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“Ah, Admiral.”
“You summoned me, Lord Beckett?”
Cutler Beckett does not rise from his seat behind his desk, but his eyes alight in greeting all the same. “Something for you, there — an old friend, befitting your new station.”
Norrington frowns. He casts his gaze to where Beckett gestures, and inhales sharply as his eyes fall upon a familiar case. Within lies the sword he had received upon promotion to commodore. Without waiting for further permission, Norrington removes the sword from its case, then its scabbard, pulling the blade slowly so it does not ring. It is polished and honed, and feels a natural extension of his arm, returned to his being, whole at last.
So long, he had yearned to return to a position of command. He has men at his beck and call, epaulets upon his shoulders, and now his glorious blade returned to his side — he should feel more than the stagnant, pooling dread in his gut, should he not? Serving the East India Trading Company is far different than the Royal Navy, and the familiar has become alien.
“I thought it might put you in the mind of old relations,” Beckett continues. “I’ve an assignment for you.”
Norrington pulls his attention from the blade. “Assignment, sir?”
“I need you to find and capture Elizabeth Swann — alive, mind you, and by any means necessary.”
Governor Swann reacts before Norrington can fully process the request. “Then she lives? My daughter lives?” he asks, standing abruptly.
“I have it on very good authority that she does, yes,” Beckett says coolly. “Mercer will debrief you in Panama, Admiral; you ship out with the next requisition agent on the morrow. I imagine you have preparations to make?”
“Sir,” Norrington agrees, and swallows the lump in his throat. He exchanges a long look with Governor Swann, in which he sees his own anxieties and desires reflected. That Elizabeth should live is a relief beyond reliefs; that Beckett seeks to control her, not just her father and friend, is dire.
Norrington never unpacked his sea chest aboard Beckett’s flagship the Endeavour, and thus, his only pre-departure preparation consists of picking men for the voyage. The only man under his command that Norrington truly knows is Lieutenant Groves, who resigned from the Navy some time ago. It is a comfort to Norrington that he should have a fellow sailor with him on this uncertain journey — a small one, but a comfort nonetheless.
Before curfew, Norrington stops by Swann’s office. They are under the watch of Beckett’s soldiers, but Swann manages to say, under his breath, “I am returning to England as soon as I can. Send her to me, please, and if you cannot…do what you can for her. Keep her safe.”
“Always,” Norrington vows.
That is the last he says to his long-time friend and colleague. Governor Swann is still asleep when Norrington departs the Endeavour at first light.
In Panama, Beckett’s adjutant Mercer directs him to Singapore, the last known stronghold of the Brethren Court of pirates. An uncommissioned ship was chartered out of Tortuga to make the voyage, and Mercer has reason to believe that Elizabeth Swann is aboard, seeking the court’s aid.
Everything Norrington knows about the Brethren Court is shrouded in rumor by the pirates’ design. Every pirate claimed to be a pirate lord at some point in their career; it mattered not to the hangman whether they were a governor of a legislative body that did not exist to outsiders.
He mentions this to Mercer, who scoffs and turns aside.
“Open your eyes. It would not concern Lord Beckett if it were not real,” Mercer says sharply. “Find Miss Swann. And find what you can about the court. Don’t dally; you’re already behind.”
This is not the way a subordinate should treat an admiral. This is not a task assigned to an admiral. This is a task assigned to a spy, a mercenary, a hunting hound. Norrington is not so dense as to think Beckett actually expects him to succeed. But if there is even the slimmest chance he might run into Elizabeth, he will take this risk.
Norrington and Groves and their small crew take command of a brig on the other side of Panama. The ship is quick and lightly armed, her design so reminiscent of the Interceptor that it makes Norrington’s chest tighten. She is the Clear Course, though Norrington takes her name as a warning rather than a promise. He is not a superstitious man, but the disaster with the Dauntless had daunted him, and he cannot afford to be anything less than wary.
