veronica_rich | New fic: "Conterminous"

"Conterminous"
POTC characters: Jack, Elizabeth, Bill, Tai Huang; W/E and J/W
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Characters property of Buena Vista and Bruckheimer, additions all my own.
Summary: Jack and Elizabeth wait for Will’s return with Liam (and by “wait” I mean … well, you’ll see). Part of a series, in order: A Debt to be Paid, With Interest, A Tangled Web, A Heart Divided, and Supernatural. Two other standalone stories – The Pirate Boy and Small Comforts – also take place in this timeline, “The Pirate Boy” about a year after this.
A/N: Thanks to betas

metalkatt,

gryphons_lair,

ainsoph15,

a_silver_rose, and

yoiebear – any mistakes that linger would be my own.
Feedback: Always appreciated.

When Jack yanked open the wardroom doors, Bill Turner stood at their center, effectively blocking egress for anyone not willing to edge around either side of him.

“Let me out,” Jack ordered.

Bill shook his head, arms crossed, feet planted apart. Elizabeth had never noticed before just quite how tall her father-in-law was, nor how broad his shoulders – he actually dwarfed Will a little, no mean feat.

Captain Jack Sparrow sputtered. “Sir, this is mutiny!” He kicked one booted toe into the floor, glaring up at his old friend.

Bill planted his hands on his hips, his arms blocking more light. “Beggin’ your pardon, Jack, but there’s only one captain I could mutiny upon, and he’s not present.”

That made Elizabeth Turner grind her teeth. She was still angry over Will taking off after their argument with Jack, and dragging Liam off with him. She tried to tell herself he would never endanger his own son – that, indeed, he had power over the ocean and death itself – but it did nothing to cool her fire. “What about his wife?” she asked, more as a matter of form than expecting a real answer.

Bill shook his head, glancing over at her. “I’ve only one Captain Turner I answer to.” A wry smile touched his lips as he looked back down at Jack, and without his old sock cap and with his hair better-braided and clothes less of a dishabille than they’d been when she’d first met the man, she could see the resemblance to her husband. “He told me to use my discretion toward getting you two out of murderous intent toward each other, and seeing as I’m fairly well dead, I have patience to spare.”

When Jack turned after shutting the doors, he had his own mutinous pout as his eyes swept the room. When his gaze reached her, he scowled, then cleared his face as he sauntered toward the far end of the long table, taking a seat under the porthole. Elizabeth watched him for about two minutes, then took the seat at the other oblong end, folding her arms. “So …” she began, lifting her voice to be heard. Jack only raised his feet to the table and crossed them at the ankles, hands in his lap, studiously refusing to speak. She cleared her throat; he said nothing. She leaned on the table; he said nothing.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “How long have you been wanting to swive my husband?”

He raised his eyes nonchalantly. “How long have you been wantin’ to fuck me?”

Short of firing a cannon into her gut, if there had been anything else he could’ve said to induce such a swift reaction, she couldn’t name it. Her jaw dropped and she felt the blood drain from her face. “How can you say such a thing to me?”

“You like t’ play games, Your Majesty; forgive me if I’m no longer inclined to participate.” His expression shifted, sly. “I let ye kiss me once, and I died, whereas I’ve actually let Death do a hell of a lot more … an’ here I sit, pretty and vital as ye please.” He spread his arms to gesture himself, halfway grinning.

Jack had no intention of discussing anything seriously in this state of pique, and she was working up a good anger herself. Nothing said in this mood would be productive, especially when she wasn’t even sure she wanted to cooperate. For the first time, it occurred to her what Will might’ve been pondering for all those months on their way to rescue Jack, after watching her little performance pressing Jack between herself and the mast.

It was my burden to bear.

She’d made no attempt to explain herself, holding on to the privilege of a class that never had to explain itself to the likes of tradesmen and servants – she’d treated him as unable to understand her motivations or simply not needing that information as though it were none of his concern. It had never occurred to her when it should have that he’d held his tongue for so long out of patience or care – deep down, she’d assumed it some lingering obedience to his betters, to accept whatever she said as the law in their relationship.

