"You know, Commodore, I'm beginning to think I wish she _had_ loved you," Sparrow said from the dark end of the room.

"Who?" Norrington asked with distraction. He dipped his quill in the ink jar. Two neat piles of paperwork sat upon the desk before him: paperwork signed and paperwork yet to be signed.

"If she had." A jangle of irons signaled Sparrow's adjusting himself. "Loved you, that is. Then you'd be on your honeymoon about now, wouldn't you? And me, well, I'd be on me ship. And we'd all be happy, wouldn't we?"

"Funny," Norrington said, leveling a gaze at Sparrow. "I didn't notice a ship when we picked you up."

"Minor matter of misunderstanding that would have been long cleared up by now, had you not picked me up.

"Think of it," Sparrow continued as Norrington turned his attention to a livestock requisition form. "If the lady had loved you, you'd be off making baby Norringtons as we speak."

Norrington drew a candle closer so that he could make out the cook's scribbles among the spatters of grease on the livestock sheet.

"Right," said Sparrow with a fresh clank of his chains. "Who needs more Norringtons in the world?"

"Are you finished, Mr. Sparrow?"

"How much longer till we get to London?"

"No worries." He dotted the "I" in Norrington with a flourish, then slid the livestock form over to the papers-signed pile. "We shall have you safely ensconced at Marshalsea by late tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, I wasn't worried, exactly," but the voice betrayed a feeling of reluctance at the thought of being ensconced in a prison.

In the silence that followed, Norrington signed a requisition for medical supplies and another for sewing needles. Normally, these were the duties of the ship's master; however, the ship's master had been left behind in Madagascar. Dysentery, and a rather bad case at that. Norrington blamed Sparrow; they had, after all, been in Madagascar to arrest the weasel.

"Exciting job you have there, Commodore. I see it's not all pirate chasing and sword fighting. That's good. A man needs a break from the tedium of adventure."

Norrington shuffled the stack of signed pages into a neat rectangle.

"I wonder if they married."

"Hmm?"

"He doesn't love her, you know." Another rustle of chains. "It's all quite the interesting triangle. And plain as day from where I sit. Sat. Not from where I sit now, I mean to say, but from where I sat then, watching the three of you."

Norrington's chair scraped wood as he turned it in Sparrow's direction--more for the purpose of rising and carrying the signed papers to a cabinet than for engaging his prisoner in conversation, but the statement had roused some mild curiosity. "What on earth are you prattling about?"

Sparrow gave an aggrieved sigh, complete with uprolled eyes. "Have you not been following what I've been saying?"

"Vaguely." Norrington opened the cabinet.

"Fair Will does not truly and deeply love fair Elizabeth."

"Every time you say something, Mr. Sparrow, I believe it's the daftest thing ever to come out of your mouth. But then you open your mouth again and prove me wrong." He faced Sparrow with hands clasped behind his back, back straight, and a smug smile settling comfortably on his mouth.

"Do you think he'll go through with it? Marrying her, I mean."

"Of course, don't be--"

"Course he will. He's a gentleman. But do you think he'll stick with her? Till death do they part and all?"

"Mr. Sparrow, that is the very premise of marriage, is it not?"

"He'll stick with her," Sparrow answered himself. "Fool."

Norrington sighed, then shook his head. As he tugged his pocket watch free of its pocket, he said, "Well, this has all been fun, but I think--"

"You know what happened, don't you, mate?"

"It's nearly eight. It'll be lights out--"

"He fancied himself a hero."

"Sparrow--"

"Jack. If you please. After all, we're sharing a room. Where was I? Will. He fancied himself a hero, you know. Battle the bad guys, rescue the girl. All the assorted rot that goes with it. He's young, that's what got him, but he'll learn. Too late, though, I fear."

"Ah, the ability to learn. A skill I don't believe you ever picked up."

"One day he'll wake gasping for breath as he realizes what a mistake he's made."

"Tell me, Mr. Sparrow, what mistake would that be?"

"Why, running off with her instead of you."

