(Author's Notes – Thank you, thank you, thank you to my reviewers!
Later in the chapter, Younger James/ Norrington's conscience is in italics and Norrington is in bold. Hope that's right.
I had some trouble writing this chapter, so if anyone has any criticism, I'd welcome it. This is probably going to extend into the 3rd movie, now, since I'm using rumors about Norrington being promoted to Admiral.)
"Norrington! Admiral!"
On his entering the room, Gillette snapped to attention.
"Admiral?"
My eyes widened in shock, my step faltered on the threshold.
"Orders came in, Norrington," my old friend smiled, "Some one up there must favor you. You're alive and you've been promoted to Admiral! And you pretty junior!"
Gillette handed me an envelope with a familiar seal, while I stood, practically numb from the surprise.
Admiral Norrington? I had dreamed of the rank for … for almost my whole life. And here it was. I tore open the seal and read the script, hardly daring to believe it. Admiral James Norrington. Admiral. Admiral.
And all I had to do was hand over the heart of Davy Jones.
It was too easy.
It did take the joy out of the promotion, though, that I had been awarded my dream not because of merit, but because of what amounted to a bribe.
Admiral Norrington, though. Admiral. My father would have been proud.
"Admiral?"
"A bit shocked, Gillette. It was not an expected promotion."
"Who could? And for shocks, well, Admiral, you've practically just returned from the dead. Where were you all those months?"
"Nowhere of consequence," I replied curtly, hoping Gillette would take the hint and leave that disgusting chapter of my life closed.
Gillette had not been my flag lieutenant for many years for nothing. He quickly let the subject drop.
"I suppose you've not heard, then, Beckett's planning a little excursion."
"No, I had not."
"Secretive little thing. If I didn't know better, I'd say he just wanted a yachting trip. You are 'requested and required', if you please, to accompany Beckett on the Swallow tomorrow. You don't know the Swallow, either, I presume."
Good grief, Gillette did ramble. What did Beckett want with me? What could he want from me that he didn't already have?
"The Swallow is the replacement for the Interceptor, sent over from England last month. Good sailer. Even better than the Interceptor."
"A curious turn of events," I mused, "I don't suppose you know what he wants with me."
"No idea at all. You're the only officer requested to go. Funny business."
Gillette was too earnest a man to suspect anything, too young and naïve to suspect foul play – it was both his strong point and Achilles heel. Me – I – I suppose there was a time, not too long ago, where I would have been, while not totally unsuspicious, not as – as paranoid as I was now. I had been crossed and double-crossed, and done a bit of backstabbing myself, now, and I had the strangest feeling about this "yachting trip". Beckett commanded the whole East India Company fleet, hundreds of ships, from tiny, one-masted schooners to hulking ship-rigged merchantmen. To commandeer a ship of the fleet – of the Royal Navy – the HMS Swallow, was a show of power. Power had indeed shifted. Governor Swann was as good as a puppet, and me … I wasn't much better, for all my rank and guilding. This whim of Beckett's smacked indeed of something sinister, and I could not help but feel that someone had just walked, or more likely sailed, over my grave.
Wait, wait, wait! For God's sake, are you listening to yourself, man? Get a hold on you and your superstitious nonsense! Sailed over your grave, indeed! Norrington, you've lived among those thieves and lowlifes too long, you've begun to think like them! Their pitiful superstitions, their senseless, brainless traditions – Look where you've sunk! James Norrington, you're a fool! A damn fool! A damn fool who's lost his post and only regained it through treachery! Treachery, man! You're no better than them! You're no better than a pirate, and even lower than Beckett! Look at you, Admiral James Norrington! Look at you! Would your Father be proud of you?
God, I hated my conscience. Mostly, and it pains me to admit this, because it was right. It was right in every particular about me, how I was still more pirate than officer, more scum than gentleman.
"Well," said Gillette nervously, "I shan't trouble you any longer, I daresay you have enough to deal with. My earnest congratulations, sir, and wish you the very best of luck."
And then he was gone.
I was, as I had been since … since the first crossing from Jamaica, alone. Completely without human contacts and ties, without real friends to confess everything to or to go to for comfort. Governor Swann, to be fair, had been a mentor, almost a father figure, since my own had passed on, and his daughter … Elizabeth … the only person I found it in myself to truly love, with my mind, my heart, and my soul, since my family's passing. Though I loved my duty, and never questioned my obligation to protect, I did it because I knew I had to be strong, or who would be? Who would be the scourge of the Caribbean? Who would save innocents from the fate my family suffered? With Elizabeth, I wanted to protect her still, but it was different. It was not – or was it an extension of my duty? Hadn't I taken the girl in, tried to comfort her after what she saw on the crossing from England? And watched her grow up. Watched her grow up instead of Charity and Ophelia. But something was different with her. Something in her eyes, and in the depths of her personality, captured me. I could no longer stop loving her than I could stop in my duty, and it would be far easier for me to stop breathing than that.
