Chapter Text
James Norrington, the Caribbean’s unluckiest man, feels that in his ten-year absence, someone should have relieved him of the title.
All that time ago, Lord Cutler Beckett pardoned and restored him to rank and society, but Norrington turned down the offer of a promotion. He returned to England, beautifully mundane and lonely England, and served the Crown in a localized, administrative role, drawing from his experience abroad to improve the build and training regimens of the ships under his command.
Compared to the exciting early years of his career, one could say that Commodore Norrington had settled for comfort over prestige—but Norrington feels there is great, tangible satisfaction in what he accomplished without a sword in hand. Some of his life’s greatest work had come to fruition in a dry dock. He stood on the deck of one of those ships one night, anchored in the Downs, lanterns doused, his men awaiting command. The whites of their eyes gleamed by the moonlight. A French invasion creeping up the Channel shortly fled at the mere glimpse of England’s military might, and the night was won without a single shot fired.
War had been bubbling through Europe for years. As the prospect grew closer to English soil, Norrington decided he did not want to fight.
He had been a premiere pirate hunter, relished and took pride in his work; he had fought the supernatural, survived against undead men who could not be killed; he outsmarted the most cunning of foes and carried a still-beating heart across the Caribbean to his reward of a stable career. Yet scaring off the French fleet had filled him with relief: not glory, not satisfaction, but relief that he would not have to fight, would not have to die, in a battle over a foreign throne. It would be glorious, certainly, but it would not mean anything.
Norrington took leave, knowing it meant his command would be reshuffled, his hard work dispersed through the Navy. In all those ten years, he had avoided thinking about the Caribbean, the stretch of sea and isle home to both his fondest and most tortured years. But he had taken leave, and gone to the port authority on a whim, and before he knew it, he was boarding a merchant vessel heading south to those green, glassy waters.
And the ship had been set upon by pirates, whereupon his cabin was struck by cannon fire and he was tossed through smoke and cinder directly into the ocean, body miraculously unharmed and pride promptly shattered.
James Norrington in England is a successful commodore; James Norrington in the Caribbean is an unlucky fool.
He draws a great breath and plunges beneath the waves. The belly of the merchant ship has been wrenched open; cargo spills out with a torrent of bubbles, and the other passengers who had fallen into the water kick frantically for the surface. Above, cannons thunder in muffled glory, ringing in Norrington’s ears as he swims down to free a struggling sailor from some debris.
By chance, he sees his sea chest painted with its identifying yellow stripe floating to the ocean floor with the other cargo. The pang in his chest is not only from the lack of air.
He swims up and away, surfacing not with the great splash and gasp he yearns for, but a quiet, deep inhale, his chin barely above the water. It is best not to be spotted. Norrington seizes a drifting plank and grasps onto it, careful to kick with his feet below the surface. When he is safely floating, he takes a moment to catch his breath, wipe the salt from his eyes, push his drenched hair from his face, and turn to assess the situation.
The pirate ship is under fire from the other side, though Norrington can see neither the flag nor hull of the savior ship. They could just as easily be another pirate crew coming to pick from the carrion. A jungled island lurks behind the ships and smoke. He could swim that distance easily when he was younger; now, on the verge of 40 years, he must consider his limits, and whether the risk is worth taking through active naval warfare.
So concerned is Norrington with the hypothetical that he does not hear the longboat approaching, and cannot duck from the oar that strikes him in the back of the head. He hears a startled gasp before the world goes black, and he sinks.
After some time he is distantly aware of being hauled aboard the boat, then lifted to the deck of a larger vessel. The splashing and groaning around him indicates that his fellow passengers had been rescued, as well, and when he tries to draw a breath of relief, he instead vomits seawater.
Painfully, Norrington flops onto his side. A woman stands over him, placing a dry wool blanket upon him as he coughs violently. He turns halfway on his back to glimpse her, to thank her, to ask where they are.
