Chapter 24: Heal Me, Love Me
And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go.
If you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth.
Tears stream down on your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.
-Fix You by Coldplay-
He'd done it. The bastard had managed to do just what Jack had set out to prevent in returning to London. Daniel Bryant had scarred the only thing left of worth in the world for men; a beautiful woman. And not just any beautiful woman, but the only one that could steal the hearts of even the most determined of men.
There was one significant wound among the many bruises and scratches Bryant had caused, that needed attention far beyond what resting could provide. A gash made by a blade Jack had never even noticed in the scheme of the night's battle, had at some point, somehow, become an enemy of Eva's and cut through to almost the bone on her hip. He imagined it was some disturbing tactic of revenge that Daniel had concocted in the throes of his agonizing rape on his new wife.
Jack had dressed it well enough for the time being, but knew that they were lax of the proper supplies on the ship this leg of the journey. He worried infection would set in without the right treatment, making him cringe.
He'd seen blade infections too many times to not be aware of what could come of it.
He tried to sit and found he was a better deliberator, under the circumstances, on two feet. So he paced, from one corner of the cabin to the next, through curtains and rooms and furniture, like the weaving madness his mind was in. He tried not to look up at the form in the middle of his bed, the one that barely made a stitch of noise or movement; the one that scared him and apparently loved him all the same.
For almost two full days of sailing, Eva had slept. No food entered her stomach and no words were spoken. Intervals of crying at brief periods of wake left Jack's head an unruly mess, as he would sit at an idle distance and keep his presence from common knowledge to her with his head in his hands, simply listening. And eventually, she would fall hard back into rest and he could pace again.
He wondered if he'd killed Daniel or not. He wondered if some new force was trailing closely behind. He wondered how long she'd get to stay with him this time, before someone else tried to take her away.
In light of certain happenings, Ireland had been the furthest venture from his mind, despite how badly he knew they both wanted it, still. Instead, he let the crew argue over possibilities for gold hunts, locations and rumors they'd been told of and what could lie in the ocean depths anywhere between England and Peru. Jack let Gibbs take lead of the ship at most, while he remained right where he was, in need of food himself, in even more dire need of rest, and none of it a capable thing. If he ate, he'd be indulging himself in what she seemed to be unable to. And if he slept, he would miss her too much and risk the chance of her waking without him.
So he sat, he paced and dwelled for 40 hours. And then halfway through the 41st, she opened her eyes.
Eva felt as if she were floating in a white abyss, cotton waves and cinder air burning around her. She gasped awake, her dried lips parting as if they were made of sand. She noticed her hand half covering her face, and through the cracks of her fingers, she saw a figure coming gently toward her.
"Vang'line...?"
The man said her name, her whole name. She felt the weight in the bed shift as the figure sat down near to her side and brought his hand close to her face. Eva didn't flinch, not when she felt the cool silver of rings dance on the heat of her hand as he pulled it away.
Her eyes shifted around in her skull, falling on his face, his bare skin showing through his shirt, his hair scattered about in tangles and weaves, and finally his own eyes, calm, smooth like the waves that rolled under her, but as destined as the chipped wood burning in the flame she felt around her.
"How badly do you hurt?"
What kind of a question was that, she thought. I didn't even notice the pain until you said anything.
But now that she did, it radiated, like a magnetic surge from one limb, one bone, one muscle to the next. She tried to turn onto her back and the filtering heat of the pressure stopped her as she winced and fell to her side again. Jack slid closer to her, trying to keep her from moving about, realizing what little power she had to do it with, and what sort of agony was caused in the mere attempt.
"S'alright," he stroked her hair and she calmed into his warmth, reaching out for his waist next to her face. Her weak arm gripped him with slack effort, but it felt tight to her. "I'll take care of you, Eva."
A sigh emitted at this statement and Jack swore when he turned his face down to see hers resting at the curl of his stomach, that she was smiling. He toyed with her long curls, twisting the knots from within them until finally, after too long, he heard her speak to him.
"Can I…" there was a pause as she choked on the chalkiness in her throat, "…water."
"Water? O' course."
He slipped from her arms and leapt from the bed, having waited hours on end just to be able to give her something, to help her. Eva watched with blurred vision as he rushed to a table, poured fresh water from a pitcher and into a tin cup and then came back to hold it to her lips.
"Ere' ye go. Easy does it."
