No Heart to Give…

(Disclaimer: None of the characters mentioned are mine (obviously). I know I wrote this flick with a rather "mushy" touch, but when I watched "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" I was devastated with how Will and Elizabeth were torn apart! I couldn't bare the thought that Will was now the captain of the accursed ship spoken of in whispered tales around the fire, the Flying Duthman! It's just so unfair! It was beautiful, I admit… a very touching scene… but oh so horribly unfair! I speak the way I feel, after watching Will and Elizabeth grow "closer" throughout the three Pirates films, and I'm sure some of you feel the same way. So I wrote this one-shot right after I saw the movie, and I wrote it on Will's reflections of his life after he took over from Davey Jones. This is seven years later, by the way, and as you can imagine Will misses Elizabeth terribly…)

Will Turner gazed with longing eyes out on the horizon, but all he saw was the sea; the endless curséd sea. What cruel turn of fate was this, that he became the courier of souls? He had never wanted it! Eternal life was not for a mortal man to achieve. And what was left but an empty shell, when all else faded away leaving only One to live on with the turning of the world?

Closing his eyes, Will clenched his fists and turned from the setting sun. The sea had none of his love, nor would it ever. Such feelings were lost to a thing of no mercy, a betrayer of trusts. He hated the sea, hated it for what it did to him, for what it made of him. For the sea had stolen his heart, but not in love. It was the sea that cut it from his chest, ripped it from flesh and bone and had it locked away where it could not be harmed. But what had meant good, had done a harm that could not be undone. The sea had taken what did not belong to it, what had already been given to another, and for that it could not be forgiven.

Slowly he reached up to touch the scar. No matter how much time it was given to heal, it still pained him. The pain was not physical, but a deep emotional pain that would have killed him, had he not already been dead once. Now, nothing could kill him… nothing but the one who held his heart. He gave it to her to keep forever, along with his love, and she had accepted it freely, giving him all of hers in return. But that had been seven long years ago, and whether or not she still felt the same as he, would not be known for another three years. Would she still be there waiting for him when he returned?

Hot tears spilled from Will's eyes and coursed down his cheeks and neck until they reached the scar upon his chest. The salt stung like a thousand needles cutting into his skin, but it did not hurt as much as the heart he didn't have. The gentle evening breeze brushed passed his face, fondling it like a lover would. The sea begged clemency for its past sins, but its pleas fell upon on an empty chest; there was no heart were it sought one, and he would never again embrace what it offered him. There was no breeze could caress his face as could the gentle hand of Elizabeth Swan.

Now he would live because he must. The world that once had seemed so beautiful, so fair, had become a maelstrom of grief. There was no pearl to find, for the oyster had long been pried open and robbed of its treasures. All he had left in the world was Elizabeth, and he could not even have her except for one day every ten years. But when he returned, when he looked for her again along the sandy shores and called her name at the wharf, would she answer? Would she be waiting there for him to return to her? Would she embrace him once more and caress his face as she once did when they were happy together, when all was right in the world? Or would she have found another, someone else who could hold her and confess everyday his love for her?

Will did.

Everyday he stood in the bow of the Flying Dutchman and shouted to the sunrise of his undying love to a girl whom he had not seen nor heard tale of in seven years. A girl, who had become a woman, who had become a pirate, who had stolen his heart before ever it was cut from his chest. But ten years was an awfully long time.

Will's hand strayed to his sword hanging from his belt. Now all on the Flying Dutchman was going quiet in the still hours of evening. But he hated the silence almost as much as he hated the sea, for in the silence he could hear his thoughts and his longings, and it was in the silence that all his pain and grief once again surfaced to haunt his waking nightmare of a life. Sometimes he thought he could even hear his heart beating longingly for the flesh and blood from which it had been ripped, even though his heart was far beyond his reach. If it had been in his possession, he would have stopped its mocking beat long ago. But he had given it away, and Elizabeth now guarded it perhaps for all eternity.

The first star was just appearing in the darkened eastern sky. Will looked to it and took comfort in the fact that the same star shone over where Elizabeth probably rested in her bed. Behind him, the last gold and crimson rays of the setting sun slipped beneath the horizon. Another day had gone, another night had come, and he was that much closer to seeing her again. There were yet three years before him, three hard, backbreaking, sorrowful years, but he was one day closer to once more feeling her embrace around his middle and her gentle kiss brush his cheek. Until then he could whisper his love to the stars and they would carry it to her as she slept, to caress her dreams in his. Until then he would live as he was, a courier of souls, carrying out his grisly destiny as had been ordained when first his heart was sliced from his body. Until then he would count the days between him and his return to land where he would be the man he always wanted to be and hold the only woman he ever cared about close to his aching soul. He had no heart left to give her, but he would give her everything he did have. Until then, he would be William Turner, captain of the Flying Dutchman.

(I would love to know how you feel about this work! Any review or comment is welcomed, though if you have ideas about things to be changed, or you feel differently about this work than what I have tried to portray, constructive and useful advice is much more appreciated than outright and hurtful flaming. Thank you for reading, "No Heart to Give…", and please tell me what you thought of it!)