Happy New Year!!!!!! Hic !

I'm so sorry about the ahem ... massively delayed update. Thank you so much, reviewers, and readers, too, however it would be amazing if you would put in a word (anything-doesn't have to be a review if you don't want to) so I know that you're listening.

I'm sorry that I can't do this individually right now, but thank you so much to all of you! I do plan to continue this fic with regularity. To Unikorn, there will be humour in the story, yes, though there will be a period of seriousness that will continue for awhile before the story changes direction.

She snuck through the gardens unnoticed, the unrealistic, vibrant purple blooms calling her home, towards the familiar. Away from the smell of the sea she had become so accustomed to. She didn't want to leave. Not any longer.

Black boots padded past the bougainvillea bushes, and jasmine beds, behind the twisting mahogany, and latched onto the white lattice at the side of the building, below her bedroom window.

She scaled it with time-acquired skill and checked the window, wet with condensation. Unlocked, just as she'd left it.

The Pirate pushed the frame up from the bottom and ducked inside, heading straight for her dresser. She tossed stolen breeches and purchased tunics, a beige dress of her own into a canvas bag taken from her left bedpost, just in case.

Elizabeth placed the smaller cloth bag that Tia had given her inside of it, and left them close to the window on the hardwood floor.

She fiddled with the lock on her bedside table, having no problem in setting open the pin with one of her hair clasps. She'd no time for the key and lock concept, haven given it too much of her effort previously.

Besides, the key was hidden away from the world as it had always been. The round, blackened silver piece of iron held a significance that no other person, anywhere, knew of.

She collected the pistol from where it lay atop her crumpled, re-read letters (many of which were from William) and small stacks of documents and stored it in her pants pocket.

She hurried to her desk, snatching up her papers , retrieving an ink bottle and quill, all things that she would need.

With toughened elegance, she swung around, in the process knocking her porcelain figure of an emotionally crafted, esteemed English lady with her wrist.

Elizabeth tried to grasp it from the air, but had no success before it hit the floor with a resounding crash, shattering the tense silence trapped tightly in the room.

Picking up on the fast reaction further down the hall, Elizabeth, in attempt to dodge the intruders, swung out the window, fingers scraping the splintering window frame.

She groped for footholds, finally finding one for her right boot.

Some documents she hadn't the chance to set in the bag remained under her left arm, while the carryall hung over her strained right shoulder.

Clinging to the sill with her right hand, she quickly closed the window behind her.

Elizabeth re-adjusted her hands from the windowsill to the white lattice below. A small hint of imperfections within classed society, it was just barely perceptively beginning to chip.

She couldn't leave-she hadn't collected everything she needed yet.

He entered the room, his eyes falling on the shattered figurine of the English lady that lay in opalescent pieces on the wooden floor. Cautiously, he stepped further inside, sniffing about the corners, the furniture like an anal retentive bloodhound.

A sound caught his ears, he snapped his powdered white head in its direction.

He was met by a prowling tabby with broken stripes and darting yellow eyes, his tail wriggling back and forth, undaunted.

Equinox.

The cat stood his ground atop Elizabeth's desk, from which the figure had fallen.

Equinox leapt soundlessly to the wood floor, giving the man a wide berth and a look suggesting he were noxious vermin. He resolved no differently than Elizabeth looked at him. Cocksurely, the cat padded through the doorway.

The crooked-wigged man did not relax his own stance in finding the supposed cause of the Englishwoman's fall. He circled the room, lifting the bed skirt, to find no one.

The space behind the desk was empty, the corners, the closet, the bureau unoccupied. He noticed the window as his bloodshot blue eyes crossed the room.

In two steps, he was there, and found it unlocked. He lifted the white window frame and looked outside. Nothing but a fine blue morning and presumably a pulchritudinous day ahead. The sun was still rising to meet the day. He turned back inside.

On a whim, or rather, intuitive feeling (one will never know for sure), he ducted his head out the window, and looked down through the gardens on each side, then directly below.

He extended a hand from the window.

"Miss Swann,"

An overly fractious, bland voice greeted, its owner face to face with Elizabeth.

"Good morning, Norrington,"

His help unnecessary to her physically, and to her pride, she scaled the lattice and swung in the window on her own accord.

" I see you're still a Pirate."

"I see you're still a monotone narcissist."

He hummed a shard of laughter to himself, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Norrin-"

She started, dressed head to toe in filthy, torn garb, in discord to the former commodore's neat white shirt, black trousers and blue, embroidered jacket. Boots versus little effeminate buckled things.

"Really, Miss Swann, we've been engaged...you've knocked me unconscious and thrown me into a pigpen. Call me James. And let us never speak of it again,"

"May I remind you, Norrington, that your filthy drunken idiocy would have gotten you killed had I not stepped in when I did."

