James wakes to darkness.

—

"Admiral!"

Will catches that word, and only that word, from his place on the quarterdeck, but it is enough to make him turn and signal for the man to be brought aboard.

The hands step back, clearing a path so that he can approach the figure they have just pulled from one of the endless bobbing boats. With one glance Will takes in both the new uniform—Admiral, indeed—and the livid stain across its middle.

"Why, Mr. Turner. What a pleasant surprise." There is something empty, wooden, about his voice, and Will cannot look him in the eyes. James Norrington isn't the first familiar soul they have hauled over their gunwales, not by any means. Hundreds fell in battle, pirates and military men both. Men whose horses Will had shod, men who had once bought him ale and greeted him on the street. In Port Royal. In another life.

No, Norrington is not the first he has known, and he is not certain why it should bother him so. He has never liked the man and isn't particularly sorry that he is dead. An unbecoming thought, but then, Will is used to those by now.

It is the flashes of insight, of some strange affinity with the dead, which still unsettle him. Once he knew the name of a stranger's wife, soothed him by saying she awaited him beyond. Once he cradled a little girl and swore he felt her tiny heart beat against his empty chest. He does not know at first what bothers him about the Admiral: only that it bothers him in what is growing to be a familiar way.

When Norrington refuses to leave, he thinks he understands.

—

It isn't that he doesn't want to go, exactly. He doesn't really mind either way, and it isn't as though he makes a decision to stay. He simply doesn't go. The sun is creeping to the horizon and it is time for him to leave, but he does not. He asks the captain—Turner, Will Turner is the captain of this ship, and he thinks vaguely that this is worth remarking but somehow forgets to inquire—if he can come for another ride, come back tomorrow. Turner looks at him blankly for a moment, glances to the side as if to appeal to a higher authority. There is none, of course.

"I suppose," he says, sounding surprised to hear the words. "I suppose you can come back tomorrow—if that's what you want. I suppose there's no reason why not."

"All right," James says, agreeably. "I suppose I'll stay, then."

The next day he does the same, not really minding if Turner wants to put him off the ship at last, but he does not. After that he doesn't even bother to ask.

—

Of all the things Will had not expected about being captain of the Flying Dutchman, it is the mundane which startles him the most. He had seen the Dutchman as a prison, an objective, an unexpected escape from death—but not until now has he really considered it as a ship. A ship with cannon and sail and men, needing officers and watches and constant maintenance. A ship under his command; a ship Will has not the faintest idea of how to run.

The crew, thankfully, takes much of the burden for him. Bootstrap (Will cannot quite think of him as "Father", and "Bill" is not right, "Mr. Turner" too impersonal; mostly he doesn't address him by name at all, just catches his eye and speaks) is still learning this business of having a son, but he knows more than Will could ever hope about sailing and the sea, and he handles the men with a quiet, stern sort of competence. The dead come to them, at least: that part is easy enough. Will ignores them, mostly, except for the simple ritual which is his duty and his burden. He ignores everyone, mostly.

Three days—three sunset-to-sunsets, for the days are impossible to differentiate and Will must notch them on a board so as not to lose track: he has a date to keep, after all—of Norrington drifting about the Dutchman is all it takes before someone hands him a bucket of pitch and a sackful of oakum and sets him to caulking the quarterdeck. Will does not even have to put him to work, he simply falls into it like the old sailor he is. And a good thing it is, too, for it would have taken Will another three weeks to think of it himself, and Norrington's hands are surer than most: leached of colour by the waters of death, but not of their nimble strength.

Will is only aware of him in a vague, peripheral sense: this is about as much awareness as he devotes to anything aboard the Dutchman. He trusts Bootstrap. He sits at the foretop for hours, watching the sun's slow endless progress from horizon to horizon. His skin never burns and his throat does not parch. He eats out of habit. Always, he thinks of Elizabeth.

