When next James met Elizabeth she was a freshly minted Pirate Lord.
So fresh, in fact, that Sao Feng's blood was still wet upon her dress.
As the ragtag crew of Chinese pirates was brought aboard the Dutchman she stood out among them like a gold doubloon shining in a mud puddle, and James felt as though he was seeing a ghost. "Elizabeth?" he exclaimed, filled with such a powerful mixture of relief and dread that he wavered on his feet.
He'd been so very afraid that Jones had been telling the truth, and his former lover had been dragged to the bottom of the sea by the Kraken along with Jack Sparrow and the Pearl after they parted ways on the Isle las Cruces. Afraid—damn near certain—that he'd killed her. Beckett's assurances that Elizabeth had been seen in Singapore fell flat against the tide of his fears and guilt. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him, but for the acid look she paid him he reckoned it could be a fatal mistake.
Elizabeth's heart froze in her chest as she realized the decorated gentleman in all that blue and gold was James. She hardly recognized him, after the circumstances of their last acquaintance. She'd grown so used to his handsome face framed by long hair and a ruffian's beard that she almost forgot the clean cut gentleman that lay beneath.
"James." Her voice came flat. She been so cold for so long she hardly remembered how to properly express emotion. She was tired and hungry and had lost count of how many men she had killed since she and James Norrington parted ways.
One of which she'd even brought back from the land of the dead.
She looked over his uniform, the gold waistcoat and epaulettes on each shoulder with one dark brow raised imperiously. "Or should I call you Admiral Norrington now?"
Deciding this was a discussion meant for privacy, James wished to move things along, and demanded of the pirates, "Who is your captain?"
His heart fell to his feet when a multitude of grubby fingers pointed in Elizabeth's direction. Stubbornly she lifted her chin, daring James not to believe it.
Of course, she would make him eat his words of last time they'd met. It almost made him smile. It had been a long time since he'd had reason to.
"Take the crew of the Empress to the brig," ordered Admiral Norrington in a tone that brooked no room for disobedience. "The Captain shall come with me."
He gripped her arm to lead her in the direction of the companionway, a thrill racing through him to feel her solid flesh beneath his fingers, but Elizabeth fiercely wrenched free. "I would much rather stay with my crew."
"Later, if you prefer. We have matters to discuss."
"Is that what you said to my father before having him killed?" she spat, fire in her tone at last. The back of her throat clenched with tears she fought not to let free. Angrily, she choked them back. That bottomless fount came anytime she let herself feel a shred of emotion, about her father, about James, so she gladly chose to shove it all down and feel nothing at all. It came more easily to her than one might think.
James frowned, recoiling as though she'd slapped him. "What are you on about? Governor Swann has gone back to England."
With a glare sharp as daggers she shook her head. "I saw him. In the place between the living and the dead, I saw him drifting." Despite her best efforts, her voice cracked a little as she spoke of her father.
Once upon a time she would not have spouted such a tale, true as it was. But after ghost pirates, legendary sea monsters, and the existence of the very ship they stood upon, it seemed easy enough to present this testimony as credible.
She watched as those emerald green eyes darkened to nearly black, something surfacing on his stony face. Regret? It was hard to say. James was a master at hiding his emotions, especially when in military mode. "I did not know," he assured her, willing her to believe him. "I had nothing to do with it."
By the set of her jaw he was not sure if she took him for his word or not. The last thing he wanted to do, however, was air their dirty laundry on deck. "Come along," he said, leading her by her elbow once more. This time she let him.
James' cabin was hardly befitting of an Admiral, much smaller than the great cabin, though he'd deemed it less eerie than taking the sleeping quarters of Jones himself. The walls were crusted with barnacles and all manner of sea creatures. Entirely out of place, a wooden desk and two chairs clean of sea-detritus sat in the center of the room, and a cot was fixed in the corner, swaying on its ropes. Recent accommodations made especially for the human admiral, no doubt.
"You look half-starved," observed James bluntly. "Are you hungry?"
