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Under the Stars (formerly "To Rest")	By : EvilE Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > Het - Male/Female > Jack/Elizabeth Views: 2120 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-To Rest
- 2-Gemini
- 1
- 2
Under the Stars

Summary: Post-PotC:DMC. Elizabeth participates in a spell of Tia's to locate and speak with Jack Sparrow, requiring the use of the last person to touch him while alive. Continuation of “To Rest.”

Rating: PG-13 (will go up)

Characters: Elizabeth, Tia, Jack (others mentioned)

Chapters: 2/5(maybe?)

Disclaimer: I'm not stealing these characters from Disney, just borrowing, borrowing without permission. For personal, not commercial, purposes.

Chapter 2: The Gemini

Elizabeth stared up at the night sky from her bedroll on the deck of the Swan of Leda, her eyes searching the heavens.

She didn't know what she was searching for, exactly. She only knew it wasn't on the backs of her eyelids or inside her mind. Despite the exhausting day, setting sail and getting under way, she was not tired. Or, she was tired, but she wasn't sleepy. Several times it had occurred to her what she could do, but she pushed that desire to the back of her mind. Tia had accompanied them on the voyage, but she had promised herself she wouldn't go to her again. It was too painful to see Jack and know he was dead. Too overwhelming, too upsetting... too powerful.

She pushed the blanket back and sat up, glancing over at Will, once again a few feet away, close enough to protect her. But he couldn't protect her from her own thoughts, could he? From her own desires? She sighed and got to her feet. Only once more. Once more she would seek Tia out, and make sure Jack would return. Then they would get him back, and then she would know he was alive and well, safe and free, and she could go and continue her own life. With Will, who did not snore but slept peacefully, as beautiful of face and feature as he was of heart.

As she stepped quietly near his feet, she did not see his eyes flick open, and then closed. She crossed to the steps to the hold and descended.

Tia had set up a corner for herself on the crew deck. None of them would dare to bother her, for fear of being turned into something unnatural. Elizabeth's steps slowed as she crossed the deck, men sleeping in hammocks on either side and in the center. When she reached the witch's corner, she saw that a single candle was burning. Tia sat curled in front of it, both legs folded together, like a reclining cat.

“Have you been expecting me?” Elizabeth said.

Tia looked at her and smiled, the black stains on her teeth lost in the shadows of the hold. The ship rocked them gently, a nursemaid, and they, the child. “You wannt to go, again?”

Elizabeth wet her lips. “I've thought that we didn't get to finish our conversation. The spell ended too soon.”

Tia lifted her eyebrows. “If you wannt to stay longer, you need more leaves. I have more. But it hurts, when more leaves burn in your hand.”

“I - I don't mind the pain,” Elizabeth said, sitting cross-legged in front of Tia. It's nothing compared to what I feel inside.

“Very well,” Tia said, and reached for a satchel from which she withdrew the stone and three leaves. “Take them.”

Elizabeth took them, wrapping the stone in the leaves as she'd seen Tia do the previous night. Tia watched.

“Touch,” Tia said. Her eyes were piercing, twinkling like the night sky Elizabeth had seen from the deck.

Elizabeth hesitated. “Don't you need to close your eyes?” She realized after speaking that she couldn't have made it any more obvious that she wished to hide the truth about her farewell from Jack.

Tia regarded her. “Child, you t'ink I need my eyes open to see dat you have Jack Sparrow upon your lips?” She clicked her tongue, and Elizabeth stared, horrified. “I know his kiss without seeing with my eyes. I know it. I, too, know it.”

Elizabeth looked at her only for a moment, before raising the stone to her lips, still holding Tia's gaze. She then held it into the flame, wincing as the quickly burning leaves singed her skin.

“Good,” Tia said, and began to chant. Before long Elizabeth felt a familiar drowsiness, and she felt her muscles relax as she fell to the floor, her arms outstretched beside her.

The kiss, again. This time Elizabeth felt more prepared, and when she felt Jack's lips against hers, she wasn't ready to pull away. Instead, she gave in to it, parting her lips a bit. The warm flesh taste of him washed over her, making her dizzy... Jack, Jack. What would she do?

