PotC - A Proper Stray
Title: A Proper Stray
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Disney's. I don't own it. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Summary: Anamaria once again encounters a certain former commodore. Set before Norrington's first appearance in DMC.
Author's note: Originally intended for the Twelve Days of Christmas, this is a follow-up to something I wrote ages ago, a ficlet called Chance Encounter. With thanks to geekmama for beta reading.
A Proper Stray
by Hereswith
“Bah! You stink!” she grumbled, the pungent concoction of sweat, stale liquor and unnamed dirt not the worst she’d smelled, but still foul.
His colour heightened, as though it truly shamed him, and he was as sober as she’d seen him, so she reckoned it did. “My sleeping arrangements have been... less than adequate.”
Less than adequate meaning shabby and haphazard, no doubt, and why was it she had brought him home again, like some stray pup she’d spotted in the streets? He was hardly a dog to be pitied, and she with no patience for nursing. But she remembered him from that chance meeting: the bedraggled sailor with a gentleman’s voice, the sweet smile and the sharp hint of pride, and he’d been easy to recognise, even bloodied and dazed.
“Be still,” she hissed, when pain made him wince, and pushed the needle through, pulling the edges of skin together neat and tight. “’Less you want me to redo it? Might teach you to keep your head down in a brawl.”
“God forbid,” he mumbled, tensing as she pricked him anew, but he behaved enough that she could finish, then clean the clotted blood from his hair.
“You’ll live.” She took her hands off him, wiping them on a cloth. “Can’t say if that’s a mercy.”
“No,” he replied, and she remembered that tone too, laden with a loss he didn’t bear well. “Nor can I.” He began to rise, to speak: “I should-” but failed at both and grabbed the chair for support, floundering like he’d keel over.
There was only one course her conscience would allow, and she had little liking for it. But he was no threat to her so weakened, and not, if she was any judge of men-and she’d had to be-the kind to repay her with brute force and blows. She’d be damned, though, if she would have him soil the bedding, she’d never be done washing. While he breathed in and out, steadying, she fetched an old blanket and spread it across her cot.
The protest showed on his face before it reached his mouth, and she forestalled him. “You’ll get yourself killed ‘cause you can’t stand on your feet and what use was it mending you then?”
“What, indeed,” he said, meekness belied by faint amusement. “Far be it from me to waste such expert work.”
He managed to cross the floor without mishap, but she had to right him when he halted, and help him take off his baldric. After he was seated, he slumped onto his side with a full shudder and an earnest, “Thank you.”
She snorted, not as ready to offer him honesty. “I’d have done the same for anyone.”
“Even so.”
“Well.” She hitched a shoulder. “It is what it is. Now hush and go to sleep.”
He shifted for greater comfort, his eyelids drifting shut. Unkempt, dark strands had slid over his bearded cheek and his left hand lay long-fingered and half-open on the blanket. He seemed a proper stray like that: disarmed, unguarded and lost.
She did not linger to look. It made her irritable.
*
That night, she sat dozing by fits and starts, heedful not for her own sake but for his, should his condition take a sudden turn. At the first broken moan that escaped him, she was up in a trice, rubbing at her eyes. She couldn’t determine if he was feverish, fumbled to touch him to make certain, but his forehead was dry and not overly warm. Yet something had him troubled, for his lips moved, shaping sentences she could not hear. Until she could.
“Sparrow,” he said, unmistakably. “Mark my words, I will find you.”
She recoiled with a gasp, her heart hammering. Not Jack, it could not be. Her mind spun round, then settled, and the guessing fair chilled her inside. James. James, and she had not thought, did not know him by sight, but James Norrington-she had searched the horizon for the shadow of his ship, while aboard the Pearl, with Jack, as ever, laughing, “Let’s lead him a merry chase, eh?” She had raised her cup and cheered with the rest of ‘em, when it was rumoured he’d fallen out of grace and disappeared. A commodore of the Royal Navy. Scourge of pirates. In Tortuga. In her bed.
