Old Blue Chair


When I'm a ship tossed around on the waves
Up on a high-wire that's ready to break
When I've had just about all I can take

When I'm a bullet shot out of a gun
When I'm a firecracker coming undone
When I'm a fugitive ready to run, all wild-eyed and crazy
No matter where my reckless soul takes me
Baby you save me…

-You Save Me by Kenny Chesney-


The rush to assist in the aftermath of Jack and Daniel's battle was greater than Eva could have ever imagined. The town was in havoc through the rest of the night and into the early morning light. Men from the tavern, from nearby inns and penny wench's rooms alike came into the street to do anything they could. Two strong men with thick Celtic accents and kind green eyes helped to carry Jack's semi-conscious form down to the docks where Gibbs had anchored the Pearl earlier in the day.

Once there, the crew was in an uproar, as well Eva thought they should be. Jack was a good Captain and friend to most every man who worked on his ship. She could see vengeance in all of their eyes, and although she assured them that Daniel had been taken care of, she was glad to see it all the same.

Gibbs showed the Irishmen to Jack's cabin, where he was laid down and bled terribly all over the sheets. Supplies were gathered quickly as Gibbs shouted each one out to Eva and she rushed back and forth through the room to find them. A water basin, thread and needle, fresh cloths, rum and the like were set up all around the bed on the table and floor, where he prepared to work on the wound. In all of this chaotic running around though, the tears never once stopped rolling down Eva's cheeks.

Finally, Gibbs grabbed her hand and brought her to a gentle pause in movement.

"Ye need t' work on keepin' 'im awake fer me, Eva."

His eyes were fatherly, calm, and a nice change of pace. She gave a shaky nod and walked around to the other side of the bed, carefully crawling in to where Jack laid with a lolling head.

"Jus' talk t' him, darlin'."

Eva took a deep breath, trying to ignore the amount of blood that had come off when Gibbs removed his shirt, or from the extra cloths, or the crimson water already in the basin. She focused on his face alone, where the color was faded from his usual russet cheeks to something closer to the shade of the stormy skies. She drew his face toward her, warm hands on his cool cheeks as she watched his eyes blinking open tiredly.

"Jack."

His nose wrinkled with the sound and his vision was fogged, but he could see two small blue orbs in the midst of grey and imaginary mist, and he smiled weakly.

"Eva."

"Yes," she sniffled with a tiny laugh, "It's me. I'm still here."

"Refusin' to let me go, eh?"

He choked on half his words, but she understood.

"You're not going anywhere. Mr. Gibbs is here, he's going to fix you."

This made him chuckle under his breath as Eva saw Gibbs lift the bottle of rum out to her. She knew what for, and taking the bottle, she brought it close to Jack's chin, tilting it on his lips as she lifted his head onto her knee.

"You need to drink some of this. Here…"

His parched lips barely touched the rim of the bottle before she was pouring it into his mouth. It soothed him after a few long sips and his head fell down to the pillows again hazily.

"Good rum, Joshamee."

The older man sighed with a laugh as he poured it over the front end of the wound, "Always th' best for ye, Jack."

Jack grinned and tilted his head back to see Eva curled close to him on the bed. He moved his arm with tingling fingers and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her that much nearer to him. He just had to feel all of her then.

She brushed his face and the wisps of hair around his ears as he looked up at her richly, bothered very little when the needle tore through his stomach a second later. This amazed Eva, seeing him that used to the pain of dressing a wound, and she absentmindedly began tracing the outline of the bullet holes over his heart.

"'Is he dead, Eva?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, "Daniel's dead."

"Did ye kill him?"

Eva nodded down at him before watching him smile and relax back with his eyes closed.

She held his face firmly, shaking him back awake, "Jack, talk to me. Don't close your eyes."

"Wot' ever shall we talk about, love?"

Gibbs kept laughing as he strung the thread through the gash time and again.

"I don't know; anything. Tell me a story."

"Wot' story?"

