Epilogue:

It was on seemingly perfect Caribbean days like this, the sun kissing her bared skin, sitting on the top deck of the sailboat that cut through the turquoise waters glittering around them, a couple of glasses of rum in, that Elizabeth got a little nostalgic for the incredible journey that had brought them to that moment in time. She looked to Jack at the helm, his hair a raven waterfall of dreadlocks down his bronzed back, all manners of beads and trinkets glinting in the sunlight. He sang to himself in a low voice, utterly content. Strains of Marley's Redemption Song drifted back to her.

Won't you help me sing these songs of freedom?

Her heart swelled, as ever, feeling as though it might burst in her chest for all the emotion it contained within her. Three hundred fifty years after she took her first sip of Agua de Vida, Elizabeth still loved Jack as much if not more than she did that fateful day.

So many years ago, she'd taken up swilling the life-giving waters for a number of reasons. First, because she simply didn't want to die. There was too much to see and do, more than could ever possibly fit in one lifetime. And then there was Will. He needed someone waiting for him every ten years, his only link to the life he'd once had. But the greatest reason, the thing that made her eagerly take the proffered bottle still dripping wet from being filled in the fountain and swallow it down, was Jack. She'd known at the time that she could never ever truly have her fill of him. She needed more hours, more days, more years.

Always more.

And he felt the same.

In those early days of sailing with Jack, Elizabeth did her share aboard the Pearl. She'd learned the knots and rigging and duties of the watch. She'd sanded and scrubbed decks beside the men, at her own insistence, not Jack's. She could be let loose with the helm all by her onesies without taking them towards Hispaniola. And after many late night lessons pouring over charts and instruments in the cabin of the Pearl, punctuated with more than a few amorous study breaks, her brilliant mind with its penchant for numbers lent itself to making Lizzy a crack sailing master.

Fortunes were made and lost and made again.

An earthquake destroyed most of Port Royal in 1692. The brick buildings, built in London fashion, crumpled under the force of the shaking ground. The city fell into the sea, and a tsunami and fire destroyed most of the rest. Elizabeth and Jack had been on the other side of the world, but eventually they heard gossip that the den of sinners had been destroyed, as punishment for the town's penchant for debauchery and harboring pirates.

Elizabeth found that she agreed it was a punishment for the evils of men, but it was not the pirates and privateers who drew God or Karma's wrath. She believed it was a comeuppance for those who made their massive fortunes upon the blood, sweat, and bones of the slaves trapped in the lucrative sugar trade. Many were ruined by the massive brick warehouses collapsing upon sugar shipments, or burned to the ground after the quake.

The Pearl sank in 1810 between the Florida Keys and Cuba, her hold laden with gold and jewels and silks and every other thing they owned. It was torn to bits by a freak storm that came upon them with hardly a warning, running them upon a sharp reef. It had been a great miracle that they had survived, even with fortification from Agua de Vida. Perhaps the stuff could preserve one's youth, but it could not prevent one from drowning. They had lived like marooners with the surviving crew on a small island for months until being rescued.

Battered and heart broken, they limped back to Elizabeth's cottage on the mountain. It had survived the massive quake of '92, which Elizabeth chose to take as a sign of hope.

Never before had she seen Jack so low. Not even after causing his death with a Judas kiss. The light left his eyes, that beautiful and wicked little spark, that promise of mischief that Elizabeth always found so irresistible. He sat on the porch most days, looking out to the sea longingly, nursing a bottle of rum. When he finally told her he had to go away for a little while, it was the one and only time in their long line of years she feared she may lose him. But he promised to come back, and slipped out on a merchant ship bound for India.

She prayed he would have the sense not to make another deal with the devil or some minor deity to salvage the Pearl, but knew that forbidding him to do it would be for naught. So she bit her tongue, and waved goodbye as the schooner set out from the docks.

