At dawn the next day, Elizabeth was already up and ready to go.  She had spent the last little bit of the night standing at the rail of the ship, feeling it move slowly under her feet with the coming tide and watching the sun come up over the horizon. 

 “Freedom.”  Jack joined her, nearly whispering the word.  She agreed.  This was what freedom was.

 “Thank you for letting me join you.”  Elizabeth spoke equally quietly.  Speaking any louder would break the spell that had been woven around them.

 Jack did not respond and they watched the sun in silence, the magnificently red orb pushing its way slowly over the horizon.  The rest of the crew was awakening somewhere behind them, starting to shuffle across the deck, the occasional voice rising up above the others.

 Finally the sun had come up far enough that there was an adequate amount of light to see accurately what one was doing.  It was still not high enough to make it through the Devil’s Throat, but that time would come soon enough.  Jack slid away from the rail and immediately he was the captain again, losing the kind of softness that word, freedom, always seemed to evoke in him.

 “Get the ship ready!”  It was all he needed to say to send everyone into a flurry of activity.  Sails were raised, ropes tied and untied as needed.  Gibbs darted around the ship, faster than Elizabeth had ever seen the older man move, making sure everything looked good.   Elizabeth did nothing more than move silently among the crew, offering a smile, a pat on the back, and the occasional words of encouragement to a crew who seemed to need it so bad. 

 She honestly couldn’t imagine this crew on the high seas managing to plunder anything, but Jack seemed to see, well, something in the motley group of men.  She decided to defer to him, as she knew he was much more knowledgeable about such things.  Gibbs did question him on occasion, sometimes looking very much like he wanted to ask the younger man about his sanity, but Jack never seemed to get upset with him.  He always weighed everything Gibbs said very carefully and more often than not took the man’s advice.  She wondered if her being on the ship was a direct result of Gibbs’ influence over Jack.  The old man had always liked her, after all.

 “Weigh anchor!” Jack suddenly shouted and Elizabeth looked around, realizing that while she had been so busy tending to the crew’s morale, the sun had completely risen and the ship had been readied. 

 This was it then.  They were off to pursue the Pearl.  Excitement gripped the crew as the anchor slowly rose up and onto the ship.  The boat, free of its mooring lines and anchor, began to float out into the harbor with Jack at the helm.

 Elizabeth turned to look up at him, happy to note the brilliantly satisfied grin on his face.

As soon as they were through the Devil’s Throat, Jack relinquished the helm to Gibbs and stepped away, letting the older man take over now that they were on easier waters.  Getting through the Devil’s Throat was something Jack seemed to do with such ease that there were murmurs among the crew that he had some sort of supernatural powers.  Elizabeth smiled to herself.  She had often wondered that herself and in fact, when she was younger she had fancied him to be an immortal being with amazing powers to control the sea and any ship he stepped upon.

 But then she had been stranded on an island with him and had discovered, much to both her dismay and surprise, Jack was actually quite human.  He was capable of making mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes, like trusting the wrong people.  That included her, she suddenly realized.  He had trusted her, let her close, let her take advantage of all that and had ultimately paid the maximum penalty for that trust: death. 

 Oh yes, Jack was human, full of all the foibles and insanity that that condition entailed.

 When Jack walked past Elizabeth, he waved at her to follow him before retiring to his cabin.  Elizabeth, realizing she couldn’t really argue with her captain about propriety in front of the crew, followed him.  She tried not to remember the last time she had been alone in a room with the man.  At least this time they were in the outer sanctum of his cabin, a curtain separating them from where she presumed the bed must be. 

 Without even sparing a glance at her, Jack moved to the maps he had spread out over the table.  “We’ll begin your training this afternoon.”

 “Training?”   Her voice was alarmed.  Jack had not mentioned training and while she was nearly as green as the rest of the crew, she had a clearer head on her shoulders and an uncanny ability to understand how a ship should work.

 Jack sat down in front of the maps and indicated for her to pull up the chest nearby to use as her own seat.  As she did so, he continued.  “Elizabeth, you know what our goal is with this venture, yes?”

 “We’re going to reclaim the Pearl.”  Had she missed something? 

 Jack continued without really acknowledging her answer.  “Now, when we do find the Pearl and we reclaim her from Barbossa, we’re going to have a little problem.”

 “What to do with Barbossa?” 

 He gave her a rather reproachful look.  “There is no problem there, Miss Swann.”  He didn’t elaborate.  He didn’t really need to.  “But you see, Miss Swann, when we reclaim the Pearl, I, and part of this mangy crew, will be moving over to my ship.  That leaves this ship without a captain.”

