Epilogue: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The storm is still rolling, the peaks of perilous waves kissing at the gallery windows. Every few minutes, the Endeavour will groan and Beckett will hold up a hand to stop every ornament rolling from his desk. He has been dicing with the verge of seasickness for three days - something he has not had to face since he was a boy.

But all of that inconvenience is a trifle. Outside the battered frame of the first-rate, they are growing closer to locating the pirate fleet and their hide-out at Shipwreck Cove. Turner's macabre trail of corpses has allowed them to sniff out the wake of the Black Pearl and all her wretched comrades. With every day, the wind turns more and more in their favour - if not literally, then figuratively.

It has been what Lord Beckett has worked for these past years. The crown of his achievement is awaiting just over the horizon, and it will be all the sweeter for the time waited. From the scars on his back to the humiliation Jack Sparrow poured upon him in Calabar, he has born enough to be able to smile when the pirate fleet burns. The marriage of his duty to King and Country and to his own vengeance could not be more perfectly aligned.

And yet, there is still something which nags at him more than the seasickness.

A missing piece of his conquest.

Beckett feels the itch of it and it will not go, no matter how much he scratches. And scratch he has on this long voyage out of Port Royal.

Not once, not twice, but three times, he has brought Admiral Norrington aboard the Endeavour. Each time, it has been under the veil of tactics. They have discussed and re-discussed the same plans until Norrington could chant them verbatim. Beckett had feared that the Admiral - the only man in the fleet to match his own wit - had seen through him, and found his weakness.

He had vowed to keep up the cold appearance, vowed to eschew the way Norrington had made him shout and threaten back in Port Royal. He can never let the man know how deeply he had humiliated him - not only as Sparrow had, but more so, another kind of wound quite separate from his career.

He had dismissed him once, twice without a flinch. The third time, he allowed his hand to linger upon the Admiral's arm, as it had that night long ago in Portsmouth.

Once more he had pressed Norrington to his bed, slung his legs either side of his hips, and ridden him until he was sore. The ship had rolled and jerked, driving James deeper - and he had told himself he did not care what the man thought nor felt, only did this for his own relief, his own pleasure. And yet he had sobbed at his crisis, and spent the night selfishly tucked next to James' cold, stiff body.

No more does he invite him to the flag-ship. He is far away, aboard the Flying Dutchman with Jones. May he perform Beckett's plan - out of sight, out of mind.

It is Jones who visits. The storm seems to wail louder in welcome of the dread lord of the seas. But, Beckett thinks, he is an old kind of lord now - the long arms of civilisation are reaching out over the waves, taking the crowns from the ancient ways. When they face each other, it is as though Beckett looks upon another dying breed that England has its foot upon.

Beckett does not even bother to rise for him. "I did not summon you," he says dismissively.

Jones, dripping saltwater and slime upon the boards, sneers. His tentacles bristle. "I cannot be summoned," he says in his thick Scottish tongue.

Beckett raises an eyebrow at that fallacy. Jones can be ordered around, just as much as anyone else. It is only the bargaining chip which differs - and for the eldritch creature, that is his heart, locked away safely in its chest. Beckett can squeeze and squeeze until Jones obeys like a dog. It had almost been that easy with Norrington. "Why are you here?" he asks, ignoring those simmering thoughts about the Admiral.

"The prisoners have escaped, your Lordship."

The sarcastic spit of that title dulls Beckett's shock for a moment. Then the full admission hits him. "How? They were safely onboard your ship."

Miss Swann had been amongst those prisoners - still Norrington's unrequited love after all this time. She and her pirates, bound for the Cove. She is one major piece on this grand board; even the execution of her father had not broken her. Norrington had at least bought the lie Beckett had fed to him of Governor Swann's accidental death.

Jones looks down at Beckett now, as if he is misunderstanding. Beckett hates that patronising, disrespectful stare. "Your precious Admiral Norrington let them out of their cells," Jones says.

For a moment, there is nothing. Perhaps this is what failure feels like - a sudden void, a pit opening up. Beckett keeps Jones' gaze, almost expecting it to be a cruel lie. "Why?" is the only thing he can utter.

A petulant shrug. "He chose his side, Lord Beckett. And it was not yours."

All the foundations he has built himself upon seem to teeter. The humiliation he bore at school. The cruel bastard of a father he had to suffer. The lashes and violations of the pirates. The loss of his patron and respect because of Jack Sparrow. Every veneer he has applied to those blemishes, every salve he has poured upon those wounds - it all cracks.

He grits his jaw. He does not lose. He cannot lose.

"I entrusted you to keep that ship for whatever use I deemed fit," he hears himself say, distant. "You have failed me."

"This is not my blame to take. Your Admiral spurned you for his sweetheart."

Beckett feels the twist in his own heart - Davy Jones taking his vengeance for the chains he has bound on him. He acts as he ever has, refusing to let it show. "Return to your ship, Captain," he says levelly, darkly. "You shall be punished for this."

"What else can you do to me, Lord Beckett? You have nothing else."

Jones begins to leave, dragging his terrible aura with him. Yet at the door, he pauses. He looks back, and with the coldness of a creature who knows the balance has shifted, says: "your Admiral is dead, Lord Beckett. It was by my hand that he died. He had no place on my ship."

Beckett is alone.

Suddenly, he is aware of every roll of the ship, every lash of the waves against the hull, every shouted order from above. His stomach churns at a foul toss of the sea, and he puts a hand to his mouth. Nothing comes up. He is empty inside.

Everything has been sacrificed to this goal. The conquest of Norrington had been but a miniature version of the game which plays out across the ocean. The stakes have been just as high. Worse, Beckett has put himself as the bargaining chip.

And Norrington has shattered the deck below his feet. In his final act, he has won.

Beckett rises and crosses to the windows. He is painfully aware of the itch of healed scars on his back. With clenched teeth, he curls his hand into a tight fist. He looks out across the dark, churning waves, and at the white gash of the Endeavour's wake. It goes on, no matter the turmoil inside. No matter what, they must continue.

There is still the pirate fleet. They wait out there, to be destroyed by Beckett's armada. In that, he tells himself, he has not lost. It shall be a fight to the death. He had offered Norrington a choice - the devil or the deep blue sea - and he had slipped out of his grasp.

Like his fist had squeezed Jones' heart, his own chest constricts.

He shall not make the mistake again. He will not give the enemy a choice.

He does not have one either.

Vengeance has carved a hollow shell inside of him. Now, this is all he has left.

a/n: and it's done! I don't think I've ever finished a multi chapter fanfic before haha. This has been so much fun to write, I've loved writing every word and every scene, and I'm so glad others have enjoyed reading it too! Thank you so much to my lovely commenters, I love you!