Chapter 30! I apologize for the long wait. I was preoccupied with my other story, and as I was writing that story, I started to get the urge to revise this story. I will be going through and re-writing all of the chapters, not necessarily to change the story, but just to improve the style of writing, expand the characters and story a bit, and just make it generally better. :)

Her hair was tangled and windswept from being in the crow's nest, her face stung and itched, and her eyes were droopy from the lack of sleep.

It took them three days to reach Port Royal.

Three days for her to spend mourning over the loss of...a friend...enemy...didn't even know what to call him...somewhere in between friend or enemy perhaps…

But now he was nothing to her...only another disappointment.

None of the memories mattered anymore...she couldn't see the first time she had met him on the Port Royal docks the same way again...or when she had sailed with him to Isla Cruces…

...or their island.

They all made her sick...guilty...like she was being weak by wanting to remember...him...before all of this had happened. She could remember the way she used to see him...fascinating...alluring...but now all she could feel was repulsed by the very image of his face…

...and being alone on a ship for three days had done her no favors.

She couldn't lie and say that she didn't want to turn back time to before...that she didn't sit and wish and hope that it had all been…a fragment of memory, like a window looking back into the lie...

...because she did, and the only thing that ever followed it was the pressure of knowing that he had always intended to hurt her eventually...that he had never intended to forgive her…

That dream...it had been like an awakening...like she had been blind to his true nature toward her before...she couldn't fathom how...but now she knew that she could never go back to the way...could never go back to loving him.

And it hurt like nothing else had ever hurt before...that love being broken...poisoned...tainted.

She could remember what it felt like...loving him...always discovering new things about him...seeing his rare smiles...the way he would look at the Pearl...how she wished he would look at her like that...wondering about all of his stories and adventures...and beyond all of that...loving him just for him...for the man, not the legendary captain.

Could remember the warmth...the light that she felt every time she looked at him...the feeling of something scrambling up her insides when he looked at her…

...but didn't feel it anymore...could see the memories...but it was like watching the memories of someone else.

And now, standing on the dirt path right next to the dock, the absence of light everywhere around her besides the blue from the moon above, she only had one resolute goal.

To feel okay with forgetting him.

To let him drift away like poison from a wound…

To live with the empty feeling in her body…

Even though each step up the dirt path felt like she was walking away from something she should turn back to.

This town...the one she had grown up in...it used to be somewhere that she felt safe...that she felt welcomed...but the air felt stale now...the colors were muted...and she didn't even care to search for the feelings that she had once felt by being here…

Didn't really care to feel at all…

Perhaps it was the harsh reality of the life she had now...that the mundane she forced herself to be comfortable with before was just not palpable...not possible now...the town felt suffocating rather than welcoming...and looking back on all of the tea parties, the dresses, the ceremonies...the suitors...it seemed so...bleak.

She had been a prisoner here.

And now she was a prisoner in her own mind.

But that wasn't true...that she didn't feel...with each step she was reminded of why she was here...her father...the only remaining person that didn't see her soul, blackened and charred with the deeds she had done...from the deeds done to her…

That didn't mean that he wouldn't...that he wouldn't see that darkness…

Didn't matter...all that mattered was making sure he was safe...making sure he still had something to live for...to hope for.

She didn't.

The streets were dark and empty as she made her way through them, stray cats streaking past her with their feet scampering against the stone, the faint orange light from behind windows creating orange stones instead of dark grey stones beneath her feet...but there weren't many windows that had light...most of them were dark...betraying nothing that lay inside.

When the town receded behind her, when she reached the ornate gates of her father's mansion, she looked behind her for one moment, and then stepped through, ignoring the loud squeal of the hinges.

Everything looked exactly as she had left it the day she had escaped to go after Jack...almost like this place had been frozen in time until she returned.

Taking a deep breath, she climbed the hill to the double doors, and stepped through them, the smell of emptiness assaulting her nose...it was dusty in here, and even in the dark, she could tell that no one had entered in some time.

She could also tell that the last person to be here had made sure that nothing looked out of place...that everything appeared to be ordinary.

Where was her father?

