Chapter 1: A Banquet of Consequences

Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.--Robert Louis Stevenson

"I must confess, Miss Swann, that I derive no small measure of satisfaction from your predicament."

Hope dropped to the floor, stillborn and bloody. Not to mention the use of her family name chafed like steel wool up her back.

"Although I have fantasized about this moment…extensively, I never dared imagine that I would have the opportunity to repay you in full for the kindness you have accorded me."

"I don't understand—"

"—Let me explain. As I was rotting away in that godforsaken shithole of Tortuga, squandering my savings on whatever piss that would warm my blood, and wallowing in what I hoped was my own filth, I dreamed of killing the men responsible for my disgrace. I dreamed drunk dreams, raving like a lunatic on my own rum-inflated sense of invincibility. I dreamed of hanging Jack Sparrow for taking my life and murdering William Turner for taking the one thing that made that life endurable. Every night I plotted, all at once mad and exhilarated and drank more, fueling the fires of retribution, until my temper had become so unruly that I was ejected from the tavern. I stumbled down dark alleys daring any passerby to brawl—until I passed out in the embrace of the squalid streets. I woke in the afternoon and started again, dreading sobriety and the cold emptiness that comes with lucidity. So long as I was drunk, I was immune to the consequences, or failing that, was too sloshed to care. They say that if you try to drink you problems away, you're bound to wake up next to them—well, I decided to never wake up.

For six months I stumbled through a drunken haze trying to forget you. I was going to die, and I'm not certain that I cared—alcohol poisoning, murder, disease—they cling to a man like his shadow in Tortuga. Then one night, who graces the port but Jack Sparrow himself. At last, it was the moment I had been waiting for. I signed on to his crew, prepared to kill him at my first opportunity and bring his head to Port Royal stuck fast to the bowsprit. Fortunately for Mr. Sparrow, you also joined the crew that evening. For a moment, I abandoned all desire to murder him, because I had you again. I had the opportunity to win you. I was no longer a stiff, phlegmatic naval officer—I was a man, a man who would love you without reserve.

You were never some insipid ornament of a woman—as much vexation as it caused for your father—you had a mind and a will, and you needed a man who would foster your freedom, not repress it. That was my error, Miss Swan, you wanted more than freedom, you wanted thrills—and one man would never be part of that arrangement. Not myself, not even Mr. Turner. I saw it, that afternoon aboard the Pearl. The hitherto respectable Elizabeth Swann creaming her golden knickers for Jack Sparrow whilst her fiancé was being held captive on the Flying Dutchman. It was then that I realized that the cause of my misfortunes was neither Mr. Turner nor Mr. Sparrow—it was you."

"Me? But how could I--"

"—I was a promising young officer of great expectations. Commodore in His Majesty's Royal Navy at thirty four, on the fast-track for Admiralty by forty. And I was an honorable man. The only chink in my armor was you—and you took the liberty of using that to your full advantage. You made me believe that you loved me, only so that I would rescue your lover. I lost half of my crew at the Isla de Muerta because of your selfishness, and I know you lament that I was not among them. Ah yes, I know what you wanted. That your fiancé be tragically cut down by invulnerable pirates in the melee, in order that you might be spared the inconvenience of breaking it off yourself (or worse, actually marrying the prat) leaving you free to pursue your intentions with Mr. Turner. My God, you nearly lost your own father in the battle. Were you so blinded with infatuation that you lost all regard for others? How would those penniless widows feel if informed that they lost their husbands so that a silly girl could indulge her lust for a blacksmith's apprentice? Or those fatherless children with no prospects, how would they react to the news that said girl's heart abandoned this blacksmith's apprentice in his darkest hour—for a Pirate! You don't love, Miss Swann, you want. Even Mr. Sparrow, I know you could never love a scalawag such as him, but you want what he represents—recklessness, adventure, hedonism. Ah yes, you thought you wanted Mr. Turner, but that was just a bit of adolescent rebellion mixed with a heady dose of lust, and Jack Sparrow proved a far more potent purveyor of that, did he not?

