The brig of the Flying Dutchman is not a pleasant place even by the usual standards of ship brigs. Norrington tries to avoid going near it, as much as possible.

Tonight he can't. Some choices, once made, can't be gone back on.

He unlocks the door hastily, with a glance over his shoulder.

Admiral Norrington has been cloistered in his cabin since Lord Beckett gave him back his sword. He's had a lot of thinking to do. But a time comes when a man's thoughts start going round in circles, and what he needs is fresh air.

So he heads out onto the deck, to watch the waves for a while.

It's not the first time he's found himself, in dreams, in a place that's lost to him in reality. That time was in the office that now belongs to Cutler Beckett, but in this dream...

...in this dream, he's aboard the Endeavour, whole and undamaged and there as she'll never be again.

There's an office in Port Royal that James Norrington used to know as well as his own house.

He hasn't been there in months, in the real world. So it's really no surprise that he dreams himself back there, once in a while. That he dreams he never fell from grace.

He's sitting behind the desk, papers in hand.

He's up early, as he always is, getting ready for another day's work on the Pearl. And he's trying not to think about how close the repairs are to complete, and what happens when it's all done.

He's about ten seconds from leaving when the knock comes at the door.

He has a room, above the bar, but he's out of it as much as he is in at present. Either working on the Pearl or, as now, just walking the lakeside and trying to pretend it's a real shoreline, and it's salt water he smells, not fresh.

Sometimes it even almost works.

He has a job to do, and he's doing it. Scrubbing the decks may not be the most pleasant work, but at least it helps him not to think too hard.

Or to think about what he has to do next.

One of those.

Most of the crew are dead, and those that aren't are keeping their distance, as far as possible, paddling away on whatever wreckage they can find.

He can't blame them. Nor, he finds, does he have much of a will to paddle himself. Not now.

So, sitting on a plank that was conveniently there, James Norrington floats.

He's been expecting the other shoe to drop since the 'one day's head start' stretched into weeks, then months, and Captain Jack Sparrow remained at large ( Read more... )

He's had the feeling that he's being watched for two days, now. He's putting it down to fatigue, because every time he looks around, there's no one there ( Read more... )