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2. A Last Moment

A surly looking pirate with a crab's head was stationed outside of the brig. He stared challengingly at James as the admiral approached the cells. 'What business have ye?' he rasped.

'I'm to take your shift,' replied James as nonchalantly as he could. Sometimes it paid to have trained oneself to be absolutely emotionless. 'Lord Beckett's orders.' The crab-headed man grunted, but did ask any questions, and scuttled off without even casting James a suspicious glare. James waited with baited breath until the last taps of the pirate's shoes had faded completely away before he took the key to the cells off of its hook and made his way down the row of cells.

Elizabeth and her crew were seated in one, arms crossed, a proud look on her face, just as James had imagined her. She wore her strange and dirty Chinese garments as proudly as a queen would have worn her finest robes, and James could not help but wonder how much she herself had changed, during the previous few months, from that bright young lady he knew back in Port Royal. She still was so beautiful, so spirited… and since Lord Beckett was sure to have him killed now no matter what he did, James was determined that his last act would be to ensure that she got off of this decaying ship. Praying that they would not be caught, James shoved the key into the rusty lock and turned it.

Elizabeth looked up at him as the door screeched open. Every moment now seemed more vivid to the doomed admiral, every movement she made something he wanted to take with him to whatever world there was after this one. 'Come with me,' he said, looking at her and gesturing slightly towards the deck with his head. 'Quickly!' he added when no one moved. The pirates, bewildered, waited for Elizabeth to give a nod of consent and began to force their way out of the cell's door and up the stairs into the night air – James could tell that they suspected a trap, but had no better option than to follow his orders.

As he turned to follow them, Elizabeth grabbed his arm. 'What are you doing?' she whispered, her face searching his suspiciously in the murky light. His eyes met hers, and he felt a shiver go up his spine. 'Choosing a side,' he said before turning and following the other pirates out of the brig.

The Empress, the ship Elizabeth now claimed to be captain of was moored to the Flying Dutchman by means of several thick ropes that were stretched between their decks. James stood watch, hand on sword hilt, as one by one the pirates clambered across the ropes to the deck of their own ship. Still regarding him suspiciously, Elizabeth jumped onto the deck next to James. He tried not to betray any sign of nerves in front of her.

'Do not go to Shipwreck Cove,' he warned her in a low voice as the rest of the pirates slid onto the ropes. 'Beckett knows of the meeting of the Brethren. I fear there may be a traitor among them.'

Elizabeth gave him a icy look. 'It's too late to earn my forgiveness.'

James swallowed. Could she not see how much he loved her, how much he was attempting to help her despite his obligation to the Navy? 'I had nothing to do with your father's death,' he said, staring her straight in the eyes to prove his sincerity. Her gaze bored accusingly into his, and he had to drop his eyes. 'That does not absolve me of my other sins.'

He wished he could tell her that this was the last time she would ever see him, that he would die happy knowing that she was safe, but he was afraid that she would respond with indifference, only one less romantic element in her life to sort out besides Turner and that wretched Sparrow. No, better to die pretending that she would really care, rather than to die knowing the truth…

'Come with us,' Elizabeth said suddenly. He looked up at her in surprise. 'James… come with me!'

That was one idea that had not yet occurred to him. Elizabeth looked at him pleadingly, and he thought his heart would break. He was about to say yes, when suddenly a voice from the upper deck shouted, 'Who goes there?!' Both James and Elizabeth look up in fear, James drawing his sword and throwing his arm out protectively between Elizabeth and the intruder. Creeping in the shadows was a half-man, half-sea creature that retreated from the deck and began to descend down to their level. No, thought James in a panic, this can't happen, not until Elizabeth is safe…

'Go!' he ordered Elizabeth in a barely controlled voice, his eyes still where the sailor had stood on the upper deck. 'I will follow.' An empty promise.

'You're lying!' she cried. James, taking courage from the imploring gaze she gave him, was suddenly reckless. Just tell her that you love her, he thought. After all, Turner had done so when he had thought he was about to die during that ridiculous near-hanging of Sparrow's.

