Title: Between Wind and Tide
Author/Pseudonym: Ruby Isabella
Rating: R
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.
12.
In the guest room, by the light of the single lamp she'd carried with them and set on the dresser, she shifted her hip against his as she reached for the topmost button of his vest.
"You're exhausted, that's all," she said. "Mentally and emotionally exhausted, and who can blame you after what you've been through?"
He closed his eyes and turned his face away.
Her knuckles pressed softly against his belly as she worked to free another button. The second to last one came free, then the last, then she was moving around him to pull the garment off his shoulders.
"I'm sorry about your dress," he said, shifting all his weight to his foot to allow her to slip the vest free of the arm. "I'll replace it."
"Don't think of it," she said. Her fingers teased his scarf from around his neck.
Her fingernails skated over the skin on his neck.
"Elizabeth." His voice sounded like a frog's. He pulled away from her.
"I should have insisted we stay close to the house today." She watched herself fold the scarf in her hands. "But the sun...." She looked at him. "It was hard to resist, wasn't it?"
A weak smile found its way to his mouth. "It was."
"Well. I'll leave you to bed."
~~~
"Feeling better this morning?" Elizabeth asked, looking up from the foyer as he descended the stairs.
"I think so, yes." He grasped the railing tightly with his free hand.
"Did you sleep?"
"Some." None. He'd tossed in bed, remembering Will, thinking.... Thinking, what if he'd really been there, standing in the window? What if he'd returned? He let go of the banister at the bottom; she took his arm.
Up close, he saw dark smudges under her eyes, tiny lines around her mouth. "Did you sleep?"
She mustered a weak smile. "Not much, I'm afraid. I've been thinking."
"Oh?"
"We can't get married any sooner."
"No, we can't. What's--"
"James?" She stopped them, just inside the kitchen doorway. "Don't let him stop us."
He felt himself pull back in confusion. "What?"
"I've given this quite a lot of thought, and I think.... I think you feel guilty, somehow. About us--no, I understand why you would. I do, too. It's not an easy thing, marrying again after Will. But James, I think your guilt, after all you've been through, I think it's, well, causing you...."
He let his body rest against the doorframe. "You're saying I'm going crazy."
"I'm not. Not at all."
"I'm seeing ghosts."
"Ghosts? What--"
"Apparently your dead husband has decided to start haunting me. See? I _am_ going crazy."
Her gaze darted. Her fingers pulled at each other. "No. No, you're...." Her chest seemed to shake as she breathed. Her hand moved there as if to steady it. She turned to him suddenly. "You've seen him?"
"I.... No. No, I haven't. It's these fevers. Perhaps you're right--the stress. Some guilt."
"But you think you have. You think you've seen him."
"_Thought_ I had. At the time. Elizabeth, I couldn't have because he told me you were dead. But here you are. Right in front of me." He cupped her shoulder. "Right here." He tightened his grip.
She lifted a strained face. "Perhaps you are being haunted."
"Elizabeth, please."
"Don't 'Elizabeth, please' me," she said, knocking his hand away. "You saw Barbossa's men just as well as I did. You know there are possibilities out there none of us likes to think exist, but they do. You fought those cursed pirates. You know."
"Don't be foolish," he said stiffly.
She lifted an angry chin at him.
"Why you people insist on indulging yourself with 'cursed pirate' stories...." He sighed. "I'm not being haunted by anything but my own psychoses. You can trust me on that." He dropped his head a moment, wishing the truth were otherwise. He could settle for being haunted by Will, as long as it was truly Will. Maybe then he could ask Will his advice whenever he wasn't sure what to do, and Will would have an opinion.
He'd hallucinated Will once, in the jungle.
And that's all it had been. If more people left the safety of their homes and civilized towns perhaps they'd come to realize that enough real horrors existed that one didn't need to go around creating fanciful ones out of thin air.
"I didn't mean this to be an argument," Elizabeth said, softening. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek.
"It's not."
"We should eat breakfast. The tea's getting cold." Estrella had set all the accoutrements on the table while they'd been involved in their discussion.
"This isn't going to change our plans," he said.
She looked his way, briefly, before moving to sit at the table. He watched her shake out a crisp, white napkin to lay on her lap.
When he still didn't move from the doorway, she said, "Let's not worry about it right now. Perhaps tonight, after dinner."
"Perhaps tonight what?"
