One Particular Harbor


Where no one will ask
'Cause nobody knows
You're not in my life anymore.
No one can tell the salt water from my tears
No the pull of the tide or the crash of the waves
Ain't gonna wash your memory away

Mixed me a drink now I
Sit on the bow and I'm
Watchin' the sun just like
You disappear.
If I'm gonna be down
I'd rather be down, way down here.

-Way Down Here by Kenny Chesney-


Shipwreck Cove – Half Moon Lagoon – May, 1767


As a young child, Grace O'Malley yearned to join her father on the sea, but her mother resisted, saying the life of a sailor was not for young ladies. When Grace cut off her long hair in protest, her amused family nicknamed her Grainne Mhaol (Grace the Bald). It is believed her father gave in and allowed her to travel with him to Spain.

Eva sat at the green water's edge, trailing over specifics in the book that for two long months had left her the most comfort of anything. The pages were crisp with age and travel and smelled of rum and the sea, same as Jack's cabin always had to her. She smiled, looking out across the smooth lagoon, private to the eye due to the deathly hike it took her to get to it. Elizabeth had urged her though after seeing how close she had stayed to the house and town, prying through any open window for the whole of two weeks, just waiting for black sails on the ever-blue horizon.

And it was on this day, whilst she sat curled in the window of her room, that Elizabeth decided it was time for Eva to discover what else the world had to offer besides the Black Pearl and its captain that she rarely didn't talk about.

"Dear Eva, the view will not change no matter how hard you sit wishing for it. Jack will come back, when only Jack Sparrow sees fit, trust me this."

Eva turned away and let the curtain fall back on the shadowy blue room.

"You're right, it's foolish to want him back anyway."

"It's not, he's charming company. But…" Elizabeth grinned widely and drew out a small folded piece of parchment paper, placing it on Eva's lap. "…there are other things just as charming on this island as his scent. Why not go out on an adventure of your own?"

She looked down at the well drawn map, obviously done by Elizabeth's own hand in the course of the passing morning, and then she caught her friend and new sister's eye with a smile.

"Half Moon Lagoon?"

"Take your book, I've packed a satchel with food and canteen for you, and let yourself be a wanderer for the afternoon. Be like Jack instead of just waiting for him to return with all the fine tales…"

Elizabeth's words had resounded something fierce in her again, something that hadn't been there since the very tip of March's days. For too long she had sat wondering and thinking about a man who was probably busy fighting off French soldiers or barreling through an eastern hurricane. Eva needed to find her own way, never having thought that Elizabeth's little journey for her, would turn into an entire alteration in lifestyle and dreams.

She spent the whole of the day fighting off demonic creatures of the islands mountainous jungles, nearly drowning herself twice in the lagoon's deep waters to save the book Jack had gifted her, and only now lay reeling in the sun and golden sand, skimming the pages that gave her every hope for a future like the one she was abandoned from.

When Turkish pirates attacked her ship, it looked as though they would be defeated. Grace screamed out, "May you be seven times worse this day twelve months, who cannot do without me for one day!" She went on deck, waving a blunderbuss, and said, "Take this from unconsecrated hands!" O'Malley's crew captured the Turkish ship, dispatched the crew and added to their fleet.

"For your sake Jack, I hope this book wasn't intended as merely entertainment." Eva laughed, glancing over black and white sketches of the Clare Island Fort and the Turkish ship Grace had taken so diligently. She was amazed by it all, and continued her quiet elegy to a man who rested only in her head. "For it was just such a gift…you are going to be highly disappointed should you ever show face on this island again."

With a quick twist of the blue necklace he had placed on her neck, same as she often did when strong thoughts of him arrived; Eva rose from the sand, tore her small chemise off, and dove head first into the lemony green waters of the lagoon. As the silk like water covered her warm skin, she swore she could feel him all around her, as if he'd touched this place before, or as if the lagoon's pool had been formed by waves he had trekked through the long nights himself. Jack was here, always, devastating her mind.

Trying to wash him away was no better an idea that bathing directly with him. And even the thought of that, left her body tingling for days.


