Disclaimer: Nope, Elizabeth, Will and Jack are not mine but you probably already figured that out.

Summary: Over the course of eternity, Elizabeth will die over and over again, forgetting everything from her life before. Will once again must chase her down like he's done countless times before and make her remember her past to get her back. But this time things are different. It's harder to make her remember. Will he let her slip through his fingers or try harder than ever before to make her remember?

Prologue

I had learned to live with it, the constant foreboding of what was destined to come, time and time again for an eternity of my torture. The feeling was always there, sometimes overwhelming the sense that I had won once again. Because no matter how many times I won, that day would always come when I would have to watch her go again, no choices to make and no way to prevent it. Her fate was to repeat, the outcome of certain actions inevitably playing in a loop.

She would die again, after some time. She always had to die. She couldn't stay; she never would be able too. I would chase after her, determined to find her, determined to convince her that I was once hers, in another life. Over and over I would have to see that harsh light of the absence of recognition in her eyes. I would have to look deep into those brown depths that never changed and know that she had no idea who I was. Over and over I had to find ways to make her remember, and I would have to watch her cry as it all came back to her. Then we would have those happy years before she would leave again and I would have to stitch up my heart and go searching for her.

Everything was a repeat. Sometimes though, it was easy and she would accept it right away and I would have Elizabeth back the way she was. Other times it took forever, especially when she didn't trust me. It was so hard those times, not only was I fighting for the chance to make her remember, but when I got it I was fighting to keep her beside me for enough time to actually make it set in.

I never considered giving up. After the first time, I knew she meant too much to me to let go and so I kept on. What made me realize it most were the times I watched her die.

The first time I had returned home after my long ten years away and there she was, waiting for me like she had promised. But something wasn't right. She looked so sick, so tired. Her skin was pale and her cheek bones prominent, her hair a mess around her face. Her eyes had a dull glow about them that set me on edge and I knew right then that things were about to change for the worst.

She had smiled at me weakly and I hadn't smiled back, worry was too heavy on my mind. I could tell by looking at her that this was the last time I would see her.

That evening, when I had opened the door of her big house, her pull on my heart made me turn back. I kept back the tears for her sake as I looked at her again.

"Goodbye Will," she said softly and her small words rang with finality. The agony at the certainty that I was never going to have anything to come back too was unrelenting as I opened the door at the pull of my ship, my duty, the one that I couldn't ignore.

I had seen Calypso, a year after her goodbye. It was then that I knew my wife was gone. She came to me in a dream, dark hair in the familiar dreadlocks, a feather stuck lazily in a bunch of it. Her eyes had been downcast, her expression sad.

"I already know," I had said. She nodded and stood there silently in my realm of sleep, a beach that stretched on indefinitely. She said nothing for a while, staring at the sand under her feet.

"You have a choice now William, to have her live forever or lie where she may, buried under these layers of the Earth where eventually she will be forgotten by everyone and even you will forget her face. Never knowing what could have been, never letting her go."

"There's no other way for it to be, it's done with."

"No, there is a choice."

"Then I want her to live."

"But William, once she is returned, she will have to walk this earth forever. She will never move on, she will never grow old. Do you want that for her? She will have to lose everyone she meets, watch them pass by. Do you want her to live like this?" She then looked at me and her eyes were fierce, calculating.

I must have been feeling selfish. I must have been feeling very selfish.

"Yes, yes I want her to live."

She did not smile, she did not look angry, that serious expression never left her face as she turned silently and walked away, hitching her skirts. I followed her, hope filling up my head with a foggy cloud.

"Then take the water. Take it from here, from the fountain."

"But she's already dead," I say and my hopes go spiralling off the edge of the cliff at her unreasonable solution and suggestion.

"It will have a different effect on her than a living soul. But if you want her to live again, bring this to her. They have not buried her yet. And once you have done that, leave. Return to your ship, your duty."

"Just like that?"

She paused a moment, eyes shifting out to the sea beside us.

"What is it?" I ask impatiently.

"Nothing, that's it," she says.

But I would realize it wasn't it. When I returned after another ten years she was not in her old home; she was not at the door waiting for me.

I went to the blacksmith's shop but she was not there either. Giving up on looking myself, I approached the door with peeling black paint of her once maid. She answered the door dressed white and brown, her hair up in a messy bun and streaked with gray lines.

"Could you tell me where to find Elizabeth?" I ask.

Her eyes go wide in surprise. Soon after her face falls. "Look dear, she's not quite the same."

"Where is she?"

"Mind you, she's very much the same but there is one thing the matter with her."

"What is it?"

"She won't remember you. She doesn't remember me. She doesn't remember at all. But that pirate who came about here looking for her, Captain Sparrow, she remembered him after a day. But he's very easy to remember, seeing how different he is. So maybe you do have a chance. She's down by the sand, in the small Woldrey's cottage. Don't frighten her now."

"Thank you," I say, though I can hardly feel thankful of much.

It took me a few days to make her remember me. I had told her things I knew about her, things about me. She had shaken her head for a long time, though she did seem to recognize me a bit. Then suddenly she snapped out of it and her eyes filled up. She cried for a good hour, shaking on my shoulder.

Once again I had to leave at sunset, this time on a happier note. The next time I returned, she had a boy cradled under one arm, a pirate's hat perched on his head as she held the door of the cottage open. The boy's eyes had gone very wide when he saw me and he pointed to me and whispered something to Elizabeth, who smiled down at him then looked back up at me. Her smile brightened and she practically glowed. The she answered her son's question.

"Yes, that's him."

Over the next few years, time changed. People started to forget the gods, saying that they had no claim on them, that this was our earth. I found less and less sailors and pirates floating through my waters and I knew that soon I would be done here.

It was nine years and not ten when Calypso returned in my dreams. "This is not my place it seems anymore, though one day it may be again. You are released; return home to your wife and son. And Will, remember no matter what fate is laid on you or her, she will never leave this earth completely until it disappears too."

And so she did not leave completely, but she did leave. Our son grew up and eventually we had to accept that he was going to pass us by. I held Elizabeth while she cried over it, comforting her, stroking her hair.

A year after he left to go to sea, she was struck by a bullet to the chest. I had been walking two steps behind her when the gunshot sounded. The man shooting had taken off and run in the other direction. I didn't recognize him and couldn't guess at his reasons. I rushed to her side in seconds, but her pulse was dead and her eyes were shut.

No, this isn't right. What happened to forever? I couldn't fight the panic that enveloped me.

Her eyes did not open. I didn't know what to do with myself and for years I took up many things, one of them being to teach swordsmanship. But this reminded me of when I had taught Elizabeth and I gave it up after a while. I went to England, but found nothing consoling there and after a year I came back to Port Royal. In England I had found Jack. He said he already knew about her. He had found the Fountain of Youth as well and I told him half-heartedly that it didn't work anyways. He had patted me on the back and said "Oh but it does mate, but it's different for those who have died."

One day I happened upon a market, crowded with people. On the edge I saw her, fiddling with a hat with pink ribbons around it, her hair braided neatly down her back. She was alive.

After that, my efforts had to increase to win her back and make her realize who I was. She was more stubborn against my attempts, denying things until I played the right note. After I had caught her up she always felt bad for forgetting. And with hopelessness I realized that this was my forever, and hers.

Thank you to all of you who read this and all of those who leave comments or constructive criticism.