A/N: This is not ROMANCE at all, and I hope the point of this drabble gets itself across to ya'll. Please review and tell me what you think.
There had always been Norrington. Back before she had left England there had been the young officer who had a bright future. He had visited and made her father smile with his impeccable manners. He was always polite and conversed with her, even though she was almost ten years younger than he was and could have been politely ignored.
Then he was on the long ship voyage to the new little island she was expected to live the rest of her life on. He was there with the same manners, smiles, and polite conversation. He taught her about ships and navigation when he could, and distracted her father do she could dash about the ship and listen to the sailors talk, which he really shouldn't have been doing.
After that there was the wedding proposal. It might not have been so bad. She never would have loved him, but she could have lived in relative happiness with him. He was not a stranger--just Norrington, and there had always been Norrington in her life.
Then there was desperate man stripped of everything he'd ever worked for; bereft of everything and without purpose. She sometimes thought her presence had spurred him into action to retreive his life and old honor, but not because she was a great motivator. Simply because she was a reminder of his life before disgrace, and all he had hoped to be back then.
After that there had been the man restored to honor and position, but riddled with doubt of the integrity of his position. The man who had been so easy to hate because she knew he would not hate her back. The man she had been so releived to see just because he was Norrington, and Norrington was normal and familair in the wild sea of strange happenings and people.
Last there was the kiss. Kissing Norrington was like kissing a brother. There was no wild passion. No heady feeling. Just lips and a twisting sorrow that this was the end. This was the last, and how odd it was to think of Norrinton and 'last' in the same thought.
He was a constant. She could love him or hate him, but he'd always be there. He was familair, and she could predict everything he would say or do(that was one of the reasons she couldn't love him). He was familair and comforting simply by his presence and the fact she couldn't remember a time there hadn't been Norrington involved in her life in some way.
And now, now he simply wasn't, and she felt like a boat cut adrift. First her father had gone and then Norrington. Her life now only held inconsistancies and nothing half and familair as Norrington or her father. There was no one she could read so well. No one she could trust to be so stupid when he was supposed to be so smart.
She cried for him, and no one else could understand until she said it was like losing an old ship. An old used up ship you had sailed on for years and knew inside and out just because it had been around so long. You knew it needed to go in order for you grow up and move on, but it was still a loss. That ship had been famillair. It had been constant.
And now it was gone.