Parlait

“He’s told you this, and not me?” Elizabeth was too angry at the moment to be sad, but the sorrow was lingering, she could feel it. She’d gotten the Captain to stay and talk, and she’d been so overjoyed at that victory that she’d forgotten this conversation was not likely to be a happy one. “Why?”

Barbossa sat on the deck, leaning against the bed, Elizabeth behind him with her arms around his broad shoulders, her head to the nape of his neck, as close to him as she could make herself, too close, for he’d missed her and been so worried about her. He may not have been able to tell her he loved her, but he knew how to protect her, knew how to soothe and comfort her with the best he had to offer, and his body screamed out its right to do so. He could feel her beneath him, clinging strongly to him, her body relinquishing the pain and lament and heartache to the masculine shelter of the love he made to her. The words would never come, but he knew how to show her he loved her, how to be a man to her, except that now, she was far too fragile. At least with himself on the floor and her in the bed, it wasn’t possible to suddenly find themselves rolling around naked together. He took her hand in his and pressed a slow kiss to her palm. “Traditionally, doctors make husbands first aware of the conditions their wives be in.”

“You’re not my husband!” She sounded as though she blamed the Captain, though she didn’t. Still, so much had just been taken away from her, she’d never loved a man like she loved this one, and it wasn’t until she’d lost his child did the urge to give him one burn within her. But no, first a midwife, and now a doctor, had said it would not be so, that her construction was no longer such to sustain a baby, and any she carried would be lost, until eventually, she’d bleed out and die with them.

“Here, aboard ship, I be as good as yer husband!” The words came with a rush of possessiveness that made Barbossa not have to think about them, but now he found himself wondering what the consequences of saying them would be.

“Very nice of you to have appointed yourself so!” She tried to hold her anger; anger was so much easier to feel than what was building behind it. Tears welled in her eyes, this man who would not say that he loved her, yet always protected her, considered her his wife, had fathered her child, she could never have a son for him, or a daughter. Finally, she loved a man enough to wish such, to understand how a baby was the manifestation of that love, and she was useless to show it. In a way, she could never tell Hector Barbossa that she loved him. The child she’d lost, the child she’d not told him about until it was no more; that is what she had to show for how she loved the Captain; it was all she’d ever have. She’d killed Jack, and her children now died, one of them, the Captain’s. Was that the cost of her murderous nature? What a horrible thing she was to have endangered the child of the man she loved!

It started with a sniffle that she thought she could control, and then it crashed upon her, torrential tears and sobbing that shook her body as she buried her face in the Captain’s shoulder and cried. What good was she? That which was a woman’s purpose, she could not perform, not even for him. She felt him turn towards her, putting his arms around her and pulling her to him, into his lap and holding her tightly, as tightly as she’d been wanting him to for days. His shirt blotted her tears, his lips brushed her forehead, and he rocked her slowly, saying nothing, just letting this grief run its course in his arms. “Find another woman who can love you properly.” She shuddered, and the Captain shuddered back against her.

His strong arms tightened even more around her as though someone threatened to tear her from his embrace. He should have been this to her nights ago, should have held her like this and let her cry for their baby, instead of shouting and storming about, then going off to feel sorry for his own self. “Don’t want another woman,” he said hoarsely, throat swelling with the tears he choked back. “Don’t give a damn how she’d love me.”

“Then let me try to have your child!” She cried so that Elizabeth couldn’t raise her voice, her words meekly pleaded into the Captain’s neck.

“No,” he said firmly, and turned his head to kiss her forehead again, lingering there with his lips. “As undeserving and proud as I’d be of a child of ours, I won’t lose y’girl,” Barbossa’s voice sank again. “And can’t be losin’ anymore children,” little Joo’s face appeared before him in the darkness of his hooded eyes, so did a nameless grave marker where his infant son lay, and the one that died with Graciella. “Not in me heart to survive it.”

The Captain couldn’t bear the loss of another child, he’d been a father before, he’d loved his child. Elizabeth cried harder now, remembering her own little Pearl; those blue feet. “I had a daughter!” The sad remembrance kicked the air from her lungs and she was hyperventilating as she tried to cry, speak and breathe.

Barbossa pulled back a moment to look at her, he was shocked, never having considered that among the many tragedies he and Elizabeth shared, that the loss of a child, a daughter, was also one of them. “Aye?”

