Some Other Fool Across the Ocean Years Ago
Part 3: To Lock Up the Heart but Keep the Key Within Reach
by
Pairings: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow, Anamaria/James Norrington
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean is owned by Disney, etc. No infringement intended.
Originally Posted: 3/21/11
Summary: James Norrington had a lifetime as the best pirate hunter in the British Navy, and then another one as a programmer and manager in modern London. Now he's on a ship with the man responsible, trying to figure out where he's going from here.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean is owned by Disney, etc. No infringement intended.
Originally Posted: 3/21/11
Summary: James Norrington had a lifetime as the best pirate hunter in the British Navy, and then another one as a programmer and manager in modern London. Now he's on a ship with the man responsible, trying to figure out where he's going from here.
James did not give Sparrow his resignation when he found out what had happened to him. He was in shock, he reasoned—and while he wasn't sure he was going to be able to stomach being on the same ship as the pirate, much less serving under him, Sparrow didn't seem eager to send him ashore. And he'd need to get home somehow, so he put off the decision.
And he didn't decide when they trudged back to camp and Annika and Do-won and Cecil all looked at him like they knew exactly what had happened. "So," Annika said. "It worked? Sort of?"
"Sort of indeed," Sparrow said grumpily and lay down on his pallet. "We leave in the morning."
Cecil gave Sparrow a look, then looked down at the breadbox-sized egg-shaped thing he was holding in his lap, then back to Sparrow. "Okay, but I think I might have this worked out..."
"In the morning," Sparrow repeated, then tipped his hat over his face.
Cecil shrugged, then went back to studying the voltmeter he'd hooked up to the egg.
James hesitated, then asked, "Can I take a look?"
Cecil gave him a measuring look. "Sure."
"What's the power output like?" James asked, kneeling down and looking at the egg. He reached out and touched it, gently; it was cool, and felt like it was made of some kind of ceramic. Cecil had clipped leads to a couple of metal studs coming out of one end and the meter was reading 280 volts AC.
"It's giving three-phase current," Cecil said. "There are actually four leads, see here? And it's max output is... well, it's big."
James thought over that for a second. "So either it's meant to be a long-term power source, or it's meant to dump all its stored energy in one shot. Like... for a weapons system."
"Gloomy thought," Cecil said. "They seem to plug into these motorcycle things around, so I'd guess they've enough power to go for a couple joyrides."
"D'you think we can use them on board?"
Cecil gave him an odd look. "Yeah," he said, "'we' might. So you're sticking around, then?"
He looked over at Sparrow, who was pretending to be asleep.
"I'm not sure yet," he said.
Sparrow snorted incredulously.
"Okay," Cecil said. "Well. We'll take a better look when we're on board tomorrow."
James nodded, shot Sparrow another glance, then lay down and tried to get to sleep.
And he didn't decide when they loaded up, changed back into wetsuits, swam back through the tunnel, and dragged themselves back on deck. He didn't decide when Sparrow ignored him to get their gear stowed, when the whispers of what had happened percolated through the gossip mill and the crew started giving him measuring looks, when he realized midway through stacking the energy eggs next to the freezer unit that all the rest of his stuff was in Sparrow's bedroom and he'd need, somehow, to retrieve it—he didn't make up his mind whether he was going to try to stay, at some awkward distance, or if he was going to take a flight to Heathrow from the first place they reached with a proper airport.
It was only when the bluish brush of twilight had suffused the world and he was leaning over the port side railing, staring out at the dimming reflections of sunlight on the water, that James let himself even start to think about the situation.
God, why was he even still hesitating? Sparrow had stolen a Navy ship and gotten him mixed up fighting undead, unkillable pirates. Sparrow had gotten him to lose another ship and gotten good men killed in that chase and that hurricane. Sparrow had gotten him to wind up at the bottom of a bottle in Tortuga, no commission, no hope, no future—gotten him so desperate he'd signed up on Sparrow's ship, gotten him so desperate he'd signed up with Beckett—
And thereabouts in his deliberation he buried his head in his hands, because with something like three hundred years of hindsight, the honest truth was he'd done most of the worst of that to himself, and Sparrow was just a convenient excuse.
He took a deep breath and straightened up, settled himself and tried to quiet the turmoil in his mind. Sparrow had still lied to him, and taken advantage of him, and brought him here for some bloody reason that he still hadn't explained to James' satisfaction. And James was here, now, and...
And Sparrow didn't seem that eager to get rid of him, which was strange.
James looked out at the horizon, and thought about leaving—really thought about going back to work in London, at an office, at a computer. About leaving the ship behind.
The part of him that had been Admiral Norrington—hell, the part of him that had been on the Black Pearl for the past month—flinched like he'd been stabbed. Fucking hell, leave the ocean? Leave this?
There was, literally, nowhere else he could go where he'd find people who could understand—oh, sure, there were probably some recreational societies, but they hadn't lived this, they hadn't been there with cannon fire and blood, they hadn't had no choice but the service to God and country and the merciless ocean. And if he couldn't have this, well... he'd go mad, that was all, he'd find himself on a ledge one day wondering if the emergency services would get to the street below before he nerved himself to jump.
But not leaving meant being on the same ship with Jack Sparrow.
Fuck it. He'd give it until they reached port. If he could make it a week without throwing either Sparrow or himself overboard, he could survive anything.
