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Resurrection	By : EvilE Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > Het - Male/Female > Jack/Elizabeth Views: 3045 -:- 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-Resurrection
- 1
Resurrection

Summary: Post-PotC:DMC. The rescue mission having taken unexpected turns, a captive Elizabeth, literally at the end of her rope, encounters Captain Jack Sparrow - not quite the way she anticipated. Inspired by the Ted Elliot quote/joke from KTTC re: a love scene: “Sweet, with a touch of bondage.”

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

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Elizabeth Swann was not dead. Yet.

Only half-dead, she ruefully acknowledged as her stomach rumbled for what must have been the third time in as many minutes. It had been hours since she'd eaten or seen another living soul. The brig on the Diana's Bow was cooler than the rest of the ship, for which she was thankful, but it was also damp and pungent, for which she was not. The floorboards were moist and crusted with unidentifiable dirt, but they still appealed to Elizabeth, probably because she could not reach them except with her feet. She was forced to stand, leaning against the side wall, only able to look at the floor with all its seating possibility, but quite unable to sit upon it. Like Tantalus, from whom water receded when he tried to drink, and food hung above, just out of his reach, Elizabeth was confined to a place where she could see her desires just in front of her, but was helpless to satisfy them. Perhaps this was her personal Hell, her personal Underworld where she would wonder endlessly about everything she cared to know, and be permanently kept from finding out.

Several of those burning questions swirled like a whirlpool in her mind as she became lost in thought again - preferable to concentrating on her hunger, or physical discomfort - but still torturous as there was no one with whom to provide her answers. She was totally alone in the hold, not even worthy of a single guard, and almost everyone else, she was sure, had gone from the ship. She wondered, if they all died, every last one of them, if she would die first of starvation or thirst, since no one would ever know where she was, and she could not get out.

She wondered about Will. It was, in a way, his fault that she was here, however indirectly, and if he would only return she was positive she would bowl him over with the force of her gratitude. Perhaps enough to tempt him into groping her or otherwise giving into the carnal inclinations she was sure he must possess, however well he hid them. Elizabeth found it ironic that she had failed, so far, to tempt him in that respect, and yet Tia had succeeded in tempting him in another.

When their ship had drawn close to the mysterious rocks and flame-lit cliffs of the Netherworld, as the witch called it, an argument had broken out about how best to go about retrieving Jack. It came to light that Barbossa and Tia could care less about saving Jack, and in fact sought a certain artifact thought to possess mystical powers of restoration, and this artifact - a black conch shell called the Horn of Charon - was thought to be hidden in the very caves they approached. Barbossa intended to use it to raise the Pearl - first - although Elizabeth thought that need only give rise to an infinite series of misdeeds. Tia seemed to be on his side, and yet Elizabeth wondered if she had an ulterior motive of her own. Tia was the one who claimed to know the object's powers and how to locate it. And then, it occurred to Will that the ownership of such an object might prove very handy indeed in the salvation of his father.

Will had convinced Tia to circumvent Barbossa and to slip off the ship during the night to go in pursuit of it. He'd told Elizabeth, of course, and she'd begged him to wait, just wait until they'd gotten Jack, but Will insisted that there might not be another opportunity, and when it came down to it, he'd rather save his father than Jack. She heard a note of bitterness in his voice she'd never detected before, and she wondered - another one of her burning questions - if he'd seen, if he'd seen what had happened on the Pearl. But he smiled and kissed her on the forehead, telling her not to worry, that it would only take a few hours, that he'd be back before the dawn broke with no one the wiser.

He wasn't. Barbossa was furious when he discovered Will and Tia gone. He'd hauled Elizabeth out of her cabin in the dawn light, still in her shift, and demanded to know what had happened. At first she'd refused to tell, but then failed to see the point in withholding the information, as Will and Tia already had a head start. He then prepared to disembark, gathering Gibbs and the others, and informed Elizabeth that they were going to look for Jack. Once they found him, Barbossa would be holding him as ransom for the Horn of Charon. Provided Tia and Will found it first. Barbossa had ordered her locked in the brig to prevent her interference.

