simplestgift | Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

So I heard. From Jack.

[it's a mild reprimand, but a reprimand nonetheless. Still, it doesnt' last]

You can't spend every waking moment looking out for him, Archie. Just like he can't constantly protect you.

Trying is only going to get you both hurt.

[obviously]

I wish I could tell you, Jilly. I do. You would understand if you knew.

[Grell had sworn them to secrecy in order to keep the peace, after Archie's stabbing. She'd agreed with Jack, then, content to do so if it meant ending this. And now Horatio was hurt, with only "it's settled" to say for it.

It wasn't hard to put the pieces together, and she didn't dare push. Not if it would risk more]

I know. I trust you.

I just...wish it wasn't necessary.

It isn't. Very little is necessary. Or I should say, unnecessary things cause certain actions to become necessary.

...I'm here. Just... know that much.

...Did I ever tell you why I did what I did for him?

...to save his life?

[but it's tentative. She can guess he means more, just from the way he presented the question]

[A soft laugh.] Of course. But...I remember speaking with you of second chances, Jilly, and how he gave me mine. I wonder if you shouldn't know the entire story. You might gain some understanding of him from it.

I'm happy to listen, Archie. Always. But you know you don't have to.

[it wasn't an attempt to stop him. Just a reassurance. She wouldn't pressure him]

No, I...I think this feels right, somehow. [There is an odd lightness to his voice, as if he's surprised that this doesn't scare him too badly.] Come to the house. I'll have wine, or chocolate if you prefer.

Wine and chocolate sound fine.

I'll be there in a few minutes.

[and, soon enough, she'll be knocking lightly on the door of their new house]

[He lets her in, looking fairly neutral, having poured a couple glasses of wine that are sitting on the coffee table. There's also some leftover cold cuts of meat and bread, in case she's hungry. Sorry, eighteenth-century diet.]

It's good of you to come.

[the formality of it gets a small smile, but there's enough weight in the invitation that she can't bring herself to tease.]

Of course I came.

[He meant it. But it gets a smile. He sits on the couch and gestures at the wine and food.] I may also have cheese, somewhere.

This is perfect.

A search party can always be sent later if we need it.

[she glances around, but she isn't really surprised to see Horatio gone. Not for this particular conversation. Crossing from the threshold, she'll move to join Archie on the couch and pick up one of the glasses of wine, though she makes no move to drink yet]

[He, however, takes a sip. And makes a disclaimer.]

If you want to ask questions, you may, and you don't have to wait for the end. Though I suppose I have to go back to when I first joined the navy. I'll try to keep it brief.

You know I joined because of my grandfather, of course. And for the first few years, running powder was very exciting. I liked living on a ship very much, as a boy. It wasn't always so terrible. Horatio joined much later, of course--in '93, after I'd been a midshipman for two years. So we did not even meet until I was sixteen. When I was rated midshipman, I was transferred to the Justinian, and a few months later, so was another man. His name was Simpson, and he... [A deep breath.] You should understand that the midshipman's berth on every ship is a den of lions. Seniority means little there, so someone bullies his way into high standing and lords it over the others. I want you to take my full meaning when I tell you Simpson, even in comparison with other men like that, was a monster.

[any laughter that had been in her eyes before was gone now.

She nodded once, at his permission, but she makes no move to ask questions. She doesn't ask for clarification. She doesn't look doubtfully at him when he describes Simpson. There's an understanding there.

What he did doesn't matter. She knows the type too well to disbelieve]

[He takes a deep breath.]

And I was his favorite. [He stops for a second, not quite sure how on Earth one can elaborate on that.] He...didn't like anyone who was younger, or brighter, or more popular. He was...creative, in some ways, but not in others. He had something he called "the proceedings of the inquisition." He'd beat your entire story out of you, till he had something he could use against you. I...hadn't done anything I was ashamed of, when I was fourteen. I sometimes think I should have lied to him just so he would stop, but if he'd ever found out it would've made it worse. And... [A slight, helpless widening of his eyes.] He had nothing. Nothing he could hold over me and make him do his bidding, not from a boy of fourteen. I suppose he...took matters into his own hands, then.

[Another pause, as if considering whether or not to elaborate. Then he lets out a breath, giving her a glance, trying to determine from her face.]

