Author's Note: And so we wend our way to a fairly sad conclusion. By the way, if anyone catches errors in my French, do let me know so I can correct them - my French teacher didn't teach me THOSE words. :)

He spent a month settling the estate and packing up his father's things. He could have finished the task sooner, no doubt, but he had no pressing need to leave, and, even leaving aside his grief, much to think on. The first was the practical matter of what to do with his inheritance. He had little need for it; he was a bit ashamed to see that his own fortune dwarfed his father's savings. However, his father certainly hadn't wanted for anything, and would no doubt have refused any help even had James known to offer. He arranged to transfer it to Mrs. Abbott as a pension, over her protests. As far as he was concerned, the money was no more than she deserved for her years of service.

The second thing he had to work out was what he was going to do next. He had a few more good long talks with Lord Leynham; several of his Lordship's cronies had contacts with various shipping companies, and it was likely that a master's position could be arranged. His pride twinged a bit at the thought: mastery of a merchantman, or even a privateer's commission, was hardly fit work for a post-captain, but one had to eat. He was ill-suited to a life of idleness, even had he the fortune to support one, and he could no more give up the sea than he could give up breathing. Besides, he thought to himself bitterly, it was your damned pride that brought you to this. Reap what you've sown.

Regardless, the first matter of business was to return to Port Royal and settle his affairs there. To that end, he bade farewell to Inverskern, and journeyed to Plymouth, to arrange transport.

He took a berth on the Houri, under Master Wrightson. Determined to make the most of his fresh start, he began to study everything he would need to know about the Merchant Service. He even went so far as to give the captain a false name, knowing that his own was instantly recognizable to anyone who frequented Port Royal: he wanted to see how things were done on a merchant ship when the captain and crew didn't think the Royal Navy was looking over their collective shoulder.

There was, naturally a lot to be learned. While he was very familiar with the Merchant Service rules regarding contraband or embargoed items, and under what conditions the Royal Navy was permitted to board and search merchant ships flying various colors, the rest of their dealings were a closed book. He spent a great deal of his time observing the crew going about their work and watching their interactions with the officers, and chatting with the Captain, who found Mr. James Beniston to be congenial company. And so it would have continued until they made berth in Port Royal, save for a dinner conversation gone horribly wrong.

James dined with the officers most of the nights of the voyage and, for reasons he was never able to ascertain, had gained the Captain's trust. The man, as a rule, was notoriously loquacious after enough port, but this particular night he was in particularly fine form, and so he started confiding the secrets of the trade. "I'll tell you how to make a tidy profit with ver' little work at all." he slurred. "Ye get a cargo, see, anything you can pick up cheap-like. Ye go to Lloyd's and tell them it's diamonds or gold or a hold fulla slaves…no, no, Gerard, it's fine. Mr. Beniston here's a GOOD man, I can tell. So you tells them it's worth mint, and you pays your insurance. Then, you go meet up with a pirate, and give him the goods. You tell the insurance man that the pirates got it, and they pay you the worth you assigned it. The run I made seven months ago? I got a fifty-percent profit, and I barely had to lift a finger. And that was with the bloody Navy interfering. Not to mention, Zaragoza leaves my ships alone the rest of the time."

"Zaragoza?" James asked sharply. "On the Huracan?"

"That's the man and a good man, he is! Gave those prigs a bloody nose. Teach them to mind their own business."

James clenched his fists under the table. Seven months previously, the Kennebec had limped back into port. She'd missed her stays as she'd approached the Huracan and had been raked from bowsprit to stern; one mast gone, the others badly damaged; the sails were shredded and the crew, decimated. Captain Henderson had lost his right arm and an eye in the fight. James had sat on the man's court martial: he'd been acquitted, but it was plain he would get no significant commands in the near future.

And he was less derelict in his duties than you were, said the dark voice.

These were the people for whom his men had died. He had given two decades of his life – two decades of blood and sweat and toil - to the cause of bringing order to the seas, and these were the sort of men who had benefited. He had ordered his men to their deaths to ensure the safety of blackguards and thieves. They were pirates – no, they were worse than pirates. Pirates were paragons of honor compared to these bastards. What the hell had been the point?

