One day's head start Commodore James Norrington thought to himself as he stood ashore beside the Dauntless, surveying the stream of barrels and crates as they bobbed aboard on the shoulders of seamen and midshipmen and down into her main hold. That was all I agreed to. And it had been one day, twenty-four hours almost exactly, since that singular self-obsessed sad excuse for a pirate had succeeded in taking James' life, which had hitherto been merely rolling and pitching in a wild squall of frankly unbelievable occasions, and officially capsizing it. Yes, capsizing was right, for it had been no mere slow sinking, and neither had there been anything harsh and explosive to it. He had simply and swiftly upended all James' goals and ideals and unceremoniously dropped the overturned shell back into the waves, vanishing without any move at recompense. But recompense would follow, sure as the shriekingrain that follows a heavy glass-calm; one day had passed, the commodore had taken the opportunity to plan, and soon they would be en route to the Black Pearl herself. He had taken note of her bearings and direction as she sailed from Port Royal, and one day does not afford a sparrow far to fly. That man was born to have a noose round his neck, and there are only so many times a man can dodge his fate, legendary pirate or no.

"Sir, that's the last of the provisions"

"Very good Mr. Groves, thank you." Norrington responded in the instinctive manner of a man whose home tongue was that of the sea. Groves, equally reflexively, gave a small salute as he turned and walked up the ramp on board the Dauntless. James looked up at his ship. She held no less than 100 guns, and her three gundecks towered almost interminably above him, shadowing him in her glory. She was something to be feared, to be adored. A magnificent wonder of technology and craftsmanship. Her broad, clean ochre stripe gleamed warm and encouraging in the young morning sun and caught the saucy glint of the gilded figurehead as the selfsame sun danced over her from the sea's bright mirror, beckoning him to take his place as commodore of the Royal Navy and captain of the Dauntless.

He stepped up the ramp onto the main deck, nodded to the nearby seamen to take up the wood plank, and wasted no time. The Pearl was fast, damned fast, and she already had a day on them, however leisurely her pace. "All hands! Make sail; weigh anchor! Lively, men!" Norrington shouted as he made his way astern and up the steps to the helm. His crew, motley group though they were, it being increasingly difficult to find a virtuous set of men in Port Royal, aptly though unfortunately known as the 'wickedest town on Earth,' moved to without question. What this Jack Sparrow may not have suspected was that in his escape he had only inflamed the pursuit of otherwise lukewarm sailors; no member of the King's Navy, volunteered or pressed, would willingly stand to be fleeced by a flighty fop and his raggedy ship and crew. "Mr. Barrett, set us southeast by east, if you please."

"Very good sir, southeast by east. Heading towards the mainland, we are?"

"Perhaps, Mr. Barrett. We are heading towards the Black Pearl."

"Of course sir. We'll be on her before either of us can reach Maracaibo."

"That was my intent; we shall see if it will be so." James looked up just in time to see the sails drop and swell out, and as the men scurried back down to the decks he filled with a confidence and contentment, a sureness that, with the wind in their favor and fire in their hearts, Fate was with the Dauntless and her crew.

Five days later, Norrington sat in the great cabin, talking with his officers. The weather had been irreproachable, and everything had gone according to plan, save one detail: the Pearl had yet to be sighted.

"You're sure she headed this direction, sir."

"Yes, Mr. Whit." Norrington's lips were drawn thin, his fingers laced on the table in front of him, the very picture of composed frustration beginning to be undone. The same questions, and the same answers, had been circling about the cabin for the past hour at least, and all they had served to do had been to further aggravate the commodore.

"Sir, perhaps we underestimated her speed."

Norrington rose to his feet in an act of unforeseen impulse and very near knocked the chair out behind himself as he leaned forward and pressed his palms to the table, saying, "For the third time, Lieutenant, I tell you that would clearly appear to be the case!"

Gillette paled at his commanding officer's reaction, and Norrington, seeing this, sighed and sat again. "My apologies, gentlemen. It would seem that our status has begun to wear my composure. Please excuse me." The officers, each in his turn, nodded, stood, and saluted before exiting the great cabin. Norrington cradled his head in his hands, then propped the bridge of his nose against his thumb and forefinger, then called, "Dowson!"