"We can pick the thread back up again. I told you've I've been thinking." She looked up from tilting a spoonful of sugar into her tea. "I still have much to discuss."
"Then--"
"No. Later. In the meantime, eat. Rest. And don't worry about a thing."
"Perhaps that's it," he said, spread jam on a scone.
"Hmm?"
"I don't _have_ anything to worry about."
~~~
They spent much of the morning in genial if not companionable silence with Elizabeth working at her embroidery in a chair pulled close to the parlor window while he tried to concentrate on Jonathon Edwards's _Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God_, which Elizabeth seemed to think had either been found under the eaves when she and Will first moved into the place, or it had come in one of the boxes of books she'd inherited from her father.
_Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell...._
As he turned the page, he massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
_There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder...._
"Do you have anything lighter?" he asked, breaking the not-perfectly- companionable silence.
"_The Complete English Tradesman?_"
He turned Edwards's tome over onto his knee and leaned back to stretch on the sofa.
"Some Swift sermons?" Elizabeth continued.
Eyes closed, he sighed.
"The day is slipping away from us," she said. The quality of her voice had him imagining her staring out the window as she spoke.
He listened to the quiet rustle of cloth as she returned her embroidering to its basket.
"James."
"Mmm?"
"I want you to come with me."
He opened her eyes to see her standing above him, hand outstretched. He furrowed his brow but lifted his hand to hers and reached with his other hand for his crutch.
"Where are we going?"
"Upstairs."
To the bedroom. Hers. His heart began to speed as she swept open the door.
"Elizabeth?" He watched her set the lamp she'd carried onto a dresser.
"Shh. Come here." She stood in the center of the room, half of her lit by the lamp, half beginning to be taken over by the shadows that had begun to gather in the darkening afternoon.
Dutifully, he approached, but with protest on his lips. These she silenced by pressing a finger against them.
"I won't have him ruin our plans, James. Even if he's only a figment of your imagination, I won't have him ruin it."
"I won't either, Eliz--"
"Shh." She raised onto her toes. Her lips touched his where her finger had been.
"Are you sure?" he asked, finding that his hands were trembling but that other parts of him were unexpectedly more certain of their task.
"I'm not a schoolgirl, dear. I know what I'm after."
Her lips were warm against his and not as foreign as he'd worried they'd feel. She parted her lips. Her fingers pressed his back.
"Why wait?" she asked against his jaw. "Why wait a week? What does it matter?"
The feel of her body against his was at once strange and familiar. He slipped his arm around the curve of her back, hugging her to him as they kissed again, briefly, before she pulled away to turn around.
"Help me with this?" She lifted her hair to reveal the lacing at the back of her bodice.
His fingers had a time of it with the thin laces. His balance on the crutch was precarious. She reached back and squeezed his thigh.
"I think that's it."
She turned around, holding the front of the bodice against her with a slender arm. "Sit."
He stepped back to the end of her bed where he lowered himself, leaning the crutch against a bedpost.
Slowly, she began to let the bodice drop away.
A flicker of movement in the shadows caught his eye.
"What is it?" she asked, pressing the bodice against her again. "You saw something, didn't you?" She turned. "What? What did you see?"
"Will," he whispered, watching the ghost of Will approach, watching the ghost of Will walk right through her. No. This was crazy. He had to get past this. "Elizabeth," he said, using the bedpost to pull himself up.
She looked at him. He held out a hand and she came, relief relaxing the creases in her face. Will came, too. Norrington pulled Elizabeth against his side. Will's face frowned with worry.
"James," Will said.
Norrington held her more tightly.
"James. Please. You must listen to me."
He began to shake his head. He looked away to get rid of Will. "Stop it!" he yelled, and then to himself he said, "Stop it." If his brain was conjuring the image, it could also make it go away.
"James, what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked, cupping his face. "What's happening? Look at me. Come back to me. Come back here. Come back here _right now_, damn you."
*"Commodore?" someone had said, someone not speaking to him at all. "You're certain he said 'Commodore?' Why on earth didn't you detain the man then? I cannot believe you turned him if he said he had a commodore of the Royal Navy. I don't care if there isn't some sort of reward system set up. You'd better hope they haven't sailed on yet, man. Did you even get a name? The name of the ship? Hold on. What's this?" Norrington lifted his face from the mud by the docks and saw, for the first time, the shoes of Port Royal's governor, appointed by the king to replace Weatherby Swann.*
Author/Pseudonym: Ruby Isabella
Rating: R
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.
