An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The Riverside Woman
By Castlerya on AO3
Summary:
The pirates were (failing that) freeloaders or rats, the reality was that the pirates were no longer in the grace of Calypso and they could not control it as in the past, no more.
Maybe it was an act of mercy or a last act of revenge against them when he gave that second chance to James Norrington.
Notes:
I've never been very good at rewriting stories, but I firmly believe that James Norrington deserved better, and besides, I'm deeply in love with that man.
So I'll try to give him something better.
My native language is not English, so if you see an error in the translation, please let me know.
Chapter 1: A Lost Man
The faint rays of sunlight barely touched the surface of the sea, you had this habit of leaving the warmth of your home at dawn to collect mussels on the beach.
Your parents? Dead. Your brother? Missing or dead, he had succumbed to adventure and the promise of freedom that piracy offered.
Being a woman alone in this world was dangerous, but living on the outskirts of Port Royal had its advantages, away from the danger of sailors and pirates, away from the docks and the drunks who frequented the cantinas. Your nearest neighbor lived a couple of miles away.
As your boots sank into the wet sand you couldn't stop wondering if your brother had already found himself face to face with the gallows. The simple idea of losing the last thing you had in the world made your heart ache.
The disadvantage of living in isolation was the little information you could get.
Maybe you should pay a visit to Port Royal soon, however your thoughts were interrupted when instead of finding mussels among the rocks on the shoreline what you found was a man, a man dressed in the uniform of the British Royal Navy.
At first you thought about leaving him there, but your heart stopped you. You weren't a cruel or indifferent person and that sometimes got you into trouble. You walked over to him and pushed him on his back. His face left you breathless for a moment, you leaned down to put your ear to his chest and panicked. You started to press your hands hard on his chest and began to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
His body shuddered and the man suddenly sat up on the rocks and coughed up salt water before passing out again, his soaked hair sticking to his face.
You left the basket of mussels forgotten on the beach and pulled the rest of his body out of the water. You felt his body for indentations that could mean he was injured, but you found nothing but a circular hole in his shirt considerably thick to be from a bullet or a sword. With much effort you carried him over your shoulder and began walking towards your house.
As you walked through the door with the sailor leaning on your shoulder, you threw him onto your couch.
James Norrington was a man of honor and justice with strong ideals rooted in his country, his last fight was against himself and his mistakes.
Dying knowing that the woman he loved was out of immediate danger was all he needed. The pressure of his lips against Elizabeth's was a sad comfort to his heart before his eyes closed.
He only remembers darkness, cold and a soft voice inside his head. James Norrington did not exactly consider himself a man of faith or religion, but when he opened his eyes half naked in a humble living room he was confused.
He looked in all directions startled, the last thing he remembered was the pain of having been pierced with something like a harpoon. The cold seeped into his bones although a sad wool blanket had surely seen better days covered him.
The modest fireplace in the living room crackled, but the heat it emitted was not enough to stop his teeth from chattering, he felt deathly cold.
“It's good that you woke up,” you approached with a wooden bowl, James looked at you suspiciously.
“Where am I?,” he asked, looking at the bowl with a deep frown.
You smiled to reassure him and look friendly, you definitely didn't want a confused British Royal Navy soldier or one who felt threatened by you in your own home. — We're a few miles from Port Royal — you answered, pushing the hot stew between his hands. —I found you half alive among the rocks on the beach — you explained.
James looked at you for a moment with distrust before giving you a slight nod, he had a throbbing pain in his abdomen and leg. The heat of the bowl of stew gave relief to his numb hands.
He watched you walk away and grab some logs from the corner and throw them into the fire.
"What's your name?" James wanted to know, he hoped he hadn't fallen into the hands of another pirate.
You straightened up in front of the fireplace and slowly turned to look at him, you told him your name. James didn't know you.
"And you, sir?" you asked.
James let out a humorless laugh, some time ago anyone would have recognized him.
"James Norrington," he answered slightly surly, some pirate character biases had stayed with him.
He was not the same James he once was, not after falling into disgrace and living on the snail's streets or being thrown into pigpens by the few pirates who survived their sentence and that of the crown enough to recognize him beneath every layer of filth and misery that covered his body and the tattered clothes that were once his naval uniform.
Fortunately he had not been killed and much to his chagrin he understood when Elizabeth insisted that pirates had a code.
You looked at him in silence, this was the former Commodore, James Norrington. His reputation presided over him. A tenacious, disciplined and honest man, the terror of pirates; but now, in your humble living room, you could only contemplate a lost man.
