Ten Perfect Moments
1.
He was thirteen. He worked on his father’s ship; just a midshipman. His brother was a captain, and his father, an Admiral. There was nothing special about the day; it was hot, which was not unusual, and they we working as hard as they usually did. No, the moment came later in the day; the sun was setting, the heat had lessened, and three boys had found a moment to themselves, lying in the sun. Young James was the oldest; then Theodore, at eleven years old, and Andrew, who was nine. They were conversing over nothing; nothing important, anyway. Teddy had paused in his ongoing feud with the Admiral, Andy had ceased to shy away from the bigger boys, and James was letting go of his feelings of responsibility. They shared one short evening as boys; just young boys, behaving as young boys do, and not a care in the world for battles or pirates or death. They were only children, spending an evening as children do; and so rare a moment was it, that all three treasured the day long after they had forgotten the conversation.
2.
A storm was raging. The sea was rushing angrily about them, and in so small a sloop they could do naught but hold on. Andrew, mad with delight in the howling winds, laughed from where he clung to the ship. Theodore has professed his belief that his two friends were mad, and was doing his best not to tumble overboard. James, soaked to the bone, was standing at the helm, grinning. He laughed into the storm, warring with Mother Nature for his ship, his crew, and his life. He had never felt so alive as he felt then, a young lieutenant trying his mettle and finding his love of the sea all over again; and he trusted that though she raged at him, she would not consume him, and she trusted him to love her, from afar if he must; he would keep her safe.
3.
It seemed a stupid thing to be proud of; but he beamed all the same, ignoring the look with which it had been said, ignoring the apathy that washed off of the other man; it mattered not. What he said, he meant- and his father had said he was proud of him.
4.
It had been the day after a not-so-perfect day. The first day he had seen a man hang, on his authority, he had barely made it out of the public eye before losing the contents of his stomach. He had spent the night in a cold sweat, picturing the man dangling from the rope, twitching. It was so gruesome; worse, somehow, than seeing a dozen brigands die on his deck. Seeing the life slowly seep out of a man, pain and death and anguish put on display for an entire town, like some sort of traveling show.
The morning had dawned, muggy and harsh, and he had expected a bad day after his bad night; only to awaken to the sight of a somber-looking Andrew Gillette seated on his stomach.
“Jamie,” he had said. “You need a drink.”
And he and Theodore promptly whisked James off, to the pub; assuaging his guilt and unhappiness through tomfoolery, roughhousing, and laughter. It was precisely what James had needed, and his two friends had seen to it. All James had to say that night, as they stumbled home, was “Thank you.”
5.
Lieutenant James Norrington had never felt precisely…excited about ferrying a Governor and his young daughter to the West Indies; he had expected to find the Governor boring, and the daughter tiresomely spoiled. He was surprised to learn he was only partially correct; Weatherby Swann was a stuffy, flighty man, and his daughter was terribly spoiled by her doting father. However, Weatherby was also friendly, and seemd harmless; and his daughter, Elizabeth…By God, she was a pistol. She latched onto James, Andrew, and Theodore like a limpet; they were bewildered at first, but grew to like the spunky little girl- they taught her songs (Some of which would have turned her father bright red), they explained everything she wished to know about sailing, and they participated in her childish schemes. Many of the days spent in the crossing were the best any of them had had in awhile; and the friendship they had with that little chit of a girl seemed as if it could never end.
6.
On the day of his promotion to Captain, James couldn’t have been happier. His own ship, his own crew, and the freedom to work as he wished, to run a ship as he saw fit. He took Andy and Theo as his lieutenants, of course; from now on, neither hell nor high water would separate the three, if they could help it. Standing, the three of them together, on their ship- that was a moment that could never be replaced.
It was only later, that James dwelled on what could have made the day perfect. His family- all that was left of it- hadn’t been there to see him. Mother wouldn’t get the letter for a month or so; even then, she hadn’t remembered who he was in years. Gregory would have been well-meaning, but depressing, and he hardly knew Alexander’s family. So, he convinced himself, even without his family, it was a perfect day. At the same time, in the back of his mind sat the images of his father and older brother, quietly adding a bittersweet tang to the events of the day; perhaps not so perfect a moment after all.
7.
James had a lack of perfect moments, for a long while; everything so quickly ruined, by That Pirate or by his own idiocy. Indeed, for a short time his life seemed dark, and as if he wouldn’t make out of their ordeal alive. He didn’t. The end came, to James Norrington- but then came a pirate, and an adventure to put his previous ones to shame. And there were nights during that adventure where they sat together by a fire, hiding from whatever went bump in the night, talking about anything and everything, philosophy, life; discovering that they were not so different as they had thought. There was something about those nights that seemed to have a sort of fragile hope, the hope that they would make it through this. And those nights of quiet camaraderie were as perfect of night as James had had in years.
8.
James had been, at first, baffled. But he calmed down and realized that he felt-- at peace. As though this was a completely logical conclusion to these months in hell, and that though this was surely mad, there was something absolutely right about kissing Jack Sparrow.
9.
They were drunk.
That was an understatement- they were completely, totally sloshed, seated twenty feet in the air atop flagpoles. For some reason, that seemed logical. About as logical as making sails out of sheets, really, and he couldn’t remember why they’d had to drag six or so dumpsters over to make a hull, but it was a very nice ship.
The police didn’t agree.
So, after a long night of the police attempting to ‘talk them down’ and crowds gasping in horror as the men cheerfully slid down the poles with no apparent concern for the heights they were at, they were arrested.
They agreed later that it had been entirely worth it to keep them out of ‘Nam for a few more months.
10.
The last moment wasn’t a specific one; it happened many times, and the year didn’t matter. The sixties, the seventies the eighties, the nineties, it happened in all of them. It was a quiet moment, early in the morning, when James woke up first. He would shift in bed, before remembering that Jack was wrapped around him. He always made the same face at whatever cat had woken him up, and carefully sat up so as not to wake his bedmate. He would look down, and smile. Jack looked older when he slept; and without his trickster’s grin he seemed tired and careworn. James would tuck a wayward strand of hair behind Jack’s ear. He would then carefully extract himself from Jack’s clinging, pet the cats and the platypus, and walk to the kitchen to make breakfast.
The moment was nothing special; just a common, peaceful morning. But it was comfortable, and theirs. There were no battles to fight, no tension in the air, no life or death struggle at hand. There was only a quiet, sleeping Jack and rattling pots and pans.
Peace, James had learned, was something to be savoured.