He turned to face her, knowing that it was too late to care whether or not she thought of him as a friend or as a nuisance. 'Our destinies have been entwined, Elizabeth, but never joined,' he said, staring into her eyes for the last time. It was never meant to be. Knowing he would never get another chance, James threw all caution to the winds. He leaned forward and, for the first and last time, kissed those impossibly sweet lips in a moment that seemed like an eternity. When he broke away, he knew he would now have no regrets at the moment of his death.

'Go, now!' he told Elizabeth, who still stood on the deck, an unreadable expression on her face. Turning to the door onto the deck, he felt the weight of his sword in his hand, the sword that William Turner had made for him.

The pirate slunk onto the deck as Elizabeth grasped a rope and swung herself onto it. 'Back to your station, sailor,' said James sternly, placing himself between Elizabeth and the pirate and pointing his sword at the man, though he knew stabbing a man already dead would do no good.

The old sailor was more sea-creature than man at this point, a knobby starfish obscuring half of his face, barnacles clinging to his skin. He looked in confusion at the sword with which James threatened him. 'No one leaves the ship,' he said to himself uncertainly.

'Stand down,' James repeated. He felt surprisingly calm considering the fact that there was no way he would get out of this alive. 'That's an order.'

The old pirate gave James a bleary look of confusion. 'That's an order,' he more sighed than said before blinking slowly and beginning to chant in a gradually crescendoing voice, 'Part of the crew, part of the ship…'

'Steady, man!' James shouted, knowing it was hopeless. And within seconds the deranged old pirate had shouted that the prisoners were escaping. 'Belay that!' he roared, pulling a pistol from his belt and cocking it at the pirate.

'James!' he heard Elizabeth scream behind him, and, turning back towards her flailing figure dangling from the rope, he felt his heart thumping madly in his chest – Elizabeth was not yet to the other deck, and James knew that whatever else happened, he would not, he could not let her die at the hands of Davy Jones and his crew.

James glanced at the old pirate, then back at Elizabeth, and he knew what he had to do. Before he could reconsider his choice, he fired, swiftly severing the link between the Dutchman and Elizabeth's ship. He heard Elizabeth's shriek as she splashed into the water and hoped desperately that she was all right, when suddenly…

An impossibly sharp pain blossomed in James's chest as the mad old pirate drove a sharp spar of wood through the admiral. So this is how it ends, thought James grimly, gritting his teeth and trying not to cry out. His senses dulling, he tried to keep himself upright and proud by gripping the railing of the deck, but even this proved too much, and he slowly slumped to the ground.

Somewhere through the shocked mutterings of the gathering crowd of crew members, in the back of his jumbled thoughts, James thought he heard Elizabeth scream his name.

His vision was beginning to go fuzzy, but a clunk that was slowly fading away in James's ears announced the arrival of Davy Jones. From what seemed like a great distance away, he heard that slimy voice rasp, 'James Norrington, do you fear death?' James had heard the question asked many times before, but it had never occurred to him that someday it might be asked to him, and the irony of the whole situation suddenly made him feel alive again with a mixture of rage and dark humour. For an instant, his senses cleared, and, although he knew it was no good, he reared up and drove his sword through the chest of Davy Jones. Then he collapsed, and was falling into a haze of nothingness something like sleep. The last words he heard were those of Davy Jones, who said somewhat smugly, 'I take that as a no,' before pulling from his chest the sword Will Turner had made and commenting, 'Nice sword.'

And, yes, by this point I have corrected all of the dialogue and action that the characters do in the movie. Sadly, the scene was much less romantic on Elizabeth's part than I'd remembered when writing this scene the first time, but that makes it all the more tragic, in my opinion. Wah. OK, glad that's out of the way, since that's the part of the third movie that made me BAWL. And now we can move on to everything that comes more or less directly from my imagination, plotwise, at least.