Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Disney.

A/N: I've been working on this piece for a while now, while I took my first steps into the POTC fandom with my drabbles. Following chapters likely won't be as long. The premise is not the most original, I'll admit, but what is? Dedicated to everyone who took the time to comment on my drabbles – thank you, and I hope you enjoy something a little – okay, a lot – longer than you've seen from me yet.

Summary: As Jack ferries Elizabeth Turner between her island and her husband, their relationship grows into something no one could have ever foreseen. J/E.

Between Dark and Light: A Decade of Love
By: Sinnamon Spider

Year One

"Mrs Turner! Mrs Turner!"

The call of a young boy floated across the sand and grass, and Elizabeth Turner looked up from her garden to see the boy bounding toward her. She set aside her basket of silky red tomatoes, watching him climb the slight hill where her little cottage sat.

Jeremiah Able, son of the tiny village's one and only shopkeeper, stood before her, seven-year-old face solemn in the awareness of his duty. In a slightly dirty, still chubby hand the boy gripped an equally dirty piece of folded parchment.

"Jeremiah," Elizabeth greeted him. He gave her a quick bob of his head. "Got a letter for you, Mrs Turner," he said, offering the parchment to her. "Just came into the shop. Captain Willand brought it in. Maybe it's from your husband!"

Elizabeth took the letter, but the wild script that scrawled "Elizabeth Swann" across the front fold was not the careful, steady writing of William Turner. And he would certainly not have referred to her by her maiden name, at the very least.

"Did the captain say who it was from?" she asked Jeremiah, who shook his blazing red head. "No'm," he said. "Just that he'd picked it up on his travels and that he reckoned it was for you, though it's got your old name on it."

"Yes, it has, hasn't it?" Elizabeth frowned, staring down at the letter, speaking more to herself than her mail carrier.

With a start she realized the red-headed boy was still standing there, patiently waiting. "Sorry, Jeremiah. There're butter tarts on the shelf in the pantry, take one for you and one for your sister."

"Thanks Mrs Turner!" The boy darted into her little house and came back out with two fat butter tarts cradled gently in his hands. "Be seeing you!" He disappeared down the sandy path, leaving Elizabeth alone with her mystery letter.

She looked at it again, not recognizing the strong, heavy hand that had dashed her maiden name across the paper. Breaking the simple wax seal that bore no crest or mark, she unfolded it, reading the same script that filled barely a third of the page.

Mrs Turner;

Thought I'd give you a bit of a fright, calling you by your other name, but you could never be nothing but Elizabeth Swann to me, begging your pardon for your state of wedlock and the respect which it is due.

Also thought you might be a trifle lonely on your little island, and missing the salt and sun and spray, not to mention dear William. I'll be in the area in a week, provided Willand gets this to you by the twelfth of the month, if you'd be interested in taking a little trip to see your wayward husband.

Captain Jack Sparrow

Elizabeth raced through the letter three times in quick succession, not sure what she was searching for in the brief message, but not finding it. She dropped the parchment to her lap.

It had been six months since she'd left the Black Pearl. Six months since she'd watched her husband sail away, captain of the Flying Dutchman. Six months since she'd had any contact with anyone other than the pleasant but admittedly boring inhabitants of the little village near her tiny cottage.

Six months since she'd seen the indomitable Captain Sparrow.

She traced a fingertip over the thick black ink spelling out the pirate's words, feeling foolish that she had never suspected the letter to be from him, and even more foolish that she had initially been shocked that he was literate. The man was clearly educated, that much was evident in his astounding vocabulary if nothing else. But a letter written in his heavy, careless-looking handwriting had shocked her with both its clarity and grace and its content.

He wanted to take her to see Will. Jack Sparrow, who she'd always thought nursed a secret desire for her, was willing to put his pillaging and pirating on hold for her, just so she could see her husband.

She was struck by his sensitivity, that he would think of her missing Will and being on the ocean, but it was more likely that he had spoken to Will and not devised this plan himself.

But his tone also struck her. He was brief and informative, albeit in his usual wordy and flowery way. Quick and to the point, the letter held no mention of how he was, what he was up to, or that he had even thought of her before this time.

She sat in the dirt for a few more minutes before folding the letter, dropping it into her basket and rising, dusting off her dress. "Don't be a fool, Elizabeth," she snapped aloud, irritated with her own feelings. "Why should he think of you?"

"Are you sure you don't need anything else, Mrs Turner?" Christopher Able, Jeremiah's father, looked sceptically at the small pile of goods on the counter. Elizabeth nodded. "I shan't be gone too long, I shouldn't think. Captain Sparrow has better things to do than be ferrying a woman all across the ocean." She double-checked her purchases.