Turning to the left, she followed the line of the staircase all the way to the top, still remembering the day of James' coronation...the day she had met...no one…

...the day she had met no one.

Every room in the house was empty, devoid of life...a ghost house, filled with ghosts of her as a child...of her reading pirates stories, of her father, scrambling to take the books away from her…

Romanticized...all of them...they painted pirates as beacons of freedom, as people who weren't constricted by laws or rules...but now being a pirate, she knew that even with freedom and agency, it didn't mean happiness or fulfillment...it just meant a different set of problems.

She wandered around the house for as long as her heart could handle it, for as long as it took for the weight of the past to sink in, to permeate her thoughts until she could barely focus...until she wondered if her life had been better if her father had not been promoted...if they had never left England…

Which led her to wonder if perhaps she had made the wrong choice with her heart too...of course she had...Will was a good man, would have provided a good future for her, a family, a stable home...what could he have offered her? Long stretches of sailing, eating nothing but dry meat and drinking dirty water...he would spend the nights they were ashore entertaining prostitutes...then return to her drunk and just interested in her body...not that any of that mattered…

Will Turner had been the right path, but somewhere along the way, the wrong path had become more attractive.

What kind of fool had she been?

Her fingers curled around the frame of her bedroom entryway when she heard the faint sound of the front door opening downstairs. She went very still, listening, yet unable to move…

Had she been wrong? Was there a person...or persons that came in here frequently?

They were whispering her name, then saying it louder...it echoed off of the walls, that crisp tone of a naval officer, unwavering, tense…

James?

He was looking around with suspicion when she arrived at the bannister...back in the Navy uniform…

"Enjoying your promotion, Admiral?"

There was a little twitch of his shoulders, and then his feet nearly caught on each other when he turned around slowly to look up at her. "Elizabeth...and here I thought that maybe I was being lied to."

"It wouldn't be the first time."

There was a kind of challenge between them now...a battle of moral choices and sides chosen.

"You would know all about that. How is William faring these days? Or have you started lying to him too?"

It would be a grand bit of fun to regale him with all of the people she had been dishonest with...maybe then she could work out who had deserved it and who hadn't…

"Will's fine."

He watched her for a second more than she was comfortable with.

"And Jack?"

The words "he's fine too" were barely held back from spilling out...it occurred to her that he might not know about what had happened to Jack...and if he did...whether he knew that Jack had survived or not…

"Why do you ask?

James started to climb the stairs, alternately watching his feet and watching her.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well," with a small shrug of her shoulders, "forgive me for suggesting that Jack is the last person you would be concerned about."

A wicked gleam entered his eyes. "It appears we have that trait in common."

Now.

"...he is a manipulative snake who, coincidentally, is only ever concerned about himself."

"Ah, truer words have never been spoken. Is that why you killed him?"

He might as well have slapped her for it would have had the same impact, and it took her all of five seconds to decide that twisting the story would serve no purpose for either of them.

"He put us all in danger because he was too concerned about his own safety and because of his stupidity when he struck a deal with Davy Jones thirteen years ago. I only made the choice that he couldn't, that he was too cowardly to make."

"Ah, a noble sacrifice for the crew, yet done with a ruse. You're a proper pirate now."

"You don't approve?"

"I don't think you give a damn about whether I approve or not. I'm curious though, is William truly alright? He did lose his fiance, his friend, and his entire capacity to trust…"

"Will didn't lose a friend, nor did he lose a fiance."

"No? Surely he approved of your trickery even less than I do...especially due to the nature of that trickery...doing a legendary pirate in with a kiss…"

"Who told you all of this?"

"While you lot were worrying about Jones's crew, I managed to slip away with his heart-"

"Yes, I assumed that. I didn't think Beckett would promote you for anything less."

"And since Beckett now controls Jones, any and all information that we need is freely given. My condolences, by the way, about Jack."

"Thanks, but I'm not interested in them. Speaking of, did Jones tell you that we rescued him? No? That's curious…"

"Jack's...not dead?"

"No, no, far from it. Alive and well, in fact. Where he is, I have no idea, so don't bother trying to use me to find him."

He had made it to the top of the stairs and was leaning against the banister with his hip.