He could barely see through the red fog in front of his eyes. The rage encompassed his entire person. He had never been so angry: not at the most feckless incompetent, not at the most corrupt petty administrator, not even at Jack Sparrow. He strode up to head of the table and, in front of all the officers, he landed a punch squarely on Captain Wrightson's face. That was the last thing he remembered of the Houri's Great Cabin.

"C'est incroyable! You're never going to believe this, sir…" said Gerard.

Wrightson took the beefsteak off his swollen eye and fixed his first mate with a glare. "Well?"

"That tas de merde is James Norrington."

"WHAT!? You're telling me that bastard is… Christ Jesus, what the hell is he doing here, on my ship?"

"I don't know, sir. But you told him everything…"

"I know what I told him!" Wrightson started to panic. "God's balls! He knew all along! Spent the whole damned time just watching… too bloody clever by half!"

"Oubliez-çela! The question is what do we do with him now?"

Wrightson bit his thumbnail. "Does anyone else know?"

"No, sir. I came directly from his cabin."

Wrightson put the bloody meat back on his face. "Good. Then get rid of all his things. Dump them over the side and him along with them."

"But the passengers and the crew will know!" Gerard asked. "Non! He goes missing from this ship and nous sommes enculés."

"And what do you propose we do about it? If he gets a chance to talk, we're just as fucked." snarled Captain Wrightson.

Gerard thought for a moment. "I have an idea…."

They told their other passengers that they were going to put Mr. Beniston off because he'd made a disturbance which was, essentially, true. They made sure to sail into Tortuga in the middle of the night. They dragged James out, in his full uniform, of course, and dumped him with the insensate drunks in the street. They were off before anyone knew they were there.

In deference to some sense of fair play, however, they did leave him a sword and a pistol with one shot in it.

Of all the less-than-felicitous awakenings James had undergone in the past few months, he had to admit that this one was the worst. He spat out some semi-coagulated blood, and gingerly explored the monstrous lump on his forehead with his fingers. Where the hell was he?

He squinted in the pre-dawn light, looking for anything familiar in the surrounding town. Damned if this place didn't remind him of Tortuga. He walked over to the nearby tavern to get close enough to read the sign. "The Faithful Bride."

Fiend seize it, this WAS Tortuga.

He cudgeled his memory. The last thing he remembered was talking to Wrightson. Wrightson was telling him about the scam. Right. He hit the Captain, and one of the officers must've knocked him out. James ran his hand down his face and then stopped as he looked at his sleeve. He was in his Navy uniform. Which meant that Wrightson and his men had figured out his true identity.

And that he was in a captain's uniform in the middle of the biggest pirate port in the Caribbean.

Oh, by all that was holy, Wrightson was going to PAY. He was going to hang for this or he was not Commodore James Norrington.

You aren't 'Commodore James Norrington.' Not anymore.

He ignored the dark voice.

Christ, he was in a tight spot. He had no money, no clothes and no one he could trust. He would have to wait until someone he knew made berth and he could hitch a ride home with them.

And until then? What would he live on?

He turned his coat inside out, and shoved his wig in his pocket: proud he might be, but stupid he was not. The shine of the gold buttons caught his eye, and triggered a thought.

They didn't bring a lot, at the pawnshop, but the buttons from his coat and the buckles off his shoes got him enough money for a pair of boots and almost a week's worth of bread and cheese. He spent his time skulking around the wharves, looking for any ship with a master he could trust, but to no avail. He'd even considered signing on as a crewman to any vessel headed to any port with a significant Naval presence, once his beard grew out enough that he wouldn't be instantly recognized, but very few of the ships who frequented Tortuga would venture such places these days.

And whose fault is that?

By the beginning of the second week, he was out of food, out of money, and, so it appeared, out of luck. His stomach growled with hunger. Irony seemed to be personally gunning for him, he decided: he'd suffered from an anorexy all those months when he could have had anything to eat he'd wanted, and now, when there was no food available to him, he was ravenous.

For a week, he managed to avoid running afoul of any of Tortuga's colorful and varied criminal element, but even that good fortune ran out on him. On the ninth night of his exile, he was accosted by a footpad, who had chosen his target very poorly and would not live to profit by the lesson. The fight was short but brutal. On a better occasion, perhaps, or in a better time, James could have disarmed his attacker without injuring him, but on this night, he ran the young man through.

