Title: Homing
Author: DaystarsMom
Rating: PG
Characters: Will/Elizabeth (Pirates of the Carribean)
Summary: Years later, Elizabeth makes one final journey.
Disclaimer: Good grief, it's fan fiction. Of course it's Not Mine.

A/N: This was a birthday gift fic for a friend, who urged me to post it for other people, too. So it's going up here and on .

Homing

by Daystarsmom

Elizabeth straightened slowly, eyeing the rucksack on the bed with disfavor. Bending over made everything ache, and it didn't matter that it wasn't much of a bend or that she had so little to pack. She sighed. If she were honest, everything ached whether she bent or not. Getting old was hell.

Not that she'd have to put up with it much longer. With the thought came a stabbing pain in her gut that doubled her over, aches and all. She waited, gasping, for it to pass. The pains were coming more frequently now, and lasting longer, but she still had time. She could not, she must not, have waited too long...

The rucksack was as full as it was going to get. Her sword lay beside it, more out of habit and nostalgia than anticipated need. Only one thing was left.

Slowly, she knelt and opened the cache in the floor. The chest of coins she left untouched; that was for the children—children no longer, either of them, though she couldn't stop thinking of them that way. It was the other box she lifted from the hiding place, the one she had guarded for thirty-seven years.

Preparations complete, she glanced around the room one last time. She wondered whether she should leave a note, but decided against it. Abigail would understand, when she found the second box missing—Abigail, who had chosen her wedding day to coincide with her father's third day ashore, so that he could give her away ... and then kept the ceremony short, so that her parents would have as much of their precious time together as possible. Young Will would be more puzzled and upset by his mother's disappearance. Elizabeth wished she could have seen him once more, but his ship wouldn't be in port for another two months, and she couldn't wait that long. Abigail would have to explain for her.

Strapping on her sword, she set the rucksack on the box and lifted them together. They were more awkward than heavy; the only weighty item she was taking was the keg of water, and she'd loaded that on the dory the day before. She kicked the door closed behind her and made her way slowly down to the little dock.

Her timing was good; the tide was just starting to turn. Out of habit, she checked the ropes, the oars, the sail. She kicked the rucksack into the bow of the boat, then lowered the box carefully to rest beside it. A minute more, and she had cast off and started out into the infinite ocean, tide and wind together speeding her on her way.

She'd been planning this for a month, ever since the doctor had shown her his most solemn face and informed her that the cancer was untreatable, that she would not live to see another ten-year anniversary. Only now, when the last glimpse of land vanished below the horizon, did she admit to herself just how much of a gamble she was really taking.

The Dutchman followed its own rules; so much, Elizabeth had always known. One day ashore in every ten years—that was the first and hardest rule. She'd collected other scraps of knowledge over the years, but for this trip, she was relying on a memory and a half-heard comment from thirty-seven years before. The Dutchman's job is to collect the souls of those who die at sea.

If she was wrong, she was betraying Will's trust. The chest she'd watched over for so long would pass out of her guardianship to who-knew-where—the bottom of the sea, if she were lucky, or washed ashore for anyone to find and meddle with, if she were not.

If she was wrong, she would never see him again.

She pushed that thought out of her head and concentrated on steering. She wanted to be a good long way from land—and the shipping lanes—before she grew too weak to control her craft. She hadn't gone to all this trouble to be picked up at the last minute by some do-good fishing boat or galleon.

In a few hours, the island had dropped below the horizon and the water had lost the hint of grey that told of land nearby. She checked her compass, then locked the tiller and crawled forward to take a little food and drink from the rucksack. She ate slowly, knowing from unpleasant experience that if she hurried her meal she would only heave it up again. She was still too close to land to let go; there was still too great a chance of being sighted by another vessel.

Slowly, the sun inched toward the horizon; slowly, the boat crept further from well-traveled waters; slowly, the knot of tension in Elizabeth's chest unwound just a little. Another day, and—

The pain hit unexpectedly, more severe than ever, and she lost the little food she'd managed to consume. She choked on vomit as another heaving spell wracked her, and felt something inside her tear. Helplessly, she gagged, feeling the world go dark around her. No rescue, she pled to whatever deity might listen. No ship but the Dutchman. Will…

When she woke, it was to darkness and a sky filled with stars brighter and more numerous than she'd seen since that long-ago voyage when they'd sailed the Black Pearl in search of Captain Jack Sparrow. She knew at once where she was, even before she realized that her clothes were clean and she felt better than she had in months, even before she noticed that her rucksack and the keg of water were missing. Only the chest remained.