I found myself, again, without any aid, or any reason to keep going, save it was my duty. I served, and was not served. Once I had been selfish, and how ill that had turned out! Once I had been the lowest, and with God as my witness, I would never be so selfish again.
Little did I know how much that resolution would be tested.
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Later that night, after supervising the cleaning of my rooms, and a half-looked at dinner, I wandered the darkened house with only a candle to hand, not really knowing where I was headed, only knowing, fearing that I must keep going or something bad would catch me. Whether it was my conscience or my memory, I wasn't certain, but I could feel its icy breath on my neck, skeletal fingers closing over my heart with a fiery, inescapable grip, and though knowing escape was futile, I could not bear to give into it. It drove me through long corridors, through empty sitting rooms laden with memory of times long since past, through parlor and dining-room and ballroom, through office and library, until I hit a dead end. The portrait gallery.
This house, I should add, was not my own. It was my father's, who had built it with money from the plantation and shipping interests. I had inherited it, my father's only son, on his violent death.
And now I was confronted by him.
Coming to a dead stopped, I looked up at my family. Tall, proud, proper Father in back, dressed in his finest, protective arms behind his family. Beaming Mother, a little worn, but with her quiet grace and loving smile, holding my sisters' hands. Older Ophelia, maybe ten in the picture, the lively grin in place, freckled, spirited eyes flashing through the paint. Younger Charity, more like my mother, only six, quieter, more studious, a thoughtful expression in her eyes, like she was watching some ship on the distant sea. And me. Stoic James, hand on my sword, by my Father's side, penetrating gaze fixed on his future self. There was no sadness in his eyes, only pride and joy in his family, his devotion to others. He saw no compromise; he saw the right path and knew, no matter how long the journey, how high the obstacles, how cutting the opposition, how tempting the distraction, he needed and would do it.
Fives pairs of eyes, four long dead stared at me. Five pairs of eyes, four brown, one green, bore down on me. They were all disappointed in me, gravely disappointed, but none more so than James. Than me. I was stuck under my thirteen-year-old self's stare, the same green eyes that I saw everything through held me with their contempt. The same stare that had sent midshipmen scurrying for cover now evinced in me a desire to hide. I could take his anger at myself, but not his contempt, his disappointment.
How could you, James? How could you?
I could swear, that late hour of night, that he, James, was speaking to me. Myself, almost twenty years ago, was stirring in the annals of time to torment me for what I had done to myself. To others. For having failed in my duty to others.
Twenty years gone to naught, James. Twenty years! Everything you worked towards, everything that ever meant anything to you, gone! What does your duty mean to you now? How can you go back on what you did? To good people, too.
They were pirates!
And good men. For everything pirates have done, to you, to me, to Mother, Father, Ophelia and Charity, to the world at large. Jack Sparrow is a pirate, but he, too has a streak of good in him. William Turner is what you were – honorable, a gentleman of his word, completely unselfish. Elizabeth Swann – God, James, you loved her, and you love her still – look where you've put her!
Stop, damn you, stop!
I'm right, James. I'm right. You've done undeniable evil.
I can't – I won't face you!
Then face him!
My past self, who I had by now accepted as a force separate from his painted apparition, and aligned with my conscience, pointed to my portrait. The Commodore. That was me, only months ago. Just months ago … the paint could still be wet.
There I was, in my full dress uniform, as I had been at the promotion ceremony – the highest point in my life – and the hanging – just before my lowest. I stood in the foreground, one hand on my sword, another on the globe, hand over the Atlantic. In the background the Dauntless rode at anchor, in Port Royal, the lights of Fort Charles visible in the distance, looming over the town. Just as Fort Charles loomed over Port Royal, he, the former Commodore Norrington loomed over me. They stood for the same thing. For order, for justice, for protection. For being the incorruptible guardian. As nothing could corrupt the stony Fort, nothing could corrupt the Commodore.
Or so things had been with me.
So they had been.
So it would seem.
Absurd, wasn't it, that I was thinking over Jack Sparrow at this moment? Sparrow never had too far to fall. I had fallen bellow him, from this.
I stared up at myself, at him, uncomfortable under his fiercer gaze. And then I had it. I was too haunted to remain face-to-face with the ghosts of my past.
I ran, fleeing them. Even when I sat in my rooms upstairs, I could feel their disproving gazes, strengthening in intensity after every brandy I drank. Just before I passed out, I heard one word:
Failure.
My father wouldn't have been proud of me after all.