Heavy boots sounded on the wooden porch of the shop and the door banged open. Elizabeth whirled around, staring at the doorway, her hand flying to her throat.

Captain John Willand nodded to her. "Sorry, Mrs Turner, didn't mean to startle you." He motioned vaguely in the direction of the coast. "Your ride is here."

Elizabeth fled to the window, eagerly searching for the Pearl. And there she was, rounding the bend in the coastline, full black sails billowing in the strong breeze. She couldn't make out any faces, but she watched the crew bustling around the deck with a familiar feeling in her heart.

"Strange looking ship," Able noticed, from behind her. Willand nodded. "Aye, Sparrow is a strange sort. Never quite sure of what he's about."

Able rested a light hand on Elizabeth's shoulder and she turned to face him. The man had an anxious, fatherly expression on his kind face, though he was barely ten years her senior. "Are you certain about this man, Mrs Turner? You don't want to be getting into any scrapes, do you?"

Elizabeth brushed him off, picking up the parcel he had wrapped up. "I'm quite sure, Mr Able. I know Captain Sparrow quite well and he is nothing if not trustworthy. He will take care of me, I've no doubt."

Willand took the bundle from her arms. "Right them, Mrs Turner, best not keep them waiting."

Briefly bidding goodbye to Willand, Elizabeth hurried up the gangplank, stopping just on deck to take in the familiar surroundings. She went unnoticed in the midst of the preparations, until a voice called out her name. "Miss Elizabeth!"

She turned to see Joshamee Gibbs striding toward her, as grizzled and cheery as ever. He caught her in a rough bear hug, which she returned happily. He released her. "Welcome back. We've missed you, bossin' us around and getting' us into trouble."

"Out of trouble, you mean," she returned. "The best ideas were always mine."

"Not all of them," a voice disagreed from above. Elizabeth and Gibbs looked up.

Captain Jack Sparrow stood balanced in the rigging, watching them. He climbed agilely down, boots making no sound on the deck as he landed light as a cat. Elizabeth suddenly had to grip the rail. "Jack," she breathed.

He strode over to the pair. He looked no different, but then he never did; same dark dreadlocked hair with his favourite hat perched on top, same tanned face never staying the same for more than a second, same brown eyes that smouldered at her from beneath dark brows. He wore the same brown trousers, blue coat, blue-grey vest, and tattered white shirt he always had. Jack Sparrow never seemed to change.

Elizabeth breathed steadily until she trusted herself to speak without gasping, which took far too long for her liking. "What do you mean, not all of them? When did you ever have a good idea?"

He chuckled. "So this isn't a good idea? Don't want to see your husband? Shall I have Willand take you back home?"

"No!"

His slight grin widened. "Oh. Well then, d'you not think this to be a good idea?"

She shrugged. "Is it of your own devising?"

He raised a hand. "On my honour."

She snorted. "No, then."

They stared at each other in silence before he laughed outright, motioning to Gibbs. "Did y'tell her how much y'missed her?"

"Aye!" Gibbs confirmed. They fell to laughing and joking, and Elizabeth felt more free than she had in months, but could not help but notice how Jack had deliberately refused to say that he had given her a moment's thought for half a year.

Gibbs had gallantly given her his berth, insisting that a married woman should not be hobnobbing with the rough crew of a pirate ship. She had taken her things into the tiny compartment, but being on the Pearl was too much for her to be able to sleep and in the dark of night, she pulled a dressing gown over her nightgown and slipped out onto the deck, crossing the ship to stand at the bow.

She leaned over the rail, watching the hull slice through the inky black water, the rush of wind comforting in her ears. She had missed the sea, just as Jack had noted in his letter.

Staring down at the water, she turned her thoughts to the roguish pirate captain; something, she noticed with chagrin, she was doing more and more. Jack Sparrow had never been far from her mind since he had rescued her from the bottom of the ocean nearly two years ago. He had been firmly in her thoughts as she and Will prepared for their wedding, and when it was cancelled because of him, she was absurdly grateful. Sitting in the rain as her groom was dragged off in chains, she had never been more thankful for Jack Sparrow, and her guilt had plagued her for weeks.

But nothing compared to when she had lost him to her own devices. Shackling him to the mast of the Pearl – she glanced back at it now, half-expecting to see ghostly versions of herself and Jack exchanging their last words – had been the hardest thing she had ever done. She had hissed at him that she wasn't sorry, steeling her jaw and hardening her heart, but every fiber of her being wanted to save him, free him, pull him into the longboat and flee, flee, flee…

She hadn't been ready for his reply, hadn't expected the finality and calmness with which he had branded her. "Pirate", he'd said, sharp and dark and irrevocable, and she had felt the word burn her, and she had turned and fled from his knowing eyes.