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. She was ravenous, but she'd be damned if she admitted it. "I'm fine, thank you."
He didn't believe her, but he knew there were more pertinent arguments he would need his strength for. "Would you care to sit?" he offered, waving to one of the chairs in the room.
"Not particularly."
So, she would be difficult.
With a weary sigh James himself decided propriety be damned, because he was exhausted, and fell down into the larger chair behind the desk. He tossed his hat onto the table, and the ridiculous horsehair wig too. He hated it as much as Elizabeth did, truth be told. It itched and was deuced hot. "So, I see you have achieved your lifelong wish of becoming a pirate captain. Is it everything you dreamed?" he sneered, clearly finding her situation less than desirable.
Narrowing her eyes at him, Elizabeth crossed her arms defiantly. "Actually, its Captain and Pirate Lord, if you must know." She did not see the merit of admitting she had only just earned the title, or that the Dutchman's attack upon the Empress had most likely saved her from rape at Sao Feng's hands. James proved her white knight again, and he didn't even know it. Perhaps she would keep it that way. She could hardly stand that insufferable smirk on his face after everything else.
"My. You have come up in the world," he said, waving to her strange attire.
She looked over his own shiny new uniform, and wrinkled her nose. "I'm afraid mustard yellow has never been your color, James." Casting a skeptical eye about the crusty cabin that smelled faintly of seaweed and rotting wood, she snarked, "And clearly this was worth betraying us all for?"
Betraying her rang unsaid.
Despite his best efforts, a savage pang stabbed at his heart for her accusation. Annoyed, he tried to bat it away. Hadn't she made her own bed in this matter? He'd offered her the chance to regain everything they had lost, security, a life together, and instead she'd chosen this.
She made her choice.
That was what he told himself at night, when he lay alone and the memory of her warm curves tucked up against him between the sheets came unbidden, haunting him without mercy. That was what he told himself when he imagined what it might be like to die at the tentacles of Jones' giant squid monster, the crushing force of slimy arms wrapped about you, dragging you to the dark cold depths of the Locker.
"It is a temporary posting, I assure you." His voice lacked the venom he would have liked to deliver, already growing weary of sniping with Elizabeth Swann. This reunion was a bloody miracle and all he wanted to do was take her into his arms.
"I'm sure it is. As soon as Beckett has had his use of you I'm sure he will see you go the way of my father. You've seen toomuch, no doubt."
The mention of Weatherby dealt the Admiral yet another blow. The kind old man had been like a father to James, far more than his own father had been, truth be told. The thought that he was no longer of this world left James feeling even less anchored in these uncertain times. "Tell me of your father," he requested quietly, eyes cast down. "How is it exactly that you said you know…"
Elizabeth sighed, a chill running down her spine. "I killed Jack," she admitted, winning a look of surprise from the stoic Admiral that almost made the admission worth it. "We went to World's End to fetch him back from Davy Jones' Locker. On the way home I saw Father, drifting…" She clenched her fists, willing herself not to cry in front of this man who had broken her heart so perfectly in two. "There was an endless sea of souls who had perished upon the ocean, waiting to be ferried to the other side. It is a task Davy Jones has abandoned in his…disappointment."
"Elizabeth, I am truly sorry. Had I known…"
A sad smile curled the corner of Elizabeth's full lips. "Had you known…what, James? What could you have done to stop it? You belong to Beckett now."
"I belong to the Royal Navy," James corrected. "Perhaps at the moment I am posted to escort the East India Trading Company, but it will not always be so."
At this Elizabeth actually laughed. "Indeed? Oh James, you have kept your sense of humor. Tell me another one."
James clenched his jaw, biting down on a plethora of nasty retorts that he knew he would only regret later. Instead he turned the tables on her, returning to a subject that seemed to make her squirm. "What's this about you killing Jack Sparrow?"
Of all the people in the world who wanted him dead, it seemed Elizabeth would be at the utmost bottom of the list.
