Guardian Angel 3

Half-Remembered Lullaby

by

Manic Intent

Jack had the presence of mind not to drop the rum, as he slowly looked over his shoulder.

A very shocked looking James Norrington, dressed in nightshirt and breeches, obviously on his way to bed. Wet hair framed handsome features that looked oddly vulnerable, without the wig, loose and curling at the edges. Expressive green eyes, that one could so very easily drown in.

No. Irrelevant. Guardianship. Jack tried his best smile, spreading his hands wide. "Commodore! I was in th'area, so I thought I'd just drop in fer a visit! An', y'see, these wings, they're just part o' a fancy dress costume that I was headed up to, after Port Royal, savvy?"

"Sparrow." James shook his head slowly, in disbelief, then rubbed his eyes as if to confirm he wasn't hallucinating. "You're babbling." His brow furrowed. "What wings?"

Jack looked down at his shoulders. Flapped one wing a little. Convenient. Invisible by default, it seemed, unlike the rest of him. He cursed himself quietly for assuming that Norrington had retired for the night, and doubly so for losing his concentration in the name of finding rum. "Uh. Nothin'."

Norrington opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head again, wryly, and reached down for cognac and a glass, heading over to one of the armchairs in the parlor and sprawling into it, pouring himself some brandy. Caught between putting the rum back, or having some anyway, Jack hesitated, rocking on his heels.

The Commodore smiled wryly as he noticed the pirate's indecision. "Just have some." A deep sigh, as he rubbed at his temple. "What a day. First something peculiar happens at the fort, then I have to face Beckett, and I come home to find you, of all people, stealing my alcohol."

"Borrowin', Commodore. Borrowin'." Jack found the corkscrew, and relieved the rum of said stopper, taking a deep swallow. Ah. Being dead definitely didn't seem to rob him of the pleasure of rum, at least. He sauntered over and sat in one of the chairs, folding his wings to either side. "Pleased t'see ye too. Thanks fer th'rum."

"How'd you escape? The Kraken, that is." Norrington asked curiously, taking another sip. "I was so sure that you'd... well."

Jack considered, for a brief moment, telling Norrington something along the lines of 'Actually, ye did kill me, mate, an' I got sent t'heaven, an' now I'm goin' t'be yer guardian angel, savvy?' but decided it wouldn't go down too well. He smirked, showing golden teeth. "See, there were these sea-turtles, an'..."

Norrington snorted. "Oh please. You can't think that I'm as gullible as Mister Turner."

The pirate studied the other man for a moment. The only evidence of the toll that the past few hours had taken on Norrington was the sharp, jerky way he downed gulps of his cognac and the lingering redness in his eyes. Otherwise, the voice was the same bored drawl Jack remembered that always surfaced whenever the pirate was trying to pull a fast one. "Ye really want t'know?"

The Commodore peered at him over the rim of his glass, then closed his eyes. "No. I suppose not." Another gulp. "I'm sorry. For what happened. It didn't really occur to me that Davy Jones would... sink your ship if he found the heart missing. I rather thought he'd start chasing me." A hollow laugh. "Wasn't thinking properly, was I? I've been sorry, though. This past month especially..." The man pulled himself up short, realizing that he himself was beginning to blather, and smiled thinly. "Well. What brings you to Port Royal, Sparrow? Mischief?"

Jack thought fast. "Well, y'see, I was going t'check on me friends th'Turners, an' seein' as they aren't even here at th'moment, I decided t'get a drink somewhere else, quiet-like."

"Ah." Norrington blinked. "I see." Dryly. "I suppose that explains why you're actually... clean. Yes, the Turners haven't been around. Missing for two months. If Governor Swann knows where they are, he hasn't been sharing."

"Two months?" Jack let the 'clean' comment pass, and vaguely realized Norrington had mentioned something about that just a short moment ago. "It's been two months?"

"Feels longer," Norrington murmured bitterly, then seemed to shake himself out of his melancholy. "Since the island. Where have you been?"

"Here an' there," Jack said absently. It hadn't felt that long Up There at all—probably only a few hours at most. Stunned, he swallowed as much rum as he could hold down in one gulp. They lapsed into silence, each man to his own thoughts. Jack realized, with a guilty start, that he had just about broken one of the cardinal rules of guardian angel-ship. Never show yourself to your charge...

Whoops.

However, since he still had the wings, and he hadn't as yet been struck by lightning or whatever they did to transgressing angels, Jack cautiously wondered if he was in as much trouble as he thought he was. Though he'd been slacking off as well—there had been no constructive effort towards Norrington's happiness as yet. Quite the opposite, probably.