Those thoughts leave his mind the instant he looks up. The afternoon sun halos the woman’s brown-gold hair, plaited and wrapped serviceably down her back. Her face is cast in shadow at this angle, but Norrington does not need to see her fully to recognize her.
“Elizabeth?” he manages to say past his salted tongue.
“James Norrington.” Elizabeth Swann crouches before him. She smiles and chases his lingering cold away. “Why is it that I always find you in the worst places?”
“Bad luck,” he rasps. “God knows I bear misfortune like a curse.”
He coughs again, and she pats him firmly on the back between his shoulders.
“Come; I’ve brandy in the back.”
Elizabeth helps him to stand. She walks confidently down the deck, Norrington following placidly as a duckling. He shivers despite the warm weather and wraps the blanket around himself. They sail upon a handsome two-masted sloop, quick and shallow-drafted to cut through the waves. She is lightly armed—two nine-pounders and two swivels—and the guns are still smoking in the wake of their battle.
Unphased, Elizabeth adjusts a sail, nods to the helmsman, and slips into the captain’s cabin below the quarterdeck. The cabin has tall windows providing what normally must be an excellent view from the sloop’s rear, though presently obscured by smoke. A bench runs around the interior, and though it finds occupation as a makeshift shelf, several cushions indicate that it indeed is employed as a seat on occasion. A wide, sturdy table laden with maps sits in the center of the cabin; a small bedchamber is sectioned off with a bulkhead to the side.
Elizabeth gestures for Norrington sit on the bench. She turns to pull a bottle of brandy from a cabinet and pushes it into his hands. He drinks straight from the bottle, and when he passes it back, she does the same. Heat burns welcomely down his throat, searing away the gritty salt and sitting like embers in his stomach.
Norrington pushes his hair from his face and freezes. It is only now that he realizes how odd this situation is. He glances at Elizabeth with a furrowed brow, taking in her appearance: a decade in the sun has weathered and warmed her skin; her face is leaner, accentuating the abrupt line of her jaw; her posture is elegant still, though she sits at the desk with a new, confident sort of ease; she wears unremarkable clothing, leather stays and practical petticoats, the common materials and cut belying their fine tailoring.
The gaze with which she scrutinizes him is sharp as it ever was, cunning and calculating. When they last spoke, he had been disgraced and desperate, and he had betrayed her. She should be furious with him, but she seems to regard him as a half-drowned, harmless old friend.
Norrington wonders if she knows. He opens his mouth and shuts it. He cannot think of where to start, and says smartly, “Thank you.”
“I hit you over the head with an oar; this is the least I could do.”
Perhaps that explains his confusion.
“Where were you headed?” Elizabeth asks, crossing one leg over the other.
“Kingston. I thought Port Royal would be…” Painful.
Elizabeth nods. Nothing further needs to be said.
“That was not a Navy ship that went down, so what is your business in Jamaica, Commodore?” She props her chin on her fist, eyes glittering. “Or…is it finally Admiral now? Lord High Admiral, perhaps?”
Norrington chuckles softly. “Just James, if you would be so kind.”
“James.” Elizabeth smiles. “A pleasure.”
“And—and you?” He curses the thickness of his tongue. “This is your ship, it seems? Should I call you Captain?”
“Nothing so drastic as that. I have the pleasure of introducing you to the Wayfarer.” She gestures to the cabin, and her smile takes on a more prideful sincerity. “She is mine, but Mrs. Rook is far safer a title than Captain these days. However, following your precedent, Elizabeth is appropriate. Preferred, even, from you.”
Not Mrs. Turner, nor Miss Swann? Norrington swallows the inquiry the moment it occurs to him. “My congratulations on your marriage, Elizabeth, however belated,” he says politely instead. “I pray it has been felicitous.”
“Oh, it’s complicated,” she says, waving a hand. Her wedding band gleams in the low light. “But—ah, let us dock and get somewhere private before I tell all.”
Norrington’s eye trails past her to the bay out the window. He has lost all bearing and does not recognize the port. “Where do we make anchor?”