Months went by without word. Then a year. Then two, and Elizabeth feared she'd been left ashore once more by the man she loved. She felt her heart breaking, a slow fissure that began to make its way through her soul. Perhaps she did a big song and dance about freedom and belonging only to herself, but in those long months she realized that Jack very much owned a part of her. Jack had become her world, and without him she felt unbearably adrift.

She'd sat on the edge of her cliff overlooking the sea, an embarrassing wetness in her eyes, praying for some sign of Jack.

When one August day in 1812 a handsome sloop with midnight sails glided into her harbor, its hull painted pitch black, Elizabeth's heart threatened to explode with elation. She stood up with an excited whoop, scrambling for her spyglass, her vision blurred by tears in her eyes. She found that in glittering gilded letters upon the prow was painted the name Lovely Lizzy. She searched out the helm, and found Jack standing proudly behind the wheel, blowing a kiss in her direction, knowing she would be looking his way.

She'd never scrambled down the path to her longboat so quickly. It had been a small wonder she didn't break an ankle, or a leg on the mad dash down. Nor had she ever coaxed so much speed from the oars of her longboat, as she made her way out to Jack's new ship. She was smaller than the Pearl, sleek as a panther, a vessel built for speed. The crew hauled Elizabeth aboard in a bosun's chair, and her feet barely touched the deck before she sprinted for Jack's arms. He kissed her silly and picked her up, twirled her in his arms, and then kissed her some more. The crew had watched their Captain with a mixture of amusement and horror, not used to such ardent displays of affection aboard a ship.

They would get used to it later.

Jack soon after produced a folio bearing an officious seal. Elizabeth scanned the documents to find they were letters of marque, for the Americans, no less. Jack Sparrow, the most infamous pirate that ever sailed the Spanish Main, had decided to turn privateer in the little war between the British and the Americans. "Ready for another grand adventure, luv?" he'd asked, gold tooth glinting in the sun.

She rather liked the idea of dogging British merchant shipping in the name of the Yankees. They were living in such interesting times. The Americans had just staged quite a revolution, soon followed by the French. The people were taking control of their destinies from Kings and Queens, as she and Jack had wondered would ever be possible. She didn't mind helping the cause, and making a little coin in between.

Later, as they'd lain in Jack's cabin in their most natural state, that being without clothing, she'd asked where he'd gone. He spun a wild tale about spending months wandering the wilderness of India, taking up with a band of wild Sadhu holy men, and having a vision after an arduous pilgrimage up a minor Himalayan mountain.

She believed about half of it, and life went on.

In the war of 1812 they took more prizes than any other American ship.

And the world was changing.

Sensing that the age of piracy was truly coming to an end, Elizabeth set about to making investments with her share of the prizes, establishing an identity as a legitimate business woman.

Jack, ever suspicious of banks and those who ran them, proceeded to bury treasure on islands all over the Caribbean.

Will stopped meeting Elizabeth ashore in 1850. She'd waited on the beach for three days, and the flash of green never appeared on the horizon. It did not come as the surprise one might suspect. Their previous visits had taken on the flavor not of lovers long separated, but old friends meeting to catch up on the times. Elizabeth watched as Will faded further and further from the man he'd once been, the magic of the Dutchman eating him alive. At their last rendez-vous he was more sea-creature than man. She hoped Calypso put him to rest for all his years of faithful service, but a part of her wondered if the sea goddess herself had not faded in her power as the old ways and old beliefs fell to the shiny promises of modern times.

Eventually, many years later, Elizabeth made good on her plan to found a coffee plantation on her mountain. She raised eyebrows everywhere, operating it as a collective in which all the workers profited. Their brand would become one of the most sought after varieties in the world, known as a mild and delicious brew free of bitterness. The Japanese would pay $30 a pound for the stuff, and she didn't complain.

Coffee was only one of her unladylike penchants. She became a well-known hell raiser, an advocate for human and women's rights. Suffragettes all over the western world would quote her various writings, or chant them while holding their signs high.

