Faith and Bittersweet Waves
Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you should
It was good as good goes
Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you did
What day is this
besides the day you left me?
-Stay or Leave by Dave Matthews Band-
"Wot's er' name boy?"
Jack sat shifting uncomfortably in the chair opposite Teague's massive desk, looking up into the eyes of the man he feared he was growing to be more and more like every day. They shone brightly with the question at hand, as he inquired about the guest his son was leaving behind, same as so many other times.
"Evangeline." He replied with a cough of nervousness and a wave of his hand, "Er' well, Eva."
"Eva. Does Eva ave' a family name?"
"Marley."
Teague's gaze lengthened as his head swarmed with faces and dates and details all at once.
"Marley eh?"
Jack just looked at his father, well aware that something was coming to mind, something he probably didn't even care to know about. And yet the curiosity to know this girl even more burned him.
An' where'd ye find this girl?"
"Well I didn't go lookin' fer er'. She snuck 'board dressed as a boy in St. Pierre."
"Off th' coast o' Martinique."
"Yeah."
Teague's mind still rambled as he slowly stood up and wandered about the open shelves of his study. His leathery, spindle like hands wove over the thick bindings of hundreds of book, his eyes scanning titles and names as Jack watched his with a crooked brow.
"Evangeline is a Greek name."
"Wot's it mean?"
He watched as Teague tore through a large and ancient blue book, sifting pages until he came to a spot he wanted, and then scanned with his ringed index finger down along. He turned to look at Jack when he'd found it.
"Means, "good message" Jacky."
"Good…message." He bit his lip and twisted his boots together, confused. "Any idea when this message ought t' arrive?"
Teague chuckled darkly and slipped the book back into place on the shelf, continuing on until he found another he was interested in.
"Marley's, old Irish…"
Jack didn't respond to this, because he knew where it was liable to go if he said anymore. Instead, he waited for Teague to look at him again with a subtle grin.
"Wot's this good message o' yers look like, son?"
Anxious enough as it was, Jack spun out of the chair to stand and walk around, trying to think what the meaning of his coming to Teague's study, with the information about the girl he was leaving, the Irish girl, could turn into. There were things he'd heard since he was a young boy, about dark hair and blue eyes and names like Eva's. There were things he'd seen in his travels, women mostly, that could turn a head without ever turning their own; women of a distraught history, who rose as messengers for the present time.
He'd known all about this for too long, and now, just when he was getting ready to leave her, he had to remember all of it.
In a whisper, as he toyed with a few items on a far table, Jack tried to describe the woman he knew was only rooms away.
"Er' hair is dark, black almost. But she cut it fer er' charade on th' Pearl."
Teague grinned wide and listened closely.
"An' her eyes…" He stopped to smile himself, thinking about the torment he'd gone through just looking at her day to day. "…they're blue; blue like an ocean I've ne'er seen before. I'm tellin' ye, pure sapphires would tarnish beside these eyes."
"Where is she nah?"
Jack's gaze lifted from the candlelight in the corner back to where his father stood near the doorway.
"Tied t' Liz somewhere."
At this the older Sparrow smiled proudly. Lizzie had become like a daughter to him, and even the mention of her very name brought about a glow that was noticeable to Jack most of all. He was glad for his father's happiness with her though, for it was something he could rarely provide him anymore.
"Am I t' be introduced to me new house daughter then?"
Jack tilted his head with a slight nod and walked out of the room, with Teague close on his boot heels, the both of them sauntering down the hall towards Elizabeth's room. They made it there quickly and opened the door to find the two women standing at the high window in the corner, the one designed of green and blue sea glass that looked out over the lower Cove banks. It was a window that Jack's mother had stood at the same way for hours at a time, and it nearly broke his heart to see the two of them there; two more women who had and could potentially ruin him at any moment.
"The sunset is perfect from this spot. The glass makes the entire room sparkle with blue, like the bottom of the ocean."
Eva smiled at this, already tight within Lizzie's arm, like a sister. The attention she'd so missed in her life back at home felt good though, so good in fact that the two of them were completely oblivious to their male company.
"Ahem…" Jack coughed purposefully.
They both spun around in a jolt of laughter, as Lizzie shook her head at Jack teasingly. "Always demanding of attention. Like a child."
"A child after yer own eart' though, right?"
Elizabeth nodded with a smile as she brought Eva closer to center of the room where Teague was. The older man looked at her closely, almost as if he were examining a painting or fine structure of work. But when his bright, also childlike eyes met hers with a spark of light, Eva couldn't help but smile back same as him. She knew who he was right away by the instant resemblance.