She choked on a wild giggle and clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle it, backing further away. She could be wrong, but it explained too much, it made those odd contradictions fit a pattern. Folly, he had said, and it was surely that, if he was here after Jack Sparrow. Crazed folly, to be here at all.
Gazing at his recumbent form, her thoughts ran apace. If she took a knife to him, none would be the wiser. Would he have spared her, had they clashed at sea, him in such finery and with such authority, a crew of men to obey his orders? Would his glance have passed her over, or would he have singled her out, called her abomination, lone woman that she’d been?
She shook her head, willing herself out of conjured fancies. It had never happened, and the man was wounded, in her care. It would be futile, besides. His actions had cost him, stripped him of everything. The privilege of a commodore’s rank, the power to be scourge of any earthly creature, except mayhap of rats. Crazed folly, aye. Or desperation.
She couldn’t hurt him more than he’d hurt himself, and did not wish to. Not entirely.
Composure regained, she sank into the chair and remained motionless a while, coming slowly to a decision, but when she had, it was set. She owed Jack Sparrow nothing, but his whereabouts were a mystery to her, and it’d scarce serve any purpose to tell James part of a whole. Let someone else feed his obsession. Let his past, like hers, stay dead and buried.
*
He woke at sunrise, rested-unlike her-and it was plain it’d done him good. The dizziness that had plagued him the eve before didn’t return, and his complexion wasn’t as sickly. She made him eat, and she examined the stitches to see to it they held, but she did not talk of Jack or the Black Pearl, though it filled her to bursting, that secret.
“You have no family?”
She flinched. “They’re gone.” He nodded, his expression softened, and she added, “I don’t need none of your pity.”
He raised his empty palms at her tone, a placating attempt. “That’s patently clear. Forgive my presumption.”
She removed the plates with a clatter, turning her back, but could not quell the urge that prompted her to ask, “Have you?” Like it mattered.
“Family? A brother in England, but our correspondence is rare. The blame,” he said, “is mine as well as his. We were never close. I had hoped to marry-“ He stopped short. “It’s of no consequence now.”
She twisted around to catch his grimace, the rueful curl of his mouth. Jack had rambled on ‘bout that day, the day they almost hanged him, so she had a notion of the cause. The Swann girl, that meddling, quick-witted chit. Few men Ana had encountered would have done what this one had, given up what they could have claimed, the maid willing or no.
It took some effort to imagine it: how he must’ve appeared, high on those parapets she’d squinted up to view. His present misery proved hindrance, but she tried. As straight-spined and formal-sounding, but likely smooth-shaven, his buckles and boots polished shiny and his wig tidied, not that bird’s nest fright.
He said, mildly, “Have I grown horns?”
“What?” She’d been staring, cursed it under her breath in a furious heat of embarrassment. Not horns, she didn’t reply, with a lurch in her gut, but a Navy uniform. His eyes were questioning, but she had no answers for him and no taste for dissembling. “You’d best be on your way. Or tongues’ll wag, I expect.”
They might. Might not, too, but he accepted it and did not gainsay her. “Of course.” The chair scraped as he stood, then set out to collect his effects. He was taller than Jack, a quiet presence where Jack was effusive, precise where Jack’d be wheedling. Commodore Norrington. For her sanity, she could not keep him.
When he was done, she followed him out. The sun’s heat was still shy of blistering, the neighbouring alleys in a morning lull, and she noted, with grateful dismay, that he placed himself downwind of her.
“Will you not tell me your name, this time?”
She bared her teeth like a blade, perversely resisting such simple surrender, and of all things, he chuckled, but not, she felt, in mockery, so it didn’t much ruffle her. “Mind that gash,” she muttered, folding her arms. “Don’t let it fester.”
“Miss,” he said, both agreement and parting. “I’m in your debt.”
And that was a strange piece of fortune, but the near scoff stuck in her throat. He’d take it back soon as anything should he learn she had sailed under a pirate flag. In Jack Sparrow’s company. But it was laid down between them here, like he meant it.
