Fearless


They say behind every man is a good woman
But I think that's a lie
'Cause when it comes to you I'd rather have you by my side.

You don't know how much I count you to help me win
When I've given everything I got and I just feel like giving in.

'Cause when it all comes down
And I'm feeling like I'll never last
I just lean on you 'cause baby
You're my better half.

-You're My Better Half by Keith Urban-


The victory night faded into a stormy early morning, with the windows of the tavern room fogged and the cold chill startling Eva awake consistently. Everything from the bed, to the wood floors, the shingles and walls, creaked and rattled with the wind, making it impossible for her to sleep.

Eventually, with twinkling blue eyes in the blackened room, she stretched across the narrow old bed and reached for her clothes to attempt gaining warmth. Jack awoke with her crawling effort and watched her quietly for a long time, as she tied ties and hooked buttons again, stroked through her messy hair and pulled on her boots.

In a whisper he asked, "Runnin' off without me, pixie?"

Eva twisted her long hair into a braid and glanced back at him with a tiny smile.

"Of course I'm not. I had every intention of carrying you out of here in a sheet alone, then letting you wake up miles away on the trackless sea."

A sigh of laughter rumbled in his chest as he reached out and rubbed her back.

"I can't sleep in this squeaky, old room anymore."

"Where would ye like t' sleep, then?"

"On the Pearl."

Hearing her say that, hearing her name his ship as her place of comfort, was plenty enough for him. He sat up and starting getting dressed while she watched silently. Jack threw on his effects then his boots as Eva wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. Her head rested against his back, rising and falling as he breathed and moved, and just the way she latched onto him, made him feel uneasy. He felt something uneasy in her.

"'Fraid o' the rain too, darlin'?"

"No."

"Then what's got ye all jumpy?"

Eva squeezed him harder at the question, breathing in his deep rum and spice scent. She wasn't even sure she knew what was bothering her, or what felt wrong, something just seemed out of place in her mind. Something was trying to warn her subconsciously, she just didn't know what for. Jack turned his face back over his shoulder when she didn't respond, and tried to soothe her mind.

"We'll go back t' the ship. Plot a course back t' Shipwreck with the treasure together, alright?"

"Alright."

Her soft voice met with a release of her arms as she slid from the bed and began walking for the door of the room. Jack got up and hurried after her, grasping and locking her hand in his before she made it into the hall again, and never letting it go all the way downstairs to the quieter, half empty pub. Together they walked to the bar, where Jack thanked and compensated the owner, Toby, a man he half recalled as a younger boy in his travels to Galway with Teague. Eva stood listening and smiling for a minute, but eventually fell loose of Jack's hand and walked for the door of the tavern alone, heading out into the rain.

She wasn't sure why, but it was as if something were leading her there, away from Jack and out of the tavern to the dark, lonely street. Eva couldn't have possibly been outside alone for more than a minute, letting the rain drizzle on her head, before she heard a voice from behind her in the narrow road of the town.

"Evangeline."

Her name, spoken so properly, was so unlike that which her new friends and Irish rouge comrades had taken to. They had all called her Eva, or Little Marley, or Jack's girl. Not Evangeline. For this she stopped pacing in the rain, her back still turned to the voice, and wiped the water from her eyes the best she could.

"Evangeline, it's me."

That's when she quit the thoughts and turned around, knowing all too well the propriety that was calling after her.

"Darling, I'm so glad to have found you finally."

Daniel rushed through the storming street toward her, smiling, arms open, and glowing, sympathetic eyes. She stood without the will to move out of his range, and was swarmed by his soaked form only seconds later.

"Eva, you haven't the faintest idea how much I've missed you. My love…" His arms were strong, just like she remembered from all the times he'd pulled her in the opposite direction of where she wanted to go, or who she wanted to be with. He stroked through her damp hair as he kissed every inch of her head and cheeks, cradling her, holding her like a father would, like a lover would after years of being lost in the world. "I'm so sorry, Eva. Please, please forgive me for all I've done to hurt you. I wish only to make it all the more better now."

She shuddered against him, trembling not from the cold rain, but from the defiance he held her in. Daniel had no intention of letting go. She was going to have to force her way back, again.

"Daniel please," she begged, shoving on his chest with her tired hands, "Please, don't."

"Why ever not? All I want is to hold you to me."

"Nooo…stop."

Eva pushed him away and fell back a few feet, the rain falling in between and on her eyelashes as she watched him solemnly.

"What's wrong, dear? Can you not accept my apology?"

Her jaw gaped, amazed by his foolishness.

"No. Why would I do that?"

"Because I love you. Because you're mine, Eva."

She shook her head, "I'm not yours."

And when Daniel made the attempt to step in closer and convince her of the opposite, a low and deep voice reiterated the truth behind him.