She'd raged and screamed, kicked the entire way as she was literally carried down the steps to the hold on Barbossa's orders, and the others went along with it because they wanted to save Jack, and she was a less immediate problem. Gibbs had put a hand on his sword, but she'd shaken her head at him, because getting Jack would require everyone to search the labyrinthine caves. Later, they would figure out how to thwart Barbossa. Still, she struggled and howled and pushed the man who'd escorted her down, and then she rattled the bars so much in the first three minutes that Barbossa ordered her hands tied above her head, on the wall. Then they'd left her.

And then, it didn't matter, because Will had already told her that he wouldn't trade the chance to save his father for the chance to save Jack, but Barbossa didn't know it. He would figure it out when Will refused to barter. Elizabeth could only hope that perhaps they would retrieve Jack and bring him out, alive, and he could scheme out a way to save himself. And her. And the others.

But for all she knew, Jack was lost to them forever. And she was going to rot in this brig, in nothing but her shift, with no one but a rat for company. She despaired of everything, but refused to cry, out of fear, or loneliness, or even the ache in her muscles as her wrists were tied a foot above her head and her fingertips were becoming numb. She refused to cry because Will had chosen to honor his promise to his father instead of staying close to help protect her. She refused to cry because Jack was probably dead, good and dead, and she was the one who had done it. She simply would not cry. But the effort absorbed a lot of her energy, and left her feeling even weaker and more lifeless, and she let her head hang forward as she sighed, passing into a half-sleep, half-waking state, a gray area, a dim twilight between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

A noise reached her as she floated in that watery near-oblivion, but it took her a few moments to register what it was: the door of her enclosure, the metal clang of the gate being opened and shut. It was still a long moment before she opened her eyes, unsure of what new horror would now have joined her in her almost-total despair. Her eyelids lifted - they were heavy, so heavy - and she squinted in the flickering lamplight emerging from one solitary sconce on the wall, making out the shape of a person in the cell with her, a person climbing unsteadily to his feet after being shoved inside, as the footsteps of their jailor retreated up the steps of the hold.

Her eyes opened wider. She took in the dark hair at the man's nape, the flash of beads, bits of red, white, as she felt her chest tighten. No, it couldn't be. It was too much to hope for. She'd finally crossed the brink to madness, and her tattered mind decided to give her Jack. Here. Now.

But as she looked, she wondered if her mind was capable of concocting a Jack so detailed, from the red bandanna to his soft leather boots, one that touched a hand to his temple and glanced around in the darkness, his hand then falling to stroke the dark stubble at his jaw, before coming down to rest at his side. He turned, then, and the imaginary or not-imaginary Jack saw her.

Elizabeth felt frozen in place. This was not how she'd imagined her reunion with Jack. She'd only done what was necessary, true, but she wanted to make up for her betrayal by being the first person to rescue him, the person to extend a hand from the boat, the person to open his eyes. Instead, she was a prisoner, like him, with nothing to indicate that she'd expended any effort on his behalf, to begin to make amends for what she'd done. And she was damp and frustrated and half-starved - not to mention half-naked - and did not relish having to tell him the news that getting him back was only the beginning of what was rapidly becoming a truly miserable adventure. So she kept silent, and looked at him, and caught her breath when he began to walk toward her.

Same slow, swaggering gait... same haunting dark eyes, she thought as he approached. It was Jack. He was taking his time, his eyes leaving her face to zigzag down the rest of her body and back up, as though he were appraising her value. Or her likelihood to really exist, which was more probable, and it occurred that perhaps Jack was experiencing a similar phenomenon of Is it really you?

He stood directly in front of her and peered down at her face, and she could see the bristle on his jaw, every ink-black hair on his face from his beard to his lashes, and her thought was that he looked too substantial to be either an apparition or a dead man, and that left the other, the real Jack, and he was there and looking right into her face, examining it. He raised a hand and his fingertips brushed her damp forehead, and her eyes closed of their own volition at his touch. Her lips parted to permit breath to enter and exit, more and more difficult as his calloused, dry fingers moved with a butterfly-light touch over her brows, her nose, her cheekbones. Her jaw, her lips... and she was reminded of a blind man she'd known as a child, a footman in her father's employ, who would “see” her with his hands and she would giggle as he identified her as Miss Lizzie, always allowing him to touch every peak and valley of her face so that he could know what she looked like. It made her feel special, such a thorough perusal, and Jack's exploration of her face was just that kind. She turned her face into his hand, wanting her own confirmation that he was real, felt her nose brush his palm, felt the warmth there of just a tiny bit of sweat. He was real.

