Late one cool night in the early spring, commodore James Norrington found himself awake in the quiet of his room, alone, with the horrible realization that he was most certainly doomed.

There was no apparent reason for this epiphany, no threat looming on the horizon, no storms brewing. Life had, for some months now, been perfectly, blessedly peaceful. Or, as peaceful as one could come to expect with a pirate climbing randomly in one's window whenever he happened to feel like it. Not that this was a nightly occurrence. A monthly visit was often more than James would bother to expect. But it still gave even the dullest routine a bit of flair, didn't it...?

Damn. In the cricket-song-lit darkness, James groaned and stuck his head under the pillow, nearly suffocated, and flung it away, gasping.

What was it? What, after all the time he'd spent risking his career and his neck to... er... with a... Oh, BLAST. What was it that was stealing his sleep from him now?

With an exasperated sigh, James sprawled out across the rumpled bed in his thin underclothes, seeking out the breeze wafting in through the open window, and glared at a crack in the ceiling. He COULD NOT sleep. And it was all Jack Sparrow's fault.

This was not the first night since befriending that bloody pirate that he'd lain awake, staring at the same parch of plaster. God, so many ways to worry himself gray at a young age. The man knew it, too. Knew every fear and logical reason that Norrington's mind could throw up at him, knew how to turn each and every one of them aside and lay them in their graves where they belonged. He'd talk his way out of Hell, James reflected dryly, and he'd do it laughing. No matter how many years he spent breaking the rules, and what God had to say on the matter.

He wasn't sure if Jack even expected it to become so easy between them so quickly. At first he'd made it a game, an amusement, to bait the good Commodore. Harass him just a little. Perhaps booby-trap his office once or twice... (James scowled to himself, in the darkness. Bloody pirate...) But somehow, in between chasing each other about on the open ocean exchanging cannon fire, and chasing the bloody madman around his house with a pistol trying to get his wig back, he realized he'd found a friend. Insane, infuriating, improbable, damn well illegal, but a friend none the less.

He heard the clock in the downstairs hall chime four, and finally gave up the ghost. There would be no sleep for him this night. Groaning a little, James stood and walked to the window, drew back the curtain and stared out into the darkness.

They could be hanged for the things they did. He could learn to accept it. Maybe learn to laugh at it. But even dreams of the noose were less terrifying than waking to find himself reaching out across the bed in the middle of the night for a pirate that wasn't there.