She opened her eyes, pulling back. Jack gazed at her through lowered lids, and she saw with some surprise that they were not by the mast, as before, but seated on the deck stairs, where they'd last spoken. In addition, it was no longer day, but night, and lamplight flickered over the silent deck.

“Can't get enough of me, can you?” Jack murmured, brushing his nose against hers.

Elizabeth yanked her head back, putting a few inches between them. “I merely wished to finish our conversation.”

Jack smiled, his lips pursing before he spoke. “Certainly. Where were we? My death?”

Elizabeth blinked. “Well, never mind the 'how-do-you-do'.”

“How do you do, Miss Swann?” he said with exaggerated nasality. “Tell me, have we as short a while as last time?”

“A bit longer, I should think,” she said. “More leaves.”

“Leaves?”

“To burn. For the spell.” She automatically glanced down at her hand, expecting to find it red, as it had been last night, from the burn... but it was whole, and pink. Jack looked down at it as well.

“Something the matter?”

“Nothing seems to stay, here. A burn... it's gone, that's all. It's nothing.”

“Well then,” and it seemed that Jack smiled a little, and she wondered if he connected her burned or not-burned hand to the spell... “We've plenty of time? Alone, somewhere devoid of permanence?” He stood, and pulled her to her feet, in front of him. His arms came around her sides. “Are you certain you want to spend it in conversation?” His tone held a smoldering note, one that singed her like the leaf upon her skin.

“Yes,” she breathed, firmly moving his hands from her sides. He smiled, gold sparkling in the lamplight.

“All right.” He flexed his hands as though they itched to return to her sides, and then turned to walk away from her. She followed as he strolled to the rail, looking upward. She did not know how to begin the conversation about his return, again, and so she took a place next to him, their elbows touching as they leaned on the rail. It was quiet for a long moment.

“There are so many stars, out here on the sea,” she finally said, looking upward. “Countless.”

“I tried to count them, once.”

“You did? When?”

“When I was stuck on that godforsaken island.” Jack looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “The first time. The second time, I was, of course, diverted by other, more pleasant things.”

Elizabeth felt her cheeks heat, but she refused to look at him. “How many?”

“How many other things?” Jack teased, pursing his lips to contain a smile, turning to face her. She looked at him with widened eyes, knowing he was toying with her. But she could not come up with a suitable retort as his dark eyes met hers. Held. “Two.” His gaze dropped to her lips, then, and back up to her eyes. “Four.” Another glance down below her shoulders to her chest, a saucy smile. “Six.” She opened her mouth to draw a breath to protest the lewdness she was sure he was insinuating, but no breath entered or left, as his gaze dropped downward one final time, below her waist and then back to her eyes, and there was heat in his eyes, just a tiny spark, like a distant star. “Seven. Eight, if you count the rum.” His eyes sparkled devilishly and all of her good sense urged her to slap the laughter off his face for his impropriety, but instead she suppressed a smile, and turned back out to sea.

“I wouldn't have expected that you could count past five without looking at your hands,” she murmured.

He acknowledged her answer with a tilt of his head and leaned his elbows on the rail again, his forearms flat against the wood. “I wouldn't have expected a gently bred miss could know how to kiss like that,” he said, gesturing toward the mast with his chin.

Elizabeth colored redder still, but held her ground. “I meant the stars.”

“Beg pardon?”

“The stars you claim to have counted. How many were there?”

“Ah.” Jack frowned, his lower lip sticking out. “Don't know. I got up to three hundred and seventy-nine before I fell asleep.” He shrugged.

“I shall have to try counting them the next time sleep eludes me,” she said, and her voice sounded far away as she looked up at the ink sky that was dotted with the seemingly infinite number of stars.

“Sleep eludes you, does it?” Jack said with a smile in his voice, a bit too close, a bit too knowing. She refused to look at him, regretting her words.

“Once in a great while,” she lied.

“More than that, I'd wager,” he said, and he shifted his weight closer to her, and she could feel the warmth of his body through his clothes and hers. “What can possibly plague the mind of gentle, innocent Elizabeth Swann, to keep her tossing about in her bed, hm?”

