Title: "drink up me 'earties"
Author: monimala
Fandom: POTC: Dead Man's Chest
Rating/Classification: NAC, missing scene/filler, no adult language, Elizabeth's second person POV.
Disclaimer: Arrr! Avast! I don't own these characters.
Summary: 400 words. It was always more than that, wasn't it?
You do not speak to Will as the longboat dips and sways through the choppy seas. There is no cause, as he and Mr. Gibbs have busied themselves navigating to safety…wherever that may be. So, you are left blessedly -- or cursedly -- alone with your thoughts as Cotton's parrot perches on your shoulder, nipping at strands of your salt-laden hair.
You can still see the Kraken bursting forth from the water. You can see the Pearl going under. But those things are far less frightening than the vision you cannot shake even as the boat approaches land and Pintel -- or it Ragetti, you can never remember who is who -- gives a relieved cry of "Oy!" And that vision is of Jack chained to the mast by your own traitorous hands.
"Down with the ship!" squawks the bird in your ear. Mocking you. Sometimes you think he's the wisest of what will never again be the Pearl's crew. "Down with the ship!" and you flinch, throwing him off with a hard shrug.
He flutters back to Cotton, who gives you a dark look…as if he, too, knows what you've done. Are you blessed or curse that he lacks the tongue to share your sins with the others? Are you blessed or cursed to know exactly where the compass points… exactly where your heart's desire lies and how many fathoms deep?
You did it.
You betrayed Captain Jack Sparrow.
With a kiss.
No, 'twas more than that.
It was always more than that, wasn't it?
Will glances back at you, his dear, dear eyes filled with worry. They shame you into gazing out at the horizon…fancying that your forgiveness lies there, in that darkening distance.
But it doesn't, does it?
Will is an honorable man. Steadfast. True. You think that, perhaps, he will forgive you for kissing Jack. For giving in to that brazen impulse and finally putting answers to the questions that plagued your girlish dreams every night in Port Royal between the hanging and the wedding that weren't.
*What does he taste like?* Cloves. Cloves, tobacco and rum.
*Will my heart race?* A thousand times, yes.
*Will it matter?* No.
Will Turner will not forgive you for your deeper sin, the greater sin.
For proving that you are not, never were, Miss Elizabeth Swann.
You're a liar.
A pirate.
Both cursed and blessed.
And Jack Sparrow's match.
--end--
July 9, 2006.