A/N: Allright, I know this is still a fledgling story, and so I shouldn't be having drastic flaws in it so soon, and some of you probably want my head because I simply refuse to update Importance of Secrecy, but the whole holiday season has compelled me in a distinctly piratical direction.

side note: I know that Diablita is in fact the Spanish word for the feminine of little devil, but unfortunately, the transferral of the island's name to Jack came later in the creative process, and was therefore already out there for the world to see, and altogether impossible for me to retract. Not to mention, calling the male ruler of an island a feminine spanish noun, makes sense in the beautifully piratical way in that, it just doesn't. So here's the next bit of Dry Clean Only, please, be your comments good or bad, leave them in the review box, and I'll be a chipper girl forevermore, it might even tempt me to find the thread of Importance of secrecy again, you never really know.

Dry Clean Only

By:Lunatic with a hero Complex

Chapter 1

He dropped the anchor in the port of the island de Diablita Bonita, and hoisted his small pack onto his back, taking the high step up onto the dock. He had loosened in gait considerably since his bloody fall into the ocean away from what was the squall of the fight against Davey Jones. Now, it carried him in steady thumps down the dock. He dug into his pockets to seek out docking fees.

Only, there seemed to be no dock master. Which in turn meant that there seemed to be no docking fees. Which, to a man of James's background was altogether peculiar and odd. But, he would not discount blessings when he found them. So he resumed his steady gait and searched out the second of his goals, shelter. He was smart enough to know that this task was not to be accomplished on the first day, so he would need a place to stay.

The town that seemed to inhabit this island was altogether strange. On one end of the street, there were screaming, laughing, singing sycophants, obviously sloshed into happy oblivion. On the other end, children were laughing and dancing around mothers that shook both their heads and their laundry while talking to each other and scolding the children that stepped out of line. The bad and good parts of town seemed to have abandoned the concept of separation and altogether agreed to disagree.

Positively disconcerting. Especially since they seemed to be having little to no problems with the situation. He marched down the street, trying to look at home in a place that felt nothing so much as alien. His battered tricorn was pulled low over his eyes and the brown curls trying desperately to escape were tied back. He'd tried to blend in, but he just wasn't used to it yet.

It would come with time. Finally, he came up alongside a building, larger than most in the town and painted with the cheery words Casa de Mariposas. It looked clean, and neat, and safe. And also, most importantly, it looked like an inn. He readjusted the pack on his shoulder and entered the rounded arch of a doorway. As the name suggested, the inside was colorful, but not garish. The walls were a pale green, the desk where it looked as if he should sign in a worn but darkly glowing wood, the drapes were dark blue, and the spirit of the room itself seemed only to suggest that the stairs only led to more color. He approached the charming desk, and the comfortably happy looking woman behind it, quietly.

She turned and smiled at him, seemingly unsuspicious of his unfamiliarity. He dug out what remnants of his Spanish he could find, it would have to be enough to let him survive, "Hola Senora, I quiero un…un…" Dash it all, what was the bloody word for room!!!

The woman laughed and despite his love of composure, his head snapped up in shock. The chuckles died out and she spoke, "It is all right Senor, I speak English, this is a free port after all." And again she chuckled good-naturedly.

James felt the urge to smile blindingly, he resisted, "Oh good, I would like a room please." He felt much better about his situation now that the woman that was in charge of where he was living could understand him. And best of all, she seemed friendly.

"Of course, Senor, for how long?" She had a pen poised over the ledger lying on the wood of the desk and was looking at him expectantly.

He began working on his pockets again as he spoke, "I am not sure how long, but I will pay for three nights in advance, how much is one night?" She listed a reasonable sum, and he put the appropriate sum on the desk between them. She seemed quite pleased by his proved ability to pay and was even kinder than she'd been before. He hated to see how amiable she could be when you were a well known, and well liked acquaintance.

She led him up the stairs and showed him to a room that, though small, was clean, and well furnished. There was a small but soft looking bed by the far wall, next to a window that appeared to look out on the main street of the town. There was a wash basin on the wall nearest the door, with a pitcher made of blue porcelain. It was altogether, as good a place as he could hope to spend his time when confronted with his new line of work. He turned to the woman, "Thank you Senora, I will unpack now I think, I wish to go out and see the town."