In some of his free time—a joke, ha, ha: Will has nothing but free time now—he sorts through the great cabin, tries to put things in an order which will somehow make it home. The library is extensive, but Will has never been much given to reading. He supposes he might as well take it up now, but there will be time for that later. (He does wonder a little at the taste of those who furnished the volumes, however, when he locates thirteen separate treatises on the insectoid fauna of the Caribbean region.) Every day he writes letters he will never be able to send to Elizabeth, scratching in his laborious script; he sands and signs and seals each one, places them in a drawer. When he reaches a hundred he burns them and begins again.

He begins to shadow Bootstrap, watching what the man does, learning the work of command. They still do not speak overly much, but there is a warm sort of feeling between them, and when they are alone together on the quarterdeck with the constant sun at their backs, Will occasionally catches himself nearing a smile.

He walks the deck some days, asking the hands what they are about, committing the names of ropes and sails and bits of wood to memory. He has much to learn, but a framework begins to form, patterns to emerge: what he once thought of as "a triangular sail" is now a staysail, and he knows there are three sets of these, fore, main and mizzen, for the three masts. Three topsails, three topgallants, three royals. Three corresponding sets of shrouds.

He is learning knots from one shy sailor, and carries bits of twine in his pocket to practise the motions until they become habit. (This, he thinks one afternoon, is a fitting symbol for his entire life these days. He will mention it in his next letter to Elizabeth.)

One sunset he realizes James Norrington has been working within twelve feet of him since sunrise and they have not exchanged a word. Will looks at him now, the first proper look he has given him since he was brought aboard. The man is china-pale, like all of the dead, and does not burn in the sun any more than Will does. He works in his shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled back to reveal strong, corded forearms, and from the way he is kneeling Will can discern an equal strength in his legs. He would be handsome if not for his unearthly pallor. His hair was dark brown, Will sees—he leaves off the wig, now he is dead, but still binds it in a tight sailor's queue—and his eyes were green, but the colours of him are muted now, more like the echo of colour from another room, and mostly the impression one gets is of grey.

Will is trying to think of something to say to him when Norrington speaks first.

"Do you miss her?"

Will looks over at him, startled. He does not ask what Norrington means; there is only one possible meaning.

"Every moment. Of course." It comes out a little more curtly than he might have intended, but Norrington's feelings—if he has them anymore, if he ever had—are rather low on his list of concerns.

Norrington nods slowly, as though considering this response. When he speaks his words come slowly, too, but the woodenness is slightly tempered.

"D'you know, I don't." He sounds surprised to hear himself say it. "I thought I would, but I don't. Not anymore. Isn't that funny." He shakes his head again, with the faint impression of a smile. "I loved her for such a long time. And now it's just—gone. All of that. I don't even miss my ship," he continues.

Will is a little perturbed by the comparison, but then, he has loved Elizabeth long and is only yet learning to love the sea.

—

Things settle. The days fall into a rhythm, as they will. James works tirelessly, only ceasing periodically because Will Turner feels uneasy about having him work around the clock. It will never be a Navy ship, but then, he supposes he is not exactly a Navy man anymore. James needs no rest now, nor any nourishment save the salt breeze and the constancy of his newfound duty, and the holystone draws no blood from his raw white hands. His hands remember the work. His hands remember more quickly than he himself does, and as his hands reef and haul and splice, the sluggishness about his mind gradually begins to fall away as well.

He does not speak much to the other men, and some of them cast dark fearful glances in his direction when they think he is not looking, but he notices early on that Turner's father—Bootstrap, the men call him—particularly avoids him. He does feel a faint uneasiness around the other man, and something begins to flicker in his memory, but he cannot place it quite yet.

Turner fils notices him periodically, but he spends a great deal of his time aloft and is not much on deck. He has insisted, with something which will pass for care, that James take respite each evening and join him for a meal. James ate the first time, indifferently, but the food tasted of ashes in his mouth, and he has not tried again since. Afterward they play chess in an almost companionable silence. Neither of them is the talkative sort, and that suits James. He has little to say.

