Chapter Text
As it turns out, James doesn’t get around to relaying his news about Beckett until some time later, having been substantially distracted by Elizabeth in the meantime. The door had only just closed behind them when she leapt upon him, thrusting her hands into his hair, dragging his mouth to hers.
Patience has never been one of Elizabeth’s oft practiced virtues, and she is utterly unapologetic for it. They are still mostly clothed this time, and she rides him slowly, eyes screwed shut against the pleasure of it. She is absolutely delighted at being so in control while James struggles to stifle the helpless gasping moans he breathes against her lips.
At next meal time, she plops herself on the bench beside him and carries on an entire (if mostly one-sided) conversation with Fitz, all the while teasing James beneath the table, working him loose of his trousers with deft fingers to explore the length of him. The chatty young sailor is adorably oblivious, she thinks. When James drops his face into his hand with a ragged sigh, forgotten fork in his fist, Fitz pauses long enough to ask after his health.
James abruptly knocks her hand away and rights himself before pushing back from the table and marching out of the galley, scowling all the way. Elizabeth merely shrugs in answer to Fitz’s questioning. ‘Perhaps it was something he ate.’ Fitz eyes James’ mostly untouched plate dubiously, but launches back into his previous story soon enough.
Not more than five minutes later, Elizabeth makes her own excuses and departs, only to be ambushed in the hallway. James’ eyes are dark with lust as he tugs her into the corner, hissing into her ear, ‘You are a wicked thing. Someone ought to put you over their knee.’ Her tactful response is to turn and catch his bottom lip between her teeth.
This earns her a frustrated growl as James hoists her over his shoulder and packs her back down to her cabin for a markedly rougher version of his previous ravishing of her.
She is learning to enjoy pushing him to roughness.
Later still, he takes her against the wall in the navigation room. Her idea, of course. Though she may be impatient, Elizabeth is not needlessly reckless. She had made sure Jack would be significantly distracted elsewhere beforehand. It’s not as if they would require very much time.
James initially resists, anxious about the location and risk of discovery, but Elizabeth is now aware of his great weakness for dirty talk, and sets to intimating in hushed tones exactly what she wants him to do to her. He does not hold out long under such an explicit onslaught, choking back a groan as his mouth covers hers, and his hands fumble with the ties of her breeches.
Maybe it should perturb her, but the threat of being caught in such a compromising position only makes her all the more desperate for him.
Elizabeth is, in a word, insatiable. The taste of his skin, the warmth of his hungry lips, the sinful perfection of him moving inside her. Every moment they are not intertwined, she is thinking on how she might make it happen again. Every interaction in front of the crew feels flooded with subtext, dripping with promise.
She has always loved James. Admired him. Adored him. But now...things are different in the best of ways. Though he is still circumspect around the others, he smiles easier, laughs more. He is casual in his joking with her, almost carefree. All the tension she’s been accustomed to seeing him carry, since the day they were introduced some years ago, seems to evaporate whenever they are together.
And James loves her. He tells her in a hundred tiny ways: soft smiles and chaste stolen kisses and playing with her hair during their quieter moments. He is so obviously, incandescently happy, her heart swells.
If only they could sail like this forever.
---
Isla Cruces. It’s been a lifetime since he was last here, but, in some inexplicable way, it feels to James as though a part of him never left the cursed, sandy beach. That he will encounter the hollowed-out, shadow of a man he once was haunting the crumbling churchyard.
Even from the shallows, as they row the launch ashore, the overbearing menace of the island weighs on him, on all of them. Suffering and death has been absorbed into the very air the way the flavor of a barrel permeates through the whiskey held within. It has created an invisible miasma that clings to the skin, clogs one’s pores with uneasy dread.
James mans one oar, Fitz the other. The boy had begged to come ashore, eager for ‘honest to God, proper pirate shit.’ Sparrow had agreed with an observable amount of exasperation but made Fitz swear, in return, not to speak a single word unless asked. So far, he’s managed to keep his end of the bargain, though it is evidently a struggle to do so, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as he constantly reminds himself of his agreement.