12.
In the guest room, by the light of the single lamp she'd carried with them and set on the dresser, she shifted her hip against his as she reached for the topmost button of his vest.
"You're exhausted, that's all," she said. "Mentally and emotionally exhausted, and who can blame you after what you've been through?"
He closed his eyes and turned his face away.
Her knuckles pressed softly against his belly as she worked to free another button. The second to last one came free, then the last, then she was moving around him to pull the garment off his shoulders.
"I'm sorry about your dress," he said, shifting all his weight to his foot to allow her to slip the vest free of the arm. "I'll replace it."
"Don't think of it," she said. Her fingers teased his scarf from around his neck.
Her fingernails skated over the skin on his neck.
"Elizabeth." His voice sounded like a frog's. He pulled away from her.
"I should have insisted we stay close to the house today." She watched herself fold the scarf in her hands. "But the sun...." She looked at him. "It was hard to resist, wasn't it?"
A weak smile found its way to his mouth. "It was."
"Well. I'll leave you to bed."
~~~
"Feeling better this morning?" Elizabeth asked, looking up from the foyer as he descended the stairs.
"I think so, yes." He grasped the railing tightly with his free hand.
"Did you sleep?"
"Some." None. He'd tossed in bed, remembering Will, thinking.... Thinking, what if he'd really been there, standing in the window? What if he'd returned? He let go of the banister at the bottom; she took his arm.
Up close, he saw dark smudges under her eyes, tiny lines around her mouth. "Did you sleep?"
She mustered a weak smile. "Not much, I'm afraid. I've been thinking."
"Oh?"
"We can't get married any sooner."
"No, we can't. What's--"
"James?" She stopped them, just inside the kitchen doorway. "Don't let him stop us."
He felt himself pull back in confusion. "What?"
"I've given this quite a lot of thought, and I think.... I think you feel guilty, somehow. About us--no, I understand why you would. I do, too. It's not an easy thing, marrying again after Will. But James, I think your guilt, after all you've been through, I think it's, well, causing you...."
He let his body rest against the doorframe. "You're saying I'm going crazy."
"I'm not. Not at all."
"I'm seeing ghosts."
"Ghosts? What--"
"Apparently your dead husband has decided to start haunting me. See? I _am_ going crazy."
Her gaze darted. Her fingers pulled at each other. "No. No, you're...." Her chest seemed to shake as she breathed. Her hand moved there as if to steady it. She turned to him suddenly. "You've seen him?"
"I.... No. No, I haven't. It's these fevers. Perhaps you're right--the stress. Some guilt."
"But you think you have. You think you've seen him."
"_Thought_ I had. At the time. Elizabeth, I couldn't have because he told me you were dead. But here you are. Right in front of me." He cupped her shoulder. "Right here." He tightened his grip.
She lifted a strained face. "Perhaps you are being haunted."
"Elizabeth, please."
"Don't 'Elizabeth, please' me," she said, knocking his hand away. "You saw Barbossa's men just as well as I did. You know there are possibilities out there none of us likes to think exist, but they do. You fought those cursed pirates. You know."
"Don't be foolish," he said stiffly.
She lifted an angry chin at him.
"Why you people insist on indulging yourself with 'cursed pirate' stories...." He sighed. "I'm not being haunted by anything but my own psychoses. You can trust me on that." He dropped his head a moment, wishing the truth were otherwise. He could settle for being haunted by Will, as long as it was truly Will. Maybe then he could ask Will his advice whenever he wasn't sure what to do, and Will would have an opinion.
He'd hallucinated Will once, in the jungle.
And that's all it had been. If more people left the safety of their homes and civilized towns perhaps they'd come to realize that enough real horrors existed that one didn't need to go around creating fanciful ones out of thin air.
"I didn't mean this to be an argument," Elizabeth said, softening. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek.
"It's not."
"We should eat breakfast. The tea's getting cold." Estrella had set all the accoutrements on the table while they'd been involved in their discussion.
"This isn't going to change our plans," he said.
She looked his way, briefly, before moving to sit at the table. He watched her shake out a crisp, white napkin to lay on her lap.
When he still didn't move from the doorway, she said, "Let's not worry about it right now. Perhaps tonight, after dinner."
"Perhaps tonight what?"