"I've heard you're a legend at many things, Jack…" he sighed, standing at the edge of a crystallized shore, breathing in the scent of wild Jasmine and rum. Only one person held that aroma in his mind. "…I wonder if the legend well precedes the marvel hidden beneath these dirtied clothes…"

He felt his wrinkled tunic being slowly lifted away from his chest and back, as feathery tips of cool fingers met his burning skin, grazing over muscles and scars. With a wicked grin, he sucked in a deep breath. The shirt was completely forced off his dreads and thrown to the sand in front of him.

"How many times have you been marked in this life, Jack?"

The voice and hands continued roaming his back and arms, as they came around to the front of him, touching the soft bullet wounds on over his heat.

"Too many times, love." He replied hastily, pulling the chin of the woman up, just so he could match her eyes with the far ocean spread behind her.

She smiled up at him and nodded with a whisper, "And has the pain been great?"

"Unbearable at times." He answered back huskily, trying to bring her mouth closer to his, but she held back with more inquiry, barely letting her lips brush his.

"Have you met pure bliss in the world yet?"

He shook his head with a murmur of a 'no', still inching his body to hers.

"What would you give for it?"

"An'thing."

She grinned proudly at the answer and quickly began tugging at the ties of his pants. Together they moved even closer to the water, their feet disappearing in the aqua surf and their ankles stirring small bubbles.

"Do you want me, Jack?"

He nodded ferociously as he pulled at the small buttons and lace ties of her dress. Her hair was long and wild again, dark as it covered his eyes from the sun and he breathed in the spiced sweetness of her neck.

"For how long do you want me?"

Jack ripped away the dress completely as they moved into the ocean. His arms lifted her tiny form up from the water as her smooth, bare legs wrapped around him and her arms the same through his hair. Her salted lips melted against his, as the hard flesh of his lower body became trapped in her legs and he whispered back to her.

"Forever. I want ye forever, Vang'line Marley."

They fell down into the downy water as their bodies finally collided, each of the gasping out for the other.

"Eva…Eva…"

"Eva…God, me Eva…"

Jack's head pushed down into the pillow, his breath coming short from panting out her name and rubbing the sensitive flesh locked within his frustrating breeches. He stroked hard to relieve himself of the eyes and legs and lips he felt consuming him, pulling him down into the waves of the bliss she had promised. He shouted out her name one last time into the linen pillowcase, and then suddenly opened his eyes as a rush covered him below.

When he did though, he felt movement next to him under the sheets and slowly turned to see a bare form moving around through his starry vision. There was a scowl, a beautiful one, but a scowl still as a woman looked down upon him from what looked like heaven, the way the white glow surrounding him still. An angry whisper above him brought him spiraling back down to what must have been earth.

"My name is Angeline."

He half expected a harsh hand across his face, but instead was left bare and cold when the chestnut haired Greek goddess tugged away the only sheet covering him, grabbed her clothes and tore open the door of the inn room. She slammed it as was routine for women of her nature.

Jack sighed and threw his head back to the pillows, still consumed in a dark sweat and thoughts that he hadn't realized could plague him so well. It had been two months only since he'd sailed away and left his blue-eyed little imposter behind. And she wasn't Angeline, or Scarlett, or Margarita.

She was Evangeline. His mind's finest chaos.


Chennai Port, India – October, 1768


"Three pound. I've made th' offer a half dozen times, mate."

"Yes, yes…he understands."

Jack stood in the corner of a rowdy market, haggling away with merchants far sneakier than he could even dream to be. His longtime translator, a short, wily man named Pravin, stood beside him with a booming conjecture for the dirtier looking man behind the table. The two Indian men argued for what felt like a lifetime, and Jack even began contemplating finding what he needed elsewhere, until his friend turned back to him again.

"He says three pound is good, but four would be better."

"Oh I don't doubt it."

He crossed his eyes angrily between the two of them for a moment, scanning over the items in question across the table. He picked out silks beyond comparison to any others in the port, as well as a handcrafted sword, iron and gold filigree bound, with only the finest of details laid into the blade. It was worth a great amount, he just wasn't sure four pound was the amount he was thinking.

"Gambhir says that he will give to you also these chickens for your journey."

Jack glanced over the table to see three crates of scrawny, sickly looking chickens and knew as better as any other time that he was being swindled by the man. It was entertaining sport though, and he sighed deeply in agreement.

"Fine, yes. Let it be done with already, man."

"Good, good Captain Sparrow."