The cook, a spindly, spidery man who was perpetually forced to crouch whenever he was in the pantry, which was most of the time, considering, poked his head through the door, the rest of his elongated body following over the next few seconds.

"Sir?"

The commodore did not even look up; simply posed the question: "What is the current state of victuals?"

"At present, sir, and at present rate, enough to take us through the morrow."

"One day!" Norrington caught himself and lowered his voice, repeating, "One day. Why did you not inform me thus?"

"Well sir, I thought we'd be spotting the Pearl within the day, so it wouldn't have mattered, you see sir."

"Yes, I understand. Well, Mr. Dowson, it seems that things have not come about exactly as you had hoped, indeed, not as any of us had hoped. The crew will need to tighten their belts. Do the best you can; try to get another two days at least."

"Aye sir."

"Thank you, that is all."

"Aye sir. You wouldn't like some tea?"

"No, Mr. Dowson, thank you. You may return to your duties."

The tall, thin caricature of a man saluted and ducked out, and James, seated still in the great cabin, could hear the rustling and murmuring from the pantry that told of Dowson's efforts to convey the alterations to his mates.

So far Dowson had managed to coax three days out of the rations, with minimal use of the emergency stores. There had been momentary glimpses of black, tattered sails, so the men claimed, but such phantom images disappeared over the horizon before James ever had a chance to verify. It was another such wishful mirage that Norrington was expecting when he was called to deck shortly after seven bells of the first dogwatch on the eighth day at sea. He found, however, a different sight indeed. Clouds were gathering, dark and angry, off the larboard bow, and from the way they drank up the red sunset and swelled with its fury, James could tell this storm was no empty threat. Sure enough, before the sun sank below the waves, those twisting black clouds had broken open and unleashed an howling wind and beating rainfall that gave its best effort to tearing the Dauntless from the sea. It would be impossible to sail through, and without a definite promised course and destination they could not afford to sail her blind, which would be all that scudding would allow them. No, Norrington decided, better to lie to and wait for the storm to pass than to continue on in foolish abandon. He gave the orders, and all unwanted sails, the studding-sails, staysails, royals, topgallants, were hauled down. But that, much to the commodore's frustration, was where the action stopped.

"Idiots! The wind will throw her aback! Get to reefing!" Still no response. A few nervous attempts at apparent abeyance, but nothing more. "Mr. Hollway! Mr. Abern! If you please! All other hands that can go aloft, to assist! Lively, before she tips on her stern!" Norrington watched the named men scramble up the masts, and wondered why it was that his crew had such a dramatic shortage of initiative. At least he did not need to tell Barrett, a weathered coxswain, where to guide the ship, and for this he was thankful. James directed the rest of the crew below, out of the squall, and remained abovedecks himself just long enough to see the men safely down from the masts. He climbed below, all the way to the lower decks, to be sure that all was well with the crew, especially a few of the younger ones, boys of ten or twelve for whom this was their first voyage. Satisfied that things were as to be expected, given the circumstances, Norrington made his way back and up to his cabin. He opened the door to go inside, and—the whole place exploded. Shattered glass screamed past him like so many tiny banshees, and a thunder that he knew instantly could not be at all attributed to the storm shook his body. He fell to the floor.

When he awoke, it was in a place, rank and damp, that he had never seen, but knew without thought. The wall behind him was black. The floor beneath him was black. The grid in front of him and at either side was black. The metal cup that sat just within his sight was black. The water in it was black. He would have thought that his entire immediate world was black, had he not spotted a glint of gold from a shadowy corner. But even that could have been illusory, James reasoned, as he tried to prop himself up to sit and was suddenly swimming in pain. The gold glint must have noticed his movement, because it emerged from the shadows as a gold face, red bandanna, silver beads, white bone. It spoke. "Morning to ye, James. If you'd stayed out much longer I might've started to worry."