 He let the words hang in the air. 

 “Me?”  Elizabeth’s voice came out in a gasp.  “Shouldn’t that go to Gibbs?”  The older man was much more experienced than she was and he was First Mate.  She knew how politics worked on pirate ships.  First Mate got to take over any plundered ship.  In this case, since that plundered ship would actually be the one the captain of the current ship wanted, it meant that the First Mate should be the one to take over the previous ship.  A simple solution.

 “Miss Swann, Gibbs has been with me for a long time.  We have plundered countless ships, taken over many that were still able to be sailed.  You will notice, however, that Gibbs is still with me.  Do you know why he’s still with me, Miss Swann?”

 She shook her head.

 “He’s with me because he wants to be.  Gibbs is more than just a competent sailor.  He’s shrewd, knowledgeable about everything a ship needs, everything it entails.  He knows how to deal with the men fairly and he knows how to dole out punishment when it’s needed.  He’s a comfort when the men are sick and injured.  He’s a feared leader when he is called upon to be so.  He was offered any number of ships that we conquered, some adequate, some quite nice.  And each time he declined in order to stay on as my First Mate.  He and I have an understanding that I will no longer ask so he no longer has to decline”

 Elizabeth was surprised.  She would have assumed that any man would want control of his own ship.  It seemed like something to aspire to and she had rather naively assumed that all the men on the ship were working toward that eventuality.

 “And so that leaves you with only me as a choice?”

 “Yes.”  The word was so simple and yet held such a weight of responsibility.

 “But I know even less than the crew!” she burst out with.

 Jack’s look was rather patronizing.  “You’re right.  You do.  But what you do have, Miss Elizabeth Swann, is the ability to learn, something I don’t think most of this crew actually has.”

 Elizabeth nodded.

 “And so, future Captain Swann, Pirate King…or Queen…whatever…you will learn how to captain a vessel.

 There was, ultimately, no arguing with the man.  If Elizabeth were to dig deep into her heart though, dig through all the nervousness and insecurities, she would have to admit to herself that she was truly excited at the prospect.  She had dreamed of doing just that when she was a child, always knowing in the back of her mind that it was just a dream, knowing that her lot in life would be to marry some upstanding member of society and spend the remainder of her days devoted to him and the children they would have.  It had felt stifling, even as a girl.  She couldn’t have really imagined she actually would become the captain of a pirate ship, sailing the high seas, tasting a freedom few would ever get to.  Captain Swann.  She liked the sound of that.

 “I can tell by the smile on your face that you like this idea.”  Jack’s voice came from very close to her ear and she could feel his breath fan out across the side of her face.  She turned to look at him and found his eyes his mouth far too close to hers.  Standing suddenly, stepping away from him, she took a deep breath.

 “Yes…yes I do.”  There was no need to deny what Jack could so obviously see.

 “Good.”  His smile matched the one still on her face.  “Then I suggest you get a little rest and prepare yourself for the journey ahead.”  He turned back to study his maps.

 She nodded, knowing a dismissal when she heard one.  Before she turned to go, she asked the one important question on her mind.  “Where do we start?”

 “With maps, of course,” he said dismissively, not even turning to look at her.

 “Maps?”  She was confused.  She had expected to start with how to steer the ship or what all the important things to know about keeping a ship running were or maybe how to spot and board merchant ships loaded with treasure.  But…maps?

 “Yes,  love...maps.”  He gave her a quick glance.  “Without being able to read maps and chart courses, a captain is utterly useless.  These maps are your lifeblood.”  He waved her away without further explanation.

 This time she went, realizing he really was done with her for now and understanding, to some degree at least, why everything must start with maps.  It seemed like such a dull thing, but she supposed one must always learn the basics, the uninteresting things, first before moving onto the more exciting aspects of the job.

 Captain Swann.  Yes.  Yes indeed.  She really did like the sound of that.

 With a smile, she entered her cabin and curling up on her narrow bunk, managed to fall into a fitful sleep full of dreams of adventures on the high seas.

“So you’re to be named captain of this vessel.”  Gibbs caught her on her way to Jack’s cabin.  There was no rancor in the man’s voice.

 “Apparently so.”  She sounded embarrassed, even to her own ears.

 “Congratulations, Miss Elizabeth.  You’ll make a fine captain, I think.”  She smiled.

 “Thank you, Mr. Gibbs.”  She started to turn away, but then thought to turn back to him, to say one more thing that was on her mind.  “This is all your doing, isn’t it?”