Elizabeth is already standing, pulling a coat over her shoulders without putting her arms through the sleeves. “You’ll see soon enough,” she says.
The disgruntled rescues of the wreck disembark first, staggering away to find passage or lodging. Elizabeth lingers to speak to her two crewmembers as Norrington acquaints himself with the harbor.
The sun is shining bright, and his eyes burn from the salt and brandy alike; while he reels, some distant, well-trained part of his mind notes that the docks are well-kept and tidy, defendable. The surrounding trees have been cut back and trimmed to provide shade and protection without crowding the shore. Though oddly, beyond the Wayfarer, the piers are scarcely populated, lacking even the customary crowds of fishing boats. The harbormaster’s stall is shut up despite the early afternoon hour.
Elizabeth joins him on the gangplank, wiping her hands on her apron. “Well,” she says, “shall we?”
Norrington instinctively offers her his arm, though she must lead the way. Elizabeth pauses with an expression he cannot place. It has been ten years, he reminds himself, and they might as well be strangers. He has been too forward.
Awkwardly, he rescinds his arm. “Is something the matter?”
“No. I forgot how proper you are, is all.”
Elizabeth slips her arm into his, removing his lingering doubt to slot confusion in its place, and leads them up the main street of the harbor town.
She keeps a brisk, athletic pace as she did in their youth. Her company and the quaint size of the town put Norrington in the mind of Port Royal, with its tall clutter of battered wooden buildings and military fortifications long abandoned to time and weather. This alone cannot account for the creeping suspicion that he has been here before. They pass a tavern, the Faithful Bride, sleepy rather than rowdy at this time of day, and Norrington recognizes the name with a jolt of dread.
“Elizabeth,” he says, low, “this is Tortuga.”
Elizabeth squeezes his arm. “I humbly welcome you ashore,” she says, looking staunchly ahead. “The governor looks the other direction regarding our business; it is a shame, considering how well the town has cleaned up.” Her expression sobers as they round a corner. She examines the empty street and presses her lips into a thin line.
“That would explain the decided lack of wanton revelry, then,” Norrington says. “Where is everyone?”
“That’s a good question,” she murmurs.
Elizabeth does not elaborate, and Norrington does not pursue. His skin prickles with unease.
Tortuga is set against a hill, organized in cliffside layers. The businesses occupy the lowest rungs, where the smugglers and gougers and hard-to-do merchants do their deeds in the privacy of the winding streets. The residences are set above, both for safety and quiet.
They climb the hill to a quieter, more private inn named the Rook & Shrike, far enough from the water to avoid the sour smell of the harbor, but not so far the waves are inaudible. The building’s façade is charming, with a shingled roof, columned wraparound porch, and fragrant flowering hibiscus bushes; in contrast, its architrave is pinned with the skeletons of small songbirds all down its sides, as though the titular shrike has been hunting nearby.
“Home sweet home,” Elizabeth says, drawing Norrington around the porch. “I should introduce you to the owner of the Rook here before we get you settled.”
This would be her Mr. Rook, then? They enter not through the common room of the inn, but the side entrance to the private quarters of the proprietors. Elizabeth bustles him through the halls into a sitting room towards the back of the building.
She announces upon entry, “Father, you’ll never believe what I fished up.”
Weatherby Swann sits in a sunny seat in the oriel. He looks up from his book with a frown, and his jaw falls agape as he recognizes her catch.
“Commodore Norrington!” he greets, hastening to his feet.
Norrington snaps his own jaw shut and inclines his head politely, lacking a hat to tip. “Governor Swann,” he returns, genuine affection succeeding his surprise.
“Oh, I am governor no longer, my boy. A mere innkeeper,” Swann says with a wave of his hand, neglecting to acknowledge that Norrington is no longer a boy either. “It is good to see after all these years; I pray they have been kind?”
“As they could be. I hope the same for you, sir. Your establishment is lovely.”
Swann stands and they grasp forearms tightly, both grinning.
