I have to admit, I don't consider this to be my best writing (it's a rather awkward situation to write, and I'm sure that if nothing else the awkwardness of having to write said awkward scene comes through... never mind, that made no sense whatsoever), but I hope everyone is OK with it, and if ANYONE has any suggestions as to how to make it less, well, awkward, please do tell me! (I promise, there will be quite a bit more plot and quite a bit more long-awaited romance in the next chapter... I PROMISE!)

That said, please read, enjoy, keep in mind that I don't own anything, etc.

21. Elizabeth

James dragged himself onto the sand, coughing up a bit of seawater. He allowed himself to collapse on the beach, panting, water dripping from the ends of his coat. Behind him, he heard a second figure drag himself up onto the shore, mumbling curses under his breath. Turning his head, James saw a drenched Jack Sparrow crawling towards him, eyeliner trailing down his face.

'Bloody hell, Norrington, look at the mess you've gotten me into!' he groaned, pulling off a boot and dumping a large quantity of water out of it. 'I've lost my bloody ship, I have no way of getting to Tortuga to find my bloody wife and daughter, and I have you to thank for all of it!' Jack sighed. 'If I don't get hanged by the villagers on this island, I hope you know I expect you to pay me back for all this trouble, Norrie, preferably in the form of rum…'

'Sparrow…' snapped James.

'CAPTAIN Sparrow!' roared Jack in frustration.

'Fine, Captain Sparrow,' James corrected himself with an impatient sigh, 'I'm sure if you come with me to find Elizabeth she'll be quite willing to hide you and make sure that no harm comes to you. And I promise I won't turn you in for being a pirate – I'm quite past that stage of my life, thank you.' He rose to his feet and held out a hand to help Jack up, which Jack took begrudgingly. 'Now I'm going to go see if there's a place for me to wash up before I go looking for Elizabeth.'

'Fine by me, mate,' said Jack, brushing the sand off his front, 'but I think I'll stay here and out of view, if you don't mind.'

James tried not to laugh at the thought of Jack Sparrow bathing in the first place – it would be most out of character. James briefly wondered if Jack even knew what a bar of soap was. Smiling to himself, he set off down the beach to find the village.

Two hours later, having washed up at an inn in the village and even managed to get a shave, James returned to the beach where he had left Jack Sparrow, who was standing in the water, miserably flicking his compass open and closed with one hand while holding onto his hat with the other so the wind would not blow it out to sea.

'What are you doing?' asked James, staring at Jack.

Jack looked over his shoulder at James. 'What's it look like I'm doing?' he asked, as though it was obvious. 'Trying to see if any sea turtles will come within a foot of me if I stand here long enough.'

James decided not to ask what on earth Jack was talking about. 'Here,' he said, tossing a bottle of rum to Jack, who caught it and looked at James with an eyebrow raised.

'Where'd you get this?' he asked.

James shrugged. 'Just because I've sworn off the stuff doesn't mean I can't get some for you. I found that Calypso happened to leave me a purse with a few coins in it when she… well, brought me back to life. At any rate,' he gestured to Jack, 'drink up if you want to, we've got some walking to do if the villagers were telling the truth.'

The pirate and the ex-admiral wended their way up several steep hills covered in wild flowers. James picked a few of the prettiest he saw to give to Elizabeth, feeling rather foolish, as if he was an amorous schoolboy, but hoping that Elizabeth would appreciate the thought anyway. It was almost dusk, and not a soul was in sight save for a few seabirds circling overhead with mournful cries. Jack stumbled along behind James, taking swigs of rum as he went, while James tried to ignore the lump of nerves that was rising to his throat.

'Look!' said Jack as they crested a hill, grabbing James by the shoulder and gesturing with his bottle. A small cottage lay almost hidden by trees in the folds of the valley, just near a small stream that was silver in the failing light. Heart thumping wildly, James began to walk quickly down the hill, then broke into a run as Jack yelled behind him to slow down. He waited as Jack skidded to a halt behind him at the bottom of the hill and slopped quite a bit of rum onto his boots at the sudden stop.

