PART 4

As the tide of passion receded the lovers clung to each other, a fine sheen of sweat like morning dew upon their skin. Elizabeth held Jack close, cradling his head upon her breast protectively, their bodies slumping together in their exhaustion.

"What would you call that?" she asked, once regained her breath and some of her wits about her.

Puzzled at first, Jack furrowed his brow, combing through their earlier conversation. It all seemed like a distant dream now, the fog of sleep pulling at him. He wanted nothing more than to curl up on his berth with Lizzy in his arms, but he had a feeling she wouldn't allow him rest until her question was answered.

Ye don't even know what to call it, do you?

Jack pressed his lips. There were a multitude of euphemisms for the act they had just performed, though only one seemed to really fit. He wondered if she would taunt him for saying it, but in the end decided he was too exhausted to pretend anymore.

"It's called making love. C'mere, Lizzy." He pulled her down into the berth, and she fitted snugly into the dip of his shoulder, her long legs tangled with his.

After hearing the rather coarse words other men had used to describe the intimate act they just performed, Elizabeth suspected some semantics to be a play.

Jack contemplated her silence, waiting for the battle to begin again. What volley of arrows would she fling at his heart next? I don't love you, she would say with that haughty certainty, now that she had finally scratched that insatiable little itch with him.

Instead, her voice came quiet, almost timid, a thing rarely heard from Elizabeth Swann. "Have you made love with many other women?" she dared ask, even though she felt certain she didn't really want the answer.

Jack sighed, though not for the reason she feared. "Not for a very long time, luv." If ever, he realized, pulling her closer still, a little smile pulling at the corners of his lips. He marveled at the light and joyful feeling that assailed his brain, a giddiness that seemed to come straight from his heart. Ye Gods, what had she done to him?

After coming back from the Locker a great and dark hole had occupied his soul. When faced with such a vacuum inside, sailing the seven seas forever without a heart to plague him seemed like a grand solution. Yet now… He looked down at the woman in his arms, her long golden hair spread across his pillow, her willowy limbs wrapped around him.

He realized that now he wanted to live. Not just to be alive, to be a thing that walked and talked and bled. But to be in the world, free, free to sail the oceans and find treasures and make love to this fiery lass whenever they wished. This particular lass, who could now be quite impregnated with his progeny.

Bugger.

Jack leapt up from the bed in a flurry that startled Elizabeth, leaving her blinking after him with heavy lidded eyes. "Where are you going?"

Across the cabin he poured water from a pitcher, washing himself with a fairly clean rag. After rinsing it he crossed the room to her, swabbing the cool cloth between her legs with a rather solemn expression. It came away reddish-pink, her maiden's blood mixed with his seed. He'd been told by the doxies that washing could help, but Jack suspected his chances for not becoming a father lay with luck now.

Well…fuck.

Had it been worth it after all?

Absolutely.

Marveling at the state of his seemingly newly addled brain, Jack said, "M'sorry, Lizzy. I shouldn't have…I should have been more careful."

Elizabeth closed her eyes, quite enamored of his gentle touch upon her aching flesh. The cool cloth soothed some of her pain. "It's alright, Jack." She didn't really think they were going to live long enough for it to matter, and he could see the thought in her eyes.

Perhaps an hour ago he would have agreed with her, but now a familiar defiance rose within him.

He wanted to live, and he wanted her to live. They did not have to roll over and die because some sniveling little man named Lord Beckett said so. They were not expendable because they were an inconvenient thorn in the King's shoe.

They would find a way. There was always a way.

Settled into Jack's arms once more, Elizabeth toyed with the coarse black hairs that dusted his pectorals. Her touch travelled down, until it found the circular scar left by the Kraken once more. She bit her lip, tracing the beast's terrible legacy written on Jack's skin. She knew better than to ask for declarations of love or plans for their future at this moment, but she just could not resist this one question.

"Will you ever forgive me, Jack?" she whispered.

The pirate sighed, moving her hand from the scar, pressing her palm over his heart. "Aye, maybe tomorrow," he teased, attempting to make light of it. Tomorrow. Or in a few hours. Or maybe I already have, he mused. Even as he thought it, he felt like something sharp was wrapping around his heart once more. He found himself filled with his own question he couldn't resist asking, even if he perhaps didn't want the answer.

I'm not sorry, her words echoed again in his memory, and that same cold feeling spread in his belly as had on that fateful day.

"Could ye do it again?" he asked her quietly, quite dreading what could come next.

A long silence passed between them. Elizabeth could hear Jack's heartbeat beneath her ear, feel his pulse against her skin. She pulled him closer, possessive of the man clasped in her arms. "No," she finally answered, and Jack felt himself sag with palpable relief. "I'll never betray you again, Jack. My heart wouldn't survive it."

He believed her. He believed her because her answer was not a flowery line about true love or undying devotion. It was a semi-selfish and completely pirate answer. She would not hurt him because of how it made her feel, and therefore he felt he could maybe begin to trust her again. At least, he could trust her about as much as he could predict her. A shaky prospect with Elizabeth Swann, yet he seemed to know her better than any other.

She sat up on her elbows, regarding this legend of a pirate from inches away. "Could you ever leave me to die again?"

Jack's stomach veritably twisted in knots with the thought, guilt for the first time he'd done it paired with sadness that she even had to ask now. He deserved that. He deserved it ten times over. He brushed a stray lock of tawny hair from her eyes, tracing her dark brow with the blade of his thumb. "Nay, luv. Some mistakes even I only need to make once."

Elizabeth smiled at him, the corner of her mouth turned up just so. It filled his heart with something indescribable. Something shining and warm and…oh bugger it all to hell.

He loved her.

He loved this brave and beautiful woman, and woe was to her that she seemed to love him back.

Jack returned her smile, and pulled her down with a hand in her hair into a melting lock of lips that re-ignited that maddening fire deep in his belly. How many little deaths would it take to equal one very big one?

More than two, certainly.

A whole boat load, surely.

Nights and nights worth, undoubtedly.

Maybe even years?

It could be so.

Perhaps, Jack reckoned happily, he and Elizabeth Swann would always have unfinished business between them.

The End

A/N: Thank you everyone for your kind favorites and reviews! Hope you enjoyed! :)

I always thought it was kind of funny that after POTC II we all scrambled around wondering "oooh how is Jack going to take his revenge on Elizabeth?" and kind of forgot that Jack really was kind of asking for what Elizabeth gave him, the lovable scamp. ::pinches fingers:: Just a little? I feel that even more keenly as an older woman, which means I'm now A) wiser or B) meaner. Or both? lol.