Title: "Absolution"
Author: Hildwyn
Rating: T (language and death)
Disclaimer: Not mine. And not making money off of it.
Summary: The last few minutes of facing down Davy Jones before death. AWE. Warning--Character death, and dark.
Notes: This story ties in with my previous story, "I'll Take My Chances." This can be read without reading that one...but I would suggest knowing that one first. I would not recommend reading this if you really, really hated AWE. I did...but writing this helped. It's therapeutic. But...be warned, it is dark.

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Absolution

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"Go, now!"

Sudden blinding pain. Pain so harsh that it makes your vision go blurry and dark and filled with jagged dashes of light. So great that you don't even realise that it has stolen your legs out from under you, or that you gasped when your soft flesh was cruelly pierced by the uneven, unforgiving iron.

It was so great, and yet...nothing compared to what I have already felt. With philosophers they usually debate that without one extreme you cannot know the other. If there is no evil, that there cannot be good, if there is no ignorance, then you cannot know, and likewise without the pain...how would one know pleasure?

So much pointless debating, so useless, so detached from reality. Perhaps if they spent their time living in this world, observing instead of withdrawing to use logic to understand it, then maybe they see that men are not creatures of logic. We are creatures of emotion, cruelty, and jealously.

This sailor's blade...Bootstrap he is called...Mister Turner...the father of Will...will have ended me, and caused me pain, but no more pain than I felt when his son beat me, and Elizabeth chose him over me. No more pain than I felt when I had handed over the heart to His Lordship, and realised that while I may have a position that seems comparable to what I had...what I was...that it was all an illusion. If I am not certain to die here, on this ship from hell, then sooner or later Beckett will no longer have any uses for me...and somewhere, where I least expect it, I'll find his assistant Mercer waiting for me. Just as what happened to Governor Swann...I'm sure of it.

No, better to die here...a man working for true redemption, than the man whom I tried to find once after being lost. Better to be this flawed man with the hard wood digging painfully into my back...the sensation fading now...a sword through me...I do not wish to look down and see that...a man who chose his side. If the trick is to chose a side that one can live with...then I know I chose one incorrectly. I could not live with it...nor will I be able to live with this one, but at least I will be able to die with this one. Better the right side late, than never, isn't that how it goes?

I can't breathe...I'm coughing...blood...I don't have long now, I know that much. So dark now...so hard to see--but there's a dark shape over me...it's so hard to distinguish, large...inhuman...

"James Norrington, do you fear death?"

Captain Jones...damn the man. Damn the devil! Damned to here...

No. No more prolonging my tortured existence, no more humiliation, no more pity, no more fear, no more struggle from day to day. My hell has been here...and it is ending.

I'd bid him to go to the devil...were he not the devil himself.

Instead...I'll let him know my answer. In my left hand...though barely can I feel it anymore, is my sword. Given to me when I was to be at the pinnacle of my career. I'll leave to others to see if there is any symbolism with that...were there any others left to care. With my last ounces of strength I bring it up and blindly thrust it...something gave way under it...but no longer can I see it.

The pain is fading now...oh, I am to be freed at last! My absolution comes finally...I am removed from hell...and by that virtue, am now in heaven.

Oh, Elizabeth...I love you, I always--

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The light dimmed from his eyes, his last breath given. The last man to be offered the chance to serve before the mast on the Flying Dutchman--the last to be offered the chance to join Jones' hellish crew. The last...to take his chances.