A laugh huffed out of Norrington's throat as though Jack's words had knocked it from his chest. "You're being ridiculous. And it's two minutes to eight."

"Right. Nighty-night time."

"Right."

"Can I at least have a pillow tonight? An old rag to bunch up?" Sparrow got to his knees in the shadows and clasped his hands before him as though in prayer. "Some straw even?"

"Sleeping in the Captain's cabin not good enough?"

"The Captain's cabin has a hard floor."

"Live with it, Sparrow." He blew out the three candles that had been lighting the room.

Silence accompanied his undressing from his coat, vest, wig, and shoes. He pulled back the sheets on his bunk. A chain scraped the floor as Sparrow shifted to get comfortable. Or, rather, that's what he hoped Sparrow was doing. Imagining he felt Sparrow's eyes on his back--and remembering a not-quite-cloaked come-on from a few nights ago, something about how much better his real hair looked than the wig--he slid into bed and pulled the sheets up to cover him.

"Nighty-night, Norrington."

"Night, Sparrow."

"Jack. If you please."

Norrington closed his eyes. Nonresponse sometimes worked to end the prattle. Threats sometimes worked, too, especially when made with his hand clutching Sparrow's throat and Sparrow's back pressed to the wall.

Satisfied that no further dialogue was forthcoming, he rolled onto his side, face to the wall.

"I suppose it was good I came along," Sparrow mused from his corner.

Norrington tugged his pillow to position it more comfortably. Finally, with a sigh, he flopped onto his back. "_Why_ was it good that you came you along, Sparrow?"

"I gave you a distraction. You see, good old Will steals your betrothed...."

Norrington rolled over again, ignoring Sparrow's chatter. The pirate's conversations were usually like a tangled mass of yarn; once you found the end, however, it was easy to untangle. Clearly, Sparrow was about to attempt to convince him that he should let him go and thus have a continued distraction from his broken heart.

"...and so that is why it was good that I came along," he finished.

"Except," Norrington said to the wall.

"Except what?"

"Except you've got it wrong."

"I have? Perhaps you'd care to explain where I've misled myself in my thinking."

Norrington rolled slowly onto his back. Enough moonlight came through the porthole to allow him to make out the shadow of a wooden beam that crossed the ceiling. "You see," he said, his fingers plucking at the hem of the sheet, "I didn't love her either."

Sparrow snorted.

"Don't get me wrong, Sparrow. She's lovely and smart and well-mannered--mostly--and she'd make a fine wife for a high-ranking naval officer. And _that_--" He turned toward Sparrow, propping his head in his hand. "--is why I proposed to her. It was a career decision."

He thought he could make out an inward frown passing over Sparrow's half-shadowed face.

"You did give her up pretty easily, mate," Sparrow finally agreed.

"You see." He dropped onto his back again.

A moment of silence was broken by Sparrow's, "That's interesting."

"No, it's not."

"No, it _is_."

Norrington heard the shifting and rattling of irons again.

"It _is_ interesting, Commodore." Sparrow's voice, a voice like roughened velvet to begin with, deepened. "You know what else I find interesting, Commodore?"

"No, Sparrow, and I really don't care--"

"Why I'm not in the brig."

"We've been over this, Mr. Sparrow."

"Right. Slipped through your fingers a one too many times, so you've said."

"Right."

"Wouldn't mind slipping through your fingers, now that you mention it."

"I haven't mentioned anything, Mr. Sparrow. Now if you'll please."

"No, I wouldn't mind that at all."

Norrington turned once more onto his side, facing the wall. His eyes he pressed shut as though trying to press out Jack's words as well. But no further words were forthcoming. As the seconds dragged into a minute, Norrington let out a slow, quiet breath. He shifted into a comfortable position and prepared to sleep.

Just as his body began to take on the thick feeling that signaled impending slumber, a familiar voice brought him back to consciousness.

"Norrington?"

"Go. To sleep."

"Supposing I weren't a pirate. No, better yet, supposing you weren't a Commodore."