She went indoors before he’d walked ten paces, belatedly, uneasily recalling the reason she’d sworn to steer wide of strays: they had a habit of getting under your skin.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Disney's. I don't own it. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Summary: Anamaria once again encounters a certain former commodore. Set before Norrington's first appearance in DMC.
Author's note: Originally intended for the Twelve Days of Christmas, this is a follow-up to something I wrote ages ago, a ficlet called Chance Encounter. With thanks to geekmama for beta reading.
A Proper Stray
by Hereswith
“Bah! You stink!” she grumbled, the pungent concoction of sweat, stale liquor and unnamed dirt not the worst she’d smelled, but still foul.
His colour heightened, as though it truly shamed him, and he was as sober as she’d seen him, so she reckoned it did. “My sleeping arrangements have been... less than adequate.”
Less than adequate meaning shabby and haphazard, no doubt, and why was it she had brought him home again, like some stray pup she’d spotted in the streets? He was hardly a dog to be pitied, and she with no patience for nursing. But she remembered him from that chance meeting: the bedraggled sailor with a gentleman’s voice, the sweet smile and the sharp hint of pride, and he’d been easy to recognise, even bloodied and dazed.
“Be still,” she hissed, when pain made him wince, and pushed the needle through, pulling the edges of skin together neat and tight. “’Less you want me to redo it? Might teach you to keep your head down in a brawl.”
“God forbid,” he mumbled, tensing as she pricked him anew, but he behaved enough that she could finish, then clean the clotted blood from his hair.
“You’ll live.” She took her hands off him, wiping them on a cloth. “Can’t say if that’s a mercy.”
“No,” he replied, and she remembered that tone too, laden with a loss he didn’t bear well. “Nor can I.” He began to rise, to speak: “I should-” but failed at both and grabbed the chair for support, floundering like he’d keel over.
There was only one course her conscience would allow, and she had little liking for it. But he was no threat to her so weakened, and not, if she was any judge of men-and she’d had to be-the kind to repay her with brute force and blows. She’d be damned, though, if she would have him soil the bedding, she’d never be done washing. While he breathed in and out, steadying, she fetched an old blanket and spread it across her cot.
The protest showed on his face before it reached his mouth, and she forestalled him. “You’ll get yourself killed ‘cause you can’t stand on your feet and what use was it mending you then?”
“What, indeed,” he said, meekness belied by faint amusement. “Far be it from me to waste such expert work.”
He managed to cross the floor without mishap, but she had to right him when he halted, and help him take off his baldric. After he was seated, he slumped onto his side with a full shudder and an earnest, “Thank you.”
She snorted, not as ready to offer him honesty. “I’d have done the same for anyone.”
“Even so.”
“Well.” She hitched a shoulder. “It is what it is. Now hush and go to sleep.”
He shifted for greater comfort, his eyelids drifting shut. Unkempt, dark strands had slid over his bearded cheek and his left hand lay long-fingered and half-open on the blanket. He seemed a proper stray like that: disarmed, unguarded and lost.
She did not linger to look. It made her irritable.
*
That night, she sat dozing by fits and starts, heedful not for her own sake but for his, should his condition take a sudden turn. At the first broken moan that escaped him, she was up in a trice, rubbing at her eyes. She couldn’t determine if he was feverish, fumbled to touch him to make certain, but his forehead was dry and not overly warm. Yet something had him troubled, for his lips moved, shaping sentences she could not hear. Until she could.
“Sparrow,” he said, unmistakably. “Mark my words, I will find you.”
She recoiled with a gasp, her heart hammering. Not Jack, it could not be. Her mind spun round, then settled, and the guessing fair chilled her inside. James. James, and she had not thought, did not know him by sight, but James Norrington-she had searched the horizon for the shadow of his ship, while aboard the Pearl, with Jack, as ever, laughing, “Let’s lead him a merry chase, eh?” She had raised her cup and cheered with the rest of ‘em, when it was rumoured he’d fallen out of grace and disappeared. A commodore of the Royal Navy. Scourge of pirates. In Tortuga. In her bed.
