Freedom

Chapter 6

by

Garnet

The Wren would be leaving in two days time, which meant that he would be able to see Elizabeth on the morrow. Perhaps, even trying on her first strokes with a carefully dulled blade. Will had still been considering it when they'd parted, but Jack suspected his soon to be lady wife would be getting her way, as well as private lessons, soon enough. As he suspected Elizabeth would be getting her way in most things, whether she swore to obedience in her wedding vows or no.

The road back seemed longer than it had on the way down and the hill much steeper. The sun was just going down over the horizon as he finally reached the Commodore's house and paused there in front of the gate. Before he swung it wide open and sauntered down the front path, watching his shadow proceed him the whole time. As if leading the way back.

It was only when he got to the door that he stopped and just stood there, staring up at the silent house. Reconsidering the impulse that had made him return here after all. Not that he couldn't still turn around. Go down to the town once more. More than likely, Will would put him up somewhere till his ship left—even if it were only a mound of fresh straw down at the smithy. Not that he and Master Brown's donkey were on the best of terms, but it might well have been better than returning to face a certain Naval officer and gentleman.

Not that he intended to do more than make his proper fair thee well to the man. Even though he had never been one much for them before, preferring more a quick kiss, a pinch, and a wave as he was already well on his way out the door. Or diving from the nearest window, whichever seemed likely to save him the most trouble. And the nuisance of having said chamber pot catch him on the way out.

Of course, with as much rum under his belt as he'd had for the nonce, he wouldn't be any too graceful if he tried a maneuver like that. Which made it all to the good that James Norrington would more likely—as he'd already considered—take his own sword to him instead. But just let him try. He had his own back now and it were polished enough to bloody well blind a man if he wasn't half careful.

Will definitely needed to marry that girl, now that he'd actually managed to woo and win her. The lad still had entirely too much time on his hands.

Jack leaned against the side of the house for a moment, then noticed he had a bottle in one hand. And that there was still some rum in said bottle. He tilted it back, tilting his whole body with it in the process, and drained the lot of it. He heard a dog barking somewhere and turned to look back at the gate, which he'd left unlatched. Oh, well... that's what the man had servants for. Or guards. Or something.

Speaking of which, he wondered if he shouldn't nip back around and come in through the servant's entrance instead. If no one else would be glad to see him, certainly Cook would. And she might even have some more of those cakes to go with his rum. He would miss those fresh cakes. He would miss...

Jack frowned and lifted the bottle again, but it was empty. He glared at it, then—forgetting the cakes and etiquette entirely—he walked up to the front door and pounded on it.

"Here, now," he shouted. "Let a man in, will you?"

When no one answered immediately, he bent down to peer at the keyhole. And thus found himself staring at the starched shirt of the man who finally opened the door. Jack stood up straight again and smiled at the man's clear consternation.

"Knoxy, isn't it," he said. "Well, you may tell the master of the house that Jack Sparrow is back."

He brushed past the man, only to spin around in the middle of the front hall and hand him the empty bottle.

"Look after this for me, will you?"

The servant frowned at him, then drew himself up. But, before he could speak, another voice rang out from the top of the stairs.

"Mister Sparrow, if you please."

Jack glanced up at Norrington's stern face, those cool eyes, then gave a little half-bow, all for as if they were meeting for the first time at some formal and all too boring official function.

"Commodore," he said. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Mister Sparrow," Norrington repeated, his voice like a lash now, cooler even than his eyes. "If you would wait for me in my office. And, Mister Knox, you may return to your other duties. After you inform Cook that I wish dinner to be served an hour later tonight."

"Sir..." Knox bowed his head, shooting Jack a potentially lethal glance at the same time. "Right away, sir."

Jack watched as the man went down the side passage, heading into the back of the house, then looked up Norrington. Who started down the stairs towards him as if he were heading to his own execution. He was still in uniform, perfectly powdered and buttoned and polished. All white and gold and robins' egg blue. It well suited him, though Jack suspected that it was not the time to be telling the man so.

Then he knew it for sure as Norrington took him hard by the arm and steered him into his office, closing and locking the door behind him.

"Drunk again, I see," the other man hissed, nearly into his ear.

Jack straightened and pulled his arm free, turning to face the other man with a haughty look of his own, his manner suddenly entirely less amiable.

"Not so drunk as that. And rather less than I mean to be," he said, and there wasn't a hint of slurred speech to his voice now.

Norrington stepped back. He looked him up and down, before his eyes fell to the hilt of Jack's sword.

"I see the smith has done his usual fine job. Though I swear that, if the blade had, in fact, been made of wood, no doubt he would have polished that to a turn, as well."

"Jealous?" Jack asked, then realized that he were deliberately goading him. And Norrington a man who didn't seem to easily see the humor of things. At least, at the moment. At least where he was concerned.

