Rebels of the Sacred Heart


All time and circuitry is wrong

As far as poetry

Sit down and sing to me -- A song

A spell a rebel yell

A spell

Soldier, come home to me.

-A Spell, a Rebel Yell by Coldplay-


The night passed over into midday and the faded grey against the windows remained, but there was warmth in place of the frigid chill they'd been dealt in the waters of Greenland. Eva woke before Jack, numb in pain completely and more than able to move from the bed and dress on her own, eat on her own, and even walk about from window to window, examining the skies and distant horizon.

She couldn't see land, but that certainly didn't mean much when she heard the shouting from outside of the cabin door, and then a swift knock.

"Galway coast ahead, Cap'n!"

Eva saw Jack struggle to wake, his face pressed roughly into the bed and she laughed.

Galway, she thought, watching the way his nose wrinkled in stirring, feels good to be back.

Jack stretched long, only modestly covered by a sheet as Eva stood at the end of the bed, latching onto his ankles. He pried his eyes open tiredly and glanced down at her, half smiling and still half drunk from the night before.

"Wot' now? Didn't I suffer nough' last night by you gypsy?"

"Get up, there's land spotted."

Her quiet persistence, like a child wishing to play, was something he couldn't deny so easily. But he was tired.

"An' it's not going anywhere."

Jack let his head fall between the pillows again as Eva pulled on his legs.

"Come on. There's still a treasure to find…"

"Oh," he chided mockingly with a swaying hand, "Better run along then before th' other pirates steal it."

She snarled at him and let go of his ankles without the success she wanted.

"Fine then. If that's the way you want it. I'll just entertain myself till you've had your beauty rest."

Eva stomped to a far chair and grabbed Jack's effects, throwing them over her own shoulder. He caught a glimpse of what she was doing and suddenly wriggled free of the sheets and landed on the floor feet away from her, bearing all to the light of the room.

"Don't even think about it, Eva."

"Think about what?"

"Ye know what."

"No," she winked coyly with an eye on his hard cock and turned for the door of the room, "I haven't the faintest idea."

And before he could find the clothes to chase her in, she leapt out onto the deck with a slam of the door.

Jack growled under his breath and quickly began searching out his pants and shirt.

"Girl's gonna embarrass me rump right t' the plank…" he pulled on breeches and ignored the tunic he couldn't find when he heard a loud, bellowing screech of commands from outside of the cabin on deck, "Thinks she's th' bloody Captain o' this ship!"

He threw open the door and darted barefoot and half undressed into the light grey of the Irish high noon, only to find a much different spectacle than what he'd expected. His men weren't being demeaned by a woman and his position wasn't being threatened by the only girl he probably ever would let threaten it. Instead, he could see Eva prancing around in the center of a huddle of men, all of them laughing and cheering her on for something. And when he got closer to see between the shoulders and heads, he saw what that fascinating something was.

Sword practice…with his sword.

"A quick flick of the wrist, gentleman…" she thrust the sword out toward the younger boy's neck she was pitted against and smiled when she caught her stance on bare toes, having frightened him half to death. "It's all about lightness of foot. That's why the best swordsmen are actually women."

One man shook his head and argued her point with a laugh, but she ushered him forward to take his chances.

"Don't believe me, sir? You should come and test your skills."

"Ha," he chuckled and ripped the sword from the young deckhand, stomping in front of her. "Ready t' bleed, lassie?"

Jack's brow tightened and his fists clenched at the inquiry, but before he could ready himself to bother saving her, Eva had begun to dance about the larger man. Silver flew through the air with a clinking shine as she tapped his sword a dozen or more times, urging him to move same as her, trying to make him more of a fight. For while he had the advantage of strength and weight, nothing could match Eva's quickness or darting blade.

"Not so sure now, are we?"

She chided with a tiny smile as she stamped her boot onto his larger one and instantly flung the end of the blade between the man's legs, a mere breath away from his stiffened manhood.

"Close," she whispered to him as he choked on air. Jack laughed proudly in the crowd as she slid the sword away. "I wouldn't want to take that from you though, sir. It would be a rather lonely journey wouldn't it?"

