1. Shore
She whispered – close enough to feel the gilt mandarin's embroidery, oddly rough against his fingers. Gentle tugging at his hair and shirt-sleeves. He couldn't understand her, but it was important. He had to come, to – what? Perhaps it was Chinese – the sound ran together that way, like babbling. He reached out – she moved away and he was held back - "Elizabeth!"
The wave knocked him over, scraping against the shore, and he rose spitting out sand. The next one caught him full in the face. The want of breath felt refreshingly immediate, sickeningly familiar.
The light was failing, but she was still there when he got the salt out of his eyes, waist-deep in the ocean. Not a yard away, waist-deep.
Most certainly not Miss Swann. Dark and naked to the waist, and he had the dizzying thought that below the water she simply wasn't. Cursed pirates, hearts in boxes and squid-captains, Venus a mermaid with no tail. Well, why not? "Why?"
"I want the pirates hunted," she said – he thought she said – with a black smile. Her voice was the waves, all hissing and nothing sharp to catch onto, and the water filled his ears. He returned it, blackly. "With pleasure, lady. But – with what?"
"Three things I give you, James Norrington: your life; your coat; a sword."
"Who are you?" He couldn't resist the question: if he was cursed – if he was bound – he would at least know by what power.
The woman cocked her head and grinned, reminding him uneasily of – something. "I am She," she murmured, which was no answer at all.
She drew the map to the sword on his arm, which remained flesh under the moon. At the sunrise, the waves kissed her ankles as she pulled his coat out of the warm sea and, still dripping, around his shoulders. "Tortuga," she murmured into his ear. He stepped back, saluted, and walked east without looking back.
2. Port
"Mr. Gibbs."
The soaked unfortunate jumped out of his skin. His assaulter dropped the bucket in favor of a pistol. "Gibbs, where is your ship?"
The pirate gaped. "Ah - couldn't say, sir. I missed the tide; the Pearl's sailed two days ago."
"Marooned on Tortuga," the dead man commented. "How unfortunate."
Gibbs considered that this was so. "You're looking – well, Commodore." And he was, considering he'd lost his wig, considering his officer's coat had had a dunking. And, well, considering.
"Yes."
Even Gibbs could see the shoals beneath that silence, and he busied himself with brushing off the straw and more recent grime: "Cap - Miss Swann said you'd died, you know. Very heroic – if we'd thought she'd – again - we'd have...er..."
Norrington let him dangle again, frowning. "We looked for you on Isla Cruces," Gibbs offered, face shining with sincerity.
"No doubt you did." Norrington added, raising the lantern and turning away to examine the other stalls. "Miss Swann was correct. So if you would – the news, Mr. Gibbs."
Gibbs swallowed and, seeing no escape, talked.
Some half an hour later, the opening barn door interrupted the regrettably probable story of Elizabeth the Pirate King, then paused. And eased apologetically shut. Norrington turned on it, missing Gibbs' gape of horror.
"Expecting company?"
"No – no sir, no-one."
"Indeed."
3. Prize
Half the crew was below under guard, keeping the Merry Widow afloat. The rest sat chained on deck watching their captor poring over their ship's logs and charts with the absorption of a clerk. He'd faught like Navy, sailed with the Devil's luck, but no-one in the crew had yet heard of the Unceasing.
The Unceasing's captain had had a table brought out on deck, the better to supervise, and because the captain's cabin offended the senses. He affected not to notice the sawing of planks, the audience, or the occasional drip from his heavy coat. Finally, the papers were sorted; he stood, and addressed the company over the desk.
"This ship is condemned by its own logs of acts of piracy. Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Sykes, Mr. Hands to be put to death this day. The Widow to sail for Santos." The captain's cold, pale eyes raked them. "If it does not arrive, I will know the reason." A bead of water swelled at the hem of his coat, dropped into the pool under the chair.
"Shall I prepare the yardarm, sir?" His lieutenant, late of the Royal Navy and dreadfully serious, inquired.
"Yes – no. No, Gardner." The captain's eyes fixed beyond the knot of Widowers, near the far horizon. He raised his voice again. "The condemned to be weighted, sent to the deep with the dead."
In Santos the surviving Widowers, having no other name to give their judge, called him the drowned man.
4. Land
Captains Sparrow and Norrington took over a quiet corner of the tavern, and set to serious drinking. It was safer than it would have been if James Norrington hadn't had a ship, and less safe than it would have been if Jack Sparrow did have a ship. No amount of rum would make Norrington divulge that Gibbs was once again on his ship, and as long as Jack was here, drinking, he wouldn't discover it on his own.
Jack was explaining why Tortuga could not be the fifth circle of Hell, and Norrington was trying to remember if there were seven or nine all told. They were three-quarters through the second bottle.
So when Jack asked him how it was that Elizabeth saw him killed and Will didn't find him on the Dutchman, and now here he was, holding his rum better than ever and only a little soggy – Norrington shrugged and told him.
(He'd met Will, an awkward encounter of the Dutchman collecting the dead, and the Unceasing collecting intelligence. They'd shared a mutually excruciating dinner, conversation topics including honor, duty, and the sanctity of marriage vows. Norrington had waved him off with iced goodwill, and a resolve to serve fish, next he met the blacksmith.)
"No, no, no, Norrington. Not 'she,'" Jack flailed with agitation. "Sea. She's the sea, you see."
