A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the delay, I was out of the country. Also, the line break feature isn't working, so bear with my weird improvising lol

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Chapter 10

"James Norrington" the shadow said quietly in the darkness.

James dropped his sword as if he had been struck to the gut. That voice—it was the voice of a ghost, the voice of someone who could not possibly be here, an apparition, a shadow of a life long dead.

"James," she said once more, stepping closer to him.

In the dim of the moonlight he could see her face, see the sharp angles and planes that had made her beautiful, even if her cheeks were smudged with dirt and her eyes shadowed beneath the brim of a hat. She was wearing breeches, though he could not say he was surprised.

"Elizabeth," he croaked, his voice horse and still somewhat skeptical.

She smiled a dazzling smile, and all of James's control melted. She jumped into his arms and he whirled her about the room, thankful to feel the weight of her against him.

"Oh my God," she sobbed into his shoulder. "I thought you were dead."

He put her down, his heat still beating wildly. "You thought that I was dead?"

"Yes," she cried, tears brimming her beautiful brown eyes. "Isla Cruces, you ran off with the chest, I thought for sure they would have killed you. How did you even get off that island?" Elizabeth's eyes grew dark.

"No, no my dear Elizabeth. I thought that you had been killed. All reports were that the Pearl was lost."

Elizabeth grew pensive then. "She was James. Jack thought that he could bargain with Jones. I thought that he had taken the heart from the chest after all. But—" Her tears began to fall violently, even though her voice remained steady. "He failed." She looked up at him, at the man that she had thought perished, the man that had protected her for much of her young life. "James, my God, the heart. Did they take it from you? Did Jones's men harm you for it?"

Suddenly, all the joy that James had felt was drowned in a sea of black guilt. She had been at the mercy of Davy Jones…because they hadn't had the heart to bargain with.

"Wha-what are you doing here? In Port Royal I mean? Where—where is Turner?" The abject joy in his voice had begun to turn sour.

James saw the delicate column of her throat move, as if she were swallowing hard—wondering exactly just what to tell him.

"We," she began. "We ran into difficulties." She squared her eyes directly with his. "I'm heading toward Asia."

"Like hell you—"

"Let me finish, James."

It was the way that she said his name, so comfortably, so effortlessly that made him stop.

"I came to see if I could get to my father, just in case—" The words became caught in her throat. "Just in case I never saw him again."

Oh God, she sounded so sad, the way she had on the ship over from England all those years ago, lamenting her dead mother. He had been her protector then, her own personal fortress of flesh and bone.

"Elizabeth—"

"I came ashore from a ship."

"What ship?"

She looked away from him.

"Elizabeth," agitation crawled into his voice, even though he did not intend it. What madness was afoot here? "What aren't you telling me?"

"I came ashore," she continued, as if he had asked no question. "And I heard them speaking your name. James Norrington. Do you understand what that did to me? James Norrington, they said. A living breathing James Norrington. Alive. Alive James."

Elizabeth recalled the jerk in her heart when she had discovered he was alive, the unanticipated rush of joy that filled her, the way that air had suddenly seemed breathable, as if she had been suffocating for months.

No, she hadn't anticipated feeling like that.

"Whose ship did you come in on?" he asked. "Another of Jack's?"

She deliberately did not answer.

"I've been watching you all day, waiting to see you, to beg you for your help."

"Of course I'll—" Her statement ricocheted in his ears and mind, making James forget his initial question, and remember exactly why he could not help her. "You've been watching me all day?"

"Praying for a moment to see you."

James was silent for a few moments, as if considering his options. "Then why have you not yet mentioned my marriage?" He asked the question quietly, cruelly almost. It was a test, of course it was.

"Why were you married at Cutler Beckett's estate? She asked back, not willing to reveal how the idea of him married was noxious to her.

"Whose ship did you come in on?

"Where did all of this come from? The house, the wealth, the title! Admiral!"

Frustration ripped threw him, and he grabbed her small shoulders, nearly ready to shake her.

