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.

5.

After his breakdown on Elizabeth's porch, and after his belly had been warmed and his senses dulled by the remainder of the decanter of brandy Estrella had brought for him, he had been sent to sleep in a small room upstairs, in a hard, narrow bed that, when he woke in the morning, left his body feeling as though it had been sleeping on the ground.

He opened his eyes, wondering how to approach the new day. His mind wished to avoid the subject, just as it wished to avoid thinking about the night before. Instead, it pointed out to him that he was sleeping in a child's room. The walls had been painted white and on them hung neither portrait nor decoration. The bed was dressed in a plain, dark spread. But still he knew that it was--once--a child's room.

The room was under the eaves. Thin, gray light filtered through a dormer window. A nail here and there, on the wall opposite the slope of the roof, indicated where pictures had once hung--all were lower than one would expect in an adult's room.

He didn't want to get out of bed. Settling onto his back, he carefully closed his eyes against a threatening headache.

A rap on the door made him wince, then jump to a sitting position. "Just a minute." He pulled back the covers to find that he was still properly dressed, albeit coatless and shoeless and a bit rumpled. He swung his foot off the bed, then pressed his suddenly throbbing temples with his fingertips before saying, "Yes?"

"Thought you might want to wash up, Commodore," Estrella said as she pushed through the door with a porcelain bowl in her hands. Water sloshed like the sea against the bowl's sides. "I'll just set it here." Alongside she set a towel that had been folded over her arm. "And when you're ready for breakfast, just show your face in the kitchen."

"Thank you, Estrella, and it's not....Commodore."

"Yes, Mr. Norrington. Will you be needing anything else?"

"No. Thank you."

The water felt cool against his eyelids--cool and refreshing enough that he hobbled back to the bed with the bowl in the crook of his arm. Once seated, with his crutch discarded at the end of the bed, he again dipped his hands into the water to wet his face.

Eventually, he was forced to think about his situation, while trying at the same time to not think about sobbing in Elizabeth's arms.

She'd been understanding; more understanding than he had been of what she must be going through.

They'd gone through the same thing, really, hadn't they? The loss of everything? She'd had it taken from her one piece at a time and he, apart from his leg, felt as though he'd lost everything all at once, upon his return to Port Royal. If he hadn't come back, he'd never have known.

~~~

"Well you look better. Pale, and a bit squinty perhaps, but better." Elizabeth smiled up at him from one end of the kitchen table. In one hand she held a slice of toast; in the other a knife coated with jam.

He cleared his throat. Estrella set a small plate and a butter knife in front of a chair opposite Elizabeth.

"Morning," he said with a nod. His gaze avoided both Elizabeth and Estrella. Instead, he saw the tops of chairbacks, the corner of a large, farm-style sink.

"Don't just stand there," Elizabeth said, waving her knife at the empty chair.

Noiselessly, Estrella pulled the chair out and then waited by it as he settled himself. As she reached to relieve him of his crutch, he found himself reluctant to give it over. His heart quickened when she turned away with it in her hands. She leaned it in the crook of the table and the next chair down. His face cooled with relief; he wouldn't have to ask for it when he needed it. It was difficult enough being forced to rely on a crutch without the complication of relying on others to fetch the crutch. Were he older, had he been allowed to grow more pompous and self-entitled before he'd lost his leg, he might have fallen into the role more easily: "You. Fetch my crutch." He didn't know where along the way the ability to be that man had gotten lost, but he felt he'd had the makings of him in him once, a long, long time ago. Maybe that man had floated away in the sea.

Or maybe when he'd swallowed a boiled piece of the heart of a man he'd killed in an attack against a rival tribe, he'd taken on a part of that man, and lost a part of himself.

"How did you sleep? You almost ended up sleeping on that uncomfortable sofa, you know. Estrella and I together had a time of it getting you up those stairs."

Vaguely he remembered wanting to curl up on the landing and being prodded and shoved onward and upward instead. "Sorry."

Elizabeth waved her hand. "My fault. First I scared you half to death, then I inebriated you. I've obviously suffered a loss of social skills."

Norrington studied the steaming stream of tea that Estrella poured into his cup.

"That was a bit of a joke, James."

He saw that she had raised her eyebrows at him. The world around him-- Elizabeth included, this morning--appeared totally, perfectly, and insanely normal. It was he who was out of whack.

"I'm sorry. Not awake yet."

"Was it the bed? I know it's awfully small, but it was the first room we came to, and we'd had a time of it just getting you there. Tonight you'll use the guest room, with the big boy bed, all right? Do you have much at the inn?"

Norrington lifted his face. "What?"

"Estrella has some errands, and I was going to send her for your things while she was out. Would they be too much for Estrella on her own, do you think? Should I send for someone else to bring them?"

"Elizabeth.... No. Surely you don't...."

"What? Of course you should stay here. You must! My father would beat at his coffin if I let you stay at that...establishment."

Norrington stared open-mouthed at the woman who, in the clear light of morning looked everything like the young lady he'd proposed to years ago and nothing like the pale siren whose fingers had climbed his thigh in the fiery lamplight the night before.

Nothing like the woman who had known all about him and Will.

"So it's settled," she said when he didn't respond.

_"Do you remember fucking him?"_ came unbidden to his mind. He lost his hold on his teaspoon. It clattered against the table. A tan stain spread on the white table cloth. "No," he said quietly. "It's not settled. I have-- I can't."

"James. Really. Listen to reason."

He took hold of his crutch, pushed his chair back as he rose. "I have appointments--"

"Appointments?"

"The governor.... Others...." He had nothing. His momentum slowed as he crossed the room, trying to work out a lie.

"Well go to your appointments, of course. I'm not saying I would keep you prisoner."

"Elizabeth--"

"What? What is it?"

"My God, what would people think?" _"Him fucking you?"_ He couldn't stay with her, not with her knowing. How could he?

"I don't give a damn what people think. You and I and God will know that you're an old friend sleeping in my guest room, and you and I and God are the only three whose opinions matter in this matter."

Her mouth was both pink and stubborn. A determined blush had risen to her cheeks.

Norrington wondered how the woman standing before him could also have been the woman who'd whispered in his ear the night before.

"It's a girl, isn't it?" she asked, crossing her arms, cocking her hip. "It's a girl, and you don't want her to think that you and I.... You know."

She wasn't the woman from the night before. Norrington adjusted the crutch under his armpit. He'd dozed in the chair, dreamed a dream as vivid as the one that had made him think he was back in the jungle, and then Elizabeth had touched him to waken him and he'd crushed her fingers and hobbled for the door.

"Fine," she said. "Stay at the inn. The dark, drafty, smelly, unclean inn...." Her gaze drifted toward the wall, probably so that he wouldn't see the wet shine that had come to her eyes.

"There's no girl," he said.

"So what is it?"

"I'm--I'm just... I'm having trouble adjusting to this. All of it."

She nodded at the wall.

"I'll stay."

She turned her face with a smile that made him think of early spring afternoons.

"You will? Really? Estrella, come here! Your things--"

"There's just a change of clothes, but I--"

"Nonsense. Estrella can carry back a change of clothes, can't you, dear? Now hurry and get cleaned up. You don't want to miss your appointment with the governor."

He opened his mouth to confess that his appointment had been a fabrication, but before he could fashion the right words, he found himself caught in a hug that left him grappling for his balance once released from it.

"I'm so glad you've returned!" With a fresh smile and a flourish of skirts, Elizabeth turned and left the room.