It Was the Rum

DISCLAIMER: *sigh* Nope. Still doesn't belong to me.

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Elizabeth was prepared for him to laugh. She was prepared for him to call her foolish or juvenile. Nothing, however, could prepare her for what happened next.

It began as a tingle, a pleasant tingle that slowly spread from her lips to her hairline...traveling throughout her entire body, reaching every crevice, like a playful caress. Only, instead of lulling her, instead of calming her, it sent waves of heat in every direction, reaching every corner of her. And then her mind suddenly registered the cause for this incredible sense of...euphoria. But even after she realized that Jack's lips were on hers, just a simple, soft touch, she made no move to stop it. Partly it was because her muscles just wouldn't respond to anything her mind told them to do. Yet the other reason...the one that she was rather afraid of...was that she didn't want to stop.

Finally, common sense and propriety began to kick in: she was stranded on an island, in the middle of nowhere, quite drunk, and, not least importantly, she was kissing a man that most certainly was not Will.

Slap.

"All right, so I definitely deserved that..." Jack gave his head a good shake in an effort to clear the white spots in front of his eyes, the beads and trinkets in his dark hair clinking noisily.

Slap.

"Well now, don't get carried away there--"

Slap.

"Oy! Now that's enough!" He grabbed a fuming Elizabeth by the wrist before she could make the move to strike him once more. "No need for excessive violence, ye know..." he trailed off, absentmindedly rubbing a stinging cheek with his free hand.

Elizabeth then felt a bit of pity. True, he had had no right to kiss her -- not that pirates really required them anyway -- but she had slapped him mostly out of frustration. What Jack had given her was a kiss, to be sure, but it had been just a brief touch of lips on lips, nothing complicated. And yet, it had elicited a reaction that she would never even think to experience with Will. And in a way, it made her feel guilty.

"Elizabeth! Will ye stop starin' off into space like 'at?" She was sharply jerked back to reality, greeted with Jack's amused yet slig exa exasperated expression.

"That's Miss Swann," she replied evenly. He rolled his eyes. Ever the prissy English girl, this one. "And -- ow! Jack, you're hurting..."

He suddenly realized just how tightly he was holding her and saw that his grasp had shifted from her wrist to her hand, which, coincidentally, happened to be the wounded one. He winced, loosening his grip and feeling genuinely sorry.

Wait. Why in hell should he feel sorry? She had just slapped him silly, for Chrissake! Then again, he had deserved it...

Aye, I deserved one, maybe two, but three?!

He sighed as Elizabeth edged closer to the fire, distancing herself from him. Yes, she was quite the brat and could deliver one hell of a slap, but for some damned reason, he hated the idea of hurting her. He picked up a couple of rum bottles and walked over to where she sto stood, her gaze fixed on the flickering flames of the fire. Silently, he extended one bottle to her. She turned her head quickly, their eyes locking.

"I didn't mean to hurt ye, darli -- Miss Swann." She smiled faintly, nodding and accepting the bottle. Perhaps Captain Jack Sparrow wasn't the tough, dangerous pirate that everyone mhim him out to be.

"And I didn't mean to, well, strike you so much--"

"--Yes you did."

"No! I..." Jack fixed her with an unconvinced stare, and she gave in. "All right, I did." He grinned, and she couldn't help but grin back. "It wasn't...because of you though."

Silence.

"Well see, now ye've lost me," he muttered, very much confused. Damn, women could be so complicated!

"Nevermind," she sighed. Elizabeth made to take a swig of rum, but he stopped her, placing a hand on the bottle and lowering it back down before it reached her lips.

"Oh no, I think that ye owe good, ol' Jack 'ere an explanation," he insisted. She didn't say a word, only arched an eyebrow in his direction. "I kiss you, ye slap me not once, not twice, but three times," he began, holding up his fingers to emphasize tointoint.

"Jack, that's four fingers," Elizabeth interrupted him. He stopped in mid-sentence, a baffled look on his face, and glanced down at his fingers.

