Title: Between Wind and Tide, Chapter 3

by Ruby Isabella

Disclaimer: The following is fanfiction based on a property owned by Disney.

Summary: Norrington returns to Port Royal after long absence

Notes: Sequel to "A Windward Tide." Also, you might worry at times that this is not slash, but it is. Really. Cross my heart. Finally, it takes place some years after PotC.

3.

He woke with the sun, weak as both of them were of late. A crick in his back from a brief, thin slumber kept him bent like an old man as he retrieved his crutch.

He splashed his face with chilly water from the porcelain bowl on the stand. Dressed, slowly. His spine began to straighten, finally, as his muscles warmed and stretched.

A wig sat as-yet-unworn on the wooden chair by the window. He gave it careful consideration for the first time since it had been presented to him, which had been just a few hours after word had gotten round about his return. Clothing had appeared at that time, too, and the offer of a room. In exchange, people seemed to want stories of the hell he'd lived through, as though he'd lived it just to come back and entertain them with tales about it.

The wig's color was as flat and gray as the sky. He lifted it with the cap draped over his fingers as though they formed a shattered skull. He'd been wearing a wig much like it when he'd left Port Royal--had imagined himself quite proper in it, in fact. Dashing, even, with his uniform. His command. He'd worn the wig without any thought to it because that was what was done.

He'd worn it until it floated away in the sea, and he hadn't much use for one since.

With a thump of his crutch, he turned his back to the window. Far below, the gray wig floated away in the sewage gutter.

When he left the inn he turned right, away from the Governor's office, with more pressing matters on his mind than tea and pleasantries with politicos.

His presence in Port Royal being hardly a secret, he could not work out why neither Mr. nor Mrs. Turner had come round to welcome him back. Or sent a note, even. He knew full well why he himself hadn't paid a visit to the Turner house, but Elizabeth and Will hardly seemed the type to let trepidation or momentary awkwardness keep them away.

He made a long hop to avoid tromping on the wig, which had been carried unexpectedly far by the waters that roared through the gutters in the wake of last night's storm.

Had Will told her? He stopped and squinted up the street. At the far end, he could just see a flash of white--their fence, at the edge of their small yard. Their house had been a wedding present from Governor Swann; Weatherby had been eager to tell show it off to him in the month before he'd shipped out.

Will could have told her. That would explain the silence; she stayed away out of disgust, and Will stayed away out of respect for her, which left him- -Norrington--on his own.

After years of dreaming of his return to Port Royal--to friends, to the comfort of a bed and the satisfaction of a meal--the reality fell a bit short.

~ ~ ~

"Is Mrs. Turner in?" he asked of the woman who opened the door. She looked familiar... Yes! She'd worked for the Swanns before he'd gone to sea. He remembered her now, but not her name, which he thought unfortunate. He would have liked to have used it. He'd have liked any little thing that might have made him feel less out of place.

As though she'd heard a noise or a voice, the maid looked behind her. In the space over her shoulder, on the far side of the foyer, just coming through a doorway, a familiar, albeit pale, face appeared.

Norrington opened his mouth, but had no idea what to call out.

"Who is it, Estrella?" Elizabeth asked, her voice sounding unchanged despite the years that had inserted themselves between the last time he'd heard it and now.

Estrella returned her attention to him. "Sir?"

"Uh--"

Elizabeth moved toward them with a polite but curious smile on her face and a vase of flowers clasped between her hands. Her black skirts swished like a straw broom. Estrella stepped aside. One of Elizabeth's eyebrows started to rise as the seconds stretched on without any response from him. Her feet continued to carry her toward him and the maid, and Norrington realized that he had the advantage; he'd known whom he was coming to visit while she'd had no idea who was coming to visit her.

"Oh!" The vase smashed open against the floor. Water and flower petals streamed toward Estrella's feet--Estrella who was already bending to clean up the mess.

"Norrington! Oh my God, Commodore Norrington, is that you?"

"Yes. James, though." He slipped his hat from his head. "Please."

Her arms opened wide, as though taking him in. "James Norrington! Where have you been? When on earth did you get back?"

"Well...."

