Title: Breathe

Author: heavenxleigh

Rating: PG

Summary: E/N "To think that it was James who was there for me when I was fallen upon my knees, tears outlining my eyes, and a shattered heart beneath my feet. "

A choking sound escapes my lips and I gasp, trying to inhale the air I cannot seem to quench. My hand moves swiftly to my throat as I silently urge myself to breathe. I feel a hand on my back and soothing words in my ear. Finally, when it feels as if I can go on no longer, my throat opens once more and I can breathe. I give the man lying next to me a tight, strained smile as I lie back once again, retreating to the right side of the bed. Then he retires back to the left side of the bed, a world away from me.

I have done this every night for the past five years, or in different terms, every night since the moment Will left Port Royal. I do not understand why I do it, nor do I know how to control it so I, and my husband, suffer each night with the memory of Will hovering above our shared bed. My husband, known to those around us as Commodore Norrington, tries to ignore the fact that I will never fully give myself to him. Forcing a smile and laughing a bitter laugh he tries to live in a world of illusions, living on the single hope that one day I will turn around and confess my undying love for him, as he has done for me everyday since our marriage. Alas, I cannot speak what I do not feel, for I do not give my word lightly. He knows well where my heart truly lies and he knows that it is not he who holds it. So he continues to live with that one hope, giving me everything a wife should acquire. Torturing him is what I really do, taking his heart but not giving him mine. I would give him my heart, if I had it, but it is held firmly in the grasp of another whom I gave it to so long, long ago.

Tonight just like every night, I slip out of bed ever so silently and make my way to the balcony where I hope to see those black sails that haunt my dreams. James knows what I am looking for, but blinds himself from the truth, yet what do I know about the truth. The truth stared me in the face every day of my engagement to Will and I refused to see it. I refused to see through his distracted eyes and hesitant promises as if he had something else in mind. To think that it was James who was there for me when I was fallen upon my knees, tears outlining my eyes, and a shattered heart beneath my feet. I heard a slight rapping at the door and Will's face vanished from my mind. My eyes traveled lazily to the doorway and there James stood with a coat in his arms. He walked over to me and draped it over my shoulders, his hands lingering longer than necessary. Then he sat in the chair next to me, his eyes filled with compassion, yet it was compassion that so rightfully should be for him. A hand went to my cheek and wiped away a stray tear that I did not know had fallen. He stared at me for a long time before he spoke, "You'll never stop loving him, will you?" It was then that I saw the hurt and pain in his eyes I had never noticed before. Or perhaps I hadn't wanted to see it, like him I had blinded myself from it. It was at this moment that I finally realized that we were more alike than I had thought. We both had loves that we could not attain, both yearning for something that could never be. My love had a greater love, the ocean, as did his and while we tried to compete with it, it was never enough. Tears began to fall against my will, blurring my vision, and suddenly I saw everything so clearly. I looked up into the face of the man who had loved me and been there for me even when I gave him nothing in return, and I finally I could breathe. I reached my hand out to his and held it there for a moment. Then I turned to him, no forced smile on my face, "I love you."