"We can pick the thread back up again. I told you've I've been thinking." She looked up from tilting a spoonful of sugar into her tea. "I still have much to discuss."
"Then--"
"No. Later. In the meantime, eat. Rest. And don't worry about a thing."
"Perhaps that's it," he said, spread jam on a scone.
"Hmm?"
"I don't _have_ anything to worry about."
~~~
They spent much of the morning in genial if not companionable silence with Elizabeth working at her embroidery in a chair pulled close to the parlor window while he tried to concentrate on Jonathon Edwards's _Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God_, which Elizabeth seemed to think had either been found under the eaves when she and Will first moved into the place, or it had come in one of the boxes of books she'd inherited from her father.
_Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell...._
As he turned the page, he massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
_There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder...._
"Do you have anything lighter?" he asked, breaking the not-perfectly- companionable silence.
"_The Complete English Tradesman?_"
He turned Edwards's tome over onto his knee and leaned back to stretch on the sofa.
"Some Swift sermons?" Elizabeth continued.
Eyes closed, he sighed.
"The day is slipping away from us," she said. The quality of her voice had him imagining her staring out the window as she spoke.
He listened to the quiet rustle of cloth as she returned her embroidering to its basket.
"James."
"Mmm?"
"I want you to come with me."
He opened her eyes to see her standing above him, hand outstretched. He furrowed his brow but lifted his hand to hers and reached with his other hand for his crutch.
"Where are we going?"
"Upstairs."
To the bedroom. Hers. His heart began to speed as she swept open the door.
"Elizabeth?" He watched her set the lamp she'd carried onto a dresser.
"Shh. Come here." She stood in the center of the room, half of her lit by the lamp, half beginning to be taken over by the shadows that had begun to gather in the darkening afternoon.
Dutifully, he approached, but with protest on his lips. These she silenced by pressing a finger against them.
"I won't have him ruin our plans, James. Even if he's only a figment of your imagination, I won't have him ruin it."
"I won't either, Eliz--"
"Shh." She raised onto her toes. Her lips touched his where her finger had been.
"Are you sure?" he asked, finding that his hands were trembling but that other parts of him were unexpectedly more certain of their task.
"I'm not a schoolgirl, dear. I know what I'm after."
Her lips were warm against his and not as foreign as he'd worried they'd feel. She parted her lips. Her fingers pressed his back.
"Why wait?" she asked against his jaw. "Why wait a week? What does it matter?"
The feel of her body against his was at once strange and familiar. He slipped his arm around the curve of her back, hugging her to him as they kissed again, briefly, before she pulled away to turn around.
"Help me with this?" She lifted her hair to reveal the lacing at the back of her bodice.
His fingers had a time of it with the thin laces. His balance on the crutch was precarious. She reached back and squeezed his thigh.
"I think that's it."
She turned around, holding the front of the bodice against her with a slender arm. "Sit."
He stepped back to the end of her bed where he lowered himself, leaning the crutch against a bedpost.
Slowly, she began to let the bodice drop away.
A flicker of movement in the shadows caught his eye.
"What is it?" she asked, pressing the bodice against her again. "You saw something, didn't you?" She turned. "What? What did you see?"
"Will," he whispered, watching the ghost of Will approach, watching the ghost of Will walk right through her. No. This was crazy. He had to get past this. "Elizabeth," he said, using the bedpost to pull himself up.
She looked at him. He held out a hand and she came, relief relaxing the creases in her face. Will came, too. Norrington pulled Elizabeth against his side. Will's face frowned with worry.
"James," Will said.
Norrington held her more tightly.
"James. Please. You must listen to me."
He began to shake his head. He looked away to get rid of Will. "Stop it!" he yelled, and then to himself he said, "Stop it." If his brain was conjuring the image, it could also make it go away.
"James, what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked, cupping his face. "What's happening? Look at me. Come back to me. Come back here. Come back here _right now_, damn you."
*"Commodore?" someone had said, someone not speaking to him at all. "You're certain he said 'Commodore?' Why on earth didn't you detain the man then? I cannot believe you turned him if he said he had a commodore of the Royal Navy. I don't care if there isn't some sort of reward system set up. You'd better hope they haven't sailed on yet, man. Did you even get a name? The name of the ship? Hold on. What's this?" Norrington lifted his face from the mud by the docks and saw, for the first time, the shoes of Port Royal's governor, appointed by the king to replace Weatherby Swann.*