The company had spared no expense. The Clear Course is well-stocked and fitted with every necessity in the unfamiliar Pacific. As a captain in the Navy, Norrington often felt he was more the bursar of Fort Charles than the commander — he fought tooth and nail over every shilling that went into the fort’s maintenance and the men’s wages, arguing with the Admiralty Board for months over the cost of timber and sailcloth and broadcloth uniforms.
Norrington should be relieved he has less thinking to do on this journey, but instead finds his hours idle, consumed with guilt and doubt. He is on an unfamiliar ship, with unfamiliar men, on an unfamiliar journey, all for the sake of a company whose wealth and greed is great enough to block out the sun. Perhaps it was better after all to be a bursar captain than a mercenary admiral.
He wants to find Elizabeth, he wants it more than anything. But if she lives still, it is safer if he never sees her again.
There is dread in place of relief when the Clear Course crosses the Pacific at last. Singapore is a dense collection of islands; the buildings and paths rise on stilts above the canals, as though the city floats on the mist off the water. The East India Trading Company has an outpost just north of the city, and furthermore, there is an entire battalion of soldiers already in residence. By the time Norrington manages to arrange an audience with their colonel, he learns they are planning to infiltrate the local pirate lord’s base that very night, with plans to bring them all to justice.
It seems Norrington must pull Elizabeth from the slaughter that awaits her, by Beckett’s own hand. He does not have time to wonder once more why he is subject to this torture. Instead, he sends Groves and his crew to purchase a seaworthy junk, load it with supplies enough for a long journey, dock it across town, and be ready to depart at a moment’s notice. He knows well a brig like the Clear Course is too easily stolen and better off moored in the restricted company docks.
Norrington sheds his uniform and dresses instead in a nondescript cloak, dark and hooded, over loose local clothing. Alone, he sets to the streets of Singapore to survey the district where the EITC will strike. It is a defensible position with plenty of canals for the maneuverable junks to make a discreet escape.
The fighting breaks out shortly after dusk. Norrington is wading in a waterway, investigating the entrance to what is almost certainly a smuggler’s den, and looks up with sudden alarm as a chorus of muskets fires somewhere down the block. Everyone in this district leaps to arms, sailor or soldier or otherwise. From the pathway above, someone shouts a warning to Norrington in Cantonese and tosses him a blade, clearly encouraging him to join in the fight.
Norrington keeps his beautiful blade sheathed, as he cannot appear like a soldier to the pirates. He weaves through the writhing crowd, landing cheap shots on errant soldiers as he goes, looking fruitlessly for a woman who should be far, far away.
He crosses the bridge towards a temple in the distance. A pirate kicks in the knees of a soldier, and Norrington steps in to give him a helpful shove over the railing into the water. He moves to pass; the pirate looks up; their eyes meet, and the world stops.
Elizabeth’s dark eyes scrutinize his, the green out of place here. She frowns. She does not recognize him in the dark. He opens his mouth to say something, moves his hands to pull aside his obscuring cloak — and the heartbeat is over. A firecracker bursts behind her, too close, and they both instinctively duck. He catches one last glimpse of Elizabeth’s cheek, haloed red in the dazzling light, as someone pulls her aside in one direction and another pushes Norrington the other. He stumbles from their grip into the darkness of an alley, racing for the rendezvous with Groves.
Why did I hesitate? he thinks. The answer is immediate: I am still in love with her.
He does not look back.
“How many ships have left the harbor?” Norrington asks the moment he is aboard the requisitioned junk.
“Just the one, sir,” Groves says, gesturing ahead. His voice is lost to another burst of fireworks. The crew are unsettled, looking uneasily to the parts of Singapore now burning.
Norrington is numb, numb to it all. He pulls himself onto the gunwale and uses the spyglass to peer at the fleeing ship. That is the crew of the Black Pearl aboard, there is no doubt about it. By the light of the fireworks, Norrington sees a flash of sun-blonde hair by the bowsprit and quickly lowers his glass before he sees her face again.
He collapses the glass absently, thinking.
“Sir? What do you want to do?” Groves asks nervously.