“Jack,” she wanted him to know this, wanted him to understand why she’d hesitated to tell him of her pregnancy, wanted him to know that she understood his heart; that she was just as terrified, but still, if there was a way, if it were one day possible, she wanted to try again, for him. “He didn’t—“ her sputtering made it so hard to talk. “He didn’t want it.“

Barbossa’s muscles grew taut. He’d never trusted Sparrow’s capabilities, and he couldn’t bring himself to consider that Elizabeth was anything less than mishandled by him during the “marriage” Jack had so haphazardly, or conveniently, arranged. It was disappointing to imagine that the first child Elizabeth had been conceived of was not his own, but that of Sparrow’s. Jack? A father? No, such would not have been within Jack’s desires, or tolerations. He could only imagine how Jack had reacted to news such as that. Had he hurt Elizabeth? “What did he do?”

What followed was the most pained expression Barbossa had ever seen cross anyone’s features, Elizabeth clinging to him and he to her as her story deepened. The fight with Sparrow, his suggestion of “getting rid of it,” being left in Tortuga, and the premature birth in the alleyway; his Elizabeth had been a mother, if only briefly, before she’d been his. “I should have told you,” she sobbed over again as he hugged her around her quaking shoulders, “I should have told you, but I was so afraid to…because of how Jack—.” Oh, how Barbossa wished he could have legitimately cursed Jack, but in truth, he’d left his Graciella though she’d begged and pleaded and fought with him to stay at her side when their second child came due. Still, Barbossa would have run Sparrow through had the dark haired pirate stood before him at this instant; how dare anyone treat his Elizabeth, and her child, in the manner Jack had chosen to. No wonder she hadn’t told him.

“I never bothered to tell Jack that our child was ever born, he wouldn’t have wanted to know, wouldn’t have cared. But, I think I was damaged inside that night,” Elizabeth now said, settling some, no more tears or sobs, held in the Captain’s arms, to his chest, with her head pounding along with his heart. “I think that’s why I can’t have a child now; I labored upon kitchen floors far too long, and it made Pearl’s birth go wrong…” she looked up at Barbossa, imagining that they’re child could have had his eyes, or his red hair, or his strong stature. But it was all gone now, and would never be again. “I would never have ended up working so hard if Jack hadn’t put us off—“ Jack! It suddenly burned in her heart that Jack could so easily be blamed for why she’d been struck barren. She’d never be able to give the Captain a child, but there was always something else she could get for him, and she could take it from Jack, without care as to how Jack might feel, or if he’d survive. “Captain,” she raised her head from his chest, looking Barbossa in the eyes. “I’ve offered, I’ve asked, I’ve even begged,” she said, feeling her words take on a hateful curve. “Please, let us seek The Pearl, so that I may secure her for you!”

Barbossa shook his head, should have known this was coming. But he couldn’t let her; he’d carried some deep suspicion that allowing her to wreak her havoc upon Sparrow would only ever destroy her. His premonition seemed to be upheld within the Delphic words in Tia Dalma’s scroll;

“Two birds, not of prey,
should not be as fighting enemies,
less one die and the other
shrouded in the lion’s curse be.”

Not all of it made sense to him yet, but Barbossa felt pretty certain that the scroll had been written to him, some parting words from a goddess to the human man she’d held a fondness for. Swans and sparrows were not birds of prey; he must not allow Elizabeth to harm Jack in anyway, or she’d suffer the “lion’s curse,” whatever that was. “Elizabeth, yer in no condition to—“

“But I will be!” She sat up more, letting her anger, hatred and need for both revenge and her desire to give the man she loved some true and meaningful expression of her ardor for him feed her strength. “I’ve done you the most grievous disservice, and I have no other way to absolve myself than to give you something of your own heart.” Another little tear formed and lingered at the corner of her eye as she cupped his bearded jaw in her hand. “I can’t give you a son; let me give you back your ship! Please, Captain! Do this for me! Otherwise, I am forever to be hopelessly empty when held in your arms.” The tear finally gained enough momentum with the despair that built within her, and the drop slid down over her cheek. “Please, I can’t bear that.”

No, this couldn’t be, every instinct he had, and the words of the scroll, was against allowing this happen, but his heart bled for Elizabeth and the plight upon her. If he allowed to her to kill Jack and win back The Pearl in his name, she was cursed. But if he didn’t give her that chance to right what she considered a betrayal against him, she’d forever feel she was a woman insufficient of what he deserved, and he’d lose her to a broken heart, or insanity. Either way, his Elizabeth was to suffer, and himself too at the loss of her. And if he lost her…his thoughts went dark; this time, he’d put the pistol to his own head. Was there anything to save them from this fate?

“Destiny is stirred
with star-crossed words
that save a lion and his bird,”

The lines of Tia’s scroll repeated themselves in his head again and again. Damn the witch, lover or not, why could she never speak plainly? “Elizabeth, this be no time to be makin’ strategies such as that.” Barbossa knew not what else to say, every other answer was wrong, he had only to stall and distract her. “Y’be too influenced in yer grief to say what y’truly wish for, and I be too influenced in me own to allow or disallow y’of anythin’ ye’d ask for.”