"You're here alone. And forgive me if I am reaching too far, but you do seem quite...cold towards Jack."

"He deserves far more than that, but I have more important things to worry about."

Something lingered in his eyes like he wanted to press her for more about the pirate, but then he dropped them to the floor.

"Your father."

"You know where he is?"

"I know where he was yesterday. Talking to Lord Beckett, not sure about what, but I don't know where he is now."

"And who does?"

"Why should I tell you?"

At first, she wondered how on earth they had gotten to this point...this point of battle...of distrust...then she remembered...he'd chosen a side...she'd chosen a side...he had chased Jack through a hurricane just because he was a pirate…

Perhaps everything would be better had he actually captured him...he would be a skeleton lying God knows where now, instead of...

"Because not even you will stay my hand if you don't tell me."

"Are you threatening me, Elizabeth?"

"Did that sound like a threat to you?"

A twitch of his eyebrow, something that looked like calculation, and a drift of his hand towards his sword.

"You can find Mercer in the fort. He sleeps there. But I told you nothing."

"Of course. Would hate to make you lose your precious promotion…"

"You chose piracy. I chose redemption."

"I chose freedom. You chose a cage. We'll see which side is better."

Mercer.

Always lurking around, salivating on Beckett's heels, the man would probably do anything for him...lick his boots, shine his shoes...murder…

The fort loomed up above her, unyielding, shimmering with the silver moonlight…

Even the sound of his name, the way the C hissed through her teeth, the syllables arranged the way they were...he was pollution...his name, his face, the evil that came through his eyes...and as she walked through the night of the town, looked at the griminess of the windows, the soot on the ground...it made her feel like those eyes were everywhere, watching her...like it wasn't even Mercer that bothered her, but the corruption that poisoned the very air, made it thick and hard to breathe in…

Finally, after what seemed like ages of keeping a close eye behind her and in front of her, after she could barely stand the way her muscles were tensed, the fort loomed up above her, unyielding, stones shimmering with the silver moonlight…

Keeping her footsteps quiet, she slipped into one of the side doors, closing it without making a sound, and then peered into the darkness, hoping that finding him wouldn't prove to be more trouble than it was worth.

She traversed the cool passageways, empty thankfully, her thoughts drifting back to...get out...get out was all she could immediately think, tried to banish his name from her mind, his face...those cold eyes above her as he…

Stop. Find Mercer.

But even now she knew that pushing him away every time he arrived uninvited would never work...it made her so angry, that she could be that weak, that some part of her still wanted to think about him, some part of her that was out of her control…

He had never struck her as someone that could do...that to her...hurt her like that...but every look he had ever given her, every one of his touches that she had ever felt...she remembered them differently now, like they had been hostile...lecherous...instead of…

It made her stomach churn...the knowledge that she had wanted him to touch her before...had wanted him to make love to her...had made the grievous mistake thinking that he could make love to her...he wasn't capable of that level of tenderness...he wouldn't care, had never cared about her…

The light was getting brighter the more stairs she climbed, and her arms were quivering with muscle ache every time she pushed open another heavy door, until she finally came upon an office...his office.

Stopping outside, leaning against the wall, she remembered the conversation that she had had with...him...in his cabin after she had brought the brig keys back...a moment of weakness for her is what she had chalked it up to being…

Trying to tell him that she wanted to go back to the way things were before...but the more time she spent away from him, the more she knew that there never was a before...at least not the one that she had lived in...it had all been an illusion, one that she had been too blind to see.

The truth was plain to her.

He had always been a monster, just like the man in the room just behind her.

A worthless man, selfish...lacking compassion...cowardly...cruel…

Mercer was bent over a desk when she slowly pushed the door open. The room was big enough for him to be unaffected by the draft of air, and not a sound disrupted him as the door closed.

He was dressed in nightclothes...plain breeches and a white t-shirt...his greasy hair in a ponytail at the base of his neck…

"Hello, Mr. Mercer-"

The man tried to hide his shock and failed miserably, choosing instead to grip the edges of the table until his hands turned white, a noise of fright cutting her off.

"Hello, Mr. Mercer," she said again. "A fine evening, isn't it?"