"Eva's with me, Bryant."

Eva and Daniel both turned to the sound, one smiling faintly, and the other scowling as the rain slammed on his face. Jack stood idly, his sword hanging by his side, shining loosely in the storm, but ready to kill if need be.

"You," Daniel growled back. "I should have known better of making a deal with the likes of you."

"Yes. You should have," Jack agreed coldly.

"She's not yours, Sparrow. She still holds my name. She's my wife."

"Her name is Vang'eline," Jack taunted with a step closer in the muddy street. "Or 'ave ye already forgotten?"

Daniel turned toward him, forcing Eva behind his form for protection.

"I'm taking her back home."

Eva's eyes grew wide as she struggled against Daniel's arm holding her.

"She is home, mate."

"No felon, to London. Where she belongs."

"I don't belong th--"

"Quiet, Eva!" Daniel's shout at her made Jack snap forward into another step. "It is of little concern. There is no argument to be had. You're going."

"No I'm not."

She tried to push his arm away and run past him to Jack, but Daniel caught her wrist and threw her back in the other direction, where she slid on the wet ground and fell into the muddy road. Jack's sword immediately cut through the rain at Bryant's neck, only nicking the surface by the time he turned back to the accredited fight boiling in a start.

"What? You're going to play hero again, Sparrow? Save a deserving wife from her wretched husband? Your worthless gun didn't work on me the first time."

Jack thrust his sword toward Daniel once more, this time pinning the tip to his coat's chest.

"It's Captain," he growled as he saw Eva a few feet away, struggling to sit and wipe away the blood on her forehead from where she had fallen. "An' Eva's not going anywhere with ye again."

"The law says she is."

"Damn th' law. Damn yer high an' mighty King on is' throne. She doesn't love ye, Bryant. Accept it."

Daniel forced his pistol from his coat and cocked it back in the rain falling between them, aiming it directly at Jack's right eye.

"She will learn to love me."

Jack scoffed at this, while Eva sat trembling in the mud below for another moment.

"What good is her ease of love for you, or you for her? You cannot provide for her. You cannot give her children when you're hung at the noose."

Here Jack contemplated briefly, for a millisecond and no more, before he saw Eva stand up on shaky legs and protest clearly through the rain.

"Yes he can."

Both men's heads turned vividly upon her. Her clothes were sagging with the weight of the rain, her tiny form a shadow beneath the clinging white cotton and her eyes fierce.

Daniel shook his head with a sigh at her, "Stealing treasure does not constitute provision, Evangeline. He's a criminal."

"That's not what I meant," she argued back against the loud cry of lighting above them. Jack just stared at her with sad eyes and his sword pressing ever closer to Daniel's chest. "I see no noose here. And yet," she breathed in deep and stepped in toward their duel, softly whispering out, "I delight in the thought of having his children. His child, above yours any day, Daniel."

Daniel Bryant's eyes widened and faded to a deep, sinister black she'd never seen. This didn't matter half as much though, when she moved her gaze up to Jack's eyes and saw him shadow her in his confusion, his disbelief and an odd smirk of some kind.

She smiled nervously, not sure he was on the same page with her yet, not sure he was happy by the confession or the deliberate timing of it either. Jack stared at her longingly, trying to decipher her beaming face in all of the agony surrounding him, with the rain and the pistol pointed at him and the man trying to again, take her from him.

When he finally made the attempt to grin proudly, to say something to her, he felt the barrel of the gun reach his temple and slam into the bone under his skin roughly.

"Suppose I ought to finish you off quick then, before anyone else hears of her wish to harbor a bastard child by the likes of you."

"Daniel, stop it."

He tried his best to ignore Eva, pressing the pistol only that much harder to Jack's head and grunting with his finger loose and wet on the trigger.

"I won't go with you either way. I don't love you and I refuse to learn how."

"That's enough, Evangeline."

"No. It's not. Lower your gun."

"What for? So he can walk free again after having come into my home, left me for dead and stolen my wife?"

"Yes."

Jack stood there, listening to the debate of his own death for what seemed an eternity. And when no equal conclusion was made between the two of them, he took it upon himself to instead raise his sword higher and knock the pistol straight from Daniel's hand with a single swipe of the blade to his chest. The gun flew ten feet in Eva's direction as Bryant shouted with the pain of the instant, narrow wound from his neck to waist.

"Wot's next then, mate? A blow through th' 'eart?" Jack began to circle him dangerously with his sword, tapping certain limbs as Daniel struggled to stand straight with the rush of blood from his stomach. "Eva, love?"

Her ears perked with her eyes when Jack said her name and finally, beyond his earlier shock, she saw him smile at her. That twisted, morbid smile she'd only seen once before.

"Any requests?"

