Disclaimer: Don't own pirates.

A/N: Had quite a few issues with this movie and as a result, this story (yeah, didn't stick around for the extra bit after the credits so if its not up to par with what actually happened, that would be why).Anyway, Post-AWE, Will's PoV, Will/Elizabeth. Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.

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To Lenny, who "suggested" I write something about Will after AWE. Hope it's what you had in mind.

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I

"Keep a weathered eye on the horizon."

Then he walks away, with the taste of her tears and the sea—one in the same—on his mouth. And in the years to come, he would remember her by it.

II

His father tells him stories to keep his mind off what remains on shore. Bootstrap talks of the England Will does not remember and the mother Will still sometimes dreams of. He tells of the piece of gold that first pulled Will out to sea and the man whose side he fought at. Bootstrap tells of years of saltwater and sunlight and thunder, tells his son everything he has kept to himself in long years of solitude and Will is grateful. But his father cannot talk at all times and there are moments when there is no work to be done and they sail the stillness of an ocean that is beyond the world of mortal word, the water an immaculate reflection of the sky, and, as Will listens to the silence, he thinks of her and remembers stories of his own.

III

His memories arrange themselves thusly:

The sight of her, brown curls and brown eyes and pale skin that did not yet know the sun's touch. He remembers her as the girl who hovered at his side on the journey to the new world. He recalls her as the woman she grew to be, golden skin and a kind smile, and always the edge of determination—of true character and steel—in her eyes.

He remembers her hands soft and steady as he treated the wound on her palm and the glint of gold around her neck.

He knows the every detail of her face when the heavens tore open and ruined her wedding as much as he does the look of joy and the sound of laughter when he first asked her to be a blacksmith's wife.

There is no fog in Will's memory of her, not in the candle light of Tia Dalma's hut or the white noon sun on deck or the gold-red rays of sunset on that beach where he left her his heart. And, as the weeks become months that slowly accumulate into years, Will is not sure if it is a blessing or a curse.

IV

He's afraid of many things.

Not of death or the dark or the souls they pull aboard, but rather the possibility that lurks beneath, behind, beyond it all. He fears that the next person will be her, clad in the clothes of a sailor with his pistol at her side and his colors wrapped around her wrist. He left her as pirate king after all, without home or father to return to, tied to a dead man's name. But before that she was Elizabeth Swann, the same Elizabeth who filled their first journey together with stories of adventure. The Elizabeth who was never content with the idea of waiting still while there was still adventure to be had.

So what Will fears is not so unreasonable. Because as much as he dreads the thought that he will find her spirit alone on the waters, his to guide to another life, back to her father and her mother and those who came before, he dreads with equal fervor the thought that his ten years will pass and he will return and she will not be waiting.

V

"You know her character, you know her fire. You love her for it. Your fears are not misplaced boy." The silence that follows is broken only by the scuttle of a crab along the railing, the drag of a wet stone against the splintered wood.

Will turns away from her, the dark woman who stands on his deck, no longer dressed in rags and trinkets, but looking like a part of the sea itself instead. "Were you not freed for some better task than this?" He asks, tighten ropes that do not need to be tightened, busying his hands while trying to distract his mind.

"I am free to do whatever task I wish." He can hear the smugness in her voice, still thick with the sounds of the bayou, almost see the toss of a shoulder as she continues, "It was a touch of Destiny boy that brought you here. What make you think it ever thought to let you go?"

He ties another knot and fixes his eye on the horizon.

"What I have learned of mortal love is that it is fleeting. That it can turn black and rot. Vows and promises do not change that." He looks at her then, the jaded goddess who taunts him but no words make themselves present and he only stares. She grins at his silence and her delight is enough to turn his skin tight atop his bones.

"Have you anything of value to say to me or may I go on with my task?" He says at last, willing her departure.

"I have said much of value," she says with the same grin and then she is gone.

VI

"Ten years are nearing Will." Bootstrap is curt in his address and there is a quality to be appreciated in the delivery. "And she needs a captain." A heart goes unsaid.

Will nods, notes with an awareness that has rarely been put aside in the years that trail him, the emptiness within himself, the silence that exist in a body with no pulse.

"And she'll have one." He says, because it has been nine years and seven months and twenty-nine days—and he could count the time in grains of sand and seconds—and possibility has become probability to his mind and everyday that passes without news of her has turned his memories more damned than blessed. Because it has nine years and seven months and twenty-nine days since he last stood on solid earth and heard the sound of his own heart or felt the kindness of her smile or the softness of her hand—hands that most surely roughened after years of the sea—and the taste of her tears is still dew-fresh on his lips.

Because it has been nine years and seven months and twenty-nine days without a beating heart within his chest and Will has begun to doubt there is one waiting for him on shore.

VII

It is like a dream. Or the distant dream of a dream from a sleep slept many nights before the current day.

The island has changed in a way Will has not, and his well-seeing eyes spot the formation of a port and the cropping of homes. It is like a dream, one different and familiar all at once and Will cannot believe the day has come at all. They shy away from the port, move to the west and the same shore Will departed, the shore they agreed to meet on.

"The longboat's ready."

It is the day, the sight, the moment Will has dreamed and dreaded of in turn for ten years and he watches in silent thanks as his father lowers the ropes, feels the wet flop as it breaks the water's surface. And for the first time in ten years he pushes away from the ship—his ship—and rows towards the shore.

VIII

The sand shifts beneath his feet. The waves break at his back and Will smells earth and grass and cliff-stone and he could fall to his knees for the longing of it all. But he doesn't. Instead he walks, bare feet sticking in wet sand, along the stretch of beach that has filled his dreams and waits for the woman that haunts him.

IX

She is not the woman he left.

Her hands are rough and her face has lost some of its youth, worry lines around her mouth and eyes mingle now with laugh lines he did not see grow. Her eyes are older, brown and endless, like the immaculate sky reflected on the waters, filled with tears now that she looks up at him. He notes her dress—and the absence of breeches and a captain's hat—the course fabric that catches on his fingertips. Her hair is free still, reckless curls he touches almost reverently and his breath catches in a lump at the back of his throat when she closes her eyes and leans into the touch. She is not the woman he left and the woman he loves all together and for all the words he thought of and all the things he remembered, he can think of nothing now.

But he doesn't have to, because her hands are sweeping his face, thumbs sweeping over his eyes, his mouth, his nose, her fingers coming away dampened by his tears and she examines him with an intensity that unsettles and delights him all at once. And there is no need for words or worries when she is pressing her mouth against his, years of waiting and wanting pulled free from hurried lips.

And his mind recognizes with joy the taste of tears—his and hers now—just moments before it does the sound of his heart beating in his ears.

X

"Will," The word is half-choked on tears and laughter, "There's someone else who's been waiting for you." She steps back enough for him to look over her shoulder while her hand remains fixed over the white line that curves over his heart.

He looks, meets brown eyes that stare back at him in both fear and wonder and there is a green flash on the horizon.

-End-