He considered, briefly, the option of simply turning tail and running away to the garden, then thinking really, really hard about the word 'invisible'. Something, however, about the air of forlorn misery about Norrington pulled him up short. He couldn't just leave, like that. Jack slumped back into the comfortable chair, and took another gulp of rum.

"So where are you going to stay? Or are you leaving already?" Norrington asked, startling Jack out of his preoccupation with the state of his immortal soul.

"Wouldn't be tellin' ye now, would I?" Playfully. He didn't actually need... accommodation, of course.

"You just drank most of my rum."

"An' very good rum it was too," Jack toasted Norrington with a tilt of the bottle.

The Commodore arched an eyebrow. "You do realize you're still a wanted criminal?"

"Just th'same way I know yer probably s'posed t'be arrestin' me 'bout now," Jack said cheerfully, taking another swallow. He wondered how that would work out. Could he be hung if he were already dead? Or would he just be doing the hemp tango until someone stopped being horrified and cut him down? Morbid. Bad thoughts.

Norrington sighed. "I... I suppose I owe you. For what I did. So I'd let it pass. Just leave Port Royal, before you're caught."

"Thanks, but all th'same, I'd be stayin' 'round 'till th'whelps come back," Jack said quickly, then kicked himself. It would have been a lot easier to agree to leave, and just make sure he was 'invisible' again. Sometimes his mouth moved without signals from his brain.

"You can't. Beckett is here. In Port Royal." Jack watched him closely, but Norrington betrayed nothing in his voice or face. "If he catches you again..."

"Then I'd just 'ave t'make sure 'e doesn't, eh?" Jack said pleasantly. "Cheers." He drained the rum, dumped the bottle on the table, then wandered a little unsteadily back to the cabinet, rooting through it.

"I don't have any more rum," Norrington remarked, with just the faintest edge of irritation. "Be serious, Sparrow."

"I am bein' serious. An' I'm bein' serious 'bout ye not 'avin' t'worry 'bout me not bein' serious, seein' as I'm bloody serious 'bout not bein' caught by th'very short Lord Beckett ever again', since there be somethin' bout 'is height, or lack of, that makes him serious 'bout hurtin' pirates, see?" A gold-toothed grin.

Norrington sighed, struggling to follow the convoluted sentences when under the influence of cognac. "Sparrow." A pause. "Put that back, it cost me far more than it really should."

Jack put the claret back into the cupboard with a pout. "M'serious. Besides, what ye be worryin' 'bout an old pirate fer? One less pirate in th'world, innit?"

A growl, the controlled voice becoming a little slurred as Norrington poured himself yet another glass of cognac. "Because there are some things that one man should never do to another, that's why."

"Bit late, innit? Ye saw th'evidence o'th'run in I 'ad wi' th'Company, th'first day we met," Jack sniffed at a wine bottle, then looked at the label. "What makes ye think 'e hadn't done any' o' said things 'e shouldn'a do t'another man t'old Jack already, eh?"

Norrington was rubbing absently at the brand, under his nightshirt. He froze when he realized Jack was studying him silently, with expressionless, kohl-rimmed eyes, and jerked the hand away, taking another gulp of the cognac, draining the glass. Long fingers reached a little unsteadily for the bottle. Jack grimaced. "Right, I think that's just 'bout enough o' brandy fer ye."

The Commodore's eyes were a little unfocused under the long, drying hair, but he smiled—that exact lopsided, indulgent smile that the man had directed at the sparrows. Jack wondered if it was still possible for his heart to skip a beat.

"Make me," Norrington purred.

Jack closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, counted to three, and sank the fingers of his free hand into a wing to remind himself exactly what he was here for. Besides, he was fairly sure 'sleeping with your charge when he's drunk' would probably break a far more fundamental rule than 'be invisible' and 'don't do things that accidentally cause your charge to be violated by another man'.

That thought brought him up short, more quickly than the others. It would be... inhuman, right now, to take advantage of Norrington when he was this vulnerable. As odd as it seemed, that the Pirate Hunter could be in need of protection—but Jack decided, at this moment, that he was going to be serious, after all. In guardianship. No man or woman deserved to live tangled in these webs of control. Jack had a battered sense of justice, but every strand of it within him reacted to this situation with indignation.

He got to his feet, and tugged the glass free from unresisting fingers and dumped it next to the bottle of cognac. "Yer goin' t'sleep now," Jack informed the other man, tugging at his arm. Norrington laughed at his efforts—an angel or not, Jack still didn't have enough strength, apparently, to pull a heavier and larger man to his feet, but he eventually got to his feet, stumbling, placing a warm arm around slighter shoulders after some encouragement.