***
They had a power meter on board, so after some jury-rigging they got a power strip hooked up to one of the eggs and started running some non-essential electronics off it. James plugged his phone in to charge, and was about to leave when a thought struck him and he pulled up the time in London on the screen.
Four hours ahead still only put them at eleven at night, and it was a Friday. And if he called Theo—
Oh, shit, of course, Theodore Groves, Andrew Gillette—seriously, was there anyone he knew who wasn't just a reflection from the past?
Groves would have had his head if he'd gone this long without getting in touch—Theo was going to shove his phone down his throat as soon as they were in the same room together. James spent a minute feeling sorry that the impulse was probably warranted before dialing.
He sat through two rings and suddenly panicked at the thought of leaving a voicemail—what the hell was he going to say?—when Theo picked up. "James, where the ever-living fuck have you been?"
The shock was almost too much, of hearing Groves' voice and knowing damn well Groves didn't know why that meant anything special; of guilt at running off and leaving him with no word of explanation. "Ahhh..." he said eloquently, "Sorry about that."
"Just... Jesus. Are you all right?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine—" he stopped as the background noise suddenly increased, and he could hear Theo vaguely saying, "It's James. Yeah!"
"Sorry about that. Andrew wants to know what the fuck is wrong with you."
James rubbed at his eyes. "I know I haven't called..."
"Did your phone get dropped down a well or something?"
"It's been weird, all right? I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to just skip out like that."
"What. Happened?"
James sighed, then said, "You remember that bloke I told you about? Said he knew me in a past life, all that?"
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, then Theo said, "You ran off with some bloke you met on the internet?"
"It wasn't really like—"
"James, twelve-year-old girls from Croydon are smarter than you."
"I don't really want to debate this," James said, not feeling up to taking the losing side in that argument. "Look, just wanted to let you know I'm alive and I found the bloody phone—I'll call again tomorrow when it's not so late, all right? Do you need me to wire you any more money?"
"I don't need money, James, I need to know this guy won't murder you in your sleep."
James thought about that for a second, then said, "Nnnno, I think if Jack were going to kill me he'd wait 'till I were awake."
***
Jack made it easy for him and dumped what few possessions he had left in the corner of the crew cabin.
"Harsh," Do-won commented.
James scooped up the pile of clothes, reaching for an errant sock. "I'll live, I'm sure."
"So you're staying?"
"Everyone keeps asking me that," James said as he picked out a hammock. "I think as long as I can keep from trying to strangle the captain I'll be fine."
Do-won smirked at him.
James stopped fidgeting with his things and forced himself to marshal his thoughts. "I mean, good God," he finally said, "I can't go back to IT. Can you imagine?"
"Not really," Do-won said, "But I don't really know what that means. From what Cecil has told me it involves sitting at a desk like a banker, only with less paper."
James raised an eyebrow in Do-won's direction. "What did you do before joining the crew?"
Do-won's smile was dark. "I hunted criminals."
James thought about that for a second, then tilted his head in the direction of the door. "And Jack..."
"Was in a tight spot in Incheon, at the same time I was." He shrugged. "We made it out."
It sounded like he'd have to take the highly abbreviated version. "And it doesn't bother you? Working for a pirate?"
That got a grin. "I was a bounty hunter, not a policeman. And with the war on I wasn't about to get paid elsewhere."
James stopped himself a fraction of a second before asking which war. "I see."
"Maybe." Do-won shrugged. "You were military, right?"
"Yes," he said. Then thought about that for a second. "In a previous lifetime, anyway."
Do-won shrugged again. "Close enough."
A previous lifetime, he thought. Of course, it felt like just yesterday, in many ways—the perfectly balanced sword in his hand, the rush and chaos of the fight, the weight and responsibility of command. And yet that was still nearly three hundred years ago. People—civilized people—didn't do that sort of thing any more.
But hadn't his goal been to make "that sort of thing" no longer necessary? And people still went to war, in any case, Prince Harry had still gone and got himself shot at in Afghanistan, for God's sake. Not that anyone thought the war in Afghanistan was a particularly good thing. Better than Iraq, but that was a fairly low bar to clear. And now everything was muddled in his head, between criticism of neo-colonialism in Western governments and the uncomfortable realization that he'd actually been there advancing a morally questionable at best national policy of conquering foreigners and taking their land and labour and damn it all, he'd been proud of the British Navy and proud of his place in it, and now the additional perspective of some smart-arsed computer geek with an open-source T-shirt and a link to Wikipedia was making him question his entire life's work.
It was ironic that the parts of his life which had given him cause for the most shame and self-loathing—losing Elizabeth, his attraction to and occasional trysts with other men—were the things which his current incarnation had no trouble overcoming. Everyone gets rejected, for God's sake, he thought bitterly. And God, if I hadn't gotten over being bisexual, I'd never have made it through that internship in San Francisco alive.
He shook his head sharply to try and clear up his thoughts. He wasn't going back to the Navy, obviously, and he wasn't going back behind a desk. He needed some new options.
"We have carpentry supplies, yeah?" he asked Do-won.
"Yes," Do-won said. "Ask Fatima before you use anything, though. She is touchy about other people doing work on the ship since the time Anthony exploded our previous refrigerator."
"I'll keep that in mind," James said dryly. "Thanks."
***
"So what is our new heading?" he asked Fatima while they were scoping out an unused part of the storage deck.
She gave him a look and hoisted her cordless drill. "You could ask the captain."
"I'm asking you."