Her mockery made the giant man's eyes roll back in his head as he fell away in the crowd again, only a soft pat on his shoulder from Eva to ease him. And that's when Jack stepped forward between his men, shirtless and grinning.

"You are no more than an eager tease, Marley."

Eva glanced behind her to see Jack coming close, snatching away another man's sword.

"I'll wager I can match ye without th' fright me crew possesses."

"Can you, Jack?"

Her mock grin left him half undone, but not enough to indulge him away from not fighting her.

"Let us see then," she held out the sword, ticking it back and forth against the one he held, "How gracefully you fall at the nip of your very own tool, Captain Sparrow."

The crowd murmured and laughed breathily around them.

"Confidence eh, lass?"

Jack circled about the crowd, in control of the movement at least. His eyes sunk down upon hers with a husky whisper.

"I like that."

"Good." She stepped softly into place finally, planting her feet at the ready. "I aim to please only."

"She can please me any time o' the day that pleases er'!"

A voice from the crowd belted the words and Jack's eyes shifted off for half a second to reprimand the man on Eva's behalf. This was his first mistake.

Eva leapt forward like a fairy warrior, swinging the sword in a crescent circle from the tip of Jack's nose to his crotch, nearly grazing the surface of the bulge she saw in his breeches. He gulped back a laugh of fear and turned his eyes quickly to her smiling face and determined stance.

"Ever the protector of my less than good name. It will be the death of you, you know."

He smirked and pushed his own blade from his crotch, "An' I'll welcome it."

Eva giggled and flew back into a proper stand before him, letting his borrowed blade slash down against hers a second later. She held her own well, although he was stronger and taller and more knowing of this sort of battle. With short flights of dance at his sides, she noticed how his feet moved the same as hers, and how their fight was a difficult one to find allegiance to win upon, since they travelled the deck so similarly.

Their swords clanked minutes later and they both took an easy breath, laughing at one another.

"Tired?"

Eva inhaled deep, "Never. You?"

"Don' flatter yourself, love."

And again they drew forceful blows to the slight edges of one another's blades. The crew cheered on opposing sides, placed their bets in the tow of excitement and shouting, and every step they made on the deck, every spin or thrust or threat of sword points to limbs, Jack saw himself a more taken man, a more owned one. Eva couldn't know the rush in his mind as she tapped his own blade to his upper arm or thigh. She couldn't know what it felt like to him, and how sweet the short pain of the nicks on his knuckles each were. She couldn't know how fiercely he claimed her as his, indefinitely, in the fury of their battle.

"Finish er' off Cap'n!"

"Take im' down lassie!"

The fans of each side continued their commands and howling until Eva finally felt her arms growing weak at the sockets. She didn't want to deny the fight, or her desire to beat him, but her body was saying other things. It was angry at her and ready to burst into flames at the intense struggle Jack was capable of putting her through with only a sword and ship deck.

She laughed it off only a moment longer, when her hands doubly swung his sword at his neck, splicing against the surface alone before he grasped onto her hands over the handle and pulled her to him.

"Gotcha," he whispered with a growl as he held her hands above her head and then immediately pulled her by the waist and threw her tiny form down upon the deck at his boots. "Ave' a rest, dearie."

The men who had known Jack would conquer began to throw their hands about, patting their captain on the shoulders and back as he smiled down at Eva beneath where he leaned over her. She held an angered and tired scowl on her face as beads of sweat rolled off her nose and temple. Jack watched the dew of exhaustion sparkle on her skin in the sunlight, thinking how badly he wanted to lick it clear from her. But this was improbable, especially when a second later, in the midst of shouting and coin tossing for bets, he felt something snake between his boots and immediately tug his body down.

Eva tripped him, of her own aching legs' accord, and watched as he fell in a jolt to the deck beside her, grunting when his body hit the hardened wood the same. The crew gasped out in shock of what had taken place and almost instantly began arguing over the truth of the fights' conquer and who had really won the betted coin.

Jack though, his face pressed down to the wood deck next to Eva's, could only grin tightly at her.

"Well done," he mumbled.

She smiled and reached out to pat his sweaty cheek, "Likewise."

A sigh of fair breathing escaped both of their lips as they listened to the argument of winnings and truth above them.