A nose buried itself into Jack's hair, as the pirate pulled him up the stairs. "You know... you actually smell good. When not... when you've just cleaned up, that is."

Jack wasn't sure that angels could actually smell bad, but he shrugged, ignoring the hot breath above his scalp. The white scar of a healing brand. A wyvern, and a spear. "Which room's yers?"

After some mumbled direction, Jack managed to maneuver Norrington into a room that, although fairly airy, was terribly... bare. Outside of a four-poster, a desk, a dresser, a wardrobe and a large mirror, the only decoration was a mounted sword on an oak plaque, next to the balcony—its plainness suggesting that it was the sword Norrington had used before he had taken up the Turner version, which currently lay on his desk, an ornate paperweight.

"G'nights," Jack offered, watching the other man crawl into bed.

"Where're you going?" Norrington had curled up under the sheets, his voice slightly muffled.

Jack shrugged, then by habit, looked at himself in the mirror. No reflection. Ringed fingers poked at the glass experimentally, but all he could see from the framed glass was the nightscape beyond the balcony. Curious. And a little unnerving. Not to mention his finger didn't leave any little smudges of prints, at all. He looked down. Candles on the dresser and table provided a dim glow for the bedroom, but he didn't cast any sort of shadow.

Very unnerving.

The sounds of sheets moving made him sidle hastily away from the reflected space, and into the shadow of the wardrobe, leaning against the wall next to the mirror. Norrington was peering at him. Jack smiled, to cover up the mild shock to his senses from the last couple of minutes' worth of revelations. "Fer me t'know, an' ye t'find out, some other day, savvy?"

"I have a guest room somewhere. Down the corridor to the left. You can use that," Norrington offered, a little hesitantly. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice any irregularity about shadows, or the lack of.

Jack fluttered his fingers, and grinned playfully. "Why, Commodore! Ye be right generous t'day. Rum, an' lodgin'?"

Norrington looked away, down at the sheets, and one hand snaked under the covers—rubbing the brand mark absently, it seemed. The silence stretched—outside, Jack could hear the faint, querying cries of the few animals that made the night their domain. He half-turned, as if to leave.

"Don't go," Norrington said, so quietly that Jack almost didn't catch it. An unvoiced, irrational plea, framed in bitter regret and unbearable loneliness.

The impish smile faded from his face, as the pirate studied his nails (clean, and even trimmed, bloody hell). A long pause, then he softly agreed. "Awlright."

"You will, won't you?" Norrington closed his eyes. "End up leaving, that is. Maybe I really am losing my mind. Imagining things. You can't really be here. No more than dispatches can miraculously copy themselves onto blank paper."

"M'still here, mate." Jack sighed. Guilt warred with pragmatism. "Awlright. Just this once. An' ye won't be rememberin' any o' this in th'morning, savvy?"

"Remembering what?" Norrington asked, looking over to Jack, then frowned and sat up when the pirate walked over to sit on the bed, one leg folded beneath him, the other hanging off the blankets. He did, however, allow himself to be guided to half-lie in Jack's lap, head resting against a thigh. Arms stilled, then one curled around the small of the pirate's back. Jack began patting an arm, racking his brains for a song that wasn't bawdry in any way. Something that Elizabeth had taught him, perhaps.

Norrington slept, snatched away by the strains of a half-remembered lullaby, blanketed by the wings of an angel.

Still, he also knew there wasn't very much he could do about that now, other than pray that her next captain, whoever he was, would treat her well. He missed her, and missed the freedom of the sea, and rather hoped that if Heaven was into creating private... er... Heavens, as rewards, that the sea, and a fine ship (if not the Pearl), would be incorporated into his. Or he would complain. Definitely.

Jack perched on the rail, thought 'invisible' very firmly, and tugged at his beaded beard. Thinking of rewards before he had accomplished what he had been set out to do? Terribly reprehensible. He just had to think of the problems as a big picture first, before applying a solution.

Firstly, Norrington had effectively made a deal with the devil—his place as a Commodore, in return for captaining the Flying Dutchman for nefarious East India Company purposes. Secondly, the man was damned lonely—enough to seek company in a pirate. Thirdly, Beckett was making him do... unmentionable things. Right. All of the above really centered on Beckett.