“Nothing of importance,” she said, and then she did look at him, defiantly. It was a mistake, for all the bravado she'd mustered in order to face him melted away as he narrowed his eyes. He didn't believe her, that much was sure. And he might even know, or suspect, some of the other reasons she couldn't sleep... longing. Longing to go out and see the world, to explore things she'd only read and heard about. To explore things, and people...

He raised his eyebrows, but did not speak for a long minute. Finally, with a glance upward, he spoke. “Tell me, I'm curious. Under what stars were you born, Elizabeth?”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed a finger in the air. “Your birth. The heavens? You don't know?”

“Oh, I...” She broke off, trying to think. “My father refused to put stock in any of that nonsense. He said only the old still believed the stars told your fate. I had a nursemaid back in England, who told me, once. But she stayed behind when we made the crossing. I've forgotten.”

“On what day were you born?”

“The twenty-seventh of May.”

“Ah,” Jack said, with a nod and then a slow smile. “Come here, love.”

“What-why?” she answered, nonetheless moving closer to him as she spoke.

“I want to show you something,” Jack said calmly, as though speaking to a recalcitrant child. “Look.” He drew her head very close to his, so that their cheeks touched and she felt the brush of his beard against her jaw. Her mouth went dry. But she followed the movement of his hand as he pointed almost directly overhead.

“Now, it doesn't quite belong there - but since this is a spell, god knows where or when we are, precisely - but there it is. Look for Orion's belt, you see? There, the three bright stars.”

“I see them.”

“Good. Follow the belt up, see where it wraps around a man's body. Look up, still, to Orion's arm, and shoulder. Above that. There's a group of stars, there. Stars for knees, feet, waist. Arms. Two figures, joined at the arm. Do you see?”

And Jack's other arm slipped comfortably around her waist, and she was pressed close to him, so close, that she, too, felt as though they were joined inseparably. “Yes,” was all she said.

“Those are the Twins, Elizabeth. You've the sun in Gemini. A very interesting sign. Do you know the story of the twins, Castor and Pollux?”

“I've heard something about them, but it's been too long, I fear.”

“I'll enlighten you, then.” Jack said, dropping his hand from the sky to her side, still looking up. “Very important, those two. Well-known among sailors. They're supposed to be our protectors, charged with saving a ship in distress.”

“Is that so? Don't suppose they'd descend to give us a hand against the Kraken, did they?”

“Not quite, although... bear with me. Castor and Pollux were no normal sailors. They were the offspring of a god - Zeus, when he took the form of a swan and came to Leda for a bit of fun.” He glanced at her with amusement, took a deep breath, and let it out, pensively. “The two brothers went on all kinds of expeditions, sailed with the Argos, were well-known and respected. But something happened. Castor got himself into some trouble with the owner of some cattle - the bitterest disputes over property can become quite ugly, I assure you - and Castor was killed. And poor Pollux was completely helpless in his grief.”

Elizabeth stared up at the two figures, united just as she and Jack were united on the deck. She closed her eyes, briefly, and found herself struck by the idea of disconsolate grief. Yes, she understood that. She curled her fingers into Jack's shirt, savoring the warmth she knew wasn't real. “Perhaps Pollux didn't realize how much he cared for his brother until he'd lost him,” she said without looking at Jack's face.

“Perhaps,” he murmured against her hair, remaining silent for a long minute.

“What does Pollux do, then? Does he die of grief?” she asked, words all but muffled by his collar.

“Oh, no.” She felt rather than saw Jack's wide grin. “He's much too smart for that. He prays to die, also, to his father, Zeus. You see, fate had decreed that only one of the twins should be immortal, and the other should die.”

“And so?”

“And so, the twins decide to share immortality between them.”

“How?”

“Well,” Jack swallowed, tightening his arms around Elizabeth's waist, still craning his neck backward to see the sky. “One must stay in the Underworld, and the other may travel as he likes. But not at the same time; they switch off, savvy? They are said to do so in Poseidon's service, to save troubled ships.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath and sighed, thinking. “That's sad, then. Castor brought his brother back to life, knowing they could never be together again.”