“Tell me then that you do not want The Pearl.” She wiped away the single tear, slipping out of his arms so better look at him as her determination grew.

He sighed, unable to lie, though he knew he should have. “I do want The Pearl.” Elizabeth smiled, her eyes shining brightly for the first time in days and she was just about to speak when he held up one hand and pressed a finger to her lips, shaking his head. “But not at the cost it’d be to y’Elizabeth.”

“What cost?” She asked; eagerness and disappointment in her voice. Did he not understand how this was the only way for her to purge? To make the amends to him that he deserved; to show him in full of her love for him? And to make Jack suffer; she’d killed him once, and he’d killed her ability to trust, made her hide from the father of her child that which should have never been hidden. And her children, Pearl, and all that may have been to come; Jack in a way had killed them as well. “Nothing will happen to me, I swear that to you! I can handle Jack; I’ve always been able to!”

“Elizabeth, no!” He grabbed both her hands as if he must stop her from running off at that instant. He knew how strongly willed she was, and he loved her for it, but she’d never believe his premonition unless he showed her the confirmation of his suspicions, suspicions he supposed served to remind him that Calypso would always desire to have some link with the man who had freed her. Barbossa reached behind him for his coat on the bed. “Do y’remember the scroll I came away with from Teach?”

“A bit,” Elizabeth answered, then batted her eyes and looked downwards shyly. “That night in Nevis I was a bit—“

Barbossa sighed, rolled his eyes at her. “I remember.” He pulled the scroll from his coat pocket and pulled the twine from around it. “It be in Tia Dalma’s hand, a letter of farewell from her to meself.”

“Is it?” Elizabeth couldn’t help scowling. She had to admit it was possible that Calypso chose to intervene and would not allow her to give all that she wished to give the Captain. He’d been her lover, she’d held an affinity for him; was the goddess jealous?

“Belay yer pettiness and read, girl.” Barbossa sighed, placing the scroll in her hands. “Y’and Jack be mentioned, yer the two birds, not of prey, and yer not to be fightin’ or y’end up cursed.”

But Elizabeth was distracted, the opening lines, so lavishly and irritatingly doting she just had to read them aloud to Barbossa and watch what spread over his features as she did so. She hadn’t initially been affected by his relationship with the goddess in her human trappings, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult not to feel a bit jealous…particularly with words like these set down on paper from her to him.

“Me most regal one,
who bound me bones
in such earthly rhapsody,
your touch be me greatest pleasure,
eased the suffering
of a woman’s world.
I am saddened to leave you.
I never will be so free
as I was held in your arms.
May you be with that same peace.”

Barbossa ignored the words, knowing there was nothing he could say in response about them that wouldn’t upset Elizabeth. “Down here,” he said and indicated the passage about the birds with his finger. “I know not what it means, but it says ‘lion’s curse,’ do y’see it?”

“Yes, I do.” Elizabeth looked back up at him, smiling a little. “You don’t know what it means? The lion?”

“Not yet.” Barbossa was searching for the other bit, about the star-crossed words, but Elizabeth had already put her finger on them, right before she leaned close, put her hand behind his neck and pulled his hair from the braid, combing her fingers through the length of it and then arranging it over his shoulders. She sighed smiling. He looked up at her questioningly, what was it she was doing?

“Me most regal one?” She said again almost laughing; then petted his long, thick mane of red hair. “Captain, you are the lion!”

He couldn’t deny the sudden gush of warmth and pride that came over him. He may not have loved Tia Dalma as he did Elizabeth, but still, to have a goddess think such of him? Yes, he did like that! But, perhaps he’d better not show it too well. “I suppose I can see it,” he shrugged, though the smirk on Elizabeth’s face told him she doubted he was so unimpressed. It didn’t matter, there were other issues at hand, and she hopefully had many many years to tease him about it if she wished to. “And if I am the lion, y’don’t be wantin’ me curse, girl! To not be dead, or alive? To be what I was when first we met? Nay, I won’t see it happen to ye. Forgive me or damn me for denyin’ y’that, but I will. No Pearl, leave it be.”

Elizabeth sighed heavily. “Stealing The Pearl for you doesn’t have to be a violent affair!” She wouldn’t give up on that, not until Barbossa was once again at the galleon’s helm. Unless…”Or are you choosing instead to say the ‘words?’”

“And what be the words?” He sighed back at her.

Elizabeth smiled, set the scroll down so that she may lay both hands on his chest, framing his heart as she leaned close and kissed him. “Do you love me?”