She choked on a wild giggle and clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle it, backing further away. She could be wrong, but it explained too much, it made those odd contradictions fit a pattern. Folly, he had said, and it was surely that, if he was here after Jack Sparrow. Crazed folly, to be here at all.
Gazing at his recumbent form, her thoughts ran apace. If she took a knife to him, none would be the wiser. Would he have spared her, had they clashed at sea, him in such finery and with such authority, a crew of men to obey his orders? Would his glance have passed her over, or would he have singled her out, called her abomination, lone woman that she’d been?
She shook her head, willing herself out of conjured fancies. It had never happened, and the man was wounded, in her care. It would be futile, besides. His actions had cost him, stripped him of everything. The privilege of a commodore’s rank, the power to be scourge of any earthly creature, except mayhap of rats. Crazed folly, aye. Or desperation.
She couldn’t hurt him more than he’d hurt himself, and did not wish to. Not entirely.
Composure regained, she sank into the chair and remained motionless a while, coming slowly to a decision, but when she had, it was set. She owed Jack Sparrow nothing, but his whereabouts were a mystery to her, and it’d scarce serve any purpose to tell James part of a whole. Let someone else feed his obsession. Let his past, like hers, stay dead and buried.
*
He woke at sunrise, rested-unlike her-and it was plain it’d done him good. The dizziness that had plagued him the eve before didn’t return, and his complexion wasn’t as sickly. She made him eat, and she examined the stitches to see to it they held, but she did not talk of Jack or the Black Pearl, though it filled her to bursting, that secret.
“You have no family?”
She flinched. “They’re gone.” He nodded, his expression softened, and she added, “I don’t need none of your pity.”
He raised his empty palms at her tone, a placating attempt. “That’s patently clear. Forgive my presumption.”
She removed the plates with a clatter, turning her back, but could not quell the urge that prompted her to ask, “Have you?” Like it mattered.
“Family? A brother in England, but our correspondence is rare. The blame,” he said, “is mine as well as his. We were never close. I had hoped to marry-“ He stopped short. “It’s of no consequence now.”
She twisted around to catch his grimace, the rueful curl of his mouth. Jack had rambled on ‘bout that day, the day they almost hanged him, so she had a notion of the cause. The Swann girl, that meddling, quick-witted chit. Few men Ana had encountered would have done what this one had, given up what they could have claimed, the maid willing or no.
It took some effort to imagine it: how he must’ve appeared, high on those parapets she’d squinted up to view. His present misery proved hindrance, but she tried. As straight-spined and formal-sounding, but likely smooth-shaven, his buckles and boots polished shiny and his wig tidied, not that bird’s nest fright.
He said, mildly, “Have I grown horns?”
“What?” She’d been staring, cursed it under her breath in a furious heat of embarrassment. Not horns, she didn’t reply, with a lurch in her gut, but a Navy uniform. His eyes were questioning, but she had no answers for him and no taste for dissembling. “You’d best be on your way. Or tongues’ll wag, I expect.”
They might. Might not, too, but he accepted it and did not gainsay her. “Of course.” The chair scraped as he stood, then set out to collect his effects. He was taller than Jack, a quiet presence where Jack was effusive, precise where Jack’d be wheedling. Commodore Norrington. For her sanity, she could not keep him.
When he was done, she followed him out. The sun’s heat was still shy of blistering, the neighbouring alleys in a morning lull, and she noted, with grateful dismay, that he placed himself downwind of her.
“Will you not tell me your name, this time?”
She bared her teeth like a blade, perversely resisting such simple surrender, and of all things, he chuckled, but not, she felt, in mockery, so it didn’t much ruffle her. “Mind that gash,” she muttered, folding her arms. “Don’t let it fester.”
“Miss,” he said, both agreement and parting. “I’m in your debt.”
And that was a strange piece of fortune, but the near scoff stuck in her throat. He’d take it back soon as anything should he learn she had sailed under a pirate flag. In Jack Sparrow’s company. But it was laid down between them here, like he meant it.
She went indoors before he’d walked ten paces, belatedly, uneasily recalling the reason she’d sworn to steer wide of strays: they had a habit of getting under your skin.