A/N: This scene almost made it into CTW (well, I didn't write it back then, but it easily could've been part of it, but for pacing I didn't write it), and it's something I've wanted to write since starting this little collection of extras. Set immediately after the sacking of Port Royal - when James first returns home and finds the house ransacked.
Anyway this goes out to the folk on Tumblr who are consistently Not Normal about Norrington with me, because it keeps me here writing this without tiring lolol.
To say that the world began to crash down upon James when he strode up the pathway to his home and found the window to the sitting room utterly obliterated would be a woeful understatement. Only a lifetime of action pushed him into action rather than following the urge to stand, stare, and panic.
It was only the knowledge that he could not handle a sword if his hands were cut to ribbons that had him barrelling through the front door rather than the window - driving a foot hard through the panel of wood just below the lock so that he needn't spend time fiddling with keys. Doors could be repaired, people could not, and time might be of the essence here.
His sword had not left his hand since he'd begun to make progress through the island, too mindful of stay brigands that may be lurking in the foliage. But he'd never considered that they might come this far inland, straying so far from their ship and risking the possibility of being left behind when their ilk fled. James knew pirates, and he knew their so-called code. They'd be more than happy to leave one of their brothers behind so long as it suited them. He never could have foreseen this.
He should have been here.
Later, given time and calm, he might reflect on that thought - and the light in which it cast his priorities and how they were changing since his charge had drifted into his life with her clever comments and knowing smiles.
Whatever hopes he had of their interest in the house extending only to putting rocks through the windows were dashed when he saw the ground floor in disarray, his shoes crunching through glass and broken china as he moved swiftly throughout the house, eyes wide and sword raised. He heard nothing. No screams, no cries, no struggle. It did nothing to ease his mind. In fact, it only made him dread all the more what he might find when he reached the top of the stairs - but despite that dread, he took them two at a time.
He did not call out - he didn't want to alert any remaining intruders to his presence more than was completely necessary. His heart leapt from his throat to his mouth when he reached the top of the stairs and saw the corpse lying on the floor of Theodora's bedroom doorway, the frame of which was splintered, bathed in blood and moonlight. Yes, he was dead. But he recognised him - and he knew not if he'd been alone, nor what he'd managed to do before he'd been felled. His throat had been reduced to little more than an open mess of a wound. Had Theodora done this? Could she have done this? Surviving in the wild was one thing, but this was quite another - and it was more likely, to James' eye, that the brigand had not come here alone, and that he had run afoul of a partner in crime.
Whatever suspicions he had about what had or had not happened mattered little, for there was one thing that was fact. They'd been in Theodora's bedroom, and they had entered by force. And there was so much blood.
His progressed slowed, favouring stealth over speed, more and more of the bedroom being revealed to his eye with each step he took. The bed was unoccupied - the covers rumpled but not unmade. And however much blood was flowing out into the hallway, there was more in the room itself - splattered and smeared. There had been a hell of a skirmish here, and witnessing but a shred of the aftermath had James' chest feeling like it was caving in on itself.
Depending on what he found next, he knew he might never forgive himself for not being here to stop it.
Another step forward, and then a blur of white and crimson whirled from around the doorway, a blade held aloft, glinting in the pale moonlight streaming in from the bedroom window. Instinct had James lifting his blade and disarming them - but, thank God, not inflicting any harm in return. For it was Theodora, clad in a nightdress which was positively dripping blood. It took a minute for him to register that the rest of her was, too - her hands, her bare feet (thanks to the puddle she'd had to step through to attack what she clearly thought would be another assailant) and…her face. Her face bothered him most of all, for the blood there was so clearly her own - her eyebrow and her lip both split open and streaming steadily until she looked like some terrible spectral figure from a nightmare.
James stared at her in horror as the huge knife she'd wielded clattered to the floor. Behind her, Hattie stepped hesitantly into view - entirely unbloodied and unharmed. One hardly needed to be a genius to realise what had happened. The finer points he would need to untease, and part of him dreaded doing so, but he knew Theodora more than well enough to know she would have flung herself into the line of fire for the younger woman. He should have been here. Or men - he could have spared one. Perhaps two. He could have sent them here the moment he first heard the cannonfire. He could have stopped this. Prevented it.
His horror shone on his face before he could catch it - before he could think better of it, knowing it would hardly make her feel better. Theodora saw him, and then she truly saw him, registering that she was safe, and then her shoulders slumped and her face crumpled. Stepping forth before he'd even made up his mind to do so, and before he could think better of it given his shameful behaviour the previous night, James sheathed his sword and extended his arms towards her. She all but stumbled into them.
Hattie's own relief was stark on her face as she watched from the sidelines, and he knew then that there were no other assailants in the house. Catching her eye, he shot a pointed look to the corpse at their feet and then to the top of Theodora's head as she sobbed into his shirt. The maid understood his meaning immediately, thank God, and shook her head. His grip on Theodora tightened as she trembled in his arms, leaning into him but still tense as steel, fighting even now to collect herself and rein in her emotions.
He hushed her in a manner that he hoped might be soothing, and tried not to feel ashamed for the odd sense of gratification that washed over him at how dearly she clung to him. It meant little - after her ordeal, she'd likely cling to the likes of Gillette thus. Or Groves. The way the second scenario discomfited him was something he beat fiercely back in favour of squeezing her shoulders, doing his best to toe the line between being a gentleman, and not being the biggest unfeeling lout known to man.
It would be a lie, too, if he pretended that her upset was all he had in mind as he returned her hold, however keenly aware he was of Hattie's eyes on them. For a moment he'd thought that perhaps she…
"You are safe," he said, wondering if she'd even be able to hear him over her own ragged breaths "It is over."
She could have come to greater harm so dreadfully easily. It felt callous to think such a thing as she currently stood bleeding onto his waistcoat, but he'd seen enough in his life, and enough of this lout's crimes, to know how much worse it could have been. It took concerted effort for him to swallow whatever questions he had then. Demands to know why she had not hidden - or fled, rather than fight. Demands that, deep down, he knew were not entirely reasonable.
Nor was the urge to draw his sword and plunge it through the eye of the body on the floor for good measure.
"Come away from this," whether he was speaking of the body, the blood, or memories that this room would no doubt now always hold for her, he did not know "We will tend your wounds downstairs."
"The windows," her words were clumsy thanks to the state her lip was in, and she winced as the shake of her head brought her face brushing against his coat "He smashed the windows to get in - I heard. It's too…it's too open. Too exposed."
After only a slight hesitation, he lifted a hand and clasped it over her right where it was bundled in his coat, like she feared he might pull away and run at any given moment. It was tacky with drying blood, and it was freezing. From the shock, likely, for he doubted her trembling was much to do with any non-existent chill in the air. They would have to warm her up, all the same. And he found some shred of hope in how his grasp seemed to soothe her somewhat.
"The threat is past," he said firmly "And I am here."
