A/N: My first foray into the POTC world, massively inspired by Outlander.
Theo sank into the mud beside the prone form of James Norrington, doing her best not to let any pity show on her face. He wouldn't appreciate it...on the off-chance that his vision was unfogged enough to see her face properly. She knew him well enough to know that. The mud seeped through her trousers quickly, plastering them to her backside as she waited for the man beside her to form whatever words were whirling around in his mind.
"Why didn't you tell me?" He spoke into the night air eventually.
It was a question she knew she'd have to face sooner or later upon finding him in Tortuga, and resolving to tell him the truth. Unfortunately, for all the time she'd had to consider her explanations, she knew they would still fall short.
"Would you have believed me?" She countered carefully before continuing "You'd have branded me a madwoman."
"You don't know that."
She made a face "You were a commodore in the Royal Navy, James. You believed in two things - in your God, and in what was directly before you at any given time. Walking up to you within twenty-four hours of our first meeting and announcing 'I'm from three hundred years from now, and all of the events playing out now are little more than a children's story in my time...I don't suppose that you fancy helping me return to home?' didn't seem like the best way to stay safe."
He might have attempted a dry laugh in between heaving his guts out into the street. It was difficult to tell.
"You'd have had me committed to an asylum if I couldn't prove it...or burned me as a witch if I could," she sighed indifferently.
She was unsure whether she was speaking for his benefit or for her own. Maybe it was just nice to speak the truth to somebody - somebody who wasn't Jack Sparrow, who would likely believe her if she said she was a mermaid sent by Calypso herself on an important errand, so long as she had a pretty face and a bottle of rum in her hand.
Of course, she'd hoped to be gone before now. Before Davy Jones made his grand appearance, before they were faced with anything more 'trivial' than zombie pirates, before her chances of dying shifted from "probable" to "definite". Before she could start forming attachments. Before she could no longer laugh at the prospect of wanting to stay.
"You knew."
"Yes," she said.
Somewhere in the tavern nearby, a group burst into a round of obnoxious laughter. It felt mocking.
It didn't matter what James was talking about — which particular event, which unfortunate happenstance, which personal tragedy. She'd known it all. Maybe not the minutiae, not the day-to-day, but the overall picture. That, she knew full well.
"You knew what would become of me," he laughed humourlessly, ire building with each word "From the day I dragged you from the water and gave you a life, you knew I would end up here. Now."
"Yes."
"And you didn't warn me."
"I couldn't-"
"You didn't even try! I may not have listened, that much I'll concede, but you didn't suggest. Didn't even fucking hint. Not once! I lost everything, Theodora! Everything!"
Tilting her head backwards against the wall they leaned against, she sighed and debated on how clever the answer she intended to give might be. Or rather, how stupid it absolutely was. But it did not change it.
"And you'll get it all back, James."
"You might have—" he cut his tirade off, stopping dead to stare at her "...What?"
Theo returned his gaze evenly. She couldn't be smug - nor even proud, or relieved. Not when she knew the true extent of his fate; the parts she would not share with him.
"Theodora," he all but knelt before her, clasping her hands between his filthy ones entreatingly "Say it again. Please."
Under different circumstances, it might have been funny how much one sentence entirely changed his tune. But looking into his wide green eyes, all the more vivid in the meagre lamplight for the filth caked to his face, it was impossible to find any humour.
"You'll get...it all...back," she said slowly, eyes glued to his as she sounded out each syllable carefully and deliberately.
His expression went almost entirely blank at her assurance, but she could see the cogs turning behind his eyes. And then he smiled. A smile warm and brilliant enough to shine through the months of neglect in his appearance, the debauchery of Tortuga, and whatever impending hangover he was fighting. A smile that sorely mismatched the all-encompassing dread that had built within her chest ever since she'd woken up in this godforsaken story.