The sixties were a very interesting time for revolution, though she never would get on board with burning her bras. She found them a rather brilliant garment, light and supportive, and anyone who found them painful clearly had never suffered a corset under the Jamaican sun.

Elizabeth smiled at Jack's sun-bronzed back as the lilt of a new song met her ears. Southern Cross by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way.

Jack never really got over the seventies.

Since the golden age of piracy, never did a period of time seem so perfectly tailored just for a devil-may-care rogue like him.

It was incalculable, the tonnage of cannabis that had passed from Columbia to Key West in the hold of this very sail boat, the Lovely Lizzy III. Jack hadn't needed the money, though he made a fortune as a smuggler for the hippy weed cartels of Miami.

Jack had never been a pirate for the love of violence. Love of treasure, perhaps, and adventure and freedom. Jack needed mischief, like others needed air to breathe. Jack was not the Devil, as some over the years had claimed. Jack was the Trickster. Jack was Puck, Loki, and Anansi, all wrapped into one beautiful soul.

Jack also found he liked music, and to write. Elizabeth watched with surprised delight as his creativity bloomed. He took up the guitar, and loved to while away an afternoon at the plantation or on his boat writing new songs.

Though Jack preferred to remain anonymous in the song credits on the album jacket, Jimmy Buffett became his best customer.

Cannabis nudged rum from its venerated place in his esteem as his favorite substance. Its earthy perfume added a new note to the already intoxicating medley that was Jack's scent. He liked the warm fuzzy high, far more than the simple numb. Elizabeth found it a little amusing that people would look at Jack and see just another Rasta island bum, having no idea of the incredible things he'd done or the improbable places he'd gone.

Jack liked it that way.

He preferred to keep his anonymity in the face of eternity. For a man who had once pursued the making of his own legend with reckless tenacity, it didn't seem so important now that he'd gained true happiness in life. Less questions made life easier. Elizabeth herself was on her sixth identity as the great great great great great granddaughter of Elizabeth Swann, the governor's daughter.

And so it was to Elizabeth's great surprise when Jack wrote a three part adventure saga screen play about their adventures, and sold it to Disney for a ridiculous amount of cash. It would become wildly popular, a worldwide sensation. Jack himself was played by a devilishly handsome American with smoldering dark eyes and a reputation for trashing hotel rooms.

Elizabeth had worn a ravishing beaded Valentino gown to the premier, and feeling rather neglected in all the bustle of making the movies, and rather disconcerted by the ending of the third film, she'd flirted with this young actor quite mercilessly. She found he was quite a kindred spirit, fierce and free but also endearingly sweet.

She'd felt Jack's eyes upon them from all the way across the room.

Jack Sparrow made love to her that night with a passionate fury she had not seen in years.

He still loved her. After all this time, he still loved her madly.

Later, in the quiet of the early morning, she'd asked him, "Why did you write the ending that way?"

He'd smiled, gold glinting in the moonlight. "Because the truth belongs to us, luv, and no one else."

After that Jack became interested in treasure salvaging. He had plenty of gold stashed about the Caribbean, most islands that he himself now owned, but pulling it from below the sea and sands of time was what really fired his excitement. Elizabeth watched his new hobby knowingly, waiting for the news.

Jack found the Pearl in fifty feet of water southwest of Key West. They pulled her up piece by piece. Chests of gold and silver bullion, ingots, doubloons and pieces of eight. Things they'd stolen long ago from a Spanish ship, and had been transferring to a new hiding place. After so many years it lay on the deck of their ship once more, covered in grime and barnacles but no less beautiful for it.

When her own sea chest came up Elizabeth marveled to find the remnants of an extra pistol, a sword, and a heavy gold necklace Jack had given her, studded with dreamy green Columbian emeralds. It badly needed a cleaning, but she'd clasped it about her neck anyway, holding her head high. "Fit for a Pirate King," Jack whispered in her ear, and the old title still swelled her heart with pride.