"I am and you are so let's not waste a good night arguing about it."

"But _supposing._ You can do that, can't you? You're not completely without imagination. I hope. Wait. You weren't in love, were you? If I recall, you weren't in any hurry to be the hero, either. You _are_ without imagination, aren't you?"

"I'm not without the butt of a pistol and a well-proven method for using it to earn some peace and quiet."

Sparrow's voice was like salt water crashing to shore. "I can think of a way or two for you to earn some peace and quiet, Commodore."

"Mr. Sparrow, for the fifteenth time, I am not letting you conk me over the head so that you can steal a boat and slip away in the night. I am not packing you in crate, barrel, nor sea chest so that you can be carried out secretly when we dock. I am not sending up a signal to attract your friends--whom I have great trouble believing exist in the first place--so that they can come to your rescue. And, finally, I am _not_ packaging one of the ship's surgeon's knives in such a way that will allow you to hide it in places I'd rather not think about. And I will most certainly, absolutely not help you to hide it there. Is all of this clear?"

"You've made it quite so in the past, yes."

"Good."

"But that's not what I was talking about."

"Sparrow, I can honestly say that I could not care less about what you were speaking of just now."

"I was only thinking of you, mate."

"Hardly."

"Now _that's_ a fine choice of word. _Hard_ly. 'S what happens when I think of you, you know."

"Good night, Mr. Sparrow." He crossed his arms against his chest and closed his eyes.

And ignored the sigh across the room. Then he ignored the fidgeting of chains. The idle whistling of a piece of a tune. The overloud yawn. The low, short laugh. The unconvincing, "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt your sleep."

Norrington sat up, punched his pillow to fluff it, turned toward Sparrow, and then collapsed back to the bed.

"Something wrong?" Sparrow asked.

"I said I didn't love her. That's all I said."

"Oh come on, you're a navy man. Even if men weren't your _first_ choice....well, mate, we all get stuck at sea on long voyages, and we all have needs to attend to. And we all, haven't we, found that it's something of a bit more enjoyment to, well, to trade off those needs with others who have the same?"

"You're disgusting."

"I just need a stiff bath."

"You'll be standing on the Execution Dock in two days' time, you know. Don't you think you should be more concerned about that?"

"It's not over till it's over, mate. Besides, what's worrying ever done to save anyone's neck from the noose?"

Norrington could hardly see the pirate in the dark. He blinked, hoping to blink away the shadows that obscured him. He said, "So it turns out that you do have one admirable quality after all."

"Me nose? I've been told it's--"

"Sparrow.... Shut up."

"Then again, it could be me lips. What do you think?"

"I can't see either one."

"But you _have_ seen them. What did you think?"

"I didn't."

"What did you think of Will, then?"

"Aside from that he was rash, foolish, and a bit too big for his britches--"

"Ah, so you _had_ noticed!"

"That's not what I meant, Sparrow."

"A very wise person told me once that more truth slips from a person's mouth than comes out intentionally."

"I find it difficult to believe you could tell a wise person from a stone on the ground."

The silence that followed unsettled Norrington. He couldn't have won it through his last statement; Sparrow wasn't predisposed to giving up that easily. He opened his eyes to see what Sparrow was up to.

The white's of Sparrow's eyes stared back.

"Norrington?"

"What?"

"Do you really not ever want to think about the place I'd hide that knife--provided, of course, and this almost goes without saying, that it was properly and carefully packaged prior to its, uh, ins--"

"Please stop. I'm in pain just listening to you talk about it."

"Ah, but is it a good pain?"

Norrington slipped onto his back. "I'll not dignify that with a response."

"Then what was that?"

"Go to sleep."

"You didn't answer my question."

"My response that I had no response to your question was, in fact, a response. Does that make you happy?"

"That wasn't quite the question I meant."

Norrington pressed his lips together.

After a silence, Sparrow spoke--not unexpectedly--again. "You don't find it odd that you keep me in your quarters and engage me in conversation?"