Ache constricted her chest, the likes of which she hadn’t felt since the months following Will’s departure with the Dutchman, upon realizing she’d squandered all those months sailing with him to Singapore and beyond, yet rarely speaking or acknowledging his attempts to engage her in conversation. When she’d learned she was pregnant, she’d felt the cold sobriety of imagining the child someday asking for stories of his parents – and the cold, cruel realization that she would have to admit everything that had happened, lest Jack or anyone else enlighten him later on.

“I’m sorry that tethering you to the mast was the only option I believed I had for saving us.”

Jack’s expression didn’t change as he continued to observe her coolly. “Yourself and William.”

She shook her head. “All of-” She sighed. “Us. Mostly Will.” She clenched her fists under the table, out of his sight. “Someone had to give a damn for him … what, with you selling him down the river to Davy Jones and him foolishly going along with it.” She dug the knife in. “I’m surprised he let you in his bed, considering the contempt and utter scorn we all know you have for him.”

There it was – a slight, but perceptible, furrowing of the eyebrows and a glacial crinkle to the skin around Jack’s eyes. “He must get awfully desperate between our visits, I suppose,” she sighed, over-enunciating. “I mustn’t be too angry with him, seeing as his only selection is the likes of you being the only other captain willing to allow your ship anywhere near his.” It was her turn to smile, feral, her blood boiling righteously and protectively as Jack stared icily at her, unblinking. “I suppose I’ll just have to make the trip to visit him more often.”

Jack tapped his fingers on the table in slow rhythm, saying nothing for the longest time. Finally, he asked in perfect King’s English, “Where is the Empress?”

“Why?”

“When is she to rendezvous?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

He stood, straightening and adjusting his coat. “You will board it with Mr. Turner and both wait for your whelps here, on your own vessel, while the Pearl takes her departure.”

She didn’t believe for a minute he was giving up that easily. “You can’t follow the Dutchman, Jack. You know that.” She knew it was unlikely he would try such a thing, even if he wanted to – his crew would mutiny before he reached the end of the world.

“I believe our business is concluded.” He strode to the doors and pulled them open. Bill said nothing, eyeing him, and Elizabeth watched Jack practically push against him, head back. “So help me, Bill, if you don’t move, when I die I’ll make sure I end up servin’ on th’ Dutchman for th’ sheer hell of makin’ what you have of your death a nightmarish existence.”

After a few seconds, Bill turned enough to let Jack by, then met his daughter-in-law’s eyes. “I’m sorry, lass. ‘S the craziest thing, but once Jack don’ want to talk anymore, there’s nothing anyone can force otherwise out of th’ stubborn git.” His expression softened a bit, but his words didn’t. “And you didn’t much help, with all that goading.”

That was precisely what I wasn’t trying to do with it, she thought, but didn’t say so. “Will has enough difficulties and challenges without having to put up with Jack Sparrow,” she answered, wondering how much she believed Will would actually thank her for angering, truthfully, the only other captain and crew not afraid of him.

True to his word, Jack had his crew signal the Empress the following morning. Elizabeth and Bill took their leave in a longboat sent by her crew, and as she looked back at the huge black ship upon leaving, she regretted she hadn’t been able to learn more about Jack’s motives while she had the chance.

Once she explained about Liam to Tai Huang and ordered the crew to keep station, she stood at the rail until the Pearl had sailed off the edge of the horizon to the west. After all these years and occasional encounters, she thought she’d mostly figured out Jack and his motives. But perhaps the problem wasn’t that she didn’t know how to play him – maybe it was that she did it too well, for the purpose of shutting him up. Older, with more at stake now, she needed information, yet was still resorting to her tricks of old for merely unbalancing him instead.

The child growing up among politicians and diplomats had learned to disdain talk. Everything she witnessed was talk, talk, talk, from her father to his colleagues, to even most of the children of those people. After she’d learned to read and had stumbled across her governess’s hidden journals with accounts of pirates, she was hooked. Here were men of action, men who didn’t quarrel and discuss and dabble, but instead took what they wanted – and if you wanted to avoid having your things taken, you were forced to fight, too. This appealed greatly to six-year-old Elizabeth’s sense of adventure and frustration at being made to sit through endless, talky dinners.