After losing the figurehead of the Pearl to a cannonball in a sea battle, Jack had commissioned a new one to be carved out of cypress wood, a maiden that bore striking resemblance to Lizzy. Jack and Elizabeth had watched the salvage with excitement and wide smiles, but when this article was pulled from the sea by the divers, the paint long worn but her figure barely touched by time, they clutched each other and finally wept for their fallen comrade the Black Pearl, the most beautiful ship they'd ever known.

From his place at the helm of the Lovely Lizzy III, Jack looked back over his shoulder at his lounging Pirate King, loving that modern marvel of fashion, the bikini. God bless whoever had that idea, he thought to himself, smiling for the swathes of perfect sun bronzed bare skin open to his view.

He also loved onboard navigation systems, and with a press of a button he was free to join Lizzy on the soft vinyl upholstered bench, lighting a spliff and inhaling deeply. When she siddled closer, a mischievous little smile in place, he knew exactly what she wanted. He inhaled another toke and met her uplifted lips, shotgunning the pungent smoke into her mouth.

She loved imbibing of the bud this intimate way, as though she were getting high on Jack's very essence.

It was the way she'd felt for the past three hundred and fifty years, her awe of him never fading. So many adventures they had tasted, so many that it seemed only one remained, one journey they had not yet dared try.

Elizabeth took in the sight of Jack, his long dark hair and dancing eyes, the strong column of his throat and broad shoulders, his trim waist and the swim trunks printed with palm trees and hula girls that encased his long thighs. His feet were bare, and she curled her toes against his, drawing his gaze her way.

"Lizzy luv, I can positively hear the wheels turning in your brain." He offered her the spliff as means of remedy, but she waved it away, a soft smile curling her lips.

"Jack, I've been thinking."

"Calypso help us all."

She swatted him playfully, laughing. "I'm serious."

He affected an appropriate expression, dark brows knitted with consternation.

"Yes, luv?"

She laughed again, and pulled him into a kiss, melting as that beautiful mouth slid against her own. A groan emitted from deep in Jack's chest, and he eased her back against the bench, his body fitting against her own. He pressed kisses beneath her ear and down her neck, winning a sigh filled with desire. "Still thinking?" he asked, fitting his hips snugly between her thighs.

Drawing back, Elizabeth cradled Jack's face in her still elegant hands, taking in his features from a breath away. God, how she loved this man. Could she have known, that fateful day when he pulled her from the harbor, the journey they would take together, that he would be her greatest love—what would she have done differently? It was impossible to say. Nothing, maybe, or perhaps, everything.

"I love you, Jack," she sighed, kissing the tip of his nose, and his lips, gently.

He narrowed his eyes with faux-suspicion, eyeing her up and down. Something was afoot. He knew it, knew that sly and laughing look in her eye.

"What are you thinking, my Lizzy girl?"

"Jack…I'm thinking that I want a child. Your child."

She expected many reactions to this anvil of a request dropped from the sky. She expected that eyebrow raise, that theatrical expression of surprise. She expected a protest, or at least, an are you sure? They'd always taken such pains over the years not to reproduce, which became decidedly easier with the innovations in birth control of the sixties.

She did not expect Jack to offer her a warm smile, and press his lips to hers in a kiss that was long and slow and utterly befuddling. He kissed her mouth and her chin, her neck and her chest, her breasts and her belly. Deftly he untied the laces of her bikini at her hips, his smile still wide and radiant as the sun above them.

"Jack?" she asked, thinking she understood, but suddenly very badly wanting to hear him say it.

He turned his gaze to hers, his black eyes shining with mischief and desire and something else. That something else that had always been in his eyes, when he looked at Elizabeth. It had been there on the island, and on the Pearl, the day he proposed a mar-i-age. It had been there that fateful night in Tortuga, when she sought him out and asked him to go on an adventure with her. That something else had taken her so long, so damnably long to identify.

Love.

It was undying, unwavering, and unyielding love for Elizabeth the Pirate King.

"Darlin', I thought you'd never ask."

The End