Barbossa flinched as the pieces finally fit together. Of course, what other words could there have been, but those that he couldn’t say. “The words be star-crossed.” He was quick to point out, feeling himself fill with dread. Graciella, Joo…he’d loved them. “The damn things are cursed! Would y’have me curse the two a us, Elizabeth?”

“I’d have you say them to me!” Had he said them at all, they wouldn’t be here, she’d have never hidden the child from him, and she wouldn’t have to win him The Pearl. “Captain, do you love me?”

Barbossa peeled her hands from his chest and held her by the wrists, keeping her at bay. She knew not what she played with, didn’t understand the evil she invited, but it all made him shudder. He’d been right about the words, telling her he loved her would lead to his pistol against her head, and they’d already lost a child. It was so near unfolding again. Cold, he hadn’t felt so cold since…he felt his newly revived soul begin to shrivel, and all hope he’d had for Elizabeth, himself, and their future dwindle. He couldn’t let her near Jack or The Pearl, and he couldn’t say the words. “I’ve told y’not to ask such things.”

Elizabeth now felt herself trembling, something was wrong, one look at the Captain’s eyes, and she knew something was very wrong, with him. “Captain?” He’d always cut such a formidable figure, dashing, imposing, dominant, intrepid, but not now. For the first time since she’d known the man, Captain Hector Barbossa looked vulnerable. But she had to hear him say it, he had to say it! “It says we’ll be ‘saved,’ Captain!”

“Saved?” Barbossa repeated doubtfully. Saved, like how he’d ‘saved’ his family! “Told ye girl, can’t say it! Won’t say it!”

“For all that I love you, you can be so maddeningly stubborn!” Elizabeth’s temper was beginning to rise, so to her need to hear him say that he loved her, for each time he refused to, another little piece of her heart was chipped a way. “Do you love me? Answer me!” Her eyes held his now, searching them utterly. “Please, Captain!”

“Elizabeth,” he was out of breath, heart beating as though he’d been running for his life. “Yer mine, Elizabeth!” He’d tell her anything but those words, “I’ll hold y’to me heart, and ne’er let y’go!”

“Say it!” She urged, though the promise he’d just made to her was alive within her, wrapping around her heart, but still part of it remained unfulfilled. “Please, Captain, tell me!”

But he couldn’t give her that. And he knew he now had to tell her why. But how? And would it change her love for him? If she hated him for what he told her, he deserved it, he hated himself. It was a sad, tragic, yet simple tale to tell, he knew it well, and still, he knew not where to begin. “No more, Elizabeth.” How he’d have given anything not to tell her this, not to have to relive it as he narrated it. No one, no one in this world, knew this. But Elizabeth, God how he loved Elizabeth, and he owed it to her to tell her this, to tell her why the man that loved her so fiercely could never tell her how loved she was by him.

“What’s no more?” She asked watching fretfully as his eyes became as dead as they were when first she’d seen him in the moonlight years ago. He looked so lost, her first instinct was to reach out to him, and she did, but he pulled away.

Her touch was a thing he couldn’t bear at the moment, perhaps should never have accepted, for he was not the man she deserved to have. No woman deserved the horrid thing he was. “I killed me wife, girl. Daughter too.”

Elizabeth nodded, shivered with how chilled he was as he sat beside her. “You’ve told me this.” What was he trying to tell her now? Should she be afraid for her life next? No, of course not…but, should she? He was clearly in the throes of something, fighting a losing battle, and from the looks of things, had been struck wounded. Again she reached for him, wishing there was something she could do, her hand gripped his big shoulder, and she was astounded to feel him shaking so. She moved beside him, “Captain, come,“ she drew him to her, and this time he didn’t fight, laying his head to her breast as her arms closed around him. She’d have sworn he was asking her for some type of help at that moment, but she wasn’t sure what kind, or how to give it, and so Elizabeth did her best, pulling him more to her, his head sinking into her lap, resting on her thigh against her stomach. “Lay back upon me,” she whispered, stroking his head and hair, bending down and letting her lips skim his forehead. She’d never seen him like this, she’d never held him like this, he’d never let her do so before. “Talk to me.”

He hadn’t heard her, couldn’t feel that she held him, was too lost now in how The Caja had listed, two holes shot into her bow. “Do y’ever wonder what makes a man so brash and ruthless he turns pirate, Elizabeth?”

“You’re neither brash, nor ruthless.” She said, and stroked her fingertips lightly around his eye, tracing the scar that so nearly claimed on of them. “What’s wrong?”