"All right, I'm drunk 'ere, savvy? And that's captain to you, luv. Now, where was I...? Bloody hell, woman, ye made me forget!" Elizabeth's attention, however, was elsewhere. Her brown eyes were fixed on the night sky, and she mentally traced a path from star to star so that her gaze wandered over the cloudless heavens.

"Have you ever counted them?" she asked.

"What?" He followed her line of vision. "The stars?"

"Yes." Jack shrugged, slowly taking a rather unsteady seat on the sand. Elizabeth silently followed suit, sitting down next to him, yet keeping a comfortable distance away so that enough space separated their bodies.

"When I was a girl in England," she began, "I had a nanny named Fran whom I loved dearly. She was like a mother to me since mine had died long before..." He wordlessly listened to her speak, intrigued at why she would spontaneously decide to share this with him.

"Then one day my father told me that we were to leave for a place called Port Royal in the Caribbean, and I didn't quite know what to think, as I'd never set foot outside of England. It was only when I learned that Fran would be left behind that I despised the idea completely. But I didn't have a say in it; women never do, let alone young girls. So before I left, Fran told me that no matter where I am, I could always look up at the sky at night and know that the same sky was over her. And that she was looking at the same moon...and the same stars...

"A year or two ago, an old relative of mine came over from England and told us that...that she had passed away."

Jack held his breath, as he noticed her eyes begin to water. Damn it, why did she have to go and cry? He was skilled at wooing, skilled in the art of lovemaking, but when it came to a woman crying, he didn't have a clue. For a while, the only sound that could be heard was the occasional snap of a twig in the fire. He edged closer to her, and even closer still so that his chin was resting on her left shoulder and his lips were beside her ear. She tensed ever so slightly, so slightly, in fact, that Jack didn’t feel it, but made no move to get away.

"Well ye know what that means, don't ye?" he asked in the most nurturing tone he could manage. Elizabeth said nothing. Jack’s closeness had made it a bit more than a little difficult to form words. He took that as a sign to continue. “She’s up there…watchin’ over you.”

The corners of Elizabeth’s lips twitched upwards into a faint smile, her body relaxing bit by bit. “Do you really think so?” she questioned thoughtfully. Jack let a moment of silence linger before answering, searchinr thr the right words.

“Well why not? No one’s yet discovered where we all go once we die, though I can name a few off the top of me head who claim to know where I’ll be headed…” He frowned, finding a sardonic amusement in those last few words. As if sensing this, Elizabeth sat forward, creating a few inches’ worth of distance between them, and turned her head to face the pirate. A sort of melancholy flickered in and out of the shadows of his eyes, mixing with the reflections of the flames from the fire.

“Why’d you become a pirate, Jack?” she inquired, out of genuine curiosity. A ghost of a smile graced his lips.

“Didn’t have much choice, luv,” he said casually. “No one ever grows up wantin’ to be a pirate. Though I do think ‘at if I had been given a choice, a life of piracy as opposed to a life on land, I would’ve chosen piracy. In me own opinion, there’s nothin’ that can rival the feeling of sailing the seas, going wherever the bloody hell ye want. No restraints, no ties, and the sunsets…Elizabeth, ‘ave you ever seen a sunset?”

She smiled at the passion that practically dripped from each word he spoke and shook her head. “No.”

“Fancied as much. I tell ye, sunsets out on the open sea are the most beau’iful thing ye’ll ever witness.”

Elizabeth sighed as she listened to him talk, thinking back to her life in Port Royal. So sheltered, so dull, filled with tedious balls and dinners and parties in which she was forced to wear extravagant dresses and act sociable. Act. Oh, she’d done a lot of acting in her life.

“Somethin’ wrong, luv?” His voice brought her out of her reverie in an instant, and she shook her head to clear her thoughts.