"Wait! I've completely lost my manners. You must come in out of that terrible weather." She guided him over the broken pottery and flowers with a warm hand on his arm, heedless, it seemed, of the crutch stuffed under his other arm, or of his missing anatomy. Or of the thump of the crutch's foot across her floor.

"I must admit I hadn't expected to be received quite so warmly," he said, allowing himself to be led forward while attempting to glance back at the maid and the open the door.

"What? How dare you think you'd be received any other way? You were a dear friend of my father's."

"I heard about your father."

She led him to an armchair in the parlor.

"I'm sorry," he added.

"Thank you." She perched at the front of a nearby chair, smoothed her skirts over her knees. "Well. Where have you been? We were all sure you were dead."

"Brazil. I think. Mostly."

"And that's where--?" She gestured at his leg.

"Yes. A spider bite that went rather badly."

"How horrible."

"Yes, well..."

"Just...horrible."

Silence dropped between them like an uninvited third. Norrington ignored an itch on his thigh, fingered the frame of his crutch absently. Took in the room in starts, noting the weak light that filtered through the windows, the fruit and flower still-lifes that hung on the walls, the dark, lace- edged handkerchief that Elizabeth tugged on in her hand.

"Funny how life works out, isn't it, Mr. Norrington?" she said quietly, appearing riveted by the handkerchief herself. She twisted it. "I never would have thought that this would be where I'd be at age twenty six." She lifted her head. "What about you?"

"I...I guess I imagined you'd still be in Port Royal...."

"Well there's that, then, isn't there?" She managed to sniff and smile simultaneously. Then, with another lift of her chin: "Do you remember me, James?"

Norrington straightened, motioning with confusion to the door as he said, "Of course, otherwise why would I--"

"No, I don't mean do you remember who I am; I mean, do you remember my _life_? Who I _was_?"

"Yes. Well--"

"What I was _like_?"

"Well. Um. Fiery, I suppose. Right? Or--"

She lowered her head. "Fiery. Yes, something like that." She twisted the handkerchief.

"Elizabeth.... What...." He pursed his lips. He had no idea how to broach the subject, had rather hoped she'd bring it up instead. Her demeanor seemed to indicate that the answer to the question he didn't want to ask would not be a happy one. Cholera again, perhaps? "Elizabeth?"

"Yes?"

His lips formed the word, but his throat held back the sound. Once he said it, he would know--probably before she spoke to answer it. He'd see it in her eyes, or the quiver of her chin, or the tug of that handkerchief. Hadn't he lost enough?

"James? What is it?"

He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have to ask...."

"Will." She dropped her head, pulled at the lacey cloth. "Will's gone. He's dead."

Norrington had expected tears from her--he certainly felt as though he could shed some himself, but was stuck instead with a painful lump in his throat and a strong sense of what men did not do in front of other people-- or a stoic quietness perhaps, but not the cold edge that sliced through her words.

"He went after you, when word came about the wreck. Stupid. So stupid." Her gaze pierced him. "By the time we'd heard about your wreck, months had passed since it had happened."

"How--"

"Did we hear? Bits of your ships--both of them--washed up on shore and were found. Enough bits--or enough crucial bits--that they were identified."

"Shore?"

"Oh, I don't know!" She squeezed her eyes closed, pressed the handkerchief against her lips for a second. Then: "All I know is that it took months for the ship that carried the men who'd made the discovery to return to Port Royal. And then...Will left. He got up a crew and a ship and there was no talking him out of it. I sent word to Jack, but not even Jack could talk to him."

_Jack._ A time or two in the jungle as he was being held captive by people who ate their enemies, as he later fought beside those same people and shared in the reward of battle, as his leg festered and stank and turned black and then one day was gone--he'd had a fever; he hadn't even known they'd taken it until the fever cleared--a time or two in the jungle, he'd thought of Jack. And wished Jack was there.

Instead of him.

A small, warm satisfaction glowed in his stomach, however, at the thought that not even _Jack_ could talk Will out of going after him--unfortunately, the glow was dwarfed by the pain of knowing, finally, for sure, that Will was gone.

From going after him.

He leaned forward. "What then?"

"Nothing. No word. Nothing. He's dead, James! I have this emptiness inside...." She laid a hand on her breast, bent her head. "He's not with me anymore. I know it."

When she lifted her face, one ivory cheek glistened with a tear. "He's gone."