"Captain Teague. It's a great pleasure to finally meet you." She tried to curtsy and found she was still wearing Jack's clothes, making it humorously impossible. Elizabeth giggled at her new friend.
"I fancy e' told ye all about me then?"
"Jack told me a few things, yes sir."
Teague's hand went up as he slid in to pat Eva's cheek down below his own height.
"No, no. Formalities are fer th' sea alone. It's Teague, dear. An' yer Evangeline."
She smiled with her cheek still warmly cupped in his fatherly hand. "Eva."
"Eva tis' then. Me new daughter."
The label was surprising, but still, it felt good immediately.
"Ave' to replace me son with as many beautiful young women as I can."
Jack rolled his eyes when Teague pounded his free hand on his shoulder. His eyes darted directly to Eva's, catching the oceanic light he felt he needed, the one that contained him. She smirked at him sweetly and then turned back to the conversation growing between Teague and Elizabeth. They discussed the house with her for a few more minutes then they both showed her to her room. It was the one adjacent to Jack's old room, which in her heart, made her feel safe, even knowing that he wouldn't be there at all.
She could tell, even Jack liked the idea of it. Though he didn't say anything.
It was at least another hour or more before Teague left the group for his quiet study again, and Lizzie left Jack and Eva alone in the great hall, which was now empty, to peruse through the kitchen over cooking something. The sun was slowly drifting off the high fort's mountainous walls from the large window view, and while Eva stood examining her new place of lodging, her new home, Jack leaned on the frame of the doorway that lead to the slope of the island, watching her steadily. She appeared in her element here, same as she had somewhat in St. Pierre, and even more on the Pearl. Eva seemed to attach herself easily to a place, although according to her, other than visits back and forth from France to Martinique to Ireland as a child, this was the first time she'd truly been away from home.
She let her soft hands, the ones he knew were soft from already terribly missed experience, run over tables, and curtains, candlesticks and antique trinkets strung throughout the room. Everything she touched, he was jealous to admit he wanted to be; whether it was a chair back or a vase.
Eventually, when she'd gotten a clear feel for the place, she found Jack again in the center of the long room, and smiled up at him.
"It's peaceful here. You didn't tell me that."
He grinned from the corner of his mouth. "Just ye wait," he replied, leaning in to wrap his strong arm around her shoulder and lead her through the back doorway, "An assembly o' squabbling drunks by week's end will change that."
With a slight giggle, she found herself growing weak just from the scent of him around her again, finally. It had only been hours, but hours far too long. Eva was beginning to realize the power Jack had over her, and how every second that neared closer to him turning for the Pearl and sailing away, she was growing fainter, more feeble to her mind's needs.
He walked her out into the high grass of a low dropping hill that came down from the back of the Sparrow residence and main fort. Small wildflowers of pink and blue sprouted here and there as they trampled across the ground towards where Eva could just make out the glow of moving water on a few thick tree trunks. As they neared, it became a creek, one that wound about the entire back property and then disappeared into the ocean that surrounded the Cove safely.
As they approached the black, streaming water, Jack removed his arm from around Eva's shoulder and instead found her hand and pulled her along to the bank. Her fingers trembled in the heat of his hand, cooled only by the silver and gold of his numerous rings. It was a sensation she hadn't expected, nor the one a moment later when he carefully eased her against a tree back, his eyes hovering over hers same as his mouth and hands at her side.
"What on earth are you doing, Jack?"
"Don' ask me that."
With the snap she grew solemn under his body, flicking her eyes away to the horizon behind his shoulder instead, trying to ignore whatever was going on with him. She didn't want the burden of it when he finally turned away and left. They were silent for a moment more, before she felt his fingers lift the blue stone from her chest and play with it as his breath warmed her cheeks and nose.
She eventually looked back up into his eyes.
"Tell me you'll like it ere', at the Cove. Ease me mind bout' it."
"I do like it, already."
"Swear it."
"I swear. What is this about? Why are you so concerned about leaving a captive behind?"
He shook his head as he twisted the gem and settled it to her warm skin again.
"If ye were just a captive, I wouldn't be ere' with ye like this now. I'd be halfway t' China, love."
Eva smiled at this knowingly, appreciatively even as she reached up to play with the tiny beads on his dingles.
"Then what am I, if not an abandoned hostage of yours?"
He said nothing and only looked straight at her, searching out some answer in her eyes that never came.
"You don't have a response for that. For good and safe reasons I imagine."
"Ye confuse me, worse than I've e'er been." Jack leaned down toward her face closer, his hands gripping the thick tree bark to the side of her head. He laughed as his words left warmth on her own lips, "Damn you, Eva Marley. You gypsy enchantress…"
She too laughed. "I've done nothing."