As the girl got older, she read all she could sneak of pirate trials. Her father had been pleased to see his only child taking an interest in some of the work of his peers, mistakenly believing her as disdainful of the brigands as he himself. It wasn’t until they were crossing the Atlantic for his new posting, nearly a year after her mother’s death, that he spent enough time in her company to be horrified by her prurient interest in piracy for piracy’s sake, rather than as a punitive matter.

As she aged, she began to see firsthand the real consequences of pirate attacks – half-blown ships limping into harbor, men with scars and missing limbs, the occasional piece of news about a nearby settlement being attacked or the even rarer occurrence of the murder of someone she’d met.

In the years leading to her social debut, she began to shift her opinion. She would never be completely shaken of the romanticism of the lifestyle, and she dimly understood the philosophy behind complete freedom of social constraints and laws. But by the age of fifteen, she began to understand somewhat the need for a manner like her father’s; the talk, talk, talk that had seemed useless to her as a young child began to gain some pragmatism.

And she’d found what seemed the perfect blend of talk and action in the accounts and wild tales of one Captain Jack Sparrow.

Here was a man who could take over a port without firing a shot, known more for a glib tongue than a smoking pistol. At first meeting he’d seemed silly – surely this collection of flowy, fading scraps and cheap trinkets and stinky hair wasn’t the masterful negotiator she’d read about! But she’d come to a grudging admiration of the wily pirate, and a vestige of her romantic notions lingered. It was his behavior toward both of them after their ruined wedding, which had burned away nearly the rest of her romanticism. She’d been progressively enraged and disdainful of the man when she glimpsed the coward beneath the swagger.

It had taken a few hours to come back to herself after chaining him for the kraken, and time among the former slaves and progeny in the bayou, grieving for a genuinely good man, to fully comprehend the horror of what she’d committed. So fixated had she then become on her own sins and absolution that she had ignored everyone around her – including the fiancé suffering her de facto rejection.

Elizabeth hated how much of her youthful disdain for talk still influenced her – at least in personal relationships. It had been a stumbling block with more than one friend, and even with Will during their courtship. If there was a misunderstanding, he would often attempt to draw her into conversation, whereas she usually dismissed it as inconsequential.

With Jack, it was different. Talk was all she had with him. He had a way of looking at her as though every thought were printed on her forehead. Their conversations, therefore, were a contest, a power shift designed to establish who had the upper hand at any given moment they occupied each other’s space. At the time she had been frankly surprised her kissing ploy had worked so smoothly, since they barely tolerated each other; since then, she’d come to a half-conclusion that perhaps he’d allowed it, knowing his sentence was being passed, letting her dictate his conscience for him.

Then again, she thought with a wry grin, maybe he’d just liked it. With his rum-soaked breath, just how many kisses could he be getting from attractive young women?

When Will admitted to having relations with Jack, in that moment she’d hated Will with a fiery intensity – was it because Jack would give him conversation and she wouldn’t? She mourned her husband’s loss to Calypso, but at least it had been beyond his control. That he would willingly want Jack, choose to love him, tore at her. They’d never discussed whether either of them preferred relations with their own gender, but she knew she didn’t … and had incorrectly presumed the same upon Will. Her surprise at this nearly outweighed the pain of being cuckolded, though it was ameliorated by the realization there’d always been something humming between the two men. She’d just always thought it was more on Jack’s part than Will’s.

Sometimes, the world threw funny things at a body to figure out.

This thought coincided with the watchman’s hail of spotting a ship.

*****

Rarely had Elizabeth engaged in skirmish. Her ship’s sleek, swift appearance and its crew’s reputation usually left her alone. She was careful not to sail navy patrol waters unless necessary, and her crew had so far been skillful enough to skirt attack. Any pirate captain foolish enough to approach with cannons bared was soon greeted with the sight of her distinctive dragon-sweeps flying high over deck. Perhaps the one tale that united every sailor was the specter of the Flying Dutchman, and very few were unaware of its captain’s relationship to King Turner – summoning Death was a risky enough proposition when both vessels were strangers to him, let alone one with Elizabeth on board.