A mass of questions took to swirling through Norrington's head, some fully determined, some half-formed, some mere suggestions of dis-ease. He was on the Pearl then?—How long had he been out?—Had Jack been there the whole time?—His ship—his Dauntless—was she—?—Her crew?—Jack Sparrow, worry? He tried to voiceat least this last speculation, but due to a cottony mouth, foggy mental capacity, and general painful immobility, he was forced to resort to a low moan. Not entirely eloquent, but accurate nonetheless.

"Peace, James, peace. You've had quite a nasty turn of events, to be sure. Up ye get, on your feet... no?" No. "Gibbs!" The shout made Norrington's head pulse as though there were cannons shooting from it, and the recoil and reverberating ring were striking him square in he temples. Before he had time to recover, though, Gibbs had appeared, and he and Jack were sliding a canvas under James' bandaged body. The irony, that an openly inimical pirate captain and a sailor who had deserted Norrington's command years ago for no explicit reason were now the only two with charge of his damnably helpless body, was not lost on James, but there was admittedly little he could do to either acknowledge or protest it. The two pirates pulled up the corners of the canvas and carried him out of the hold to the captain's cabin.

It was not as though Norrington had refused to stand; on the contrary, he could not have more fervently wished to have been able to stand, or at least sit, in opposition to Jack. Heaven knows he tried, but, seeing as each and every joint was still made of stone as a reminder of his all-too-recent unconsciousness, he had had little success in the matter. Fortunately, however, his lucidity was fast returning, and it was thanks to this that he had the sense and self-control not to cry out when he was unceremoniously dropped onto the captain's cot ("Gibbs, what the bloody blue blazes—sorry James, really I am—you blundering idiot, couldn't keep hold of a sack of shot if it were lashed to yer back, not a bad idea, come to think of it—you alright there?—get back up on deck and try to be useful, you flea-ridden land-dog—my apologies again, truly...").

"Not to worry," was James' only somewhat strained reply to Jack's intermittent and frenetic apology; thankfully he had, by now, recovered his powers of speech to a functional degree. "I've... been through worse."

This seemed to mollify the pirate, though Norrington still found his concern perplexing, and Jack, with a nod, set to rummaging in his surprisingly ornate—surprising because Norrington had always assumed that Jack Sparrow was a pirate of much words and little action, and as such would have little of value by the way of `plunder'—chest of drawers. James took the opportunity to assess for himself the damage incurred on his body. From what he could see and feel, he was bandaged from waist to shoulders, and over a good deal of his arms, and his once white breeches, now irreparable, were stained liberally with blood, dried or otherwise, dirt, pitch, an Lord only knew (or perhaps even He didn't know) what else. Before James even began to contemplate that, Jack had returned to the side of the cot with a rather large and intimidating black box. He noted Norrington's wary expression, and assured him, "Medicals. Being that we have no surgeon by title, and I'm the only one with an idea of how to use the blasted stuff, I've got the position." James nodded his understanding, and Jack went on. "And seeing as you were pretty well cut to ribbons—my apologies for that as well, but, hazards of battle, savvy?—we figured it would be best that I look after ye."

"And 'we' would encompass...?"

Jack was busy opening and shutting drawers in the black box, at times extricating a phial or some such, and remained so occupied as he responded, rather offhandedly, "Me crew and I. Seeing as yours couldn't really have much say in the matter."

This last statement brought anxieties and suspicions racing to the fore of James' mind, and he repeated, part terrified-of and part already-knowing the answer, "Couldn't have much say?"

"Well, no; they were slightly indisposed, the lot of them."

James raised an eyebrow, and in doing so learned that he apparently had a gash along his forehead as well. "And why exactly were they indisposed, Mr. Sparrow?"

"Captain," came the automatic retort, then, "Yer crew is... Ye know, I'll talk about that in a few; at the moment, we need to get new dressings and the like; ye haven't had clean bandages since we took ye aboard three days ago; didn' want to distress ye any more than necessary—"

"No, Jack." Norrington sat up, shuddered with the effort and the pain, gritted his teeth and willed himself not to fall back, and continued. "It is my right and duty to know the state of my ship and my men, and I must insist that you tell me what it is you know."