Elizabeth settled back on her seat with a sigh of satisfaction. She'd worried that the chest might not make the transition with her, but here it was. Now all she had to do was wait. She brushed back a stray lock of hair, and went still when she saw clearly the wrinkled, weather-beaten hand she had used to do so.

She had known, of course. On that other voyage, when they had seen her father and those other souls in their little boats, floating into eternity, they had all looked whatever age they had been when they died. Whatever illnesses or injuries had brought them to their ends had left no mark, but time's ravages had not been erased. But she had let herself hope for some final magic, some extra grace for her alone.

Vanity, thy name is woman, she thought. But it hurt to think that Will's last memory of her would be like this, gray haired and wrinkled and beginning to shrink and bend into a caricature of her younger self. Cancer and the seven years since his last visit had been hard on her.

The important thing is to return the chest. To fulfill her trust. To give Will back his heart, so no mortal might use it to control or corrupt him. Vanity was a small thing beside that responsibility.

An eternity later—or possibly mere seconds; she could not be sure—she saw the familiar silhouette of the Dutchman on the horizon. Not long now. Almost, she bowed her head to delay the moment of horrified recognition a few seconds more, but she remembered the chest and stiffened her spine as best she could.

She saw her father-in-law first, Will Turner Senior, on watch in the bow. I look as old now as he does, she thought. She was too far away to make out his expression, but she saw him stiffen and turn to shout. A moment later, the Dutchman changed course to head straight for her.

"Elizabeth!"

Will's anguished voice brought unexpected tears to her eyes, blurring her vision and choking off any reply she might have made. The Dutchman looming over her little boat was nothing but a black smudge.

"Elizabeth, what happened?"

I got old. But he didn't mean that, she knew. "Cancer," she said at last in a strangled voice. "I took a boat out when I knew it couldn't be much longer. I wanted—" to see you one last time "—to bring you the chest."

Something heavy dropped into her boat, making it rock crazily. A moment later, strong young arms wrapped her shoulders and pulled her close. She smelled tar and sea-salt and sandalwood, the mixture that had always meant Will to her. Hesitantly, she put her arms around him, buried her face in his chest, and began to cry.

"Shh, shh, it's all right now," Will's voice said softly in her ear. He rocked her gently until her weeping ceased. "Better now?"

Still unable to speak, she nodded.

"Good." He turned his face up to his ship. "Mr. Turner! A line here, for me and this chest, and a ladder for the lady. We'll be bringing my wife aboard, if you please."

Elizabeth's head jerked up. "What? Will, you can't!"

"Why not?"

"Will, I died."

"So did I, if you remember. That's how you came by that." He jerked his thumb at the chest and grinned, and she wondered how he could speak of it so casually. He smiled at her, that devilish, twinkling, loving smile that always made her heart turn over. Involuntarily, she reached for him…and pulled back when, once again, she saw her own wrinkled fingers.

Will frowned. "Now what's the matter?"

"You can't want me like this." Elizabeth forced the words out as one end of a rope landed in the dory next to her. "Old and wrinkled and…and dead. You don't have to be kind. Just take the chest and let me go."

"You look the same to me as you did when you were the Pirate Queen, fighting off the redcoats long enough for Captain Barbossa to marry us," he said. "And I will never let you go again."

Elizabeth glared at him. "The Captain of the Dutchman shouldn't be telling outrageous lies."

"The Captain of the Dutchman wouldn't think of it," Will said, and his voice was serious but his eyes twinkled at her, and he was wearing that smile again.

"But Will—Eeeep!"

"You always were stubborn," Will said, holding her off her feet with one arm. In one quick motion, he wrapped the line around his own waist, then snagged the handle of the chest. "Hoist away, there!"

"Will!" Elizabeth shrieked as the rope tightened and they were drawn upward. "What if you drop the chest?"

"It'll sink," Will said promptly. "You, on the other hand, I'm not sure about, so hang on, please." He swung his feet up to bounce them away from the ship's curving side.

"Will—" Elizabeth felt she had to try one more time. "Women aren't allowed on the Dutchman!"

"That," said Will, "is an old rule, for ordinary ships and living women. This ship is a legend, and if anyone is fit to sail with her, you are. And the Dutchman has always followed its own rules." He reached up left-handed, slinging the chest over the rail, then twisted to bring the two of them over the rail as well.

As her feet touched the deck, Elizabeth felt the years drop away. She held up her hands in time to see the last of the ugly brown spots fade and the loose skin smooth and tighten. She looked at Will in wonder and sudden hope, and he smiled. Her heart turned over.

"Welcome aboard, my love," he said. "Welcome home."

-fin