There are rules that govern the world of the material and immaterial: those that die aboard the Dutchman stay aboard the Dutchman. The first night saw many boats and many bodies in the water. Chaos reigned beneath a full, white moon. The dead eyes locked onto his. Rage and sorrow warred upon a full, white face. Looking back from where he could not follow, those dead eyes burned a mission onto his soul.
Turner had mistrusted him from the first, but could do nothing to be rid of him: part of the ship, part of the crew. Norrington, found wandering like a ghost amidships, had become the ship's navigator. He had been relegated to the position of liar. Never in his life had he lied. He had one many a worse thing, but never a liar. Ten years cleaning the heads was not such a long time. Time no longer functioned for the dead.
Tonight Norrington would become Captain. She would be there for Turner, waiting. The transition of power would happen without incident, to ensure this he was locked in the brig. The full, white moon had risen and set one-hundred-twenty times since that first night. He could feel the tug of it as the Dutchman rose from the depths. The force of those eyes in that full, white face pulled him towards the surface.
Once Turner was off the ship, his heart beating inside his own ribcage, Norrington let him out of the brig. One could always count on Norrington to do the right thing. He had been counting on it. Slipping silently from the ship into the water, he walked along the bottom into the crashing surf and onto the pale sand. Watching and never being seen. There was a boy in the house, an unexpected boon.
Norrington would never know. In the dead of the night their blood shone black in the light of the full, white moon and he went back the way he came. The waves washed away his footprints in the sand and the blood on his hands. It was as though he had never been there, as though he had never been gone from the Dutchman. He requested to take his leave of the ship and the Captain granted it.
After the green flare, he climbed into one of the lowered death boats and was ferried away with the rest of the dead. Turner had been right. Ten years was a long time to wait for a lover, now that his revenge was complete. Somewhere beyond the sea on a dark and distant shore, he would be there, waiting: a full, white face empty of rage and sorrow and eyes that would burn into his forever.