"I do _not_ engage you in conversation."

"Fair enough. You engage in _my_ conversation. The fact still remains that here I am chained up in your room where you can do whatever you please with me without anyone--"

"Mis_ter_ Sparrow."

"You know, you've hardly threatened to shut me up all night."

"Don't mistake that to mean I haven't thought of it."

"'S part of a trend, I've noticed. I think I'm starting to grow on you."

"Like a parasite."

"Whatever endearment you'd like to use."

"It'll be a long day tomorrow."

"So no need to rush into it, right? Why not let the minutes crawl in conversation rather than fly in dreams?"

Norrington turned his face toward Sparrow, knowing that this was the very reason he had--or had at least tried to--become more tolerant of Sparrow's babbling over the past day or so.

"You're going to miss me, Commodore."

"Like a pebble in my shoe."

"Yes, well, it looks like you've done. Captured old Captain Jack Sparrow. I hope you don't mind when I say that I wasn't putting my money on you."

"Don't speak too soon, Sparrow. There are a lot of hours between here and Marshalsea."

"Not enough, mate. Not nearly enough."

Although more than enough silence followed to send him to sleep, Norrington found himself unable to go. He turned and rose onto an elbow again.

"Sparrow?"

"Jack, if you please."

"At this late date in the journey, we don't have a lot in the hold to offer, but whatever you request you have for breakfast, I'll do my best to see that we honor it, as best we can."

"So a heart beats in that chest after all, does it? I'll take two--make that three--bottles of rum, or whatever you've got."

"I'm afraid you're out of luck on that. Might I suggest a plate of eggs, some--"

"How about--" A fresh jangle of irons followed. "--you just promise to take me for a drink, before you take me to the prison."

Norrington smiled despite himself. And then he pictured the two of them sitting across a pub table from one another, tankards in their hands, sharing a last drink.

First drink.

Only drink.

"Wish I could, Sparrow," he said, lying back down, his voice having a quality to it that made it sound as though he was speaking more to himself than to the pirate.

"See, I _knew_ you liked me."

An image of Sparrow's quirked grin rose behind his closed eyelids. Above the soft sound of his own breathing, he heard another soft sound, a patter against the deck above his head.

"Typical English weather," he mumbled before his breathing deepened and the rain lulled him to sleep.

Next thing he knew, he was rolling violently--a roll that ended with him hitting then sliding across the lopsided floor of his cabin.

"Norrington! You sleep like the dead, man. I've been calling your name--"

"Sparrow. What's--" He pushed himself onto all fours. Sparrow was in his face, a fact that he surmised by the close proximity of the soft clinking of the beads in the pirates braids, and which was confirmed by the sudden grip of Sparrow's fingers on his arm.

The ship reeled. He and Sparrow began to slide. The chains caught Sparrow. Sparrow caught him. The door flew open, revealing a drenched sailor with a lantern who yelled words that were lost under the crack of thunder and the roar of the waves. Norrington, struggling to remove himself from Sparrow, understood the gist.

"If it's really bad, Commodore...," Sparrow yelled in his ear, then pulled back. By the light of the sailor's lantern, Norrington saw on Sparrow's face the expression that completed the sentence.

He crawled down the floor in the direction he expected his shoes to be.

The ship straightened, then seemed to rise before it was heaved to one side again. Norrington cursed as his shoulder was thrown into a wall. One shoe on, one more to find. The vest and coat he'd do without.

When he finally reeled, bouncing from one wall to the next, to the door of the Captain's quarters, the sailor was gone. Of his own will, Norrington hoped. He wedged himself in the doorway. Water splashed over the deck, slapping his shins. He turned his head to see Sparrow behind him, and his reaction to the incoming water, but he saw only black shadows. Sparrow could stand. He'd be all right. He lunged from the doorway to a railing, then, hanging on, thankful that the ship was at the moment mostly upright, he walked toward starboard.

With a creak, the ship began to careen.

Norrington's shoes slipped on the deck. His grip on the railing tightened, and he clung to it as he went down on his rear.