Even after the debacle aboard the Dauntless, I managed to save face. I apprehended a notorious pirate along with his entire crew, further securing the safety of commerce in the Caribbean. He was to hang, and I was to be vindicated. Then, Mr. Turner attempted an ill-conceived and rather bungled rescue attempt, and I had him and Mr. Sparrow inescapably surrounded by marines—but you intervened. I have no qualms about bayoneting Mr. Turner if he stands between a known fugitive and the bayonet, but I cannot if you are between it and Mr. Turner. The Commodore in me should have arrested and hanged the lot of you, regardless of his personal feelings. But you—you were that one person who could break down my well-schooled stoicism and you used it to manipulate me. And look what happened!—cashiered out of the navy, no money, no prospects. Certainly, I have been pardoned for my crimes, but I will never be restored to my life.

A privateer, or a "gentleman pirate" as they call me. They praise me in the papers, but they won't have me at their tables or courting their daughters. I've no hope of showing my face in respectable society again. The irony of it all is that I must live by the means of the men I once hunted. I'm a pariah, a disgrace, fit only for the company of whores and rogues.

It is for these reasons, Miss Swann, that every day since I returned to Port Royal I have dreamed of making you suffer as thoroughly and cruelly as you did me. And now to find you, betrothed dead, father dying, unable to inherit, quick with child out of wedlock, and on the cusp of losing your fortune, reputation and prospects, asking me to ensure that these remain intact by marrying you. Well, if nothing else this illustrates the little regard in which you hold me. You are paying me the tremendous compliment of assuming that this is it for me, that no one else will want me, ever. And the only marriage I can hope to enter would be a loveless, sexless union created only so that the lady who disgraced me might be saved from disgrace herself? Thank you. You have robbed me of all I held dear, excepting my dignity, but apparently you mean to take that as well. I find myself in a position to ruin you as thoroughly as you ruined me and for this reason, I must decline your petition for marriage with no lack of personal satisfaction. You took my life and I shall take yours. Quid pro quo. We are even."

She was prepared for the smack of rejection, but she's reeling from the concussive vitriol of his words. She's weak, like she's been bled into a basin, but still has to formulate the best response to the…extensive rebukes—she settles for anger and indignation.

"How dare you? Blaming me for your mistakes. You made your decisions, James Norrington. You ordered your men to the Isla de Muerta, and you allowed Jack Sparrow to escape. You coward! You-you hypocrite!"

He snorts at this.

"I fail to see the humor."

"Oh, I would explain the irony to you, but you would fail to see the humor."

She crosses her arms, nostrils flaring, but her voice is tight and controlled. "Please explain sir, while I may not find the humor I certainly will disprove whatever ludicrous reasoning led you to it, former Commodore."

"Interesting."

"What?"

"Do you believe that you are always right?"

"Certainly not. We all make mistakes."

"Evidently, though I find it interesting that before I even relate my reasoning to you, you are already convinced that it's faulty. Thus, by your reasoning, I am given to understand that you are correct even though you don't know the argument."

"I—erm..."

"I thought so. The irony of this situation is that you admonished me for not taking responsibility for my actions in order to deflect responsibility from yourself. I admit that my flaw was in loving you, and yet I wait for you to admit that you used my love to your own ends. Now who is the hypocrite?"

A lump swells in her throat, and she sucks in a sob. Silently, she curses herself for giving him the ammunition to destroy her.

"What of the child? What of me?"

"Your child is a bastard.You are a whore. And that is something for which you alone can be held accountable. When the town finds out about your indiscretions, you will be an outcast, Miss Swann."

"Why don't you call me Elizabeth?"

"Because I must avoid all familiarity with your sort. A gentleman must be conscious of his reputation, and I am afraid that consorting with such disreputable company might put mine in jeopardy, especially given the tarnishing it has suffered as of late. You do understand."

He does not ask it as a question. He does not mean it as a question.

"James…"

"That will be Captain Norrington to you. Only my friends and equals may address me by my Christian name and you, Miss Swann, are neither."

She rises, "You will burn for your selfishness. Good day," and leaves in a huff.

"Good day to you—and please stop confirming the irony of the situation," he calls after her.

When the echo of her retreating footfalls fades, he sucks a fevered gulp from his hip-flask, like an infant at the breast.

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A/N: The "You are paying me the tremendous compliment..." line comes from lilithmorgana's awesome hp fic "the heart of light, the silence", which itself was stolen from Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac.

Oh yeah, and the middle-class English girl who finds herself unable to inherit and dependent on a man to secure her fortune is totally stolen from Jane Austen. Go misogynistic English inheritance laws!11