But either this ship was unaware of her flag or had a death wish. It was a large vessel, roughly the size of the Pearl, obviously of military ancestry. Guns pointed from every several feet, and the captain neither covered them nor turned to sail off when presented with the Empress’s cannons. Elizabeth didn’t recognize the flag, but Tai Huang did.

“That is the Lilith,” he explained, spitting over the rail.

It was an unusual name for such a powerful ship. “Really?” Her curiosity overrode the immediate association with any danger, apparent in Huang’s tense bearing.

“Devil’s mistress.”

It took a few seconds to make the connection, since religious studies had not been her forte. She frowned. “Wishing to be equal with Adam makes her a demon?”

Her first mate gave her a rare withering look. “It is Captain Hardecke’s nickname for her,” he pointed out, “and this is no time for righteous indignation. He means to kill us.”

“Hmm. A rose by any other name is still as dangerous.” Elizabeth squinted, trying to judge weakness, to find anything that could be exploited. She was no naval or strategic expert, despite her title. “Can we clubhaul the Empress in time?”

Huang didn’t answer directly; instead, he gritted his teeth and studied the vessel himself. Wisely, Elizabeth let him think – this was his ship when she was at home, and for eight years he’d kept it afloat when she wasn’t around. She often didn’t know what he was thinking, and wondered if it was because he was Oriental* – many of her crew, and other Eastern pirates, were remarkably good at smiling even as they argued, the pleasantness never leaving their expressions even as their words took on heat. For the fact she did not act thus, Mistress Ching was usually a welcome visitor with whom Elizabeth enjoyed talking and debating – if she was angry, she would show it.

“We have more guns,” Huang pointed out. “Your crew is more experienced than his; he has not been sailing as long as some of yours sailed under Sao Feng.” He hesitated. “He is simply dangerous. It is said he does not fear death.”

“That’s because he hasn’t died,” she dryly observed.

Huang chuckled appreciatively, as did a few other men behind her. “Indeed,” he answered. “Nor has he yet invoked the wrath of Death.” He looked over at her. “It may be in our interest to go on the offense, to create the first casualties, from a strategic position.”

She knew he was talking about Will. A small part of her resented having to invoke his power of obliteration as insurance against attack. But maturity had brought the realization that everybody leaned on some defense or other to get by – Jack had benefited from Barbossa’s reputation the first several months after he recovered his ship that first time, rarely attacked or even approached at sea. Even Will would not be formidable without his mantle of immortality and an unsinkable ship.

Before she could speak, a gravelly voice at her other shoulder interrupted. “He’s not the genie of the bottle,” Bill explained.

“Beg pardon?” Elizabeth turned to him.

“William. The Dutchman can travel preternaturally fast, but it cannot displace from one place to the other,” he continued. “Most of our collections are well after the dead are created – not during. Besides, he’s the boy with him; I don’t think he’s going to put him in danger between two warring ships.”

Well, that’s what I’d hope, too, she thought, deflating a little. “Do we engage anyway?” she asked both men.

“That is your call,” Huang answered. There was no malice; it was acknowledgement of her captaincy.

“Yes, I understand that,” she ground out, with an edge of annoyance. “What would you do?”

“I might attack, just to gain offensive advantage.”

She chewed at her lower lip. “But if we do that, we use ammunition. We have a limited amount – and as soon as we fire, they’ll likely fire back anyway, won’t they?” Her first mate watched her. “If we wait, we can conserve some while they’re using theirs.”

“If we fire first, our gunners may inflict considerable damage at key points.”

“Decisions, decisions,” Elizabeth murmured, hands on her hips. “You know, this is not nearly as much fun as it looked like in my governess’s novels.” Huang cracked a smile at that. “Are we ready to fire?”

“Aye. Primed and pointed.”

Shite, shite, shite, she thought. “Is there any chance of having a parlay with the captain?”

“Not likely.” This, from Bill. Well, he would’ve heard of Hardecke, if he had to ever clean up his carnage. “We’ve taken on souls who said ‘twas no difference in wavin’ the flag or firin’ the guns.”

“If I may,” Huang offered. “If you linger long enough, you will not have to make the decision at all.”

Elizabeth smiled wryly at him. “Your grasp of naval strategy is truly incredulous,” she deadpanned, feeling oddly calm even in the face of a rare impending skirmish. She didn’t always have the answers even after all these years, nor the coolheadedness of experience to guide her decisions, but she’d always been able to do what had to be done.

