NOTE: I have no claim whatsoever to any of the brilliant POTC characters; I am grateful to be sitting at a banquet table set by truly talented storytellers.

A/N: A special thank-you to FreedomoftheSeas for her help and encouragement!

The Revenants

"God save us!"

James Norrington was jolted awake in the darkness, the cry ringing in his ears. He lay still for a few moments, his heart pounding violently as his clammy palms clutched the bed sheet. Gradually, though each beat of his heart still caused a lingering stab of pain in the centre of his chest, he took slower breaths and recollected himself: Midshipman Evans' desperate cry had only been an echo from the past in the dream that continued to haunt him. The hurricane had happened months ago. All that remained were the nightmares.

Norrington tried to calm himself, wiping the sweat from his forehead, but the nightmare always brought back flashes of memory, as fresh as if it all had happened yesterday. The deteriorating weather, the leaden skies, the seas boiling like a cauldron of foam and spindrift, and the faces of his men. The drowned.

How slowly the ship had sunk, despite the intensity of the hurricane! He had finally ordered the remaining men to abandon ship and, when she was foundering with three feet of water swirling over her deck, he had been the last one to go. Clutching a line, he had been pulled through the rough seas until he was hauled, half-drowned himself, over the gunwale of the boat that held Lieutenant Hingston, Midshipman Moore, and one other – in a boat that should have held twelve men easily. He remembered his own horror when he realised that the reason the boats were more than half empty was that there were so few men left alive.

The winds of the storm flung the boats away from each other, and they disappeared over the tops of waves so high they might have been hills. One moment he could catch a glimpse of one or two of them, as the ocean would drive his own boat up the side of a swell, but in the next instant, it would be hurled back down into a valley, facing a towering wall of waves, and he would lose sight of the others. Eventually, the inevitable moment came when, though the sea lifted his boat to the peak of the highest wave, he could no longer see the others at all.

Norrington groped about the floor in the darkness for the bottle at the side of his bed. After several attempts, his fingers touched its smooth, glassy surface: it had tipped over, and was empty. He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes, but his restless mind gave him no peace from his memories.

He pictured the dreadful hours that followed the wreck, when the storm had claimed more victims, just as a dying serpent may still inflict a fatal bite. The man whose name Norrington did not know had fallen out of the boat, and never surfaced again. Moore had been badly wounded, and died the next morning as a cold sun began to spread its light across the empty grey waters.

Even now, lying motionless on the mattress, Norrington could imagine that his bed was rocking, just as the open boat had done, and the sensation lulled him, drawing him back into his dream.

He was back in the creaking boat, trying to reason with Hingston, who had become maddened by the conviction that his brother was waving and calling to him. Despite his efforts to restrain the young officer, Hingston fought like a devil and climbed out of the boat, to be taken by the sea.

The dream ended as it always did; with Norrington alone, drifting on the ancient sea of Homer's poem. The horror of this solitude was such that he woke again in the darkness, with a loud cry.

For a moment, his surroundings confounded him. Where am I? How did I come here? he wondered. Then he remembered: Gibraltar. The naval infirmary.

And none of it mattered to him. The essential truth was this: he had given the orders to sail through the hurricane, blindly chasing the Black Pearl, and the men had obeyed, even though they knew it meant death. It was therefore his fault, and his punishment was to be left alive – penitent for the rest of his life.

Their faces crowded around him in the dark: Caleb, Moore, Hobb, Evans, Hingston, Lowell, Burns, others… so many others. Young officers, penniless sailors – all of them gone.

Brave men, good lads, all.

His shout must have been louder than he thought, for now the door cracked open and someone looked in to see what was the matter. He recognized Polly, one of the women who cleaned the ward and sometimes serviced the soldiers who were fit enough for such things. She was a woman of the sort he normally viewed with distaste, but she had a kind nature which inclined her to worry over him.

"D' ye need anything, dear?" she asked, sounding concerned. He closed his eyes and groaned, as the faces crowded together in his mind.

"What is it, love?" Polly persisted. "Tell Poll what you want."

What did he want? To undo everything, to mend the harm he had done. Failing that, perhaps oblivion, never to remember. He turned his head, hoping she could not see the quick spasm of grief that passed over his face. He mumbled something.

"What did you say, love?" she asked, leaning closer. "What did you want?"

He put his hands to his face, and answered her. "Forgiveness."