A/N: This used to be a songfic, until I learned that songfics are against rules. Sorry! Here is the revised, totally legal version (though I kept the name, as I don't deem it identical enough to either song title to be removed). PLEASE review or PM, it brings me joy and doesn't have to be long :). I do not own PotC.

Elizabeth's small fingers desperately clutched the curtains in her cabin on the Dauntless, trying to hold on to something, anything, as the loud hurricane waves whipped and churned the huge ship. She screamed as the floor lurched, and her shoes left the wood for a moment before crashing back down. Everything in the grand room slid or fell from its place with each ocean convulsion.

She couldn't stop screaming. This was unlike anything she had experienced on the journey so far, unlike anything she thought a monstrous storm at sea would be like. This was not exciting or adventurous or swashbuckling. This was everything in the most horrible way and also nothing but the constant shriek in her head that flooded through her lips and blocked any other thought. And then someone heard her.

Lieutenant Norrington was bursting through the door, grabbing her hand, yelling to her through the violent cacophony. "Miss Swann! Are you hurt?" She shook her head, clinging to his arm as though it was the only tangible thing left in the world.

"Come with me, we're going to find somewhere safe for you! Quickly!" the lieutenant shouted, pulling her gently but firmly through the door and into the hall. He found an empty, secure closet and guided her in. She complied silently, too scared to feel or to speak. Norrington made to turn and go back the way they came, but Elizabeth cried out, "Don't leave!" As the man turned around to face her, the little girl began to cry. "Please," she whimpered, swallowing another panicked scream, "stay with me. Please."

Norrington hesitated just a second, then shut the bolt and knelt at her side, tentatively wiping away her tears with his handsome hands. "I won't leave you, Elizabeth." he promised softly, or as softly as he could competing with the howling wind and thundering waves that bounced Elizabeth like a yarn doll.

He sat next to her a foot or two away, but within a few minutes they found themselves with not an inch of space between them, his fingers laid soothingly over hers. "Is my father okay?" Elizabeth sniffled, having taken several moments before she dared break the wordlessness amid weather screeching outside.

"Of course, Miss Swann," Norrington answered quickly. "We were having tea with the captain when the storm started. Everyone present found somewhere to take shelter."

"Except you," Elizabeth pointed out, a genuinely curious observation. Norrington looked taken aback, but there was no audacity in the child's innocent, chocolaty eyes.

"True. I…I had to ensure you were safe; these small hurricanes are not things to be taken lightly."

"Did my father send you to find me?" There was I brief pause that made Elizabeth wonder if she had said something wrong.

"I offered," Norrington at last said plainly, his deep voice low, but pitched so that she could hold on to every word with no trouble. Hesitantly, he added, "I wanted to, Miss Swann,"

The two friends sat with no talk for quite some time. Words like thank you or it's nothing seemed flat and meaningless. Elizabeth's small head somehow eventually found Norrington's broad shoulder, giving them each something real, steady and sure as the world continued to rock—though more gently now, it seemed.

Just when he thought she was surely asleep, the dimly lit outline of Elizabeth slumped against Norrington's right side gave a weary mumble.

"Lieutenant?" Before he could respond, she impulsively added, "James?"

"Yes, Miss Swann?"

"I liked it when you called me Elizabeth."