Water crushed Norrington down, again and again, drowning him by inches, tossing him around like a rag doll, until finally relenting and dragging him up the gritty wet beach to lie like something broken and spent in the blazing noonday sun.

For a while, Norrington didn't dare open his eyes. He'd heard too many sailor's tales of the afterlife; that a man could find himself surrounded on all sides by virginal white sand and, caressed by the delicate fingers of an island breeze and lulled by the whispering rustle of palm tree leaves, could believe himself washed ashore on an oasis when in reality the fish were feasting on his unfeeling remains.

Norrington had been too long at the sea's beck and call to believe her anything other than a harsh mistress, with squalls for love songs and deadly calm her displeasure.

"And yet," a familiar voice said nearby, "what if I told you that you were, in fact, washed up on quite a fabulous little desert island?"

Norrington kept his eyes closed. "I'd say you were mad, sir, or worse yet an imbecile, unable to tell night from day, death from life and the illusion of an island from the delirious musings of a man likely drowned."

"Ah," the voice replied. "Ye savvy I might have a problem with being labeled mad, James, what with the appalling service at Bedlam and the atrocious state of the accommodations. And while many have called me simple, there are those who can appreciate my taste for the more complex things in life. For instance, the old chestnut about whether you're dead, dreaming or simply debauched from one too many...well, many things can debauch. Let's not dwell on that. But the fact remains..."

Norrington opened his eyes and frowned.

Jack grinned toothsomely over him, the beads in his braidlike bits clicking as he leaned closer. "Are you dead, James?"

Norrington's frown deepened. He shot a hand up and grabbed Jack in a rough embrace, bringing Jack down to meet his lips, parched and cracked by sun and salt. It wasn't a romantic kiss, not by any means. It wasn't even, per se, a particularly pleasurable one.

Norrington released Jack and flopped back down on the wet sand.

Jack recoiled, shaking his head as if to clear it. "I'll take that as a no, shall I?"

Norrington closed his eyes again.


---


"What is this place, Jack?" he asked sometime later. The two of them were walking barefoot, side by side, canvassing the island. A spit of land barely worthy of the name, it at least boasted lush green palm trees, a rough hut made of dry brown fronds, and a stand of thick, dark green bushes almost as tall as a man, running the length of the soft white sand.

("Edible?" James had asked.

"Not so far," Jack replied. "But I'll try again a little later. See if anything's changed.")

It was a small and perfect nowhere, now occupied by Norrington and the one man he'd hoped never to hear hide nor hair of again.

I could've been an admiral, Norrington thought. Were it not for Jack Sparrow, I could've been a full admiral.. He turned and looked out over the seething green waves, rolling thickly away toward the dim horizon. The sky was overcast and heavy all around. When Norrington turned back, Jack was bare-chested, his shirt piled in the sand, and was starting on the scarf at his waist.

Perhaps I wouldn't have liked being an admiral, Norrington told himself.

Jack caught his eye. "See anything yet?"

Norrington spluttered.

"On the horizon, love," Jack said. "Out there. Anything like a big boat, masts, sails, all that lot? A swift little corsair? Pilot gig? Even a lowly little rowboat?"

Norrington flushed.

Jack came up behind him and ran a finger down Norrington's spine through his sodden, salt-stiff shirt. "Or weren't you looking?"

Norrington whirled around. "Why, Jack? For god's sake why?"

"Er...I think I missed part of this conversation. Any chance we can, say, back up just a tick or—"

"Why out of all the islands in all the blasted blue ocean did you have to choose to wind up on mine?"

"Well technically," Jack held up a finger. "I was here first. You see?"

Norrington roared with frustration and Jack leapt backward, eyes wide.

"No! No, Jack, I don't see! I don't see how you managed to be on the one desert island within three hundred miles of anywhere! Especially the one place I managed to—" Norrington took a deep breath. "LOSE MY BOAT!"

Jack recoiled further.

"It's a bloody big ocean, Sparrow, and I expect you to find some other bit of it to be in!" Norrington turned on his heel and stamped off down the sand, resolutely refusing to look back.

Overhead, the gray clouds quietly thickened, and the rest of the sky began to take on a greenish tinge. A cool wind slipped across the island, tussling with the palm fronds and setting the deep green bush to a terrified whispering.

With a startled cry, a bird shot out of the thick foliage and flapping hard, headed out over the water.


---


By nightfall, Norrington was miserable.

It wasn't the cold or the dark or the torrential rain, or the fact that he was soaked to the skin, and shivering and hungry and uncomfortable. These were minor irritations in comparison to the thing that was truly, deeply eating at him: perhaps he'd been wrong.

