Vignette: Balance of Justice
by Honorat
Rating: K
Character: Norrington
Disclaimer: I am an almost innocent fanfic writer.

Summary: The night before Jack Sparrow's hanging, Norrington has a sleepless night. For the "Things to Come" challenge at Black Pearl Sails.

It is long past midnight, but Commodore Norrington does not sleep. He has had to write another letter today—the fifteenth so far. He prays to God this is the last one. At least this time he can honestly tell the grieving parents or wife or sweetheart that the young man died a hero in the service of others. The elimination of Barbossa and his murderous crew will bring blessed relief to the entire Caribbean. Not that this knowledge will provide any comfort. But sometimes Norrington needs to know that this mowing down of the flower of British youth makes some difference, that the tears that fall are not in vain. Tonight he could almost envy the men who have served their country with their deaths. The strain of serving with his life seems an unbearable burden.

Tomorrow he will be present at another hanging. He has never relished hangings as some of his men do. They are merely part of his bitter responsibility to make this territory safe and productive for the law-abiding citizens who live and do business here. If he could rejoice in this wholesale dealing of death, now would certainly be the time, for he has never condemned a more merciless, murderous lot of cutthroats—but he merely feels an exhausted desire for the whole sordid business to be over. He wishes that at least these executions could be private—sober, just retribution—not the carnival deterrents for the mob's entertainment that they must be.

Absentmindedly, he shuffles the paperwork for his next day's schedule. A name catches his eye, and he flips back through the pages. Jack Sparrow. Oh. Not one of Barbossa's lot tomorrow, then. One month ago, that name would have meant nothing more nor less to him than Barbossa's name. A pirate. One of that vile and dissolute lot of men it has been his goal to eliminate. His duty still demands the man's execution. This is what Elizabeth refuses to understand.

Slowly he rereads the list of crimes of which Sparrow has been convicted, trying to regain that surety he felt the first time he placed that eccentric pirate in chains. Piracy, smuggling, impersonating an officer of the Spanish Royal Navy, impersonating a cleric of the Church of England. The corner of James' mouth quirks ever so slightly. What he wouldn't give to know the stories behind those last two. The moment of good humour is fleeting. The truth behind these charges will forever be beyond human reach shortly after dawn. Sailing under false colours, arson, kidnapping, looting, poaching, brigandage, pilfering, depravity, depredation, and general lawlessness.

Norrington can't help noticing the glaring absence of one charge. Murder. Surely that is an oversight. The man could not have amassed such a record without once being convicted of murder. It does not matter to the law. Any one of those crimes with which Sparrow is actually charged carries the penalty of death. But it matters to the commodore. If, indeed, the man is not a murderer, it leaves Norrington free to regret the necessity of the morrow's business.

Even more bitterly, he regrets his inability to persuade Elizabeth not to attend that hanging. No possible good can come of it, of that he is certain. It is bad enough that ladies attend such events at all, but for a girl to see a friend die such a death . . . James shivers. There is nothing pretty about a death by hanging. In fact, he expects Sparrow's death to be particularly ugly. The pirate is not a heavy man.

He knows that gallows will stand between Elizabeth and himself forever, an upraised and flaming sword, as his consent to abandon Will Turner already does. He never imagined being betrothed to the woman of his dreams could be so painful. Her eyes—he can scarcely control a flinch when he meets that dark agony. Will he ever be able to lose himself in those beautiful eyes? Or will he always find his judge and executioner in them? She has accused him, questioning the morality of any act that a man does not wish a woman to witness. And his conscience writhes. She has defended Sparrow, flinging at James the terrors she has endured and from which the pirate has rescued her—as though James' memory of his inability to save his love were not already carved on his heart. She has begged him; the proud Elizabeth Swann has humbled herself to the dust for the sake of that pirate. Oh God, how he wishes it were within his power to give her anything she asks of him.

And he curses Jack Sparrow for ever entering their lives, even as he knows that if the pirate had not been there, Elizabeth would be dead and Barbossa would still have unimpeded power in the Caribbean. It galls Norrington to be obliged to execute a man to whom he must also be eternally grateful.

The list of debts they owe to Sparrow superimposes itself in shadowy script over the bold, black lines of the charges for which the pirate will answer with his undefended flesh on the morn. Where does the balance of justice lie?

A slender shaft of pale gray light sifts through the shutters. Outside his window, birds begin their morning hymn. Dawn. One line of the text on his desk is illuminated: And for these crimes you have been sentenced to be, on this day, hung by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul.

May God have mercy on your soul, Jack Sparrow. May God have mercy on mine.