Jack wasn't sure if he was allowed to kill a man, as much as he'd like to, when he was an angel. Wasn't that one of the more important bits of the Ten Commandments? Not kill him, then, but somehow run him out of Port Royal? But then the man might just insist that Norrington follow him. So Norrington would need something else, more tangible, that would ground his priorities and put some iron back into that previously proud spine.

His eyes wandered down towards the slowly awakening port, visible from this house up on a hill, and grinned when he picked out the blacksmith. He rather missed the whelps now, with their irrepressible, innocent energy. What was it he had just said, some time ago, when he first met Will?

Ye need a girl, mate.

That was it! Jack would have crowed in triumph if he weren't worried that there was a small chance he would wake Norrington up. A girl. Who was not Elizabeth. After all, if Norrington had been willing to risk career and sanity running around the Caribbean looking for a haunted island and a ghost ship on the say-so of a pirate and a woman, he definitely would be able to resist one mundane (okay, not mundane) short English Lord, wouldn't he? For the sake of wife and home and maybe little tykes?

Not to mention this really shouldn't be too difficult. Technically. After all, Norrington was single, liked women, striking good looks, personality, social status and what seemed to be a decent paying job, since this house was pretty big. Even had servants—there were, from up here, perceptible sounds of people walking about on the floor beneath him. Perfect package, issues of sadistic English Lords put aside.

Something about the thought of Norrington getting attached to a typical pretty flower of English womanhood unsettled him, but Jack decided that whatever the underlying reason was, it was likely irrelevant. Despite his currently rum-warmed brain, Jack knew this was definitely the best way to go about solving the... Norrington Problem. Getting back to Heaven. Maybe even check on the Turners on the way, play a few pranks on Davy Jones, call on Tia.

However, he'd probably need help. It seemed unlikely that there would be any other eligible fair flowers of English womanhood around Port Royal, or Norrington would have noticed them sooner or later. Besides, (though it was entirely possible the lad was simply gushing), William had mentioned something about Elizabeth being the beauty of Port Royal. It was believable, even if Jack liked his women with a little more in the way of... frontal assets, Elizabeth had a pretty face. Tempting, as he knew from past experience, despite the frontal assets issue. Wait. Irrelevant thoughts. So. There'd have to be some way of getting in outside competition.

Jack drew a blank as to how to do that, short of somehow going to London or something and 'suggesting' wild fancies to the tender ears of unsuspecting virgins, of cruises and romance in the Caribbean ('Ye will get yer da' t'charter ye a voyage t'the Caribbees, an' ye'd fall in love with a dashin' Commodore, an' want t'do all manner o' scandalous things t'his person'—definite amusing possibilities, but difficult in reality, probably). The female company he knew personally was out of the question—they tended to be 'working women', irate first mates, or voodoo mistresses.

At the same time, he'd also need some sort of plan to run Beckett out of town, maybe even get him killed (though Jack was really, really sure this would land him into Big Trouble).

He decided that he needed an ally, and more information.

Then it occurred to him—said person had to work, didn't he? Jack hovered in the air as he considered the number of coaches beginning to rattle down towards the town proper, and spied a familiar, elaborately wigged head in one.

It stopped at a stately building near the center of Port Royal—the town hall, Jack supposed. Governor Swann stepped out, met at the entrance by clerks gesturing at scrolls of important looking bits of paper. Jack rolled his eyes. Did nobody in Port Royal ever take a break? Or was this how people of a non-piratical nature passed their (sad little) lives? Buried in little bits of paper? Jack landed on the cobblestones and followed the Governor into the town hall, thanking his stars that he'd never thought of becoming an honest man.

The town hall was far less opulent than the EIC mansion, really just an affair of stone and plaster filled with several complaining tradesmen who were being sorted out at a wooden counter manned by harried clerks. Rows of seats before the counter were filled by several more men, looking impatiently at clocks and rummaging through notes. Governor Swann nodded to those who cared to greet him, and went up a narrow flight of stairs, followed by hangers-on and Jack. The building was old, and had probably once been a church, by the design of it, and simply extended later when there was a need for an office for the Governor. Weathered wooden beams buttressed relatively newer looking stone and plaster—rusted ornate metal crosses hung alongside mounted pistols.

The corridor opened up to a view of the market square and the healthy noise of early morning commerce, then joined up to another corridor, and finally to a large room, no balcony. Governor Swann began to talk to one clerk after another. Bored, Jack waited for a while, as the others discussed the conversion of the slums area of Port Royal into something more respectable, and then went over to one of the two windows in the office, looking out onto the street. Boring office. Not a single piece of decoration, just more and more paper. He sidled over to the desk—a small portrait there. A gorgeous woman, a younger Governor Swann, and a lovely little girl wearing one of Elizabeth's rare, sweet smiles.