A timid shake of her head was response enough.

"She has remorse for you, Bryant."

"And yet she leaves my arms, my protection, for your filthy bed."

Daniel had regained his strength and quickly tugged his own sword out, catching it in the windy rain with a wave in front of Jack's eyes as he spit bloodily onto his boots.

"I'm going to kill you, Sparrow. To prove to her once and for all, that you aren't invincible."

"Good luck," Jack teased, letting Daniel come at him with a lash of his blade, missing him completely with the slight weakness from his own wound.

The battle was long coming, after standing in the rain, fighting with words. But now, they began to turn about one another angrily, belting their swords and clanking them with wicked curses. Eva stood feet away, drenched and consistently changing her focus from the fight to the gun at the ground next to her boot. It was nearly drowned in a puddle from the rain by the time she knelt down and picked it up.

"She comes t' bed with me willingly ye know, Bryant! Every night…"

Eva caught Daniel's angered face as he just missed Jack's inner leg with his blade.

"And she leaves rotted with disease no doubt!"

"So why ave' her back then?"

"Because," Daniel grunted with a nick at Jack's wrist, "She belongs to me. I own every bit of her from you."

Where they didn't know to pay attention to it, Eva was handling the pistol, now strung up in her hands, drenched with rain but willing to make proper aim whenever her eyes could see through the harsh wind. The weapon shook only slightly from her trembling, and she steadied it with her eyes on Daniel's moving form. She traced an imaginary outline of his battle footwork with the barrel end of the gun, cocking it back when she felt comfortable under it's understood power. She'd fired one plenty of times in practice with Teague, but never at someone else, especially someone she knew, someone she had once respected and been close to.

It wasn't until he lunged forward at Jack's tricking prance, falling to the wet ground thereafter, that Eva stepped in closer to the fight and held the pistol fully in tune and ready. Everything slowed then in time, from Daniel pushing himself from the puddles, to his half firm stance again on bent legs, to his turning in Jack's direction, to his snarl and the raising of his sword high in the air.

It was that moment, when he appeared to be in step with a possible blow to Jack, that Eva let her finger slide back and allowed the powder and fire to come at release from the pistol. The ring of the shot was loud, louder than most anything and the sound rattled through the street and buildings before the smoke cleared from her eyes enough to see the result.

Daniel was standing, but blood was running thick from his chest, his heart.

He wavered, ready to fall for the last time, and when her terrified gaze slid right only a foot, she saw Jack staring back at her for what began a half a second. When the moment passed, it was because Daniel had found the strength enough, upon his last breath, to force his blade deep within Jack as he stood oblivious, as he stood looking at the woman he thought he'd won.

"Jack!" Eva screamed wildly when she saw the blade pierce his shirt, then his entire gut, exiting through his back. "No!"

She dropped the pistol with what sounded like the beat of a drum. She watched as she ran, at how Daniel tumbled backwards to his own fate in the bloodied street, and then she tripped in behind Jack in time to catch him falling backwards the same, gasping for air he couldn't find and leaning against her until they both hit the ground together.

His hand was firm on the blade protruding from his lower stomach and with one quick tug he unsheathed it from his skin completely. And that's when the blood began to flow beyond Eva's attempt at controlling it.

"Jack," she begged, her eyes welled to the brim with tears over him. "Jack, look at me."

His head tilted back weakly until it rested down on what felt like a pillow, her heavenly chest. Eva stroked his cheeks as her hand was covered by his over the wound, both of their fingers stained and tangled with a bright red.

"Jack, I'm here. I'm right here with you, talk to me."

For a moment his eyes shifted closed, and then he opened them up to the pouring rain, fluttered them against the wetness and rolled them back up until he could see only her face peering down at him. That's when he gave her a crooked grin and squeezed her bloodied hand on his stomach.

"Eva…" he whispered, choking "…you shot im'."

She nodded ferociously, glancing over at Daniel's morbid form once, before letting her tears mix with the rain again.

"I did."

He tried to laugh, "That's good," and then his eyes started to close with the pain again.

"Jack, no. Jack, open your eyes!"

He did, barely.

"You're okay. You're going to be fine."

"Sure bout' that, gypsy?"

"Yes, stop that."

He laughed darkly and leaned down to examine the wound as she called out for help from the nearby tavern.

"Daniel Bryant…a pirate murderer. Who would 'ave thought it?"

"Stop that," she snapped at him, her lips pressed to his forehead, kissing him with tear-drenched lips. "You're alright."

He was quiet then, as she urged help when she saw a few scattered men walking nearby. They turned toward her shouting and ran to the situation, just in time for Eva to hear Jack softly mumble in a slur.

"Ye want—my child--"

And then, his eyes quivered shut with a smirk half fading on his mouth.