Curled up as best he was able under the thin branches of the deep green bush, Norrington sought in vain to escape the violence of the storm raging overhead. But if truth be told, the storm outside was as nothing in comparison to the one in his heart. It was true, Jack was the last man alive he'd expected to find on this island. The last man he'd expected to ever see again. He'd taken orders on the HMS Galliant for the sole reason that it was heading in the exact opposite direction of Majorca—the last place he knew for certain Jack had been.

Lightning thrashed the night sky and Norrington curled in closer on himself, fighting back memories of their last night together on an island so far from this one. A whole lifetime away. The Queen and the Quail, that was the name of the inn—or so Jack had translated—a rotten, rum-soaked hostelry on the island's southern coast where Jack had finally, irrevocably destroyed everything that had ever been between them.

And he'd done it with three simple little words.

"Sail with me." Jack had murmured in Norrington's ear as they'd lain sweaty and tangled in the warm candlelight. "Promise you'll come away with me and see the world—" He'd kissed the shell of Norrington's ear. "From the deck of a real ship. One that—"

"A real ship?" James interrupted. He sat up quickly and pulled the sheet around him. "A pirate ship?"

"Technically, the Pearl's more of a freelance opportunist," Jack mumbled. "If we need to get specific."

Things had gone downhill from there.

So downhill, in fact, that Norrington had somehow wound up on a deserted island, thousands of miles from home and hearth and command, lying facedown in a wet, sandy hollow, trying to deny the evidence of his senses.

It was hard to believe Jack had the native cunning required to foresee exactly which island Norrington would wash ashore on, even if he was the one person who could bend the very Devil to his will, if needs demanded.

Norrington rested his forehead against the packed wet sand.


---


A few minutes later, he stood shivering outside the rough hut, wondering what the correct etiquette was for requesting entrance.

He needn't have worried. "Come in," Jack said dimly through the wall. "Come in and be close while you berate me, for god's sake." There was the sound of liquid sloshing in thick glass.

Norrington gingerly moved a frond aside to reveal a small opening in the thick mat of palms. Golden light and warmth spilled out onto the sand. He eagerly crawled inside, and stopped, mouth open.

A small fire crackled in a circle of neat stones in the middle of the hut, the smoke winding up and out a small hole in the roof. Jack sat on a thick pile of furs: brown ones, black, white, mottled. As Norrington watched, he held a bottle of amber liquid to his lips and drank deeply. A pillow clothed in brightly colored satin lay nearby, and a ration of biscuits and salt pork sat untouched a few feet away.

Norrington stared.

Jack shrugged. "Pirate, love. Ye savvy?" He took another drink. "Mm. Although it's a funny story about the furs. Y'see, it turns out, King Ferdinand, Portugal bloke, has this rather specialized hobby and—"

"Jack," Norrington said firmly. "Shut up."

"All right." Jack took another drink and muffled a belch.

"And put that bottle down a moment. I have something to say."

"No," Jack answered. "I mean the bit about the bottle. I have no doubt you've something to say. You always have something t'say. Oh," he frowned. "I believe that last bit might've been out loud." His frown deepened and he stared at Norrington questioningly. "Was it?"

With a sigh, Norrington sank down onto the furs next to Jack and confiscated the bottle. He watched Jack watch it go.

"I love you," Norrington said finally. "And I've come to understand there's no escaping you."

"I get the first bit, but the second bit's giving me a bit of trouble. Can you—"

Norrington's voice softened. "The reason you wound up on my island—our—this island, I think, is because there is no other island. Not in all the world. We're fated, you and me. We're meant to sail together, just as you said, except I was too blind to realize it at the time, then wasted a year throwing myself blindly at everything that wasn't you. I just kept wondering how things had gone so astray. How everything I'd thought of as duty and loyalty had gotten turned around." Norrington placed his hand flat and open over one of Jack's. "What I didn't realize was that duty wears many faces, and loyalty's a currency tied to no navy." He trailed off and stared into Jack's face. "I will sail with you, Jack. I've no other choice."

Jack frowned. "Not quite the romantic declaration I was hoping for, I admit. Can you go back to the bit where you were wrong?"

Norrington nettled.

"Besides, it's impossible, us sailing together." Jack said.

Norrington drew back. "What?"

"Your idea about us being meant to sail together. Won't float, my love. There's nothing to float it on. We don't have a boat. We're stuck on this island."

Norrington moved his hand away and traced a line up Jack's torso and chest, to the open ties of his stained linen shirt. "That, Jack, is the point."

Jack frowned again. "'S this one of those fancy metaphors they teach at the Royal Academy?"

"It is, I'm afraid."

"Ah."

For a moment the two of them were silent, listening to the crackle of the fire and the storm still raging outside.

"So um," Jack began. "What else do they teach you at that fine Academy of yours?" He leaned in close.

Norrington smiled shyly and reached for the scarf at Jack's waist.

________________
Read the prequel, The Queen the Quail.