His voice ghosted across her, caressing and assaulting her at the same time. Isabelle closed her eyes though she didn't know why. Beneath James' warm and insistent touch, her head tilted gently back, her face upturned towards his as he brought his lips gently down to brush across hers. Isabelle opened her eyes when his lips left hers. She searched his face even as he searched hers, neither knowing what it was they were looking for. Without a word uttered between them, he eased back towards her and let his lips brush hers again. He felt her breath catch a second time and this time he deepened the kiss by applying the slightest pressure to her lips. His fingers kneaded gently at the back of her neck, his fingers entwining in her soft hair. With his other hand, he gently touched her waist. She gasped at the fiery heat that swept up through her, threatening to weaken her knees. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life. To date the only fire she had experienced had stemmed from hate, greed, and anger. She could remember but few times that such warmth had come from more pleasant emotions or memories. This was something new, and she was experiencing it herself. Slowly, she felt James' lips work against hers. She had never kissed anyone before, and she felt wildly inexperienced and inept; more so when she felt James' lips work against hers and his tongue slide slowly across her bottom lip. Isabelle's head swam and her knees truly threatened to give out beneath her. James felt her sag and he remembered back to what she had said earlier.

It's as if the whole world is new to me. Every sight, every sound, every smell; it's as if I'm experiencing it for the very first time.

He supposed every touch must feel new as well…another part of him wondered if it truly was a new experience for her; that he was the first man to brush his lips across hers. "I've been wanting to do that for some time…." He admitted suddenly. Memories flooded her mind and she remembered the night he'd rescued her from the mob, when he'd had her pinned to the wall, or beneath him when the marines had fired into them. She remembered the night she had fled Cutler after he had struck her so forcefully he'd drawn blood. She saw images on the Dutchman. All moments when James had felt desire rush up within him and he had wanted to claim her lips and taste them for himself. Moments he had restrained himself or when circumstances had worked against them.

Isabelle stared at him for a moment and hoped her face hadn't taken on the rose hue of the sky. His lips on hers had felt vaguely familiar and she was briefly whisked back to her incarceration in the brig of the Dutchman. She had dreamt of a darkened room lined with books and had dozed in a chair. She'd been awoken by a comforting figure who had brushed his lips ever so gently across hers. She also thought back to the moment when James had held her after the Endeavor had gone down.

It was you.

She had whispered but had been drowned out by the sound of the pirates around her. That was why she had asked James about his experience after leaving the Flying Dutchman. She had wanted to know if he knew where he'd been, or if he remembered her being there.

"Say something…" James said resting his forehead against hers with his eyes shut. "Please say something."

"I don't know what to say…." She whispered back. She covered her mouth with her fingertips to stifle the laughter that threatened to spill forth. James brushed his lips across her fingertips. Slowly she dropped her hand and he claimed her lips again; this time with none of the gentle teasing or light caresses. James devoured her lips, drinking deeply of her scent and taste as he held her close to him. He could feel her chest rising and falling against his, her breaths coming rapidly as he plundered her mouth, his tongue seeking to duel with hers. Isabelle wondered somewhere in the back of her mind if all women felt this way when kissed by a man whom they loved and who loved them in return. She soon realized that most women only felt half of what she did; she was experiencing a double euphoria through not only her own experiences, but through James' as well. She ran her hands up his broad chest and draped her arms over his shoulder even as the mental picture drifted from his mind to hers. The top of the sun dipped below the horizon and a green flash swept out and across the sea, engulfing the gently bobbing Black Pearl. James felt Isabelle shudder in his arms, unsure as to what had happened, but not really caring. He had found the woman he had desired for so long and he had her right where he wanted her.

Isabelle awoke with a start. She was not sure what had roused her from such a deep and satisfactory sleep. Her lips were warm still as was her side, where James' hand lay heavily as he slept beside her. She sat up slowly and looked back down upon him, slowly extricating her self from their bed. She watched as he settled back against the pillows and sighed, but he did not rouse. She smiled down at him and padded silently up the dark, pre-dawn hall. Opening the first door, she looked in at the tiny bed and cradle of her youngest children, a boy named Aaron who was only just approaching his first year and a daughter named Emily who was nearing three. Both had blonde hair and the cherubic faces of the young. They were sound asleep in the early morning, not even their nurse was awake. Isabelle smiled and shut the door quietly and padded across the hall to look in on another room. Her daughter Elizabeth slept with her arm curled around the large porcelain doll that James had bought her for her last birthday. In the next room, her son, James Alexander slept, his arm dangling over the edge of the bed where he had been fingering the mast of a carved wooden sloop before he'd drifted off the night before. Noting that all was silent and well within her house, she stepped out onto the open portico that overlooked the harbor beyond.

