Author's Notes Sorry for the longer than usual wait. This chapter was a little more tricky because I needed to figure out just where I wanted to go and the pace I wanted to get there at.

I've decided that the canon set by AWE may be toyed with a little (as if I haven't already lol). I'm not gunning on rewriting the end of the movie, but I will change – tweak is probably a more fitting word – what I need too. Also, I will be leaving on vacation for Hawaii the 18th to the 25th. I'll try to get the next chapter out by the time I leave.

Special thanks to those who have set this fic on alert and/or reviewed.Your comments are the icing on the cake.

Chapter Two

The next morning found James Norrington in severe need of a drink. The night had been spent sulking, pacing, and more often than not feeling as though he had gone mad. He'd shut his eyes but once, sleep more unbearable than his hours spent waking. His conscience had deemed him worthy to a private showing of his deepest regrets, a reminder of his deepest fears – those of which were being brought to life one by one. Perhaps, he mused as he vainly tried to scrape off the coral that was beginning to decorate his formerly pristine white undershirt, it was not his own psyche that plagued him, but that that the larger portion of his inner distress was simply yet another feature of this glamorous afterlife.

His head pounded with the side effects of excess thinking, and again the thought of something bitter and alcoholic to quiet the pain sparked in his mind.

I do believe that's in part why you are in this situation to begin with, you imbecile, he thought scathingly. That too had happened quite a lot in the previous hours. If anything, James had always been his best punishment. In truth, the own guilt or shame he could make for himself far outweighed the sting of the lash that still pulsed there on his back. His captain had been harsh and thorough, more than likely his own agitation seeking it's satisfaction in pain. Every so often the salty water leaking through the brig's cracked walls would fall on him, sliding down skin and through shirt, hitting his wounds and bringing a new sting of pain. It was the only thing that had continuously pulled him out of his mind's wanderings.

One such drop of salt hit him now and he closed his eyes, a small hiss escaping, relishing the reprieve.

It was short lived though, his thoughts immediately straying again to his choices of the past. It was a constant rumination now, tracing just when and where his life had made the inevitable turn onto the road that led him to his current situation. It began, quite obviously, with Elizabeth Swann. At the flutter of the name across his mind his gut twisted, an indistinguishable feeling that was more than guilt, more than love, and nearing ... anger? He cringed, his body physically wrenching away from the idea, it alone making him feel as though he had just committed the ultimate betrayal.

It's not her you're angry at. It's circumstance. Circumstance and that bloody Sparrow.

And Turner.

The boy. The damn blacksmith for God's sake! And now, James guessed with a smile of smug satisfaction, someone in no better condition than he. He knew it was petty to loathe the man still, that his final kiss just a short day ago was the last revenge – no, justice - he would ever exact on the person who so innocently and subtly stole what he had wanted most. He wouldn't begrudge William his love for Elizabeth though – after all, not even he could fight his own feelings.

"Turner," he sighed, still angry but relenting, "may your future be brighter than my own." He thought again against his better judgment, and simply as an excuse, how perfect a bottle of rum – something, anything, really – would be at that moment. A toast to life not his.

There was a creaking against the far most side, a sickening breaking of what sounded like bone. He peered, eyes squinting against the dim lighting. There was something – someone? - moving there. James moved from his position sitting against the wall, trepidation setting in. The mass was covered in what he assumed would soon be adorning his own person. There was a face ... Ah, another crew member in a cell. What a surprise. He sat down again, disinterested and indifferent. There was something though at the back of his mind ...

That face. That face! He whipped his head around again to find two familiar eyes staring at him in what was obviously a face, the body still nestled against and apart of the ship. He was mumbling, low and desperate.

Though his entire countenance was deeply distorted with the evidence of his status as crew member, he knew it was the same man. The man who had run him through. Norrington grasped the fact, let it roll around in his consciousness for what felt like moments ... and nothing came. What was he to feel? Anger? Revulsion? Pity? Nothing was coming, and that was what alarmed him most. Why don't you care?

The man spoke louder, eyes searching the cell frantically, as if Norrington had become completely invisible rather than sitting not but 20 feet away from him. "Turner ... Turner " His voice was raspy and desperate, eyes drooping and watery. James simply stared at him.

"Up you go!" A voice shouted through the bars in front of him suddenly, the garish clang of metal against metal ringing his ears as the cell was opened, his captor clanking his sword against the bars laughing as another shipmate hauled James to his feet. The crew member in the wall retreated ever so slightly, but his words still came, rushed and low.

James brushed off the man holding him, barely sparing either a glance though he earned a contemptuous glare himself. He stopped dead in front of the one with the sword, a shark's head sitting atop his shoulders, a foul odor streaming off him. "Well, well Mr Norrington," he began, smiling, mocking, "did a night down here quiet that tongue of yours?" His mate was in the process of forcing James' hands in front of him, irons clamping around his wrists.

Norrington felt the bonds, tested them subtly, satisfied that they were much too strong and too tight to break free of – not that he had any intention of trying. "I suppose we'll have to wait and see." He smiled for the first time in days.

