That old bald cheater, Time. 3/4

Summary: Elizabeth confides in Beckett.
Characters: Beckett, Elizabeth, Jack
Pairing: Beckabeth, Willabeth, Norribeth, Speckett, Beckett/OC
Rating: PG-13 Some Mature Themes
Disclaimer: This is totally AU. Disney owns everything and Ted and Terry are wonderful guys so please don’t sue!!! justin_barrette do not read this until you’ve seen AWE.

Soon, the port of São Sebastião was in sight and most were readying to go ashore. However, Cutler had his reservations, where were his clothes? He’d seen no sign of them in the two months since being aboard The Black Pearl. The sun shone down as he walked up to Mr. Gibbs and questioned, “What became of my clothes?” The older man frowned and explained, “Your clothes were impractical for the sea. Some of it fell apart from the sea water. It also had holes and blood…might have the breeches somewhere, but the rest were rags.” Considering how loose these breeches had become, they wouldn’t fit anyway so he shook his head. How was he to go ashore looking like this?

“Uh, Cutler, I doubt anyone could recognize ye,” he said and laughed. Was that really true? Cutler reached the nearest rain barrel and took a look. His brown hair had grown a few inches so it rested just above his eyes, his beard had become thick and the healthy fullness he’d had since he was a baby was gone. He barely rcognized himself. As soon as the gangplank was lowered, he followed everyone else into port. Some of the crew had coins to spend, but he conveniently did not. He walked along the narrow street, past the crowded stalls that lined the waterway until a couple of men approached him.

“Hable Inglese?” asked one.

“No,” Cutler corrected him while pointing at himself, “I’m EN-GLISH!” The two strange men looked at each other, smiled and each scooped him up by an arm before depositing him in a local tavern. They ordered him a drink and asked if he had come from the Pacific. He nodded and sipped at the glass in front of him. It was rum and watered down at that, but better than nothing. After a few swigs, the other one asked the real question at hand, “Tell us what happened.”

The one question they wanted the most was the one he couldn’t provide. He hung his head and admitted, “I suffered an accident and don’t remember a thing about it.”

“Nothing about the battle at all?” questioned the first. Cutler shook his head and downed the rest of the glass. He wouldn’t dare to mention a whirlpool or an imprisoned Goddess or a heart carved out of its chest yet still beating. The men called the buxom lady for another round of drinks as the first spoke, “You need this more than us. I suppose we’ll do our best of what we know.”

“Most importantly, we won!” exclaimed the second, “The Pirates showed them all.”

“Especially Beckett,” added the first.

“Lord Cutler Beckett,” interjected the second in a very solemn manner, “May he rest in peace…”

“In the deepest circle of Hell!” finished the first and they both laughed uproariously. Cutler set his new glass of liquid back on the table without drinking it and cautiously suggested, “The bloke wasn’t all bad, was he?”

“Not all bad? Not all bad?!” cried the second and looked at the first with incredulous wonder, “Cutler Beckett is one of the vilest men to ever step forth in the new world. He’s responsible for the deaths of hundred’s of England’s finest lads and the waste of all those resources on his damn fool crusade.”

“I hope he had a right good end, anything short of disembowlment would be too good for him,” remarked the first and second suggested, “Drawn and quartered, maybe…or sweating.”
They began to giggle and the low quality rum was leaving a bad taste in Cutler’s mouth, but he held up his new glass anyway and toasted, “But that Jack Sparrow!”

“Jack Sparrow!!” both yelled and clinked their glasses with his before the first spoke,”One of the greatest men to have ever lived…stepped from the Great Beyond just to free us from evil.”

“The way I heared it, he’s not really dead. That is his ship docked out there, ain’t it?” the second pondered aloud.

“Nah, that’s not the real Black Pearl, it’s a fake made to look like it,” the first argued, sitting back on his chair so Cutler could hear the clanking of change. It was more change than what would be expected to have been earned under ethical means.

“No, no, no, it’s the real one and was never swallowed by that creature at all,” countered the second so they weren’t paying attention to Cutler at all who took his leave of them. He was glad that his pockets were too light to have been emptied further. The Black Pearl was not close enough as he would have liked. He ran aboard and hugged the deck as though it could keep him safe. Then, he remembered the way the men had laughed and he threw up all the rum he had drank.

“Am I evil?” he asked himself and hurried to his hammock where he buried himself in it. He had failed in every sense of the word and worse than that; he had disgraced the name Beckett which his children shared. He wanted to die. The hammock could just swallow him up at the moment, smothered him and then his body thrown overboard for all he cared. He didn’t stir. He didn’t stir when the rest of the crew returned or when everyone had been expected to help load the supplies and he didn’t stir the next day when his lack of participation was noticed. However, he could hear everything.

“Rise and shine, Cutler…even if you had too much spirits in port,” growled Mr. Gibbs. There was also a kick to his hammock that he guessed would have been Ragetti or Barbossa, but he didn’t care enough to look.