Jack took advantage of Norrington's seated position and fairly leapt upon him, unwinding the bandages with speed and skill, in direct contrast to his menacing hiss at his patient's ear: "Your right and duty nothing, James. I am truly sorry if I have given you the impression that you still have any rights to speak of. You must realize that you are a prisoner, injured or otherwise, and that the only reason you are not locked below, where you ought to be by all rights and customs, is that I have the decency and compassion to attend to your injuries."

At this he cast the old bandages aside and began to apply a poultice to the countless assortment of slashes that covered Norrington's chest and back. His anger betrayed itself in the rough and hurried quality his ministrations took on, and James' wounds were crying out in dismay. The commodore set his jaw against the onslaught and rejoined:

"Perhaps I would rather that you had left me below, or better still, never taken me prisoner, for then I would not be obliged to you, nor indebted to your alleged kindness."

Jack spread the last of the poultice and started to wind a fresh bandage, a little more tightly and swiftly than he might have had his patient been less damnably unappreciative and adamant. He held his voice chillingly soft, a soothing, didactic tone that concealed, however imperfectly, his frustration and resentment.

"If I had not insisted that you be taken aboard and tended, you would at this very moment be stretched across the bottom of the sea, along with everything else on that leviathan beast of a ship." He paused to touch his fingers to an especially fierce gash on James' shoulder—one that seemed to be making no attempt at healing. "This one looks to need stitching up," he muttered, a part of him hoping that the announcement would turn James' mind from the news of his late ship.

It didn't work; he hadn't really expected it to. James merely gave a mindless murmur of acknowledgement, wordlessly denied any anaesthesia (he sincerely doubted the efficacy, or even safety, of anything Jack fished out of that black box, and wished to avoid as much of it as possible) and returned to the essential issue that had been presented. "So she is wrecked."

"Yes. She is. And all the crew with her." And then as if to justify: "I told you I didn't want to get into it just then, I had wanted to wait until you were in a better condition, but you just had to—"

"My God Jack, I do not need you reprimanding me, of all things." He held up a bloodied hand (on the arm that was not at the moment subject to a needle) to quell Jack's retort and added, "Nor sputtering a stream of useless, though no doubt entertaining, excuses. You may claim that you know what it is to lose a ship. But you have no notion of the severity that awaits me now. I face the rest of my life without any ship at all. The most I can hope for is to be allowed to remain a post-captain at half pay, but in all truth I cannot expect to ever be commissioned another day in my life. I am responsible for the careless loss of a flagship of His Majesty's Navy, Jack. Do you know what that means? What that does to my reputation? I don't suppose you would, since you have managed to build your name on undermining everything that I fight to defend. Fought." He watched Jack bandaging over the completed stitches, and finished by saying, "And now you have the gall to save my life."

"God damn you for breathing, James, can you never just shut up and accept a favor?" The two held eye contact for what seemed an interminable period of time, then Jack rolled his eyes and began to reassemble the contents of his black medical box. He walked back to the desk to return the box to its place of residence, and as his back was turned, James burst out,

"It would be better had you left me to sink with her!"

Jack wheeled around and leveled an intensely furious glare at Norrington. There was no touch of mirth in his eyes, as near to black now as the deepest sea on a starless night, no humor, none of that sparkle of wit that was so often his ally. "Well I didn't, did I?" It was hardly a question, and though he spoke in no more than a whisper, his words rang in James' ears and rendered him quite effectively mute. Once again, it was Jack who broke the near-palpable standoff, and once again it was not a show of resignation or retreat, but of complete control: command over the situation, the argument, and the lives involved. He had no need to scrabble for triumph; defeat was not even in the cards.

Of course, in even marginally acceptable society, neither was his next move. In two steps he was back at the cot, pressing his lips to Norrington's, winding his fingers in the other's hair, having no regard for its bloodied, matted state, and generally behaving in a most unacceptable manner.