“Would you do it, Elizabeth? For someone you loved?” Jack's voice was warm, so warm and it melted her reserve and she leaned back against him.

“Would I... would I save someone I loved, knowing they would be on the Earth but that I could never join them again?”

“Yes,” Jack whispered into her ear. She shuddered at the feel of his breath, and knew with certainty that the story was not just a story, but another way of examining their dilemma. For if Jack returned, even if they managed to resurrect him with Tia's help and the voyage to the mouth of Hell, she and Jack would be forever parted. She would go on to marry Will and be mistress of a proper, but modest, house in Port Royal, and he would go on to untold piracies. Their lives were parallel, from this point forward, never to intersect. And why did that suddenly bother her so? She felt the burn of tears at the backs of her eyes.

“I don't know if I would do that,” she said, trying very hard to keep her voice level. “I seem to recall a different version of the story.”

“Which version is that?”

“I remember hearing... I think it was these two, after Castor dies, Pollux prays to his father, as you said... but the outcome is different. The two are united, but they must spend a day in the Underworld, and the next on Olympus. Alternately. But they are... together.”

“A day in Heaven, and a day in Hell,” Jack murmured, taking a deep breath against her hair. Her eyes fluttered closed again, and she fought against the temptation to reach around his neck and bring his face closer. It was torture, knowing Jack was there, as close as possible, and yet he wasn't; he was dead, and she was asleep, and even if he were alive, they were no closer to togetherness, the unity she seemed to suddenly, desperately crave. It was heaven, to have his breath on her skin, and his lips against her ear. She had never thought it possible to want that from Jack. She turned her face to him, knowing she was behaving wantonly, still clinging to the hope that he would desire her enough to return.

“Jack,” she tried to say, but her voice broke and she took a ragged breath. “Will we... would we be in heaven, or hell, if you came back?”

He regarded her for a moment in the diminishing lamplight. “Both,” he said, and lowered his mouth to kiss her.

Yes, she thought. It was a torturous kiss. Elysian in its warmth, its intimacy, its pure sensual pleasure... but bittersweet, too. It wasn't real, only part of the spell. Just like their first kiss, on the deck, when she'd been shocked to feel delicious pleasure in the execution of her trick, knowing she had to see it through, knowing she had to condemn him. And she'd condemned herself in the process. She gave in to it and kissed him back, urgently, but only for a moment before turning away, breaking the kiss, drawing deep breaths. This would be her last visit, she decided. She could not bear the agony of half-having him. Half-wanting him. Half-believing that if he came back, if the magic worked and they found him and he returned, that something would be different, something in her. No more. Either they would get him back, or they would not, but she could not bear to be trapped in the space between, any more. “Stop,” she said aloud, the word as much a plea to herself as to him.

“I don't want to,” Jack whispered, catching her face between his hands. “And you don't want to, either.”

“It doesn't matter what we want. There are other, more important things.”

“You admit it, then?”

She blinked at him, fighting a smile, again. “I'll admit to a bit of unhealthy curiosity. Nothing more.”

“This, from the young lady who was so bold as to offer her maidenhood in exchange for my meager existence? Come now, Lizzy. You can't hope to tempt me while holding me at shoulder's length.”

She flushed, still uncomfortable with the level of deception she was now engaging in. “You needn't be crude. Everyone desires your return. I'm trying to be magnanimous. A small price to pay for someone's life, even yours.”

“Are you hoping to have Will's blessing to make good on this promise? I'd be very surprised indeed, if you got it. He'd tie himself in knots trying to figure out which one of us to be jealous of.”

“No, I wasn't planning to...” She searched for an answer as she remained puzzled by his last remark. She wasn't planning on going through with it at all, was the truth. But Jack had to believe... “As I said before, I don't think we're going to be married. And if we are...” She lifted a hand in what she hoped was a careless shrug. “So be it.”

He furrowed his brows at her, and she once again wondered if he were really falling for her pretense or answering with a pretense of his own. He lifted a hand to brush his fingertips across her cheek. “You can blame the stars, you know.”

“Sorry?” She was temporarily stunned by the rough touch of his calloused hands to her face.