Instead of answering, though, the Commodore turned away and walked across the room. His head bowed as he stared down into the fire that someone had started in the hearth.

"I wasn't entirely sure that you would return," Norrington said. His voice was matter-of-fact, but there was something uncertain about it as well.

Jack followed him across the room. He threw himself into the chair nearest the fire, put his legs out towards it, then laid his head back with a sigh. So, it wasn't jealousy so much as fear. Rightly so, considering his frame of mind when he had left this morning. And not that it wasn't flattering, but it also made him slightly uncomfortable. As if said chamber pot was about to come flying at him at any moment.

"Ah," he said slowly. "Well, I did. An though ye did not have to send the lad after me, I appreciate the gesture."

Norrington sat down with rather more dignity in the chair opposite and looked at the fire. The oddest expression crossing his face, before it went carefully blank again.

"Strange. That's not what Turner said when he came by the fort this afternoon. He also implied that you were intending on leaving Port Royal. The sooner the better."

Jack slumped down deeper into the reaches of the chair. "Aye. That's true enough."

So, why had he come back then? While he'd still been drinking it had seemed like a good enough idea, but now that he was here in front of the other man he suspected the rum had had its own thoughts on the matter.

"I see. Am I to believe that you have had an offer of honest work elsewhere, or do you wish simply to escape from me?"

That brought Jack's head back up. He stared over at the other man, but Norrington was quite deliberately not looking at him.

"Last night..." Jack said, then paused as he saw a flicker of something pass over the Commodore's face. Something that looked suspiciously like pain or regret. Or, perhaps, it was simply resignation.

It hurt to see it. More than he cared to admit. No, he should never have come back. But it was too late now. Or almost too late. He could still at least try and make it right before he left. He owed him that, at least. And Jack Sparrow always paid his debts.

"Yes?" Norrington prompted, his voice ever so soft.

Jack pushed himself free of the chair and walked over to the other man. He stood there between him and the fire that seemed to so completely hold his attention, then knelt down before him.

"James..." he said.

Blue-grey eyes slowly moved to fix on his own, though Norrington said nothing. He didn't need to; try as he liked, Jack could read every bit of what the Commodore was feeling in that moment and it made him reach out to take the other man's hand, to hold it tight within both of his own.

"Tis not you," he said gently. "You did naught amiss. Fact of the matter, you did everything right. Tis me, Commodore, wherein lies the trouble. I've been... dreaming of late of the men o' the Pearl. It's as if they've come back for me. As if they won't let me go."

He didn't want to mention that it was Barbossa in the main who was appearing to him. Telling Will had been one thing, but somehow he couldn't bear the thought of having this man know about that unsavory little history with his former First Mate. About just how personal his betrayal had been.

"I hate to break this to you, Mister Sparrow," Norrington replied, his voice coolly mocking. "But these men you speak of are all dead."

"Aye, I know that." Jack shook his head. "I know that full well and so do they. An that's what galls them. That they are dead and that I... am not. Last night..."

He started to speak of it again, but Norrington suddenly turned his hand and caught tight hold of his wrist, using it to pull him closer, half off balance.

"Yes," the Commodore said, his tone sharpening to something approaching anger now. "Tell me about last night, damn you. Did you think to kill a ghost with my sword?"

Jack pulled back slightly, testing the other man's grip of him, but Norrington was implacable. His face as hard as it had been when he'd first met him down on the docks after the rescue of the woman he loved. There had been a sword betwixt them then, too. But it had been in the hand of the man it belonged to, the man for whom Will had made it.

Not in the hands of a pirate. A pirate who had, at last, persuaded the Commodore to bed him. If not entirely to trust him. And trust was the issue here, far more even than belief. Than the fact that they had shared a single night's pleasure together.

Finally, Jack gave up and sagged a little, relaxing in the man's grip. Which didn't change at all, despite his apparent acquiescence. As if Norrington were expecting some sort of trick. But Jack was in no mood for tricks, and if the Commodore needed to win so very badly right now—to feel himself in charge—then so be it. Instead, he stared right into Norrington's eyes and smiled. It was not a particularly pleasing smile, but it was a smile and all he could readily manage at the moment.

"A man's word is his bond, is it not?" he said.

Norrington frowned, then nodded.

"An if he has'na anything else, he has that. An if he does not have his word, he has naught."

"Get on with it, Mister Sparrow," was all the Commodore said, but the frown left his face.

Jack let his voice drop. "Mutiny is a bloody bad business, as you said. An there's no coming back from that. They deserved what end they got for that. But Captain Barbossa..."

"Will said that you killed him. Back on the island."