'Well, don't just stand there, go knock on the door!' snapped Jack, kicking his foot in the air to try to get some of the rum off.

'I will,' said James, his stomach now doing somersaults. It was one thing to see Elizabeth within the context of a dream, but this was her real life, and again he let all his hidden fears rise unbidden to the surface of his mind…

'Fine, mate, if you won't, then I will,' muttered Jack, striding forward and rapping his knuckles on the door before James could say a word.

With a gentle creak, the door swung open, and James's heart fluttered as he heard a familiar voice give a surprised laugh and say, 'Jack! What are you doing here?'

'A series of unfortunate and completely unforeseeable circumstances, love,' replied Jack as Elizabeth threw her arms around his neck, still laughing.

'And how are Anamaria and little Ariana?' she asked.

'Fine, fine,' Jack sighed. 'Listen, Lizzie, I've got a bit of a dilemma before me – I promised Anamaria I'd meet up with her in a few days' time on Tortuga, but, sadly, circumstances have left me on this island with no ship.'

'Oh.' Elizabeth sounded mildly surprised. 'Right, then. Well, I'm sure we could manage to get you a passage on some ship sailing to Tortuga, or that general direction, at least…'

'Come on, Lizzie, wouldn't it be easier for me just to commandeer a nearby ship?'

'I was trying to not give you any ideas,' laughed Elizabeth. 'So what brings you here, in the first place?'

'Ah,' said Jack, 'the question is not so much "what" as it is "who"… You coming then?' Jack turned and raised his eyebrows at James, who was standing half in the shadows, trying not to let his nerves get the better of him.

Elizabeth's eyes followed Jack's and she froze. 'James,' she whispered, completely forgetting about Jack.

'Elizabeth,' he answered with a wobbly smile. He watched as, without taking her eyes off of him for a second, she stepped around Jack and threw herself into his embrace.

'Well, this isn't awkward in the slightest,' said Jack, watching James bury his nose in Elizabeth's hair and breathe in the scent of roses mixed with sea breeze. 'Shall I go find a place in the woods to spend the night, then?' He strode off, leering at James with a mischievous 'I-told-you-so' look as he did.

James stood there for a few moments longer, stroking Elizabeth's hair in an attempt to comfort her while listening to her quietly weep.

'How…?' she asked finally, pulling her face away from his shoulder and gazing up at him.

'Calypso,' he said softly. 'Elizabeth, I can only stay here for another day, and then I… I must go,' he said, remembering that he had sworn to himself not to tell her why he had returned.

She nodded, a few tears slowly trickling down her face. James gently wiped them off her cheeks with his finger. 'Are you angry?' he asked her.

'No, not at all,' she said, attempting to smile. 'It's good to see you again, James.'

She had not changed at all in James's opinion, except perhaps there were a few more lines on her beautiful face, and years of maternal worry and care had made her eyes wiser but no less bright. It struck him that although he had been seven years older than her when he had died, she was now three years older than he.

'You look very much like you did when we met in Tortuga,' Elizabeth was saying, 'only clean-shaven, and less dirty, and not drunk. But you have the same free look about you.'

James was very much aware that their faces were only a few inches apart, and he quickly turned his thoughts elsewhere.

'So I finally get to see your home, and your son.'

'Oh, yes, Jamie,' said Elizabeth. 'He should be coming home sometime soon… I'm glad to say that he's had quite a bit more success at making friends than I have.'

'And you really don't mind if I meet him?' James couldn't help but remember her reluctance in letting Jack meet the boy, and was afraid that perhaps his presence might have the same effect.

Elizabeth laughed, and, as if reading his mind, replied, 'James, the boy spends so much time day-dreaming about his future career as an admiral in the Royal Navy that I doubt even meeting Jack could turn him from the path he has already chosen.'

'Yes, well,' James sighed, 'that's what I'd thought too.'

Elizabeth looked seriously at him. 'I'm not going to allow you to spend all your time regretting things that cannot be taken back, James,' she said. 'Now come on, let's see if we can think up any ways to smuggle Jack out of here.' And, taking his hand, she led him into the cottage.