Barbossa sighed, realized it was she who sheltered him in her arms, wanted to be stronger than that, and yet could do little more than close his eyes and try to hide from the images that flooded back to him as he breathed in the comforting scent that was her. This story was two horrors wrapped in one, that tortured and dying woman with her breasts torn off aboard that sinking ship, and what he’d done to Graciella, and to Joo. “After leavin’ Portugal’s Navy, I were a merchant captain in Lord Piran’s Fleet, damned good one. Lived a few years as honest as a man can.” He sighed again, the scene was once again before him, his view as that through the spyglass at the ship on the horizon, and so many feelings drowned him. “I were a damned good Captain, too good, cost me everythin’ I had.”

He’d been the youngest captain in the Piran Fleet, the youngest captain that sailed out of Port Isaac, out of Cornwall, the youngest captain anyone had ever known of. Even throughout his naval service in Portugal, Barbossa had excelled and impressed, rising from the lowly rank of Grumete to junior officer grade, Primeiro-Tenente Barbossa in only two years. Four years later he resigned his Portuguese commission and attempted to join the Royal Navy, he’d enter as a First Lieutenant and make Captain in less than a year. But the King’s Navy had thought his stature too large for a sailor, Lord Piran, however, familiar with the first lieutenant’s service in Portugal during their war with France, had not. Barbossa made captain. His first command was small, but sleek and beautiful Cutter, crew of ten, their route from Liverpool to the African Coast, and never once were they late, never once did they lose their cargo. A year later, Barbossa was made captain of a larger ship, a Barquentine, and their route longer, the crew bigger, their cargo more precious, but he met the challenge, never losing a man or a penny for Lord Piran. Finally, he received the greatest of rewards for his efforts, and was made captain of the largest ship in Lord Piran’s fleet, The Caja Bronnen.

But Lord Piran was not the only one to notice Captain Hector Barbossa’s talents and dedications as a leader of men and ships. His own success and brilliance at the helm of a ship marked him, made him the target and object of desire by a most desperate sort of man who would do anything to secure his services. Pirates.

“The first pirate colors I e’er I saw in full view were a red flag with a black skull,” his eyes closed again as Elizabeth did her best to soothe him with her fingers gently raking through his hair, her other hand and arm cradling his head in her lap. “Was still a young merchant captain, on me way from the Indes, come upon a broken fellow merchant ship, sacked by pirates. The marauders sailin’ away with that red and black flag at their mizzen.”

“Who was their captain?” She’d never seen those colors, red with a black skull. What pirate had that been?

“They had none,” he sighed, was quiet a moment, reached up to capture the hand that smoothed his hair and pressed it over his heart, keeping it there between both of his. “The merchant vessel they’d attacked was a big, four master, just like me ship, The Caja Bronnen.”

“The Caja Bronnen,” Elizabeth repeated with a smile, though it was difficult to imagine Barbossa as the captain of any other ship than The Black Pearl. Even The Reproach, as good a ship as she was, didn’t look right around him.

“Aye,” How he’d loved The Caja, how he’d been so envied to have been named her captain. “I believe they figured that merchant be The Caja, and so they hit her, lookin’ not so much for spoils, but for me.”

“For you?” Elizabeth’s brow furrowed and the Captain’s grip on her hand tightened. “Did they mean to ransom you and your ship back to Lord Piran?”

“Had only their intentions been so harmless.” He was glad for her arms around him, needed the contact between them like he never had before. He’d never even told Graciella of this. “They be wantin’ me, Elizabeth. I were a good captain, word a me traveled, but not always to the most honorable a ports. They be a pirate sloop in need of a captain, and be hellbent on findin’ one they believed would see them rich men.”

Had that been how he’d gone on the account? “An awful sort of flattery, I suppose.”

“Shades darker than awful, girl.” Another tremble overcame him when he thought of that agonized woman, the way she’d screamed as he’d stood over her. Had she known he was in some way responsible for what she’d endured? “They didn’t find me aboard that merchant they’d sacked, but it didn’t stop them from raidin’ and murderin’…and rapin’, torturin’…” he didn’t want to continue, but knew he had to, he’d come too far to stop now. “I boarded that sinkin’ merchant when I heard cries, thinkin’ we could help survivors. But there be no survivors…just a thing that at one time had been a woman, stripped naked, her hands nailed to the deck, raped and mutilated, her breasts cut off and hangin’ o’er her head where the bastards had stretched ‘em o’er the blocks and tackles…”

Now Elizabeth shivered, she’d seen much during her time on pirate vessels, but never something so horrid and viscerally evil as that. And the Captain, it was something that had obviously petrified him, for he was so tense in her arms, breathing ragged, heart racing. “She,” there was a lump in her throat. “She was still alive when they’d done this?”

“Were me pistol shot that finally ended it for her.” That woman’s scream echoed in his ears even now. “But it only began for me, me and the sloop with red and black colors.”

