A/N: Thank you if you reviewed! Please review if you didn't... :) I realized after I wrote this chapter that it's similar to what happened between Norrington and Lizzie in AWE. I assure you I didn't try to copy it. Please do not be furious with me.

Disclaimer: PotC belongs to Disney

As soon as we landed on the deck of the Dauntless, I gave Norrington another sharp kick. He let go, surprised, then with eerie speed calmly held me again with one arm, and removed my gag.

"I can't believe you've allied with the East India Trading Company," I said. "Beckett tried to arrest you before."

"I serve the law," said Norrington.

"And what is the law planning to do with me?" I snapped. "Hang me?"

"Elizabeth, please," said Norrington helplessly. "I love you. And your father does as well. We both care about you."

"If either of you care about me at all, you would have let me be free."

"Elizabeth," he said after a silence. "I apologize. About joining with Beckett. About the heart of Davy Jones."

"But you're not sorry. You don't regret having your title back. It's too late to earn my forgiveness."

"I can't bear sending you to the gallows," he whispered, desperate. "I don't want to have to do this."

"Then don't!"

"But--I must."

"Oh of course you must," I said, my temper threatening to burst. "If you don't, then you'll lose your land, your wealth, your title--your damn reputation!" I took a breath to calm myself. "I despise you."

"I beg of you," said Norrington. "Please come back to Port Royal. I'm giving you a last chance. Think of what you're doing to your father's..." He stopped. "Your father's ... reputation," he said at last. "Please."

"And what story will you and my father come up with to protect his reputation?" I sneered. "You don't love me. But you want to marry me. You want to use me for yourself. So you can have fame and glory because you 'rescued the governor's daughter and married her.' You don't care about me at all."

Norrington looked at me evenly, and I could see hurt in his expression.

"You are mistaken," he said.

"I refuse to take my 'one last chance.'"

"I am bound my the law, Elizabeth. You leave me no other choice. Forgive me. Come." He half-led, half-dragged me to the brig and unlocked a cell door.

"Let me go and never go after the Black Pearl again."

"I can't."

"You said you love me," I persisted.

"I do--"

"But it's not as important as yourself."

I shook his hand off my arm and walked into the cell.

"Simply out of curiosity, I was wondering why you didn't capture the entire ship," I said coldly.

Norrington said nothing, but his expression betrayed him.

"James, you should be acting as an honorable man," I said. "You should be fighting. Not waiting for them to follow."

After a pause, I said, "I refuse to be your source of glory, and I refuse to be your bait."

Norrington closed the cell door and left.

I sat down gingerly on a damp, empty barrel. The conversation with Norrington had taken my mind off my arm. Though the bleeding had stopped, now it felt as if someone was repeatedly stabbing it.

I sifted through my mind, looking for something to think about to occupy time, and I arrived at the thought of Jack. Perhaps he had not seen Norrington grab me and take me to the Dauntless. I couldn't call back to him, and he had been fighting. But by now he must have noticed, maybe he was following. Would he follow...? Would he attack the Dauntless? Or... I shied from the thought... would he simply leave? I didn't want him to follow--he would be in mortal danger. But somehow in a selfish, desperate impulse I didn't care, and I wanted him to come and bring me back under the shelter of his black sails. And if he didn't follow... Norrington would be tracking the Pearl after my execution, and he would have a stronger, faster ship and reinforcements. Either way, we were trapped, unless Jack attacked the Royal Navy now.

I was answered by an explosion that blasted open a section of the hull and threw me to the floor.