“For your curiosity, Lizzy. That insatiable curiosity of yours.” He glanced heavenward to indicate the stars that still spun slowly above them. “It's part of how you were born. A Gemini. Mercurial, if you will. Quick-witted. Talkative. Irrepressibly curious.”

“Is that so?” she said, a note of disbelief. “The sailor's stories I would expect from you, but exactly how have you come to know about reading a person's stars?”

“I know lots of things, and many of them useful. Your father might not credit the astrologers, but kings and queens have, for ages. And you exhibit all the traits of your sign - make no mistake. I should have asked long ago.” He grinned. “Perhaps then I've have been on my guard for deception.”

“A Gemini person is a liar?”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that. They've a capacity to bend the truth a little. Others find it maddening. You love to know how things work. You love to know what makes people tick. I do, too. And sometimes - when your curiosity gets the better of you - you'll say or do the most scandalous, shocking things, just to find out what will happen.” He stopped, and his eyes shone down at her darkly, and she found herself inhaling deeply, keeping her balance by force of will... he was right. She was always dying to know what would happen next. And now that she'd kissed him she found herself wondering what came next, after that... what would it be like? But how did he know, how could he know her as if they'd grown up together... and wasn't it Will who ought to know her like that? And not Jack?

“How did you come to know about astrology, Jack?”

He continued, ignoring her question. “A Gemini can't stay still. Can't stay in one place, is always running off to new discoveries. Leaving things unfinished. Doesn't care for rules, or the boredom of the schoolroom. Of course, that's nothing to do with intelligence.”

“Jack, you haven't answered my question.”

“It's not important.” Jack's voice was suddenly soft, reserved.

“Of course it is. I have to know what makes people tick, remember? I'm dying to know.”

Jack sighed. He drew away from Elizabeth and turned back out to sea. “My mother could read them,” he said simply. “She knew all the signs and the planets, and she read them for anyone with the price. Noblemen and their wives. Merchants. Sailors. Children. But... that was a long time ago.”

“She taught you about them?”

“Not very much. I picked up from listening, mostly.” His cockeyed smile suddenly created an image in Elizabeth's mind of a young, troublesome Jack, a boy with dark hair causing mischief.

She considered asking more about his mother, when and where and how, and if she were still alive and if she knew her son had become a pirate. But she decided not to, for the moment. There was another question on her mind, and it had begun as a simple thought while she and Jack gazed at the two figures in the night sky, joined forever by the arm and hand.

“Jack, under what stars were you born?”

He was silent, and she drew up next to him at the rail again. “Jack?”

She was startled then, but the intensity of the gaze he turned upon her. “What do you think,” he whispered, reaching for her forearm and clasping it, hard. “When I said we were peas in a pod, I suppose it turns out I wasn't only speaking figuratively, eh, Lizzy?”

She drew in a sharp breath, staring up at him. His eyes were fierce, so fierce they robbed her of the ability to reason, to think, to remember what she was doing there. Why did Will never affect her this way, she wondered, as she moistened her lips nervously. His eyes fell to her lips, then, and rested there for a moment before returning to meet hers purposefully, as though they were boring holes as tiny as stars in the very fabric of her soul. She was frightened, but only a little. Still he looked at her, as though memorizing every detail of her face.

Or staring at a reflection, she thought. She wondered if despite all their differences, he saw something mirrored in her eyes, something of himself. She sought it, too, looking back at him. He reached out and cupped the side of her jaw in his hand, stroking the pad of his thumb over her cheek. Softly. Gently. Tenderly.

“Does this mean that you could care for me,” she hazarded, “as one might... a brother? Like Castor and Pollux?”

Jack smiled wryly. “You're a woman. Despite how you're dressed.”

“The twins had a sister, too. I remember that part. She was Helen.”

A chuckle from Jack, and still he touched her face. “Ah, yes. The incomparably beautiful stolen wife. A personal favorite.” The look in his eyes was hot, then, blazing, and Elizabeth felt the heat of it all the way to her toes. The stolen wife... and what if she were Helen, and allowed herself to be seduced, stolen away from home? Was this how Paris looked at her, with secrets in his dark eyes, how he convinced her to run away from the proper life she'd led?

