How to Save a Life


And the smile that you're wearing
Is just a lovely veil
For the secrets that you're hiding
That are just too dark to tell.

Evangeline, you're a hard one
Your denial is bolstered by your dreams.
Thinking love is gonna save you
But it ain't love if it's mean
Evangeline

-Evangeline by Little Big Town-


"Tell me again, I want to hear you say it over and over and over--"

He covered her mouth with his hand as she laughed beneath it. "Alright."

Jack relaxed back against the foot of the bed with Eva in his arms, dwelling on the warmth of the floor beneath him, the one that had been claimed as their own to make endless love on through the night. He felt her bare breast beneath his hand as his arms held her tighter, and he pinched it as she belted out in a childish yelp.

"Jack! Enough…speak of what I want to hear already."

"Impatience will simply not suit on this vessel, my dear."

"But aggravation will?"

"Ye should know by now, that th' aggravation I cause is endless. Deal breaker?"

She shook her head and kissed his forearm where it settled under her chin.

"There are no deal breakers with you."

"None, really?"

"Jack."

He grumbled, knowing he was diverging from the point again.

"Fine. You win."

"Good, now speak it."

Jack laughed heartily and breathed in to consume himself with much needed oxygen. He leaned down into the curly wisps of Eva's hair and whispered as lovingly, as passionately as he'd trained himself to in the passing of months.

"Evangeline, you are heavens gift t' me and for it I've been made a fairly, faith ridden man."

She laughed softly and kissed over his sparrow tattoo.

"There is nothing like you in this world. And if there were…well…" he paused in humored thought, "…I'm sure with me reputation, I would ave' already found it anyway."

Her jaw dropped with a gasp and she struck her fist against his leg as he groaned.

"Okay, alright m'sorry, that was mean."

"You don't say?" She mocked with a tight grin up at him. He kissed it away quick though.

"I swear it though in truth, you are only one. Ye cannot be touched or matched in me heart."

"That's good to know."

"And I'd save ye all over again in a single beat o' that same black heart."

A smile came to her mouth when a tear came to her eye.

"I know you would."

"You know all this, yet can ye claim t' know how much I love you?"

She gripped his arm tighter to her body, relaxing into his more as she began to doze off.

"Can't say that I do…" her heart beat with a tired pace, "…won't you remind me?"

He held her close, resting as she did and murmuring against her hair as he fell to sleep too, "Always."

The slam of a high door made this impossible though as Jack's eyes flew open to the dark night covering him. His bones jumped in his skin as he rubbed his tired, dreaming face and sat up from the ground to shift his gaze toward the noise. It was quiet again for a moment though, as he slowly moved from the tree back where he'd rested all through the day's ceremony until he'd fallen dead asleep. What he'd imagined, what he'd dreamt, wasn't real, for it had never happened. But he took it as some hovering sign, that it was coming, eventually.

He wandered about in the silent, shadowy garden, stretching his legs out until he heard another slamming door. The sound was coming from inside of the house, Daniel's house, and he moved closer to it down the side alley. Jack watched the glow from the high bedroom of the house, the one Eva had slept in all this time and heard the noise radiate from the same space.

"Stop it. I don't want to talk about this."

"Eva…" Daniel's voice was even-tempered, not willing to fight if he could avoid it. "…I think it only fair to know."

"To know what?"

"To know what has kept you so unhappy all these days, especially that of our wedding day. For heaven sake's my dear, I only want to see you smile for once. Is that so much for a man to ask of his love?"

Jack heard her softly groan at a distance and smiled as he leaned on the brick wall outside of the house below their window, listening in still.

"What keeps you in this sad state?"

"It's nothing, Daniel. At least…" she paused, her voice moving to another end of the room. "…it's nothing you can solve. What's done is done."

"What's done, Eva?"

"Too much. Things that I wish I'd never committed to. Things that I wish I'd done very differently."

Jack heard Daniel move to the same space as Eva, and he too turned his ears about the corner of the house to hear from the opposite side, where the French balcony peered onto the terrace below.

"I'm your husband now; you can tell me what these things are. I want to listen and help."

"You can't. Trust me. It's done with."

"Alright." He sounded to give in to this and Jack took a deep breath, but caught it again when he heard Daniel's persistent, almost changing tone. "I think now would only be a fair time then, for us to share our bed at long last." At this, Jack cringed and had to gulp back the pain in his less than sober gut. Eva's immediate tone brought him back to a hard reality though, one he approved of.

"What if I don't wish to share the bed with you?"

He heard Daniel gasp under his breath a little. "You don't want to complete our vows in this way?"

"No."

Jack threw his head back against the brick wall, furiously scared for what would come of all this, of her insistence on matching the man he'd told her not to bother with. He thought the point was clear in his letter, but now wasn't sure.

"I don't know if I can comply with doing that, Daniel. I don't know if it would be fair to you."

"Fair to me? I want nothing more than to feel you, Evangeline, finally." Jack sneered up at the open balcony doors. "It's all I've wanted for too long, and held back on out of respect for propriety's sake. I want to have you, darling."

"And if I don't want you in return?"

"What are you saying?"

He heard Eva shift her weight toward the doors more, breathing heavily and tired. "All I'm saying is I fear I don't have the ability to follow through with this any longer. The ceremony was beautiful, it was one thing Daniel. But this…" He saw her arm fly near the window, most likely in gesture to the bed. "…this is something else entirely. To consummate our marriage, tonight, would lead you to believe it is what I wanted all along."

Daniel's tone raised another octave to transform into a disturbed grunt at her. One Jack didn't like at all.