As seemed to be her natural disposition, she smiled brightly at him again, "Si Senor, meals are at 7: 30 morning and evening, and at noon if you wish to be fed, the food is included in the price. Buenos noches, Senor."

And then he was left alone. With his very small amount of belongings. And an urge to get this over with so he could move on to his next endeavor. These days, his patience was almost non-existent. Under the mattress went personal valuables. In the pack stayed any spare clothing he possessed, and as always, his sword remained at his side.

Well, that used all of approximately three minutes.

He guessed it was out to the town then, to learn things of his target, and to find out what was so off about this town.

As he stepped out of door of his inn, he noticed that it was beginning to get dark and that soon, the day life of Diablita Bonita would become its night life. And he supposed that that life was the one he was most likely to get good information out of.

The tavern he'd passed on his way in was named La Vaca Azul, it seemed popular, and if he was a person that knew a lot of things about this town and would unwittingly give out that information, that was where he would go.

So in he went.

Now, in the royal navy, it was common practice to seem to disdain such low things as taverns and their inhabitants, but the truth was, they all went there at one time or another. There was no way one man could spend all day in a stuffy, garish uniform, in blazing Caribbean heat, and not slip in for a pint after hours. So James was not a total stranger to the ebb and flow of the atmosphere of a tavern. But he still was not used to this being acceptable for his status in the world.

But he would be, soon. He slipped up to the bar, ordered a pint of their watered down rum, and chose a table near the back. He would be quiet. Being loud only ever got you one thing in a tavern, kicked out. If he just was patient, the people would come to him. Drunk men were on a whole, an amenable lot, unless provoked. And James was not about to provoke anyone. Challenged to cards, he would lose, offered a pint, he would accept, offered an opinion, he would agree. Drunk men were always happy when not contested.

Sure enough, a man soon ambled over to his table. He sat down precariously, just barely keeping from coming out the other side. He smiled drunkenly at James and took a drink from his glass, "Wha's yer name son?" James smiled back, "Jim, jus' got inta town, me boats a right mess, fixin' er up, wha's yers?"

The accent was a talent that not many men knew he had. He was very good at accents. And if any profession called for the utilization of this talent, it was this one.

The man smiled, "Jimmy eh? Me name's Ralph, but me friends call me R.L., and tha's what ye can call me."

"Well R.L., is a pleasure ta meet ya. You know, I don' really know so much 'bout this islan' just landed 'ere cause it was close. Wher'd it come from? Ne'er seen it on no map."

"Ah, course ye woul'n't. Ain't on no map. This 'ere islan' was started by one man, and i's a free port. I's run by tha' one man. They say 'e does strange things up in 'is house. 'E lives just down the road 'bout a mile. They say when 'e appears, tha women can' resist 'im and tha men buy 'im drinks."

James nodded, so far, he'd heard very little that he didn't already know, except the location of the man's home, but he needed to act surprised, "One man eh? How often does 'e come down?"

The man squinted, his brain was getting foggier by the second and soon James wouldn't be able to get anything out of him worth getting. But the man managed to answer, "'E usually comes down e'ery couple a days er so, never any advanced warnin' afore it happens, he usually jus' shows up and then tha nights get real fun."

James felt that he was lucky. This would be easier than he thought. He wouldn't have to do recon, or break in. The man came to this tavern. Often. He just had to come here. Only one more bit of information he needed, he hoped R.L.'s consciousness would survive to answer it.

"Wha's he look like?" The man's eyes were lookin' distinctly hazy now, he would lose him any second.

But his eyes focused sharply on James for just a second, and he answered, "Like the bleedin' ocean."

Then, with a surprising grace, he passed out.

Of all of the possible glorious descriptions he could've expected, that was definitely not one of them.

"Like the bleedin' ocean."

That was cryptic if ever he'd heard it.