She thought about it for a moment, just long enough for his eyes to tilt shut again. Eva brought him back to waking a second time though, as she pressed her lips to his cheek and whispered, "Tell me about your mother."

"Me mother, now?"

"Yes," her command was soft, "Right now."

"Lord ave' pity, Gibbs, ye ear' this little thing orderin' me 'bout?"

His aged friend laughed agreeably with the teasing before smiling up at Eva with a nod. She relaxed into Jack's side and held his face to her to keep a steady watch on his eyes.

"I want to hear about her. You promised."

"Did I?"

"I know you remember quite well. Don't pretend otherwise."

He did, but the rum in his system and the loss of blood had turned him into nothing but an even worse tease.

"Why not remind me?"

She knew what he meant, the birthmark, the bite, and the night spent making reunion love only a day before.

Eva just giggled and stroked his cheeks, "I don't think Mr. Gibbs would be comfortable with that sort of reminder." The two men laughed then as well. "Just tell me, Jack. I want to know about her."

"Oh alright..."

And so, with their foreheads pressed closely together and with Eva's persistent kisses to keep him awake through the telling of the tale, she came to know every possible detail about Jack's mother. She learned she was a dark woman, with something of an Indian nature, and by his mocking surprise, something of a witch.

"She ad' her tricks just like ye."

"Your poor father," she giggled, thinking about Teague.

"Poor me…"

With a roll of her eyes, he went on. Only a half hour passed by in the story when Gibbs turned Jack over to dress the back end of his blade wound. Eva rested his face on her lap as he continued with the wistful tale of his mother. He told her about how she birthed him in the middle of a hurricane off the coast of South Africa, simply because she had refused to be away from his father another stint of six months. He told her about the way his mother would send him running about on adventures through Shipwreck and various islands Teague sailed to, gathering spices and plants to use in her recipes and charms. And he told Eva about the day that his mother had been taken ill with a fever that even her spells could not cure.

"How old were you when you lost her?"

He shrugged a little as Gibbs concluded with the stitching on his back.

"Young, ten years at most."

"You still miss her don't you?"

At the question, his eyes brightened a little more and Jack found hers were as curious as ever. There was a profound glow of interest in Eva on the topic, one he was sure he understood.

"Every day," he whispered peaceably.

She let the response sink in as the excess blood was wiped from Jack's body, as her and Gibbs worked to wrap the strips of cloths around his stomach to hold the stitches in place, and then settled him back onto the bed with a few more dousing sips of rum. The older was shown gratitude and a hug from Eva while he insisted she call for him on deck whenever need be, while he worked on giving orders for collecting and stocking the treasure. She agreed and went directly to Jack's bed when Gibb's had gone.

Eva took Jack's hand when he lifted it in the air for her, consciously aware of her even with closed eyes.

"You should sleep now."

He coughed on pain and a churning stomach, stroking the back of her hand in his.

"An' you're too good for sleep now are ye?"

His crooked grin calmed her all the more, "I can't sleep. I have to watch out for you same as you did for me. Remember?"

"I remember nearly losing me last wits waiting on ye t' heal."

"I'm prepared," she smiled and leaned down to kiss him softly. Jack of course, even through pain and tire, attempted to deepen the kiss and hold her there until he had tasted all of her. And Eva obliged for a long moment, before eventually pulling back and patting his cheek. "I'll be right here when you wake."

Then she tried to stand and head for her clothes trunk to change from her wet clothes, but Jack grasped her hand once more before she could and squeezed tightly with the agony of his returned pain.

"Wait. Talk t' me 'bout babies…"

Eva eyed him shortly; shocked he'd even remembered it.

"Rest first."


For the remainder of the day, Eva paced between the rooms of Jack's cabin and the outer deck of the ship, watching and assisting as best she could with the crew as they hauled trunks and barrels of jewels, pearls, gold and silver upward from the beaches of Clare Island. She would stay long enough to offer the tired, beaten men water or rum, and then hurry back inside of the cabin to Jack, who slept continually as she had hoped.