Elizabeth is seated in the rear of the skiff, back ramrod straight as she surveys their destination with narrowed eyes. Whether it is due to the intensity of her scrutiny or a reaction to the relentless sun beating down on them, James can’t be sure. Perhaps a bit of both. When she catches him studying her, she offers wan smile and an emphatic shrug toward Sparrow, who is positioned much as before: wedged in the bow, hunched over his glass jar filled with dirt.
After they start inland, Jack directing Fitz to stay and watch the boat, James is struck by how much it all still looks the same: the sparse shrubby growth leading up to the green wall of the dense jungle, the warm, gritty wind blowing the palms almost sideways in its furor. He is able to approximate the location of the chest fairly easily, and silently signals Sparrow toward it behind Elizabeth’s back. He is then called forward to start digging.
The hollow ‘thunk’ indicating he’s struck something pulls the others in and, together, they work the chest from the sand. Inside there are letters, piles of them, intermingled with dried flowers and other small tokens. James hadn’t paid them any mind before, but now, after having spent some time in the rather unfortunate company of Jones, he feels a minute pang of sorrow that catches him by surprise.
He understands what it is to be driven to extremes by heartbreak...or by running from it.
And then, Jack lifts out a smaller chest, carved with tentacled reliefs. All three lean in to hear the dull thud of its contents. Elizabeth is the first to speak.
‘It’s...it’s real. I didn’t think…’ She gapes at Sparrow. ‘You were actually telling the truth.’
‘I do that quite a lot. Yet people are always surprised.’
James tries not to roll his eyes and deadpans, ‘Yes. Such a mystery, that.’
Jack shoots him a glare as Elizabeth runs her fingers over the chest, lingering on the hole in the front. ‘Look here. It needs a key. Where are we supposed to get that?’
‘Ah,’ Sparrow sighs, sitting back on his heels. ‘Well, there are other irons in the fire, Love.’
Other irons meaning Turner, James surmises as he scans the beach. Will is not there to offer a sarcastic rebuttal himself, however, and it is worrisome. Has he failed to escape from The Dutchman? Had they tarried too long and missed him? James frowns as Sparrow lurches to his feet and offers Elizabeth a hand up, which she ignores.
‘Best get this back to The Pearl,’ the pirate grunts, tucking the chest under an arm.
‘And what of all this?’ Elizabeth asks, gesturing to the larger box filled with fluttering parchment.
Jack raises a brow. ‘You’re welcome to it, Lizzie. But I think it will be hard to lug it back, don’t you?’
She huffs in answer and then pushes past him, making a beeline for the coast.
As they crest the final dune it becomes apparent there are two men standing near the lifeboat when they had left only one. Fitz is clearly having some disagreement with the other, who turns to see them and starts their way. It isn’t long before his identity is discernible.
James has never been happier to see Will Turner in either of his lives.
‘Will!’ Elizabeth gasps, racing out to meet him, and James notes Sparrow slowing considerably in his peripheral. As he nears, James is relieved to find them merely embracing, though he feels uncharitable for it.
‘We came to find you.’ Elizabeth grins up into Will’s face and turns to gesture toward James. Turner’s eyes follow and then widen once they meet James’ own.
‘Hello, Will,’ he nods.
‘James.’ Turner pulls away from Elizabeth and takes a cautious step forward as he gives him a quick once-over. ‘You’re not in uniform.’
Ever keen to state the obvious. ‘So it would seem.’ James lets the statement hang for a moment before breaking into a smile. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘What a blessed reunion this is.’ Sparrow appears at James’ elbow, and Will’s fond expression instantly settles into bitter disgust.
‘Blessed?’ Turner sneers. ‘Certainly not through any effort on your part.’
Elizabeth’s hackles are up at the accusation. ‘What does he mean, Jack?’
‘I mean that he sold me to The Dutchman in exchange for his own life.’
‘And is that true?’ she spits at Sparrow in outrage.
Jack purses his lips as he weighs his options, gripping the chest a bit tighter when he finally replies. ‘Fraid so, Love. But I did have some very good reasons.’
‘Don’t you always?’ James scoffs, earning a sideways glance from the pirate.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Will intones derisively. ‘What does matter is that I met my father on that godforsaken ship. And I intend to save him.’ With that, he draws the sword from his belt and points it at Jack. ‘Give me the chest.’