"You didn't want to marry me. You don't love me then? You lied?"

"I never told you I loved you."

"Damn it, Eva!" His fist slammed loudly on what sounded like oak, making Jack stand straight and ready near the wall. "What did you think those words spoken before God meant earlier? Anything at all?"

"They were meant for nothing but protocol."

"Protocol for what? Life?"

"Yes." Her voice was steady while his began heaving wildly over Jack's head. "It was etiquette for your lifestyle here in London, for the life of business and worth that you lead. Those words meant nothing to who I am."

"Who you are? A misguided young woman? A confused object of theft by a pirate?"

Jack's attention, same as Eva's above him, was full now and heady. "Jack did not steal me."

"Oh no? Did he ask your permission then, to bundle you away in his cabin for a week?"

She said nothing.

"He's nothing but trouble. He's a criminal whose only freedom has come from your promise. And now you go back on your word. What am I to think of that? What am I to do with you now, Eva?"

"You could let me go."

"Let you go where? To the sea with that rogue and his dirty ship again? No."

"I want to sail, Daniel. It's all I want. How can you keep me from that and still sleep at night?"

Jack heard fists slamming into wood and glass again and heard a body fall to a wall dangerously.

"Same as you can seem to deny me and my bed tonight Eva, and think you will sleep later. How can that be?"

"By knowing that you aren't what I desire of a lover."

Grinding his fists together and holding his stance ready and able as his eyes darted from the window to the back door of the estate, Jack prayed she would ease the tension enough to save herself some time. But he feared she wouldn't, judging by the sound of Daniel's voice. He knew that tone in a shunned man's voice too well.

"What then do you desire, so I might readily provide you with it?!" His hands were fierce on the wall, the one Jack pictured Eva pinned to. "Do you want that filthy Captain Sparrow? Is that it then, my pretty wife? Have you grown so very accustomed to his bed and his mold that you wish to deny mine before you?"

Eva was still and quiet.

"Did he have you? Did you let him have you willingly, Evangeline?"

"That is none of your concern."

"It is my every concern! For you are mine alone now. I am your husband!"

"And yet I love him, not you!"

Jack's heart raced with the claim, for he hadn't realized how much he would admire hearing her speak the words for the first time, despite them being under such wretched conditions.

"I do no doubt it, with the dreams your mind is rotted of. Tell me now…did he have you?"

There was silence for a long moment before he heard a soft laugh escape Eva's lips.

"Yes. He had me."

A growl started Daniel off again. "How many times?"

"Too many to keep count."

Her taunting would have been amusing under any other circumstances, but this wasn't a tavern in Thailand or the cabin of his ship, this was something altogether more frightening and serious. And Jack realized the full effect it when he heard her finally scream out in what sounded like true terror.

"Stop it!"

Because he couldn't see anything, he could only go on Eva's demands and words to force him to begin any attempt of rescue.

"Daniel, don't. Stop!"

He breathed deep and waited for a second longer, his hands tough on the brick wall, his knees bent for a run, and his boots grinding on the gravel path of the alleyway.

"I said, don't touch me!"

And there it was. Enough said for him or any other man of value in this world. Jack pushed around the corner of the house, heading for the back door he begged to be unlocked. Of course though, it wasn't. He pulled and tugged at the knob and it wouldn't budge.

"Damnit."

"No! Get off me!"

Eva's voice carried him elsewhere though and her cries for silent, un-uttered help drove him around the front of the large brick house toward the kitchen back where a small window was cracked open near the ground. He kicked it with a crash of his boot and let the broken glass fall inside to the stone floor of the cellar and kitchen before sliding inside.

He could still hear her at a muffled distance and picked up a pace into the house. Her screams echoed through the long halls and grand walls of the place. Jack's hand was firm on his pistol, holding it out in front of him with a finger on the trigger, the entire time he ran.

"I'll be your only Captain tonight! You traitorous woman!"

Eva screeched out, "This is how you treat a whore! No, don't--get off! Ah--"

The narrow end of her scream gave Jack signal to run faster, knowing exactly what had caused it. He was too late to stop the effort of Daniel's destroyed heart, but he wasn't too late to at least kill him and save her.

He could hear grunts of forced passion as he darted up the grand staircase, taking the steps two at a time, and then rushing down the hall to the large oak doors at the end. Whatever Daniel was managing, he was nearing an end by the third time Jack had kicked the doors with the heel of his boots and pushed one far open. He held up the gun, aiming for the back of Daniel's head, but realized it to be too risky when he saw how close Eva's was.

Her skirts were pulled up and twisted all around her knickers as Daniel moved against her, completely unconcerned with the sound of the door. He thrust into her twice more before the gun in Jack's hand suddenly clicked back and fired toward the bed.

He heard Eva's horrific screech, as loud as the others but very different, and moved in close to the bed. She was trapped underneath Daniel's bleeding form, trying to breathe and trying not scream for the help she didn't realize was so close. But she soon did, when she felt Jack's hand, the one only she knew the touch of so well, as he grasped her begging hand and lifted her body from under her husband's.

Her eyes were wide with confusion and fear and all the disgracefulness she'd ever need as she let Jack carry her away from the bed and out of the room. The maids did nothing to stop him, too afraid for their own lives. Jack walked right out of the back door, sneaking with Eva in his arms through the garden's darkness, and taking her away to the Pearl using the most hidden of alleys and least noticeable of corners in the city.

She never said a word. And he never pushed the obvious. He was only content to have her safe again, no matter the method to get her there.