Isabelle breathed deeply of the early morning air and hugged her arms closer to herself. She thought back to her dream and smiled at the vivid memory of the first kiss she'd shared with James Norrington. There had been hundreds, nay, thousands of kisses since then, each as sweet, if not sweeter, than the last. Why, suddenly, had that first kiss come so vividly to her mind?

She looked out over the harbor at Charlestown and thought about the events that had followed that fiery kiss, one that still took her breath away, and led her to where she stood today.

Isabelle thought back to that long ago evening and remembered when Elizabeth had stepped onto the decks of the Black Pearl. She had smiled sadly at the others and asked to be taken to a port nearby. Isabelle and James sat with her as Jack issued orders at the helm.

"What will you do?" Isabelle asked.

"I don't know. I'll think of something." Elizabeth said, her voice thick with unshed tears.

"Let us help you." Isabelle said grasping the other girl's hand. "I still have connections….for now."

"I couldn't…"

"You will." James said. "You've never listened to me in the past, but in this, you haven't a choice."

Elizabeth had nodded and accepted what little Isabelle had been able to do for her. Isabelle, accessing Company funds while still available to her, had purchased an old tavern in a small port on the island and had it refurbished. Elizabeth was then set up as a tavern keeper. Company trade flooded through the town and Elizabeth's tavern, The Captain's Heart would garner much of the merchant layovers.

James had proposed marriage and Isabelle had quickly and happily agreed. Though they invited Elizabeth to their wedding, she had been unable to travel. In a letter returned to them shortly before their wedding day, they discovered that she was with child. Isabelle thought about postponing the wedding and making a trip to the island port where Elizabeth was a new inn proprietress, swiftly growing heavy with child, but had been dissuaded by James and by Elizabeth in a line of her letter.

Please don't think that I need any more help than you have already given to me. I can not rely on you forever. I must learn to stand on my own two feet, and I must support my child—Will's child. If I am in dire need, believe me that I will send word, but do not trouble your selves just yet. Enjoy your happiness together.

"She is a head strong girl. I hope that is something she instills in her child for I think in this new age it will be a necessary trait." James had said after he read the letter. "She might not ask for help until it is too late, but she has never been one to use others as a crutch. We've done all we can for her."

Isabelle and James had returned to England to make reports and to be closer to James' family for the wedding. Isabelle had gone to the main offices of the East India Trading Company and made her report to them regarding Cutler's death and the vacancy in the Indies. They were quick to appoint Percival Reynolds, just as Cutler had feared and Isabelle smiled to think that he had been right to fear the bookish man the company chose as his replacement. But there was more news to be had from the Company. Isabelle discovered that Lord Andrew Beckett had established a trust for her as a dowry. Part of it was in company stock, the rest was in hard currency of gold and silver. Had she not married, the stocks and money would have rolled over to Cutler; thus revealing the primary reasoning for Cutler's rebuke of previous suitors. Isabelle was shocked at the wealth she suddenly found herself with. James too was shocked when he was offered a position in the newly forming American colonies. After much discussion and weighing their options, Isabelle and James decided that they would make their new home in the colonies and accepted the position.

Isabelle and James were married in a small ceremony in England. Mostly it was James' family as Isabelle had none left that she knew of. The Norrington's accepted Isabelle with open arms and were amazed at James' good fortune in finding such a fine wife. Their wedding had been a beautiful spring affair. James had been well attired in a fine new suit of clothes, and Isabelle had worn a beautiful dress made of fine pale brocade. They had stood in the church yard with the town vicar enjoying the wedding feast when a caravan of gypsies had drifted up the road. Isabelle felt eyes upon her and turned to see a woman staring back at her from the back of a wagon. The woman's eyes crinkled in a smile and she raised a hand, as if in blessing. Isabelle ducked her head in acknowledgement and smiled. The Roms always knew their own….a part of her wondered if the older woman had known her mother. The tinkling of bells on the wagons disappeared as the wagons turned up the deeply rutted roads and disappeared into the distant countryside. Isabelle would never know. That life had been lost to her long ago.