"Miss Swann…"

"You remember the sound of my voice...good. Not surprising, the last time you saw me, I was being put under arrest."

He gave a small hum, as though he was going to argue that claim.

"...Where you," his eyes widened when he turned around enough to see the clothes she was wearing, "vehemently defended Jack Sparrow, just like you did at the gallows. It is hard to mistake the voice of a woman in love. Leaves a mark on you."

"Yes, I was in love, with my fiance, whom your lord and savior also had arrested."

"Your...fiance? Oh, no that wasn't who I was referring to. You said the pirate's name like you would say it to him in bed, a passionate caress with your voice."

"Does it sound like I'm in love with him now?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Women are fickle creatures."

So were men.

"I'm not. You'll find, I think, in the next few minutes, that I am a very goal-oriented person, and the only thing that matters to me is meeting my goals."

"And what goal could a governor's daughter turned pirate possibly have that involves me?"

She crossed the room slowly to him, managing to keep her face straight despite how much she wanted to let it twist itself into an expression of distaste at his gaunt slimy form.

"You aided in the harm recently brought to my father, as I have been told. Tell me where he is."

"I thought that might be it. But before I disappoint you, I still have questions-"

"I don't care about your questions. Tell. Me."

"My, I see what the captain of the Black Pearl saw in you now-"

That comment had her entire body tensing.

"-what exactly are you insinuating-"

"-Only that a woman like you, stubborn and goal-oriented wouldn't give a man the time of day unless she felt he was worth it, unless she felt that he felt for her-"

"I feel-"

"-And, a man like Jack Sparrow, selfish and guarded to the world, a man like that needs a stubborn woman, a woman that can meet him on the battlefield without yielding-"

Her shoulders squared, eyes turned to slits, and somewhere in her anger, she felt like Lucifer himself had burrowed inside of her heart, for it burned with a ferocity that she hadn't yet felt.

"-I feel nothing for him but hate, he is poison, worse than you, worse than your Lord, worse than all of those souls in Hell and the Locker, and none of your ridiculous speeches, not that you know what you are talking about anyways, will change it."

The air in the room remained unchanged, still musty and thick, yet it did change in character, swirling about with a new energy, one that sparked between the two of them.

"Ah, well, tales and stories of love are all fantasies anyway, fairy tales for those that have yet to grasp reality. Whatever Jack Sparrow did to you, that was simply the true nature of humanity showing through...unfortunate, but inevitable."

"You would know all about the true nature of humanity, snake."

"Yet, Lord Beckett swore up, down, and sideways...kept saying something about fate intervening, kept slipping it in at odd times...I finally managed to work out that he was talking about your wedding...if even he, one of the most cynical men I know, was able to see that you were in love with a pirate, then Sparrow truly did something evil. Tell me, was it the reminder of what he is, of what the definition of piracy is, that drove you away?"

"You overstep your bound-"

"-Allow me to remind you of that definition, then. Pirates take what they want, without permission, without compassion, and without a regard for the consequences. They do not care about other people, they do not concern themselves with the feelings or comfort of silly women, and they certainly don't feel love...all they feel is the desire to conquer, steal, and ravage."

When all he got was her hard glare, he continued.

"Jack Sparrow was always a pirate, the entire time, so while I may be overstepping my boundaries, I will say that you were a fool for expecting anything more out of him."

"And I would say that I agree with you, for the second time tonight. While we are on the topic of pirates, allow me to remind you that I'm a pirate, and what I currently want is the location of my father. I'm not leaving this room until you either give his location to me, or tell me where I can find Beckett so I can ask him."

The man finally left the spot that he had been standing, walking to the left, but still keeping his eyes on her.

"Haven't you learned that women are not just entitled to things they want? Pirate or no, whether you leave here with the information you want is up to me, not you."

She stepped forward to balance out the distance between them, keeping her eyes on him too, enjoying the friction between them.

"In my experience, women should get what they want far more often than men, and more often than not, they do. Men are simple creatures, only functioning to a point where they have their base desires fulfilled...greed, lust, hunger, the list goes on."

"And you believe that women are paramount of intelligence and deeper thinking?"

"Mostly, yes. Of course, both genders have their exceptions. There are are a fair amount of stupid women and plenty of smart men."

