Our Destinies have always been entwined, Elizabeth. But never joined.
James Norrington awoke to the sound of gulls. The lapping of waves and the slow creaking and groaning of the ship he was stationed in.
One would wonder why a seasoned veteran such as the Admiral Norrington would be woken by such noises considering he had spend most of his growing and adult life living and sleeping in said types of vessels.
The answer would be that for the last few months, the vessel he had been assigned to didn't make those noises. The Flying Dutchman didn't have gulls flying overhead. Waves didn't seem to connect to the ship itself to make any noise and despite it's size and evident state of disrepair, the ghostly vessel never creaked, never groaned.
In fact the only actual sound the ship ever made was when the ships master went melancholy and started playing. The organ sounds that drifted up to the crew from down below breaking the oppressive silence up top sounded as if Satan himself was serenading Davy Jones from below the deep.
Which is why the minute he heard actual ship sounds, familiar ship sounds at that, his eyes opened and he looked up at a ceiling he hadn't stared up to in years. Having traveled, worked on and commanded said vessel for years, he would recognise those wood panels above his head anywhere.
The Dauntless.
The ship he had lost chasing after Sparrow so recklessly and single mindedly that it had brought about his disgrace and resignation from the one purpose he had always been so proud of accomplishing.
The Dauntless...
How?
Why?
What?
Questions raced through James mind as he tried to make sense of it. He had lost the Dauntless, it was publicly considered his biggest failure, even though James doesn't even put losing it in the top ten, considering the many ways he failed himself and others before and after he ran this ship through a hurricane in the reckless hubris of thinking he could catch a man like Jack Sparrow through sheer determination and will.
The rocking could almost convince him it was a dream. The gentle sloshing sounds lulled him as well, but it was when the singing started that he had to get up. That song was so familiar, yet it had been so long since he had heard it, especially in that tone and cadence, because that voice had matured and only grown more beautiful in the later years, and her singing had slowly stopped, because her beauty had taken over her voice as her most attractive attribute as she grew into a woman.
Elizabeth? On the Dauntless?
He was up and out of the cot in seconds, his marine training meant that he was conditioned to get out of bed and be ready to sail in under a minute, but that didn't mean he still didn't notice how he moved much more easily. He hurt less and was much more spry.
He felt youthful but there was no access to mirrors to confirm what he knew to already be true. Mirrors weren't really needed anyways because the voice had already confirmed it. And as now somehow once again, Lieutenant James Norrington took the stairs up to the bridge two at a time, he gazed up at the confirmation; a twelve year old Elizabeth Swann was leaning against the rails, singing
Yo Ho Yo Ho...
A Pirates life for me...
merrily as the wee hours of morning approached and he was lost. Because mere hours ago, he had just watched a grown, matured, jaded and so much more beautiful Elizabeth escape the Flying Dutchman while he was ran through with a sword by one of Jones' mindless crew members.
He was somehow back where it all began and he was at a loss for what to do. And she still sang, the future Pirate Lord who would Captain The Empress sang;
Yo Ho Yo Ho...
A Pirates life for me...