“No…but I almost envy you, Jack. Your life, it seems so…so free. It sounds lovely,” she murmured, a wistful edge to her tone. His face took on a serious expression, and as he leaned back on his elbows in the nearly white sand, pale under the light of moon, he directed his gaze straight across the sea, his mind obviously somewhere else completely.

“It ain’t always…’lovely’, Elizabeth,” he stated dryly. “I’ve seen more ‘orrid things in me life as a pirate than anyone e’er should. ‘S all a part of it, really; a part of a life of piracy. There are loads of bastards out there, roamin’ the seas, and I don’t count myself separate from them. I’ve done my fair share of ill deeds, an’ then some. And a pretty lass like yerself, well, there are many who’d hurt ye, pet. Many who’d do things I don’t even want to think about.”

Elizabeth thought about his words for a few moments. There was nary a doubt in her mind that Jack spoke the truth, but she found it increasingly difficult to believe that he’d be capable of doing horrible things. Oh, she could easily picture him looting, pillaging, raiding, stealing, pilfering, and the likes, but for some reason, she didn’t – couldn’t – see him as being cruel. True, she hardly knew him, but still. She thought back to that brief kiss they had shared moments before. Surely someone cruel would not be capable of such a kiss? Her right hand subconsciously moved up to her mouth, two fingers of which traced her bottom lip, which had started to tingle when she brought the kiss to mind again.

“Would you hurt me, Jack?” she asked softly, in a voice no louder than a whisper. A thick silence filled the air between them for a few moments before Jack replied.

“Never if I could help it.”

Slowly, Elizabeth rose from her seat on the beach until she was standing, her eyes locked on Jack’s. He dared not even breathe as she advanced towards him, both of their gazes unblinking, as if each were afraid that the slightest variation would break the spell of sorts that had befallen them. Neither of them looked away. Jack raised himself up just enough to scoot back against a gray boulder, one that must’ve been submerged in seawater when the tide was high. He rested his weight against its smooth surface, watching Elizabeth as she slowly made her way towards him. She looked enchanting and breathtakingly so.

Her face was flushed from consuming more rum than she ever should have, and this alone was enough to make his breath quicken. The golden brown tresses of hair that framed her face had settled around her shoulders, swaying slightly each time she took a step. And in her eyes…he saw an emotion that he had seen many a time before. It startled him to find it there, shimmering back at him from under long lashes: desire.

She drew a shaky breath, not stopping until she was standing right beside him, on his left side. Both sets of eyes still on the other’s, Elizabeth raised her left leg and stepped over him so that one foot was resting on either side of his body. It was almost as if the entire world were holding its breath, so silent did everything around the two become. Noiselessly, she lowered herself until she was straddling his hips, just below his waist.

“Elizabeth…” He uttered her name almost as a question, thoroughly puzzled by her sudden change in attitude. His hands involuntarily traveled to her waist, each one finding a place to rest on her hips. The word had no sooner left his mouth, however, than a slender finger was held up to his lips in a silencing gesture. Elizabeth did not fail to notice the mischievous glint in his eye and could only imagine the things that her own eyes were betraying to him. He, in turn, complied with her unspoken request and remained quiet, though his gaze continued to ask volumes’ worth of questions.

Not really sure of what she was doing herself, Elizabeth took a few moments to gather the mess of thoughts that were jumbled inside her head. Something about this man enthralled her, possessed her to do things that she’d never thought to do before. What she was doing now would have been unthinkable just a few minutes prior. His confession had been her breaking point, and after that, all she could remember clearly was the infinite depth of his eyes, boundless portals into his soul. A name rang out in the very back of her mind.

Will.

She closed her eyes, part er wer wanting to heed the silent warning that her brain was giving her. But the other part of her, the stronger part of her, was still under the spell of Jack’s gaze. And so she opened her eyes and uttered something that the mere thought of which would have, at any other time, made her cheeks color a light pink.

“Jack, will you…will you show me what it’s like to be loved by a pirate? Just this once?”