Huang turned and spoke rapidly to his lieutenant in his dialect, very little of which she understood – but she knew his manner well enough, and a few words after these years, to know he was telling them to stand by for return fire. When he turned back, she offered him a tighter smile, and he nodded in silent understanding.

“I know how to stall,” she said. “At least, I think I do; evasive maneuvers and some return-fire. But how do we win this?”

Huang raised his eyebrows. “If I knew that, we would not need to consult whether to attack.”

Elizabeth sighed, eyes squinting at the ship closing in, severely disliking logic sometimes.

*****

The Lilith didn’t recognize Elizabeth’s sweeps, or just didn’t care, and its first shot took out a good chunk of the stern rail’s port corner. Fortunately, nobody was hit; Huang pointed out it was a warning “glance” from the deadly Hardecke.

From that point, when questioned later, Elizabeth would remember very little of how events progressed. She knew she yelled orders, along with Huang and the quartermaster, and the navigator trying to make good time with escape. But this only lasted for perhaps thirty minutes, as the Lilith drew closer and resumed cannon fire.

The first boarders were repelled by crewmen, at Huang’s insistence that they cover their captain. She’d long since learned not to take offense – a captain might lead a boarding party, but to repel an attack, she needed to be kept alive and seen in action as long as possible so surrender wasn’t an immediate option. She braced herself, shooting one attacker who knocked one of her boys over and drew his blade over the fallen. She shoved the pistol into the gut of her personal gunner to reload, and balanced herself to protect them both with the sword Will had crafted for her years earlier.

The good news was that she’d kept up her fencing enough that she wasn’t as frightened or rusty as she might’ve been – the relatively bad news was that none of those challengers had mustered a serious group effort to christen their blades on her blood, so she was rather underprepared for the same bloodthirstiness she’d faced from Beckett’s men and Jones’s crew too long ago.

As she parried and ducked and defended, she thought she heard a cry of “Ship!” but it hardly mattered – they were already facing a formidable enemy, and if six more came … well, those could hardly create a worse situation. Elizabeth cursed herself for waiting so long to give the order to turn about and shove off, thinking Hardecke might have enough recognition and sense to avoid conflict. She further hated that she’d still been letting Jack get to her, even in absentia. She really hated that she both wanted to drown and climb Will. The only good thing of all this was she was able to throw her frustration into her fighting, setting her teeth together and putting her back into the blade, occasionally ducking a pistol shot.

Finally, when she was feeling exhausted, the fight was temporarily suspended by the report of distant cannon fire. She didn’t feel vibrations, so she knew the Empress hadn’t fired – and by the bewildered expressions the enemy wore, she realized it wasn’t their ship, either.

Elizabeth chanced turning her head to look behind. The Pearl was closing remarkably fast on the two feuding ships, lobbing cannon shot at the Lilith. The scant crew left aboard were scurrying around, yelling and panicking, and Elizabeth felt a surge of hope – she had no idea why Jack had come back or even how he’d known to, but she wasn’t going to waste time wondering. Especially not while she was still being attacked! Her crew did a good job of covering her, but there was still hard fighting, and her muscles were straining, screaming for a respite. She hoped whatever Jack was doing would keep more boarders from swinging and swimming to the Empress.

She took advantage of being covered at one point to sheathe her sword and reach around quickly to retie the leather thong around her long hair, shoving the mass of it down inside her tunic. As she was going for her sword, she heard a loud, shrill cry.

Hand on the grip, she looked up – straight into the wild eyes of an extremely tall, bald, heavily tattooed pirate running straight at her. His right arm was crooked back at the elbow, right hand gripping his broad cutlass at the pommel and the other arm stretched out as if to grab her throat, mouth open, face red. Closing her fingers around her own grip, she pulled her sword, but her reflexes were molasses, her throat thick and unable to produce sound, nothing between her and her death – and all she could think was how Will would find her drained, facedown, in a pool of her blood slowly congealing and permeating into the wood of her ship. She didn’t have time to panic as the point of the sword drove at her midsection, and she forced her eyes to stay open, to meet it with full awareness.

