Title: "Davy Jones's Locker"
Author: monimala
Fandom: PotC
Rating/Classification: SAC, J/E/W, angst.
Disclaimer: Disney, not I.
Summary: Fifth in "...And a Bottle of Rum." What really haunts Elizabeth
and Jack?
Billy is four when the Curse finds her again.
The Curse. Somewhere in the past few years, it has become worthy of
capitalization. The legion of tutors her father had employed would no doubt expire on the spot at the notion, but, she is more than certain that it is worthy of a little grammatical suicide.
Especially when the monkey appears on board the Pearl. And she awakens to it framed in the window, walking death with a curled tail. A sharp gasp escapes from her lips and Will stirs, drowsily, throwing an arm around her
waist before drifting back into the safety of sleep. It is Jack Sparrow who sits straight up...he only drowses, never slumbers, without rum to thin his blood.
"What? What is it?" he demands, softly, moving her hair aside and kissing her throat... gauging the danger by counting the beats of her pulse.
She lifts a shaking hand to point, but by then the creature is gone. Like
a memory blinked away. A nightmare fading in the morning sun. "J-jack..."
she whispers, suddenly glad that Billy is below deck with Mr. Gibbs.
"I'm here, Lizzie." The cool silver of rings stroking her cheek. The teasing nickname is his way of soothing her, rising her to anger and away from fear. "No one's going to hurt you while Jack Sparrow's here, savvy?"
"N-no." She laughs, just the slightest bit hysterical. "Not *you*, Jack. The *monkey* Jack." Barbossa's demon pet. She still remembers it nipping at her fingertips...staring hungrily as she tore at a leg of chicken with her teeth. More than the pirates themselves...than the sharp dig of the knife blade against her palm...that creature haunts her dreams.
So, perhaps she imagined it. In that moment between sleep and awake where she is still Elizabeth Swann and still a prisoner. Perhaps the strain of
being a pirate's wife, a pirate's lover... a future pirate's mother... is finally pecking away at her brain. Perhaps taking Jack Sparrow into her body over and over has transferred to her a bit of his madness. Perhaps in a few more years, she'll be completely dotty.
And they'll be a right pair of lunatics, they will.
Jack climbs from the bed, swiftly and quietly, without waking Will...who
is weary from a full day of fiddling with rigging and chasing their son from bow to stern. The gentle swell of the waves makes the floor tilt just a bit under the soles of his feet. His long knife is always within reach and he swipes it from beside the snuffed candle as he moves towards the window... peers out at the shadows of the empty deck and then goes through the door to confront them.
The minutes are painfully long. And she curves against Will's back to
fight the sudden chill that only disappears when the door creaks shut to the whispered assurance of "'T'weren't nothing."
"C-can you check again?" she wonders, hating the sound of the plea. So
helpless. So weak. So unlike her.
Jack hates it, too. The contempt is clear in his less-than-gentle "In the morning." But gone in the next instant as he comes back to bed and draws her against his chest. It is this action that finally wakes her husband...which comes as little surprise. He wasn't there...on the island... that first time. So every time after must be under his watchful eyes.
She is still not sure who he is envious of.
Frankly, she doesn't want to know.
So, she rears up on her knees and kisses Jack...pretending that there is
this and only this. No past. No curses. No treacherous beasts made of bone. Just her hands in his knotted hair, tracing the beads...her tongue clashing with the slick gold of his teeth. Will's fingers on her hip as she locks her legs around Jack's waist and drives away the ghosts. She is still...*still*... fascinated by the contrast of his skin against her own. Still...*still*...undone by the lips at her breast.
For months before and after Billy was born, he didn't touch her. Would
not. Could not. Left the main cabin to her, to Will, and made his bed on deck ...only staking claim at odd hours when he was overwhelmed by the urge to take Will against the desk, the wall, the door. She would note the bruises on her mate's beautiful face and wonder just how hard he'd been punished for the sin of her less-than-immaculate conception.
He held out for six months...until the stretching scars were gone from her belly and she was as smooth and slender as when he'd pulled her from the
bottom of the sea. Until she'd learned Anamaria's magic and armed herself
against further mistakes. Until he could take it no longer... and he had to murmur "Lizzie" against the curve of her neck as she spread beneath him
and drowned. "Lizzie, you need me, savvy?"
When the first light of dawn begins to creep into the chamber, Jack Sparrow untangles himself from her embrace, dropping a light kiss on, first, her forehead and then Will's, before he dresses and goes for his cutlass.
He checks again.
A right pair of lunatics, they are.
Cursed ones, at that.
--end--
July 14, 2003.