Norrington's Darling

Cedric Norrington

POV: Zuri Norrington 

As my nine month due date came and went, I started to get nervous. I refused to go anywhere outside of the Norrington estate, not even to my warehouse. I stayed in one of three places in any given moment: my bedroom, the library, or James' old study. As the little one kept tumbling around inside me, I started to get more tense and more nervous. Anamaria, Theodore, Andrew, and Jack were never far away. One of them was always within shouting distance if I needed them. 

"Are you going to come out soon?" I murmured to the little one. In response, they kicked. "I'll take that as a no."

Eight days past the day the doctor had predicted I would give birth, I sat at James' old desk in my bedroom—the bedroom I still thought of as ours, even though he was gone. I pulled out our many letters, comforting myself as I had been since his death with his comforting words and familiar handwriting. I flipped a letter open, one from James to myself, and read the sweet phrases he'd written to me shortly after I departed from Port Royal.

My sweet Miss Sparrow,

I never thought I would write these words, but I find myself searching for you in crowds before I realize you have disappeared like mist on the horizon, the sun burning through to reveal the empty air. 

As I said in my first letter, I wish to be near you and to hold you in a comforting embrace. But I am afraid the commodore still hunts for you. I urge you to stay away from Port Royal and from any British ships you may see. If he finds you, he will kill you on the spot. It is by God's grace alone I was not sent out to search for you. If I had, I imagine I would have been torn to pieces from the inside, starting with the destruction of my soul.

My love, you bring sweet serenity to my pounding heart. Remember that as you run. Know that one day, we shall meet again when the commodore has given up a search for a girl who keeps on running, disappearing, surviving. 

Best of luck on your escape and subsequent chase, with all my love,

Your Lt.

I smiled, folding up the letter neatly and reaching for another. As I shifted, I felt a slight...pop. The smile slid off my face as a gentle trickle of water slipped down my legs. Oh, no. Oh, no. The doctor had described this.

"ANA!" I shouted, leaning back in my chair. Terror and anxiety flushed through me as the flow of water only increased. "ANA!"

Pounding footsteps. She burst through the open doorway. "RiRi! What is it, what's happened?! Are you alright?"

"Ana," I whispered, voice little more than air, "I think my water just broke."

Fifteen minutes later, Theodore and Jack had moved me to my bed, where I lay shaking and panting. She watched over me for the entirety of the day, the midwife and doctor on hand in the kitchen a floor below us. She read to me, holding my hand and promising me it would be alright. I could hear James' voice combining with hers and wishful thinking made me feel the brush of his lips over my forehead and my hand.

"Everything's going to be fine," James whispered to me. "Our little one will be in the world soon, and you can get back to being yourself. We'll be parents, Naut."

The next morning, after about sixteen hours had passed since my water had broken, I shouted for Ana to get the midwife and she'd rushed off, giving her husband and my brother orders to watch over me. Jack clasped my shaking hand in his own.

"Zu, are you alright? You're shaking something awful." His voice was trembling as bad as I was.

"No," I said meekly, panting. "Th-the contractions have started." I could hardly breathe, hardly speak. Four hours later, the contractions were coming in regular intervals. The midwife had been checking my dilation regularly and confirmed that it was time. A brief sense of panic fell over me before a dull sort of haze replaced it as another contraction—as painful as being stabbed through the uterus and having the blade twisted repeatedly—crashed over me in a vengeful wave. 

All I wanted now, as the pain grew steadily worse, was to get the baby out. 

I fell in and out of myself as I pushed at the midwife's orders, pain nauseating me and numbing me simultaneously. It was as if my mind detached from my body but still felt the terrible pain of childbirth for the three-hour delivery. All I knew with dead certainty throughout it all was I kept asking for James, crying for him. Jack kept soothing me. I barely heard him over my pants for James, my husband James, the baby's father. I reached out to his side of the bed once or twice that I remembered and wailed from pain of childbirth and heartache when he wasn't there. 

The thing that brought me back to myself, fully and quickly, was the sharp, clear cry of a baby. The tension in the room immediately dissipated. Theodore heaved a sigh of relief, collapsed in a chair, put his head in his hands, and started to cry. Anamaria comforted him as Jack put an arm around me, frowning at me.

"Zu?"

"Jackie," I breathed, reaching for him. He helped me sit up, even as I hissed from the pain and flinched away at the frankly alarming state the bedsheets were in. 

"Ignore that," Jack told me. "You just delivered a healthy baby boy, Zu. James has a son."

A choked sob escaped me.

"He's so proud of you, you know," Jack said, smiling through tears. "James is so proud of you for getting through that."

"Are you proud?" My breaths were still heavy. Pain and exhaustion fought for control over my body. I focused on the pain, let it keep me awake. 

"I am very proud," Jack assured me. Theodore's heaving sobs got my attention then, and I looked to him.

"Theodore? Why are you crying?" Weak. I was so weak. My voice was nothing more than a breath. But somehow he heard me.

"James," he croaked. "James has a little boy."

"He'll look just like him," Anamaria predicted.

Something stirred within me. Calypso's magic, brushing over me and soothing me, pulling me into a lulling sleep. "Yes... Little Cedric... Cedric Norrington." I fell asleep without another word.