POV: James Norrington
As I predicted, Zuri's sorrow faded quickly, leaving her with anger. She screamed and yelled and wailed (mostly in a different language) at night in the cabin we shared. She took her anger out on me most of the time and occasionally used me as a punching bag.
I didn't mind. I knew pain. I knew that Zuri was struggling. I let her scream and wail and cry and pummel me. And every night, I held her as she cried. And every morning, I convinced her to wake up and get up instead of staying in bed and letting life slip away.
All the while, Theodore and Anamaria were on my case. They relentlessly antagonized me, begging me to propose. Every time they said something, I fumbled with the ring in my pocket, never quite having the courage to bring it out.
The wind brushed against my face. I rolled up my shirtsleeves, glad I had let Zuri convince me to get out of my heavy attire and into something much lighter—shirtsleeves and simple breeches. She'd even convinced me to leave the top half of my shirt unlaced. It didn't help the heat was so oppressive, sinking in on every side, the sun beating down on me.
"I'm going to have a burn by the end of this," I sighed.
A purring laugh escaped Zuri. "At least I tan."
I playfully scowled at her. "Why is it that you get so deliciously tan while I turn into a lobster?"
She giggled. "Well, if you'd take off all those layers, maybe you wouldn't be so pale!"
"Hey!" I protested, smiling all the while, nuzzling into her and play-fighting in the sand. I pinned her down and she grinned up at me, my hands trapping her wrists beside her head. I kissed her forehead softly and she sighed into me.
"Hey, James?"
"Yeah?"
"How many?"
I stared at her. "How many what?"
Zuri stared back at me for a good while before she said quietly, "Children."
My heart spasmed in my chest. "How many I want?"
Silent as the grave, Zuri nodded.
I looked to the side, out at the ocean, and slowly slipped into a position laying beside her. "One," I said finally, my voice soft. "Maybe two. Not a large brood. Just one little one to love and watch grow up." I smiled weakly at her. "If it was a boy, I'd name him Cedric. If it was a girl, Briar."
"Those are rare," Zuri commented.
"Just like Mama," I told her. Then I realized I was actually imagining her as a mother. I could see it perfectly, in all stages—Zuri reading, a hand over her pregnant belly; Zuri holding a newborn, I standing by her shoulder; Zuri smiling at me as I beheld the precious little thing we had created together; Zuri teaching the little one to read and write. I brushed a curl of hair from her eyes, which stared up at me in awe. "You'd make a lovely mother, Naut."
Her face flushed. "James." She didn't really seem to know what else to say but my name with a loving intonation around it.
"I love you," I breathed, my breath tickling her lips. She closed the gap between us and my lips met her lush, soft ones. I held her close.
Right at that moment, I never wanted it to end. The sun was slowly warming our bodies as the waves lapped at the sand beside us, the sand cushioning us, getting in our clothes and Zuri's hair and her lips telling me everything I needed to know.
I had just mustered up the courage to get the ring out and propose right then and there—it would have been the perfect moment, and my hand was creeping toward my pocket—when Anamaria and Theodore appeared. They stopped dead when they saw us lying in the sand, kissing like it was the end of the world, my form on top of her own. (It was only then that I realized how little Zuri was wearing.)
"Um..." Anamaria gave Theodore an awkward glance.
"Are we interrupting something?" Theodore gaped at me.
"Yes," Zuri muttered under her breath. I gave her a look of agreement.
"No," I told Theodore, though the annoyance in my voice told him otherwise. "What is it?"
"If we're going to get back in time for Beckett's deadline, we've got to leave the island soon."
Zuri groaned. "But we've only been here for a few hours!"
"We knew we'd only get a few when we decided to come ashore," I reminded her. "Come on, love. We'll be back on solid ground before you know it." I stood up and offered her my hand. She took it and I hauled her arm, both of us laughing at the cascade of sand that fell from her. As we walked back to the ship, I brushed all that sand off of her, the ring left in my pocket.
Theodore cornered me shortly after Zuri retreated into the cabin. "So, did you do it?"
"I was about to when you and Anamaria came and had to bother us!" I hissed under my breath.
Theo's mouth moved in an O. "James, I'm so sorry. If I had known, I swear... Why couldn't we have been a few minutes later?!"
"What?" Anamaria asked.
"James was gonna propose when we went to get them!"
Anamaria winced, her look of sympathy almost too much to bear. "Oh, Norrington, I'm so sorry. Theodore's right. If we'd just been a little later—" she waved her hand around "—you and Zuri would be engaged!"
"Shhh!" I hissed as the door to Zuri's cabin opened. She came over to use and wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, burying her head into my back.
"Come. To. Bed," Zuri ordered, pulling me backward. I laughed and relented.
"Okay, okay. Let's get some sleep, sweetheart."
"Yeah, sleep," Philip snickered. I shot him a glare over my shoulder.
The next day, disaster struck. It was about midday when Zuri freaked out up in the crow's nest. At first, none of us understood her. She was talking too fast for any of us to decipher what she was saying, though she was frantically pointing and waving her arms about.
"WHAT?" Anamaria yelled. Zuri gave up shouting and stood absolutely still, pointing. I followed her arm and my heart dropped like a stone.
A ship was on the horizon, limping her way over to us.
We stayed stationary for nearly three hours as the ship approached. When it got close enough for me to make out its captain, my heart squeezed in my chest and I found it hard to breathe.
"Zuri, it's Barbossa."
"And Will and Elizabeth," she added as she joined me, her voice grim, her gaze deadly as she stared across the water to the two lovers at the prow. She turned to me, her eyes somber. "This is where I leave you, my love."
A whimper escaped me. "No, Zuri, please..." I protested.
"We talked about this, Jamie," she said quietly. "We agreed that I'd leave you through the journey."
My lower lip trembled. "But this whole trip has been so perfect. It's just been us and our skeleton crew and I had so much more planned for us—"
"I know, Jamie," Zuri crooned, tucking herself into my side. "I don't want to go. I really don't. But if I want my brother back..."
"You want your pirate brother back more than you want your marine?" Thomas said, staring at us, in the midst of looping coils of rope together. Clearly, he'd overheard.
Zuri's eyes filled with tears. "I don't want one over the other. I can't want one over the other." A tear traced down her cheek. I rubbed it away with my thumb and kissed her softly.
"You don't have to," I whispered. "I know you need to get him back. Just know that I'll be waiting for you, here, in the living world, while you're gone. Alright?"
Slowly, she nodded.
"C'mere," I said and I pulled her close. Thomas got the message and moved off. When he was gone and the others out of sight, my mouth found Zuri's and we had some peace and quiet as my tongue parted her lips and we shared a passionate yet kind kiss.
The ship, her sails tattered and her wood splintering, her hull cracked down the side, came up beside us. I eyed her warily.
"Captain, don't stay too long!" I called. "I don't want your ship dragging down mine."
"Tell that to yer girl!" Barbossa yelled back across the small span. "You want us to leave, we need Zuri."
Elizabeth and William swung across the gap. "Come on, Zuri!" Elizabeth called. "We gotta go." She eyed the ship she'd come from. "Before the ship sinks."
Zuri pressed against me. "I don't wanna get on that thing," she said, her nose curling in disgust.
Turner looked exasperated. "It's the only ship we've got."
"That's not a ship," Zuri said sourly. "That is a death trap."
I snorted my agreement. "I don't want Zuri on that thing."
Zuri looked at me, then at the wounded ship, then back at me. A gleam came into her eyes. With a confidence that seemed to come from thin air, she declared for both ships to hear, "I have a proposal!"