[What do you do to shame a boy of fourteen? There might have been any number of things to fill that gap. A different time... a military setting... maybe a beating would have been enough. But she knows that pain. She knows that shame, unbidden and undeserved, for a crime they didn't commit.

He hasn't confirmed it, but she doesn't ask him to. It's the worst thing she can imagine, and it's what she thinks she sees in his eyes. "It was a long time before anyone could look at me like I was an officer."

If she asks, he could deny it. But part of her already knows what his answer would be...and she can't bear to make him say when there's no need.]

I'm sorry.

[so soft. It's not pity. To pity him is to pity herself, and she doesn't do that either. But there is pain. And a deeper understanding than either of them should have had.]

[Then understands already.

It was easier to tell her than Dawn. If he had to say why, he might try to say it's because he knows, for certain, that Jilly will never judge him for something like this. But if he really thought about it, he might say that it's because he's now told this story to three people who've then made it into his list of "completely trusted." The more he tells, the less difficult it is, although it is not easy. Her soft statement causes him to bob his head in acknowledgment, but he can't say anything to it. Not at this moment. He can feel the vibrations beginning in his bones, not yet visible as shaking, but likely to get there.]

I, ah. [He takes another drink of wine.] I told one of the lieutenants what was happening, and he laughed. He said that I was lying, and if I was not, and I was not able to...to handle it, then I was not fit to be in the navy. So I...I gave up. Everyone had given up by then. A-and it continued, until...until I was sixteen. [She doesn't need the details--Simpson being transferred for his acting-lieutenancy, then coming back a few months later after failing his examination. That isn't necessary.] Horatio came aboard, then, and we were friends almost immediately. Simpson...took to beating him more than the rest of us, though he never--he didn't. With... [Okay, this got so awkward just now, and he sets down his wine and clasps his hands to keep them from shaking.] Horatio challenged him to a duel. Just so he could have an excuse to kill him legally. And-and one of the older midshipmen, he used to try and look after us, when he could. He knocked Horatio over the head and fought in his stead, and died that way. It's...not a story I'll tell, but it's important you know Horatio tried to bring this man to justice and failed.

One night we were commanding the jolly boat of a cutting-out expedition, and I was...I was ill, I suppose you might say. [Telling her about the fits is too much for one night. She knows how bad it was without it.] I was lying asleep in the jolly boat and when I woke up, I was adrift, with no one in sight.

Edited 2011-07-06 06:53 (UTC)

[She hasn't touched her wine, and she doesn't start now. Rather, when his shaking starts, she carefully sets the glass aside and tentatively leans forward, reaching out. Her hand hovers near his, but not on it. Not actually touching. She looks to him for permission, first, because they both understood. It wasn't something you took for granted.

When he doesn't pull away or shake his head to move her she places her smaller hand over his, holding tight as if she could calm the tremors that way. She knows she can't...but it's all she can do.

She can almost picture them, young and angry and hurt and broken against a system that gave them no way out. A century between them and her, and it breaks her heart that, somehow, the story stays the same. And she can see the threads reaching out to today, the filaments stretching through the years, wrapping themselves around Grell and Jack and Luceti until they were tangled up in them again.

He doesn't have to explain the connection. It's as good as spelled out, in her mind.

When he speaks of being adrift, though, the connections become less clear. This was less familiar territory, and all she can do is nod for him to continue, a small chill settling in her stomach]

Edited 2011-07-06 06:57 (UTC)

[when she touches him, he initially looks a bit more alert, chin raising, then grasps her hand, fully for support. It is so, so rare now for him to be unable to withstand any sort of physical contact, but it does happen sometimes. From women it's automatically easier. He steadies somewhat, though he tries to remember not to hold her tiny hand too tightly.]

I didn't learn the rest of the story for two more years. I was captured by the Spanish--neutral, at the time, but they didn't know what to do with me. So they kept me in one of their prisons. Five times, I tried to escape. The last time, they... [Okay, absolutely no one in Luceti knows this except for Horatio. He lets out a breath. It's part of the story.] They put me in a hole in the earth with no room to stand up or lie down, and locked me in for a month. When I came out, I could not walk and I was half-mad. And shortly after, Horatio...carelessly wandered into the midst of the Spanish fleet after they'd allied themselves with France, and he and his men were sent to the same prison.