The merchant shouted a bunch of spitting babble at him, and with a twist of his brow in annoyance, he led the way back to the ship while his men and Pravin carried the chickens and silks. The sword he sheathed neatly and carried with great pride, not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands, especially in the middle of this lie infested marketplace. It would be sold for a diseased goat within seconds.

He'd been here two days too long as it was, and needed the refuge of open waters again. The Company had been closing in upon the port and the chances were too narrow for him to stay, even if he had wanted to.

After showing the men a place to leave the silks in his cabin, he gave Gibbs command to ready the ship for leave, and then returned inside of the room, locking the door behind him. It was quiet and peaceful at last, for a change. He could only hear whispers of voices on the deck and shoreline, gouging prices and calling men to duty of weighing anchor. The cabin was faintly lit by the light of day's pink end and a few misplaced candles in the windows behind his desk.

Jack though sunk into his bed, laying the newly purchased sword to his side in the empty sheets. He counted with his eyes closed, the months that had come and gone, wondering how it could have been so long as for him to have missed two springs completely.

"April, May, June…." His brain shuffled over the time, stopping when he came to present. "...September, October. October."

He sat up against the mass of pillows, shocked by even his own ignorance for once.

"Nineteen months. It's absurdity."

He thought of what two April's past had left him without. She had stood on the beach watching after him as he went, wearing his clothes, scented by his final plea for goodbye, and yet he walked on. The memory of Evangeline Marley was a crude one, a disturbing nightmare that came and went with every passing port or storm or merchant ship he'd taken over. She was there always, teasing him with imaginary smile and kisses, and even now, his head wavered between the thought of what she looked like when he last saw her and what time could have possibly mastered to do and better her.

Which he knew was impossible. She could not be bettered from cruel perfection.

"I'll miss you, Jack!"

The plague went on as he stood and wandered for a bottle of rum on his chart. He ignored the damp ring it left across the starry Florida keys, and lifted it to his lips, downing at least half before lowering it again and chuckling. He wondered if her affluence for alcohol had altered, or increased, or worsened until she had drank herself into the same state as the rest of the islanders at Shipwreck. He tried to picture her grown to a point beyond the late twenty years she had claimed when he left her, and how she would look nineteen months in addition.

She was merely a girl in his eyes, at his age. But had it stopped him? Certainly not. Twenty to a nearly doubled number meant very little to anything or anyone. Eva had taken to his childlike spirit same as most other women, and Jack had taken to her maturity like most married men had from St. Pierre.

"You'll come back one day, won't you?"

"I will."

"And you'll bring new stories to tell me?"

"Without doubt."

Both promises he kept close to his heart still, as he remembered each of them so indifferently. The stories would be the easy part, there were hundreds of them since he'd parted from her. There were stories of Cherokees off the South Carolina coast, Spanish mermaids in the Cantabrian Sea, and even his rescuing run-in with a golden eyed Duchess on the Tuscan shoreline. He had stories that would last Eva the rest of her days.

But his initial promise of returning, which would lead to the storytelling itself, was a harder thing for him to come to the notion of attempting. It was an inner battle, admitting he wanted it and needed it the same way he knew she must. Part of him hoped she had forgotten his name and face, but knew it would be a near impossible feat if she were still residing with his father and Lizzie. In fact if that were the case, he was even more frightened by the return. To know she might have remained this long, nineteen months without moving on or running on her rebel path, and instead could have found any sort of peace in the room just beside his. This made a spark fly up his back and he jumped into a step as he took a seat at his desk.

"Damn er' for being so…" he couldn't finish, for he wasn't sure what he meant to detail her as.

Instead he glanced over to see his compass' dial spinning wildly inside of its shell, flipping from the door to the windows to the bed and then even to him. He rolled his eyes and moved to close the lid, until he noticed it stop very slowly and settle just south of where he was seated.

"South…southeast…" he questioned it for a short moment, before in his calculating mind he realized what was southeast of his chair and his desk.

"No." He stated flatly, tossing the compass to the floor harshly as he fell back in his chair. "No…no, no."

The bottle hit his lips again as he finished it off desperately. But when it was gone and the bottle fell to the wood floor beside his demonic crystal ball, the answer to all his troubles, he could only sigh loudly.

"It's merely a 'see ye soon'."

He chuckled and shook his head, accepting what he'd sworn to her only that much more.

"I deem I'll be seein' ye soon then, Miss Marley."