That is a complicated question. Norrington wants to catch her; he wants to let her go. He wants to love her, to hold on; he wants to feel nothing about her at all. He wants to return home to Port Royal and rest until the end of days in familiar comforts; he wants to keep sailing and never return to any place he's ever known.
“Follow them. At a distance,” he says after a beat. Groves runs for the helm. “We must be discreet.”
It is not like James Norrington to delay a decision, but something like this, he knows he will have time to decide later. For now, he concedes with the most attainable of his desires: he wants to be safe. Norrington stays with Groves at the helm through the night so they do not wreck in the shoals around Singapore.
It is only when dawn begins to lighten the skies that Norrington leaves the helm. He thanks the crew for their expedient work. They have warmed to him, in time, and see him below deck with a wave. In these safer waters, Norrington stumbles into his bunk and struggles to fall asleep.
The heat and wet fade to cold and dry the further south the ship travels. Wherever the Pearl’s crew is traveling, Norrington’s crew has followed them into waters not only uncharted, but unknowable. Several weeks from Singapore would not normally take them far enough for the temperature to have dropped so suddenly. The junk, with its battened square sails and sturdy hull, is built for high winds and churning river water — not this strange silent sea.
Groves keeps a steady schedule of men to watch for their prey in the distance, but otherwise, the passage is easy. The boring and uneventful sailing that was welcome at first has become dreadful and eerie. Aside from daily tasks to keep the ship afloat and alive, Norrington gives the men their leave, and the crew spend their days in reverent quiet, as though disturbing the peace will bring reality crashing back down upon them.
It is undeniably some supernatural force keeping the water so still. Yet Norrington has fought ghostly undead. He carried a live, beating heart across the sea, and traded it to a tyrant for the privilege of witnessing this torturous phenomenon firsthand. It does not bother him, nor particularly surprise him, and that is more surprising in itself.
Norrington sits at the bow and watches the shadow of a ship they are following in the distance. He had let discipline regarding uniforms slip, as well: most of the men wear multiple sets of clothing, and gather together in pile under sailcloth tarps to consolidate their heat. The admiral himself sits with his hat lowered over his eyes, wig abandoned to infestation early in the journey. He let his beard grow again to keep his face warm, though this time, he is determined to keep it neat. Both his utility coat and hooded woolen cloak are wrapped around him to trap what heat they can.
The cold would be bracing were it not so persistent. He draws a breath, warms it in his lungs, and rakes his eyes along the hard line of the horizon. Not for the first time, he grasps after what Elizabeth could possibly be doing right now. What are they doing here? What is he doing here? It is so hard to hold onto a thought after so much monotony. He blinks hard, forcing moisture into his eyes.
The speck of Elizabeth’s ship is gone, vanished. Norrington scrubs at his eyes and looks again: nothing. Had it only just vanished? How long has it been? Had they been chasing some wretched illusion this entire time?
The scales of this unnatural icy lull fall away. Norrington stands abruptly. The ship rocks, and several sailors stir to their feet as well, blinking in bewilderment. Snow begins to fall.
“Groves,” Norrington calls, his breath steaming. “Groves — how are we doing on supplies?”
“Rations will need to get thinner soon,” Groves answers from the helm. His voice is flat; he has been sickly and dour since the weather changed. “The fishing has been poor. As you can imagine.”
The crew is watching Norrington warily, the most feeling he’s seen in their faces for days. “Orders, sir?” one deckhand asks.
“Turn about,” Norrington says sharply. “All hands on deck — make ready, turn about! We will die out here if we tarry!”
He strides with purpose down the deck, relishing the sudden burst of energy as the crew race for the rigging. Norrington comes to his place at the helm and braces his hands against the icy railing beside the wheel.
Groves glances at him nervously, but begins to turn the ship when the bosun gives the call. “But sir, what about Miss Swann?” he asks quietly.
Norrington shakes his head. “She has gone where we cannot follow. Better we return alive and try another day than die out here in the nowhere.”