He leaned in closer, then, which she felt rather than saw, as a few nails protruding from the wall dug into her back. She felt Jack's beard brush her cheek and jaw, and she heard him inhale, deeply, against her hair, still confirming her living presence. She inhaled, too, her nose against his cheek and then down against his neck as her head fell forward. She smelled Jack's scent, faintly sweaty but masculine, sort of like warm leather and wherever he'd been, the sea or the tavern or the sand. It triggered a rush of images in her mind... she'd smelled it at length when they had huddled close on that island, and it was thick and heady then, as it was now, so raw and strange as a man's smell that it roused unfamiliar feelings deep within her, ones she'd pushed down and kept under wraps, for fear they would take control of her and lead her to do things she'd only heard of doing...

Jack's head lifted away, then, and his face was back in front of her, though his eyes were closed. She felt a tug at her scalp and saw he had pinched a lock of her hair between his fingers and was turning it, twisting it, and some of the strands slipped out and fell back against her shoulder, but still he rubbed his fingers together upon the remaining tendrils until they had all twisted and slipped from his grasp.

She felt the back of his hand against the front of her neck, moving across her throat, back and forth, back and forth, and closed her eyes again, confident he was only reassuring himself, but a little unsettled at the feel of his hands on her upper chest, as he drew his knuckles downward in a wide arc, moving to the neckline of her dress and then back, across, as though painting a portrait upon her exposed skin. Her breathing quickened as his touch left her, and she found herself wondering what he would do next.

Shock her, as she should have guessed. Of course. For she felt the warm pressure of his thumb and the side of his forefinger above her left breast, and he slid it downward, then, in a confident, arrogant, rapid motion that caused her eyes to shoot open and her breath to come in a light gasp, until his hand rested on her waist. She saw his eyes were still closed, but a smile danced at the corners of his lips, and then his eyes opened to look at her and they were sparkling devilishly.

She wanted to slap him. An impotent thrust of her shoulders must have told him so, for he looked at her with a little more puzzlement, no doubt wondering why he hadn't been slapped, and his eyes followed her shoulders to her elbows and up to her bound wrists, and comprehension dawned as he seemed to see, for the first time, that she was tied in place. When his eyes came back to hers they registered surprise. Initially, but not for long, as she knew Jack took things in stride. His eyes then narrowed to amused black slits, and the irony was not lost on her, just as she was sure it was not lost on him: when they'd last parted, she had chained him to the Pearl, and now, at their first meeting, the tables were turned. It was she who was helpless.

It struck her that Jack Sparrow was nothing if not a man of opportunity. Not bound by morals, or codes, or others' opinions of his actions (at least not overmuch), he simply took what he wanted when the opportunity was presented to him. And it occurred to her - with a small spasm of panic, the first real identifiable emotion she'd felt since she'd been tossed in the brig - that Jack Sparrow had just been handed quite an interesting opportunity, some might say the opportunity of a lifetime: her. Restrained, and at his mercy.

All the while she'd been tied there, she only thought about getting Jack back, and not about what Jack might do with her - or to her - once he was back. She'd been so focused on rescuing him that she hadn't time to wonder if he'd be angry, or bitter, or... pleased, as he seemed to be at the moment, but it was a wicked pleasure judging by the sudden broadness of the smile he flashed at her in the dim light, the glint of gold in his rather evil grin. She began to fear her goose was well and truly cooked.

She thought she'd had it bad when she was in the brig, alone. Now, she might actually have it worse. What would he say, what would he say to her? How would he insult, humiliate, debase her for her part in his demise? She began to think of words, excuses, explanations, that she would use in their verbal confrontation. It did not occur to her that perhaps Jack wasn't interested in talking, until she saw his face descending towards hers, and in the next instant felt the warm brush of his lips, as he seemed to effortlessly pick up exactly where they'd left off.

