend that had resided there had given up fighting for sleep. A pitch black was sailing into the sunrise.
Frankly, as the first rays of sunlight pushed past her curtains, a small part of her saw reason for his actions and felt almost proud.
After all she always knew that he was a good man.