Time has little meaning on the Dutchman, and they mark it only occasionally, when souls being ferried mention some great event in the life of the world. This is how James knows it has been seven months when Theodore Groves' little boat comes bumping alongside the Dutchman one morning. Lieutenant—no, Captain Groves, he corrects himself. He is surprised, briefly, at the pleasure he feels in his friend's success: it is long since he took pleasure in anything.

Groves is not the first of James' former men to come this way, but he is the first he had known well, called a friend. James knows well the truth of life at sea. Men die: often brutally, often needlessly, always too young. He himself is a dead sailor, after all. But it is his hand that pulls Groves over the side, and this is how he knows something is changing. Groves' skin is the same porcelain white they always have, all the dead; James' hand, clasped in his, is faintly but unmistakably pink.

He does not dwell on it at the time. Nor does he bother to ask questions: not of what has passed in his absence, nor the circumstances of Groves' own demise. He still does not recall his own death, and he feels this ought to trouble him, and perhaps troubles his friend—but mostly it does not even occur to him to ask. It is enough to walk the deck with his old comrade for one last day.

Much later, when they have sent Groves off, he is strolling with his hands behind his back as he had used to do on calm nights on the Dauntless. When he sees Bootstrap Bill Turner in the forecastle, he turns back suddenly with a feeling like sickness, and the full weight of his memory rushes in like a tidal wave. He almost believes his pulse is racing, but knows he must be mistaken, for he does not have a pulse anymore. Still, it is a difficult feeling to shake. James has heard stories of the phantoms felt by men who have lost limbs in the line of duty: terrible pains, itches and cramps in the space where the familiar limb once was.

He has never heard of a phantom heart before.

(When their day had grown short James had meant to busy himself below, as he usually does when the time comes for the dead to depart; he is still aware of the borrowed nature of his time here, and does not mean to push his luck. Instead he had surprised them both by pulling his friend to him, kissing his pale forehead and wishing him smooth sailing in a voice he had once reserved for lovers. He had watched the horizon for hours, trying to keep a fix on the exact point where Theodore had disappeared, but it, like so many things, was hopeless.)

—

After Groves, Norrington changes. He seems to work harder and longer than before, if that can be possible, but it is more than that: he seems to work now with a purpose. Will cannot fathom it, any more than he can fathom anything else about this strange ghostly creature who came aboard one day and refused to go where he was meant to. He does notice a change, though. He seems—sharper, more alive, like an image which has always been slightly out of focus and is suddenly made crisp, seeming all the more stark and vibrant for what is really a minor alteration. It is Will's awareness of the change, perhaps, which makes the greatest difference.

Norrington used to sit dully and gaze into the middle distance while Will ate before their nightly chess game, but now he stands and prowls the great cabin, examining everything politeness allows. He is particularly engrossed by the library, exclaiming over titles, taking books off the shelves and caressing their fine leather covers, always placing them back just where they had been. Will has told him to borrow anything he likes, and he has spent what seems like hours poring over the shelves, only taking one book at a time and always returning it the following night. He does not want to seem greedy, Will supposes.

Will does wonder where he finds the time to read these books—he has been through at least thirty so far, each apparently finished in a day—but then, he doesn't sleep, does he? At least, Will thinks he doesn't. He doesn't really know what the man does, not between leaving Will's cabin at night and materializing on deck with the dawn.

One of the things Norrington has held back, apparently (or, Will thinks, hitting very near the truth: had forgotten and now remembers) is that he is much better at chess than he has pretended to be. He beats Will easily now; Will does not take much offense, for he has never been more than a casual player, but even so he had won at least half their games before. Now he is lucky to win one a fortnight.

He has also grown much, much bolder.

"Your father killed me, you know." This said in a conversational tone, late one night, as Norrington twirls a smoothworn ivory bishop between thumb and index finger. The chess set had belonged to Will's predecessor, but he tries not to think of that too often. He has grown very good at putting certain things out of mind.

He meets Norrington's eyes with a level gaze. "Did he."

"Mm. I couldn't remember if I'd told you. I don't mind, or anything. Just thought of it." His bishop takes Will's knight, but he has not seen the ebony queen waiting for him. Will moves her up, knocks the unprotected bishop down.