Jack hoped that, wherever the whelps were, their guardian angels were doing a better job than he was for Norrington. That made him frown a little for a moment. Supposing there were other guardian angels, why didn't he see any about? Or did 'invisible' apply even to other angels? Certainly he could think of all manner of disputes that could occur if the angels could see each other, since each were mostly dedicated to the best interests of their charge, and interests could conflict all too easily.

Or did you only get a guardian angel if you were... somehow in Heaven's good books? He couldn't exactly imagine Beckett or Mercer having one, though he supposed that was entirely possible.

Jack filed that away as 'things to ask others in the future', as Governor Swann finally sat down at his desk with a huff, and began to sort through some heavily sealed envelopes.

"All right mate, just 'cos I don't know how t'read yer mind, yer goin' t'think aloud wi' me on this," Jack said, waving a hand in front of the ageing face, etched so deeply with lines of worry. "Softly like, so nobody in the corridor will think yer goin' bonkers, savvy. What d'ye think o' Norrington?"

Governor Swann paused in the act of opening one of the envelopes, his eyes unfocusing for a moment, as if contemplating some topic that had been bothering him for some time. "Working too hard, that boy." A sigh. "If only that Lord Beckett didn't have a hold on me... I'm sure he's somehow puppeteering James."

Oh, bloody hell. Did Beckett have to be one damned step ahead of him all the way? Jack groaned. Governor Swann's eyes had drifted over to the portrait, and his smile was thin, pained. Didn't take a genius to guess what this 'hold' was, after all. Still. "Right. But although 'e 'as this hold on ye, ye know ye have ways, smart ways, o' getting' yer back on him without him knowin', an' mebbe helpin' th'Commodore in th'process."

"I wonder how I can help," Governor Swann murmured, placing the dispatches down on the desk. "I'd ask James what's wrong, but he's been so evasive of late."

"Beckett be doin' terrible things t'the Commodore, an' yer suspicion o' this is suddenly very strong," Jack waved both hands for better effect. Dramatically, anyway. Governor Swann frowned, his expression darkening.

"It must be something despicable, knowing that man. James has changed so much ever since he returned." A shake of his head. "God. I must have been blind."

"Good, good. Now yer nearly there. Right. Ye've seen how Norrington was when 'e was 'round yer pretty little daughter, mate. So yer thinkin' now, won't it be great t'hold a ball, or some sort o' festival, invite a lot o' yer mates from London or wherever, wi' their own lovely daughters, an' hopefully shack him up wi' someone pretty? Mebbe then 'e'd 'ave more incentive t'break free from whatever Beckett be doin' t'him, what wi' concerns o' future family."

"Why. I've just had a splendid idea." Governor Swann rose to his feet.

"Naturally, naturally," Jack said, with a smirk. "However, ye know Beckett might be able t'guess at what ye be doin', so ye need t'distract him, or feint a little."

"Lord Beckett would guess all too easily at my motives," Governor Swann sunk back into his seat, frowning.

"All right, see, m'sure that, bein' th'politician that ye are, ye keep close tabs on th'balances o' power in Jamaica. So ye be knowin', maybe, other East India Company Lords o' sufficient ambition, smarts, power, wealth or whatever close by, an' ye can invite them t'this ball. Mebbe those wi' eligible daughters that can then, as previously said, shack up wi' Norrington, so they 'ave interest in protectin' him. Beckett can then worry his wigged head 'bout them, an' mebbe wi' some anonymous or discreet help ye can establish some o' said Lords here, as well. Then 'e can worry 'bout th'power struggle an' leave ye an' th'Commodore alone, give ye both a breather." Jack held in his breath, wondering how Governor Swann would take in this lengthy suggestion.

He needn't have worried. A slow smile spread over the worn face, its crafty nature looking rather out of place on the florid, kindly features. Too easy.

"An' ye be doin' this very, very stealthily, wi' lots o' care, 'cos Elizabeth has a great da' who loves her, an' when she's comin' back—ye know she'd come back—she'd want t'see her da' in one piece," Jack added, because he knew, through Elizabeth's account, that the Governor was occasionally given to risky impulses when desperate. And although the man was so very prim and proper, and English, and tended to be a little too single-minded in pursuit of his daughter's happiness—Jack had no grudge against him. Wished him well. And definitely, at this moment, needed his help.

"Elizabeth. How I miss you," Governor Swann said softly, and picked up the portrait. Jack took this as his cue to take his leave.

Hopefully, everything would follow the Plan...

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