He had lost another ship and crew chasing this exact crew once before. He is not eager to repeat his mistake. Groves was aboard the Dauntless on that ill-fated voyage, and he smiles fully at Norrington now, visibly relieved.
Upon return to the Caribbean, with only one sailor lost to disease, Norrington barely has time to stretch his legs before he is sent on another chase. Mercer does not care to receive his report from Singapore and beyond. It no longer matters. Norrington is now to follow the Flying Dutchman in pursuit of the Empress. Her captain, the pirate lord Sao Feng, had reneged on a deal with Beckett to allow the Black Pearl to escape capture.
“We will provide a fresh crew,” Mercer continues, over Norrington’s attempt to interject questions, “and have your new ship prepared by first light.”
“But did the kraken not destroy the Black Pearl?” Norrington finally manages to cut in. He had heard it happen on Isla Cruces while making his grand escape with the heart of Davy Jones.
Mercer only squints. “It did,” he says shortly.
“Then what in the world are you chasing?”
“Does it matter? That's not the ship you're going for, is it?” When Norrington does not move, staring stubbornly at Mercer, he adds tersely, “Your assignment has changed, but the goal has not: you chase the Brethren Court.” Mercer’s eyes flash, upsetting and eager. “We have our way in; we only need to find Shipwreck Cove. Capture the Empress.”
Stranger things have happened on this sea than the Black Pearl rising again, Norrington tells himself. Evidently, his job no longer entails worrying about such details. He leaves Mercer to prepare.
He has one afternoon and evening on land. His first order of business is to send a message to Governor Swann, only to be told he is already en route to England. Good — he had gotten away.
Norrington uses his limited hours to sleep, bathe, shave, and replace his sun-bleached and threadbare wardrobe. No one in the company headquarters had expected his return, perhaps an indication that Beckett had sent Norrington and his men to die. It chafes Norrington that he learns this in the most mundane way possible: there are no uniforms available even close to his rank.
Norrington swallows the disrespect. He transfers his epaulets to a lieutenant’s jacket, which is too short in both tail and sleeve but thankfully fits his shoulders, and commandeers a captain’s hat on the docks before departure. He barely catches the name of his ship — another swift brig, the Chariot, armed more heavily than the Clear Course — before setting sail.
The Dutchman keeps a breakneck pace. The Empress stays well ahead of her pursuers until the sun begins to set, when the wind fatally changes direction. She stalls, and the Dutchman feints to one side.
Lieutenant Groves looks to Norrington for orders. Reluctant, he says, “Run out the guns,” and the Chariot prepares for battle, flanking the Empress from the other side.
The Empress is not expecting the broadside from the Dutchman, and she is certainly not expecting the extra firepower from the Chariot on the other side. They take the ship easily, without a single returned volley in response. Company men and Jones’ barnacled sailors swarm the deck of the Empress, ferreting the pirates out from every corner of the ship.
Norrington swings aboard and walks through the action as though in a dream. Not two years ago, he had been doing the same as a captain for the Royal Navy, not — not whatever this is. He had not ordered this violence, yet it is his responsibility all the same. Marines scamper out of the way when they spot his surly expression. He pauses before the helm, looks up at the quarterdeck, and—
Two officers restrain Elizabeth Swann by her arms. She is numb with shock, watching the proceedings with wide eyes. Blood stains the front of her dark robes, but she looks uninjured.
“Elizabeth,” he dares to say, too quietly for her to hear.
Elizabeth looks up, sees him, and his heart might just burst out of his chest at the contact. Her hair is bleached blonde, her face suntanned, her eyes haunted — but that is undeniably Elizabeth Swann, and she calls in similar, excited disbelief, “James. James!”
She shoves away the marines restraining her and darts forward. As soon as she is near, Norrington pulls her into his arms. “Thank God, you’re alive,” he says. She pulls away, and he leaves his hands on her arms, smiling in full relief. “Oh, your father will be overjoyed to know that you’re safe.”
