A/N: I do not own POTC, and sadly, do not have a Norrington to cuddle and wuv. lol. Read and review, please! (Oh, and I hope this makes up for how short the last chapter was!)
James' eyes focused upon Ginny. Was she a figment of his imagination, an angel perhaps? Her attire had changed completely, for she now wore breeches and a man's shirt. She restored the sword to its sheath, and held out a hand to him. James took it and stood.
"Alright, now listen, all of ye. Those of you who betrayed ye captain can spend the voyage in the brig," she yelled. The men eyed her, but James scowled.
"You heard her. Men, lock them up, but first, I have an announcement to make. You are no longer sailing under a ship of his majesty's Royal Navy." Murmurs floated about the deck. James heard Ginny breathe in with excitement. "Men, I have a question for you. Can you sail under the command of a pirate?" The men gasped, while Camron and Simon eyed one another in disbelief. "I am aware that you believe piracy to be foul and wrong, something I believed when I was young and naïve. However, once, a short time ago, when I was merely an honest commodore, I was told these words. 'Perhaps, on the rare occasion that the right course demands piracy, piracy itself can be the right course.'"
Some of the men were gripping for their swords, while others had thrown away their jackets and anything tying them to the Navy. Shortly thereafter, the Guardian was rechristened the Damned Dishonor. Norrington laughed as almost instantly, he saw a freer, jollier crew. He slowly approached Ginny.
"I want to thank you for what you did back there. You saved my life."
"I helped out a sailor, it's my duty," she smiled, a three cornered hat now perched upon her head. James sighed.
"How did you get back? I thought you left," he questioned. Ginny scowled.
"Yes, I knew you'd be angry about that, as you banished me from the ship."
"Banished? I let you go! Avery told m…Avery," Norrington hissed. Ginny's eyes lit up in anger.
"He came in and told me you wished me to leave!"
"No, I was told that you wished to leave."
"Well, we now know that's a lie," Ginny shook her head. "But anyway…after I left the ship, I slid out of my dress after they began to leave port. I wore boy's clothes underneath, save for the shirt and hat, which I quickly put on, then I swam offshore and back to the ship. I stowed away downstairs, where I overheard the plans for mutiny this night. By the time I could escape to tell you, it was too late." Ginny sighed. Norrington smiled at her.
"Well thank you, Miss Shields."
"Captain, call me Ginny, leave propriety behind. We're pirates now."
"Right, well, Ginny, call me James then." She laughed slightly.
"I should go check on our mutineers, then." she said as she blatantly avoided his gaze.
"Indeed, perhaps you should." he bit his lip, his mind spinning. Why had she come back? Why had she saved his life and agreed to become a pirate? "Ginny..."
"Yes?"
"I...uh...thank you...for what you did..."
"Oh, it's nothing, really James," Ginny's cheeks reddened.
"It's not nothing! You saved my life! That most definitely is something," James protested. Ginny shook her head.
"James I...I'd better go." She rushed off without another word. James stared after her. Simon approached him.
"Sir, are you harboring feelings for Miss Ginny?" the boy asked slyly. Norrington was taken aback.
"That's not your place! And no, I most certainly am not." The boy walked away silently, a smirk on his face. James looked out to sea. "Am I?"
Hours later, James and Ginny sat at dinner. It was a much different atmosphere than had been just a few days before. They joked and laughed, and James felt himself again. He felt the way he had when he had been on the Pearl, mopping the floors with his old wig. James sipped his wine. His brain was buzzing with questions.
"Ginny, might I enquire as to where you got your sword? It's a fine model, to be sure," he said. Her face tightened.
"I should have known this was coming," she sighed. "It is a long story…a long story that haunts me so," she said. James bit his lip.
"I'm sorry Ginny, you need not continue if you feel--"
"Hush up, James Norrington. I believe you deserve being told, as you told me your biggest secret," she said, taking a sip of wine herself, and taking a deep breath to begin her story. "To answer your question, the sword was a gift for my elder brother, for his twenty-second birthday. But I suppose first, I should tell you about him.
In my family, there was only me and my brother. He was 4 years older than I, though he didn't treat me as a child, as most elder brothers would. He was an avid swordsman, though he didn't have a proper weapon. He would 'borrow' my fathers' old rapier, and practice, and then when I was barely fourteen, he carved the pair of us swords out of tree branches, and taught me how to fight.
He met Mary when I was fifteen going on sixteen, and they had a child a year later. My brother decided to take up a job as a sailor, and hoped to make a decent living off of it. He had a decent job, and was making a great living, but he was still using my father's old rapier as a sword. So my father decided to take a trip down to the Caribbean, as my uncle had visited us a few months before with an amazingly well crafted weapon. He sailed down to Port Royal to visit a renowned blacksmith, whose name slips my mind right now, and returned home with one of the most beautiful weapons I had ever seen."
Ginny unsheathed the sword and laid it upon the table. It was indeed a beautiful sword. Though it had a straight blade, the handle was finely wrought gold, with a single ruby at the very base.
"For his birthstone," Ginny stated, nodding to the gem. "June rolled around quickly, and my brother went on what we assumed would be an innocent sailing trip. We were wrong. His ship was intercepted by the Navy, who accused it of being a pirate ship. They were attacked, and he was murdered by members of the Royal Navy, barely a month before his twenty-second birthday." She blinked a few times, attempting to remove tears from her eyes. "Word arrived the following day of his death, which devastated Mary. I'm unsure whether it was the impact of his death, or just mere fatigue, but she herself fell ill and passed on just months later. I couldn't handle it, I chose to move down to the Caribbean to escape falling to the same fate, but I took with me his sword, and a dagger that I had been brought back when my father bought the cutlass. My parents, who are now patriots, are still living in Philadelphia, doing all they can to bring justice about my brother's death." James looked in her eyes.
"What became of your brother's son?"
"You're apprenticing him, Captain."