Finally, Jack pushed his weight until he could stand again and looked down upon her with a curious brow.

"Treasure now, darling?"

Eva nodded with fierce excitement as he reached down to lift her to her feet, before the two of them snuck off.


With Dill bundled in Eva's arms and barking insistently at the nearing coastline, Jack thrust back on the oars of the small dingy, keeping his eyes peeled over her head at the others manically shouting out from the ship. He laughed under his breath and fought against the rock shore to pull the boat nearer to the white stone beach, like another time before.

"Shouldn't we have brought a crew to help?"

He shook his head.

"But aren't you worried they might get mad and attempt sailing away with the Pearl?"

For a brief moment, he turned his face down in constructive thought, ceasing the paddling. She had a point, but Jack of all people knew that stealing the Black Pearl was becoming an obsolete sport. Few cared to bother anymore, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before some sort of danger or omen ensnared them. And on top of which, Jack always retrieved her.

So again, he laughed and smiled at her.

"Not t' worry. Gibbs'll hold down th' fort with that bunch. An' they know what we're after."

Dill barked back at him in some kind of odd agreement to the statement, and Jack nodded.

"See, th' mutt knows as best."

Eva tickled her small dog's stomach and slid to the seat beside Jack as the back end of the boat hit the stone shore. Dill jumped out first and ran halfway across the grassy hills in a scampering excitement. Jack got out next and gained a firm footing enough on the rocks, to lean back and lift Eva's delicate form out of the boat, setting her next to him.

She smiled and held his arm, breathing in the gusty Irish wind. "I've missed it here."

"Fresh air looks good on ye, love."

"Does it?"

Jack tilted his head down toward her sarcastic brow with a sideways glint of his teeth and an inching touch of his lips to hers. Their eyes remained open fully as they kissed, ignoring the taste for the wild, continued test of limits they found in one another's gaze. The sword duel had done nothing to satisfy Eva in proving herself against him, but when Jack was the first to react under the spell of her eyes and roving tongue upon his, to laugh with a release, she felt proud enough.

With his hand tugging at hers then, Jack reached into his coat pocket and drew out the wrinkled parchment they had found in their last venture to this island. The riddle remained intact and just as confusing as the first time she'd read it to him. Weeks of study and deliberation in moments when his mind was free of plotting to get Eva back, had done nothing. The only thing he was even remotely sure of, after his conversation with Mary in Tortuga, was that there was a chance Eva had something to do with it, more than she realized.

He held it out to her as they walked along an imaginary path up the hill after Dill.

"Here. Think ye can make something o' this now?"

Eyeing the paper as he pulled on her other hand softly, Eva looked over each word, remembering them so well and yet not well enough. It seemed like a century since she'd held the paper, or thought of the treasure, or readied herself for what could be hiding on this island. Now it all flooded back strongly.

"Where the clovers do not grow…" she hummed for a moment in thought, before glancing up at Jack as he walked briskly and catching his eyes with a small conclusion of sorts, "…clovers need lots of water. It's why they grow all over Ireland, Jack, where it rains so often."

He nodded, half understanding.

"That means we need to find a spot on this island, where it's dry. Most likely, it will be to an extreme."

"Dry…" he contemplated it and twisted his fingers with hers, looking out over the landscape of only wet greenery. "Anythin' else?"

Eva turned her eyes to the paper again, studying it, attempting to make connections of any kind. It took her a while, and by the time she saw anything in particular worth noting, they were in the middle of the island on a steep sloping hill of wild thyme plants. Somehow she believed this meant they were getting closer and Eva spoke out on the second clue she was sure she could determine.

"It says there's no marking. So we aren't looking for a tombstone."

"Wot' then?"

"I don't know. Something leading underground again, possibly. An unearthing…"

He smiled down at her with a teasing smirk then, "Think ye can handle more bats, darling?"

Eva just shook her head up at him and spun around, walking away with the paper down the hill.

"This way," she shouted back, and of course he followed close on her heels.

For at least another mile through the center of the island, Jack kept a firm pace directly behind Eva in the misty breeze, his clothes moistened, his eyes blurred except for in front of him at her. She stumbled through damp wildflowers and constant green, assuming to be heading in the right direction, but looking only nonsensical based on her observation of the dryness of this hoard.