"It's hitting us bad, sir," Woods yelled in his ear as he pulled himself somewhat back upright. He hardly needed Woods to tell him. "Came out of--" Nowhere. The last word was whipped from Woods's lips by the wind.

"Why didn't anyone come for me sooner?" he asked, not quite yelling, not expecting an answer. Woods had already chanced to let go of the rail he'd clung to in order to slide across to the next handhold.

Norrington opted for climbing instead of sliding; his goal was the helm, a goal that was near impossible to see in the deluge of rain, so he didn't bother with looking any farther ahead than his own hands. He pressed his lips together, did his best to ignore the streams of water running down his face from his hair, and reached three rungs up the railing.

Before he could pull himself more than three lengths across the deck, the ship rose, then heaved in the opposite direction. He kept his grip on the railing while his body slid past him.

A crack as loud as thunder broke across the storm.

In a flash of lightning, he stared up at the topgallant mast--which his men should have struck down at the start of the storm and hadn't. A voice in his head wanted to know what had been in their heads as he watched the black shadow of the topgallant mast begin to fall in slow motion toward the sea. He yanked his head aside to see what--or who--else it would fall on and yelled wordlessly with all the power of his lungs.

Darkness and rain kept him from seeing anyone escape.

_"If it's really bad, Commodore...."_

He had to save the ship, the men. He had orders to give. He pulled himself to his feet, and then ducked as he heard more than saw a gaff tearing loose.

"Man the boats!" he yelled. His voice had no power in the storm. He filled his lungs again. "Man the boats!" What boats there were. Lightning lit his ship; men seemed to be heading for the boats whether they'd heard him or not.

A heave of the ship threw him against the railing. He slipped to the deck. Rolling, he began the climb back toward the door from which he'd come.

Hearing a _whoosh_, he lifted his head, just in time to see a body slide at high speed into his side. He grunted and clutched the bars of the railing. The body stuck against him until he pulled his legs up and began to clamber over it. It almost took him by one foot with it when it began a renewed slide, hastened by the rocking of the ship.

Lightning flashed and he saw the door to his quarters flap against its wall.

He faced himself toward the door, took a deep breath, and pushed off the railing, hoping for the best.

He caught the door itself, felt it give too much as one of the hinges pulled loose, and threw himself against the jam instead.

He didn't want to be dashed against the walls of his quarters, but at least he wouldn't be thrown overboard within the safety of his room. He let go of the door and threw his body toward the corner in which he'd locked Sparrow.

It crossed his mind as his knee hit then scraped on the floor that the key he'd been keeping in his breeches had been lost in all the sliding and falling around.

"Sparrow." He flung an arm forward, and found flesh. An ankle. He lifted his head. In the dim light, he saw Sparrow standing, shin-deep in water, braced in the corner of the room. He used Sparrow's body to pull himself up; Sparrow whose skin felt feverish through his clothes, in stark contrast to the chill water Norrington had been soaked in.

"Sparrow."

"It's really bad, then, is it?"

Surprisingly clear against the racket of the storm, Sparrow's voice in his face sounded intimate.

Cling to the pirate with an arm around his back, jamming his hip against one of the walls in the corner, and jamming a knee against the other, Norrington fought with his uniform to find the key.

All the time, a voice in his mind said, "It's gone. You've lost it. It's gone."

"Norrington, I don't want to worry you!" Sparrow called as the ship careened.

Norrington found himself all but lying on top of Sparrow. He hitched his knee down and was at last able to grasp a piece of metal.

"Got it." He pulled the key free, then began to fumble it in his hand to face it the proper way.

Sparrow's palm clasped over his, catching both his hand and the key just as it was about to slip from his cold fingers.

"Deep breath," Sparrow said.

Norrington took that breath, and Sparrow opened his hand. Norrington righted the key carefully in his fingers. Only when he had it did Sparrow present an iron wrist cuff and its attendant lock. It opened surprisingly easily--surprising because they rarely opened smoothly even in dry, calm environs.

