This is my first time for this specific pair, and I'm incredibly angsty over how this turned out, in all honesty. It deviated from the original request and, yeah, hopefully it's good and in-character. Enjoy, and please tell me what you think :)

The three times he didn't kiss her, and the one time he did.

The first time she experiences true disappointment is on a Thursday.

She's sixteen, it's her birthday, and he'd surprised her with a gift.

Having snuck out alone for a quarter of an hour before her celebratory feast began, she had feigned surprise when she found Will stood down a small passage, clearing out dusty rags. She'd been looking for him, had mapped out his movements.

"Miss Swann!" Will quickly dropped the dirty rags in his hands, brushing down his palms down his sides. His apron hung loose around his neck, his hair untidily pulled back, and she quickly ran towards him.

Pressing a hand against his chest where his heart lay, and the other smoothing over his lips to silence him with a finger, she backed him up against the brick wall beside the smithy's.

"Shh!" Her deep brown eyes widen, "I'm not supposed to be here." With a sheepish smile, she pulls her hand away from his mouth and loosens her grip on his apron.

"Miss Swann, shouldn't you return-"

"Would you please call me Elizabeth, Will?" She frowns, briefly glancing down at his bare chest beneath the material of the leather apron. "Just... for today? It is my birthday, after all." She reminds him as though he could have somehow forgotten about her special occasion.

"I'm aware, Mis- Elizabeth." He smiles, tries out her name for her benefit, earns a grin in return, and he raises a brow confusedly, "Aren't people going to be looking for you?"

Elizabeth sighs, licks her lips and stares back up into his eyes, "Probably." She nods, confirms his inquiry, "I just wanted to see y-"

"I have a gift." He cuts her off short, missing what she would have told him. "For you." He softly blushes, notices her watching him as he digs through the pocket of his distressed smock. "I was going to give this to you whenever I next saw you, but those days are few and far between." His brows knit as he pulls a lightly wrapped package from his pocket, and she accepts it earnestly.

Learning his trade, Will had already mastered the art of forging small objects from metal, and he'd offered her a small replica sword, knowing of her interest in piracy and weaponry.

It was the length of her forearm, much more like a glorified knife than an actual sword, and she wasn't too sure she would ever have the right opportunity to use it.

But he had paid considerable attention to detail as her name was engraved into the metal blade, and he had no doubt spent plenty of time thinking of her while making it.

Elizabeth accepted it without hesitation, almost snatched it from his hands when presented with the small weapon. She cradled it, waved it around almost carelessly, wanting to squeal over the gift in the small alleyway.

"It's beautiful." She smiles with a frown of curiosity rather than confusion. Tapping fingertips along the blade, excruciatingly carefully and dangerously so, she casts her attention back up at him, at her friend with the the charming smile and the heart she so desperately wishes she was allowed to love. "Thank you, Will."

Her right hand flies back to his chest, slightly tugging on the strap of his apron, as though suggestively.

Not entirely confused by her proposal and only momentarily lost for words at the thought, Will takes a tentative step forward, eyes focused solely on her plump lips the way hers stare at his.

He has never been one for overstepping boundaries, because he's known for the past eight years where he stood with her, where he was told to be and remain and stay. Crossing lines that should never be crossed is far from being his strong suit, but she is without a doubt encouraging him to, isn't she?

Before they can kiss, peck, before her long hair even so much as floats against his skin, her father's tempered voice calls out to her, "Elizabeth!", and she flinches with a push away from him.

Her eyes quickly catch sight of the boy's, her lips curling into an expression of despair. But she holds up a finger to her lips, signalling for him to remain quiet and speak of this to no one. And she runs back out to her father, feigning a stomach ache and a need for some cool, fresh air.

He scolds her, of course, and almost catches sight of the young man in the alleyway until the girl drags her father back along to their house, and their officers follow.

Nobody can know that kiss almost, but regrettably never, happened. Nobody can know she snuck out to see her old friend.