“Did they chase you down? When you were anchored by the other merchant?”

“Not then, no, took a few months. I were able to get home to Port Isaac, to see me wife, and me daughter, and learn that I was to again be a father.” Graciella, she’d been so scared, more scared than when she’d found herself an unmarried preacher’s daughter expecting her first child, and by some Johnny Tar she’d found washed up on the beach near her home. “Woulda been our third child together, had a son, stillborn while I be at sea a year prior, and me wife were not about to have me anywhere but at her side for the birth a the one she carried that homecomin’.” He still remembered the fight, the tears, the heartache it had caused for both him and Graciella; mostly for Graciella. “And so I did the most dotterel thing I e’er did! I took me family to sea.”

“Oh, Captain,” Elizabeth suddenly heard herself sigh and a tear dropped from her eye. He’d taken his family to sea, his pregnant wife, he’d taken aboard his ship, had been willing and prepared to be at her side when their child came, at sea. No, the Captain was nothing like Jack, her fears that made her keep her secret had been selfish and stupid. “I should have told you, I am so very sorry!”

“Y’had yer reasons, girl. Will hurt for awhile to come, but I can find forgiveness for ye.” His hand tightened around hers again, he’d still have given anything to have known his Elizabeth carried his child, but he couldn’t talk about that, not now, there was enough trying to devour him at the moment. Besides, she was yet to understand what happened.

Elizabeth did her best to settle herself, but all she could think was how he’d told her it wasn’t in his heart to lose anymore children, and no wonder, with her help, he’d lost four. She found herself in need of hearing something bright. “And was your third child born at sea?”

“Me third child,” he had to pause, felt tears in his own eyes and shook with his determination not to let them fall. “Me third child never got the chance to be born at all. Weren’t more than a months sail from Cornwall when me Lookout spotted a sloop trailing us in the distance…a sloop flyin’ red colors, bearin’ a black skull.” Now the events raised to life again within his mind and heart, threatened to drag him away back into their terrifying haze, and Barbossa held tight to Elizabeth’s hand, felt her arms come more around him as he did so, as if she understood what she tried to shield him from. “Tried losin’ her for three days, but for all the grace and grandeur that me Caja was, she weren’t fast enough to escape the sloop.”

“And they fired on you?” She saw a tear escape the Captain’s eye, felt it absorb into her nightdress, over her belly, and another tear left her eye, not entirely sure if she cried out of her own guilt, or for the despair the Captain was in.

“Two shots in her bow slowed her down, they tacked ship, prepared to come alongside…the same egregious demons what had done o’er that woman nailed to the deck a the other merchant…they were boardin’ The Caja, killed six a me crew, cleaved on man clear in half, took off another’s head and spiked it upon a sword to be carried around like some damned sceptor!” He’d fought a war at sea for Portugal against France, but he’d never seen butchery such as that, the outright cruelty and savagery. “There was nothin’ to stop them, they wanted me, they’d found me. Me wife, me daughter, I couldn’t trust their fates to such men…” tears were flooding from his closed eyes now, he couldn’t stop them, just held Elizabeth’s hand as she held him, and kissed him even, her quivering lips pressed softly to the wet tracks of sorrow on his face. “Didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to e’er hurt them…but there was nothin’ else I could do…nothin’…”

“No,” Elizabeth cried too, just as hard as he did, for his pain, feeling him sitting up now and gathering his arms around her as they both knelt in front of each other, holding her tightly to him as though he tried to comfort her now, her face to his broad shoulder as his tears bled against her slender one. “You did what anyone who loved them would have done.” When he’d told her he’d killed his family, she’d expected that it had been in anger, some sudden rage in which he lost ability to reason, not knowing what he’d done until the blood was already on his hands. But this…this was pure heartbreak, full and simple; a tragedy from which most men lacked the strength to restore themselves from. And yet, the Captain had, and managed somehow even to hold another woman in his arms, her. She’d always marveled at his strength, but now she knew just how strong Hector Barbossa truly was. Such a man.

“Tried to go with them,” his voice was muffled now, against her shoulder and choked on his tears. “Hooked me foot in a bowline, let The Caja take me down with her, took a big gasp a the sea, but pullin’ me back to its surface were those bastards of the red and black colors…broke me damned leg tryin’ not to be saved…but all I gained was this bloody damned limp, and captaincy of the bloody damned pressgang what come after me!”

He was building with a surge of grief and anger in her arms, muscles tensing, jaw clenched against her neck like he might explode. “Shhh,” it was all she could think to do, quiet him, hold him, don’t let him out of her arms for fear that the sea may beckon him back again with promise of redemption if he’d just breathe it in deeply one more time. “Lay with me awhile, please.”

