Prompt: One good deed. Originally posted 25/1/08. A Norrington double drabble...apologies for the title; I don't know why I thought it was a good idea =)
He had been so certain, once; so confident in the judgements he meted out, in his definitions of right and wrong, good and evil. Punishment he understood very well; redemption less so, while forgiveness…forgiveness was something reserved for those occasions when Elizabeth—Miss Swann—looked up into his face and made a laughing apology for some misdemeanour or forgotten appointment.
A lifetime of keeping the rules, that was what he had to his account; a lifetime of doing good in the eyes of men, of keeping to the code of morality and gentlemanly behaviour.
Then that pirate—not the best he's ever seen, but the most engaging—swaggered into his world…and a grey, hitherto uncharted land of middle paths and shadows opened up before him, step following step until at last, he did what he knew to be wickedness and the promise of redemption turned to ashes on his lips. He believes now that a man's life can turn on one deed, and he has been lost for so long; lost until a bright face and sharp words cut the mists about him, the steep road ahead becoming clear once more. What means of atonement is offered, he will take.