Biting her lip in response, Elizabeth thought on how exactly to word what had gone on between she and Jack. In the end, she was too tired to tell anything but the truth. "You were right about him, in a way, I suppose," she sighed. "Jack was the Kraken's quarry, and when the beast came to claim him…I made certain he stayed with the Pearl while the rest of us escaped. Just after we parted ways on the Isle las Cruces."
Again James' eyebrows raised high, impressed and even unnerved by her ruthlessness. "And just how did you make certain?"
Elizabeth sighed, kicking at a knot in a plank. "I distracted him with a kiss and chained him to the main mast. It was surprisingly easy to do."
She did not mention that James' words had rung through her mind at that terrible hour. Why does Jack Sparrow's life always come before our own? She'd been so angry and so scared that she couldn't come up with an answer why. Only after Jack was gone did she realize she would do anything to bring him back, for reasons she still didn't completely understand. The world needed Jack Sparrow. Perhaps it really was simple as all that.
James ignored the brittle cadence of her last words, knowing too well that his betrayal had been the cause of her dark state of mind. "And yet you took the pains to retrieve him from his fate?"
A mysterious smile crossed her lips, and in that moment James' belly roiled with jealousy. "Yes," she simply answered, not caring to go any deeper into it than that.
James had a feeling that paltry explanation barely scratched the surface of Elizabeth's emotions regarding the Trickster Pirate, but he let it go. He didn't really want to know, now did he?
"A grand escapade, I'm sure."
It was all she ever wanted out of life. More than security, or love, or him, she'd wanted adventure.
"Too grand, maybe," she answered quietly, thinking of her father drifting in his little boat once more. "And the escapade is not yet done."
A long silence passed between them. When he finally spoke, James' tone matched hers as he asked, "Is heading a crew of dirty cut throats, living on bad food and in danger of annihilation at every moment really so much more desirable than it would have been to be my wife?" As he spoke these words he found he could not look at her, and so he fixed his gaze upon the wall, particularly on a barnacle that kept opening and closing its crusty maw.
"Being your wife was not what I objected to," she retorted, some fire returning to her voice, though she was equally unable to meet his gaze.
James sought to cover the unbearable ache at hearing that admission with sarcasm. "Ah yes. It was the gilded cage. Because I surely would have chained you to a chair in my absence and demanded you embroider me a hundred kerchiefs a day, or something equally sinister."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, and turned her back on James, making a show of inspecting the rest of the cabin. The chair looked inviting, but she would not give him the pleasure. Even more than the chair, the cot beckoned. She could not remember the last time she'd slept, and the berth looked surprisingly comfortable.
"You know nothing of what it's like to be a woman in society, James. It is a stifling existence at best. After tasting real freedom, I couldn't let it go. I will not apologize for that."
"Perhaps I know precious little about being a woman," he answered, a thread of heat entering his words. "But I do know something about duty, and honor, and obligation to those I love."
"Is that what you call abandoning me to the mercy of fish-men and pirates on the Isle las Cruces? I offered you a compromise in those Letters but you were greedy, James. The life of a privateer would not do. You wanted it all. I would not heel and so you left to give all the power of the sea to Beckett. Do not speak to me of honor or obligation."
"Does the fact that I wanted to see you safe and secure truly make me such a villain?"
She raised an eyebrow, some of her fire fading, seeming quite sad at that moment as she hugged herself against the damp chill in the cabin. "I was always safe with you," she argued, and the faith she'd had in him would have put him on the ground, had he not already been sitting.
He sounded very tired as he answered, "No you weren't, sweetheart. We were in danger every moment, and I knew it. The fact that you didn't …well. I thank you for the compliment of your confidence, but it's quite a burden to ask a man who loves you to bear indefinitely."
Elizabeth's next words came so quietly as she faced away from him that he almost missed them. "But we were so happy." Suddenly her fists clenched and she whirled, stalking to lean on the desk. She spat, "I've never been happier than when I was with you, James. And you were happy too. Don't you dare try to deny it."
