Taxes 5 - Halloween / Day of the Dead

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5B, Part 2: Memory
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Warm...comfortable...floating...

//...where are we?...//

//...do not know...wrong...something...//

A voice, calm, measured. He listened...

"...feel good, relaxed. Hear my voice, focus on my voice, there are no other sounds..."

Yeah...Norrington wasn't sound, not really. Just thoughts, even if they sounded like sounds sometimes...

"...name's Celia. I'm here to help you. You trust me..."

Why not? She seemed...nice...

//...Greg...something is wrong...//

"...want to help you remember...need to warn you..."

"...Yeah," he murmured. "Something's wrong..."

"You're in danger," she continued. "Someone very close to you is a terrible danger to you."

"...well, sure...work...there's..." He paused, not sure he should say more, though not sure why. He heard a murmur, 'more,' and felt a tiny pinch is ars arm, and then the sensation seemed to float away.

"You want to know who. I can tell you. You need to know."

Oh, good. He'd been wondering.

"Jack. You know Jack. You remember Jack. Remember Jack then."

The Commodore seemed so far away, but Greg had his memories now, though distant, vague. He remembered Jack then. Rogue, lawless man, nemesis, pirate...

"History repeats. You see it happen. He was a danger to you then. He's a danger to you now."

Her voice filled his world, calm, implacable.

"Jack is a danger to you. Jack is a danger to Liz. Jack is a danger to Elizabeth."

Her speech fit the pauses of his heartbeat.

"Elizabeth needs you. Jack will take you from her. History repeats. Jack killed you then. Remember."

"...wha...no...I..."

Could it be? It was Celia, he trusted her, but could it be?

And despite the fact that there were no other sounds, a rough-soft voice seemed to whisper, "Ask him, love. Ask him if the last sight he ever saw in life was Jack Sparrow's pistol. For, 'twas mine."

"...Yes..." Greg murmured, almost a sob. "...No...how..."

The not-voice was gone, and he heard Celia again. "I have everything you need. I'm here to help you. You'll do what you have to. You have to protect her."

//...Norrington? Help...she's making sense...I don't think that should...Norrington?...James?...//

Another pinch, and he was floating again.

* * *

//...Greg? GREG!...//

It was so dark...so hard to reach him...and so hard to hear, but something was terribly wrong. Someone was whispering poison to Greg, forcing it down him softly, sweetly...Commodore James Norrington strained with all the soul that was his and his other's, a desperate reaching. At the last, he tried what he had not dared before, to take the body from his other self by force. He found himself blocked as always. Greg floated just beyond his grasp.

//God help us,// he thought, despairing.

'Not God,' came a whisper, 'but would you take a dead cop?'

//Officer Ortiz? I thought you were gone...//

'I knew I'd be needed. I've been watching. I can help. I owe you both, Commodore.'

//Ortiz, what's happening to us?//

'Someone's trying to use you. You can fight it. You can help Greg fight it.'

//How? Please, how?//

'I'm sorry, but...pain. And death. And knowledge. You carry a memory, death and sadness. I'm dead and I can hear it. I can help you unlock it now. It can help you fight.'

There was no choice. His duty was clear.

//Do it. And no matter the pain, Ortiz, I thank you.//

'Then come with me and remember. Always remember.'

* * *

Will rose earliest, yawning. "Jack?"

"Mm?"

"I'm gonna go to my studio. Turner's really curious about the welding stuff, and I haven't made anything in a while."

"'Kay," Jack murmured sleepily. "I think I'll just..." He rolled over and felt sleep reach for him again, soft and warm. When he woke, Will was gone. Jack spared a moment thinking of Will in coveralls and an apron, holding an arc-welder, and resolved to go with him next time.

Toes hugged by fleece slippers, he padded to the living room and opened the blinds to let the sun in. A tingle, suddenly, at the base of his spine, and he squinted, saw nothing outside but green.

//...wha?...// said Sparrow, sleepily.

//...nothing. Just had a funny feeling...//

//...then stay sharp...// the pirate thought back, suddenly more alert.

//...what does it mean?...//

//...Danger? Opportunity? Sex? Not a clue, me own...something, anyway...//

Well, might as well enjoy the wait, then. Will had kindly left a thermos of coffee and most of the paper, and Jack settled in to read.

* * *

In the coastal scrub, a man lay waiting, gazing in the window. Camouflaged, all in green, Greg looked through the scope, Jack's head directly in the crosshairs. A part of him still reached desperately for the Commodore, but it was a blind grasping.

Then, suddenly, he was there, with a message that made something go cold in Greg's gut.