"I'm fascinated, truly. Anything else you'd like to get off your mind, Admiral?"

His turn to look up sharply, at that. "You'd better call me James, I think."

Will nods. Norrington looks back at the board and smiles, quick and secret. He slides his remaining rook into the space Will has just created for him.

"Now that you mention it, though, there is another thing. Just before your father killed me, I do believe I may have kissed your charming wife."

Will punches him in the gut. Where his gut would be, if he hadn't been eviscerated.

Norrington breaks his jaw.

"Checkmate," he adds.

—

James wakes to darkness. Again.

James wakes, because James has been asleep. He has not slept since he died. He is disoriented. He is below, he knows that from the dark and from the sloshing sound somewhere nearby. He is in a hammock, and swings a leg over to test the nearness of the floor.

He finds wood underfoot and stands quickly. Too quickly, and slams his forehead into a beam. It hurts, and as he realizes this he realizes that he is sore elsewhere. He has not felt pain since he died, either.

His wound—he tends to think of it as the only one, although of course he has sustained many over the years and has the scars to show it—is still an ugly mark to the side of his navel, but it has never hurt before and it is not what hurts him now. What hurts now is an angry purple bruise on the other side. The bruise from where Will punched him. As he tentatively fingers the mark it all comes back to him—the crunch of bone as he had hit back, the way Will had spun around and fallen, the awful wounded expression on his face—and he retches violently.

There is nothing for him to bring up, of course, because he does not eat, but this renewed acquaintance with his digestive system presents him with the third perplexity of the morning: James is hungry. James, in fact, is starving.

He makes his way to the galley and eats everything in sight. Hardtack, mostly. Then—partly because he can, partly because he never has, and partly out of simple desire to forget the world—he proceeds to get as drunk as a lord, and stays so for two days.

—

When he wakes, Will makes a mental note that fighting with a ghost is a fairly poor idea, regardless of one's own corporeal status or partial lack thereof.

Bootstrap is standing over him in the light. "I've set your jaw. Lucky you was under when I done it. It'll heal clean, but you won't be able to talk much for a spell, and eating won't be much fun." He smiles, brushes Will's hair back from his forehead with his hand. A little clumsy, but still unmistakably the same gesture Will's mother had used when he was a small boy. Will's throat tightens, and he is thankful for the excuse not to speak. Instead he nods, catches his father's eyes and tries to return the smile. Gropes for his hand, finds it and clasps it tight. Nods again.

He supposes he believes Norrington. He doesn't really care. Norrington said he didn't care, and if he bears no grudge against the man who had killed him, Will isn't about to bear one for Norrington's sake. This is his father, after all. This is his father, and he would have had good reason. Will does not even need to ask.

Bill takes good care of him: brings him hot broth and tea, helping him through the laborious process of taking nourishment, and once he brings a book from Will's library. (Will is not quite sure when he started thinking of it, of any of this, as "his".) Will tries to wave it away, but his father pulls a stool up beside the bed and begins to read to him. He has chosen an adventure tale, a childish fantasy of thrilling danger and romance. Will pretends to be enthralled, but even Bill can tell his mind is elsewhere.

Norrington stays away for three days, and when he finally comes to see him he looks positively haunted. He hovers in the doorway, tentative and contrite. It is ridiculous. When Will waves him in the words seem to burst out of him, as though he has been using all of his considerable strength to hold them back.

"I am so sorry, truly," he says, all in a rush, "truly, truly sorry, William, I—" and he does look as though he means it. He looks wretched. He looks as though he expects Will to hit him again.

Will nods. He has little use for anger these days. He extends his hand, and Norrington takes it. Norrington's grip is cold, as always, and his flesh is not entirely solid, but it is real enough. Will hardly notices such things anymore.