Which is why she was shocked to see the blade come out of nowhere near her head, slicing through her field of vision and deep into the throat of her attacker. He came to a stop, almost comically, and his eyes went wide as he realized his breathing was cut off. Only then did she notice someone was behind him, a second attacker in case Baldy couldn’t finish the job.

Bill yanked his sword from Baldy’s throat with a savage twist of his left arm. He lifted his right, wielding another sword, and with a clean downward cut, knocked the sword from the second attacker’s hand. As Baldy dropped to his knees, Bill angled the bloody blade around, his greatcoat swirling around his knees as he whirled to deliver another killing blow; this one bit into the second attacker’s neck hard enough to cleave head from shoulders.

Elizabeth had seen death in battle, but she clamped her mouth shut and swallowed a few times to keep from throwing up on the spot. Bill came to a stop, eyes down on the men he’d killed, and the set of his jaw and the furrow of his brow made her blink in surprise; in this profile he looked so much like Will that she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t immediately seen the resemblance when she first met him.

“Thank you” seemed woefully under-appropriate. She tried to speak, but he looked over at her. “I’m not doing the most good I could, over here,” he informed her, looking around deck.

Right before he disappeared in a shower of sawdust.

All this happened in the space of only a few seconds; by this time, Elizabeth had pulled her sword and with Bill’s vanishing act, she was alert once more to all around her. Glancing toward the helm, she noted with relief that one of her men was still on the tiller. She started forward toward her gunner, but came up short when, suddenly blocking her path, were Bill and Jack.

“I’m going over to see what damage I can do.” Bill pointed his chin toward the Lilith, then looked back down at Jack. “Guard her.”

For his part, Elizabeth had to admire how calm Jack managed to look for a man who’d been scooped up and literally dropped into the middle of combat – that is, not much at all, staggering rather more than normal for him, eyes wide with confusion (and, she knew from experience, a little nausea from flying apart and being pieced back together again). “Mate, I just brought the can-” But Bill was gone again, and they both gaped at the spot.

That is, until she spotted someone behind him. “Look out!” she yelled.

Fluidly, Jack turned and drew his sword at the same time, bringing it up just in time to clash with another. Elizabeth released a breath and turned her attention again to the lingering boarders.

But she heard a voice behind her even as she raised her sword to fend off another challenger. “You should’ve told ‘im to nab someone else!”

“I didn’t tell him to bring you!” she called back, trying to keep most of her attention on the fight at hand.

“I only brought cannons!” He sounded offended. “This was not part of th’ bargain!”

She managed to slip through and slice her opponent’s fighting arm, and he dropped his sword, clutching it with his other hand. “Go ahead, Jack!” She flung one arm out toward the sea, taking it for granted he’d see it from behind her. “Jump right in and swim right back to your ship!”

“I was conjured here, an’ I demand to be conjured back!” he growled.

“The only place I’d like to conjure you is to hell!” She spun, angry, and slapped the flat of her blade against his leg. Hard.

“Already done that once!” Now he was angry, when it did her the least good! “No beasties around t’ eat me.”

His sword was up, defensively. “If I had a pistol, that wouldn’t be a problem,” she gritted out. In her periphery, she saw another attacker, and turned away to meet him. “You didn’t come back for any of this!”

“Th’ hell I didn’t! I saw Hardecke headin’ your way and decide to do you a favor, and this is th’ greeting I get?”

Their argument ended abruptly as they both found themselves fighting others again, oddly back-to-back – at least for a short time. She concentrated on protecting herself and didn’t give Jack another thought for several moments, but something nagged at the edges of her awareness as she fought. It took a little time to sink in, but she realized the sound of cannon fire had diminished, though she couldn’t understand why. With nobody coming at her for the moment, she turned to ask Jack if he, too, heard it – and saw Hardecke on her deck, who Huang had identified for her from a distance much earlier, visible from another ship for his distinctive red coat.

He was facing Jack.

He was raising a pistol.

Jack didn’t see him.

Throwing her slight body forward, Elizabeth lunged. She yelled the first thing she could think might throw off the concentration of anyone standing around – including Hardecke. “INCOMING!”