//...always...Always remember...//

But...it was going to hurt, he knew, and she...someone...who was Celia?...had told him how to keep that pain away this time...

//...don't...don't want to...//

Calm, insistent. As insistent as she had been, but different. Difficult, and right.

//...it's time, Greg. It's time. It can free you. I have. You must...//

//...but, he killed us...//

//...that is a lie, all the more powerful for the grain of truth within...we can save ourselves from this folly...we must, for *her* sake if not our own...//

Her. Elizabeth.

//...we serve others...//

Duty. That pain he understood, and had to accept.

//...Yes...//

//...all right...//

//...then I need your full attention, soldier...//

Greg moved his finger off the trigger, became a statue, waiting. When it came, it rushed through him with gale force.

Always. Remember.

You will always remember this as the day...

The gun clattered from nerveless hands.

* * *

It was fair to say that the last thing Jack Byrd expected to see was Greg Norton on his lawn, in makeup, for the second time in as many days. That it was Greg in combat fatigues and camouflage face-paint only added to the strangeness.

There was a bizarre magnetism to Greg as he stood, watching Jack walk towards him, and Jack suddenly felt as though his hand was on a door he feared to open.

//...and since when have we ever feared the unknown?...//

But Sparrow was afraid too.

//...we fear pain and sadness. We feel that in him, now...//

Beyond Greg lay memory, they knew, and the bane of all the brethren. Regret. But they moved forward. Behind them, too, they felt Pearl urging. Now, yes, now, go to him... So, this was what she'd meant Jack to know, to do.

Unblinking, Greg reached out a hand and placed it on Jack's shoulder. He looked into Jack's eyes.

"Always remember," he said, and it was impossible to tell which one of him said it.

Always remember.

//Oh, God.//

You will always remember this as the day...

* * *

Port Royal, Jamaica...

~Captain~ Jack Sparrow heard the familiar click of boots down the stone stairs of the stockade. He knew the Commodore's footfalls on those steps, had known the sound long since.

Hmm. This was altogether too common an experience, then.

Jack eyed the Commodore up and down, and was just a bit startled to find grey in his brown eyebrows. His own hair had a graying streak, true, but his nemesis was not allowed to get old.

"You're not allowed t' get old," Jack said. "Just so ye know."

The Commodore sighed wearily and leaned against the wall. "I suppose this is where I make some sort of crack about how you won't be getting any older."

"That's the game, isn't it?"

Norrington looked at him, face grave. "Not today."

Jack watched him sharply now. "So. I am to hang. No last minute rescues, you've got Will somewhere in irons, the Empire has the Pearl under her guns, your lovely wife hasn't pinched your spare keys..."

"No, Jack. You're not to hang." His face retained that stone set, and Jack b tru truly to worry.

"What, then?" Slowly.

"Tell me, Jack. Has anyone recently asked you for the bearings to La Isla de Muerta?"

"People ask me evotheother day and twice on Sundays, love. Not like I'd tell thes I s I don't generally make near-fatal mistakes twice."

"Soon you may not have that choice."

Understanding and dread. "So it's to be torture." And Norrington nodded. "The king that desperate to fatten his coffers, then?"

Norrington shook his head.

"There are rumblings in the Americas," Norrington said. "Taxes the chief complaint, but they have many. The Crown is growing nervous. It is beginning to increase its forces."

"If you're telling me all this, I must truly be a dead man."

Then a jingle and a click. "I hope to avoid that," Norrington replied. "But better we both die than give them what they want."

Jack stared. "Commodore, this is treason."

Then Norrington was an inch from his face. "Don't you think I know that?" he hissed. "But think. Truly think about why they want this information, and know why I cannot allow it."

Jack was no simpleton. "Oh hells. They want an army that can't be killed, to put down their little rebellion."

"Potential rebellion, but yes." Norrington stood aside as Jack gathered his effects. "Eight hundred odd of the most loyal subjects, of course. Men who would hunger and thirst and long forever in the name of their king. I fought those things, Jack, and you *were* one of them. I saw the most vicious pirates weeping with joy even as they died, that they could feel again. I cannot let that become of eight hundred Englishmen. I can not."

The quiet resolve in his voice frightened Jack a great deal.

"You know the bearings too, though, don't you, for all that I tried to confuse the way?"

"Indeed. Which is why I must accompany you. Most of those now here or those on their way do not believe I know, but they will likely decide to make certain."

"Could the great Commodore turn pirate, then?"

"No," Norrington replied, honestly. "Not ever. But I might, perhaps, retire."

"And what, then, of Elizabeth?"

"The further she can get from a gentlewoman's life the better, as well you know. Now come *on,* pirate!"