The Norrington's left England, much to the dismay of James' family, and established themselves in the newly forming city of Charles Town.

A year after their marriage, while in the midst of building a country plantation in the Carolina low country, they received a birth announcement, telling them that Elizabeth had been delivered of a healthy baby boy the winter before, who she had named William Swann Turner. They heard little from Elizabeth after that, busy as she was with running her tavern and raising her son, though James and Isabelle never failed to send gifts on either William's or Elizabeth's natal days.

Isabelle let her memories of the past ten years wash over her. For all the bad memories Cutler had instilled in her over the course of the years between his father's death and his own, her life to date had been filled with wonderful memories: her marriage to James, the birth of each of their children, the wealth and good fortune that had been visited upon them. She stood now in their town home on the lower peninsula of the city of Charles Town. The home had wide doors and windows and the big portico looked out over the busy harbor and the sea beyond which had been such a major part of both their lives. The sky was beginning to color itself a pale butter yellow with the slow rising of the sun. She watched as the harbor waters glittered and a ship eased itself around distant Morris Island and turned into the channel, its sails catching the light and the wind. She did not startle when James came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her, resting his head upon her shoulder and following her gaze.

"Did I wake you?" She asked as she felt him nuzzle her neck.

"No…What is it?" He whispered, his voice still heavy with sleep.

"I don't know." She answered with a sigh. He turned his eyes back to the ship entering the harbor and watched as the sky continued to lighten and change colors. The sky was just turning orange when she spoke again. "I was woken by a dream."

"All the children are well I'm sure." James breathed in the scent of her hair, still golden and no less dull for the ten years that had elapsed since he'd known her. "Or you'd be with whichever one was upset…."

"I was dreaming about our first kiss."

"Do you remember no others?" She heard laughter in his voice and leaned back into his chest, tilting her head to rest upon his shoulder as his lips blazed fiery trails along her neck.

"Many…" James's arms tightened about her and she turned her head up to receive a warm and gentle kiss in the cool morning light. James felt her gasp and both turned to watch the sun ease up over the horizon, the great red globe preceded by a vibrant green flash that raced across the harbor.

"Ah, now I see why I've been reminiscing..." Isabelle whispered, a smile playing upon her face. "Today is a special day indeed…."

James turned Isabelle to face him and held her, much as he had ten years ago upon the deck of the Black Pearl. His lips brushed softly over hers.

"James, the neighbors…" She hissed as she pushed away from him slightly, but there was laughter in her eyes and her voice as she said it.

"Bugger the neighbors…" He growled against her lips before claiming them again, devouring her lips in a passionate kiss to rival any they'd shared in the near decade of their marriage. The sun began to cast a warm orange glow over everything, drying the dew that sat heavily upon the garden flowers and the palmettos that grew at the corner of the house, but Isabelle and James were both oblivious to the new dawn rising and to the peeping hazel eyes of Elizabeth who stood watching her parents embrace and had to stifle a giggle.

After having been cast so low at one point or another in their lives, they had finally reaped great rewards. James, once a rum soaked cast out of a naval officer had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become one of the leading merchants and trade officers in the city of Charlestown and the colonies of South Carolina, Georgia and several ports in the Caribbean. Isabelle, once struck numb and fearful by the very power of her brother's anger and greed was now a well respected female figure in the community and a mother of four children.

The green flash marked ten years of happiness, a house full of beautiful and healthy children, wealth, health and continued love.

It was more than either of them had dared to hope for when they had both been the means to someone else's ends.

Their own ends were much better.

A/N: Well, thank you ever so much, my faithful readers, for your wonderful reviews of the past. Your suggestions, your creative criticisms and your praise. Unfortunately this is the end of our journey together. Sad, I know. I've been postponing posting this for just that reason. So I guess, for now, this is good bye, and I hope to see your reviews of other things I write in the future...or not... ;-D