She dimly noticed he looked her way, then finished raising his pistol. It gave her a few feet, and she leaped, seeing the spark of report as she barreled into smelly wool and hard muscle.

She quickly rolled to her back and saw Jack did the same, beside her. He frowned, looked up, and spotted his would-be assassin. As Hardecke bent to reach for what she guessed was a second gun, Jack yanked his from his sash, cocked the hammer, and drew a bead. She shut her eyes, unable to watch as he fired over her. When she didn’t hear a second shot, Elizabeth cracked her eyelids and looked over to see Hardecke on his knees, bowed slightly, hand on his belly. She rolled her head toward Jack, who was also still flat on his back.

“Gut wound,” he explained. “He’ll take longer to die than just a simple rent through ‘is heart.” At the reminder of past events, she winced, and his tone softened. “Sorry, love.”

They both clambered to their feet, and Elizabeth noticed what was left of Hardecke’s boarding party looking toward their fallen captain in confusion. “Yes, he’s dead!” she yelled. “Or as good as! Unless you want to join him overboard, surrender now!”

Her words were punctuated by a loud crack and groaning timber, and everyone swung their heads in time to see the Lilith’s main mast slowly toppling forward, falling through sails and lines and pitching over the bow of the ship. Near the broken post, she saw the tall figure of Bill Turner hold up an axe and drop it to the deck.

Elizabeth’s crew was silent, along with those of Hardecke’s, who had no idea who Bill was and how he could chop through something that thick that quickly – or even be on their ship.

Finally, Huang spoke. “Interesting family you have, Captain.”

*****

“I need another bottle.”

“Matter what’s in it?”

Eyes fixed on an unidentifiable stain in the ceiling, Elizabeth answered, “Nope.”

She heard creaking and the sound of liquid jostling, and the rustle of fabric. More liquid shaking. “I’m not pullin’ the cork and pourin’ it down your gullet, Your Highness,” Jack drawled. “Look lively.”

Groaning from the effort of sitting up, she tilted her head forward and eased the chair down on all four legs. Her muscles screamed at her, even after the hot bath Jack had ordered his crew to carry for her, and she secretly wondered if the stiff leather of her Chinese garb would’ve been better to put back on instead of the old breeches and loose shirt Jack had asked Ragetti to provide, being close to Elizabeth’s own size. She reached across several inches and took the dark bottle from Jack’s grasp, noting he didn’t lean forward in his chair. “Ought to hand me whatever I want,” she grumbled, working at the tight cork. “Saved your life today, loaned you my husband …”

He barked out a single “Ha!” as if an actor on cue. His, too, was aimed at the ceiling of his cabin, and his booted feet were crossed up on his table. She hadn’t been quite that ambitious with her balancing act yet, but she tried as she tipped back again, testing one foot and bringing it down as soon as it felt like the chair would fall over. She envied Jack his confidence to know better – to lean on something and trust it not to do more than simply tilt a little, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

“Don’t laugh at me.” She made some progress as she felt the cork loosen. “’S true. You … buggered him!”

“Didn’t get quite that far, Majesty.”

“Oh, don’t lie, Jack. You’re – who you are, and he’s got a split heart, and-” She finally yanked out the cork, gave it a toss somewhere, and tilted the bottle back for a long draught. Swallowing, she sighed the rest. “And I’m not enough for him anymore.”

“Well, he’s a fucking DEMIGOD, what do you expect?” Jack was loud, but not yelling. “I hate to destroy th’ last notions of your romantic fantasies, but as you’d know if ye ever read about Zeus, by all rights he could have fifty of us by now an’ it not be enough.”

She watched him swirl the dregs of his own bottle, heard the resignation in his voice. “How much’ve you had?”

“Why?”

“Because, by rights, it’s my capture and that’s my liquor, and my quartermaster’ll demand an accounting, that’s why.”

“Well, ‘s difficult to say, see,” he answered, and either his voice was getting slower, or her reflexes were. “Ye take th’ twelve that were in the case, subtract th’ three or so you’ve sucked down, count what’s left, and whatever’s left over’ll be what I’ve taken as me payment toward comin’ back and savin’ you an’ your crew’s arse from that bastard Hardecke.”