"And you? Where do you fall?"

"I'm close to just forgetting all this and finding Beckett myself, and I think that answers where I believe myself to be, and where I believe you to be."

He made a noise of disapproval.

"What did Jack Sparrow do to you? What crimes did he commit?"

The question threw her off for a moment; she had believed Mercer had lost the scent of that conversation.

"Why does it matter?"

"Because, this hardness of yours is either a result of that, and if so, easily overcome, since women's emotions generally rule their head...or this is you now, a cold person...if that is the case, then perhaps I would be almost inclined to believe your claim that smart women exist."

She stayed silent for a moment, realizing that he was half-right on both accounts.

"He violated me, but I promise you that my regard for you right now has nothing to do with that. You would do well to avoid getting them confused."

Mercer reeled back only slightly, but she couldn't fathom why.

"Violated you? How atrocious," but he didn't sound like he had much sympathy for her. "Was his death what you wanted? I was surprised to hear that a simple girl had taken down a pirate captain, but now I see. You're no simple girl."

So he knew too.

"No, I have no qualms about solving problems that stand in my way. He was a problem to us, to our survival, so I removed him from the equation, something I will not hesitate to do to you."

"I admire your perseverance, but you cannot honestly expect me to give you information that would be detrimental to my well-being."

"I can, and I do. Where is my father?"

"...I will tell you where Lord Beckett is, if only because I doubt you can even make it all the way to him. He has put himself up in the old mansion on the edge of town."

He didn't want to put his position in jeopardy, but he needed to give her something to make her go away. She understood.

And she was done with the games. She nodded once, turning to leave…

Quick footsteps that she had been prepared for slapped against the floor behind her, and she twisted, shoving Mercer into the wall, unsheathing her dagger from her belt.

"I told you, Mr. Mercer, women usually get what they want, but you never asked me what I wanted with you. You can't honestly believe that I would let you live when you have participated in hurting me, my fiance, and my father. I want nothing more than to see you dead, and when I find Beckett, he will suffer the same fate."

The gasp of shock turned into a gurgle when she pushed the dagger deeper into his neck, feeling the life leaving his body as it grew slacker with each second, then she let him drop into a contorted lump on the floor, a steady stream of blood still leaking around the blade.

It had always been her plan to kill him, but she hadn't prepared for the satisfaction that filled her with the knowledge that she had removed his pitiful existence from the world.

As an afterthought, she crisscrossed the room, blowing the candles out until the only light left was the small shaft of blue from the moon, only barely illuminating Mercer's corpse.

Human life was interesting in how easy it was to eliminate.

The top half of her hair was damp now, while the ends remained dry.

She had removed her hat, letting her hair spill over her back and shoulders...hadn't seen much point in continuing on with the disguise from here, and the hat had become itchy from sweat.

The air was hot, and it was raining.

Hot and muggy enough to almost distract her from the almost disarming appearance of the mansion in front of her, looking far too homely for a man like Cutler Beckett. The only kind of house that suited him was a prison cell.

Or Hell, or any number of cruel and unforgiving places. While Mercer had been a slimy human version of oil, seeping and slipping, staining everything in its path, Beckett was the equivalent of disease itself, the disease of evil, housed within him, turning everything that he surrounded himself with dark, as though he was the sole bearer of the power to steal life and light…

Perhaps Jack and Beckett had more in common than she had originally thought, when she had sensed the connection between them...there was history there, but maybe it was just a game of which one of them could be the bigger villain in their own story. Jack Sparrow, the rogue, self-serving, seeing the world as a playground to take what he wanted from it and damn the rest, and Cutler Beckett, a grand architect in making sure that world gave Jack as much ease to destroy and ruin as he needed...an architect of exposing humanities limits and follies, faults and trespasses...exposing the reality that they would never escape their own nature.

The door creaked a little when she opened it, slipping inside the dark house, smelling the distinct scent of a candle just put out, the aroma of lingering dust, and that more subtle inlay of this little world in this little house laughing at her, like Beckett himself was watching her from upstairs, just waiting.

He wouldn't be laughing when she was done with him.