"I thought ye said t'would be a little less, green."

"It will be," she shouted back, rushing through the fog.

"Eva. Yer leg, walk," he warned.

"Oh come on, we're getting close!"

He couldn't understand how she could know such a thing without a map or a book to follow the guidelines of. Both items had been forgotten in the dramatic rush of events back in London and were now the sole property of whoever remained at the Bryant residence, he supposed. She was going off of what seemed to be instinct, and although he felt sure he could trust hers, he also knew that this island was most likely uninhabited and rather deserted for good reason.

No one had the irrational sort of guts that they did.

A second flew by and he lost complete sight of her in the misty wind surrounding him. He shouted out her name, but there remained only silence as he hurried through it still. Jack could hear a faint bark from Dill, and that was the only reason he continued in the right direction, continued until he fell through the last bit of fog and barreled into Eva's tiny, motionless form on the clear end of a strange squall of air.

She laughed out at him when he collided with her and kept her from falling down the same.

"Run into poor, innocently standing girls often, Jack?"

After regaining his balance at her side, he gave one twisted smirk and replied, "I see no innocent girls ere'."

Eva gave only an equally wicked smile before she stepped away from him again and into what he now saw, through cleared vision and witty tongue, was an indifferent field from the other. It had come about so suddenly, like the back end of a tormenting hurricane. It was silent and warm and deathly peaceful, with its uncommonly yellowed grasses, thin, pebble filled soil, and non-existence of anything green at all.

Focusing in on where Eva stood in the center of the circular desert, surrounded by smoky emerald on all outer existing sides, Jack just winked with a teasing nod.

"Found this with yer scent did ye?"

"I haven't a single clue actually." She smiled and twirled around in the dead grasses as he watched. "I just felt it here."

"Felt it?"

He thought about that for a moment, remembering a number of different details in a millisecond or less.

"…means 'good message' Jacky."

"…the connections o' the black Irish are few an' far between now… she birthed a son quietly o' thesameblack blood. He was said t' have been the last of thepure blooded ones, but who really knows…"

"For the hex cannot be broken of the wealth, until the last child of the first blacks has had their say."

"A lot o' those black ones ave' these otherworldly gifts, if ye will… Nothing too dangerous, just curious."

"Marley's old Irish."

He blinked to come back to reality, hearing Dill barking at a short distance where he and Eva sat in the grass, examining something closely. Under his breath he mumbled what he'd long tried to deny and yet always reaffirmed, "The last child. Dear God, she's one o' them. Eva's related t' Grace."

His name being shouted caught his attention firmly and he looked into the wide, browning field to see Eva beckoning him from the ground up with a smile.

"Come here, look what I found."

"Wot'?" he asked as he stumbled towards her and knelt down in the dried grass.

Eva's fingertips dug through a soft patch of dirt and stones, revealing the slate of what looked like a plank of wood beneath the ground they sat upon. He leaned in closer and she turned her face back toward his with a bright smile.

"How did ye find that?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly again, "I feel as if I can sense it all, and yet I Can't. Is that weird?"

He grinned a little and inched his face toward hers all the more, holding her eyes tight.

"No," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers for a single, eternal sort of moment.

He examined her eyes, the rich indigo that had for almost two years been the death of him. And yet here, at this spot, where a wood plank revealed itself with an underground purpose of some kind, in the middle of a dry, clover free field on the shoreline of the Irish coast, they meant something more than death. Her eyes gave way to the treasure that life can bring, if only one knows how best to look for it. Grace did, and suddenly, as if by some natural definition, Jack saw that Eva did too.

It was a rebel descents spell on her own life's earning. The spell of a rebel's yell deep inside of his Eva.

"No, s'not weird."

She giggled at the way he studied her so longingly, "Then why are you looking at me like that?"

"I think I just figured it all out, s'all."

"Oh did you…" she teased, keeping her forehead pressed to the bandana on his, mocking him, "…share then, pirate."

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told it t' ye."

"Try me, Jack."

He smiled lightly at her and silently wove the plot; the one wrapped around the confession, that he felt sure was going to soon enough lead to the discovery under their feet.