Up the stairs, to the door, when suddenly a man in uniform confronted them.

Gillette - bloody officious, sarcastic little *twit*...! Only one thing could save them now, and Jack dearly hoped he'd been right about it all along...

"Sir."

"Captain Gillette."

A deep breath. "Godspeed. I, of course, was napping in your office and saw nothing." Voice laden with emotion...he'd been right! Of course he had, he was ~Captain~-

"Jack, *move!*"

They took off, and were below the fort, beyond it, running...Jack, for appearances, with his pistol in Norrington's back...and then they heard the musket fire...

"Stop that, you colossal morons! You'll hit the Commodore!"

At Norrington's sharp jerk, Jack hoped Gillette had not been too late with that last. They ran on, but then he dared to glance over and down. Red blossomed on Norrington's shirt, and Jack caught him as he folded to the cliff-top field's green grass.

Oh, no.

"Tell Elizabeth..." the Commodore gasped. "Please, tell her..."

No dissembling or false promises from Jack Sparrow, by God. "She knows, mate. She knows."

"That...she does, but tell her...anyway. She will be waiting for you...in Tortuga..." Hands batted at his belt. "Give Will my sword, please. I do believe it is the finest he has ever made."

"Waiting in Tortuga. You bastard. How'd ye know? How did you know that you'd die today?"

"...Couldn't explain it, not even if I had the time..." His eyes held an unearthly clarity. "But swear something to me. Tell only Elizabeth and Will the truth. I would not make her a traitor's widow. Otherwise...I died a hostage."

"You have my word." No music in Jack's voice now. It felt inappropriate.

"One last thing I ask of you, and I shall...I shall understand if you..." A shuddering gasp, blood dripping from his lip, where he'd bit it. "Captain Sparrow. This is a gut wound, and you have a pistol. I would have you end it."

Jack was unable to look anywhere but those eyes, that saw beyond this world already. Slowly, face grave, he lifted the pistol, aimed it at Norrington's heart.

"I never wished the game to end this way."

His hand shook, then firmed.

"Nor...did I...wish your death...though I suspect you knew that."

The pistol's report was so loud, Jack thought he might be deaf forever, but he heard the next whispered words.

"You will always remember this as the day I died for Jack Sparrow."

The next breath of Commodore James Norrington was his last.

"My word on that as well, James, though you did not die for me," Jack said to the dead man. "'Twas for eight hundred Englishmen and their immortal souls that you fell. Damn them all." His voice was rough. "Ye were a good man and me best enemy." His breath hitched, then gathered in his gut.

A young man fishing on the rocks below, recently freed by the death of the harbormaster and the terms of his will, heard the scream. All the rage in the world seemed contained in it, and all the grief. The sound was graven into his mind, he rhe remembered it all the rest of his days.

Such a sound it was, he did not notice Jack Sparrow diving off the bluff and swimming for a boat and the open sea.

* * *

"I'm sorry, James," murmured Jack, sinking to the grassy lawn, the other man held in a half-embrace. "I'm so sorry. I swore, and then I went and forgot. I'm sorry..." Jack Byrd sobbed, then, once, with Jack Sparrow's grief.

"'Sokay," Greg murmured. "You meant well. Didn't mean you had to keep it with you past your lifetime." His cheeks were tear-tracked through the paint. Jack stroked his hair, soothingly, as he'd do with Will, and the other man breathed deep. "None of us wanted to remember this, myself least of all. It was a fearsome thing. Now, though, we all will. Somewhere, Liz is crying. I should go to her." His voice flowed between selves, ending up Greg again.

Jack took his own shuddering breath, and then took a good look at the man with him. "What's going on here? Really?"

"Someone shot me up with some kinda drug cocktail. Wanted me to kill you, said you'd killed me. Seemed wrong, somehow, but it wasn't 'till I remembered that I could really fight it. The Commodore ... I couldn't have done it without him."

"Okay, come on. We're getting you to a hospital."

Norton struggled just a bit. "Nuh-uh. I was a cop, Jack. God knows what kinda crap they gave me..."

Working on a hunch, Jack pulled up a sleeve. Sure enough..."Greg, you've got finger-shaped bruises by the puncture. Nobody's going to think you did this to yourself."

"But Elizabeth..." His voice was fainter and Norrington's again.

"Can meet us there." With concern, Jack watched his head loll and his eyes flicker, opening again to meet Jack's own.

"Elizabeth is so lovely, isn't she?"

"Aye, the lass is a beauty..." Jack moved an arm behind, trying for leverage.

"Though, yere ere always beautiful as sin yourself, Jack, did you know?"