"Four more to go," Sparrow said, his eyes showing more white than was usual.

The ship threw them to their feet again, then tried to drag them from the corner. They held fast with gritted teeth. At the first convenient moment, Norrington continued to the next of Sparrow's cuffs.

Then to the one around his neck, which freed him from the chain that was bolted to the floor.

And finally to his ankles. By that time, the water in the cabin had risen to mid-thigh, and it sloshed over them with each shift and heave of the ship.

Sparrow grabbed a handful of Norrington's shirt--"Let's go, mate."--and began to drag him across the wall to the cabin door.

"This ship is sinking," thought he heard Sparrow say, though it could have been that he'd merely been thinking it himself.

They were a day out of London. If they survived the sinking of the ship, they could survive the rest of the ordeal. Ships passed through these waters at a constant rate.

Sparrow jerked his shirt again, and then kept hold, unintentionally--or not--dragging Norrington with him as he was thrown against the railings.

"Come on."

They headed for the nearest way off the ship.

Water. Norrington's body splashed into it, and it sucked his breath away in a gasp. He looked in the darkness for Sparrow, then saw his head bob up a yard away. He caught Sparrow's eye. Sparrow nodded his head toward the ocean, away from the ship. Norrington took in a deep breath and kicked off....

...and got jerked back by his ankle. He opened his mouth in surprise and water rushed in. His lungs tightened. He coughed as his head bobbed above the surface, but had no time to drag fresh air in before he was pulled downward. He flailed his arms up and felt them break the surface, and then he was sinking, being pulled down by the ship, his foot tangled in a ratline.

He had no air. He tried to pull his foot up so that he could work the ratline off of it, but the ship's pull was stronger than his thigh muscles. Everything became black and he didn't know if it was because of the ocean or the lack of air. He truly understood the meaning of "my lungs were fit to burst."
Air!

He gasped, his chest aching, his body cold and feeling as though it was being poked by a thousand pins.

Air.

And then water, splashing against his mouth. His throat tried to close, but water spilled in. He sputtered and coughed, and his chest ached worse.

"Don't you start that again"

Fingers tightened against his neck, pulling. A hot mouth closed over his and forced air down into him. He panicked as he felt them sinking, panicked and kicked his feet. Warmth from the body against his spread to his. The mouth pulled away. He coughed, but air was coming in, too. A tightness in his skull began to give way. He blinked.

Sparrow's face. And all around it the ocean swelled pockmarked and black in the rain.

"Boat," Norrington whispered, treading water, trying to point. He hardly heard the word leave his throat so he coughed, caught a breath, and tried again. "Boat!"

"We'll never catch 'em, mate."

"Won't leave," Norrington said. Pirates were more an each-man-for-himself lot than his crew. "They won't leave," Norrington said again, grasping Sparrow's shirt.

Sparrow looked over his shoulder at the boat.

"They'll wait till morning, if they can, to see who they can find," Norrington said between gulping breaths.

"Can you make it?"

Norrington nodded. He had all night to make it. Further, he only had to make it close enough to draw their attention.

"Out of the frying pan, into the fire," Sparrow said before making a motion as though to swim toward it. He sank back into treading water. "You first, mate. I want to make sure you're not heading in the wrong direction again."

Norrington gave him a wan smile before pulling his body forward through the sea.

Four strokes into it, Sparrow's words came back to him, about the frying pan and the fire. He looked over his shoulder, and was relieved to see Sparrow's head a few feet from his hip.

He would have liked it if the boat had spotted them sooner. As it was, he and Sparrow were hardly thirty yards off when their winded shouts caught the attention of the twenty-five or so men in the boat.

After they'd been pulled from the water, he and Sparrow lay for a moment in a gasping heap on the floor of the boat. Then he opened his eyes and saw the eyes of his men looking down at him with concern. He closed his eyes for one more second, gathering strength and will, and then pulled himself up to a sitting position.

"How bad's it look?" he asked. He'd had a crew of two hundred.