Neither of the other two men said any more, the larger grunting his frustration as he shoved Norrington through the hallway and towards the stairs. He stumbled but caught himself, treasuring the glimmer of satisfaction at their reaction. He owed them no respect, and if he was to spend lifetimes being ordered by them and those like them in any case, he at least could allow himself the dignity of denying them complete compliance.

They led him up the steps towards the deck, jeering and pushing. Below the pounding of boots against wood and grime, James heard the last echoes of the rambling man who had been his murderer, and only then did his smile fade.

"Turner. Turner! My son."

James stood, waiting. His hands shifted against the steel that held him, and let out a long sigh, his back still straight and shoulders squared, a steady eye on the two crew members beside him. The fact that he had, inadvertently, acquainted himself with Turner's father left him stunned. He knew Will's father had to be aboard somewhere – he was the reason Will had searched for the heart beating aboard the very ship beneath his feet so hard.

The odds, however, that that very same man had ended his life and very nearly ended Elizabeth's as well – assuming she had indeed lived – was cruel, for all parties involved.

The door in front of him swung open violently and Norrington was once again greeted with the sight of Davy Jones. He looked even less pleased than he had last night. The man to his right greeted his captain and spoke first, "You wanted to see 'im, sir?"

Jones looked at him fleetingly, then his partner to the left, before waving his claw in a dismissing gesture. He stepped aside, looking down at James in front of him, silently ordering that he enter the cabin.

He surveyed his surroundings with the first step inside – it was apparent that the Captain no longer inhabited his quarters; his heart still lived in that old room. It seemed as though Mercer had occupied the Admiral's – his – former lodgings, and Jones was sent to Mercer's. It was a simple room with but one porthole, the sea and sky beyond barely visible through the grime. A desk sat in the corner, a small bed that looked unused against the opposite wall. Jones stepped inside and toward the desk, the walls automatically shrinking to an even smaller size in comparison to the monster's height and presence.

"How did you find your new living quarters, Mr. Norrington? Comfortable, I presume?" Jones looked him in the eyes, his own shining with malicious intent. He smiled as he sat at his desk.

"I should ask you the same, Captain Jones. It would seem I'm not the only one living in places previously unaccustomed to."

Jones was silent a moment, his expression unchanging. The only sign of his irritation was the consistent twisting and clenching of the tentacles around his face. When he spoke his voice was low but biting. "How long do you expect to be here?"

"Forever." Obviously.

"Oh really? Because the locker is looking a right bit more fitting for you - if only to save my patience!"

That thought had not occurred to him. Davy Jones owned his soul presently, and should he force him into that strange hell of purgatory, Norrington could do nothing to stop it, and he assumed nothing to escape it. It would, in fact, ruin any and all plans of his – no future, no redemption – and it terrified him.

James tried to keep his thoughts and feelings from bleeding into his expression; Jones knowing exactly what kind of a threat he possessed would do him no good. Presently his Captain believed death was what James feared most; not the thought that he would miss driving a knife though the bastard's heart himself. Or settling his score with Beckett – his trail of lies and tyranny deserved to catch up with him. And if not by his hands, then by God he was going to be able to witness it.

The sudden surge of anger and darker feelings alarmed him as much as it did comfort him.

"I should think," Norrington began, "my punishment and humiliation would be reason enough to keep me aboard."

Jones scoffed. "My men do enjoy a good public display of discipline – I'm sure you must have noticed last night." Again his words sought to taunt. Again James focused his attention on keeping his emotions – and words – in check.

Jones began again before giving the other the chance to speak. "What I want from you," his voice raised as did his body, arms slamming into the desk in front of him, "is a cessation of this idiocy of yours! Your person is the last of which I need be concerned with -!" He stopped himself suddenly, as if he had said something he shouldn't have; something he regretted.

So Beckett really is getting under that slimy skin of yours, James thought, resisting a smile. It seemed they had at least one thing in common then.

"Idiocy, sir?" Norrington bypassed what Davy Jones so obviously wished to ignore.

"You'll learn to hold your tongue or you'll suffer for it. And in the future, should you see fit to release any prisoners on board my ship – for it is still mine! - you'll do well to remember just where that has landed you! Pointless, all of it."

"Have you found Captain Swann yet?" Norrington asked, her title amusing and evoking a strong sense of pride in him. He would behave, he realized. He would comply with the Captain and when it suited him, even the men, if it meant avoiding the locker. But this one last time he could not ignore the will inside of him forcing his words.

Jones expression shifted to one of confusion, and James asked his question again. "Have you found Captain Swann yet?"

"No," was the reply, slow and irritated.

"Then it wasn't pointless."

They stared at one another for a moment, James calm and passive but strong, Jones cold and hard. "Enough," he finally bit, rounding the desk and stopping in front of Norrington. "There are chores that need to be done, and since you weren't able to perform them yesterday, you'll find double on your plate this morning." He looked toward the door, a clear sign it was time to end their little meeting.

Norrington turned, relieved, and headed toward the door and to his day's tasks. Jones' voice rang out with a laugh behind him just before the door slammed closed.

"You'll sing a different tune one day, Mr. Norrington! Nothing lasts forever – not your silly ideals, not even love."