A/N: I present the epilogue.

The Smuggler and the Scoundrel

Epilogue: What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?

So am I worthy to serve under Captain Jack Sparrow? Or should I just kill you now?

Worthy. Funny. Should have just shot him.

He ached and he stank. His head was pounding and not from drink; he would have to wait for morning for that pleasure. The hands on his shoulders were tentative but gentle. A woman's hands. They must be.

Grace...I'm so sorry.

He turned, spitting mud and blinking through the rum and the pain, but the face that met him was too narrow, the hair peeking out from under the hat too dark.

"James Norrington, what has the world done to you?"

The voice was too light, too young, too crisp. There was no music in it. But he knew it. Oh, yes, he knew it.

"Nothing I didn't deserve," he said, groaning as he heaved to his feet. The ground tipped, but it did that often anymore and he was practiced at keeping his footing. His stomach was roiling and trying to climb up his throat and everything was sideways. He hadn't been this drunk in days. Just like Sparrow to swagger in at the most inopportune moment.

He had a good look at her, then. She looked...small. Uneasy, in boy's clothes too big for her. Half scared of the sword on her hip.

Timid. Too weak for the sea, after all, is she?

He began to laugh, but his stomach succeeded in its escape and he quickly turned away, arm wrapped around a nearby post while he retched. He'd become skilled at that, too.

"James, are you...you're drunk!"

He spat and wiped his mouth with an even filthier coat cuff. He spun to face her and found himself grinning; the scenery kept on spinning, but he didn't mind.

"Drunk as a pirate, my dear, and as dirty," he said. "Do you like it?" She gaped at him, not dissimilar to a landed fish. "Elizabeth Swann, you hit me. With my rum. That was rude. You owe me rum."

"James—"

"Ah, of course!" he exclaimed. "My apologies. Mrs. Blacksmith Turner, you hit me and you owe me rum."

"It's...it's still Miss Swann," she said, fidgeting with the hem of her waistcoat. "But yes. I...I hit you."

Well, isn't this interesting.

Perhaps it was the rum or the blow to the head, but her correction stirred nothing in him. No sorrow, no hope, no smugness; simply nothing.

"Let's not distract from the issue, here," he said. "Elizabeth of whatever surname pleases you this week, you owe me rum."

"I think you've had quite enough of that," she said. Even through his muzzy vision, James could see the defiant set to her jaw.

Probably right. Need my wits about me to best Sparrow.

"Hmm...I disagree," he said. "But I relent. Doesn't change the debt, though."

"What is the matter with you?" she shrieked suddenly. "You are a better man than this!"

Beneath the rum fog, a flint struck and sparked in him. A better man. Always he was the better man. How was it not a one of them could see the truth of it? He felt his lips stretching in a devil's grin. "Oh, am I?" he said, moving toward her with steps that swayed only a little. Elizabeth's eyes widened and she inched away until she could inch no more, back to the wall of the sty. She could run so easily, but she seemed frozen, whether with surprise or in a show of mettle he couldn't say. "What's the matter with me? Oh Lizzie, dear Lizzie...I have sent hundreds of men to their deaths and I dream of corpses. I dreamed of you, too. For a little while."

"James," she said, and her voice seemed tiny. "Whatever it is that happened you're still a good man."

His fists hit the wall on either side of her and to her credit she flinched only a little. "Did you never wonder if I grow tired of it?" he asked. She gaped at him, uncomprehending. "What poor lad's clothes did you steal, Miss Swann?"

"I don't know. I thought it would be...safer."

"Ah, yes, safer, much safer," James said. "None of those louts knew what you are. But I do." He grinned again. "What makes you think you're so safe with me?"

Her hand cracked across his face. It wasn't a hard blow, but he staggered back, chuckling. "The last time a woman hit me—" he began, but the memory of yellow hair spilling over Navy blue and fingernails in his chest rolled over him and he shook his head to clear it.

"You may have become a scoundrel since you left Port Royal, James, but I will not believe you've sunk so low as that," Elizabeth said. "I know you to be a good man, whether you believe it or not."

She knows that much at least.

"And yet you would not marry me."

That had thrown her. She at least had the decency to look abashed. "James—"

"What are you doing here?" he asked. He didn't want to hear her apologies. They were empty and liable to make him sick again. His fingers itched for the neck of a bottle.

She hesitated, fidgeting, tugging at her sleeves. Something was very amiss; even with his vision spinning he could suss that out.

When did I become so able to read her face?

"I...I'm looking for Will," she said at last.

"Blacksmith run off on you, did he?"

"James!"

He smirked. "Jilted man's privilege, darling," he said. "Please do continue."

And she talked. She told him of the interrupted wedding and the warrants, the jailing and the offered pardon, of which there was only one, and of Beckett and Jack bloody Sparrow.

"Will left to find Jack, and I've come to help him," she finished.

The absurdity of it all rolled over him, and he started to laugh. It was just…silly. The whole mess of a situation was silly. He looked at Elizabeth, and the laughter kept coming. A silly girl in a silly hat. That's all she was.

"I think I might have hit you too hard," she said with one of those abashed little smiles he remembered so well. Even that little smile was funny. Looking at her now, with her wide, doe-like eyes that before had seemed so fiery and sharp, he doubted she could put a lie past him ever again. He had seen her in truth at last, stripped of the halo he'd given her.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"As providence would have it, Mr. Sparrow—oh, beg pardon—Captain Sparrow has hired me to his crew," he said, and nearly set off laughing again at her positively rapturous smile.

"Does that mean you will help me save him? Help me save Will?"

There's a price on my head, as well, dear Lizzie. Or did you forget?

"I already saved him once for you," James said, and before her smile could fade he continued. "So I'll expect payment this time."

"Oh, James, thank you!" She hugged him, muddy and worse though he was, and together they headed for the docks. James followed a few steps behind her, still staggering some, but the world was beginning to right itself. And he found this new footing strangely welcome.

My dear Elizabeth...you never could feel when the wind had changed.

A/N: The end! The sequel, "Flying False Colours", is in progress.