“I think a flogging is in order,” suggested the voice of Barbossa and that horrible monkey of his chattered.

“No, that won’t be necessary; I have a much more better punishment…of sorts in mind,” said Jack and Cutler was tempted to get up except he kept remembering the giggling and what had made those men giggle so hard. It was a curious thing that they all left then…all save one who commented, “Besides, you’d enjoy the flogging.” Cutler was left alone for several minutes until he heard light footsteps approaching that could only belong to one crewmember.

“Why did you save me?” he asked her without turning his away from the wall. There was a nervous laugh and she answered, “What leads you to think I was the one responsible?” He shifted and glanced at her, “I know it was you. No other on this ship would have done it, not even Jack.” She frowned and softly uttered, “There’d been too much death, I couldn’t allow more blood on my hands and I could save you.” There was a pause before she continued, “and I couldn’t save him.”

“Will, you said that he chose his own fate,” Cutler spoke, sitting up without thinking. She shook her head.

“Jack? Jack lands on his feet like a cat,” he stated and she shook head again, “Then, who?”

“James,” she replied and he saw her eyes become watery with tears although truthfully his first thought was, which James? Then, he remembered his latest Admiral.

“Oh, you mean, Norrington, your one-time fiancé,” Cutler clarified and after a moment, “I knew something had happened but not the details.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks and his feet found the floor as she confessed, “He died because of me and I don’t deserve it. All I did was hurt him and get him killed and he loved me anyway. I should have helped him or gone back for him…I don’t deserve to live…”

He couldn’t bear to see a woman cry so he put his arms around her and to his surprise, she didn’t pull away. Theirs arms crossed each other and they hugged each other close, wetness covering Cutler’s face as well.

“At least you don’t have the honor of being ‘one of the vilest men to ever step forth in the new world,’” he said and she laughed in a forced way.

“I think there’s good in you, Cutler…somewhere in there,” she spoke, looking so intently into his eyes that if he’d been a much young man, he’d have blushed, “Unlike me, I fear it’s all been spent.”

“Nonsense, Elizabeth, you’ll find your strength to do what’s right,” he told her and wiped some tears from her cheeks, but she shook her head, saying, “What if it’s all gone? It’s all been replaced by grey and nothing is real anymore.”

“No, you will find it,” he stated, trying to convince her and she took a hand to his cheek and admonished, “Then, why can’t you?”

“Then, we’re the same and if you can forgive yourself so can I?” he asked and the idea seemed at once preposterous and brilliant. They both needed to believe in themselves again that they were capable of goodness and something more than what they were at the moment. She nodded and he nodded in unspoken agreement to the plan. The air felt full of magic which must have been why Elizabeth leaned forward and placed her lips to his. They were warm and soft and reminded him of his wife’s kisses when they were young. However, she pulled away almost as quickly as it begun, a bit surprised and asked, “Nothing?”

Cutler shook his head and Elizabeth laughed.

“There was a time when it appeared as though every man in the Caribbean fancied me,” she said and he added, “all but one.”

The kiss was no better than the ones he shared with his wife which were nothing like the kisses shared by the one he loved with his ticklish mustache and…there was a shake of the head and another laugh from her end at what he had said.

“After we reach Isla Cruces, it’ll be different,” Elizabeth spoke and he had to clarify, “Isla Cruces?”

“Everyone will be there,” she explained and he noticed how her hand moved to her middle. He put his hand over hers and she took it.

“Killing you would not have brought my father back…and he did seem so happy when I saw him,” Elizabeth told him and started to lead him above. The thought struck him whether he’d become her pet.

Under their watchful eyes, Elizabeth smiled more and began to become upbeat while Cutler tried to adjust to the idea that he was never going back to England and that the world hated him. Somehow, this meant throwing himself into the work of a crewmember. Before, it was more of a curiosity, but now he genuinely started to enjoy the work. It was fulfilling without the possibility of a colleague wanting to have you murdered to advance their station. Time passed until unbelievably, Isla Cruces was on the horizon. Jack, Elizabeth and Barbossa spiffed themselves up and readied the rowboat. Naturally, Cutler bent to step in as well, but Jack stopped him.

“Are you a member of the Brethren?” he asked; his hand still on Cutler’s shoulder and Cutler had to admit, “Well, no…”

“Are you the current possessor of the Flying Dutchman and all that ship entails?” Jack questioned and the other man had to shake his head.

“But you did try to control the seas and thus the world?” Jack inquired with a grin and rolled the ends of his mustache.

“Yes, but…,” started Cutler before he was interrupted by the Captain saying, “Then, you cannot come to our high-toned and fancy to do…mind the ship, luv.”

Cutler could only scowl as the boat become smaller and farther away, even Pintel and Ragetti got to go since they were the oarsmen.