When Tia Dalma had raised the idea of retrieving him from the Locker, her heart had leapt and danced. Heedless of the danger, she had thrown herself into bringing Jack back from the dead, and her guilt at being his downfall warred heavily with the guilt that stabbed her every time Will looked at her.

She did love him, her bright-eyed blacksmith boy. She had saved him from the sea, taken care of him, teased him mercilessly, and fallen in love with him somewhere along the way. But when she had come to, wet and breathless on the pier, it was not Will's warm eyes that stared back at her, and then and there Elizabeth Swann understood how it was possible to love two people at the same time.

But it was Will she had stuck by, Will she had sobbed for when Jones stabbed him in the heart, Will she had married. It was Will she was now off to see, the husband she had been parted from for six months, and all she could think of was damnable, irascible Jack Sparrow.

"Missed it, didn't you?"

Speak of the devil. She didn't turn, but nodded. "I did," she said softly. "I've been sailing since I was a child. Being on land for so long was…frustrating."

Jack stood next to her, leaning over the rail and following her gaze to the dark ocean below. "You don't like your little island?"

When he was close, when she could smell the rum and spice, when she could feel his warmth and spark and danger, it was impossible to think of Will. It was hard enough to formulate sentences. "It's nice, I suppose. The people are good and kind and made me feel welcome, but they respect my privacy. The soil is good and the weather is lovely, but it's not…" She trailed off.

"Not home?" he finished for her. She nodded again. "No, it's not home." She turned to lean her back against the rail, gazing out over the quietly creaking ship. "This is home."

He was quiet for a moment. "The Pearl?"

She flushed and was glad it was dark. "The sea, I meant."

"Ah."

They stood in a not completely awkward silence, until Elizabeth turned to face him. He was dressed down, for comfort in the night, wearing only his trousers and torn shirt. His feet and head were bare, the wind tousling the loose strands that had escaped the twists of his dreadlocks. "Why did you write that letter, Jack?"

He looked at her, surprise colouring his face for a second before slipping away, like all his emotions. "Thought it was clear enough."

She resisted the urge to stomp her foot, frustrated with his short answers. Normally he wouldn't shut up. She was waiting for something; waiting to hear him say he needed to see her, waiting for his declaration, waiting for something concrete and tangible so she could shoot him down once and for all. "That's not really what I mean."

He shrugged easily. "As I said, I thought you'd be missing your dear William. Don't know why the two of you had yourself all resigned to not seeing each other for ten years. He can't step on land, but you can certainly step on the sea. Figuratively speaking, of course."

"Of course," she breathed. It was so simple, and her irritation washed away briefly, replaced with a foolish feeling. Why hadn't she thought of meeting Will at sea? Jones had been able to both bring people aboard the Dutchman and bring himself aboard other ships. It only stood to reason that Will could do the same.

She hated to think that she hadn't cared enough to come to such a simple conclusion. That she hadn't wanted to see Will at all.

"I gave you a while to come up with the idea, but you didn't, and your fool husband didn't. Both too busy feeling sorry for yourselves, I 'spect. So I fished your fish out of the ocean, told him to meet me just off the coast of Pelegosto in a month's time, and I'd bring you to see him."

The irritation flooded back. "So that was your reasoning?" He was being elusive and vague, and making it hard for her to do what was necessary.

He stared at her again, confusion brushing his eyes. "What else could I have?"

Angry now, she turned her back on him. "Nothing, I suppose."

Suddenly he was behind her, close to her, one hand at her waist, the other tracing her ear. She inhaled sharply, pressing against his warmth, interlacing his fingers with hers and flattening their joined hands against her hip. "Not proper for a pirate to tell a married woman that he misses her, is it?"

She turned in his arms, grasping the collar of his shirt. "And since when have you been proper?"

And then he was gone, pulled away, leaving her shivering in the cool night air, leaving only his voice ghosting across the water. "Since I'm left wiv no other choice."

She reached out for him involuntarily, and cursed her traitorous heart.

When he knocked on the cabin door in the morning, he was jovial and impish and back to normal, and they traded slight barbs as they made their way up to the deck. But there was something more to the tension that had always been between them, something that sparked now in a way it hadn't before.