Jack's eyes went wide and he heaved them both to their feet. "That's it. Hospital. Now."

* * *

On the way, he spoke to a rough-voiced Liz and left a message for Will, whose phone was off. Blood drawn, photos taken, reports jotted on pads to be transcribed later. Much of the latter done by Jill Norton, who'd come as soon as she heard the call go out.

"I knew he had a sensitive job, but I never really thought..." The police lieutenant snapped her notepad shut. "Whoever did this pumped him full of hypnotics. I don't know a hell of a lot about this stuff, but if I had half that crap in my system, I'd be singing my ATM pin number in the street."

"8901," Jack replied. Her head whipped around.

"How the..."

"Wild guess. It's the date you got divorced." A corner of his mouth quirked up. "You mean I was right?"

"Okay, you're an ass." Her eyes flicked in the direction of Greg's room. "Damn, Jack. If you'd told me this was going to happen yesterday, I'd have told you the Men in Black already told me all about it, and then I'd've called the looney bin. I know Royal Inc. got looted for some of its technology, but I never thought he'd run into this kind of X-files bullshit."

Ah. One of his better cover stories, if Jack did say so. Because the police, even Greg's ex-wife, did not need to know about the little near-attempted murder. "Hey, the way they had him dressed, it might have been something from his days in the Army. Who knows? At least he's going to be okay."

"Yeah..." she said. "Look. He says he doesn't remember anything, and they tell me that's possible, but I'm not sure he's not just being his stubborn-assed self. He's got my number. If anything comes back, could you have him give me a call?"

Jack smiled, shrugged. "Sure."

* * *

Jack passed Liz on his way to Norton's room. Her eyes were red, but she gave him a soft smile and then drew him into a hug.

"I'm sorry..." he murmured in her ear.

"It wasn't your fault, Jack. We all know that." And he hafeelfeeling she let the words cover all events. "Jack, talk to him. He's pretty down."

"You think *I'll* help? Seriously, Liz. I think it was me that brought that memory back."

"No, it wasn't. It was him. He was the only one that could have - he knows that somehow, it had to be him first, and I'm not going to question it. But that's not it, exactly."

"What..."

"Jack, Greg was under the influence, but James wasn't under anyone's control. If he'd been able to take over, he might have stopped things sooner. Greg can't give over to James, and now he's feeling guilty for it on top of everything." Liz sighed. "He didn't want to get you involved, but...just talk to him, okay?"

Sparrow looked through his eyes, suddenly, and spoke with his voice and hands. "Have I your leave to try...extreme measurehen,hen, love?"

Her smile lost a bit of its sadness. "You know, that might be just what he needs."

"Then give us just a bit of privacy, mm?"

They switched over entirely as he entered the hospital room, the switch in his walk becoming far more noticeable. "'Lo, Commodore. You're lookin' a mite peaked."

"Sparrow. And to what do I owe the dubious honor?" Norrington seemed a bit more sober now, but from the other Jack's knowledge, the drugs still flowed through his veins. Jack smiled.

"Lovely 'Lizbeth asked I look in on ye. Said y'were a bit down."

"So she sent you to cheer me up. She and I need to..." His voice softened and trailed off. He yawned.

"What exactly is it that you two need to do?" Grin sharpened. "Describe, please."

"None..." Yawn... "of your affair, pirate..."

"Might it be something like this?" And Norrington's shutting eyes widened as Sparrow stroked his short hair, trailing long fingers along his jawline.

"What on Earth...!"

"I'll stop, Commodore, but it's you that must stop me, savvy? Not Greg. You."

He groaned. "She told you."

"She's only concerned for your well being, love, as am I."

"Why do I...Jack, what are you..." Jack's hands moved to Norrin'sn's shoulders, rubbing and caressing. "Will is going to..."

"Will will understand. This has t'be done. And anyway, it's just a massage, for now..." Jack let his voice go low, insistent. "I think ye've both bound yourself too tight, mate. Mayhap ye need a pirate t' slip the locks on your soul. Let go..."

"I can't...I've been tryin'..."

"Shhh, Greg. I'm talkin' t' James. It's only Jack. Worst pirate ye ever heard of, recall?" He kept his hands to neck and shoulders, rubbing in rhythmic patterns. "I'll never harm ye, the two of us are bound now. Bound by memory and by your sacrifice that I witnessed..."

"...died for you...oh..." His eyes were closed again. "...don't regret that, not at all...but that I died a traitor..."

"...I'll say again, as perhaps you didn't hear me the last time. Ye died to keep the Crown from betrayin' all that made it worth fighting for. I was just there."