“It is all thanks to Elizabeth, don’t let her tell you otherwise,” he says warmly, looking to his daughter. She rolls her eyes, not without affection, and perches on the other side of the oriel seat. “Oh, where are my manners? Let me fetch some refreshments. I’m afraid I’m not much of an innkeeper, either—though, in this matter, I can serve,” Swann adds, already stepping away.
“Father, no. Let Estrella get that. Or me.” Elizabeth makes to stand as well, but he sets a hand on her shoulder, keeping her in place.
“I can bring my daughter and friend tea, Elizabeth, do not think me so incompetent.”
She glances at Norrington, perhaps asking for his aid, but he quickly looks aside. His entire body roils at the indecency of a governor serving him tea—a governor! serving him tea!—but the feeling is nothing compared to his primordial aversion to intruding upon a family argument.
Swann smiles at Norrington as he exits. He looks frailer now than Norrington had originally observed, aged beyond the years that have passed: his clothes are as fine as Elizabeth’s but hang loosely, as though he has lost a lot of weight at once, and his hair is fully gray even in lieu of a grand wig. He walks slowly and uncertainly into the hall and around the corner.
Norrington had heard the governorship in Port Royal turned over shortly after he returned to England but never investigated the matter further; the Navy had ceded much power in the region to the East India Company, and little information was readily available. While Norrington is glad the governor is alive and seemingly thriving, he mourns the loss of his health with feeling.
Elizabeth watches her father step from the room with careful eyes. Once he is gone, she sighs. “We have much to discuss,” Elizabeth says, patting Swann’s now-vacant seat on the oriel.
Norrington obliges. “I am at your disposal.”
“Do you still intend to return to Jamaica? We should settle your transportation first and foremost.”
“That is very kind,” he says, uncertain, “but in truth, I am not here on business. I was not sure what I would do in Kingston.”
“Why, don’t tell me you sailed all the way here just to see the sights.”
“Perish the thought.”
“You will stay, at least, to see what Tortuga offers?”
Elizabeth shifts and tucks a hair behind her ear, a motion so casual, so nonchalant, that he had seen a thousand times before and taken for granted.
“I believe I will,” Norrington says. He ventures less certainly, “I will have to lean on your kindness further. My possessions—”
“Oh, damn. Lost in the attack, of course. Dry off for now; we will see to replacing your clothes tomorrow.”
To set the example, Elizabeth takes off her coat and drapes it over a nearby chair. Norrington is all too aware of his squishing boots and damp waistcoat, his shirt bunched uncomfortably under his arms and drying stiff with salt. He hesitates—but propriety has already been escorted from the room, if not the entire island.
His boots are set in a patch of sunlight, coat laid across a chaise, neckcloth hung among the curtains. He unbuttons his waistcoat and leaves it on, unwilling to shed that final layer to his shirtsleeves, and pointedly ignores the amused quirk of Elizabeth’s lips.
“My father’s manners are slipping, you may have noticed,” she says. “Once, he would have insisted an unmarried man and woman would need a chaperone—lest one of us coerce the other into undressing.”
Norrington frowns. “Unmarried?”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry.” Elizabeth twists her ring off, holding it up to him. It is a simple band of plain, worn steel. She sets it on the nearby table. “It keeps the vultures away. A married woman, however estranged or elusive her husband is, is less prey than an unmarried girl with ruined prospects. Mr. Rook is a farce—though officially he is lost at sea.”
Of course. She runs her own inn; she would need the freedom of marriage. Why, then, does he feel such relief? Elizabeth leaves the ring on the table as she leans back, watching him expectantly.
“I suppose I could have guessed. An auspicious change, to go from swan to rook,” he jests. “Or are you the shrike?”
“I think you can guess. And what of you, James? Are you still the persistent hawk, chasing after prey?” Elizabeth asks, eyebrows raised.
“Nothing so grand. I have been doing clerical work in Whitehall, mostly. As the sedentary partridge, I’ve not been farther than the Mediterranean in years.”