 “What is?”  The man seemed to not be confused so much as he seemed a bit hesitant.

 “All of this. My being on this ship.  I don’t think Jack would have come back for me on his own.  And this being named captain after we find the Pearl.  All of it, Mr. Gibbs.  I just can’t imagine Jack doing this all on his own.”

 Gibbs opted to concede on at least one account.  “Jack went back only partially at my urging, Miss Elizabeth.  I think he would have felt terribly guilty for leaving ye behind again…”

 “Do you think he felt guilty about that?”  It was the first time she had thought it even possible.  She couldn’t imagine his being eaten up inside with guilt over what he had done to her, not like she was over what she had done to him.  Somehow it almost seemed like it was her just penance for her past actions.  She had, after all, told him she had not been sorry for what she had done.  In the long run, that ended up being far from the truth.  She immediately felt sorry for it and sorry it had torn their somewhat tenuous friendship apart.

 “I can’t say, miss.  But what I can say is that I had nothin’ to do with ye being named captain.  I think that’s pure logic, is what it is.”   With those words and a wink, he walked off to tend to his duties as First Mate, leaving Elizabeth with little to do except knock on the door to Jack’s cabin.

They had been holed up in Jack’s cabin for hours and while they had gotten somewhere with the map reading, Elizabeth was still confused.  Jack seemed to have an intuitive sense of how maps worked, of how to mark the distances between objects and know exactly how long it would take to get there, if the weather cooperated.  Jack admitted he fully expected the weather to do as he wanted it to and the charmed existence he had led thus far seemed to indicate he had good reason to feel that way

 Elizabeth, on the other hand, struggled to formulate the math in her head and was frustrated when her calculations came out wrong.  She constantly reverted to writing in the margins of paper, scribbling little notes and crossing out numbers that she kept reversing.

 Jack, as she unfortunately found out, was not a patient teacher.  Frequently he snapped at her.  What if you have no extra paper to write on?  What if you need to make the calculations quickly in the midst of a storm?  What if you’re under attack and need to set the best course to get away from your attackers?  He kept throwing the questions at her until she threw her hands up in the air and tossed her pen across the room.

 “I’m sorry Jack.  This is not going to work.”  She rubbed the bridge of her nose, knowing she was fighting off a terrible headache.  “I have never read a map before.  Most of the time I’m not even sure which way is north.”  It was a hard admission to make.  For all her dreams of pirates and sailing, she had never been able to read up on the technicalities of life aboard a ship.  All she had ever read had been the books of the daring adventures of pirates.  They made her crave the adventure, but hadn’t told her what it would really be like.

 “It is going to work.  It has to, because I am not teaching one of those incompetents how to do this.  You are going to be captain and I won’t take ‘I can’t do this’ as an answer.” He sounded exasperated and rightly so.  “Let’s go out on deck and get some fresh air.”

 Elizabeth heaved a sigh at the thought of a break.

 “Come on, Elizabeth,” Jack said brightly, picking up something off the table.  “I’ll show you how to use a sextant.”

 Apparently a break was not quite in order.  She followed him out onto the deck, squinting into the bright sunlight.  The sea spread out all around them and for the first time in hours, Elizabeth smiled.  Yes, this was what it was all about.

 For a moment, Jack just drank it in next to her, listening as the sounds of the crew behind them seemed to fade away and the sound of the ship passing through the sea became like a song to them.  He murmured something that she didn’t quite hear at first.  Or, rather, didn’t believe she actually heard.  Snippets of memories came back to her, washed over her, took her back to a time when things were much easier, and when things seemed a lot less complicated between her and Jack.

 “What did you say?” she said quietly, not daring to look at the man next to her.

 “Yo ho…a pirate’s life for me.”  He raised the sextant in a sort of salute to both Elizabeth and the sea.

 She looked at him and smiled.  “Did you know that I actually enjoyed being stranded on that island with you?”  It was a confession of sorts.  She had seemed so angry, so worried about Will, so panicked at the thought of ending her days marooned on an island with a pirate.  The reality was much more difficult for her to swallow.

 “Did you now?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow and turning to look at her.  He leaned closer, lips just a hair’s breadth from hers.

 “I did.”  She didn’t pull away.

 He leaned forward, brushed his lips across hers for just a moment. It was a teasing, light, soft kiss.  And it was the first they had shared that was not out of desperation or anger.

 She lifted her eyes to his, not entirely sure what to think anymore.  She finally turned and looked away just as his next words found their way to her ears.

 “I always thought so.”