With a whoosh, the Flying Dutchman surfaced from beneath the green water. The ship looked much better now – the last time Elizabeth had seen her, she had just started shedding her fishlike appearance and her crew had been no better. But now, she was resplendent with green and gold paint on her hull, pristine white sails, and a neat, if somewhat roguish-looking, crew. It seemed that Will ran a fairly tight ship.

Jack escorted her across the carefully linked gangplanks, refusing to allow her to swing over on a rope, ignoring her protests and threats. They met Will's father, now named first mate, on deck.

"Elizabeth," William Turner greeted politely. The last time they had been face-to-face he had killed James Norrington and while Elizabeth did not – could not – fault him for that, he clearly still felt badly about it. "And Jack. Come to see her off like an overprotective father, have you?"

Jack grimaced. "Hardly. She needs no protecting. I'm just fulfillin' me end of the bargain I've struck with your son."

"Bargain?" Elizabeth asked, alarmed. Jack only grinned. "Nothin' to be worrying your head about, I haven't traded you off or negotiated a parley. Will's just agreed to keep Barbossa off me back for a bit."

She had been wondering about Barbossa. The grizzled pirate captain had not been aboard the Pearl, although she wasn't surprised that the tentative accord between the two men had fallen apart after their mutual enemy was destroyed.

"Jack." She spun around at the sound of that voice, taking in the husband she had not seen for six months. The man she loved. The man she was faithful to.

He was dressed in the same dark shirt and bandanna she had seen him in last, the jagged scar of where his heart had been cut out still livid against his skin. He wore high, tight-fitting boots and dark trousers.

Her heart lifted and she was reminded yet again that she did love him, that she had put aside her feelings for Jack and her fear and distrust and married him, that she had nearly lost him and with him her whole world – for if there had been no Will, how could there have ever been Jack?

She flitted across the deck on light feet, hitting him at full speed, and he spun her around. "Thanks, Jack," he said over her head. Elizabeth twisted in his arms. Some terrible, vindictive part of her wanted to see Jack's face, to see the despair and regret and anger and desire as he watched her and her husband.

She was disappointed. Jack merely grinned that enigmatic grin, the one that made her own face split in a smile every time, and tipped his hat. "Happy t'be of service, William. I'll be in the area for a time, just give a whistle if y'need me." He ignored the gangplanks and snagged a rope, swinging neatly and without any of his usual graceful clumsiness across the water and back to the Pearl. Elizabeth watched him until she could see him no longer.

She turned to look at her husband, who was watching her. He smiled brilliantly, without a trace of the jealousy he had once carried for the other man. Elizabeth wanted to hate him, for his foolish, trusting heart. She hated herself.

"He's a good man," Will said. "He found me and told me about you coming to see me. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself."

Elizabeth shoved Jack Sparrow to the furthest recesses of her mind, concentrating wholly on the man who held her close. "I don't know either. But now that we're together…" She smiled at him, and he winked. "Shall I show you the captain's cabin, Mrs Turner?"

She spent a glorious, carefree week on the Flying Dutchman. Freed from her service to Jones and Calypso, the ship was a beautiful creature, ever-tuned to the sea and wind, responding to the lightest touch, the slightest breeze, and Elizabeth found the Pearl challenged in her mind for favourite ship. But the Pearl was never out of sight, and watching her from afar, Elizabeth had a chance to compare the two ships.

They were light and dark. Where the Dutchman was a ship of the otherworld, the Pearl was a ship of the human world. The Dutchman was bright and ethereal, the Pearl was shadowed and solid. Neither could rise above the other, for they were too different, and each was stunning in her own right.

Much like their captains, Elizabeth mused. Where Will was the hero, the warm light that guided lost souls on the eternal oceans of the other side, Jack was the anti-hero, the cool spectre that slipped unseen through the wildest parts of the seven seas. Neither could rise above the other, for they were too different, and each was stunning in his own right.

As the sun began to set on the last day, Jack returned to the Dutchman to collect Elizabeth, who gave Will one last kiss. "I'll see you whenever I can, Liz," he said softly, and she nodded, following Jack back to the Pearl.

The sun slipped below the horizon and the Dutchman disappeared in a flash of green light. In the sudden darkness, the Pearl was alone on the open ocean, and Elizabeth was alone on her deck.

But not for very long. She heard the light touch of soft boots behind her. "Don't fret, love, he'll be fine."

She turned to face the pirate captain, who wore a guarded, careful expression. "I'm not worried," she said. She paused, and as he made to leave, she reached out, catching his arm. He pulled away quickly, but stayed, dark eyes unreadable.

"Why are you here, Jack?"