‘To what end, William?’ Jack retorts, his voice taking that tone it gets when he’s bargaining for something and thinks he has the upper hand.
‘If I kill Jones, my father is released from his curse.’
‘I thought that might be the case.’ Now Sparrow drops the chest to his feet and draws his own blade in one fluid movement. ‘See, I can’t let you. If Jones is dead, who’s to call off his beastie?’
It’s not quite the same, but still, the way things are progressing is all too familiar. James’ eyes flick down to the hilt of his own weapon. A part of him is tempted to lean into the disorienting deja vu he is experiencing, to live up to the singular role it seems fate has deigned to cast him in.
Until Elizabeth unsheathes her sword as well.
‘You gutless snake. How could you? Everything you told me was a lie!’
Emboldened by Elizabeth’s martial support, Will closes the distance, yanking the key from his neck. ‘Unlike you, I keep my promises, Jack.’
‘Wait!’ James stretches out a hand, and Will freezes in his advance. Elizabeth, too, pauses in her verbal assault and regards him, visage curious. ‘I can’t let you do it either, Will.’
Turners eyes narrow. ‘You don’t understand. My father-’
‘I do understand,’ James interrupts urgently. ‘But not like this. It is-’ He inches to the right, carefully placing himself between Turner and the chest...and Sparrow. ‘The cost is too great.’
‘I swore an oath, James.’ Desperation has started to lace into the man’s words. ‘I can’t leave him there. I won’t lose him again.’
James lowers his hands to his sides. ‘Please, Will. We’ll find another way. But you have to trust me.’
For a few tense moments, all talk ceases, nature’s symphony filling the void with the crash of the surf and the rustle of the high winds through the trees. James watches as the fight melts from Turner’s face before he lowers his sword.
‘I do trust you.’
James has all of a second to feel relieved before the crack of a gunshot rings out, and the sand at Will’s feet explodes in response. All four of them turn to find the source, and James' stomach drops at the sight of the company of red and gold clad EITC soldiers that are making their way down the hill, rifles ready.
The ranking officer halts and hits a brace. ‘Orders, sir?’
James feels the demanding gaze of his companions upon him and panics, eyes darting from the marines to Elizabeth and back. No. This isn’t right. He hasn’t betrayed anyone this time. He’d deserted. Abandoned his post and his men and the bloody EITC. He’s just about to spit his denial when another voice interrupts.
‘Well done, lads. They never saw you coming.’
Fitz steps into view, pistol drawn, its barrel pointed directly at Elizabeth. ‘Gentlemen, Miss Swann, you will now drop your weapons.’
The incredulity in Elizabeth’s eyes mirrors James’ own, while Jack sulks, and Will merely looks confused.
Fitz chuckles, all friendliness leached from his tone as he pulls back the hammer. ‘That was not a request.’
One by one, they are disarmed, the soldiers coming forward to surround them. Fitz tucks his firearm back into his belt and surveys them all with an arch appreciation as he rocks back on his heels.
‘Well. I must say, this is even better than I’d hoped. Every single one of you all in the same location. It’s like Christmas, really.’ The gutter accent is gone, along with the disarming slump of his shoulders. The hardened look James had glimpsed before is back, his eyes glinting like obsidian in the sunlight. He smirks wickedly when he returns James’ gaze, and it ages him drastically.
‘I suppose I should be thanking you, Norrington.’ The smile broadens, a cold flash of teeth. ‘Would have been considerably more difficult if you hadn’t led me straight to them.’
And he had, hadn’t he? Fitz had been tailing him since his departure from Port Royal, so obvious in his pursuit he had even introduced himself. James had been so focused on his hurt, his anger at Elizabeth, he had allowed himself to become careless. He had let his emotions overcome his reason. And now Elizabeth is in danger. His eyes fall closed in shame.
‘So what now, Fitzy? If that really is your name.’ This from Sparrow, who is shrewdly eyeing his former hire from James’ right.
‘Lord Beckett desires the contents of that chest. If I deliver it, he’s offered to promote me. Seeing as the ranking officer of Port Royal has recently run off.’ He throws James a cutting grin. ‘Shame about that. I really did used to look up to you, but, honestly? I expected more.’ He slants his eyes toward Elizabeth. ‘Such sentiment was...disappointing.’