The shock made her compliant, at first, as it registered that Jack Sparrow was kissing her, a real kiss, not like her pretend kiss on the deck, although that had been real enough... real enough for her to remember the shape and outline of his full lower lip, the prickle of his goatee, the taste of his mouth... all of which came back to her as he kissed her, now, angling his head slightly to cover her lips with his, and while part of her melted, another part of her froze, and became indignant. She couldn't slap him or push him away, which she was certain he knew, and which fact had contributed greatly to his decision to kiss her. She could, however, still move her legs. She lifted a knee sharply, aiming for a sensitive part of his anatomy, but he had felt her weight shift, and he leapt nimbly backward, parting their lips, just in time.

She breathed, hard, glaring daggers at him. He glared back, grinned wickedly again, and reached for her waist with both hands, turning her to the side so her legs were in back of his, and leaned in to kiss her again. This time, no slow prelude but a bold, deep kiss, that made her lungs constrict and warmed her somewhere deep in her belly, and she thought that he had managed to bring something to life inside her, and while she was furious, she was also grateful not to feel half-alive any longer. What was it he'd said to her once... we need each other to survive, he'd declared when they were on their island, discussing the chances of rescue. She hadn't quite believed it, then, but she believed it now; perhaps she was lost, dead, without him. Propriety did, however slowly, find its way from her sensible head to her increasingly languorous limbs, and she lifted a leg and kicked him in the calf, hard, and he stumbled forward and broke the kiss, coming to rest against the back wall of the cell, hands outstretched. Well... no less than he deserved, she concluded, trying to steady her breathing which was coming in deep gasps.

Besides, he couldn't know how desperate she was to be touched, how angry she was at Will, how scared and horrified she was being stuck in the brig, or how glad, how genuinely glad she was, to see him alive; never mind the guilt she felt for what she had done to him, what she had been obligated to do to him. While the latter was rapidly fading - given his vulgar treatment of her - all of the former did combine to soften her toward him, to make her think about throwing herself into his arms and clinging, there, while he did whatever he would.

But perhaps he did know, or sense, if not all of her conflicting emotions, then some, for he came off the wall and purposefully caged her within his arms again. She heard the punch of his palms on the wall, one, two, and then he held himself directly in front of her, his dark eyes boring big gaping holes in her sense of decency. He reached down to part her legs and insinuated himself between them, bringing his mouth solidly down upon hers, and when she opened her mouth to protest his manhandling of her - the first words she would have spoken to him - he drove his tongue between her lips, and all rational thinking ceased for Elizabeth.

All at once, the wintry gray twilight of her fears was swallowed in the warmth of Jack's mouth. Suddenly she thought of spring, and felt her body come to life again, from her lips to her chest and below, too, flowers suddenly bursting into blossom and fruit ripening on trees. Everything was vibrant and colorful, in a way she'd never thought possible, and before she knew it her knees were lifting alongside Jack's hips and then she was wrapping her legs around him and pulling her to him, as though he were a tree and she were a branch, connected, drawing heat from him, vigor, life.

His arms no longer held her captive but came around her torso to support her, lifting her against him and then back against the wall. They were fused, then, she giving as much sustaining energy back to him through her kisses as he was giving her with his hands on her back, on her bottom, and in a new place, as he ground his hips against her where something began to grow; a delicious young vine from between her legs that wrapped around her middle and blossomed, too, as he drove himself against her, again. He was hard, there, as hard as the wooden branches she'd been imagining hanging on to keep from falling, when in fact she was clutching at the taut ropes that bound her hands. She told herself to ignore it his hardness, while at the same time remembering the maids' stories and guessing, too, what it meant: that he needed her as much as she needed him, and all else was forgotten as she arched her entire body against him, happy, so happy, to be alive.

She longed to fling her arms around his neck, to press closer to him, but the rope chafed at her wrists and when he finally broke the kiss, still tight up against her everywhere, but especially between her legs, she panted in frustration and looked up at her hands, and back at Jack. Without a word he kissed her again, and she felt his hands creeping lazily up her arms, deftly caressing them, until they reached her wrists, and with both of his hands he began to work at the knots of rope, all the while kissing her completely senseless.