She smirked. "Are you two going to be able to talk to each other, or..."
"Good God, does anyone talk about anything else around here?" he asked rhetorically.
"You'd be surprised how boring it gets," she said. "Especially once the novelty wears off. How much room did you say you needed?" She reached out to touch the wall, measuring out a length of clear floor space with her arm.
He walked around her, stretched his arms out, and tried to visualize his plans in the ill-lit area. "Yeah, about this much," he said. "Can we wall that off?"
She revved the drill and grinned. "No problem there. But you get to explain it to the captain."
He wasn't necessarily looking forward to that conversation, but he was also pretty sure he'd be able to put it off for a while. Fatima pulled a piece of chalk out of a pouch on her belt and started marking off lengths on the floor.
"So where are we headed?" he tried asking again when she was distracted.
"We have a buyer for the fake stuff in Seattle, and a buyer for the real stuff in San Francisco," she said. Then she straightened up and grinned at him. "Oh, cheater."
"Hmmm," he said. San Francisco was good. San Francisco was familiar.
"Oi," she said, "You're not talking me into all this work just to jump ship, are you?"
"Oh, don't worry," he reassured her. "You can foist anything you don't want to do on me."
It took them an hour to get the basic frame in place, with James doing most of the heavy lifting and Fatima doing all the pointing. And by then, James finally felt he'd accomplished enough that he was able to climb up to where he'd set up his hammock and let the movement of the waves lull him to sleep.
***
"So this is the bloke you met on the internet?" Theo asked when James called the next day.
"I didn't actually meet him on the internet," James admitted after a long pause. "It's more complicated than that."
"How do you know him, then?"
James was not actively hiding from Sparrow. He was up in the crow's nest taking his turn as lookout, which was a perfectly useful activity. He even had a radio to call down to the pilot because despite still sailing in a tall ship Sparrow had apparently decided that the 21st century wasn't all bad, what with its communication devices and refrigeration and basic sanitation. The fact that he hadn't had to speak more than two words to the captain since yesterday morning was a side benefit to volunteering. As was the good reception on his mobile.
"Okay," he said. "You remember that past life stuff?"
"That you two knew each other and he told you that you knew that arsehole from work?"
"Yeah." James took a deep breath and admitted, "It's all true."
That sound he heard probably wasn't Theo's palm hitting his face. Probably. "James, just tell me you're not on some ashram or in a yurt or something. Tell me you haven't found a guru who's leading you to some new mystical enlightenment."
"I'm not on an ashram," James said. "I'm... on a pirate ship."
"Well," Theo said after a second. "I honestly wasn't expecting that."
"I'm also not on drugs," James said quickly.
"Okay," Theo said. "That was going to be my next question."
"No, I mean that literally, here, look," James said. He held up the camera for one of those overhead shots you always found on people's dating profiles, checked briefly to make sure you could make out the scene, and sent it off.
"... Well, all right, then," Theo said after a long pause. "What the hell are you doing on a pirate ship?"
James sighed and stared out at the horizon. "You know, I don't really know myself."
"When are you coming back to London?"
When? He hadn't even decided if. "I don't know yet. We're heading toward San Francisco."
"So you and this guy, you had some sort of past-life romance? Some kind of star-crossed lovers or something?"
James winced. "God, no—nothing like that. And I mean..." He took another breath. "Look, I'm trying to tell you everything, but every time I start it just sounds completely mad."
"Well... okay," Theo said, "Why don't you start at the beginning and tell the whole story until you get to why the hell you're on a pirate ship heading to San Francisco?"
"I don't know if I have enough battery life," James said. "But... okay. When I was seventeen, I started to get these dreams."
He kept talking, halfheartedly keeping watch at the same time, leaving out most of the sex for the sake of his own well-being. He didn't slow down until he reached the part with the memory machine and the helmet. "And then I pushed the lever down and... well, it... worked."
"It worked?" Theo repeated. "So you've got your... past life's eighteenth-century memories in your head?"
"Yes," he said. "And yes, that is as bizarre as it sounds."
"So," Theo said dubiously. "What was the eighteenth century like?"
"Everything itched," James said quickly, "Especially the bloody wigs. Look, I know it's unbelievable. It's completely unbelievable. I just—I had to tell someone, and I don't know when I'm going to come back. I have to figure this out."
"Okay," Theo said. "Look, just don't fall out of touch again, all right? Keep calling me."
"I will. I promise."
"I'll let you get on with it, then," Theo said. "Bye."
***
The second conversation he had with Captain Jack Sparrow after getting his memory back went something like this:
"What's all this, then?"
James looked up from the paneling he was screwing into the frame of the wall. "I thought we should put those Atlantean power sources down here. We can set up all the electrics and monitor your power consumption."
Jack raised an eyebrow and looked at the tiny room dubiously. "Why do we need another room for that?"
"Well, I thought, once that's set up, might as well throw up a server, get some satellite tracking, maybe police band scanners as well. Just some useful things."
Jack nodded slowly, as though he were catching maybe one word in three. "And we need another room for that?"
James frowned. "Well, with all that going on, you'll want a better fire suppressant system, and that works better in a confined space."
Jack was still looking mystified. "So..."
James rolled his eyes. "Also, I thought maybe I'd bunk down here while I get it set up."
"Right. Carry on, then," Jack said, turning on his heel and heading back up the ladder.
James craned his neck after him for a second, then shook his head and screwed the panel the rest of the way in place. The power drill made a very satisfying whirr.