For a moment James thought she might come over the desk at him, and he found himself leaning back in his chair before he regained his composure, frowning for this spit of a girl who unnerved him so. As a matter of pure self-defense he countered, "After a fashion, though I fear I would have been as content as a privateer as you would have been as a housewife."
A bitter smile curled the corner of her mouth. Royal Navy to the core, was her James. He could not shake the ingrained prejudice men in the service felt for privateers, it seemed. Not even for her. "Then it was me or you, eh? There was never any hope for us at all. Just ships passing in the night. How tragic."
"It doesn't have to be so," James found himself saying, attempting for nonchalance and failing grandly. His hands gave it all away, clenching and unclenching upon the desk. "It's not too late for us yet." Her bitter laughter struck him like a knife to the heart, making his next words come colder than he meant for them to. "Otherwise you will face the noose," he assured her.
"You could let us go," She said it lightly, as though it were a little joke between friends, testing the waters.
It was James' turn to chuckle bitterly.
"Indeed. Why not throw my career on the rocks again for you?"
Elizabeth shrugged a little. "It's how you won me last time."
This time James dared look at her, and she him. When their eyes met across the desk it was like the strike of lightning in Elizabeth's heart, a jolt that started a slow fire within her, thawing the parts of her soul thought long dead in the frozen cold. She wasn't exactly sure she wanted to feel these things, and she shot him a hostile look across the table.
Too late, for James saw something in her face. Something he hoped he recognized.
He reached for her hand, his long fingers wrapping around hers.
"Please don't make me watch you hang, Elizabeth." She felt so small in his grasp, even now, despite the look of exotic ferocity she wore about her. "It would destroy me. Again."
The freshly minted Pirate Lord huffed, attempting to snatch back her hand, annoyed by the utter thrill she still felt when he touched her. But James was too fast, his grip too strong.
"Elizabeth."
"Let me go," she growled, but he only stood, rounding the table to join her on the other side.
"I can't," he assured her, equally annoyed. "I've tried. But I can't let you go. Not in here." He pressed her hand over his heart, as he had that fateful night in Tortuga, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
"You had no problem on Isle las Cruces," she retorted, pounding his chest with her other fist none too gently.
He caught her other wrist as a matter of self-preservation; he didn't really fancy getting punched that night. "The hardest thing I've ever done. I thought I would let you make your own choice, but now I think I should have thrown you over my shoulder and taken you with me no matter what you said."
"Ha! As if you could have," she defied, pulling at her wrists with a surprising burst of strength.
Annoyed that she nearly freed herself, James put her hands behind her back, trapping her in the circle of his arms. His voice came low, shot through with a thread of heat, "Couldn't I?"
She flexed against his hold, but he may as well have been made of iron. Elizabeth's breathing quickened, and it had very little to do with fear. "Not indefinitely," she ground out. "Everyone has to sleep sometime, James. Even you." She was not a woman who could be kept against her will. If anyone, James should know.
Inadvertently his heart quickened for the subtle threat. For some inexplicable reason the thought titillated, and he would never understand this part of himself. His weakness for a woman like Elizabeth Swann, indomitable and infuriating. She was the most vexatious woman he'd ever met, and yet for some reason no other would ever do. "I find I can't believe your heart could ever be so black," he challenged. "Pirate Lord or no."
"It would serve you right," she hissed, even if she didn't exactly believe it.
The Admiral sensed a softening of her withering ire, even if just a bit. "Perhaps it would." A small smile curled at the corner of his mouth, and James pinned her against the edge of the desk, winning a gasp that wasn't exactly fueled by rage.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, though it didn't come out as hard as she would have liked.
In truth, James wasn't really sure. But he sensed he was getting somewhere with her, so he persisted, "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I was…angry. Devastated. I was convinced yet again that you didn't really love me. That you had used me. And that I had let you, like a puppet on the end of your strings, again."
Closing her eyes, Elizabeth bowed her head, knowing all too well that his fear was more than justified in regards to how she had treated James in the past. Her voice came as a ragged whisper. "I loved you, you know. Will was a childish infatuation. But you…you made me a woman, James, and I loved you with all my heart."