"Aye. But it were more than that. I don't know if Will told ye that as well, but Barbossa and I made an accord an was on the strength of it that he sent his men out to Dauntless. Now, ye defeated them, so the letter o' the agreement we reached were never truly set in motion. But the spirit... aye, the spirit. Barbossa knows full well he were betrayed—and, aye, he betrayed me first, an some would say it were no more than such as he deserved. But still it pains me. It pains me that me own word might not be as good as I may wish it to be, an that he may very well have the right of it."

"You mean the right to haunt you?" Scathing now, Norrington was shaking his head as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. .

Jack let his eyes drop, but said nothing. That he was a scoundrel and a scallywag, Norrington already knew full well, but as to the agreement he and Barbossa had made between them that night, he would not and could not speak of it further than what he had already. Not to a man who was not a pirate, anyway, or had not pirate's blood within his veins.

Norrington suddenly let go of him, so abruptly that Jack had to throw back a hand to catch himself from spilling across the floor.

"Claptrap," the other man said. "I have never, in all my life, heard such absolute rubbish. If we had lost the ship that day to those... men, would you have kept your agreement with Captain Barbossa?"

"Yes," Jack replied quietly. Both of them in one day. First Will and now Norrington. It was almost more than a man could bear.

The Commodore rose to his full height, towering over him. His face was stern, commanding, as if Jack were one of his own, most like one of his own caught doing something he shouldn't be doing.

"Then what price your honor? You are an honest man, Jack Sparrow, though it may pain me at times to admit such. So stow your guilt, if you please. I never want to hear the likes of it again. From what I know, this man is better served dead. And more so at your own hand. If you swear to me now that he walks in your dreams, crying foul, then I'd look more to your own heart for the truth of it, than to his intent. And, yes, if you truly wish to die and be well rid of this world, then I'm sure that can be arranged. But that shall be at your own choosing then, not at the behest of some restless spirit and not by my own choice."

Jack shifted and got to his feet before the man. He stood there, swaying slightly, as those last few words repeated themselves several times over in his head, growing with import each time he heard them.

...not by my own choice...

So, pirate or no, Norrington had decided for a fact that he did not wish to hang him. Ever so glad of that eleventh hour pardon then, he must have been. That he'd not had to balance duty with his own desires on the matter. But what if... when he broke with that self-same pardon and returned to his old life? He doubted that the other man could overlook such as that a second time, even if he somehow managed to find another Governor's daughter to rescue.

"Aye," he said at the last. "So, perhaps tis not a ghost. As you would have it. But I know the secret of it, I imagine, man or spirit. The secret of me very own soul."

"And what secret is that?"

Jack shrugged and told the truth at the last. "That I'm a pirate, Commodore. Tis in me blood, in me heart, and all I truly know. An no piece of paper, no matter how fine, can ere make me anything more or less than that. Than Captain Jack Sparrow, even if he be a captain without a ship and with no hopes at the last of ever reclaiming her."

"So you say," Norrington said, and his voice had grown soft again, soft and somewhat teasing, though entirely serious at the same time. "And I believe you... I do, Jack. I've been thinking of nothing else all this day and I find I must believe you. You're a pirate, and a damned good one at that. And it would be wrong for anyone, even of me, especially of me, to ask of you more than that. But to be a pirate, you need a ship. And I can think of no other for you than your own Pearl. Savvy?"

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it tight again. He frowned at the other man. The Commodore stared back at him, this light in his eyes that looked a wee bit mad almost, as if he were daring him to do something at that precise moment. Something that may well get him tossed into a prison cell. Or, at the very least, clapped back in irons.

"Drink, Mister Sparrow?" was all he said though, as polite as if Jack had just dropped by unexpectedly for tea.

Instead of roundly cursing the other man, which is what he really desired to do, Jack sat back down in the nearest chair and swung his legs comfortably up over the arm. And gave Norrington his best, most insolent, smile.

"Aye then," he said. "An tell me, if you please, how I am to acquire a ship that not the best of you lot could catch, let alone capture."

Norrington gave him a rather smug look and walked over to the side table. He took up one of the bottles and two of the glasses there and poured out a generous amount in one. He handed it to Jack. His own he filled nearly as full, then sat down in another chair and placed the bottle on the floor at his feet.

Jack inspected the glass. "Brandy?"

Norrington nodded.

"To your renewed health," he said, raising his glass.

"Aye, an to yours as well," Jack replied politely enough.

They drank as one and t'were more of a challenge than Jack had expected for him to finish his off before the other man.

Norrington immediately plied the bottle again, before placing it on the floor between them. As if it were some prize they both fancied, or some piece of disputed territory. Jack sipped at his glass, then gave the Commodore a speculative look. The other man returned it full well, one of his eyebrows arched.

"The ship is one matter," Norrington commented, returning at last to the subject at hand. "Piracy yet another. You do realize that, of course, as a loyal and dedicated, commissioned servant of the Crown, that I can never officially condone such a thing. However..."