She said nothing for a long moment, one foot touching the floor and the other resting on the edge of the table to balance herself as she laid her head back again. “How can a man’s heart have two separate beats to it?”

“How can a man’s heart live in a moldy box when he’s thousands of miles from it?”

She closed her eyes. “When did you know you loved him, Jack?”

“Who said anything ‘bout love?” Elizabeth kept silent, waiting. Jack drank, by the sound of it, let out a soft burp, and blew out a long stream of air. “I’ll be damned if I know. He was always involvin’ himself with things didn’t directly concern him, ‘stead of lettin’ people find their own way out. Was his idea to stop me hangin’ in Port Royal – ‘course, he said somethin’ about tha’ bloody commodore givin’ him ideas, but I didn’t see bloody Norrington cuttin’ me down and giving me freedom when th’ time came.”

“I wished for the longest time he’d be bold, and stand up to my father, and insist on calling me by my Christian name,” she admitted. “I never thought much about what it might do to him if he tried that and failed.”

Jack made a “piffle” noise. “And, he didn’t when he did, did he? You’re right, th’ boy was too timid by far on things that didn’t need a strong arm or back.”

“Guess that means you were good for him, then.”

“Aye, I was good.” He took another swig of … whatever he was drinking, and Elizabeth had had so much she wasn’t even sure of what hers was at this point. “I was so good I got th’ boy killed and chained where I didn’t even want to be.”

“I don’t think Will blames you for that.”

“He does. He’d never say as much, but … there’s no way he couldn’t.” She heard guilt in Jack’s voice. And a little sorrow. “So much for the opportune moment.”

They each drank some more. She felt pleasantly fuzzy and words tumbled unhinged through her mind the longer she stared at the ceiling, reforming into other words and concepts, and she snorted at one. “Will’s the pirate queen,” she chortled.

“Eh?”

“Well, since I’m the pirate king, that makes him the queen.” She guffawed, wondering why she’d never made the connection before. “And you the queen consort. You’re like, like Sir Walter Raleigh.”

Jack, too, let out a long laugh. She heard a great sloshing and peeked over to see him raising high his bottle. “To the immortal Queen William!” he shouted. “Always knew she was a eunuch.”

In a fit of bonhomie, Elizabeth also hoisted her mostly-empty bottle. “To lovely Qu- Oof!” She lost her balance and toppled back, the floor hitting her back and forcing the air out.

“Aye! And nimble King Lizzie!” In his mirth, Jack overbalanced, too, and landed on his back. They lay there at an angle to one another for the second time that day, only this time they could do nothing but laugh.

She lifted her bottle weakly, talking around gasps of laughter. “To … Will … the deadliest queen … ever …”

“Aye,” Jack agreed, “to th’ second-bravest pirate monarch since that last Elizabeth was on th’ throne!” He snorted. “With th’ best-brushed moustache ever seen on a queen!” They broke into new fits of laughter; Elizabeth rolled to her side, unable to breathe, hitting Jack in the side to get him to stop; he shook his head, unable to speak, which made her laugh harder.

Somewhere she dimly heard a steady, brief thump, but it stopped presently and they continued laughing. She finally rolled to her back again, when the laughter subsided a few minutes later, and opened her eyes, gulping for air. Instead of the ceiling, this time she saw a fuzzy face, upside down. Blinking, she used her bottle to hit Jack in the side and get his attention. “Who’s that?” she asked, lifting it.

“Eh?” He shoved her bottle away. “Quit hittin’ me, woman.” Then she heard him make a small sound of recognition. “Ahh … why, ‘tis bonny Queen William, come to check in on his faithful court!” Jack spread his arms wide and tilted his head forward, as if making a curtsey from the floor. “Your Feminine Highness.”

Elizabeth coughed out a laugh. “My liege!” she added.

Will put his hands on his hips and looked between them, mouth quirked. “Must be my lucky day,” he finally said, nodding a little. Elizabeth wished he’d stop, as it was beginning to make her dizzy and give her a headache. “It’s not every queen who gets two court jesters.”

And then she was out.

*Remember that this is Elizabeth’s time period and her thoughts would reflect the mores of the day. “Orientals” is a term that didn’t go out of use until fairly recently in western culture.