“That surprises me, I must admit.”
“Does it?”
“You are not one to sit idle. It was not Port Royal without the good Captain Norrington racing somewhere or other for our protection. I hear the sound of those harbor bells in my dreams.”
“There are not so many pirates braving the English Channel. In some ways, it was…welcome. The tedium of payroll and requisition reports is a harder battle than most sailors are willing to fight.”
Elizabeth chuckles. “I know the battle well now,” she says fondly. She glances at him from the side of her eyes and adds, “It also surprises me you, too, didn’t marry.”
It had not been for a lack of opportunity. Upon his return, young mysterious Commodore Norrington, of prestigious Navy breeding, whose record was sterling no longer but tarnished with adventure and bravery, was considered a fine match among the ladies of London society. Several valiant attempts had been made to woo him into proposing to women of varying fortune and reputations, but Norrington found himself reluctant. He made excuses; he avoided dances and dinners, more and more as he aged; he made friends, careful never to show favoritism; he did not fall in love.
It would have brought him stability; it would have made him happy. Yet all he had done in the Caribbean had left a wound in him, and he did not think marriage would heal it.
Norrington has paused too long. Elizabeth tilts her head in silent inquiry. He gathers himself again and says, “It was never the right time.”
“Ah.” Elizabeth looks to her ring. “Yes. I understand. I didn’t mean to—”
Governor Swann bustles in then, the tray of silver and china in his arms chiming and singing. Norrington leans back from Elizabeth reflexively, like a child caught trespassing, though nothing untoward had occurred.
“Here you are,” Swann says jovially. He sets the tray upon the table before them carefully. “I’ve coffee in the kitchen if you still prefer it, Norrington, but I trust this will do?”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, G—sir, this is more than kind,” Norrington says. “Will you join us?”
“Oh, no. I will rest upstairs a bit before service tonight. Perhaps we can chat over dinner?”
“I look forward to it.” Norrington stands to bow properly and convey his thanks.
Swann smiles fondly and leaves the room. Elizabeth is already nursing her own cup of tea, her legs drawn up and tucked comfortably beneath her. She has poured Norrington a cup as well; it waits on the tray, prepared the way he has taken it for almost all his life—milk, no sugar.
She remembered. Something turns in his chest. Norrington holds the fine porcelain cup with excessive delicacy and takes small, grateful sips.
“Comfortable? Good,” she says. “I imagine we will be talking for quite a while.”
“I do have questions. And suspicions.”
Elizabeth smiles at him over the edge of her cup. “So long as you don’t mind an audience.” Her eyes flick to the opposite wall of the parlor. “Father listens in when I entertain business, and though I would hope he maintains some level of shame when it comes to more…private relations.”
Distantly, from another room, Norrington hears a clatter, then a curse, then the quiet sound of Swann’s footsteps retreating up the stairs. He meets Elizabeth’s eyes and they both laugh, exchanging a knowing look.
Though awkwardness still lingers, it has mostly been dispelled, and Norrington feels he can sit more easily. “Tell me what happened, then,” he says. “Tell me how you came here.”
Elizabeth sums up the relevant events from the war on piracy ten years ago, with a casual bluntness that belies their gravity. She sailed with Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa, back from the dead, to free the seas from the reign of Cutler Beckett and the tyranny of Davy Jones; reconvened the Brethren Court of pirate lords in their impenetrable fortress to fight back; was captured by Beckett en route, and sentenced to death; broke herself and her father from the brig in the midst of a battle in the heart of a maelstrom, the kraken raging beneath them.
Here, Elizabeth pauses and turns her face away for the first time, staring out the window. Her eyes see not the sunny jungle behind the inn, but a pitched battle upon untamable waves, fresh to mind as the day it occurred. Her posture has remained relaxed through the conversation, but Norrington tracks the way her finger nervously runs around the rim of her tea cup.