Fatima snorted. "He'll get over it," she said.
"I'm sure."
She fitted the joint she'd been sanding together snugly, nodded, then said, "I wish we had some music."
"Me, too," James said. Then he frowned. "Wait, you know, I have my iPhone."
"Your what?"
The level of technological savvy among the crew was almost randomly determined. "It can play music," he said. "Gimme a sec."
The travel speakers he had in his bag weren't the best, but the sound quality was almost good enough to hear over hammering. "Okay," he said when he got the setup balanced on a spare bit of surface. "Any requests?"
She eyed the device warily. "Not Ace of Base?" At his startled look, she explained, "Cecil had a tape deck and their first album. The whole thing wound up in the ocean after a week."
"Ah." He thumbed through his playlists. "I think I can avoid that. Y'like P!nk?"
Fatima stared at him blankly for a moment, then shrugged. "Give it a shot."
James turned on the playlist and picked up the power drill again.
I guess I just lost my husband, I don't know where he went
So I'm gonna drink my money, I'm not gonna pay his rent...
"Okay?" he asked after the chorus.
"Yeah," she said. "Good music to hammer to."
***
They sailed through the Panama Canal, which was an experience. Amid tankers and container ships they waved to the bemused officials on the shore.
James was finding it surprisingly difficult to get back in the habit of working on a ship. The rhythm of life before he had his memory restored was nothing like he remembered from his days as an officer, and his muscle memory was all wrong, leaving him confused and half-started when he should have been confident. He spent as much time as possible in the hold building his walls and listening to music with Fatima.
There's a girl with a crown and a scepter who's on WLSD
And she says that the scene isn't what it's been, and she's thinkin' of goin' home...
They finished the framing and paneling, put in a rack for the Atlantean power sources, and started running cables to the rest of the ship. James whittled fiddly bits and borrowed Fatima's Dremel tool and even built a fold-down cot and basically did everything he could to stretch out the project until they reached San Francisco. It didn't work.
Three days out, Annika came by with her fencing gear. "C'mon, you need to get some exercise."
"I've been working," he complained.
She hefted the rapiers. "Come on, you're all of a sudden much better at seamanship, we can all see that. So I want to know what else you've got locked up in your head."
"Christ, all my reflexes are off." Annika didn't put the swords down, just smirked. "All right, all right, fine. You're going to have to give me a bit to adjust, though."
"James," she said, eyes wide, as he took one of the swords from her, "Have I ever used your inexperience to humiliate you?"
"Constantly," he said. "All right, let's go."
The only place on the ship large enough to accommodate any sort of swordplay was above decks. The crew was usually good enough to pretend not to watch, and James was usually pretty good at tuning them out.
Today, everyone was very good at pretending not to watch, and still he was antsy. He stretched out for a moment and then sketched a salute to his partner.
Annika was being kind to him, which grated almost as much as the fact that he needed it. He remembered being clumsy at sword fighting, but not this bad, surely?
"Come on," Annika said after the third time she'd parried hard enough to make his wrist sting. "Focus."
"Trying," he said through gritted teeth. And the thing was, he couldn't focus—sword fighting was an art, it was something you learned through repetition, through battle and blood, and he'd lost that in that three-hundred-year gap which had left him muscle memory for touch-typing and Guitar Hero and little else besides.
He took a deep breath and re-settled himself, in time to last three movements before his sword was sent spinning from his hand across the deck, landing at the feet of—
Of course.
Jack looked down at the practice blade, then up at James. "You used to be better at this," he commented.
James scowled. "I also used to have not spent my adult life behind a computer," he pointed out. "One isn't always so lucky as to get an education in men trying to run you through on a daily basis."
"Fair enough," Jack said. He used his toe to flip the hilt of the sword into his hand, then swiftly juggled it to return it to James, point-down. "Perhaps you just need a better incentive."
James narrowed his eyes. "What did you have in mind?"
Jack shrugged, then walked over to stand next to Annika. "Care to give it a shot?"
For an instant, James' world narrowed to a thin, red-tinted sliver. Then he took a deep breath and said, "I'm not sure that would be wise."
"I'll go easy on you." Jack's smug grin was calculated precisely to drive James to madness, he was certain. "I promise."
James weighed his sword in his hand, then sketched an impeccable salute. "All right, then."
Righteous fury, it turned out, also did not solve the problem of his missing reflexes. But it got him closer than he had been all day.
When finally the fight was over, he was pinned against the mainmast, Jack's sword against his throat, and they were both panting from exertion. Jack had lost his hat, and the grin on his face had gone from smug to exhilarated. James was feeling more than a little humiliated, furious, and he had never wanted to fuck someone more in his—in two lifetimes.
He held very still, breathing, until Jack tilted his head in acknowledgment and lowered his sword again.
"Nice work," Jack said. He stepped back and stooped to retrieve his hat. "Remind me not to underestimate you again."
"Do remember," James said. "Annika, thanks for the exercise. I believe I have some crossover cables to wire."
One major benefit to holding dominion over the computer room was that it had a door. Which locked. James latched the door, folded down his cot, and bit down on his wrist to keep from making any noise as he jerked off. Oh, damn. Oh, damn him.
And if he wasn't sure if he was referring to himself or Sparrow, he thought afterward, well, that was something he could untangle later.
***
"I am going mad," he told Theo.
"What's wrong now?"