Gibbs showed her how best to check his bandages through the long hours and into the evening, making sure that infection didn't set in, and at least not before they had sailed for Shipwreck again. She did so a dozen or more times, with only good results from the older pirate's skill in handling a needle and thread. Now and then Eva would wet a warm cloth and brush it against his skin to soothe the pain she could see marked on his face even in unconsciousness.

He seemed to appreciate it, though she doubted he knew it was her.

Once in the late afternoon he mumbled, "Yer hands are so warm t'night, Scarlett love."

Eva could only hold back from laughing at him.

It took another half a day the following one to complete the task of bringing aboard only half of Grace's entire cache, as well as the definitive amount they'd promised to share with the locals of Galway. They would have to eventually sail back for the rest since it was all that they had space and haul weight for this trip. And that thought made Eva happy all the more, to know that possibly, by the next venture, Jack would be healed enough to take part in what he'd been so excited to have found. What they both had been excited to discover, together.

When the task was finished and when the first rains of the early Irish evening began to trickle down the panes of the bay window behind Jack's charting table, she heard the calls being made for making sail from the beach. She had wanted to go outside and work to help any way she could, but she knew in the rain, under Jack's condition, Gibbs' would most likely send her right back here with a smile. So she stayed, she paced about the wood floors, hunting around through things she had missed all those long months ago, when she was bound to this room for the very first time.

His book shelves were still intact, still flourishing, and she found herself immersed with pages of theory and possibility in the world for at least an hour out to sea. Eva tumbled in and out of the smaller back rooms of the cabin, digging through old trunks of things, saved heirlooms and stolen goods from far off places. And it was there, behind the thick velvet curtains of one niche that she saw blue in a way she hadn't before.

She pulled back on the hideaway drapes to reveal a chair, an old rocking chair, painted in frail and chipping blue paint.

"Where did that come from…" she whispered in question under her breath, tugging it from its confined corner and out further until she had brought it only feet from Jack's bedside.

It squeaked when she pushed it against the floor, tilting ever so gently, like the lulling rock of a mother and child. It made her smile giddily and she walked back to the shelf of books to grab one titled Robinson Crusoe. It looked promising, a good story to get lost in while Jack was lost in his dreams. And so she did. Cradled sideways with her bare feet dangling off the arm of the rocking old chair, a blanket half covering her and the pages of the book claiming every bit of her mind and spirit, she immersed herself in adventure.

In fact, it took her so far into the wily trials of a man trapped alone on a deserted island, like the deserted island of her mind; that she drifted into a soft sleep. The sleep she swore to him, she wouldn't take while he took his.


February 1769

Shipwreck Island's Outer Banks


It took them a fortnight to return. Two weeks of downpour from the Irish coast, through the Atlantic in a heavy swell that tossed them quickly about the curvature of the South African beach line, and then another week of churning aimlessly through the islands of Indonesia and the South China Sea. It was an impossible sort of journey, with heavy, beating rains on the windows and panels of the ship, deathly gusts through the topmast sails and a constant diving and rocking between waves that left everyone else tired from lack of sleep.

Everyone but Eva and Jack, that is.

Where he tossed and rolled about in the bed for those two weeks, letting more than one stint of infection pass through him at her continuous care, Eva found herself a contented bed nurse by the first week's end. She rarely moved from that old chair, the one that creaked and swayed with the ship's movements, unless it was to get a new book, or change Jack's bandages, or to stand idly at the windows staring at the storms. Other than that, she found comfort in the haggard wooden boards of the blue seat.

Something about it cured her of all worry. There was nothing to worry about. Jack would be fine once they made it to Shipwreck again. They had found Grace's treasure. And together, she imagined they would eventually be off to collect the rest of it, to sail the Pearl into all sorts of adventures. But her imagination ran wild beside the hindrance of the confession she had stood by in order to manipulate Jack's battle with Daniel. She hadn't wanted to do it, but it came out, naturally so.

"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."

"Yes he can."