"I think there's three more boats full, sir," Pickering said.

"Few flashes of lightning ago, I saw one of 'em and she looked to be hold almost twice as many as us," Stirling put in.

So maybe a hundred had been saved. Maybe more. Maybe less. His eyes scanned the dark, roiling waters. "Keep an eye, men. Let's see how many we can bring home, dead or alive."

Eventually, the rain stopped.

Water lapped the side of the boat.

Pickering said, "It came on us so quickly," to no one in particular.

***

Where sea met sky, far off in the distance, a line of color began to rise. Their boat bobbed in a becalmed sea.

"You know what I don't understand, Commodore?" Sparrow said.

Half the men slept fitfully; the other half stared glassy-eyed at the ocean, hoping to find more to add to their number, which had by then reached a cramped thirty-two. Though all were soaking wet, they were also squeezed tightly together enough to share warmth, and therefore were less miserable than they could have been.

Norrington felt Sparrow's thigh shift against his. There wasn't much room for it to shift to, however.

"What, Sparrow?"

"You've spent the past three years hunting me down to see me dead, but when it finally got right down to it, you nearly got yourself killed saving my sorry skin."

"I spent the past three years hunting you down to bring you to justice. And that's what I still intend to do."

He looked Sparrow in the eye. Sparrow's gaze slipped away. Slowly he raised his arms, wrists together. "Let's get back to where we were then, shall we?"

"I hardly think you're going anywhere at the moment." He watched Jack's tanned wrists linger, the bottom of the "P" brand just showing under the cuff of his shirt. "Besides, you took a risk saving me, too."

"Ship!" Pickering yelled, rousing the glassy-eyed men first, and their shaking and shifting of the boat roused the sleeping men. Soon all thirty-two of them were staring at the black shape on the horizon.

Three hours later, one hundred and fifty-four men had made it onto the decks of the Atlas and were headed to England.

"Now," Norrington said, turning to Sparrow.

"I was getting used to the freedom." He held his wrists forward. Norrington bound them with a belt borrowed from one of his sailors. He slipped another around Sparrow's neck, keeping hold of the free end.

They sat in silence and waited for England to approach.

They disembarked in silence, too, two of the first to leave the ship. Norrington, using his shoulders and authoritative voice, shoved a way through the crowds on the dock. Several times he glanced back to see Sparrow turning his own head to see the distance and bodies they were putting between them and Norrington's men.

Norrington drove him into a narrow alley.

"Hit me," he said after pressing the pirate against the wall and stepping back, dropping the end of the belt that allowed him to lead Sparrow by the neck.

"I must have misheard you, Commodore. I thought you said--"

"Take an opportunity when it's offered, Sparrow."

Sparrow lifted his bound wrists to one side of one shoulder in preparation to strike the requested blow. Then his wrists wavered. "Hold on a minute. Surely you're not giving up your life's dedication of chasing my black ass from here to Kingdom Come in the name of justice, are you?"

"Not a chance."

"Promise?"

"You can count on it."

Sparrow lifted his hands again, leaned back, and then Norrington felt unexpected pain shoot from his groin to his stomach. He clutched himself between the legs as his knees gave way and he landed in the dirt.

Sparrow seemed to be lingering.

"Well, I had to make it look believable, hadn't I?"

Through gritted teeth, Norrington whispered, "Damn it, Jack. Run!"

Sparrow took another half a second to widen his eyes, sway back, and then, with a grin, turn and flee barefoot up the alley.

Norrington put one hand on the ground to steady himself.

"Commodore! Commodore, what's happened?"

Hands pulled him to his feet.

Jack had disappeared into the maze of streets.

"Are you all right?" Pickering brushed at Norrington's shirt.

"Don't worry about it, sir. We'll get him again. Done it before, haven't we?"

"That we have, Stirling."

The men seemed to be waiting for him to turn back toward the street from which they'd come.

"That we have," he said again with the memory of Jack's bare, brown feet kicking up dirt running through his mind. "That we have."