He had softly repositioned R.L's head so that he was relatively comfortable and gone back to pondering what information he'd been given when a disturbance arose above the normal chaos of the tavern behind him. Setting down his still mostly full pint, he turned. It seemed that someone in this establishment had not been informed of the uncontested drunk rule and a fight had broken out, over what seemed to be a game of cards.

If James was one thing, he was certainly tired of meaningless violence. He was sure he would regret his involvement, but it was such a small thing, a game of cards, most definitely not worth a man being hurt over it.

So he stepped up to the men who were yelling at each other and gently broke in, "Ah, gen'lemen, is really not all tha' necessary to be fightin' why don' I buy ya' a drink each, and we can start a new game eh?"

The men seemed to lose some of their ire at the mention of free rum and slowly cooled down, James called for his rum and the normal chaos resumed.

When James left La Vaca Azul he was most definitely not drunk. He'd "sipped" at a single glass of rum the whole night. He'd learned very little new information about Diablita, the same things, he was mysterious, he was loved, he was the morning and the evening star, etc. He had however heard that he went away sometimes for years at a time. But he always came back and he was always good to the citizens. He never took more of profit than was definitely his fair due and he usually brought business back.

Altogether a favored chap, it seemed.

James did not buy it.

Nobody was that peacefully entwined with a whole society.

He wished it were true, he almost hated to have to kill the poor man, but he knew that there was more than likely a dark underbelly to this "king" that would expose itself and all of the happy illusions would rip themselves apart and James would kill him and another dream would die.

It was awfully depressing. But it was the way the world worked.

He was going back to the hotel and he would rest up. Tomorrow he would stroll up the street and take a gaze on Diablita's home. He may come down to the tavern all of his own accord, but James wanted to be sure he didn't miss anything. He couldn't afford it. He meandered into his lodging and paused.

Diablita sounded like someone familiar. He couldn't pull it out of the back of his head, though it was there, dancing behind the veil of his consciousness. He pushed it out of the way and continued.

He paused again, but for a completely different reason. The sitting room of his little hotel was full. But they did not look like guests. Well, not some of them anyway.

The room was full of chase lounges and couches, in varying cheerful colors. On each piece of furniture was a woman. Each of them dressed up in brightly patterned corsets and highly decorated, if somewhat sparse skirts. It took his brain a moment to catch up, but he was helped along by the men that were attending on the women, like customers at a shop, talking to each and moving along. The quaint little inn that he'd felt so fortunate to find, moonlighted as a whore house.

He felt a little sick at first. Like he'd come upon a horrible crime and been wholly unprepared for it. But his mind acclimated. What more did he expect? This town was only governed by one man, and that one man only some of the time. He supposed he just hadn't expected to be confronted with it so close to where he slept.

All this happened on the inside, on the outside, he paused for a moment, shrugged and continued up the stairs to his room. He took off his boots and his shirt, slipping off his hat and hair binding. He collapsed on the bed, glad to have a still place to rest.

Jack slipped into La Vaca Azul a little later than he normally got there on the nights that he chose to come down to the little tavern. But there was still a pretty lively crowd around. Enough left to cheer him in, buy him a drink and celebrate his existence. This was definitely on his list of favorite places in the world, right up there with Tortuga, but well below the ocean. He also heard some interesting news.

Earlier in the evening there'd been a disagreement over a questionable hand in a game of cards. It was about to come to blows when a man, one who everyone said they'd seen dock earlier that day, stepped in and calmed it down, and bought the two men a drink. Jack was intrigued. It was not normal for a peacemaker to roll up on his shores. Usually the people just let the fights run their courses and if they refused to end the fighters got thrown out to cool down in the mud outside. He'd look into it. He'd come down tomorrow night.

Right now, he was going to drink. He didn't have to watch his back very hard here. He didn't have to plan the redemption of the world on a massive scale all by his onesies, and he most definitely didn't have to worry about defending his Pearl. That bonny lass was waiting for him whenever he so chose in her own private harbor in a cove that only he really had access to. Ahh, the perks of being an island founder.

So all he wanted or had to do, in the immediate future was drink until thoroughly drunk, stagger home, sleep wake up, repeat.

So he did.

Sleep did not come immediately to James. Rather overwhelmed by the mass of information it had been forced to deal with today, his mind absolutely refused to stop moving.