"...catalyst..."

"Aye, so let me do me job, hmm? James, ye died a hero...ye deserve to walk, live, breathe again. Now, stop me, Commodore. There's a pirate who may not be satisfied with a massage much longer. Ye can stop me. I won't let Greg do it. And I'll know..." His hands traced down over tape and tubing, to Norrington's chest. He leaned in, tips of his hair brushing skin. "Ye do wish t' remain faithful to 'Lizbeth, don't ye? Or, do ye..."

He took James' mouth then, in a deep kiss, fully expecting the Commodore to sputter and repel him. He received a surprise.

I.V.- strapped hands came up to grasp his hair, holding him tight. Jack's eyes opened wide as the kiss widened, deepened. The heart monitor leapt and began beeping. They were held there for several long seconds, and only after did the Commodore ...and it was the Commodore...push him away.

"Well, what do you know," Norrington replied, sitting up. "It worked." He stretched. "I'm...back."

"Ye're a bit of a bastard, too." Jack observed.

"Pot to kettle?" James replied. "But much as I'd love to have your respect for my purported deviousness, I really did only gain this body just this instant. And your arguments did help, for which I thank you, pirate. But...I think what did it was something much simpler, something I wish we'd thought of before."

"Go on..." Jack said, gesturing fluidly.

"Greg's completely straight," the Commodore said. "I'm...not."

Jack stood, turning a complete circle before facing Norrington again. "I knew it! Ye were bending Gillette over lon long nines for years, weren't ye?"

"A gentleman does not kiss and tell."

Something occurred to Jack, then, and he cocked his head, saying, "Wait. You mean that kissin' me so disgusted Greg that he fled into your subconscious!?"

Norrington shrugged. "You said it, not me. Anyway, I don't think he's gone quite that far."

"Oh, whatever. I should slap you, y'know."

"I really think I should be slapping you, if anything. I'm affianced, after all. You quite took advantage of my weakened condition."

"Don't seem quite so weakened now."

"Only because it was Greg that got dosed, not myself, and I'm now truly in control." He paused, blinked. "But that is odd. It's the same body..."

"Aye, but now that ye mention, I've felt Byrd get less drunk the instant I yield to him. Well, no one said this had t'make sense."

"I doubt most things having to do with you make sense, least of all...Elizabeth!"

"No, she's usually quite clearheaded...oh. Right. Hi 'Lizbeth."

"Jack...did you molest my fiancée?"

"Only a little." Her eyebrows were raised and her hands were on her hips. Not good. "Really, love, it was only a neck rub and a kiss, I swear on me mum's grave." He scrambled back as she advanced, just a bit, certainly *not* in panic. "Was for a good cause! An' I had your permission!"

"He *what?*"

"Well, as a matter of fact..." Her posture relaxed and she smiled. "You did, at that."

"Ye're truly evil, Liz. And I should know."

"Oh, you aren't really such a bad egg."

Norrington, meanwhile, shook his head. "The two of you joining forces. I'm doomed." But then he looked at Liz and stood. He was on the opposite side of the bed from his I.V. stand, and so it leashed him in, but he reached out his other hand.

"Elizabeth," he said softly, "It did work. It is I, moving us, my love."

"Oh, James," she said, stepping inside his arm as he wrapped it about her shoulder.

"I can live in this body, if we choose," he went on, and Elizabeth said,

"That's wonderful, dear, but..."

"Yes?"

"Stop moving and get back in bed. You're still undergoing treatment for a possible overdose of heaven knows what, and I won't have you straining yourself, no matter how well you feel." She looked at Jack and winked. "Savvy?"

"You've always had far too much pirate in you, Elizabeth, my love." He was smiling, though, as he said it.

"I've always been willing t' put just a bit more pirate in her," Jack said.

Liz rolled her eyes. "Couldn't resist, could you." At the same time, Norrington growled, "OUT!"

Jack raised his hands in surrender. "I'm goin'...I'm goin'..." He'd intended to leave them to their privacy, but alas, not so, for a nurse was on her way in. //...hope Will is here...// he thought to his other self.

//...I know...// Byrd thought back. //...never thought kissing that tightass would be so *hot*...yeah, we really need to see him. soon. maybe in the residents' break room...the lavatory...the middle of the lobby... I don't *care*...//

Speaking of the lavatory...Jack meandered to the nearest and found a stall. He reached to lock the door, and it was wrenched open. Lightning-quick, a hand closed about his arm and a pinch at his elbow sent consciousness spiraling away.

His last thought as darkness claimed him was a desperate fear that he'd wake pointing a pistol at his Will.

* * *