Admiral James Norrington: In Memoriam

Chapter 5: The Green Flash

Elizabeth Turner had been busy since the War of Piracy, and the deaths of Lord Beckett and Davy Jones. She had had her one day ashore with her new husband, Will and unbeknown to him, he had left her a parting gift: a baby. She was now a month into her pregnancy with Will's child, but could not help but lament that he would not be able to help her raise it. He would only get to see his unborn child once every ten years, just like they were condemned to do. 

After relieving her crew of her captaincy, and recommended Tai Huang to take over their leadership, Elizabeth spent some weeks at Shipwreck Cove, before deciding it wasn't home. Tai Huang and his crew took Elizabeth back to Port Royal, but as she was bound to still be wanted for her role in the war, as well as her unpunished crime for Jack Sparrow's escape from hanging, they deposited her in a small boat, and she rowed to the further reaches of the Port, where no naval officers lived or worked. 

Elizabeth was able to set up home near an old lighthouse, in a house she used money offered to her by all the other Pirate Lords, as thanks for leading them into the winning battle against the East India Trading Company. She even had enough money to maintain a respectable place in her new society. Most of the locals looked at her with disdain as she seemed to be a single woman, alone in the world with unknown financial circumstances, and rumoured to be a single mother to be, which was partially correct. 

Elizabeth paid nobody any heed though. Until her baby began to kick, writhe and eventually join her in this cruel world, she was a lone woman, with a husband to wait for and a character to lose at hopefully an old age. 

One early morning, Elizabeth found herself unable to sleep on. Her morning sicknesses were immense the previous night, and she still felt groggy upon waking up before dawn broke. She decided to get some fresh air for now, whilst nobody was awake and around to judge her. Dressing in a ruby red gown, Elizabeth walked along the Cliffside. She overlooked the horizon. Birds began carolling to hail the dawn, and she could see a red tinge in the distance, foreshadowing the beauteous sunrise. A sunrise she prayed to come quickly in less than ten years' time. 

She stood still near the edge of the cliffs for a moment. She felt the air on her face and wisp through her hair, and she tried to visualise the day of the sunrise she desired most, holding her child's hand as they waited keenly for the man they both wanted to see so desperately. 

The sun began to rise...and then suddenly a green flash shot into the sky. Elizabeth gasped and counted her blessings that she didn't faint in surprise and fall into the rocky waters below for the second time in her life. 

If there was a green flash, that must have meant that there was a soul back from the dead. Elizabeth looked across the horizon, praying that somehow Will had found a way out of his curse to the Dutchman...but the Dutchman was clearly nowhere in sight, which made it more likely that Will was not the returning soul. 

Then, far in the distance, Elizabeth saw something bobbing on the waves. It was a small boat. It looked eerily like the boat her father had been drifting in when she saw him on his way to the afterlife after rescuing Jack from the Locker. She couldn't make out the individual inside the boat, but was sure he or she wasn't wearing the bright green clothes her father was wearing when he died. 

The boat came closer and closer to shore, towards the beach further along where the cliffs descended to ground level. Elizabeth rushed down the slopes to attend to the returning newcomer. 

As she reached the beach, the boat was not too far from the shore. She looked closely and gasped. She knew who he was. He had the naval uniform of an Admiral, and he sported the dark brown hair she recognised from his downfall days on the Black Pearl, only it was less long.