He changed tactics in a flash, as always, hiding jest and joke. "Would you like to be floatin' in the middle of the water, love?"

She stepped towards him, forcefully, and was equally amused and disappointed to see him step back. "Stop that. You know what I mean. Why did you stay, why didn't you just drop me off and disappear, like you always do?"

He shrugged easily. "Well, it's not so simple, love. Will has to come and go when he's called – "

"Called?"

"To ferry souls. They don't run on a schedule, y'know. So he would be needin' somewhere to put you when he has to run off to the other side, and that's where I come in." He looked out over the water and something else came over his face. She sidled closer. "Jack?"

"And I felt guilty." His voice was flat as he acknowledged the fact. "I felt somewhat responsible for separatin' you from him and him from you, so this is my way of making up for it. He ferries souls, and I ferry you."

She was stunned. "Jack Sparrow feeling remorse? Regret, even?"

He turned to stare directly at her and her knees weakened as they always did. "I don't regret a lot of things, Elizabeth Swann, but there are precious few and they're mighty big things."

"You shouldn't!" Her shock and even amusement was gone, replaced by anguish. She didn't want to be the cause of this man's regret – this man, so free and boundless should not have ties with anything negative. "What choice did you have?"

"Many. Coulda stabbed the bloody heart meself, but that'd left me with everything I wanted and you with no husband. This way, you may not have much of a husband, but it's better'n nothing."

"And what of what you want? You're still mortal, Jack."

He scowled at that, glaring out at nothing. "I don't need no reminders, thanks. I got what I wanted, though – Jones off me back, the Pearl safe and sound – eventually – and everyone happy as a clam. Mostly."

"Mostly," she echoed. He looked back at her, and a hundred different emotions swirled across his face. She stepped towards him again and was happier to see that he did not shy away. This was different from their last encounter on this deck. That had been fire and brimstone, heated words and hotter bodies, lust and desire warring with honour and duty. This was softer, sweeter, a rekindling of the slow, steady fire that had smouldered between them for as long as they could remember.

She stepped closer again. He held up his hands and she was reminded of when he had backed away and told her that one kiss was enough. "If anyone shouldn't have regrets, love, it's you. Don't make me one of 'em. You'll hate yourself in the mornin', and Lord knows I wouldn't want you to be blamin' yourself for somethin' that need never have happened."

"Jack," she said, her voice quavering, pleading for something she didn't want, yet could not live without. But he was firm and steady in the dark, and she hated him for becoming noble and decent when all she wanted was an excuse to lose herself in him. She had made him into a good man.

She had created a monster. And now she turned and ran from him, this man with his firm ideals and noble heart, who was denying her everything she wanted.

But he was a magnet, and she was pulled to him in the darkest part of the night, just before dawn broke. She slipped from her cabin, picked her way through the sleeping crew, and took joy in the light that glowed through the glass window.

He was seated at his desk, fine-boned hands skimming across a map, working with sextant and quadrant and his compass. She crept up behind him as he lifted the compass, both of them watching the red arrow spin until it pointed at her. He turned in confusion and she pressed a hand over his mouth.

"No regrets," she said, softly, and when he tried to pull away, she followed until he could resist no longer.

They tumbled together, man and woman, and when he hissed her name as he shuddered and shook in her arms, she could only cling to him to keep herself from flying apart.

For the first time in nearly two years, she was completely free of guilt.

The feeling lasted all the way through the morning. She had slipped from his arms and his cabin just before the sun rose, and now she stood on the deck, watching her familiar island grow larger and larger before her.

He escorted her right to her door, refusing her offer to come inside. "I'll be in these parts again in about a year's time, love, if you'd like t'see your husband again." His face was inscrutable again.

"So long?" she asked, forcing back the tears that threatened to spill. Another year without him. Without Will.

"Aye," he replied. "I'm off to China, got some debts owed to Mistress Ching, and now that piracy isn't comin' to an end, I find meself under some duress to pay off all the scallywags that are thirstin' for my blood."

She giggled despite the solemnity of the situation, and he winked at her, as mischievous as ever. He came at her suddenly, engulfing her in his arms, and the lighthearted atmosphere thickened. Elizabeth lost her battle with the tears, and they spilled over her cheeks. Jack tutted. "No tears, love, no tears," he admonished, wiping them away and leaving light smudges on her pale skin.

He left her on the ridge, watching him as he fell out of sight, and then watching the Pearl as she slipped around the bend of the island. She buried her face in her hands, feeling the loss of him more than ever.

And over the course of the next nine months, as the child within her quickened and shifted and grew, she dreaded his return more than ever.