How she snuck out is a mystery, but the intent behind her escape does not go unnoticed, much like the look of utter chagrin that Weatherby Swann notices daze across his daughter's face but fails to understand.

She wanted her first kiss, wanted her old friend to be the recipient of such a gift, wanted to show him how much she misses their time together.

He didn't kiss her, and the moment stayed in the past for the next four years.

She knows that he couldn't possibly be immune to her.

The boy had engaged in piracy in an bid to keep her safe. He'd risked his own life and, perhaps more shockingly, his own morals, to guarantee her safety. He'd sailed seas, cruised dangerous waters with one of the most seemingly carefree pirates to ever exist.

She knew him, at least in some capacity.

Late childhood and early adolescence had brought them closer together, due to his status as an orphan and her hold over her father's heart. She'd wanted a boy friend, someone outside of her usual social curriculum to spend her time with.

He'd been placed under the supposed care of Mr Brown, to become an apprentice and, one day, perhaps the town's master smithy.

Weatherby had kept a watchful eye over his daughter as she grew up, coming into her own and transforming into a young woman. He had liked Will, but always wanted the boy to know where he stood. Elizabeth would go on to do great things, marry some important figure with a title, and he'd be nothing more than a memory, an old friend.

Will was decent, honourable, had kept his distance when she became too close for anybody's liking.

Her developing curves and bright smile hadn't gone unnoticed; he'd made a point of complimenting her on a regular basis.

You look pretty. Yes, Miss Swann.

He knew where he stood.

Their amusing walks around town, filled with childish giggles and brief hand-holding had stopped when she'd reached a certain age, and instead been forced into her father's social gatherings.

Transitioning into a modest woman was never an easy thing to do for any girl, and Elizabeth couldn't help but miss the graceful features of her childhood friend.

Thick, long lashes swept over his face whenever he blinked. Dimples caved in when he (almost) bashfully smiled at her; a difference in social standing created a jolt in his nervous system when she would linger around him for a moment too long. Dark, oily, tenderly curled hair ran sweaty from the blacksmith's hard work, each and every day.

Told she would marry a man her senior, with less patience and more greed than her William, never stopped her from fantasising about the unknowingly charming blacksmith.

Tanned skin, calloused hands, a voice to make her knees weaken in a heartbeat, he would make a fine man one day. A man she wanted. A man she dreamt about, time and time again, the explicitness of her dreams ranging from mild embarrassment to the downright unspeakable.

She wanted more from him, more confidence, more touches, more anything. But she knew how he was, and how he was brought up to act around her, and how she made him clam up. She liked it, but hated it all the same.

She knew him, the best the could after years of quasi separation.

But this boy she had so often dreamt about committed punishable crimes to in order to obtain her safety, and so his perfectly rough hands around her own right now were anything but unwelcome.

Rough hands, blacksmith's hands, his hands. She doesn't mind, barely paying attention to the way his skin brushes against her own because she is so distracted by his face. Long lashes covering the brown eyes she'd so frequently dreamt about.

"Don't stop."

His hand rests upon her wounded own at her words, and his gaze delicately flickers up to meet hers. He stops, against her request, instead focusing his sole attention on her lips.

They had both, unbeknownst to the other, mooned over the idea of their lips meeting, finally joining after years spent longing for the other's touch.

She takes the first initiative, forcing herself forward and sliding their hands over the shredded wooden table.

He copies her action, slowly, surely, and he smoothes a hand over the side of the face, almost cupping her jaw in his palm.

"Elizabeth." His voice is hoarse, deep as she likes.

Their mouths draw closer, nearing that much sought after feeling of togetherness, until he stops short, hand sweeping down her chest and fingertips curling around the familiar chain hanging from her neck.

He doesn't kiss her, and the moment is over.

When all is said and done, is usually when the dust settles and what's meant to be will become.

Will Turner apparently never quite understood this concept.