No, she didn’t understand all yet. He raised his head from her shoulder and looked painfully at her, knowing she could see every tear on his face now, but it didn’t matter; she was still here with him after hearing this story, he could trust her. “Do y’understand why I can’t say it to y’Elizabeth?” He asked, his hands gripping her shoulders. He was so out of breath. “The last woman I said I loved, I killed. And I turned pirate despite it all. The words be cursed now, star-crossed. Don’t be makin’ me set it all in motion again, y’mean too much to me, girl!”

How could she stop him from feeling this, remove him from this hell? “Captain, I love you!” She threw her arms back around him and held him tighter than she ever had before, surprised by her own strength to take this man to her. She understood now, how he’d become what he was, why a gentleman still lingered there beneath the callous, unkempt, dangerous pirate he was. She understood his way of thinking; comprehended how it made sense to him. She even understood why he’d tattooed an albatross to his chest, the harbinger of doom, he saw himself as an albatross. But for herself, she doubted he was as right as he thought he was about everything. Words of love, given from one heart to another, could never be cursed. That she felt within her as certain as she felt her own tarnished soul. If he could tell her he loved her, there was no end to what it might heal, for both of them. How did she convince him? How did she present any argument that was greater than the one he’d just made to her? No, now was not time to contemplate, she wanted to be close to him, wanted to sort him out and end this suffering that was upon him, make it vanish, for as long as she could. “Please, stay awhile, hold me?”

After what he’d told her, she still wished to be in his arms? He’d killed his family, to save them from the proven sick brutality of pirates, that he’d gone on to captain? And he would never be able to say the words she so desperately hoped to hear from him, though he felt it, felt it so much more strongly than he’d ever guessed he would have again. “Elizabeth, do y’understand?”

She smiled faintly, gently passed her fingertips over his cheek, removing the outlines of his tears, knowing he’d have all traces of them as quickly forgotten as they could be removed. “I do, Captain.” Yes, she understood, but she didn’t believe, knew something of his strength that he seemed to yet understand himself. He could say the words; it was in him to do so, and he had to do so.

His rank, it was always his rank. He sighed, in no mood to hear the word anymore. “I’ve a name, girl. After all we’ve had a each other, after all we’ve faced, and after what I’ve just told ye, use it.”

It was good to hear the grumbling tone back in his voice, he was recovering now from the nightmare he’d shared with her, but still, Elizabeth wasn’t ready to let go of him. Nor was she ready to agree to his latest request, seeing instead that there was motivation to be placed behind it. “No.”

“No?” His blue eyes widened at her answer, not angrily, not even hurtfully, he was just so surprised to hear her refusal.

Elizabeth climbed up into their bed, but kept hold of his hand so that he would have to follow her, she’d more hugging of him to do. “I don’t like your name.” She sighed as she lay down on her side.

“You don’t like my—“ Barbossa settled in behind her, wrapping his arms around her, intrigued and a bit disappointed, but feeling himself more able to shrug off the horrors that had so firmly surrounded him moments ago. Elizabeth, she was something to know how to do this for him. “Why?”

“Because it’s hardly your name, you said it was just what some prostitutes ‘called’ you as a baby.” He spooned up next to her, broad chest to her back, the warmth of his body making her smile, and she wondered how long she could keep him here. “You want me to call you ‘Hector’ when you look more like an ‘Angus.’”

“Oh, y’ll not be callin’ me ‘Angus!’”

Elizabeth laughed. “Then I think I should prefer to stay with ‘Captain,’ Captain.” She rolled over in his embrace to face him, then kissed him as her fingers curled in the chest hair at the open “V” of his shirt. His eyes closed, happy for the contact and she heard him moan lowly. Now, she should mention it now, but she must be careful in how she urged him towards the goal that had been set, but not by her. “At least, that is until…” How had he missed the last stanza of the scroll?

“Bird must guide lion through the storm
while lion holds bird from doing harm.
Serenity will take its form,
forever lived in each others arms.”

“’Til what?” Barbossa asked, his curiosity peaked and he was hopeful, but wanted to kiss her again so badly, and did before she could answer him.

“I know what you believe about it, and I understand, Captain, I do.” Elizabeth wrapped her arms around him, looking for a way to soften what she was about tell him, not wanting to thrust him back into the turmoil she’d managed to somehow pluck him out of. “Read the scroll again, and when you can say what seems so cursed to me, then I will call you by your name.”

He stiffened, would have torn away from her embrace had she not sighted the scroll as having been her reason for suggesting such a thing. Perhaps he should look it over again, Calypso was a hard thing to figure, and at times, trust. But Elizabeth, he’d do it for her; but he wouldn’t get her hopes up. “I won’t say it, Elizabeth.”

