Title: "The Inevitable"
Author: monimala
Fandom: POTC: AWE
Rating/Classification: NAC, Norrington, angst
Disclaimer: Not my characters. Nope.
Summary: A 375 word filler ficlet for the film.
"Our destinies have been entwined, Elizabeth, but never joined."
James Norrington faces death with more grace than he expected to, with the decorum and class befitting a member of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.
That does not make it hurt any less.
He has suffered wounds before. It’s inevitable, really. Especially when one consorts with pirates. But when Jones’ man runs him through with his own sword, it is a singular kind of pain. Dying alone, slumped against the rail of a ship that feels rather like the blackened ribs of some large sea creature, is white-hot and numbness and then an unbearable finality.
It aches until it stops. Until the last taste of Elizabeth turns to ash in his mouth.
**
When he awakens, he expects he is in Hell. No man who sends children to the gallows and turns a blind eye to the deaths of hundreds of unwitting sailors at the hands of The Flying Dutchman could possibly go anywhere else.
But the breeze is warm, not boiling, and the air smells of the sea, not brimstone. There is no fire… save the one in the hearth being stoked by a steady hand.
He knows that hand.
He's felt it a dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand. But only in his fevered dreams, where ladies are allowed to be women. Wanton and wanting… everything Elizabeth Swann was for other men but never for him.
"James! You're awake!"
Her laugh is delighted, her hair is shorn, and the breeches cling to her curves in the most distracting manner. Her voice is a noble's and her body is a whore's. And when she bends to tug him from the bed, he sees the black of pitch beneath her nails and inhales the sharp scent of a Parisian perfume.
She is a contradiction and she tastes of it, of water and wine.
It is then that James realizes that all he knows of the Bible's Hell is false. It's then that he understands that damnation comes in many forms… and this one is almost a blessing. It is inevitable, really.
He strokes his fingers against her silken skin, he takes her sweetly and slowly and knows that his burning will be tied up in unimaginable bliss.
That does not make it hurt any less.
--end--
May 31, 2007.