"What are you up to Elizabeth! For the love of God tell me."

Elizabeth sighed. She never had been able to lie to him…with one exception.

"Your answer would not change mine"

She thought of that moment often, filled with guilt. Yes, guilt. She would die inside if she even considered the notion that it was regret.

"I'm going after Davy Jones with Will, and some others."

"What of Jack?"

She ignored the question, deciding to keep Jack's fate her secret for the moment. Now, she asked her own question.

"Cutler Beckett must have done this for you. What did he get in return?"

"Excuse me?"

"You wanted your life back James. Apparently you got it. So what did you give Beckett?"

"A vow." James said simply.

They both turned to the sound of a candle cashing against the floor and rolling down the stairs. Elizabeth cast her eyes upwards, and for a moment thought that she beheld a ghost. The creature at the top of the stairs was dressed in a long white nightgown that cascaded behind her, and the moonlight that touched her skin made it glow silver. Her hair, a mass of riotous black curls, hung loosely about her small shoulders and reached down her back. Elizabeth felt a stab of self consciousness thinking about he own hair, hacked shorter to make sea life easier.

She, Will, Barbossa and the crew had found (or commandeered, as it were) a fine ship, The Guierre . It was a French word that meant warrior. Will had wanted to accompany her ashore, but Elizabeth had been hell bent on going alone. Perhaps her father knew English contacts in the East that could help them, and it would have to be her to reason with him. She could not risk both of them being captured. Someone had to go after Jack.

And then she had spotted James Norrington at a church.

And this was the girl he had married.

Elizabeth felt jealously drip through her bones. The woman atop the staircase was exquisite.

Finally, after several moment of silence, the ghost spoke.

"Somehow," she began, "I think that you must be Elizabeth Swann."

Elizabeth looked at James, who turned a shade paler.

"Yes," Elizabeth nodded. "Yes I am."

The new Mrs. Norrington walked down the stairs—floated was more like it, Elizabeth thought dejectedly. She had never walked so gracefully in all her life.

Closer up, Elizabeth could see that James's wife was older than she appeared at first glance, certainly a few years older than herself.

The older woman smiled a clever smile that did not reach her eyes.

"Good evening Miss Swann," she said in a voice so polished that it sounded as if it belonged at a royal court. "My brother has been looking for you."

At first, Elizabeth did not understand. Her brother? It was when she saw the horrified look on James face that all the pieces of this bizarre puzzle finally flew together.

"Cutler Beckett must have done this for you. What did he get in return?"

"A vow." James said simply

"My God." Elizabeth felt her legs begin to shake. "You—you are Cutler Beckett's sister, aren't you? I remember." She turned desperately to James. "I remember. When I was a child, still living in England. Lord William Beckett had two children. A boy…"

She turned back to Evelyn. "And a girl." She shut her eyes slowly, only to turn back to James, her voice alight with anger.

"That was the deal you struck? How could you! You married that pig's sister in return for all this?"

"Apparently I'm quite undesirable," Evelyn said in an amused voice, but there were no humor in her words.

James, who had been struck dumb at the sight of his wife and his former fiancée in the same space, suddenly seemed to awaken from his stupor.

"Elizabeth, calm down. You have nothing to fear. My wife will be completely discrete about your presence here."

"I can speak for myself James." Evelyn snapped, her eyes on fire.

"She's a Beckett," Elizabeth sneered, as if the very name were like acid on her tongue.

"And now I'm a Norrington," Evelyn shot back, her face revealing nothing but the cold, icy control that any queen would envy. "And you, apparently, are still a Swann. So between the two of us, I believe it's my word that we'll be trusting. Or are you now in the habit of keeping a fiancé?"

Elizabeth saw red, her rage so palpable that it sucked all the words from her throat. Incapacitated by the snug grin on the other woman's face, she instead turned her venom to James.

"You're nothing but his pawn now, aren't you? You bastard! You let me come into this house while a snake was waiting for me." Suddenly, the air seemed too warm. "Oh God, this was a mistake coming here."