A man, revered by all, described accurately by none. Often disappearing, but constantly welcomed back.

A whore house a butterfly a bird a boat a pirate.

Sparrow, sparrow flying, falling, sailing, fighting, turning, smiling, grinning, thinking, winning, losing, escaping, standing, falling falling falling, noose tightening, falling falling falling.

He woke, sitting straight up in bed and gasping. He had been dreaming, he was unsure about what, but it left him tense. He tried to shrug it off, and began to dress. He put his pants on, put on his second shirt and tied back his hair. He was strapping on his scabbard when his mind moved to his dive from the deck of Davey Jones. He'd heard variations of the story as to how the whole matter had been resolved. Of course, that definitely didn't mean he'd heard the actual story.

He'd heard that Jack Sparrow and the brethren court had completely destroyed an entire armada.

He'd heard that Jack Sparrow had personally killed Cutler Beckett and every other sailor on his ship and all of the sailors on the Flying Dutchman.

He'd heard that Will Turner had died.

He'd heard almost nothing about Elizabeth, some said something about a king and the brethren court but all of those stories seemed to be muddied and spotted.

As per the usual situation, most of the stories seemed to revolve around the one, the only Captain Jack Sparrow.

To tell the truth, he'd been glad the damn pirate had survived. He may be annoying, he may be maddeningly unhelpful, but he was most definitely important to the world in some crucial way, like the wind that pushed ships across the ocean. There some days, gone on others, but always something you were aware of, something you looked for.

James Norrington was waxing poetic. Most definitely not fitting for a man of the Navy. But as James Norrington was no longer of the Navy, he supposed he could be as bloody poetic as he felt like being.

He moved softly down the stairs, his mind finally coming back to the scene he'd come upon last night. He found he was much less bothered by it this morning then he had been last night. It was almost miraculous.

Breakfast was waiting on him at the table, as well as the other inhabitants of the Casa de Mariposa. The woman who'd checked him in, what seemed to be her daughter, a pretty thing of about 13 with dark hair, the woman's husband, a bald sailor, and two women who James thought that he might have seen last night in La Vaca Azul. He smiled politely and sat down at the table. The woman smiled brightly at him and the daughter kept her eyes focused on her plate. The father was a cheery looking elderly man and he smiled at James, a smile that crinkled his eyes and somehow broke something wonderful open on his face.

"Ahh Senor, Maria told me you checked in yesterday, I am glad to have you. Please, eat. Maria makes far too much for the people that eat at our table."

Norrington felt very much calmed by the joy that seemed to permeate the lives of the people that lived in this town. True, he'd seen that they had their disputes like most other cultures, but once they'd been calmed down even they had been on the whole amiable and cheerful. It was as if here, they felt no inhibitions. No need to stand on ceremony and mores, only do what you want to do and what makes you happy and try not to interfere with the happiness of those around you. Of course those rules got a little blurred when the people drank, but what rules didn't.

So he took the bowl of what looked like eggs in some kind of vegetable salsa and smiled at the man.

Today, Jack was in a mood. When he'd woken up that morning, he'd had a hunch. Something was going to happen today. Something different. He'd been thinking about it. It was his guess that today he would meet that assassin he'd heard about. In a way it was kind of exciting.

The entire debacle with Davey Jones and Cutler Beckett had of course been altogether stressful, and tiring, what with his death and all, but it had been exciting. And if there was one thing that Jack really didn't mind, it was excitement. He knew that just last night he'd been waxing on his desire for drunken oblivion, but the good lord had blessed him with an unnaturally good intellect if he did say so himself, and he did, and it was most definitely a shame, almost criminal in fact, for him to not use it in varying and exciting ways.

So, he was most definitely ready should anything unusual occur today or tonight.

His friendly breakfast with the Valenzuelas, as he'd found the inn's family to be named, had bolstered whatever flagging his spirits might have done in the night. He was much more charged, more interested, more capable of planning. So he stopped in the little market he found in the street and bought an apple, he wasn't really hungry, but he liked apples and he was cheerful enough to buy it for that reason alone. But in this case, he bought it so that he'd have something to do while he strolled along the road that led to
Diablita Bonita's home.