"I do not s- Sparrow." Captain Norrington sat back heavily. "I am not in thrall to some heathen god."
Sparrow squinted at him. "You're all drippy."
"It's the coat. I can take it off." The water was less a problem than the salt. He hadn't seen fine upholstery in three years, after all.
"She gave you the sword, right? I bet it's –"
"Very sharp."
Swords and rum made the former Commodore far less pleasurable company. The pirate's eyes flicked over him again, and he veered hard to outrageous. "You're sure you're not growing tentacles, mate?"
"Yes –"
"Because I could –"
"No!" Jack made appeasing gestures, and poured another round. He drank; James picked up his glass. Jack waited another second, and asked, "So how was she?"
Norrington choked on cue. "What?"
Sparrow leered, and Norrington's mouth snapped shut into a thin, firm, British line. "Jack."
"She is a goddess, mate."
Norrington looked away, and the closest Jack's vocabulary came to his expression was 'demure,' which was improbable on a former Admiral of the Royal Navy and one-time pirate of the Black Pearl. Especially a drunk one.
Jack frowned over whether that closed-up expression meant he had had Kalypso, or if he hadn't, because he had to stop asking men with very sharp swords if they were eunuchs, and Norrington leaned forward, tracing a line with the spilled rum. " – black sails at Bahia."
Jack looked before he could help himself, as Norrington's finger continued down. "I sail for San Andres." He had some small personal revenge to take on Captain Jack Sparrow. Goddess or demon, she hadn't showed herself to object to his tactics, and if she did – he could always throw Sparrow overboard.
"You'd catch the Pearl, would you?" Smug. That was the word for James Norrington.
(The Pearl had changed hands twice again, to Norrington's knowledge. Gibbs had given him a garbled and incomplete account of a chase for the Fountain of Youth, evidently more elusive than the lands of the dead.)
"Intercept, Jack. And since you're in port, and the Pearl is not –"
Jack stretched out his hand to grasp Norrington's coat, twisting so the brand showed. "You'd take a pirate as crew?"
James detached Jack's hand, returned it firmly to the table. "Jack Sparrow, you might be the best pirate on the seas. And if you want to get back on them, you can spend a month swabbing decks."
Jack's gaze barely flickered at a familiar portly shape nudging its way up to the bar, but grimace transformed into a brilliant grin, and he grasped Norrington's hand. "A fine, generous offer. Done, Cap'n."
5. Sea
It goes well, his new commission. He expects no more of the sea than he ever demanded of England: a ship, and the power to sail her. She forgives, if she even notices, certain failures with certain pirates. If he has sold his soul for strong winds and few tempests, it's a fair trade.
Retribution comes at last off an island he has no name for, only 'X' on a copy of a stolen map. Two ships with black sails sighted within minutes. Norrington wastes a minute trying to determine which is the Pearl, if either, before giving the order to engage both.
* * *
" – got gills? I never thought to look."
James's head rocks, threatening to drag him under again. "No," the bored voice growls. "He doesn't look drowned, either. More minced."
"Kalypso gave him the sword, you know." And what that had to do with anything... Sparrow would know, but out of principle he won't follow Jack Sparrow. Wouldn't have. He'd been on his feet when the pirates boarded, but –
//Barbossa's ship had closed first. Norrington recognized him by the hat, and did him the favor of shooting it off. He'd taken a bullet in the side, though, and Barbossa pressed his advantage. He'd tripped, fallen against the rail, and...//
"Aye? Well, it's all the way over there now, and there it stays until he dies." Not far... but not very long, now. He squints against the light anyway, and tries to focus.
//And looked up some dazed time later to see the pair of them, the damned pirates brazenly negotiating on the ruins of his deck. Rage propelled him up, and he screamed for Gardner to light the magazine as he ran, and...//
"Thought you didn't like things easy, mate. But he won't be long now – no need to hold him down." A pause, and then the weight disappears with a snarl and Jack leans in. "Here y'are, Commodore – drink to our truce." Norrington draws a ragged breath, but Jack remembers his opinion of truces, parleys, accords, and understandings with pirates in time, and hurries on – "Nevermind, James," and tips the rum into his mouth.
//And Captain Jack Sparrow knocked his sword up as Barbossa ran him through. Jack's black-rimmed eyes went round, Barbossa laughed, and nothing exploded. Hell. Norrington stepped back, coat dripping blood now. Barbossa pulled the sword out, a quick, practiced move. He fell, washed by an impossible Arctic chill...//
The rum traces fire down his throat, making him cough. He's going to waste his dying breath choking on Jack Sparrow's rum, which only underscores the unwholesome character of the drink. He tries to curse him, and Jack isn't even listening, just jangling of buckles and trinkets and muttering. Against all the sense he has left, he takes the second drink. Acid couldn't be worse, but the cessation of pain leaves him more stunned than the first bullet. "Jack," he breathes, "what - ?"
Jack shoves him back down, and tucks the second flask back into his shirt just before Captain Barbossa turns back. "Jack," the pirate purrs, low and ominous, and his boot connects casually with the side of Norrington's skull.
* * *
Norrington wakes again towards dusk – both pirates clean away, and half their men stranded on his ship in the haste to depart. Gardner all apologies, sidelong looks, and repair estimates. Half a year in the Empire's best shipyard would about do it. Norrington shakes his head, cutting him off, and gives the order to pursue.