Bands of fading afternoon sunlight were strewn across the neat cottage, a number of papers stacked neatly on the edge of a wooden table, a basket of clothes sitting on the bench next to the table, a fire with a pot hanging over it crackling merrily in the stone fireplace. Small shells and stones lined the window sills, and on top of the mantelpiece was a very familiar metal box from which James could almost hear a pulse beating faintly. Seating himself on the bench, he watched as Elizabeth leaned over to stir the stew in the pot, and noticed as she did so that hanging about her neck was the curious key for which he had once been prepared to kill two men.

'Smells good,' commented James, inhaling a deep whiff of Elizabeth's cooking.

'Thank you,' she replied, ladling some into a bowl and placing it, steaming, on the table before James. 'Now, about Jack… I've been thinking, if we could only get him into some normal clothes, perhaps we could pass him off as an eccentric gentleman until he gets to Tortuga…'

James nearly choked on his spoonful of soup. 'Just eccentric?' he spluttered, trying not to laugh.

'Well, all right, a slightly mad gentleman with an extreme fondness for rum, then. At any rate, we'll need to find him clothes. Now, I think his shirt will be fine, it's more his jacket and trousers and hat that I'm worried about… and his hair, too, come to think of it.' Elizabeth frowned slightly. 'And his eye makeup, that will have to go too…'

James, who was in the middle of taking another bite of hot stew, forced himself to not to chuckle at the thought of Jack without his eyeliner. For the first time in ten years, he was feeling slightly guilty at having gotten rid of his wig – he could see it might have come in use now to cover up Jack's dreadlocks.

'But where to get men's clothes?' Elizabeth wrung her hands anxiously, staring into the fire with her eyebrows furrowed. 'I can't go out and just buy a man's jacket, can you imagine the rumours that would begin to fly about…?'

'Give him mine,' said James, pulling off his jacket and thrusting it towards Elizabeth. She blinked in surprise, then took it.

'Are… are you sure?' she asked.

'Positive. I won't be needing it any more, and this way you won't need to commit another act of piracy by having to steal one.' James smirked as she playfully slapped his hand.

'Why I ever let you in for dinner in the first place, I'll never know…' She sighed melodramatically, then scowled as she examined the jacket more closely. 'James, there's a huge hole in the back of this jacket. What on earth did you do to it?'

'Oh.' James shrugged casually. 'Must have been where Bootstrap speared me through the center with a plank.'

Elizabeth flinched, still staring at the hole in the jacket. 'I'll be able to mend it somewhat,' she muttered, 'but the bloodstains…' She shook her head, as if coming out of a deep reverie. 'It'll do,' she concluded, a troubled look still creasing her face.

A creak made both James and Elizabeth jump, and a moment later a small face peered around the edge of the door. 'Mum?' said James Turner, stepping around the door and looking in some confusion at the man for whom he had been named.

James gasped inaudibly – the boy looked exactly like a young version of Will. In fact, had he not known that this was Will's son, he would have sworn that it was a slightly younger copy of the boy whom his crew had saved from a shipwreck on the Atlantic so many years ago. James rose to his feet, staring in amazement.

'Jamie.' Elizabeth had set down the jacket and crossed to the door, closing it after her son. 'This is my very dear friend, James Norrington. He's the man I named you after.'

'Pleased to meet you, sir,' said Jamie politely, holding out a hand that James took with a grin.

'The pleasure's mine.'

'Mr Norrington has just had a very long and tiring journey, so he'll be staying with us until tomorrow evening,' explained Elizabeth to Jamie, who had slipped off his boots and left them with his books by the door.

'I promise you'll barely have any reason to notice me,' James assured the boy, who was looking the slightest bit alarmed at this intrusion of his privacy.

'No, no, it's fine,' said Jamie hastily as Elizabeth passed him another bowl of stew. 'We've just never had visitors before.' He took a spoonful of stew. James raised his eyebrows at Elizabeth.

'Well, I'm sure the two of you will get along fine,' said Elizabeth. 'Jamie, I have to attend to some business tomorrow morning, so perhaps you could show Mr Norrington about the island while I'm gone? Perhaps he could even tell you some tales about when he used to be an admiral in the Navy.'

