I was busy traveling through Europe for the past couple of weeks, so please forgive the short update and long wait! Much more is on the way for our Locker dwellers.

Trigger warning: suicide.

Hours later, Jack was reclining in the plush chair at his desk, staring over the charts in front of him at the woman in his bed. Lizzy slept fitfully, her brow scrunched, indicating that her dreams were not peaceful despite their joint efforts. He twisted the braided ends of his beard as he watched her; the murderess had free access to his cabin and his limited supply of rum, and he didn't once think that she might not deserve his kindness.

Jack sighed.

He would have stayed behind without her trickery. He would have died for Elizabeth Swann for far less than a kiss. Had that not been clear when he made no move to help load the longboat? Didn't she think he was a good man in those last moments? Jack snorted at that. Of course goodness and kindness led to this. Goodness had never served him well before.

Of course, a far lesser part of him did not wish to see his crew or Bootstrap's son die fighting a battle that wasn't their own, but he could have buried that guilt more easily. His crew knew what they signed on for, and William probably would have died the noble death by his dear fiancée's side that he practically foamed at the mouth for when Jack first met him.

Fiancée. She wasn't even his, and he still would have died for her. Selfishly, because he was certain that Will and Norrington had never died for the girl, but no one else needed to know the underlying motivation.

Funny, the way she seemed to make martyrs of her admirers.

Gods, that kiss— What would a kiss of real gratitude feel like, coming from her?

He took another swig of rum and tried not to think of the dwindling supply.

xXx

She was sprawled atop his sheets, dozing lazily in the muted sunshine. Fully clothed, but a perfect picture of the pirate Jack imagined her to be on the rum runners' isle.

"You killed me." His words were low, more a statement than an accusation. It was the same conversation from earlier, but now she was halfway through a bottle of rum.

Her response was slow and slurred, but immediate. "You left us."

"...That I did, love."

"An' I was angry."

"Oh?"

"You left me for the Kraken, 'nd I thought you were a good man."

"I came back, did I not?"

"After you left."

"Pirate."

Lizzy sighed miserably, and Jack's eyebrows shot up beneath his bandana, his eyes darting to her face. He expected to find something less heart-wrenching and altogether more delightful than the sadness etched into her features, but there it was. The downward curve of her pretty lips, her coffee-eyes scrunched shut, her brows pulled together—all spoke of a conflict greater than Jack necessarily wished to comprehend, so soon after dying.

"'M so sorry, Jack."

They were quiet for a long moment. The anger underneath Jack's breastbone burned too hotly to accept her apology, but her rather voluntary presence in the Locker muted it enough to prevent a scathing reply.

"Why did you come back? Were you going to stay?"

"Why chain me to the mast? Why commit suicide?"

They were silent again, and soon Elizabeth turned over, pulled the quilt up around her chin, and fell asleep.

xXx

Suicide had always left a more bitter taste in Jack's mouth than murder. He wondered idly if Elizabeth killed herself to simply assuage her guilt over condemning him, or whether she possessed more pressing issues that he ought to wheedle out of her at some point.

He wouldn't put up with botched suicide attempts—or worse, a successful one—in the meantime. (He shuddered to think of it. Where would she go, if she already suffered in the Locker? Another place in the Locker? Hell? Not any sort of heaven, at this point. And would she heal if she injured herself and didn't die, or just be some?) As much as he truly tried to hate her, the feeling under his skin was closer to angry disappointment than true hatred. If she left him, it would have been much easier to hate her, but he wouldn't spend an eternity driving his only companion to suicide.

You are not your father. The old mantra slithered through his mind, and Jack cringed. He stopped thinking like that after his first run-in with Cutler Beckett.

Wiping the thought from his mind, Jack leaned back and tilted his hat over his eyes. If he couldn't sleep, he would attempt meditation.

Under the brim of the tricorne, his eyes lingered on the woman in his bed.

Yes, he would meditate on the upcoming onslaught of vexation he would face. What was it Tia Dalma said?

Changing.

Harsh.

Untamable as the sea.

If he were lucky, his heart would stay in his chest where it belonged.