Jack raised his own eyebrows.

Norrington stared at him for one long moment, before he lowered his gaze to his glass. He turned it slowly in his fingers, making it flash with fire-gold and amber-red hues.

"I have no fondness for the Spanish," he said at the last. "And I believe that the King quite echoes my sentiments. And as the King goes, so goes England. Even though we are not currently at war with Spain, it does not, of course, mean that we are not at odds with them. The King—and the Governor, of course—may, most easily I must imagine, be persuaded to turn a blind eye should a few choice Spanish ships go amiss. Most especially if a percentage of the spoils were to fall into their hands thereafter."

Jack let out a sharp breath. "You wish me to turn privateer?"

"Now, how can I wish that?" Norrington replied. "To do so would mean that you'd need a ship, and you don't have a ship now, do you?"

"But you know of one," Jack said, nodding slightly. "I might very well fancy. An you're... let's say, willing to help me get it."

"Duty bound. To aid in ridding these waters of a most dread pirate scourge," the Commodore corrected. He sipped his brandy reflectively, then added mildly. "You do owe me a ship. A fast ship. If you haven't forgotten."

"Aye?"

"And as a privateer, you will for working for the Crown and, as such, working for me. In a manner of speaking, Jack Sparrow... Captain Jack Sparrow."

Jack nodded and smiled, finishing off the last of his own glass of brandy with one quick flick of his wrist. Captain... now that had rolled off the other man's tongue so very beautifully.

"Aye," he replied, leaning down to claim the bottle and filling his glass again.

"In a manner of speaking, I like the sound of that..."

"I thought you might," the other man said, a smile of his own crossing his face, a private little smile that Jack fancied only he had ever before had the occasion to see.

But then Jack frowned and let his glass fall again. "An what of her 'dread pirate' crew? Are ye also 'duty bound' to hang them, if'n you actually do catch the ship in question?"

"I believe that is at my discretion."

"An your discretion tells you... what?"

Norrington leaned forward and lifted his own glass and Jack obligingly topped it off. "Well, if they were to sign on with an honest enough man, a man with a quite legitimate letter of marque in his pocket, then... why they wouldn't need fear the noose. Not in Port Royal, anyway."

"Meaning we'd have to take our chances with the Spanish."

"As you say, Mister Sparrow."

"And Port Royal would welcome us with open arms, is that also what you're saying?"

"Yes." A simple enough answer, but there were worlds in it.

"An you?"

Those storm-grey eyes tracked back up to his face. Not surprised, merely speculative. As if he'd been half expecting the question and had been considering it, at least in part, for some time already. Jack stared back at him and something both hot and cold ran right straight through him, as though his body had taken fever again, though his thoughts were perfectly clear at the moment. Almost painfully clear.

Now, and why had he asked that particular question? It wasn't no mind to the likes of him if this man—Commodore James Norrington, if you please, an never forget that—wished to disregard what had gone on between them already, let alone if he wished never to renew that particular acquaintanceship ever again. Tonight, tomorrow, or in ten long years. Except that it was and he wished and he doubted he could wait that long, hardly even one day if truth be told.

"Such a course would, you understand, not be prudent." Norrington took another small, almost delicate, sip of his brandy. "Let alone advantageous for either my command or my career."

It wasn't a no, but it wasn't quite a yes either. But, Jack took it as the invitation for further persuasion that he wished it to be. He had no problem with chasing after what he wanted. And long practice with it.

And, mayhap, this time he would get exactly what he wanted.

And all those ghosts could just go hang themselves, as it were. For a chance of getting both the Pearl and this man he would go to Hell and back and come out laughing. He would pay just about any price. Even if he didn't have his soul to bargain with anymore. Or even if he did.

Now that was definitely worth a thought and rather more worth a drink. He stood up and the other man immediately followed suit. They stood there, looking at each other for a long time, as if neither of them were quite willing to make the first move, then both reached out as one to shake hands.

"We have an agreement then, Captain Sparrow?"

"Most definitely," he answered. Well, he remembered that firm grip and he were quite looking forward to remembering more of it again. "We most definitely have an accord... Commodore."

They stood there then, neither of them moving, until Jack raised his glass of brandy once more in all seriousness.

"A toast then, if you please. But not with this. If you'd rather... some rum?"

"I thought the rum was gone," Norrington commented dryly. Standing there in his pristine uniform, controlled and precise and smiling ever so slightly. As if he believed he'd just gotten exactly what he wanted. As if he'd just pulled one over on Captain Jack Sparrow.

But Jack just shook his head, smiling quite broadly now, knowing he'd soon find out different. "Not this time."

And then he reached out and pulled the other man to him and kissed him, long and slow and quite thoroughly enough to seal the deal on it even without that one last drink.

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