[There is a long, long pause, during which his voice evens out.]

I think I knew that...I think I'd reckoned by then that Simpson had cut the mooring line during the attack, and set me adrift, and that it would not have happened had Horatio not stood against him. He thought he had no hold over us anymore, and so tried to kill me. So when Horatio came, good God his was the last face in all the world I wanted to see.

He told me Simpson was dead. He'd tried to kill us both, that night, and he and Horatio fought another duel over it. Simpson fired early and so had to stand and take fire, but Horatio couldn't shoot him in cold blood. He fired into the air instead. Simpson almost stabbed him in the back for his generosity when Pellew gunned him down himself. Horatio never forgave himself for it, Jilly. He still hasn't. He believes he owed it to me, somehow, as if it would have made any difference. He tortures himself over it to this day. But when he told me, all I could hear was that Horatio Hornblower has all the luck in the world, saved by his captain, and already acting-lieutenant while I rotted in a Spanish cell.

[it's a lot to take in. The events that were burned into his memory were foreign to her, so that only bits filtered through as she tried to process it and keep up with him.

Some are painfully clear. As he describes the imprisonment and the torturous hold, she can't help the look of horror that flashes across her features. It's not that she hasn't heard worse. Worse or similar or less doesn't matter. It's that it was too much.

"Why do some men break and others just...don't?"

He'd asked her that,too, and she could have answered why, tonight. It was because they were given so much. More than anyone could take and remain sane. Beaten and tortured and left for dead... it was a wonder they ever came out the other side.

The rest of the story, though, was where their paths diverted. Because the resentment he mentioned was familiar...but not for her. It was an altogether different echo, and her sorrow and sympathy was for both young men...one the fortunate unfortunate...and one left to suffer a worse fate far out of fortune's reach.]

Edited 2011-07-06 07:29 (UTC)

[This pause is longer, to let the story sink in. The shame over his old hatred of Horatio lingers in his voice as he continues.]

I hated him, Jilly. I hated how he talked of escape and of going back to the Indy when...God, even if I'd wanted to live, I wouldn't know how to live on a ship again. Among people. Among real men. I wanted to lie in my bed until I died of it and I wanted to do so in peace, instead of with him there, charming the Don and his lady guest. Taking walks outside, on parole, which he always kept. I couldn't even walk, and I did not wish to. He spoke so often of escape, but would not do it until I was strong. He shamed me, telling everyone I was the one keeping them there, as good as his intentions were. I did not want to go back, and I was keeping him and everyone else from going already, I wanted to die, and I was too weak to accomplish it any way but one. So I-I gave my food and water to a cellmate when Horatio wasn't looking. God, Jilly, I wasn't even a person, then, and I knew it. But he did not. I almost died one afternoon. I don't remember very much about it, but I woke in the prison's sick berth, where he had carried me after begging the guards to let him. We fought--

[His voice catches, and he lets out another breath. His eyes are glassy, lost in a memory, so occupied with staying calm through the story that he's not quite sure why he's telling it any longer.]

He was only trying to get me to drink a little water. I remember telling him I did not want to hear from everyone how Horatio Hornblower had rescued his shipmate from prison. And he said a lot of rubbish, about how they all needed me to escape. But then he said...I'm not sure I could tell you all the words, Jilly, but he told me I was still part of the crew. That I could not let him down. And I remember him holding the cup to my lips and I drank.

I don't remember why, exactly. I think it might have been the first honest thing he'd said to me all night. And...seeing him see me as a man, I think part of me did not want to let him down. It didn't change much--I still wanted to die. But I don't remember anything until I woke the next morning. I'd had a little water, so I'd slept well, and I felt hungry. And strange as it sounds, it felt good. I hadn't been hungry in a long time, you see, after a day or so you stop feeling hungry and you simply feel weak.

So I ate. He fed me, actually. And I slept again, and woke feeling a little stronger. I told him something useful to him. Small things, such small things, but by the end of the day, I was alive and a little better. The next day was much the same, and the next, and once I caught myself daydreaming about going outside the next day, into the sun. I hadn't thought like that in...

[He blinks rapidly a few times, breaking out of the near-trance, and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. Then he squeezes her hand briefly and releases it.]

["Are you me?"

Luceti had made them twins for a week, but what they really shared...

The similarities were painful.]

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