"And now?"
And now the sight of him hit her like a fist to the gut, and simultaneously made her want to run into his arms, hide against his chest, and not come out of that steadfast shelter until all the monsters had gone. And she despised that weakness in herself. That desire to let him be the hero.
She wanted to be her own hero.
She was not a princess to be put in a tower. If left in the castle, she would wither and die, like a flower deprived of the sun.
"And now I hate you," she spat, hoping to save herself from this embarrassing weakness. His long body was pressed against hers and all she wanted to do was wrap herself around him. "So if you would let me go to the brig with the rest of my men, it would be most kind."
She'd tried to hate him, God knew. She'd been furious of how he'd left her, left them all, taking the heart for himself. And yet after everything that had happened between them…she couldn't blame him for wanting his life back, and for not trusting her, and for a thousand other things. Only when she'd thought he had a hand in her father's death did she think it possible to truly hate James Norrington. But she found that she believed him when he said he had nothing to do with Weatherby's death. She could see it in his eyes.
James did not believe her, of course. He knew her now. Their time in Tortuga had shown him all her flaws, all her thorns. And somehow, her qualities only shined all the brighter for it. Her bravery, intelligence, and indomitable spirit. No longer an idealization, a vague idea of what Miss Swann might be like. Elizabeth was a study in contradiction, a woman made of soft curves but also claws and teeth.
"This would be easier if we could hate each other, wouldn't it?" he mused aloud. "If we could just be enemies..."
"I am fairly certain we are enemies, Admiral Norrington. I'm a pirate, and you're an officer of the Royal Navy. And apparently also a cad, which is a new development for you. Would you get off of me?"
She could not think past the wanting of him, with his body so close after so long. She struggled a little more, which really only made matters worse for both of them. James groaned and released her hands, but only so he could lift her onto the desk with hands upon her thighs. He simply could not stop himself from touching her, it seemed.
It wasn't exactly an improvement—Elizabeth fought not to immediately wrap her legs about his waist and pull him closer to her. James seemed to have the same idea when his hand strayed behind her knee, hooking her leg around his hip as he pressed himself against her.
"I seem to remember you used to like it when I acted the cad," he mused, his voice now thick with desire. "I certainly never had any luck playing the gentleman with you."
How true that was.
His weight pressed into her, his large body surrounding hers. Most men she could look in the eye without travail, but she had to crane her neck for James, whether to meet his gaze, or to receive a kiss… It was the latter he seemed to have in mind, and only at the last moment was she able to turn away.
James was not deterred, kissing the length of her neck instead, making her insides melt. She had thought she would never know his kisses again, and yet somehow here they were. Fate was a fickle bitch, more often than not, but sometimes she took mercy on the mortals who danced at the ends of her threads.
"Don't you think it's a bit late for all this?" She attempted for sangfroid but her words came across decidedly warmer.
"I don't know," he answered in a murmur against the base of her ear, kissing the skin there lightly. "For a woman who claims hatred of me you're making a poor show of it." His large hand slid into her hair, tilting her head back just so. The way that drove her mad, and he knew it too.
It was only then that she seemed to remember her hands were free, and she lifted them slowly, uncertain as what to do with them. A slap could have been dramatic. A shove, perhaps slightly more useful. He waited patiently for her to make up her mind, still as a stone, as though he would accept her decision and turn the other cheek besides.
Finally, she placed her hands upon the golden brocade of his waistcoat, smoothing her hands over his chest. She trembled a little, knowing she lost a little face every moment she couldn't stop herself from touching him back. "God damn you," she finally sighed. "Will you take off this ridiculous coat?" It was bulky and possessed a ludicrous amount of gold braid, gilded buttons, and of course the Admiral's epaulettes. She felt she could hardly see him beneath the thing.