“It was chaos,” she says at length. “Beckett’s ship was broken by the kraken. We were on the ship not an hour before it was ripped apart. I had nothing but hatred for the man, but that had to be a terrible way to die. “
Norrington had his own experience foundering in a hurricane. His throat sticks shut, and he does not trust himself to speak. He refreshes her tea, silently encouraging her on.
“His armada was not directed to engage us. They asked for the leaders of the pirates in exchange for mercy for the rest, not wanting to prolong the fight, I suppose. The pirates named us the architects of this war—Barbossa, Sparrow, Swann. And I suppose we were, each for our own reasons.”
“No,” Norrington says, a useless, knee-jerk defense.
Elizabeth shrugs. “Yes. Death doesn’t stick to the other two as well as it would me. Father arranged for my trial to happen in Port Royal, but he couldn’t control the outcome. The rope was around my neck, executioner’s hand on the lever, when I told them I was pregnant.
“I wasn’t,” she says, to his startled look. “But the judge could not prove that, nor could he execute me so long as doubt remained. He exiled me instead.”
“And you came here?”
“And we came here.”
Norrington sighs. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
“Sorry won’t change what happened,” she says lightly, reaching to add another sugar cube to her cup. “It was ten years ago. It is not that I have put it past me, but rather made it the foundation of something new.”
“Still,” he insists, “has anyone extended sympathy since? Yours is a hard path, and few could have borne it as well.”
Elizabeth snorts. She looks down, intent on swirling the sugar in her tea.
Floundering, Norrington adds, “Truly, turning Tortuga into a respectable town could not have been an easy feat. How did you manage?”
Elizabeth lets herself slouch as the conversation returns to calmer waters. “’Respectable’ might be a stretch, quite frankly! Tortuga is still a smuggler’s town, for all the calmness you saw today. When we first arrived, Father knew some gossip about the governor here, and he gave us shelter, paid us to keep quiet. He was content to let the island govern itself, as you may have gathered in your career. It was easy enough, then, to find leverage on other big players in town, then onward to the other islands.
“Scores, tactics, strongholds, targets—all this information is good as gold. Better, on occasion. Pirates are always looking for an edge over their others. They would pay for our silence, for our protection of their information, and others would pay us more to talk, and so the years passed. I can employ informants and enforcers now. Fixing the town was for Father’s comfort, really. It brings in more business, and usually the pirates leave us be.”
“It’s a smart gamble,” Norrington observes, “and one that forces a truce. They can’t attack you or risk your exposing their vulnerabilities.”
“Yes. Our…clientele are secretive and self-serving, and loyal to nothing but their own greed. It has served well.”
“You run not only this town, but the entire underworld of the Caribbean,” Norrington says. He sits back, impressed despite himself. “You are the rook and the shrike.”
Elizabeth sips her tea, eyebrows raised.
Norrington is still a man of the Navy. Once, a private meeting with an illicit information broker would have been the opportunity of a lifetime. He would be obliged by the law to, at the least, use her information to arrest some of her customers, if not Elizabeth herself. Here, now, he is unclothed and weaponless, having left his sword belt by the front door. And he is exhausted, so exhausted, and beyond relieved to be speaking with Elizabeth Swann again.
He will not betray her again.
Elizabeth watches for his reaction with open curiosity. She is too smart not to recognize the threat he could pose, and still she does not strike, does not call for her island full of loyal retainers.
“I can pay for a room, if you will have me,” he says into the tense silence. “I—I’ll have to travel to a bank, first, but my line of credit is—”
“James. We’ll put you up here. I thought that was understood.” She stands, and his gaze follows her, eyes wide. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I hit you in the head. With an oar. In the water. The least I can do is provide a sickbed.”
He laughs softly. “I suppose this is adequate recompense. Thank you.”
“There is no need for that. Estrella?” she calls as she sweeps from the room, leaving Norrington to sit with the remnants of the past she cannot take with her.
The column of light in which he sits is invitingly warm, flushing his skin. He looks out the window to the dappled, swaying trees, and thinks that his luck has turned.