Then the man takes a step back, his voice carrying as he continues on. ‘The lot of you will be coming with me. There are warrants out for each of you, and I’m sure Lord Beckett will be most grateful to have done with this in one fell swoop.’
With that, Fitz makes a circling motion and the soldiers draw closer, shackles in their hands.
They don’t get the chance to use them before a scout comes scrambling over the embankment shouting, ‘Sir! It’s Jones! They've-’
He’s stopped short by a pike promptly stabbing out through his chest.
Pandemonium ensues. Jones’ nightmarish crew comes flooding down onto the beach, intent to kill, and, with the EITC soldier nearest him significantly distracted, James is given the opportunity to rearm himself just before he is set upon by a pirate with a conch for a head. He parries a wild blow meant for his neck and uses the resulting momentum to take the villain in the gut before delivering a kick that sends him back onto his ass in the sand.
The battle raging around him is a whirlwind of clashing steel, gold brocade, and putrid flesh. James manages to maneuver himself closer to where Elizabeth has reclaimed her sword and is holding her own against two of Jones’ foul creatures, but he is nearly caught in the side by an errant cutlass and realizes, if he is to survive this encounter, he has to pay more attention to his immediate surroundings. Thus resolved, he sets to taking as many of the bastards down as he can.
It could have been minutes or it could have been days before James gets Fitz in his sights. The cur is headed after Sparrow, who is hunched over the beached lifeboat, his purpose, James can only guess.
‘Fitzpatrick!’ James booms, sidestepping an attack by one of his various foes before striding forward. Fitz turns, the blood spattered across his face making the white of his toothy grin all the more startling. James levels his blade at him in a challenge, brows drawn.
Fitz laughs. ‘There, now, James. It was nothing personal, you understand?’
‘I understand that you are a liar,’ James retorts darkly. ‘You may think you played me for a fool, and perhaps you have. But I would set that to rights.’
‘Fair enough,’ the man responds, and in a flash his pistol is out and pointed at James. ‘But then, I’ve no mind to fight fair.’
Fitz fires just as one of Jones’ men slams into him from the side, taking him off his feet. James quickly glances down, his hand roaming the front of his shirt to find himself unharmed. Some small mercy. It is at that moment that Will appears at James' side, a cut on his brow leaking blood into his eye. ‘We have to get out of here. We’re outnumbered.’
James swings around to find Elizabeth is making her way backward toward Jack, motioning wildly in their direction as she fends off another barnacled attacker before taking off his arm in a violent swing. But the chest? The chest is nowhere to be seen.
‘Very well, Mr. Turner. Lead the way.’
---
Some of the soldiers rally enough to loose a volley their direction as James and Will row the launch back toward The Pearl, but the moving target proves too difficult to hit. Elizabeth presses Sparrow on the location of the chest, but he merely smiles smugly and taps the side of his nose. ‘Worry not. Ol’ Jack has his ways.’
James frowns, not reassured by that in the least. It is too familiar by half.
---
Sparrow does not, in fact, have possession of the heart as he’d believed. James watches him sift through the smashed remains of his jar of dirt in a frenzy, too hollow to feel anything but detached amusement. Any subsequent efforts on Jack’s part to parlay with Jones fail, and the Kraken is sent after them.
The ensuing struggle is like nothing James has ever experienced, sea monsters generally being outside his purview. And, though Turner’s plan involving the remaining powder barrels and rum stores is successful, it still doesn’t kill the beast. They must abandon ship or perish.
---
Freedom. He tastes like rum and spice and freedom. As Elizabeth shackles Captain Jack Sparrow to the mast of his beloved Pearl, she feels him smile against her lips. Lips that found his for the express purpose of leaving him to die.
‘It’s after you, not the ship.’
He knows. And what’s worse, he understands. The gleam in his eye says everything.
‘I’m not sorry.’
And she isn’t. Not really. And neither is he.
‘Pirate.’
A compliment. A curse. A confirmation that he’s had her pegged since the very beginning.
She senses it should hurt more than it does.
