Title: Regrets
Disclaimer: Disney owns all. I'm just dabbling.
Summary: Norrington thinks on what has been done and what is to come.
A/N: Just something short (3 paragraphs) I rattled out while the kids were watching CotBP. Nothing super, unbeta'ed and written in about 10 minutes. Hey, at least I wrote something again...
He sits at the desk drafting the latest orders, something that will cause the certain deaths of men who may or may not deserve it. Something that will be signed and sealed by the unwilling and captive hand of Governor Swann, that simpering fool, but carried out by the order of Cutler Beckett himself. It has been a month since Norrington brought Beckett that slimy bundle of beating muscle that passes for the heart of Davy Jones and since that time, he has drafted many such orders to be signed. He tries not to think too hard on what he's done, convincing himself that the return of his commission and a higher rank have been worth it all, that the pirates got no better than they deserve and that the men whose ships are being... consumed... are deserving of such fates. He certainly tries not to think of Elizabeth Swann, of where she might be and with whom, of whether she is whole and safe. She has become, after all, a horrible disappointment and a young woman far, far beneath him. Except... beneath him is exactly where he wishes she was, all slender limbs and golden fire and whimpering his name upon sweat-soaked linens. This image still haunts his dreams at night, even more than the lives that Beckett seems intent on swallowing by the dozens.
He thinks back to a voyage many years ago and the saving of a boy in the waves, when Elizabeth was new to Caribbean waters and pirates simply a nuisance to be stamped out, not this maelstrom of supernatural terror and curses to be broken. He regrets, not for the first time, of ever having saved Will Turner that day, wishes that they could have let the boy float away into the salt and smoke. How different it all might have been. He a ranking officer by honest means, the beautiful Elizabeth as his dutiful wife. Now it would seem that she not only left him for Turner, but -- if her eyes were any indication when last he'd seen her -- she was jilting Turner for that disgusting Sparrow. But Sparrow was dead now. What would the irrepressible Miss Swann do now? Norrington wondered if he'd ever see her again, hated himself for caring.
Yes. Nothing but regrets for the day he gave the orders to fish Will Turner out of the sea, nothing but regrets that he hadn't just killed both the boy and Sparrow and married the little chit despite any protests she might have had. Wedded and properly bedded, he reminds himself bitterly. He finishes the orders, drying ink and folding them into a packet to be delivered to Beckett. Norrington knows his place in the world; he will continue on this path to hell, the path he chose when he took the heart and abandoned those pirates to their fate. As for Elizabeth, he will ignore the dreams of sweat-glistened skin and the sound of her moans in his ears. Being mere phantoms, they should have no power over him. But if he ever sees her again, he tells himself he will apologize only once... before putting her in shackles and leading her to the gallows. She is, after all, a pirate.