He would have left the corpse alone for the resurrection men to claim in the morning. (Did the doctors of the West Indies know how many of their human dissections were done on Tortugan brawl victims? It was rumored that there was an entire warehouse on the island somewhere filled with casks containing dead bodies preserved in rum.) However, just as he was about to turn away, a glint of gold caught his eye: the footpad hadn't been quite so unlucky with his earlier victims. He automatically reached for the pouch and the coins, but he snatched his hand back when he realized what he'd been about to do.

Was this really happening? Was this really him? His head swam, and he had to sit down for a second. Was James Norrington, Scourge of Piracy, about to loot the dead body of the man he'd just killed? How had it come to this?

A stomach cramp silenced his qualms. Medieval knights, he recalled, after a victory at the joust, had been entitled to their opponents' horses and armor. This was hardly the field of honor, and his opponent had been a gentleman in only the anatomical sense of the word, but that, combined with the dizziness in his head and the roaring in his empty belly, was enough of a fig-leaf. He despised himself for it, and laughed at his own attempts at rationalization, but he took the coins.

He did feel guilty, but not enough to keep him from enjoying the hot food and the soft bed that that money bought.

On Tortuga, at the harbor, there was building with a large wooden wall, a wall that faced the dock, with no windows or door. Decades before, a brash, blustering pirate, inordinately pleased with the size of the bounty on his head, had nailed up one of his own broadsheets so that everyone could see it. His chief rival, not to be bested, nailed up one of his own right next to it, as soon as the bounty on HIS head surpassed that on the head of the original poster. From this, a curious tradition had sprung up, and that wall fairly bristled and flapped with broadsides in several languages. Many a young pirate, flush with drink and the approbation of his friends, made a semi-ritual (but wholly raucous) pilgrimage to that wall to nail up his first wanted poster.

There was quite a commotion around the wall tonight, James noticed. Men were toasting each other and singing and cheering. Once the crowd died down a little, curiosity got the better of him, and he went over to see what the fuss was all about. There, in the place of honor, was a brand new broadsheet:

"NOTICE!

The Sum of 500 GUINEAS to be Paid

For the Capture and Return to Port Royal

of One

JAMES EDWARD NORRINGTON

Formerly A Captain in His Majesty's Navy

Currently Under SENTENCE of DEATH for

Conspiring to set Free a Man Convicted of

CRIMES against the CROWN and EMPIRE and

CONDEMNED to DEATH.

Why? Why did this happen? What the hell had changed? "Conspiring to set Free a Man Convicted…" Well, that could only be one person, he knew. But that hadn't exactly been a secret… why did that suddenly make him a wanted man? God Almighty, he had to get back to Port Royal this very instant to…

But something inside him broke.

He had no way to fight this. If the interpretation of what he had done had changed, he was completely at its mercy. He had set Sparrow free and had failed to recapture him. That was unquestionably, irrefutably, the essence of what had happened. That misjudgment had destroyed his career and would now kill him, if he returned to British territory.

That'll make it five hundred and eight, whispered that dark little voice.

He felt like he'd been struck by a cannon ball.

It's a good thing Father never lived to see this day…

He put his hands over his ears to try to shut out the accusations.

…and it was all for nothing.

"Stop it!" he said out loud, in a strangled voice. The nascent, fragile hope, the incipient faith that he might be able to salvage something from the wreckage of his life shattered, and the shards sliced at his heart and soul. His gorge rose at the sick, aching pain that suddenly burst through his stomach. In addition to everything else, he was an outlaw, now. If he was under sentence of death, his assets were forfeit; he was a pauper. He had no friends and no family to come to his aid, and he wouldn't deserve their help even if he did. He was nothing and worse than nothing. If he were to die in penury on this godforsaken island, it would be nothing more than he deserved.

He'd done his best, by God. He'd worked hard. He'd followed the law and the dictates of honor and of his conscience, and this is where it had brought him. If this was all that his best efforts could manage, then perhaps he deserved to be marked for execution.

He was, by the law of England, a dead man. What did it matter what happened to him now? They would come for him eventually, or he would be turned in, and then he would be hanged.

Unless you choose your own way, first…

He clapped his wig back on and turned his coat right-side-out. He drew his sword, summoned up his panache, and went looking for a brawl.

There were always brawls, on Tortuga.