He gently loosened the knots, plying them between his fingers, as his tongue plied her mouth, opening it wider, loosening every bit of tension in her jaw, her neck. He worked the knots expertly, coaxing them to slip, just as his lips were coaxing her to give in, to relax completely against him, to trust him, and she had reason to, now, since he was freeing her, helping her, bringing her back to life... and finally he unwound the rope from her sore wrists, and her hands fell to his shoulders, and she clung to him and kissed him back even more fervently... unwound, yes, he was unwinding her completely, everything in her was unwound, now, and re-wound, as she coiled her legs tightly around Jack's hips and she coiled her arms tightly around his neck.

Jack made a sound, then, and it was the first sound she'd heard him make the entire time... a low groan, and something seemed to weaken in him and he sank to his knees, with her still draped around him. They fell onto the disgusting floor but Elizabeth didn't care about that, any more than a drowning person cares if the hand that pulls them out of the water has not been washed. Jack fell on his back, she on him, and still she was kissing him as though she would drink the very life from him. Suddenly she found herself rolling, and then he was on top of her, his hard weight pressing down on her, and somehow that was invigorating, too, the weight of a man.

This is insane, came a whisper at the back of her mind. She was encouraging Jack Sparrow to ravish her. But that whisper was quickly lost among the din of other sounds: the sound of a stream rushing headlong through a glade, unstoppable and pure, the sound of passionate, loud, tropical birdsong and the scratching of animals or was that her nails clawing helplessly along the wooden floor, as she realized Jack had lifted the hem of her shift up to her waist and had his warm palm against her, on the secret place between her thighs which was now wide open, petals parted, center exposed to his touch.

She was lying on her back and he was right beside her, half upon her, and she opened her eyes to see his face. She saw his features, while still handsome, were altered by desire; his eyes crinkled at the corners, his upper lip pulled back, his breathing ragged. He saw her looking and smiled, bending down to kiss her, gently, tenderly, on the lips as he stroked all of his fingers across her most intimate place, one after the other, like a harpist sounding a chord. And she sounded, it vibrated through her and she cried out against his lips, wholly unable to think of restraining herself. He stroked her again, this time plucking her like a single string, and that note coursed through her, too, causing her to shake and hum, everywhere. It was the most magical thing she'd ever felt. She was suddenly, ridiculously glad that Jack was the one to share it with her; Jack was just different from everyone else, bound to her, as she was to him, by their similarities, their newfound dependence.

Even though she knew it was wrong, deep down, for her to be that glad, she was glad, anyway. Still Jack kissed her, crushing his mouth against hers repeatedly, as he plucked and stroked and played her body, driving her into a near-frenzy in which she was unaware of the floor, the damp, the world outside, or anything at all except Jack. She felt his hands were shaking, too, and wondered if he was all right, being recently raised from the dead and all, but was loath to ruin this magical, wonderful silence between them, in which their bodies were speaking for them, and she could tell him everything that she couldn't say in words.

For a moment he was away from her and she saw him unfastening his breeches, and then Jack was fully upon her, rocking side to side to settle between her legs, and that root-hard part of him was hot and velvety against her. She comprehended suddenly how it must work, that she must wrap around him somehow and she tried, lifting her hips against him, only to find that he was burning hot at the center of her, but unmoving, still, against some inner barrier.

She opened her eyes. His were open, also, his hair around them, shielding them like dark shade from the tropical sun, and she tried to discern the emotion she saw in those eyes. Desire, yes, she thought. Longing. But pain, too, and for the first time since he'd entered the room she took a breath and realized just what it was they were doing, what they were about to do. A few feelings flickered over her, too, in rapid succession. Desire. Fear. Shame. Then desire, again. As she watched he closed his eyes and bent his forehead to touch hers, and she could feel him begin to shake his head, slowly, back and forth. No, he seemed to be saying. No, not this.

And to her utter dismay she felt him withdraw from her, above and below, and her cheeks began to burn with humiliation but she wrapped her arms around him to keep him from going, shaking her head, too. No, don't you stop now. You can't stop, I won't let you... Her eyes were wild with desperation, she was sure, but she was beyond shame and she didn't care.

And she knew that he had an excuse for being out of his head entirely, after all, he'd just come back from the dead, but she... she had no excuse. She was just mindless with wanting Jack. Wanting him alive, wanting him in her arms, wanting him... and she wrapped her legs around him, too, to pull him back, and to her satisfaction he fell against her with a groan, and she felt his hand where they joined, putting himself back inside of her, and then he was pressing into her again, firmly.