"No Elizabeth," James hissed fiercely, turning his sight away from his wife. "You must believe I would never do such a thing."

"Hell will freeze over before I swing from the gallows!"

"Beckett has no control over me!" James's voice rose, oblivious to anything except Elizabeth. "I swear Elizabeth. Please calm down. I'm an admiral now, my own man. No one else's."

Elizabeth held her breath and looked into his eyes. The were so honest and so safe, and more than anything she wanted to believe him, James Norrington, the one thing in her life that until recently had always been a constant. She would have to remain in Port Royal for at least the next three days before The Guerrier could slip into the harbor again undetected.

She exhaled…and without warning ran back into the darkness.

"Elizabeth, wait!" He cried, bounding after her, but it was too dark, and she had grown too quick. It was only a moment before James could not even hear her footsteps anymore.

Evelyn simply stood where she was, the image of James smiling at Elizabeth Swann burned into his mind. Beneath her nightgown, her thighs were still bruised with her husband's fingerprints.

Turning back, he leveled an angry gaze at her. "You will say nothing to your brother." The words were like ice, cold and unfeeling and absolutely befitting an admiral of the Royal Navy. It was not a request, it was a command

"I'm insulted at the presumption." She said, her voice equally cold and aloof.

"I'm not an idiot!" He roared, and Evelyn nearly backed up at his sudden loss of control. "I know well enough why Cutler married me to you. He wanted a spy." His eyes looked through her as if she were loathsome.

Evelyn's voice remained steady, and she kept her face emotionless in the way that only a woman with years of practice can.

"I asked my brother and now I will ask you. The marriage is not enough. I know him too well. What else did you give Cutler?"

James's eyes went wide, but his lips did not move.

"You're keeping something from me," she laughed, the sound pure cynicism. "And apparently from your charming former fiancée as well."

"You. Will. Say. Nothing. To. Your. Brother." His face was turning red with the effort to keep from exploding again.

"Or what? I've had worse men than you threaten me James Norrington."

He tried a different tactic.

"I understand that you are angry—"

"Angry? Angry that on my wedding night, your formerly dead former fiancée decided to have a têtê a têtê with you in the middle of the night, and that when I appear, you look positively horrified that I spoiled the reunion? Angry? Oh really James, why would I have cause for anger?"

"Your sarcasm is not appreciated Evelyn."

"How rude of me," she spat, "I beg your forgiveness."

"Evelyn—"

"Angry James? No, I'm not angry. I've survived worse than you. You're nothing."

She stormed back up the stairs, and when he heard a door slam, he assumed it was to her own bedroom.

Oh God.

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"Good morning Mr. Mercer."

Evelyn stood outside of her brother's office at the East India Company' headquarters. James had left for the fort before dawn.

"Lady Beckett." The man replied quietly.

Evelyn's mouth opened to point out his mistake, but she was still too angry to correct him. She would rather be a Beckett at the moment.

"Is my brother in?"

"No, my Lady, he's down at the docks."

"I'll wait for him in his office, then."

Mercer seemed to hesitate, but relented. The last thing he wanted to do was upset a Beckett—even if she was now a Norrington. Evelyn brushed past him quickly into the office, shutting the door behind her. Mercer had always terrified her, and she had often wondered why Cutler kept such a strange man at his side. Then again, Mercer had a gruesome scar on his face, and she could guess how he had gotten it.

Oh God, now what? Here she was, standing in her brother's office, and why? What was she going to do now? What? Was she going to do what she had resolved to do? What she had sworn to her brother that she would do?

Why was a part of her screaming that she should run away? That this was wrong? Why—

Evelyn stopped suddenly. All around her, a melody began to fly. Quietly, almost inaudibly, a single line of simple notes—almost haunting, almost possessing.

"A music box?" She asked allowed. Cutler would never keep something as ridiculous as a music box.

But the melody continued, calling to her, digging into her mind, burying itself and refusing to go away.

And it was coming from somewhere inside the office.

Evelyn's heart began to beat faster.