James sighed. "I don't know whether I want to sleep with him or strangle him."
Theo snorted. "You know, that's exactly what I said about Andrew when I first met him?"
"Oh, God, do not tell me that," James said. He was lying on his bunk staring up at the ceiling—what he could make out of the ceiling, anyway. His little sanctuary was nearly pitch black this late at night, but it was easier to stay up until Theo woke up on the other end of the time difference than try to catch him in the evenings any more. "This isn't anything like that. This would be the very definition of 'hate sex.'"
"So go hate-fuck him," Theo said. "Get it out of your system."
James winced. "That's a terrible idea. And I think it's what he wants."
"Christ. Stop being such a martyr, James. Why are you still there if you don't want to fuck him?"
James didn't exactly know. "I... um."
"Why do you even hate him so much?"
"He ruined my life. Well," he temporized, "I ruined my life. He was rather incidental to that fact. But then he failed to inform me about any of that. And... Christ, I don't know. Right now it seems so obvious, but every time I see him, it all comes back and... I can't think clearly any more."
I failed in my duty because of him. And without that...
"Well, I hope you make up your mind soon," Theo said. "Now that I've stopped fearing for your life I'm considering strangling you myself."
"Oh, good," James said. "Because, y'know, I was looking for a good reason to come back to London."
"Get bent."
"Right, I need to sleep. Talk to you later."
James stared at the comforting, familiar backdrop of his phone until it dimmed out, then shook his head and called up his playlists again. Somewhere he had music to fall asleep to...
When I was born, they looked at me and said
'What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy...'
Oh, good, he thought, setting the phone down on a shelf. If nothing else, the 21st century interpretation of his life was winning on irony.
***
James managed to not kill Sparrow by the time they reached San Francisco.
"How long are we staying?" he asked on his very best behavior. "I have some errands to run."
Sparrow eyed him sideways. "I was planning on leaving tomorrow," he said. "You're not interested in coming with to meet our buyer?"
"I think I'll leave the negotiating to you," James said. He pulled up a public transit map on his phone. "You're better at bluffing."
"Yeah, here's a tip, mate. Don't ever play poker." Sparrow paused, frowned. "With anyone."
"Ha, ha. Oh, look, you can take Muni straight over to Caltrain now. One of these days this'll have proper train service."
Sparrow snorted. "Fine, then. We cast off tomorrow morning. I hope you have a tide table on there as well."
This time, he was allowed to row. Encouraged, even. He tied up while Sparrow left to distract the Port Authority with a line of bullshit.
"Hey," Cecil said, nudging him. "You gonna be all right?"
James took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, fine. I just need to go down to San Jose for some things. I'll be back in time, don't worry."
"Okay, well." Cecil shrugged. "Just don't leave without saying goodbye, that's all."
"I'm not leaving," James protested.
"Okay," Cecil said. He looked dubious.
James sighed and went to figure out if he could get some American cash.
It turned out to be relatively easy to get currency, and aside from the obscene ticket prices it was also fairly easy to get down to the South Bay. And even though once outside the city it seemed like an endless sprawl of strip malls and housing developments, once he got to his station it was a brisk ten-minute walk in the California sunshine before he was standing in the foyer of Halted Supply, feeling completely at ease in a place for the first time in months.
For a while he just wandered the aisles, occasionally pulling out a bin of switches or optics or packets of resistors just to look. Slowly he started picking out useful items, power adapters, switches, some radio gear, computer hardware. Enough that a few of his vague plans and ideas were beginning to coalesce.
He was staring at the server racks and wondering if he could carry that much on the train when someone cleared their throat next to his left ear. "James Norrington," a familiar contralto voice said. "Whatever are you doing in Santa Clara?"
"Anamaria?" He turned, startled, and there she was—grinning, hip cocked to one side, carrying her own basket of treasures without a care in the world. "My God, where'd you get off to?"
She laughed. "That's rich, seeing as you dropped off the face of the planet. Never thought I'd just bump into you again."
"How have you been? What have you—no, wait, don't answer that." He couldn't stop himself from smiling. "I'm not liable if I don't know, right?"
"Exactly." She was beaming back at him. "This is fantastic. Well, you look busy."
He looked down at his collection of stuff, then over at the server racks again. "Well, not really. Just trying to plan my trip—I'm, um, without a car right now."
"Well, I'll give you a ride," she offered. "Where are you staying?"
"Oh, you don't have to do that," he said. "I'm up in San Francisco, anyway. I was just going to pop on the train again."
"No, really. It'll give us time to catch up." Her eyes sparkled. "You have time for a drink?"
He wound up buying a few more heavy things, given that guarantee. And spending most of the evening in the bar in Mountain View, not quite telling her what he'd been up to—"Traveling," he said, "On savings," and she quite emphatically did not tell him how she got the money for her flat, or the Prius she was using to ferry around three netbooks and both of their shopping—"It's mostly for the diamond lane privileges," she says, "Because I'm a terrible environmentalist,"—and then she invited him up to her flat, and—
There were moments that he remembered clearly, later. Saying, embarrassed, "I've never actually used one of these," as he unfolded the dental dam she'd handed him, before she laughed gently and kissed him. Stroking the curve of her spine with his fingertips. Her fingers biting into his wrists as she pinned him to the bed, her hips grinding against his. Licking at the taut skin of her breasts, tonguing her nipples, inhaling the scent of her sweat. Figuring out what her vibrator collection could do to her. The sound of fierce joy she made when he finally believed her when she said "No, fuck you, harder—"
And the quiet moment afterward when they lay there panting in broken synchronization as the clock read three hours later and everything before turned into a hazy and pleasurable blur.