"Precisely where th' confusion lies."
"So then, perhaps your leaving me here is a good thing."
His eyes grew wide and suddenly fearful at her words.
"Perhaps…if my presence rots at your brain in such a way, going back to sea without me is the wisest decision of any man, of any pirate." She tilted her face down to hold back her own emotion and then whispered in final, "And it will no doubt leave you with a handsomer ration of rum throughout the week."
At this he grinned down at her with a sparkle of gold from between his lips and teeth, and then without fully knowing what he was doing, he only followed instinct and came down to press his mouth warmly against hers. Her lips were like nothing he'd ever known, on any coast, in any pub or tavern or inn across the seven seas he'd mapped so well. She tasted like the ocean that gave him the freedom he loved, and that scared him. She tasted like a crisp wind in taut sails, like a fresh mop of an oak churned deck, like the saltiest wave on the sandiest beach. All the things that killed him to have known so well, she was consuming of.
He held her face roughly as he pushed himself into her fragile form against the tree, harder, letting his tongue only enter the heated cavern of her mouth when he felt she was ready to fight for control, and she did. Her hands through his weaving mess of hair pulled his lips and wet tongue closer into hers, as she forced her path into his mouth first, taking over in ways he rarely allowed a woman to so easily. Normally charge would be required, or pleads of a sort, but with Eva, the control she desired same as him was fair, it was naturally just and anything else would be felony.
When finally they stopped for a breath, Jack lingered in a hover over her as Eva's lips clung wet and pouty to his.
"Would it be criminal to make request, that I might do nothing but sit and kiss you until the end of time?"
He smiled at her confession and gently pressed his lips into hers again, holding the back of her head safely, his fingers dancing through the short, soft curls of her hair. Jack didn't want to admit what was coming over him the longer he hung about in her midst, the longer he took to return to the Pearl and break waves. He didn't want to admit that she had the power he knew she had over him, or that in many ways, he could agree with her statement in the respect that he could be so easily satisfied with only her lips until death became him.
When he pulled away from her, she still held on tight, her hands on his chest and tugging at his shirt ties. The more the sun fell on the island, the more brooding and desperate her eyes became, and it scared his senses to imagine what would fill him within moments if he weren't able to steady himself enough to get away. He had wanted to have her on the Pearl in the early morning, but had been glad still when it had been interrupted. For her lips alone were killing his spirit by the second, and he was deathly afraid of what her thighs could double in him.
"You'll come back one day, won't you?"
She asked this so innocently, like a lonely child, as she toyed with his shirt.
"I will."
Eva looked up at him, confident in the promise, but saddened by the lack of date or time period to expect the return. This she knew would haunt her until he saw fit to make good on his word.
"And you'll bring new stories to tell me?"
"Without doubt."
This excited her as she stood to fix her ruffled clothes and steady her boots on the grass again. Jack watched her, pining for mere seconds left with her, and that skin, and those lips and eyes that had him undone tenfold. When she stirred to hold his gaze tightly again, it was a simple, necessary smile that crossed her mouth, and one he would admit for many months to come, that he despised. It was a smile that revealed defeat, and to witness it upon Eva's face and spirit of all persons, broke even a part of him.
"I guess this is goodbye then, Jack."
"No Eva," he replied as he came in to brush his cheek against hers roughly, a whisper on her ear and neck, "It's merely a 'see ye soon.' For I will, see ye soon."
"Soon." She murmured quietly back to him, drowning in his heat.
"I left a second parting gift in yer room."
Eva smiled but shook her head at him when he leaned back and brushed his palm down her cheek.
"I suppose then, I'll have to thank you for it upon your return. Whenever that be."
The wicked glow returned to her eyes just in time for him to nod, place a single kiss on each of her cheeks, a deep one down upon her lips, and then turn with a tip of his hat toward the docks.
"I'll miss you, Jack!" She shouted out as she ran halfway after him down the beach.
He spun back with a wide, gleaming smile and replied defiantly. "None so much as me, darlin'."
In a quick flurry of what felt like the worst heartache and the grandest joy Eva had ever known, Jack made way to the Pearl. She watched him shout orders out from a distance for a while, but eventually the scene became too much for her to bear, and she found her way back to his father's house to rest her mind and eyes of the departure.
And while everyone else in town took to the purple coast with waves and shouts of lucky endearment, Eva remained inside of the small parlor of Teague's home, listening to it all and never turning to draw back the silk curtains of the window. She refused to give herself the satisfaction of remembering his ship on the horizon as her last sight of that day. She just wanted to remember him.