Jamie's eyes grew wide as he stared in awe at James, who gave an embarrassed grin in return. 'All right,' he conceded, 'but only the good ones.' He raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth, and she understood this to mean nothing involving herself as a pirate, or Jack Sparrow.

They finished eating in silence, although James noticed that Jamie glanced up at him several times as if about to ask a question. Outside, the sun had set in a blaze of gold, and the stars were one by one flickering into the night sky. Finally, Elizabeth excused Jamie from the table and told him to go to bed if he had no schoolwork. Kissing his mother good night on the cheek, Jamie retreated into a small bedroom, leaving James and Elizabeth alone by the fire.

'Here, give me your shirt and waistcoat too, they've both got more holes in them,' ordered Elizabeth, holding out her hand with a troubled scowl. James sighed impatiently, then removed his waistcoat and shirt and handed them to Elizabeth, who blushed slightly at the sight of his bare chest. Taking a seat in a rocking chair by the fire, she pulled out a needle and thread and began to stitch the holes in the shirt neatly together, determinedly not looking at James.

'Thank you,' he said, coming to sit across from her in the other chair by the fire.

'Not at all,' she muttered, staring at the cloth as though the end result depended entirely on her constant attention. 'I'm a seamstress now – I do this for a living. Mending your clothes is no trouble at all.'

'Quite a different life from being a governor's daughter, I'd imagine,' said James, leaning back in his chair with a smile.

'It's actually quite nice, being able to support oneself. Rather liberating, if you know what I mean.'

'Yes,' James agreed. He watched her for a few seconds, the firelight casting flickering shadows across her face. 'What should I say if Jamie brings up Will tomorrow when you're not around?'

Elizabeth cut the thread and turned the shirt over. After a long pause, she finally looked up at James. 'I trust you to tell him as much as you decide he should be told,' she said quietly, before quickly going back to her sewing.

James stifled a yawn – in all his eagerness to see Elizabeth again, he had not realized how tired he was after two days of almost continuous sailing and swimming. Elizabeth, who had just finished mending his shirt, tossed it across the space between them.

'I think I should be getting to bed,' yawned James, pulling on the shirt. He stopped, realizing what an awkward position he had put her in by coming to her house uninvited, giving her no time to prepare an extra bed… James got up and headed for the door.

'Where are you going?' asked Elizabeth in alarm, able to look at him unabashedly again now that he was fully clothed.

James stopped in the doorframe. 'I, well, I didn't know exactly what the sleeping accommodations would be like if I stayed here,' he stammered, 'so I figured I should probably go out and find a place to sleep in the woods. Don't worry,' he added quickly, noting her startled look, 'it doesn't look like it will be raining tonight, and I've slept in far worse conditions before…' James scratched his chin, remembering the uncomfortable period of time he had spent sleeping on the streets after the hurricane, and after he left the Navy.

Elizabeth bit her lip as if she was about to say something, and finally nodded. 'You'll be back tomorrow, though?' she asked anxiously.

'Of course,' James assured her, smiling. 'We have to try to dress Jack up like a gentleman, don't we? I wouldn't miss it for the world.' He stepped out the door.

Elizabeth sank back into her chair, gazing out the window at the moon. A million thoughts were rushing through her mind, most of them regretful. From within her pocket, she pulled a small black book that had been given to her within a dream, and which she still carried with her wherever she went; she flipped through it, the flowing script within it familiar from countless readings, then slid it carefully back into the folds of her dress. With a sigh, she removed the key to the Dead Man's Chest from around her neck, and turned it over and over in her fingers, examining it without really noticing it, lost in a reverie. Finally, she rose to go to bed, placing the key on top of the chest before she left the room.

Being my crazy self, I was just seriously considering having James, after Elizabeth asks him how he got a huge hole in his jacket, say to her, ' 'Tis but a scratch - I've had worse!' Which would have, of course, been entirely out of character considering this story, but is giving me several strange ideas for 'Monty Python' - PotC ficlets... Eh, I'm sure it's been done before. At any rate, I'll stop rambling on about nothing - again, please review if you so desire!