“A favorite,” she forced out. “You speak of her as though her defection didn't cause ten years of death and mayhem.”

“Regrettable consequences,” Jack admitted with a nod. “Love will do that - send everything straight to hell.”

She thought of the kiss on the Pearl, the times before that when she'd been talking to Jack and everything else had seemed to vanish. She had sent him to hell. And what would happen to the rest of her life, if they brought him back?

“Am I a sister, then?” She closed her eyes for a long blink, hypnotized by his repetitive, insistent touch on her face.

“Is that what you want?” Jack murmured, leaning closer. His mouth was almost upon hers, now, and she felt her lips parting in quiet invitation. “Brotherly... affection?” he breathed against her lips, before claiming them in a thorough, almost bruising kiss that sent her senses reeling. She squeezed the wood of the deck rail for support. No... he had to stop, stop tangling up everything in her head, in her body...

“Yes,” she gasped out, leaning her head back to part their lips. “Only that.” Her eyelids, which had acquired an unnatural heaviness, opened with effort to find him peering down at her curiously.

“Either you've never had a brother, Elizabeth, or you're rather confused about family relationships. Maybe both.”

“No. This part must end. There can't be anything between us other than mutual respect. Friendship.”

“Brotherly love?”

“Perhaps.”

“My dear,” Jack said as he folded his arms wickedly across his chest. “You're forgetting your promise.”

“My...” Oh. Yes, she had forgotten that. But how could she think while he was doing such strange things to her? “I meant, after that, naturally.”

Jack shook his head, slowly, grinning, as though he still couldn't believe her. “Poor Lizzy. You're so mixed up you don't know which way to turn. I'm thoroughly enjoying it.”

“I am not mixed up,” she argued. “You're the one confusing our lives with some old story. It doesn't matter. What we do, matters.”

“You're right,” Jack said, and turned back out to sea. “What's done is done.”

“It's not over,” she insisted. “Nothing's done. Don't you want to know what else your life could hold? Can't you imagine it? Death might be peaceful, but life is exciting, Jack.”

“No, there's where you're wrong, Elizabeth. Even excitement grows tiresome. All it is, is excitement. Don't confuse it with satisfaction. That is what makes life worth living.”

“Find that, then. I'm sure you can discover how to satisfy yourself.”

He looked at her askance. “Oh, certainly.” She blushed again, and he reached for her again, both hands on her upper arms, this time. “The question is, can I obtain satisfaction? Or only chase it, uselessly, for the rest of my miserable life?” He peered down at her as though the answer were somewhere between her eyelashes, written on the backs of her eyes.

“I don't know,” she breathed, relishing the closeness of him, his warm scent. “I can't do any more than to offer what I already have. After that, the pursuit of happiness would be in your own hands, I'd imagine.”

His somber expression faded into a more playful one, and he leaned closer with a wiggle of his head. “And what would you know about that, my dear, innocent Lizzy?”

She sensed he was alluding to something naughty, but didn't know what. Still, something fluttered in her stomach and she found herself offering up her lips again. “I stand by my promise,” she said. “If that's really what you want - base as it might be - it seems simple enough.”

“Nothing's ever simple,” he said against her mouth, and kissed her again. Long, hard. Deep. She swayed on her feet. He made her feel light-headed, like the rum he'd offered her long ago. Floating. Rising to the stars themselves. She was so lost in it, she did not realize the spell was fading until she felt the solid wood of the deck beneath her back. Tears burned at the edges of her eyes. Too soon. Too much. What would come next, what would happen now? She opened her eyes to see Tia.

Tia did not help her up this time, but watched as Elizabeth raised herself with one extended arm. She planted her feet and rose upon them, feeling naked to the witch's knowing gaze. She had promised herself it was the last time, she reminded herself as she climbed the steps to the deck. A gray quality suffused the sky and air. Almost dawn. That was the last time, the last time she would see Jack Sparrow. A promise.

Another promise she would not, could not, keep, she concluded as she saw Will, still sleeping peacefully.
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Under the Stars (formerly "To Rest")