A gentle tearing, like the snapping of a twig that reveals green life within. A bit of pain, that nonetheless served to remind her it was real, that she was here and alive and Jack was with her and saving her, and then she felt herself filled, entirely, with him, and her head fell back against the floor and she heard herself moan aloud with the satisfaction of it. With each slow thrust inside her something was urged upward, and one of her hands crossed her forehead, her hair, before snaking upward and away from her along the floor, as though something new were growing out of her, sprouting, reaching for the sky.

They found a rhythm. Easy, like the tropical breeze in the trees. Natural, like the tide coming in and going out, over and over, always the same, and yet just as perfect and heartbreaking every time. Gentle, like a morning mist. Hot, like the noontime sun. Demanding, strong, like sea wind in the sails that pushed, pushed them along over a great, seemingly vast and endless sea. But there was a horizon, she could see it, see the sun rising and feel its warmth as she moved with Jack, the heat of his body searing her even through her thin dress and his open shirt. She wanted it, knew Jack would bring her there with this dipping over the waves and rolling and pitching up and down, and she matched him as much as she could. It wasn't difficult, in fact, it was easy, the easiest thing she'd ever done. And when they reached that horizon they fell, together, as though from a high waterfall, hanging on to each other through the at once wonderful and terrifying plunge: a thrilling empty-air plummet toward a warm, enveloping pool, and Elizabeth thought she may have been screaming but couldn't hear herself because she was under the water, drowning, and loving it. Loving Jack.

Then she was surfacing, slowly surfacing, and Jack's arms were trembling, perhaps with the effort of hauling her upward from the depths, just as he'd done when he'd saved her from the sea. She reached up to stroke his face with her hands, whispering Shhh, and he sank onto her, burying his face in her shoulder. Neither of them moved for a long moment.

Eventually the floor's hardness began to make her muscles ache, and she shifted her hips a little underneath him. He sighed and lifted himself up, then, looking down at her with something like regret.

“Elizabeth,” he said sadly, so sadly, and she wanted to shake him for looking so sad. Hadn't they just fixed everything? Made everything right again?

He reached to tug her dress down over her thighs, pulling her to sit up. Still she watched him intently, waiting to see what he would say.

“I should not have done that,” he said, still holding her eyes.

Elizabeth felt her eyes fill with tears, then, at the pervasive regret in his voice. Oh, now, she would cry? Absolutely not. She blinked them back, taking a deep breath. “Why not?”

“Because it can't be undone, now. 'T was rash and stupid, and you're going to rue it. I just couldn't...” and he swallowed, settling down to sit next to her, fussing with his trousers until they closed.

She hung her head, but only for a moment, before feeling her momentary shame transformed into annoyance. Anger. “What do you care? I'm the one that damned you. I'm the reason you were done for.”

He looked up at her in surprise, and then suddenly grinned. “Oh, Elizabeth, I was done for long before you slapped those shackles on me. In more ways than one, I might add.”

She suddenly found his resignation infuriating, as though he meant to count her out of the equation entirely. She could see how his mind was working: he'd damned himself with Davy Jones, he'd taken her and now he bore the responsibility. He ought to know better, and she meant to teach him.

“Oh, but I'm the one who did it, Jack,” she said, watching his grin fade, as he looked at her with increasing puzzlement. “Out of all of them, I was the one with the gumption, and the means, to seal your fate, don't you see?” He frowned, his black brows knitting together. “And you're just going to let me, and chalk it up to fate? At least give me a bit of credit.”

She tugged her dress around her with a sharp tug, as sharp as her crisply bitten words, and watched as Jack's expression became less open, more guarded. Sly, almost.

“Credit, is what you want, eh?” he said, and rolled onto his knees to crawl toward her, gracefully, like a predatory cat. “You'll get more than that, if you don't leave off with that kind of talk.”

And then he was upon her, again, kissing her deeply, rhythmically, and she was kissing him back, the rest of it forgotten, which was what she wanted. The guilt, the pain forgotten. The consequences, forgotten. There was only her and Jack.