His study was empty, yet one candle remained next to the desk, blowing about in arcs and bends from the crack in the window on the other side of the room.

She'd cleared the bottom floor, finding nothing, and this had been the first room with an open door.

He kept things tidy, almost obsessively...neat stacks of papers on his desk, books arranged straight on the bookshelves, hardly any dust anywhere, even the room itself was arranged with neat lines and pleasing symmetry.

Stepping over to peruse the spines of the first couple of books in the shelf to the right, all about history, she heard the wooden floor creak down the hall in varying impact...footsteps…

Good. She had been growing impatient already. Striding back to his desk, she took a seat in his fancy chair, pretending for the world that it was her study rather than his.

When he entered, walked into the room far enough to stand across from her...they just looked at each other, more fascinated with the other's presence than anything else.

His wig was off, and she discovered that the color of his hair was an ashy blonde...he wasn't wearing his whole uniform either...the coat was missing, and he was barefoot...strange, seeing him that way, then again, the last time he had seen her, she was wearing her wedding dress.

"Elizabeth Swann, we meet again. I presume my search and rescue party was...unsuccessful."

"You could say that. I'm surprised you recognized me."

"Ah, the wedding dress wasn't that distinctive, I would know your face anywhere...that fire in your eyes…"

"And what do my eyes tell you now?"

He smirked, stepping forward to place the tips of his fingers against the edge of his desk. "That you are getting supreme satisfaction in thinking that you have already conquered me, sitting there."

"You think I haven't?"

"What...precisely makes you think you have?"

The chair creaked when she sat back, contemplating the question.

"Most likely the same thing that made me think I had conquered Mercer just before I stuck a dagger in his neck...a superiority to men like you."

Only a small flash of acknowledgment crossed his face, a twitch of his head, a minute movement of his lips.

"That's...unfortunate."

She ran her finger along the edge of the desk, her eyes following the movement.

"I can't tell if you are happy he's dead or if you are just...feeling the inconvenience of it."

This time she heard a little grunt of a laugh. "A little bit of both."

A few seconds passed before he turned away from her, stepping over to the window. "Tell me, do you feel either of those about Jack Sparrow's death, or do you feel something else?"

Of course he would ask…

"Previously, you pretended to be an expert on my feelings for Jack, and since I am tired of talking about him in the company of others, why don't you tell me."

"...William Turner is simply...not a large enough force to match a woman like you. He never was. You do have the will and determination of a conqueror, Elizabeth. What it is that you conquer...you have the fine makings of a military general...you would make an excellent captain...land, titles, people, they could all be yours…"

"...But?"

"But what you are best at conquering, I think, is men. Their hearts, their minds...even the likes of Jack Sparrow, one of the smartest men I have ever met, couldn't withstand you."

She must have been silent for a moment too long, because he was looking at her with newfound curiosity.

"You...disagree?"

"...No...at least not with what you said...but what you said did bring up issues that I have."

"And what are those?"

"In your...experience with Jack...there is a long history between the two of you...did he ever strike you as the violating type?"

It was the first time that she had ever seen Cutler Beckett genuinely confused.

"...Violating? He violates plenty...laws, codes, manners...you didn't think he'd seen the wrong end of a noose all those times for nothing, did you?"

"I violate laws and codes. Why do you think I had to sneak in here wearing men's clothes? But that wasn't what I was talking about."

"And what were you talking about?"

"What you said, before...Mercer said it too...you knew of his death."

"Yes...Jones was kind enough to relay that information to us-"

"-Mercer didn't know that he was rescued-"

"-because I wasn't kind enough to relay that information to him."

"...I see. And you're aware of the manner of his death, obviously."

"A kiss. Very creative, and something that told the both of you more about the other than I think you were prepared for."

"Yes, well...whatever feelings I had for Jack...before all of that...they were misguided."

"Feelings for pirates generally are-"

"-I wasn't finished. I'm sure you're aware that Jack isn't the type to take kindly to being murdered-"

"Hardly. He wished death on me just for burning his precious ship down."

"Then it shouldn't come as a surprise that as punishment...he intended to rape me. Everything he ever said to me...before and after his death...it was all just manipulation...he was never honest about anything...always using me for something...and then, I became so invested in gaining his forgiveness that I...failed to see that he's no different than you...than Mercer...never was. He's just another source of corruption, only living for himself."