“Fine then,” she answered, and curled her head against his chest, fingering the albatross there. “Then take me to Jack, I’ve a ship to secure for you.”

Barbossa sighed. He could forgive her a thousand times for the secret she’d kept from him, but even he knew there would be no forgiveness like the words “I love you, Elizabeth.” And if he didn’t give her that, then she would forever feel compelled to bring him his ship, no matter the cost to Sparrow. Sparrow and Swann…those two birds were not to be fighting, or his bird would suffer his curse. And what was the point of all of this? That he may know peace? Peace? How was a treacherous old thing like him ever to know what that meant again? Damned Teach, had his blackbearded friend been just a hair stronger, Barbossa would never have been laboring under the direction of this damned scroll! Of course, had Teach been the stronger man, Elizabeth would not be at his side now. Elizabeth…now there was a reason to hope for peace. She did deserve to hear the words; he’d never thought that she didn’t. But they were cursed. Weren’t they? Star-crossed, as set down in Calypso’s own hand. Was the whole bloody scroll a curse then? His old lover, the goddess that had always favored him, had hoped he’d find a cursed peace? What the bloody hell was cursed peace? Should he say the words and find out? Or should he stick to his guns, and never utter how he felt about the woman he loved? He needed time to sort this all out, but was currently distracted by Elizabeth’s hands on his chest, now joined by her mouth.

It had been days since she’d touched him and her desirous nature was getting the best of her. She couldn’t have him this close to her and not pull open his shirt enough to lavish attention upon that gloriously broad chest with hungry fingers and kisses. He was still as strong as she’d remembered, muscles moving powerfully beneath his skin, firm against her lips, her hand sliding beneath his shirt further, over his nipple, her mouth following, lips closing around the hardening peak as she sucked it. The Captain shuddered and groaned, her hand settling around his thick biceps as he raised her head up to look at her.

“Elizabeth, stop,” he gasped to her. It had been too long since his body had known hers, and the younger man inside of him would have jumped at the chance to do so again with very little encouragement. “Yer not ready for that, and y’know it.”

“I can’t help it,” she smiled, and felt his own hand trail from her lifted chin, down her neck and trace the swell of one of her breasts, her smile broadened, wondered where he would take this. To her dismay, his hand pulled away, and he sat up.

“Nor can I.” He sighed, sitting at the edge of the bed, they were both better off if he stuck to deciphering the scroll, and contemplating saying something to her that he’d sworn he would never say. And then he smiled, realized the opportunity that lay before them. He had words to perchance say to her, she wouldn’t even call him by his first name until he said them, and Elizabeth was in no condition for any sort of carnal interludes; they may as well have been newly introduced betrothed couple. He got to his feet, looking as gallant as he ever did as he laced his shirt back up. “Miss Swann, I’ll re-examine our scroll,” he told her, reaching for his coat and the scroll, rolling it back up and tucking it into the pocket. “And in the meantime, would y’not give me the right to woo y’properly?”

He wanted to what? She smiled, was touched, but confused. “Aren’t we a bit beyond that, Captain?”

“No,” he smiled charmingly at her, putting his coat on and reaching for his hat next. “Given the words y’be wishin for me to say to ye, we are not.”

Elizabeth’s heart leapt, was he truly contemplating saying that he loved her? And he wished to woo her? Wooed by Captain Hector Barbossa? How was she to resist? But, she must make one thing clear to him here and now. “But in the meantime, Captain Barbossa, while you are searching your heart, do I have your promise that you will seek The Pearl, incase I need her to absolve myself to you?”

He stiffened again, was still dead set against any instance of Elizabeth versus Jack, but fair was fair. “We have an accord, Miss Swann.” He put his hat on his head and then held his hand out to her.

Elizabeth smiled, feeling that there may be hope after all, for him, for her, for them. She took the Captain’s hand, thought they’d shake on it, but was surprised when he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it. She actually gasped a bit, such a formidable figure, dashing, imposing, dominant, intrepid and gentlemanly. He wanted to woo her, as a gentleman did a lady! Oh what an exuberance! He neither held her hand to his lips too briefly, or too long, but for the appropriate amount of time to make her wish for more once he’d let go of her and walked towards the cabin door. She’d have liked to have more time with him, but she’d have changed nothing about the time she did have with him. “So, when am I to expect you to call again?” She smiled, watching him walk as though he should have worn a long, flowing, elegant cape. “Sir?”

He turned to her with his big shoulders nobly squared, but gave her a rakish smile. “Y’ll hear from me.” Was all he said, then removed his hat, gave her polished, sweeping bow, and left the cabin. The wooing had begun.