But somehow it was this act, this attack, that was exactly needed. Everything else had been so absurd, so surreal, and this undeniable contact was the natural consummation of that absurdity, the necessary and inevitable conclusion, and Norrington responded wholeheartedly, as though this kiss were the only thing that existed. And for him, in that moment, perhaps it was. All that had gone before was just a bad dream, someone else's story, someone else's tragedy. The storm, the wreck, the deaths, the pain, none of that was real. How could it be, when the only reality was these lips on his lips, this tongue against his, these hands on his body, behind his neck, around his shoulders, at his back, over his chest, blazing through the layers of bandages and swathing him in pervading heat? How could there be anything other than the body that shivered when he slipped his hands under the loose linen shirt, the muscles that slid in perfection beneath his palms and beneath the smoldering skin, the scars that illustrated myriad paths—paths that his fingers longed to travel? He clung to this impossible reality, gave all of himself to the endeavor, and surrendered to the only thing that could, in all its insanity, make any sense of the occasion.

Soon, subject to flying fingers on demanding hands, clothes were swept off and discarded; the only barrier to remain was the bandaging as the two pressed together, branding as much skin to skin as possible, interlocking and interlacing. Jack moved his hips against James' in imitation of the ship's roll and dip, and James' already indisposed knees nearly gave out at the sensation.

Without breaking the kiss, Jack guided James back to the cot and laid him down. Only after that did he pull his mouth away and begin to move it down, kissing over James' jawline, down his neck, travelling over the bandages circling his chest, all the way down to his waist. There a soft, gasping whisper stopped him.

"Wait." Jack waited, expecting a protest or objection, and ran his hands gently up and down James' sides as he anticipated. James, though, eyes glittering blue and bright, breath short and elusive, simply whispered, "Why?"

Jack smiled a half-smile, almost a smirk. It was free of any mocking or disrespect, but at the same time made no claim at solemnity. "Because I had no other choice." This brought a small smile to James' lips, and an answering one to Jack's, before they slid around their destination and wrung a short cry from the victim. Jack accepted the sound as permission, even encouragement, to continue, and so did, with boundless determination and skill that someone with a clear mind (decidedly not James) might have found unsettling. As it was, James dropped his head back against the cot and clung tight to either side. His knuckles were white with the effort of keeping still, a condition that Jack's hands against his hips wordlessly set and mercilessly enforced; his eyes were tight shut.

When he at last thought to open them again, his limbs felt comfortably like amorphous lead, and it was only in the back of his mind that the blatant illegality of what had just transpired was of any consequence. But even in the back of his mind, his conscience managed to assure him that he had just rather efficiently alienated himself from all respectable society. And indebted his life to a pirate, albeit involuntarily. And besides that, he was wounded quite thoroughly, as his assorted injuries reminded him. And had no ship. But suddenly, in his muzzy mentality, things fell conveniently into place, as Jack, now laying on his side next to him, head leaned against the palm of his hand, propped up on his elbow, smiled, mischievous glint back in his eye, and said, "So I suppose you'll be arresting and hanging me soon as you've got both arms back in order."

Having been only marginally serious, and even that no more than deluded musings, Jack was completely broadsided by James' answering, "Yes." In fact, he very nearly fell off the cot altogether, especially when he saw that James was sincere.

"Why?"

James smiled at the wide-eyed pirate and tried to commit every detail of his face to memory: it was rare that anyone caught Captain Jack Sparrow off his guard, and yet more rare that any such person would see evidence of that. Having completed the memorization to his satisfaction, he leaned over and gave Jack a lazy kiss. It was only then that he answered, eyes bright and determined with duty, "Because I have no other choice." Jack fancied for a moment that a shadow of guilt darted over that wrought-iron gaze before Norrington frowned sharp and proper. "Now would you allow your patient some well-needed rest?"


...


My Two Cents: The Pearl really could have sunk the Dauntless, via the maneuver in this story. It was originally put forward by William Hutchinson in 'A Treatise on Naval Architecture,' and though that was published after this timeframe, I have every confidence in Jack's tactical abilities, and can easily see him pulling such a stunt, as well as succeeding at it.