Moving to join her side on the glistening rock beneath a thousand dried droplets of water, his stride is slow and gentle and mirrors the way she has always known him.

Hoping things have changed, hoping pirates and sword fighting and winning a war against a ship's worth of criminals will be enough to break her favourite smith from his shell is a dead dream.

Perhaps he is just a little bit too modest, a little bit too good, too pure. Perhaps his feelings for her have changed. But hers certainly haven't. She would still rather take his name as her own, then that of any nobleman. She would still rather spend the rest of her days with her friend, her self-proclaimed other half by her side rather than another.

She would do all of this all over again if it meant they could break the mould and she could be free to love whoever she wished. She would love him if he'd only let her.

Now would be the perfect time for it to happen, she thinks, notes to herself. She smiles, almost timidly and her stance is quieter than usual. This should be the moment. When he will kiss her, and realise that statuses and titles and anything else that should normally come between them are of little importance compared to their love.

This should be the moment, their moment, but it isn't.

Because she'd promised herself to another in exchange for his life, and he was too good of a man to betray his morals. Even for her, apparently. Even after engaging in piracy and breaking multiple laws. She failed to understand his honest man logic.

"Your fiancé will be wanting to know you're safe."

I'm safe because you made sure of it, she wants to tell him. I'm safe because of you.

Elizabeth feigns the saddest of smiles, nods once and lets her shoulders stoop along with her hopes of him finally committing to what they have both yearned after so tirelessly.

He doesn't kiss her, and the moment is over.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

If he loved her, then why has it taken it so long for the fool to drop his reserves and kiss her? Was it too much on her behalf to ask for him to grab her, bruise her lips with returned desire, and love her completely, hopelessly?

Maybe their preceding moments had been pushed aside, swept away in the past, to make way for this new day, for this morning filled with rush and confusion and exhilaration.

Maybe he was always meant to break free from his curse of being too good, too perfect in her eyes, and help a convicted pirate from death. Maybe she was always meant to help him, to stand by his side and abandon her oh-so important fiancé. Maybe they had always been meant to head off on a psychedelic excursion with pirates and treasure and violence. Maybe they were meant to end up here, on a sunny day in the Caribbean with her father unsure if he should bless them to be be together.

Maybe he would just have to deal with it. Elizabeth wasn't changing her mind. She had the boy of the dreams, the man deserving of her love.

"He is a blacksmith."

As though that would tarnish Will in her eyes, her father reminds her of her love's low-scale employment. It doesn't work. It never will.

This boy loves her, probably has done for years. And she has been sharing his sentiments ever since the day they met, ever since they were twelve years old and she saved him.

"No." She smiles, plucks the eccentric, delightful but grandiose hat from her lover's head. "He's a pirate."

She focuses on Will's silence as she watches her father nod with a slight smile out of the corner of her eye, and he ducks away to allow them their space, their privacy.

She's decisive, assertive. She wants what she wants, and loves who she loves. There will be arguing with this one.

Arm dropping by her side, Elizabeth feels her body absentmindedly lean into Will as he hungrily cups the side of the face and brings her lips up to his, his down to hers.

Her hands rises to his side, no shivers of thrill left, all eagerness poured into the kiss, her fingertips digging into his side.

His delicate face is determined, focused entirely upon her own, and she loves him ever the more for it. He is perhaps the most devoted person she will ever meet, and this moment only proves to her how long he had been refraining from abandoning his puppy dog persona.

He's hungry, passionate, gentle.

It's all for her, to her. She loves him for it, for everything, for being tenderly rough with her, for his mouth moving perfectly in sync with her own. Tongue tracing her lip, teeth grazing his bottom lip, neither will pretend they're more experienced than they truly are. They waited for this, for each other, for the past eight years.

She loves him, and she secretly loves how he waited until this seemingly perfect, opportune moment to convince her of his love, of his devotion.

He kisses her, and she doesn't ever want him to stop.