He'd asked last night, subtly of course, just what kind of security the king kept around him, and been surprised to find that the answer was none. Save the townspeople, who seemed more than willing to defend him from any comers.

This was turning out to be almost too easy.

When he came to the house that he was sure belonged to this island's monarch, he was once again, slightly surprised. Save for the large brick wall surrounding it, the place seemed to be no bigger or different from any other house on this street. True, it was a good distance from any other house near it, far enough away to make unnoticed approach difficult. The brick wall had a tiny gate in the very center of what was the front of the house. The gate didn't actually lock. And the house appeared to be right in front of a drop off that fell down into the sea.

From what he could glance through the gap above the small wooden gate, the house was cozy enough. Flowers in the front yard, a walkway, altogether a happy sort of place.

Again, a shame.

After his brief reconnaissance, he wandered back down to the docks to check on his ship. It was still fine, bobbing gently next to the dock, as if content to be still.

He hated to say it, but he was bored.

He couldn't get into the house without being seen. He could plan out anything until he saw the man. There was nothing for him to do. No preparations that simply had to be made.

So, he sat on the docks and thought about what he used to like to do, before he was disallowed the privilege of free time. When he was a child he liked to go to the beach. Before it meant work and deadlines. When he just liked the colors that the sun made on the waves and when he looked for shells of interesting shapes to bring to his parents.

He rolled up his pants legs and strolled the sand. He kicked up little mounds of it as he strolled, studying how it stuck to his bare feet. He found a sand dollar about half a mile down the beach, and he bent down to retrieve it, at the last minute deciding to sit down next to it instead.

He studied the little round shell and put it in his vest pocket. If he didn't know better, James Norrington would almost say that whatever it was about Diablita Bonita that made her inhabitants so happy and carefree was permeating his being. Seeping into him the longer he stayed on the island. And Poseidon be damned, he just couldn't find it in himself to care. It felt good being able to stop and enjoy the sounds that the ocean made when it fought with the shore.

Too good. When his job was over, he would perhaps find it difficult to leave this island. And that would be unacceptable. There was no profit or purpose to be found here, it was just the aimless pursuit of contentment.

And god he loved it.

There was a man walking by his garden gate. Not that he was the hermit-like obsessive compulsive spy, was Jack Sparrow, but he had designed this house so that he had a pretty much competent view of who was around all the time There was only one way to get into his house with climbing up a cliff, and he was able to see it from almost every window and door.

He couldn't see the man's face, the hat was pulled down too low for that, but the presence of a man at all was entirely on its own suspicious. Nobody really came to look at his house. They wondered from afar of course what it was he was doing, (drinking rum, and charting future courses), but no one really came up this way.

Hello mistrust.

Maybe this was his man, this up and coming 'assassin' that was supposed to dispatch him to the next world, (hardly bloody likely) and make some disgruntled merchant happy.

He wanted to go out there now and rip off the hat, surprise the poor bastard, invite him to a duel to the death, thrash him soundly, but stop just short of death, pay him some money, and send him away. But if he did it that way, he would be absolutely sure if it was the assassin, and he'd probably never find out exactly who sent a man to kill him, probably not the best information to not be privy to.

So he'd wait. If he knew assassins, and he felt rather as though he did, the most likely point of striking would be at La Vaca Azul or in its immediate vicinity. And when he caught the poor sod in the act, he'd laugh, threaten them intimidatingly, tell them how sad it was that people this young were doing such horrible things, and then thrash him soundly.

It wasn't navy outline, but it was a tried and true solid plan. It had worked before, like a charm.

Did Jack mention he hated assassins. The bastards messed up everything and made planning very difficult. Little blighters running around serving the richest and most well positioned client. You can't work very well with rich radar in a master plan for ultimate crisis resolution.

It just gummed up the works.

Well, he knew the man was here now, and he knew what to expect, so he went back to drinking his rum in the garden, and occasionally attempting to better the growth of an unfortunate flower bulb.

Tonight, well tonight would definitely be exciting.