He cringed at the foggy, though sadly true memory.

"I see my father has reinstated you in some form-or you have taken a liking to lurking about my bedroom,"

Norrington stood proudly, with an expression suggesting her observation was one of an obvious answer.

"I assume he does not know of all of that Tortuga business, then,"

"I would suppose not. I have been employed by the Governor to watch the estate. Your father says that he hopes to help me regain my naval rank."

"Ahh,"

She stepped towards her desk and affectionately ran her hand from the cats head to tail. Equi purred contentedly.

"I, in turn wish to help prevent him from becoming a powerless figurehead."

"You can't prevent what has already happened. And you'll have no luck on your own in reversing it."

"It will surely help me some, when I return you to your father,"

She gathered her remaining documents, dropped them into her bag. Unsurprised, she turned.

"Really, Norrington, you ought not to think about only your own problems. What of mine? If I return here before I can dismantle Beckett's rule, do you think I won't hang for all I—we, yourself included, have done?"

"It is none of my concern, Elizabeth. Your father will be happy to see you."

"As will the hangman," Elizabeth ensured.

"Jack Ketch's dance, per chance your wheel is spun, forever vies an onyx trance..." She said under her breath, sing-song.

"Governor Swann will not let that happen,"

Angry, now, Elizabeth spoke out.

"Do you think he will be given a choice? While you were on your back drunk in Tortuga, I was sitting in a jail cell in my wedding dress to be put to death! You weren't here for any of that. I was set to hang no less than week and a half ago, and there was nothing he could do!"

"Are you suggesting that I should have been here, and that your actions are mine to deal with?"

"No, I am informing you about pleasant situations that you were not ranked to witness. That my father truly is no longer in control of Port Royal. The Navy, it seems is out of his hands, as well. The officers have been Corrupted by Beckett."

The composed man said nothing.

"I will be leaving this room if you allow me or not, James." Elizabeth impelled.

"No, you will not,"

"To put it more comprehensible words, I will be leaving this room even if that means (that) you will not."

"Elizabeth, I highly doubt threats are necessary. I'm on your side."

"You're anywhere that might regain you any shred of respect that you thought you once had. There are no two sides, James, everyone's in for themselves."

From her pocket, she plucked the dagger, dried blood still covered its silver surface in part. She held it not in an overly threatening position, though ready, at her side.

Translucent light caught the blade, reflecting a jagged, triangular patch of sunlight on the blanched wall.

He laughed, monotone, not coldly. Nor was he patronizing.

He had learned from recent times that he did not know everything about Elizabeth Swann. She was not one to be swift with, and put simply, could fight.

Yet he still might have had too much time with the speculated collection of testosterone that he had only used lately, and little before. The one that she wanted to slice plainly from his dull manhood.

That, and a high voice, true honor, and a fair bit of decency were the only things that separated him from the euinuchs, now.

The man was once brave when need-be, and in battle, and that Elizabeth still harboured respect for. But that was all.

"Don't think I won't kill you, Norrington, that would only be a judgement that harms you,"

"I'm not thinking that you wouldn't, Miss Swann, because all that you have become is an overzealous child. You turned to Piracy out of nothing but boredom, and you are stretching yourself between an unsuccessful joke of a Pirate, a slovenly, juvenile blacksmith and a Commodore of the Royal Navy, whom holds more respect that a woman of your newfound stature shall ever know."

"You were a Commodore, James, were." Elizabeth corrected. "And I never loved you."

"Though you accepted a proposal,"

"Nor did I show you any kind of affection. I love William because he is an honorable man who lacks judgement for me. He has saved my life on many more than one occasion," She justified. "And that unsuccessful Pirate has successfully made a joke of you more times than I've fingers to count. Not that that was even necessary on this particular occasion, as you managed to make a fool out of yourself all on your own. Miserable debauchery among putrefaction," She advanced.

"Whore; the single libertine beldam in the marquis' order, the Caribbean aristocracy," The ex-Commodore spat with a look of well-thought distaste.

Elizabeth muscled forward, forced her former fiance against her rooms door, knife firmly pressed against the left side of his exposed, bloodless neck, other hand weighted against his chest.

The Pirate noticed the view of the subordinate man trace the triangular patch of glowing white light, cast by the knife on the wall. She became unnecessarily close to him, and knew as well as the preceding uniform that he'd no intention of leaving that particular spot.

Her lips lay half an inch from his, warm breath expelled from those parted, eye to eye, abysmal brown to subaqueous blue.

The two shared an understanding moment, that oddly seemed to explain much of what they hadn't said.

Elizabeth turned without hesitation, slipped out the window, and once again, out of James Norrington's life.