Norrington's Darling

Dreams

POV: James Norrington

My hand was twined with hers. She leaned up against me. "My captain," she murmured. I caressed her cheeks, smiling at her, my lover and darling, the woman I spent night after night wishing for and dreaming of. The woman who I was often separated from by an ocean. The woman I could not contain my love for. The woman who read all my thoughts and loving feelings in letter after letter. The woman who wrote her own letters to me to tell me how much she loved me.

I had known since I first laid eyes on her she was special. Every letter she sent me only encouraged the feeling and walking here with her finally with her hand in mine was the best feeling I could ever ask for. 

I stopped her and caressed her face. She smiled up at me, but it was tinged with sadness.

"I have to go soon," she told me.

"I know," I whispered. "I know."

"James...I don't want to leave..."

"I don't want you to leave, either," I whispered. My chest suddenly constricted. "Zuri—can I ask you a question?"

"Anything, my love," she whispered.

I pulled an object from my pocket. "Zuri, my dear, my darling, my love—would it be too much of me to ask to court you?" My nerves frizzled in my chest.

"It wouldn't be too much," she whispered.

"Then...may I court you?" I held out the promise ring, her answer—and my heart—suspended in the space between us, which seemed to have become a chasm.

She flung her arms around me. "Oh, James! Yes!"

Years had passed. 

We had kept correspondence. Her letters were long and detailed and beautiful, but I missed her gorgeous face. I missed the feeling of her hand in mine and I missed the body that filled the empty space between my arms. I remembered how we had danced under the moon after she'd said yes every night and the thought was called to mind now, despite the blaring sun.

I now watched as the Black Pearl entered the harbor. I stayed a ways back, remembering the written warning from my darling telling me her brother was unlikely to dock if I—or any other soldier, for that matter—was spotted. 

She found me easily. I held her close, gazing at her beautiful face the moment I first saw her. I tried to remember every detail of her—while also trying to remember my name, which the sight of her had wiped from existence—trying desperately to commit every detail of her into my brain.

I decided my brain wasn't up for the task if I couldn't even remember my own name.

"I...this will sound strange, but I...I would like a painting of you. A small one to keep in my breast pocket, so I'll always have you beside my heart."

She looked at me like she was about to cry. "Oh, that's so sweet..."

We searched through the town to find a good painter. We spent the next six hours sitting as he painted a small portrait of Zuri.

Only two days later, I found her reading, sitting in the sand by the sea. I sat next to her, stole her book from her and accidentally bumped noses with her. We stared at each other for a long time, but it was there that we shared our first kiss, the sun warming our skin.

I woke to find Zuri still cuddled up next to me. I grinned and kissed her head before settling back down again for sleep, wondering what other dreams I would have the pleasure to experience.

POV: Zuri Sparrow

The dream I dreamed wasn't quite a memory, but not quite a dream. Flashes of my troubled past with Cutler Beckett flicked through my mind, never staying long enough for everything to play out in full.

Hands. Light touches. Everywhere. A smile that covered up the wrongness of it. The constant belief he was my friend; I didn't need to be bothered. This was normal.

The smell of alcohol, followed shortly by the smell of bile, worse than anything I'd ever smelled before. A pale, ill face, then a breath of fresh air. Lips, cold and cruel and welcoming, landing on my uninviting ones. 

Short kisses, stolen without permission.

The office. Jack walking out the door. Beckett cornering me against the wall. His voice, begging, "Stop me. Please. Stop me." My body, unwilling to respond. His lips on mine, his hands running up and down my sides. His tongue forcing its way into my mouth. His hand coming dangerously close to my breast.

I woke with a scream.