The silence stretched out for a long time, six minutes at least, while she waited.

"...and...how did you...come to this conclusion?"

"...Just a push in the right direction...a catalyst I guess…"

Beckett left the window and crossed the room to the bookshelf, pulling a book out and flipping through it.

"I have known Jack a long time...and the man has done many things that have provoked my...distaste for him...but even I have to say that I don't believe him capable of rape."

She didn't respond, only watched him finger the pages as he turned them.

"When I...implied that you had feelings for Jack that night...I wasn't being flippant or manipulative...I was merely testing a theory. And then, that spark of truth in your eyes when…you were in love with him, I think."

"Is that your answer to my feelings for him?"

"Part of my answer. I believe you killed him because you were in love with him as well, and you were so grief-stricken and guilt-ridden after his death that...well, you said it yourself, all you wanted was his forgiveness."

"And now? What are my feelings for him now?"

"A lie. Only someone so in love can be corrupted so spectacularly...because whatever...or whoever did this to you...made you believe him to be capable of that, made you hate him so...they had to go to great lengths to do that, to succeed as much as they did."

She bristled in the chair. "You think I'm in the wrong?"

"I think that a great force can only be overcome by a force just as great...fire and water, ash and air, good and evil...love and hate."

"That all seems so...fantastic."

"Indeed. I've seen that type of corruption before, Elizabeth. Where the mind is so waylaid by a separate reality...ah, here it is…"

HIs footsteps barely made a sound as he returned to the desk. "What's that?" she asked, looking at the open page on the desk.

"That is the record of Jack Sparrow's arrest and branding."

The page was worn, as though someone had spent a great deal of time returning to look at it.

"Why do I care?"

"If you actually look at it, you will see that the reason for his branding, and the reason the Pearl exists at all, is because Jack tried to be a hero. He freed a hundred slaves from his ship without my permission. He betrayed me, because he took it upon himself to...well, it doesn't really matter. The point is...do you really believe a man that would risk his entire life to do that would be capable of harming the woman he loves?"

"Excuse me?"

"Only a man in love, especially when we are talking about Jack, would not only let his guard down enough to get trapped into going down with his ship, but let it happen. I'm sure Jack knew what you were doing."

"You're forgetting that he threatened your life just because-"

"Your mind has left you far more than I had thought if you believe he loved me."

"You didn't hear the things he said to me when we got him back...the terrible things-"

"-I never said he wouldn't be angry. But he would never rape you, for Christ's sake."

"Look at you, defending a man that you were more than willing to hang."

"I still am more than willing to hang him, but accusing a man of a crime that he did not commit...that is just bad for business. Those kinds of lies...they eventually become a mountain that will crash down around you, no matter how high up the ladder it gets you."

They were looking at each other again, as if seeing the other in a new light.

"It was a dream...what made me...he raped me, in the dream...I could feel it...could feel everything...and now, all I can think of when I think of him is...that pain, all I can see is darkness surrounding him...how everything I thought he was...was a lie. I just...can't feel for him."

When he didn't say anything, she searched for something...something more to question him with…

"You've told me what my feelings were for him, you have shared with me your opinion of my feelings I have for him now, but you haven't told me what you think my feelings should be."

That got a noise of humor out of him. "You're sorely mistaken if you think I'm going to tell you that you should love him. No woman should love him, because he simply isn't built for that kind of commitment. He is outside of the law, he is very selfish...and he would sooner see the hangman's noose before he admitted love."

"I'm outside of the law as well, and some say I can be selfish."

"Did I say I think men should love you? You murder men because you love them, you're a pirate through and through...and I seem to remember you leaving your father here to go gallivanting off after Jack. Funny, that."

That stung.

"Regardless of how you, I, or anyone else thinks I should feel about Jack, I've decided to move on from him, which brings me to why I'm here."

"I was wondering when we were going to get around to that."

"-You're going to tell me where-"

"-your father is? Certainly. He's buried in an unmarked grave at the cemetery. I thought it prudent to at least give him that."