James Edward Norrington, formerly Commodore of the Jamaica Squadron, embarked on a protracted attempt to end his misery: a drawn-out suicide-by-alcohol-and-pirate. Paradoxically, the drunker he got, the harder he fought; he had more will to live when awash in liquid oblivion. Regardless, inebriate or sober, he bloodied enough noses that even the hardest-edged ruffians started giving "the Navyman" a wide berth, and left him to drown in his bottle. He scarcely remembered half the fights he was in. He even lost to a blackout the conversation in which he poured out all of Wrightson's perfidy to a very interested Spanish sailor, who, after James was done talking, left in a hurry to round up his crew.

And that might have been the end of him. He might have drunk himself to death, or some pirate might have gotten lucky and landed a fatal blow. But, one night in the tavern, as he was just settling down to his first (or was it second?) bottle, a familiar figure sauntered in, and the perfect opportunity for vengeance presented itself.

It ended badly. He should have known it would.

It was there, in the mire and pig shit, that his resolution hardened. Such was the way of the world: good men perished where pirates prospered. Oh, for a moment, looking up at Elizabeth's beautiful face, his determination faltered; if she'd only once, in better times, looked at him with that much kindness and sympathy… but that moment passed. Of all the disasters and debacles that had made up these past few months, he had felt that she was the least of them; he was sure that he had put his feelings for her strictly in the past.

He was wrong.

That all came rushing back. The pain and humiliation of it all tore his heart back in two. He had offered himself, body and soul, to a woman who wanted to play pirate, and from there it had all gone to hell.

And more than just pretend to be a pirate: she was on Tortuga and in men's clothing - she had thoroughly joined their number, it seemed. Well. Fine. If that's the way they wanted to play it, he would beat them at their own game. As the French said, "La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid."

Revenge is a dish which is eaten cold.

Epilogue

In all honesty, the whole thing started to feel like a mistake before he even made it back to Port Royal.

What was it the pirates said? "Take what you can, and give nothing back." Given how badly his own actions were sitting with him, he could now count among his failures that he didn't even make a very good pirate. What would Jones' monsters do, once they realized that Sparrow's men didn't have the Heart? Would Elizabeth be in danger?

Let it be. She's not your problem. She has her fiancé to protect her now. She chose her path, you chose yours.

On the other hand, Sparrow had apparently pissed off the supernatural authorities along with the temporal ones. That was, strangely, a comfort, and occasioned a great deal of bitter amusement during the trip home.

James wouldn't find this out until much later, but it was about this time that the HMS Alverstoke, on a routine patrol near Caracas, found the wreckage of the Houri. The scene bore all the hallmarks of a pirate attack, and an in-depth questioning of the survivors revealed that the captain of the pirate ship Huracan, after a violent argument with Captain Wrightson, had returned to his ship and blasted the merchantman to pieces.

The Alverstokers marked it as shady deal gone bad, and moved along.

After meeting with Beckett, James took stock of the situation as he headed to his new quarters. His house and possessions were gone: they'd been sold at auction and there was nothing that could be done about that –the loss of his library hurt the most. But, on the plus side, his new salary was generous, when compared to what the Navy used to pay, and this was closer to his old profession than anything he'd dared hope for.

None of this allayed his disquiet. Beckett's supercilious manner grated on his nerves. He'd guessed right away that the changes to Port Royal were his doing; Swann was far too conservative to have done so much so quickly. In the old days, a distressing proportion of James' time had been spent trying to convince the Admiralty to send more men and more guns; he ought to be glad to see the added ships of the line, particularly considering that they were now HIS ships of the line, but this Beckett was still an unknown quantity. (And how had Beckett managed to arrange that so many Navy ships be placed under the command of the East India Trading Company? His influence must have been overwhelming.) Still, he gave James a bad feeling.

But it hardly mattered. He'd come too far to turn back now.

He went to the barracks to get a bath and change into a borrowed uniform. He hurried, hoping not to run into too many people he knew before he'd had a chance to outfit himself as a gentleman again. He was about to head to the bathhouse when the door to his quarters burst open, and, as far as James was concerned, two dead men pelted through. They each grabbed his hand in turn and slapped him hard on the back as he watched them, pale and open-mouthed.

"Christ's wounds, man, how did you get the conviction overturned? And where the devil have you been? You wouldn't credit the rumors going around." Theodore Groves exclaimed.