She tore her mouth away with some effort, and smiled up at him. “Good, then. Now that we've settled that - “

“If the guilt is getting to you, Elizabeth, why not simply say you're sorry?” And he leaned back over her, pushing her back against the floor, and began to slide her dress up, again.

Her mouth dropped open at the very impudence of his words, never mind his actions, as she felt him settling between her knees again. “How dare you - I liked you better when we weren't talking.”

“Likewise,” he answered, and brought his mouth down upon hers for a searing kiss. She wouldn't have thought it possible but he was stirring her again, even though she sort of ached all over, from her wrists to her back and legs and between. But he didn't hold her for long, and soon nibbled at her lips and then released them, sitting back up, and scooped her up with one arm around her shoulders, and she bent over to rest her head upon his thigh, her eyes open wide as her mind began to race.

“Jack, there are so many things to tell you. I can't believe I didn't get to tell you before, I... how long has it been?”

“Since they threw me in here? Not sure. I was occupied.” A restrained smirk, before he continued. “How long have you been here?”

“Since this morning.”

“Since...” and he gaped at her. “This morning? It's night.”

“All the same.”

“I'll kill him.”

“Get in line,” Elizabeth snapped, sitting back upright. “Or else help me figure out a way to get us out of this mess. Will and Tia - I hope - have got something he wants. But I don't know if Will shall want to trade it...”

“For you? Of course he will.”

Elizabeth tilted her head, looking at him, and it dawned on her that of course Jack wasn't the only thing Barbossa thought to barter with, it would be her, as well. “For both of us, of course.”

Jack looked at her, and she saw that the pretense was dropped, and he was about to level with her, just like he had when they were back on the island and he had to admit that Jack Sparrow's great escape was rum on a beach. “Love... he only wants me to participate in some spell of the witch's to raise the Pearl. Heard him say as much. You're the booty. So to speak.”

“No,” and she shook her head emphatically. “No, of course you'll go with me. I'm not going without you.”

He smiled at her, a slow, sad smile, and raised his hand to run his fingers through her hair, just by her ear. “I'll be all right. I know how to work him. You're going to go safely off with dear Will as soon as possible - that's the best solution for everyone.”

“Not for me,” she said firmly. “After I came all this way to - after we - “ and she broke off, folding her arms across her chest. “Never mind. The point is, we're in this together and I'm not leaving you. Period.”

“This is why that - “ and Jack's gesture toward the floor left no doubts about what he meant, and she blushed hotly “ought not to have happened. Messy thing. Clouds judgment. You are going home. No matter what.”

“No. No. We bargain together. Both, or none. It's the only way.”

“Not true.”

“Jack, I can't go without you. Don't you see?” She moved in front of him so he would have to face her, look at her, which he did, through lowered lids that bespoke of skepticism. “Jack... we need each other to survive.”

His eyes rounded with understanding, and she knew he was remembering. For a moment she thought he would smile, soften, but he closed his eyes, bending his head and shaking it. “Elizabeth, don't be a fool.”

“Me? You're being a complete ass! Why would you give up the chance to use me as leverage for yourself, as well?”

“I don't want to risk it,” he said, not looking at her, and she stared, uncomprehending. But only for a moment, as it became clear that he was actually trying to be magnanimous; to send her safely on her way without a care for himself, and letting nothing interfere. The thought that Jack would do that for her was almost unfathomable, and yet, and yet... there it was. And why not? No hardened pirate, she, but a sensible girl, who had admittedly done non-sensical things for the men she cared about.

“Jack,” she whispered, and reached out a hand to touch his face, turning his chin toward her. “Jack. I want you to know - whatever happens, in the future, I wanted - I wished I were - I'm sorry, and I wished - I wanted to be the one who rescued you. Who helped you back to life. After what I'd done.” She took a deep breath, having said more in that sentence than she'd probably ever said to anyone, but it was all right, because it was Jack, and he would understand.

He put an arm about her shoulders, and drew her close, just as though they were sitting around a campfire, and not imprisoned in the brig. “You are,” was all he said, and she pondered that as she turned her face into his shirt and gratefully took a deep, restoring, breath.

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A/N: Reviews are love! And as long as I’m playing in the Mouse’s sandbox, the only way I get paid!
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Resurrection