"Stealing treasure does not constitute provision, Evangeline. He's a criminal."

"That's not what I meant. I see no noose here. And yet, I delight in the thought of having his children, his child, above yours any day, Daniel."

Eva dreamt of that morning and that admission every moment she slept since then. She thought of how Jack had seemed to want to know about it so badly, not once or twice, but almost every time he woke with pain through the weeks. His eyes were lit up with curiosity, uncertainty, and hopefulness she couldn't understand. He wanted to know about her own desires for it, for a family, children, all of the things she'd felt sure she never wanted for herself.

She was sure she had declared it out of turn. Spoken out on something she only feared in life.

A simple touch on her bare foot, where it rested beside him on the mattress, where her legs were stretched up high from the chair that held her like a womb, was what made her eyes fall open to the light of early day.

"Eva," he spoke her name in a whisper, the cool silver of his rings playing on her toes. "Are ye awake?"

She rubbed her face and eyes with a yawn.

"Yes," her tired reply came when she looked at him. "Awake."

Jack smiled faintly, turned half on his side, staring at her position.

"Like me mother's chair, do ye?"

Her eyes widened, never realizing it could have belonged to such.

"It was hers?"

"Aye," he nodded, "She used to rock me t' sleep in that."

Eva felt she understood then, why she was so drawn to it, so sporadically, so unknowingly.

"It's nice. Comfortable."

"More comfortable than sharing this bed with me, ay?"

Eva saw the tease in his glowing eyes and she rose up and stood by his side, playing with his messy hair and bandana as he held her waist closer to him.

"Not more comfortable than that. But it cannot be helped in your condition."

"I'm quite well now, lass. Yer a good doctor."

She smiled and leaned down to where his lips sat so wanting and ready. Her mouth touched his softly, tasting like love all over. It hurt her to know it too, especially when she felt his hand move from her waist to rest just over her stomach. The kiss broke and she looked down at it.

"I want t' know about it now. Your wishes, tell me. Th' thoughts won't quit me in sleep."

His eyes were longing, desperate to know what he didn't and what he never could without her voice to tell it.

"Speak o' them, love."

She touched his cheek, ready to explain, "Jack--"

And then there were only screams from outside of the door, calls of the crew as they spotted land and hoarded through the ship, preparing it to weigh anchor at Shipwreck. Eva's eyes had temporarily turned from Jack to the door of the cabin, listening to the sounds of rope and sails and shifting stock barrels. But his warm hand rubbing her stomach through one of her hand stitched dresses, made all the difference as she glanced back at him.

"Evangeline, don' be scared o' me now."

"I'm not scared of you. It's just…"

"Wot'?"

"Jack, I--"

A forceful knock came on the door and then Gibbs' voice.

"Eva? We're sailin' in, lass."

Her face made an attempt to turn again but Jack reached up and stopped it, forcing her to look at him with gentility.

"Land can wait, we're still on th' sea. Now speak about this motherly yearning o' yours, before I go mad."

More knocks came, his eyes burned brighter underneath of her, and all she could do was breathe out a small gasp and say, "I misled you, Jack. I can't determine if it's what I want at all. I spoke too soon, I fear."

She watched his curiosity fade to disappointment and it tore at her heart until she cried.

"You—don't…" back and forth his eyes shifted in her eyes, looking for something that wasn't there, "…why?"

"I don't know. I was trying to preserve your goodness against Daniel. I was trying to make him see you were a far more decent man than he could ever hope to be. I wanted him to know whose hands my heart rested in."

"So you lied t' me?"

"I never meant to make you think--"

"But ye did."

There was a hasty snap in his voice and a second later, the door to the cabin opened. Gibbs and a few other men entered to assist in readying Jack to be carried ashore and Eva only stood idly by the bed, holding Jack's solid black eyes until he turned his face from her angrily.

Gibbs tried to ask something of her, "Eva, darlin' can ye hand me that--"

But she spun around, ignoring all of them and stormed out of the cabin and off the docking ship in tears.