Title: As We Are

Fandom: POTC

Author: Circeniko

Pairing: Sparrow/Norrington

Rating: PG

Summary: "By rights, Jack Sparrow should be despairing over his fate right now, but that wasn't how it worked in Jack Sparrow's world."

Commodore Norrington, being very aware of the greatness of his station, was quite prone to the fault of pride. He had only to survey the length and breadth of the British Empire, his success in his task of protecting its people, and he would feel a warmth of expectation roll through him like aged wine.

The warmth disappeared when they pulled Jack Sparrow off the streets for the third time that month.

Norrington sat at his desk, and safely out of the sight of his impressionable men, put his head in his hands.

Why, he wondered, did this task always fall to him?

It wasn't that he was adverse to dealing with criminals. Despicable as they were, his honour stemmed from protecting the citizenry from the wicked, which necessitated contact with them. But Jack Sparrow played havoc with his expectations.

Norrington braced himself with a drink of good brandy and exiting his office, set his course for the gaol.

The problem was, he mused, that people generally fell into two categories, those who did their duty, the great, who then enjoyed all the happiness and pride of it. The other category was the wretched, the iniquitous people who fell away from the right and true. These people, in Norrington's experience, usually fell into despair. Their disipation was usually a sign of inner conflict. Certainly when they faced the gallows, he could be certain to see that conflict played out.

By rights, Jack Sparrow should be despairing over his fate right now, but that wasn't how it worked in Jack Sparrow's world.

Sparrow, an anomaly that disturbed Norrington's balanced and ordered world.

As expected, Sparrow was lounging in the straw like a king waiting to be served his peeled grapes. At Norrington's entrance he raised a hand and languidly waved his jeweled fingers. Norrington would not remove a man's belongings before his death, that much dignity, at least, he could grant, but such a visible sign of Sparrow's thievery made him grind his teeth.

"Sparrow," he barked, "on your feet!"

Sparrow slowly sat up and cocked his head at him. "Somethin' on your mind Jamie luv?"

"I've told you not to call me that." Norrington would have liked to sit down, but doing it would imply a great deal more familiarity than he wanted to, so he stood, and stiffly so.

"Shame, that." Sparrow was openly leering at him now. "You need to loosen up, luv."

Norrington's temper was rapidly getting the best of him, but he had come down here with a purpose, he had. "Do you have no respect for anything other than your own libidinous nature?"

"None whatsoere, mate."

Sparrow stretched sinuously, and Norrington averted his eyes a little too late. A tingle ran down his spine. He cleared his throat, and said roughly, "Nor any fear of death? You're to be hung in the morning, any rational man would be making his peace with God by now, but then, I suppose the question of your reason, or lack thereof, was answered long ago."

Sparrow laughed hard and rolled over, clutching his stomach, "Right you are, luv," he gasped, "but you're missin' the point."

What a disgusting spectacle. Norrington lip curled as he said, "And what, pray tell, would the point that I'm missing be?"

Sparrow stopped lasting and looked, for once, solemn, he sat up again and crooked his finger at Norrington, saying softly, "C'mere, luv."

Norrinton was so surprised by this about face that he found himself walking forward without his concious volition of it. He stopped at the door of the cell and looked down at Sparrow. "Well?"

Sparrow looked up at him thougtfully. "You see, luv—"

Norrington was really beginning to hate that appellation.

"—I am afraid of dying, but I know what I am, and no amount of crying is going to change that now, and so," here he slid to his feet, "I may as well enjoy being what I am in the time that I have."

And in a flash his hands had a hold of Norrington's jacket. Norrington found himself jerked flush against the bars, and in the next instant he felt the brush of warm lips and coarse hair against his face. Frozen in shock for the first moment, he jerked himself away and frantically rubbed his arm over his face, hearing the laughter of Jack Sparrow in the background.

Norrington slowly pulled himself together and glared at Sparrow, saying in the frostiest voice he could manage, "May you have all the enjoyment of it that you can have, Sparrow, and then may you die miserable."

Without looking to see what effect his words had had, he swept out of the room, but as he did so he heard a voice behind him, saying, "Oh, I have, Jamie luv, I certainly have." And he knew that he'd lost this round. It irked him, but he had the smug satisfaction of knowing that he would win the battle. Tomorrow morning.

Except that as it turned out, he didn't, and Commodore Norrington was left staring into an empty cell, wondering why these things had to happen to him, and what these repeated escapes were going to look like on his service record. The really miserable thing was that they hadn't even managed to figure out how he'd done it.

Next time, Norrington decided, he'd have to imprison Jack Sparrow somewhere else until the hanging. Perhaps in an empty storeroom, or a basement, or a traitorous little voice whispered, in his bedroom.

Norrington ignored that voice.

# 416. For Port-Royal. Greatness and wretchedness

Man knows that he is wretched. He is therefore wretched, because he is so; but he is really great because he knows it.-Blaise Pascal

Author's Note: Pascal in Port Royal, and many of his notes were marked, "For Port-Royal," make of that what you will.