Anamaria raised a hand and pointed vaguely in his direction. "That," she said, "Was fucking amazing."
"Yes," he agreed. "Also amazing fucking—" She smacked him. He grinned. "Thank you."
"Why the fuck weren't we doing that before?"
"It would have been inappropriate workplace conduct," he said. "Also, I was... not in a good place for a relationship."
She laughed. "Yeah, well. Whatever you're doing now, it's better for you. That place aged you. I swear, you look five years younger."
Being in post-orgasmic daze helped with not starting like he'd been stuck, a bit. "... Thank you," he managed to say, instead of something like Yeah, that's the Fountain of Youth, lemme find you the geocache directions for it.
"Mmmm," she said, then wriggled and turned over. "Oh, it cannot be two in the morning."
"Is that what that clock says?"
"It is. Drat. Do you still need that ride?"
"Oh, no, don't—" he pushed himself upright as she rolled out of bed and started pulling on her pants. "No, it's fine, you can drop me at the train station."
"Oh, c'mon, the only time you can drive into San Francisco with no traffic is around now." She grinned. "I enjoy it. Unless you can stay over?"
He rubbed his eyes and thought of tide tables. "Not unless you were planning on getting up at six..."
"No way."
"We're—I'm—" he grimaced. "The people I'm traveling with, we're heading out early."
She paused in her dressing, still topless, and smiled at him. "Girl, don't tell me that it's morning..." she sang. "Can you keep the curtains drawn..."
"Ha," he said. "Closer than you know."
"Okay, then," she said. She climbed back onto the bed, leaned over, and kissed him again. "Though if you're not in a hurry..."
He let himself relax into her kiss, humming contentedly, allowing himself to savor the taste of her mouth. It occurred to him that it had been a while since he'd done something like this—it had been a while since he'd had the energy to do something like this, frankly. "Well," he said when she pulled away, "I could be persuaded..."
So it was close to daybreak and he was in quite a good mood by the time he was walking down the pier, server rack crammed under one arm and an overloaded bag crammed full of computer bits over his shoulder.
"Good god," Cecil said when he strolled up to the dock. "It's nearly time to cast off. Where have you been?"
"I met an old friend," he said, which was sort of true. "Give us a hand, will you?"
"Jack's already back on board," Cecil grumbled as he took the frame of the rack. "We're not leaving for another hour or two, but he wanted me over here to wait for you."
"I could have texted," James said guiltily.
"It's fine," Cecil said. "What've you got there?"
"Oh, stuff," he said vaguely. "I'll show you later."
"Where have you been?" Sparrow asked when he got on board.
James held up the bag of parts. "Shopping."
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Shopping."
"Yeah, you were sort of lacking computer stuff. Oh, and I think I can knock together a police band scanner." Jack was still staring at him. James stifled a yawn and swayed from a sudden wave of tiredness. "Look, I've actually been up all night. Can I answer questions later?"
"Yes, you can," Jack said. "Starting with why it sounds just a bit like you might be willing to throw your lot in with some of the more illegal of activities, your Commodoriness."
It was probably the sleep deprivation talking when James blinked and snapped back, "Fuck you."
Jack stared for a moment, bewildered, then threw back his head and laughed. "Fine, then. Get some rest."
"Are you sure you're all right?" Cecil asked when he dropped off the server rack.
"Yeah," James said. "I'll be fine."
He wasn't entirely sure that was accurate, but he curled up and dropped off to sleep without thinking about it too hard.
***
"James?"
Someone was shaking him awake. He reached up and pushed the insistent hand away, then blinked sleep from his eyes and forced himself to look up.
Elizabeth Swann was sitting on the edge of his bed.
James didn't realize he could flinch as hard as he did, but he wound up slamming his head into the wall. "Ow!"
Elizabeth clapped a hand over her mouth and looked pitying. He grimaced. "Yes, that was... sad."
"James Norrington," she said. "What have you gotten yourself into?"
"I'm sorry, I—" he shook his head. "Please, can you... give me a few minutes?"
"Of course." She patted him on the hand gently and stood. "I'll be outside?"
"Thank you." He waited until she'd closed the door, then lay back down and gave himself a good three seconds of utter self-pity.
When he opened the door again, he had regained a modicum of self-control, and his clothing. Elizabeth was looking at something on her mobile, but she looked up and smiled wryly when she saw him. "Well," she said.
He felt deeply that he should be dressed more formally—something like full uniform would at least mean he was prepared to deal with a skirmish. "Good morning," he finally said.
"Afternoon," she corrected him.
"Ah. Right." Some of the previous... morning was coming back to him. "That is what happens when one stays awake until dawn."
She smiled, then gently reached out and took his arm. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat."
The kitchen was deserted. James put together a sandwich and then sat at the table staring at it and letting his coffee cool.
"So," Elizabeth finally said. "It worked."
He stole a glance at her. "Yes. As though this weren't already awkward enough."
She sighed. "I really don't want to say 'I told you so...'"
"Yes, you do."
"I'm firmly resisting the urge to say 'I told you so.' James..." she sighed again, more exasperated this time. "You were happy."
His stomach twisted. "I was ignorant."
Elizabeth leaned her chin on her hand and watched as he toyed with the handle of his coffee cup. "You know, the world's changed a lot since then..."