The instant of warmth is over. Elizabeth steps back out of his reach. Her eyes are cold, that of a stranger’s. “My father is dead.”
“No — no, that can’t be true. He returned to England.”
“Did Lord Beckett tell you that?”
She asks a simple question, and a fair one, however she intends it to harm.
Norrington tightens his jaw. “I was away,” he says, hating how he stumbles on the words, “and we had plans to escape after—”
“After you found me,” she says quietly. Her eyes widen with recognition and sweep him up and down, taking in the mismatched, shabby EITC uniform. “It was you in Singapore.”
Before he can reply, Davy Jones steps onto the ship. “Who among you do you name as captain?” he demands. Norrington does not look away, but in his peripherals, he sees several of the Empress’ men point at Elizabeth herself.
“Her?” Jones confirms, brows quirked. Elizabeth does not balk, and lifts her chin to meet Jones’ eyes directly. A wicked grin splits his mouth, and Norrington quickly steps between Jones and the captives.
“Tow the ship,” he orders icily. “Put the prisoners in the brig. I would have a word with the captain in private.”
Jones’ mouth snaps shut with indignation, and he visibly grinds his teeth, but he does not disobey. “Yes, Admiral,” he grits out.
Elizabeth is jostled over the gangplank to the Dutchman. Norrington follows, and though his hands are not bound, he feels a prisoner all the same as he is led aboard.
All ships are alive in their own ways, but the Dutchman seems to breathe around them, like she is hearing and seeing and feeling everything that happens aboard. This ship is not meant for the living. The bosun leads Norrington and Elizabeth to a cabin just below deck. He pushes Elizabeth roughly in, and catches Norrington by the arm before he follows.
“You’ve until the next bell,” the bosun says. “Captain’s orders. Lock her up when you’re done.”
He smiles a shark’s smile with his shark’s mouth and dangles a key in front of Norrington’s face. Norrington does not bother pushing back with his own authority; he snatches the key and slips into the cabin.
The cabin within is sparsely furnished and clearly unlived in. A desk is nailed to the floorboards against the wall, besides shelves of charts long rotted. Elizabeth watches him with a careful, closed expression, huddled beside the abandoned bunk.
Desperate for something, anything to do with his hands, Norrington removes his hat, sets it on the desk. He lights an oil lamp and hangs it on the wall. He draws a bracing breath and turns to face Elizabeth, in private at last, and—
Elizabeth has silently moved closer. Before he can react, she draws his sword from his scabbard and swings at him with all her might. His sword is one-handed and meant for lunging, and her grip is weak; Norrington catches the sword at the base of the blade just above the hilt before it can cleave his shoulder. The edge bites instead into his palm, spilling hot blood down his wrist.
Norrington grits his teeth against the pain. “Elizabeth, I am not your enemy!”
He has the better leverage, but Elizabeth presses the blade further. Their grips tremble as they fight against each other. “You were hunting me,” she snarls. “I can no longer assume your intentions are pure, now that you wish me dead.”
“Of course I don’t,” he says quickly. “Your father charged me with your safety. What I can do, I will.”
“My father is dead, too! Forgive me if your record does not encourage confidence.”
“That is hardly fair,” he hisses. “You cannot seriously implicate me in his death. As though I have the power; as though I have the heart! I loved him, Elizabeth. We are — we were but pawns in a game with rules determined by a tyrant.”
“So you have no choice but to obey? To take your orders lying down?"
"And what is the alternative? Throw in my lot with pirates, who care for nothing but their own welfare?"
She laughs, bitter and angry. "I did what I had to to survive — as did you. Can you not see that? We are the same. And you would have me hang for it."
She relinquishes the sword. Norrington takes a moment to set it on the table beside him. He cradles his hand and keeps his eyes on the floor just past Elizabeth.
“The court will see reason,” he says, hopeless. “They have to.”
“Then you’ve not heard what Lord Beckett is doing to pirates in these waters.”
“What the Navy has always done, I would assume. A fair trial is not a death sentence.”