---
Elizabeth is the last one into the lifeboat, sitting down hard on the plank next to him and proclaiming that Jack has elected to stay behind and give them a chance to get away. The rest of the crew seems all too willing to accept this tacit act of selflessness on the part of their captain, but James’ eyes don’t leave Elizabeth’s face as they make their flight toward shore. There is a determination in the set of her jaw, and, even if he hadn’t glimpsed her locked in Sparrow’s embrace moments before, he still would have had his suspicions.
When she finally does meet his gaze, he sees the intent there, the declaration of guilt. And it all falls into place.
It was a ruthless act, calculating and fierce, and she has likely saved them all.
Silently, James reaches out and takes her hand in his. She grips his fingers tightly, trembling under the weight of her actions, but the intensity in her eyes never wavers, even as the Kraken returns to drag The Pearl and her captain to the depths.
James has never been more proud of her.
---
Spirits are low as the tattered remnants of The Black Pearl’s crew head into the swamp to lick their wounds. The moonlight slants through moss covered boughs overhead as the launch makes its way around gnarled mangrove roots that snake through the murky water. Lights begin to appear on the shore, candles, lanterns, held by figures drenched in darkness. James’ hair stands on end. There is something wholly unsettling about this place. He still doesn’t know why they’re even here.
Turner must sense his disquiet, for he leans over and, in hushed, almost reverent, tones says, ‘Tia Dalma. That’s who we go to. She was a friend to Jack.’
‘What manner of friend?’ James returns, ever wary of the muted sounds of movement in the black water around them.
Will considers that a moment, eyes narrowed, before replying. ‘A witch.’ And that is all he says on the matter.
James is not comforted by this elaboration whatsoever.
Once at their destination, a ramshackle bungalow stilted a story above the waterline, the mute ties off the boat as the others move to go inside. Only James seems to be opposed to the idea; even Elizabeth is following along, visage pensive.
A warm glow beckons the party through the open door. James brings up the rear, struck by the oddity of the place. Candles burn on every surface, casting dancing shadows across his companions’ faces. All manner of curiosity hangs from the ceiling and walls: bottles of multi-colored liquid, jars and vials filled with dried plants and what looks to be animal viscera. He is startled by and sidesteps a large snake that has wrapped itself about one of the wooden supports, its tongue flicking out in an almost teasing way.
Low voices float toward him in his distraction. Someone is here with them. James leans forward to catch a glimpse of their host, and his eyes land on a slight, dark woman with a mess of jet black hair. She is baring stained teeth at Will in a sad smile, gentle platitudes falling from her lips in a heavy accent. Her hand rests against Turner’s cheek, which he reaches up to cover with his own. And then she freezes. In fact, everything does.
Sound stops. Time telescopes. The very air itself seems to cease movement. James’ blood turns to ice in his veins as the woman’s head pivots toward him in slow-motion. Piercing, ebony eyes find his own, and James feels the invisible scar over his heart start to burn. He can’t move. Can’t breathe. She is rising from her seat, weaving through the unmoving others who have become nothing more than human additions to her bizarre grotesquerie.
‘James Norrington,’ she chuckles as she nears. ‘What has the world done to you?’
She reaches out, fingers brushing his chin. ‘A heavy burden you bear.’ A sinister smile curls her lips. ‘You are a man out of time.’
He blinks, and the spell is broken. The witch is still in comforting congress with Turner. The pirates are still seating themselves about the room. Elizabeth is still perched on the table in the corner studying the mug in her hands. Terror settles into James’ bones. Who exactly is this woman?
And how has she wrapped invisible, frigid hands around his soul?
---
Further conversation does not reveal the answer to this question, instead offering up a scad of new ones. The witch presents a plan for rescuing Sparrow: a voyage to the weird and haunted shores at World’s End. The others seem willing, but to James, it doesn’t make an ounce of sense.
Even more senseless is the man who is supposed to be their captain in this endeavor.
Hector Barbossa. Alive.
James knocks back the rest of rum he’s been given. If this is their plan, he’s going to need several more portions. Or perhaps a looser grip on his own sanity.
Ah, well. Better mad with the rest of the world, than sane alone.
---