He did not smirk or gloat over the victory, a gentle smile curling his lips. "Gladly, my lady." He shrugged out of the garment and immediately wrapped his arms around her again, his large hands on her waist making her dizzy with want. When he lowered his lips to hers she did not fight him, and he captured her mouth with a kiss that positively melted her bones, his tongue stroking hers possessively. When at last he pulled back he left her breathless, slumped back against the desk as though he'd robbed her of her bones. "Marry me," he demanded, somehow able to invoke the authority of an order into the softness of a whisper. "Let me protect you, Elizabeth. Let me love you."
"I can't," she whimpered, as he leaned down to claim her lips again. "I won't. There's a game afoot now that is larger than you and I, and I won't turn my back to it."
"What game? The sanctity of Piracy?" he hissed against her skin, his grip upon her tightening uncomfortably for just a moment in his frustration.
"No, James. Freedom. It's the only thing really worth fighting a war over."
"Freedom is a myth, Elizabeth. Everyone is a slave to something."
"Indeed? And what are you a slave to, James Norrington?"
"As if you don't already know. You Elizabeth Swann. The master of my heart is you."
Her breath hitched as his kisses travelled down her chest, skirting the top of her breast. His strong hands upon her thighs made her dizzy with desire. She fought not to smile as he sent all manners of objects flying to the floor with a sweep of his arm, so that he could properly lay her down. And she fought not to laugh as he frowned down at the closures of her odd Chinese costume, clearly trying to figure out where the devil to start at getting her out of it.
God, how she loved this man.
She knew his every little expression, and even in his arrogance she found him beautiful. What strange magic was love, to taint the mind so. What madness it caused in an otherwise sound judgement.
"Do you really prefer death to this?" he asked, sliding her skirts up her thighs, having given up on attempting the knotted cord buttons at her throat. There were short cuts that seasoned lovers could take, and this night he simply could not wait. "To me? To us?"
A small smile curled her lips, and she wrapped her legs around James' waist, pulling him closer. The feel of him already hard and ready against her was enough to make her head spin. She wanted him, now, and didn't want to talk in circles anymore. "Perhaps I don't believe you could hang me."
James gave a frustrated growl as he braced himself to lean down to capture her lips once more.
Cheeky pirate wench.
Of course, she was right, and it irked him that she knew her exalted place in his heart so well. He hated her and loved her in that moment, and he didn't understand how it was possible for one woman to inspire such warring and heated emotions in his heart.
He decided they needn't speak anymore, at least for a little while. As he plied her with kisses his other hand travelled down between them, finding her center already molten and slick with wanting.
At least that part of her could not lie to him.
Without further preamble he undid the buttons of his placket, releasing himself from his breeches. When he teased her with the tip of his head Elizabeth sighed, rolling her hips against his swollen member, straining for more. With the knowledge of a lover who had engaged in this sacred act with her umpteen times before, he knew that she wanted him, and it was enough permission for James to bury himself inside her.
"Oh James," she moaned, her head thrown back against the desk. Her sex was so hot and snug about him, and his name on her lips like that…James nearly came right there. But after a few moments he regained control of himself, and began to move, his thumb upon that tender knob of flesh between her legs that made her pant and moan and clench her walls around him. He played her expertly, a virtuoso in bringing forth the most thrilling sensations from her body. Perhaps in this way alone, she belonged to him.
She said things like "Please" and "Faster" and "There, right there!" and he followed her direction as though she were the ranking officer in this cabin. She came with a throaty cry, and fascinated he watched her writhe in ecstasy beneath him. Her long legs and strong body wrapped and pulsed tightly around him, and James followed close behind her, spilling his seed deep inside her channel with a mighty groan.
Utterly spent, he collapsed on top of her, their heavy breathing almost deafening in the silence of the cabin. When finally Elizabeth felt she could move she ran her fingers through James' dark hair, shorn short again so that his wig would fit. She kissed him tenderly, but still said nothing of his offer.
James scooped her up in his arms, carrying her to the hanging berth, where with a little practiced effort they curled up together to doze, swaying with the waves. Let them find us James thought to himself. Davy Jones kept his heart in a chest. I gave mine to Elizabeth Swann, and she will have it ever more.