"I know."
"It was never as clear-cut as we wanted it to be, anyway," she said. "It's not like the East India Company was ever the best—"
"I know," he said, wincing.
Elizabeth sighed, held up her hands in frustration, then laced her fingers and rested her hands back on the table again. "All I'm saying," she said, "Is that maybe it's been long enough that you can forgive him for being a pirate."
"It's not that," he said. At her arch look, he grimaced and picked up his coffee. "It shouldn't be that. I don't even so much begrudge him—"
My career my ship my life—
"I know I let my ambition get away from me," he said. "I know... my own crimes against him are probably just as heinous, from his perspective..."
"You did run off with the heart of Davy Jones and nearly got all of us killed," she said, but she sounded more amused than anything. "And the Pearl got swallowed by a kraken."
"Yes, well," James said. "I understand... I have, perhaps, gained a slightly more... modern... perspective."
Elizabeth snorted. "Well."
James took a sip of his coffee. "And I certainly—I'm not law enforcement, any more. I'm hardly qualified to start turning in people I think might be criminals. And sometimes..."
And sometimes he slept with people who he was pretty sure were criminals, because he was lonely and upset and they were familiar and comforting and dead sexy and they wanted him. But he certainly wasn't going to talk about that with Elizabeth.
"Well. It doesn't matter."
Elizabeth waited for him to continue, looked a little sad when he stopped there. "Are you going to at least talk to him?"
"Why should we even be talking?" James said harshly. "There's no reason for it. There's no reason for any of this. There was no reason for him to feed me such a fantastical story and then—" Elizabeth was looking more and more upset as he continued. James forced himself to stop talking.
"So, it's not the piracy, then," she finally said.
"No," he responded, and swallowed a mouthful of coffee.
"It's Jack Sparrow."
"Precisely."
"Ah."
James tentatively started in on his sandwich. It occurred to him after a bite that he was terribly hungry. Elizabeth stayed silent in thought as he ate.
"I have work to do," he said when he was finished and she still hadn't said anything.
"I think you should talk to Will," she said.
He stared at her. "What?"
"You know," she said. "He's busy with the Flying Dutchman, but he does surface every once in a while."
Right. He'd had this conversation with Jack, and again with Elizabeth, but it hadn't fully taken. "Ah," he said. "So you know how to get ahold of him?"
"I can send him a text message, yeah," she said.
James pinched the bridge of his nose hard to ward off a sudden overdose of vertigo. "The captain of the Flying Dutchman has a mobile," he said. "What a strange century we live in."
She laughed. "Come on. Show me this computer thing you're building."
***
It was another few days to Seattle, and like an omen the sky turned grey as soon as they crossed the Oregon border. Soon everyone was wet and miserable and spending most of their time belowdecks.
"So what is this thing?" Sparrow asked, poking his head in after the first six hours of relentless drizzle. "And... what in hells are you listening to?"
James tuned in long enough to hear the music he had on in the background—She said I think I remember the film—before killing mpg123 and turning to raise his eyes at the intruder. "What do you mean?"
"Never mind the music, then," Sparrow said. "What's this computer business?"
James leaned back until his chair was balanced on its back legs and pointed at the server rack, which he'd wired the laptop into as a terminal. "This is just basic for now," he said. "I've got it monitoring the power, checking the weather, shipping news, a ticker for commodities prices, a few auction sites, and, y'know, news." He reached out and tapped the command to pull up the report. "If you can think of other stuff you'd like..."
Jack was looking a little startled. "You can do all that?"
"Sure, that bit's easy," he said. "Of course, we're stealing satellite bandwidth doing it, but I don't figure you mind that." He smirked at Jack's incredulous look, then had to look away and fight back a sudden urge to pin him to the wall and—God, he wanted to fuck him, take him, bite 'Property of James Norrington' into his neck.
He turned mpg123's shuffle back on and tried to remember all the arguments he had against Theo's suggestion of 'just fuck him already.'
Raise the roof that I might see the stars to gain wisdom to see things for what they are...
"Anyway," Sparrow said, "the Flying Dutchman is hailing us, and her captain would like a word with you." He paused. "If you're not too busy with your computer thing."
"No... no," James said, and suddenly sex was the last thing on his mind. "Not at all."
Cecil rowed him over. The cloud cover had thickened into fog, and the Dutchman loomed out of the grey mist, a foreboding silhouette as foreboding as it ever was in his memories, in his dreams.
The overlay of coral and seaweed was gone, he saw as they came closer. And the figures on the deck of the ship were as human as those on the Pearl. Turner hadn't let the ship lapse into disgrace again, then. It was reassuring to see the proof with his own eyes.
Will Turner bounded up to see him as soon as he set foot on deck, still all puppy-like enthusiasm and smiles, just as though the intervening few hundred years and terrible misdeeds had never happened. "James. It's good to see you again."
He was swept up by a sensation of deja vu as he took Will's hand. "You as well... I feel as though I've been here before."
Will looked mildly surprised. "You don't remember? After you, erm..." he gestured vaguely at James' stomach. "Told Davy Jones to fuck off."
James laughed. "Well, I remember that bit."
"And then after I took command of the Dutchman, we fished you out of the ocean," Will continued. "I asked if you'd stay aboard as part of the crew, to help me get my footing."
James blinked back surprise. "I... no, I don't remember that bit. What did I say?"