"And what the hell were you doing there? You look like something the cat dragged in." said Andrew Gillette.

"I… but the two of you were…" James swayed, suddenly unsteady on his feet. Was this a hallucination?

"Oh!" Andrew caught on first. "No. Your timing was impeccable. Sarah told me you left the day before I woke up. Sorry to hear about your father, by the way…"

"Yes… damned shame, that." Theo added.

James sat down. He was reeling with the shock of it. "You're both… you're both alive! This is incredible… you have no idea..." Another minute and he would start crying.

His friends were taken aback: they'd rarely seen him this emotional. "We're all right, James." said Andrew.

He looked up at Andrew. "But Jackson said…" James turned to Groves. "And how did you…?"

"After the storm, some Portuguese plucked me out of the water. Devilish good men, but none of them spoke a word of English, and they took me all the way to Lisbon before I could make myself understood."

James caught his breath. He never thought he'd have the chance to say this. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you both. We should have stopped, turned back, anything. Forgive me. Please. Forgive me. I…" His voice seized up, and he put his face in his hands to hide the tears that were starting to overflow.

Andrew and Theo stared at the proud man who now humbled himself before them; the notorious stoic who sat there fighting for composure. They exchanged anxious glances. What had befallen him, to bring him to such a point?

Theo tried to drag the conversation back from the brink. He and Andrew would have to find out the details, but this was neither the time nor the place. "Yes, well, Lady Luck was bound to throw you over eventually, the strumpet…"

"Maybe she'll give one of us a chance now…" Andrew picked up where Theo left off. "Someone who won't test her patience so much, perhaps."

James gave a laugh that sounded suspiciously like a disguised sob. "I'll bear that in mind, should I ever regain her favor."

"It seems like you already have, James, we'd almost given you up for dead… and now Beckett's made you an Admiral?" said Andrew. "How did you manage that?"

He looked up at his friends. "You won't believe it. Frankly, I'm not sure I believe it myself."

"Tell us tonight, James. We'll have time for a good long talk." said Theo, looking around nervously. The walls had ears, these days.

"Yes, you both will have to come around to dinner." Andrew's tone turned a trifle smug. "Mrs. Gillette will be furious with me if I don't bring you to see her, James."

"MRS. Gillette?" This was, at least, one piece of unalloyed good news, and James managed a smile. "The inestimable Miss Murdoch finally wore you down, did she?"

Andrew smiled. "She barely let me get up out of bed before she brought the preacher in."

"She barely lets him get up out of bed even now…" cracked Theo.

Andrew crossed his arms and his grin became that of a cat with stolen cream on its whiskers. "Jealous?" he shot back.

Again, James' laughter verged on tears. This exchange was so utterly normal. It was brief glimpse of what life had been like, before the storm and it acted as a salve to his heart.

"My congratulations. There are so many changes…" James said. He noticed his friends' uniforms for the first time: Gillette still wore the blue-and-whites of a Royal Navy captain, but now-Captain Groves was wearing the colors of the East India Trading Company.

"When did that happen? James asked him, nodding at the uniform.

"Well, it was either this or try to convince the Admiralty that I wasn't actually dead." Theo's voice got very quiet. "At the time, it seemed like the better option, but honestly, I wish to Hell I hadn't."

"Why? What's been happening here?"

Gillette and Groves shared another speaking glance.

"Best if we discuss that tonight." said Theo, almost whispering.

It was past midnight at Sol-Se-Levant, and Laetitia, along with a few of the other girls, was helping to entertain a group of East India merchantmen who were giving a supper-party in one of the private dining rooms. This was, by far, her least favorite part of the job, and the company men just made it worse. They were all a bunch of loudmouthed parvenus, as far as she was concerned; their only saving grace was that they spent money like water.

And they were all too drunk to notice when Delilah slipped in and pulled Laetitia aside. "He's here."

"WHAT? Are you serious?"

"Came in today looking like a dog's arse, so they're saying, but maybe you can find out what really happened, 'cos no one else knows."

Laetitia started to fix her hair. "I can't believe it..." She nearly squeaked with excitement, and started for the door.

Delilah pursed her lips as she watched her friend fuss. "How many more times are you going to let that man break your heart?"

Laetitia's frantic actions stilled, and she gave her friend a sad smile.

"At least one more time, like always."