Her hand covered his around the cup as he tipped it back for her to take a few tiny sips. It was more than enough though. Nothing, she determined, had ever tasted as sweet as the water that she imagined was being poured straight from his hand, like some preternatural force of being. The delusions were strong from too much sleep, weakness, and pain, but they felt good despite it and she welcomed them as they came over her.
"Better?"
She nodded with a smile and then fell to his lap again, too content to move away from the tightness she felt growing there at her touch. Jack tried to ignore it. He tried to pretend as though it were nothing but his own routine bodily action. But he knew better of it now. He knew way better of it.
"I know a place, Eva. A place that might help ye t' feel well again."
"I feel well now…" she sighed dreamily, "…just don't move."
"Indeed. But something t' mend the bruises an' such."
Again, not until he'd said anything, had she felt the swollen pain between her thighs or the way her arms hurt just where another man had grabbed her with anger.
With a mumble, she clung to him harder, "What place?"
Jack brushed her hair some more and let his fingertips dance over the faint scar her arm had been mended to all those long months ago now, the very first time he'd saved her from the harm of another man. How anyone could hurt such a delicate little thing, despite her ferocity that only the lucky few knew the potential of, was beyond his realm of understanding. So she could weld a sword and fight off the Navy. She was still just a girl, a flower among beasts.
He knew the place he was thinking of would find Eva a healthy young lady once more. He knew he had no intentions of letting her get hurt again either, even if he had to take the next set of bruises or bullets or thrust of a sword for her. She would be well no matter what.
Somewhere off the coast of Greenland…
"Need elp' getting her further inshore, Jack?"
Gibbs stood near the exit of the gangplank to the simple, uninhabited dock, watching as his captain carefully held Eva wrapped in a blanket against the extreme cold of the January chill. Jack looked back at him for a moment, then to the misty land just ahead again and shook his head.
"It's not too far from here. Keep watch o' the crew and ready them for Galway again."
"Aye, sir."
"An' make sure there's food prepared for er' when we return."
His older friend nodded and saluted before shuffling away with a handful of men under his immediate command. Jack focused on the slanted steps of the plank as he descended to the old, half destroyed dock. It had been years since he'd come to this place and most likely months since another soul had stepped foot upon it either. The fog was too heavy this time of year, the cold too difficult and the ice too slick to be truly safe for visitation. But he knew that what was in this place, the great warm pool that healed, was too solid a bet for Eva's return to strength for him not to fight the wind and temperature.
There was a fair enough path, laid out by centuries of misplaced salt rocks and magnesium stones to follow, and he did well. Eva was conscious, awake in a manner of speaking, but too tired to look past the blanket that covered her nose. Jack caught her frail blue eyes a few times through the mist and figured as much that it was from both the loss of blood and the possibility of his fear setting in with an infection beneath the blanket.
This made his step quicken towards the thicker fog in the cold.
The rocky ground grew higher with passing minutes of walking and as he crossed over into the deep plateau of the land, he saw the gloss of the black pool he'd been searching for, the one that still radiated with that intense heat he could remember from the first time when someone had brought him here to heal. Jack carried Eva toward the shallower bank of the massive stream of water.
"Eva…" he whispered to her, brushing off the stiffness of his cold nose and cheeks. "We're ere' love."
Her eyes shifted open up at him again, her hand clung tighter to his coat collar, but she couldn't speak. Her teeth chattered when she tried and he stopped the attempt with a soothing but freezing hand on her forehead under the blanket.
Jack's boots sank into the soft snow near the water and then gently he knelt into it, letting the heat from the mist melt away the shake in his bones. He set Eva down in front of him, leaning her against his legs as she softly cried out with the pain in her hip.
"It h-hurts…"
"I know, this should elp' though."
His gesture down to the water occupied her thoughts while he began to pull away the blanket, and then gently strip her of her shift dress and chemise. Her skin was bare, she was practically nude in his hands, but she couldn't feel the cold anymore, she could only feel the heat of his fingers and the rising mist around them. Eva breathed in deep and leaned into Jack as he carefully lowered her into the spring water from the iced stones.
"Old' on just here," he took each of her hands and placed them on the rocks and then moved away to tear off his own coat and tunic. Eva looked up at him, mesmerized still by the illusions before her sparkling, tired eyes.
"Jack…?" He looked down, to only then watch as her cheek slumped down against the rock, lulled into unconsciousness before he could jump into the water with only his breeches left on.
"Eva." He grabbed her body from the rocks and pulled her deeper into the warm water, her bare skin pinned to his. "Eva, look at me. Open your eyes."
She tried to, she could hear his voice and it sounded so good, like medicine.