Will grinned. "You said yes."
***
"I am getting tired of having important parts of my own experience get lost to corrupted file structures," James said moodily as Will poured him a drink back in his cabin.
Will stopped pouring and stared at him. "Lost to what?"
"Never mind," James said. "Look, just tell me the worst of it. What happened?"
"Nothing 'happened,'" Will said, handing him the brandy. "You helped me get my feet under me, hold the command together for the first few years. That's all."
"It's about Jack Sparrow," James said. "Everything lately is."
Will looked at him pityingly for a second, then picked up his own brandy and took the chair across from him. "A short while before you left the crew," he said, "We had a conversation about Jack, and you confided in me that you'd been thinking about your antagonism toward him and come to some conclusions."
"Let me guess." James lifted his glass of brandy and stared into it. "I said I'd been repressing the desire to fuck him since the first day we met and it had driven me mad."
Will's expression, when he looked up, was more gentle than he expected. "You said you envied him," Will said. "You said the world shouldn't work without rules, obligations, and responsibilities, but his did, and he made it look so easy."
James felt a sinking feeling start to grow in his chest.
"And then you added the part about wanting to fuck him," Will said. "So there was that."
The brandy was thick and cloying and burned slightly less than the sting of humiliation on its way down his throat. "And you," he said when he could breathe again, "told Sparrow."
"No!" Will denied, appalled. "Not for another hundred years or so, no."
"Ah."
"And he said that it was a damn shame, because if he remembered correctly you were six feet tall and gorgeous—"
James groaned and hid his face in his arms.
"And I said that I normally didn't find men all that interesting but he had a point—"
"Please," James said. He took a deep breath and sat up again. "So, what, this has all been... some kind of..."
Will looked at him sternly for a moment, then set his glass down on the table with a resolute clink. "James, he chased after you for fifteen years," he said. "In the category of things that have held Jack Sparrow's attention for that long, there's only you and the Black Pearl."
That sinking feeling was back. James stared at him for a full two breaths before he finally said, "Oh."
"Oh."
"You think I should apologize."
Will shrugged and took a sip of brandy. "I think you should do something besides hiding below decks building a computer," he finally said. "Elizabeth said she didn't quite know what you were up to, but that it couldn't possibly be healthy."
"Wise woman," James said. "I'm glad one of us finally married her."
***
He called Theo on the way back to the Pearl.
"It's two in the morning," Theo said grumpily.
"Sorry," James said. "Just wanted to let you know you were right, I'm an idiot."
"Good," Theo said. "Glad you got that sorted. Anything else?"
"Yeah. You can hock my stuff, I won't be needing it." He paused. "I hope."
"Fuck you," Theo said. "I'll talk to you when it's a sensible hour."
James switched the phone off and waited.
The captain was in his cabin when they boarded. James bit back his first impulse, finished securing the boat properly, and then walked as casually as he could in that direction. He wasn't fooling anyone, least of all himself, but sometimes you had to manufacture dignity if you couldn't borrow it.
It only took a few moments after he knocked for Jack to open the door.
"Well?" Jack said.
James took a deep breath. "I was wrong. I'm sorry. I want you back."
Jack blinked in surprise. "Good God, what did the whelp say to you?"
"Jack..."
"Get your arse in here." Jack reached out and grabbed his shirt, jerked him through the doorway. "Want me back? You didn't lose me, Commodore, I've just been working out how to deal with this unexpected setback—"
"Do you have one of those condoms handy?" James said. "Because I think I want to fuck you until your bed breaks, if we're good for that."
Jack grinned like a flash of lightning. "Good! Excellent! Good to have you back on board with the plan. I like this plan. And yes, somewhere here, if you still think we—"
"I love you," James said.
Jack stopped talking and stood stock still for long enough that James started to worry he was dead. "Are you drunk?" he finally asked.
"No. Not enough. Maybe. I—look," he said, "I know what you're expecting, I know I got all those memories back, but I'm still a sensitive nineties guy and I had to say it."
"Well, I—yes," Jack said. "Thank you. I mean, look, James." He stepped closer, weaved back and forth on his feet, then reached out and rested the tips of his fingers on James' chest. "You know I feel... I mean, not that anyone has ever said that clear communication, on any point, has ever been my forte—"
"It's fine." James grabbed his hands, then leaned forward and kissed him. That took a few seconds. When he pulled back, he said, "I know. I believe you."
"No, here, wait, see." Jack took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Love you too," he said, like he was reciting it. He opened his eyes and frowned. "That wasn't it. Look, I'll practice. It'll get better."
"We can just have sex," James suggested.
"Love you too. No, the inflection's not right. I'll get better. Lllllll—"
"We could be having sex," James said in desperation, "right now, instead of this conversation."
Jack paused mid-syllable and nodded. "An excellent point," he said. "It's good to have you back."
James found himself grinning giddily. "You never lost me, Jack," he said. "I built you a bloody server room."
"Ah, right," Jack said. He reached out and pulled James' shirt out from his trousers. "Yeah, see what you mean, there. Thank you, I love you, too." He paused, hand warm against James' spine, and smiled. "There, that one sounded right."
Note: Songs quoted in this story, in order of appearance:
P!nk, "So What"
They Might Be Giants, "End of the Tour"
Barenaked Ladies, "What A Good Boy"
Great Big Sea, "Boston and St. John's"
Deep Blue Something, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
Carbon Leaf, "Raise the Roof"
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