—

Coming back to life—or what passes for life, in this in-between sort of world—is not, it seems, an easy business. After he died, when he first came aboard the Dutchman, James felt no emotion, no impulse, none of the internal fire he had once struggled so desperately to control. In truth he was relieved. His life had been no easy thing itself, and in death he had been freed from many of the worries which had plagued his earthly days. It was not that the problems were gone, exactly: only the inner turmoil associated with them. He still cared for Elizabeth, for instance, in some vague and abstract sense. The pain of not having her, though, had been taken away. The scandalous passion he had felt—and fought daily to overcome—had been transmuted, or diluted, into a chaste, ethereal sort of love. He told himself it was the pure love he had always felt for her, now untainted by his earthly lusts. He did not entirely believe this, even then.

That had been at first. Now—he marks it as having happened when Theodore came, but knows it has probably been more gradual and complex a process than that—things have changed. Fighting Will had only been a part of it, and only a very small part at that. The fire is back within him and he is out of practice at fighting it. More frightening, he is not sure all of the time why he must: that is how he had wound up picking a fight with Will in the first place. More frightening still—

No. James Norrington did not bow to temptation in life, and he is determined he will not in death.

Still, with each day that passes, the reasons for this determination become hazier. It occurs to him that this forgetting is not a part of the change: his mind is growing sharper, not duller. It occurs to him that he is willfully forgetting. It occurs to him that perhaps he does not care.

It occurs to him that perhaps he should not care.

He goes to look for Will.

—

At this particular moment Will is sitting in the foretop with a book open and forgotten on his lap, trying to satisfy himself as to whether his wife's hair would rightly be called blond or brown. He is, in short, quite oblivious to the man who is just now pulling himself up by the futtock-shrouds.

"Penny for your thoughts," Norrington offers, after a moment. Will shakes his head. Those thoughts are for him and him alone. He indicates for Norrington to sit beside him, though. Norrington gestures to the book, then takes it and looks at the cover when Will nods.

"I wouldn't have taken you for a Milton man," Norrington says at length. He hands the book back, and Will sets it aside.

"Seemed appropriate." Norrington finds that funny, apparently, and laughs a little.

"True, true enough. I suppose I ought to be reading him myself—or Dante. Have you the Commedia in your library? I hadn't thought to look."

"Perhaps. I imagine I'll get around to it one of these days." He says this with a wry smile, for he is not really so melancholy anymore, is learning to see the humour in his situation. He supposes there is some in Norrington's, too. Their eyes meet and Will fancies momentarily that some spark of understanding is passing between them.

He quickly dismisses this as silliness, but later, when Norrington kisses him, Will cannot pretend he is entirely surprised.

—

James is not the only one holding something tightly-coiled inside, as it turns out. Will keeps his hands to himself for the one minute and forty-three seconds it takes them to get from the foretop to the great cabin, but once inside James finds himself slammed against the bulkhead with savage force. Will is not gentle and not particularly considerate, in a way that smacks more of long deprivation than of true selfishness. He bites along James' collarbone and up to the soft spot behind the corner of his jaw; he grasps James' arms hard, hard enough to bruise. He does not ask permission, simply demands, and James is only a little surprised to discover he does not mind this roughness. In fact, he is beginning to suspect that he might just like it.

There is no shyness about Will now, as he turns James toward the wall. James braces himself with his forearms and has a sudden vivid image of how he must look: wanton, carnal, willingly debauched. Before he would have blushed shamefully and retreated from such a pose. Before he would not have been here at all. Now he just lets Will Turner's knee knock his legs further apart, arches his spine and thrusts his hips back.

When he comes he thinks, for the first time since he has died, of Elizabeth.

—

Their rhythm does not alter much. Will finishes Paradise Lost and returns it to the library. They still play chess after dinner, though James eats now instead of watching Will do it, and he does not leave after the game. If there is tension between James and his father still, neither of them mentions it to Will.

They sit in the foretop together, some days. James is more easily persuaded away from his labours now: that is probably the biggest change. They speak sometimes of books, and sometimes of sailing, and once or twice they have spoken of Elizabeth, but often they simply sit in silence and watch for the flash as the sun sets. And when James leans over and kisses him, Will kisses back, and when he looks him in the eyes they are very green.