"It burns, Jack." Her head fell to his shoulder, her lips parted for sleepless words. "Is it supposed to burn so terribly?"
"Only means it's working, lass."
"Working?"
He held her forehead back from his shoulder and stroked her damp hair, leaving countless kisses on her head as he watched the waters completely pacify the pain from her once wrinkled brow.
"Is it magic water?"
Jack smiled and rubbed her wet cheek, "Something o' the sort, I wager."
Eva sighed and held onto him tightly, too fond of the sensation the warm water and his skin had on her peaking breasts to let go.
"I was so stupid, Jack."
He didn't say anything at first. He just closed his eyes and listened to her sadness.
"I provoked him to do this. I was foolish and I didn't wait for you and…" she sucked back the teary eyed cough in her throat and sniffled into his bare chest, "…I deserve what I got."
Jack stopped her there though, threw his eyes open and brought his hand down to lift her chin up at him.
"Don't ye say that."
"Why not, it's perfectly t-true."
"It's not."
She disagreed with another nod that it was and it made him livid to see her make the assumption that what had happened to her, was her own fault entirely.
"I made him angry. He was my rightful husband and I owed him myself. It was the deal I made."
"Bloody nonsense…" Jack mumbled angrily and splashed water over her shaking shoulders. "You sold yourself t' him, and for wot'?"
"For you."
His eyes turned down painfully to hers, "Why Eva? Why did ye do it?"
She found his feet on the stony bottom of the spring and stood on his toes as she pressed her cheek to his solemnly beating heart, trying not to look at his angered eyes.
"I couldn't let myself not do something, when I knew where they were surely keeping you. Daniel assured me you would hang and I have no doubt you would have."
He knew she was right, but he hated that she had to take it into her own hands.
"I refused to let that happen, you cannot be taken from this world, Jack. You just can't, not yet."
"I would ave' managed t' escape somehow. Without you sacrificing yourself for it."
"Perhaps, but I didn't want the chance to pass and know that you had failed when I could have saved you."
"And you did, leading t' all this."
He threw his hands about in the air, gesturing to her state of pain and wound.
"Yes. But I'm here with you now, look," Eva turned his face down to hers and Jack felt himself brightened just by the renewed sapphire glow in her eyes. It was working. For the both of them. "I saved you and you saved me and I'm here with you, again. That is why you took me from him, isn't it?"
"Yes, o' course it is." Jack turned Eva and gently pressed her into the smooth curve of the rocks, letting his body hold hers up instead; his hands soft on her waist under the water and his lips practically touching hers. "Did ye not receive or read my note at all, Eva?"
"I did."
"And…?"
"You spoke sincerity. I didn't know you could romanticize in such a way."
Jack laughed a little at this and pressed his wet bandana to her forehead.
"I ave' me Shakespearean moments, darling."
Eva tried to shift her hip a little as she grinned, but it immediately became a wincing cry of pain as her wound severed further with the hot water burying deep into it. Jack calmed her and tried to examine the cut as he raised her thigh a little.
"E' did a good job on ye."
"Not so good as you did to him."
She bit her lip as his finger trailed over the gash.
"Did your gun kill him, Jack?"
"Don't know. Wasn't concerned with it at th' time."
Eva leaned her head back tiredly on the rocks. She felt Jack stroking her shoulders and neck with more water.
"They'll be after me again, no doubt."
"An' I'll be waiting t' shoot the lot o' them."
She smiled a little past the soreness in her hip and reached out to touch his face in the fog.
"Eva…" he whispered against her fingertips, as he held her close, "…you told him you loved me."
She grew weary but nodded a little.
"Is that true?"
"Of course it's true. Why would you ask me th--"
He cut her off, his lips hard on hers, holding her body like it was the only pure thing left to cling to in the world. Eva felt her heart skip a beat, then jump free and clear from her body, do a dance somewhere over her head and finally come right back down to pump wildly against her chest. Jack's lips were the softest, the sweetest they'd ever been from her memories, the bristles of his mustache and dingles tickled her chin and upper lip, and his hands roving over her face and arms were sinister at best. Before she could find his tongue though, he pulled back and let his mouth linger over hers.
"I had t' know before I could…"
"Before you could what?"
His eyes sank into hers, his fingers twisted through her wet hair and he kissed her lightly. Finally he whispered to her, as quietly as could be done so as to keep the secret from the world, from everyone who never thought it possible.
"Before I could tell you, that I love ye too, my Evangeline. Like you wouldn't believe."