“Don't speak to me of fairness. Port Royal’s situation is untenable, James. Oh, but that’s right — you’ve not heard,” she spits. Norrington frowns, and she pursues, “Droves of innocents are being hanged on the off-chance they might be pirates, their right to trial suspended. All this serves to fuel Beckett’s war. No trial in these seas is fair, Admiral.”
Norrington halts, unable to hide his surprise. Elizabeth draws back, pleased her verbal blow had landed.
“Look at you,” she says, low. “Look at what you’ve lost, all by chasing your honor. This cannot be what you want.” She shakes her head and looks aside. “You did not kill him, but what will Beckett ask you to do next? You have already sentenced me.”
Norrington will not attempt to defend Beckett’s actions — will not deny his own complicity — and cannot find the words to reply. There is no defense he can mount, no moral he can cite. He presses his unmarked hand to his mouth, overcome.
“O God,” he whispers, “our deaths are written. I have failed us all.”
Elizabeth steps towards him, unsure. “Father — he was at peace, in the end.” She blinks hard, clearing tears. “I think he was killed quickly.”
“Then there is still mercy in the world, bitter as it may be,” Norrington says. He finally lifts his head and finds the courage to meet her eyes, then further emboldened, he raises his hand to brush her cheek. The blood is so jarring in the light. He settles on running his thumb over the line of her jaw. “Elizabeth. How can I fix this?”
“You already know,” she says softly. “Let go, Atlas.”
How can she ask that, knowing how many times he had let her go? Once more will kill him. A sob catches in his throat and mutes him. In the silence, Elizabeth closes the short distance between them and kisses him.
It is overwhelming having her so close, and when his mind catches up with his body, Norrington leans in, sliding his hand to the back of her neck to cup her face better. Elizabeth sets a hand on his chest and he worries for a brief, silly moment that she can feel just how quickly his heart beats. She pushes him gently back one step, then two, until he bumps into the desk fastened to the deck and she stumbles into him.
Elizabeth has her hand on the pistol tucked at his left hip. He rests his hand atop hers.
“I will not blame you if you kill me,” he says quietly in her ear, cheek still pressed to hers. “But it will not help you.”
Norrington feels more than hears her breath catch. She pulls away guiltily. “How did…”
“I know your heart, Elizabeth. You are good — but you are shrewd. I could never forget that.”
Her eyes well with tears Norrington does not understand. This time, she grasps the collar of his coat with both hands and pulls him down to kiss him again, no longer tentative and tender. Their teeth clash painfully together, and neither of them care, only parting to catch their breath, try and read the other’s eyes, then try, try again.
She smells of the sun; she tastes of salt and iron; she is warm and solid and real beneath his hands, pressed to his skin, her lips and tongue against his. Somewhere in Norrington’s conscience, alarm bells ring without ceasing. This is all he has wanted — in any other place, at any other time, in any circumstance that is not this. Yet with the hand at the small of Elizabeth’s back, he pulls her flush to him, hip to hip, and she does not pull away. Her hands dig into his chest and hold him close.
Knuckles rap sharply at the cabin door. “Your time is up, Admiral,” one of Jones’ sailors calls. “Cap’n wants to keep all the fresh meat in one place!”
The heat in Norrington’s gut chills to cold dread. Elizabeth pulls away just enough to catch his eyes in the golden light.
“Let me go,” she breathes.
Norrington hesitates (coward coward coward that he is). That is all she needs. Her eyes are hard as she calls to the sailor, “I shall be right there,” and pulls herself from Norrington’s arms with sharp succinctness. His wound leaves a dark streak on her neck she does not bother to wipe away. She strides towards and out the door without looking back.
Norrington stares at his bloodied hand for a long moment. He calmly wipes the edge of his sword on the dark blue of his uniform coat, then returns it to the sheath. He steps to the porthole and sees naught but the suggestion of waves in the dark night.
The dawn will come, soon.
Let go.
Things cannot continue as they are. Norrington snatches up the key and sets toward the brig.