Cold
Title: Cold
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I wouldn't be doing this if I owned them, would I?
Summary: On a cold night, both Jack and Will find things to be jealous of.
The moonlight became her, softening angles in her face and making her glow like a ghost on the rocks. She stood half a dozen paces from him in the little cliffside boneyard. Swan’s Lake, the tattered little sign had called it, and Jack found it rather fitting that this was where they had finally left Will behind.
The dress in the moonlight shown like it was made of silk and cobwebs, thought it wasn’t silk, would never be more than cheap cotton calico bleached out by too much sun. It was too small on her, but still seemed to tug in all the right places. She wouldn’t be able to wear in much longer, not without letting it out. That was her worry, not his, though.
She was on her knees now, her hands running over the stone with the licence of the blind and his stomach tightened at the sight. He couldn’t understand the flare-up of rivalry for what she and Will had shared; he’d won, hadn’t he? She couldn’t possibly carry a torch for a dead man, what with his rotting and festering and mouldering?
This was all stupid, bloody Will’s fault with all his fool, noble intentions. If he’d told someone at the first twinge of fever, they’d have found a doctor or held Governor Swann hostage for medication or something. Bled him. Jack wasn’t really sure of the particulars of healing, but they could’ve done something. Instead, he’d kept up, slogging away, until one day, he’d collapsed and fallen from the quarterdeck to the main boards. The broken bone had only compounded the sickness festering with in.
His and Elizabeth’s engagement had long ended by then and she’d become a constant fixture in Jack’s quarters, but she’d always held out a brotherly affection towards him. In this time of need, she’d gone to his side, mindless of her own health. Jack had thought she’d taken ill too, when he caught her vomiting over the rails. The fever had never come, though, and for that, he was grateful.
They had been down in Bermuda heading north when Will had begun to take ill. When he realized that there was nothing they could do for him shipboard, they’d run up the scrubby coast of Massachusetts, racing against an hourglass that rapidly running out. Boston may not have been friendly to pirates, but the hardy locals of Cape Cod tended to overlook the less than legal aspects in exchange for good trade.
There’d been a terrible storm after they’d laid anchor and gone ashore. They’d made it to the village doctor’s home, but Will had died in the middle of it and even the howling of the waves could not drown out Elizabeth’s keening cries. The doctor’s wife had finally brought her in from the rain and gotten her to change out of her soaked clothes. This was the dress Elizabeth wore tonight.
She stood up from his grave and walked over to the cliff, looking out over the sea rocking the Pearl gently in the moonlight. Her hand drifted down to her belly through the worn cotton. After they’d buried Will, they’d continued their journey up to Nova Scotia. She’d whispered the news to him the day after they’d set sail again, but he’d told no one. They would find out soon enough and, in all this sorrow, she agreed the desire to keep one little spark of happiness to themselves.
He crept silently up behind her and pulled her into his arms. She smelled like old flowers, leather, and salt, comforting him. They would sail on the morning tide to winter in the Caribbean and await the birth of the child. There would be no more time to mourn after this; time and piracy waited for no man or woman.
She kissed him, her eyes glittering with a thousand unshed tears in the moonlight. The breeze in the late September night picked up and brought a flurry of leaves down around them. A cloud darkened the sky and they both shuddered.
“We should go,” he whispered, his breath hot against her cold ear, brushing his hand against the swell of her belly, ever mindful of the ill omens associated with a boneyard. She nodded and together, they hurried back to the waiting carriage.
From his dark, damp grave, the jealous ghost of Will Turned watched their retreating forms. Jack had been right about one thing; death was lonely and cold.