Astra Major
Title: Astra Major
Fandom: Hornblower.
Characters/Pairing: Archie, Horatio. Plus, special guest appearance.
Disclaimer: Archie and Horatio belong to CS Forrester, and possibly A&E/Meridian. Lee is the property of whoever owns Battlestar Galactica.
Summary: Horatio and Archie are lost and confused until they meet someone unexpected.
Rating: No idea. PG?
Notes: Inspired, bizarrely, by the interview Jamie Bamber did with the Bunnies where, when asked how Archie survived (which he did - no Archies were harmed in the making of Retribution), he said "So they carried a corpse away and aliens came down and they resuscitated him and now he's living on Astra Major in some other galaxy. And maybe Lee Adama will come across him, you know, what the hell is going on with you, Arch?"
Horatio Hornblower smiled wearily as he finally reached the rocks where he knew, somehow, his friend would be found. It had been a long, hard walk, but it was worth it. "What are you doing, Archie?" he asked as he sat down.
"I'm waiting."
"For what?"
"Not what. Who," Archie said.
"Alright. For whom are you waiting?"
"Him." Horatio looked at the man beside him. His eyes suggested that he hadn't lost his wits entirely, but it was clear his thoughts were elsewhere. Horatio was not going to get his answers easily.
"And who is 'him'?" he said. For several seconds there was a silence in which nothing moved, not even Archie. The the whole place was eerily quiet and still. Archie stirred himself, but it seemed to be an effort.
"I don't know," Archie said. "I'll know him when he gets here, I think. It will be better when he gets here." Horatio was about to respond, though he had no idea what he was going to say, when Archie interrupted him. "Me," Was all he said. Horatio thought about replying, but he still had no idea what he might say, so in the end he said nothing. "Me," Archie said again. "I'm waiting for me. Or not me. I don't know. Another version of me. Another life." Horatio began to wonder if his previous assessment of Archie's mental faculties had been accurate after all. Archie glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, a slight smile twitching at his lips.
"I'm not crazy, Horatio. Someone's coming. He's coming. I don't know how I know, but I do." He paused for a second and fiddled with his cuff. He looked very far way. "I know he's coming, but if I try to grasp hold of the who and the what and the why, it slips away. Like trying to remember a dream." Horatio nodded. It still didn't make sense, but trying to put his strange feeling into words seemed to agitate Archie, so it was probably best not to push too much. Better just to let him answer in his own time, when he was ready.
*****
The two men sat in companionable silence for a time - five minutes? five hours? Horatio didn't know - simply enjoying being back in each other's company. Archie studied the ground, face impassive, lost in his own thoughts. Horatio studied Archie. It had been a long time, and he needed a new Archie to imprint on his mind. Images of the enthusiastic, optimistic young man who fought off his demons so bravely had been replace by memories of a pale, dying figure, lying helpless on a bed in a prison hospital; still brave, still smiling. The man beside Horatio now was more like the man Horatio knew before, though still not quite his old, sunny self.
Occasionally he would glance up at the empty sky.
Finally, Horatio asked Archie the question he had wanted to ask all along, the question he had walked so far to ask. "Archie, am I dead?" Archie turned, laughter and surprise brightening his face.
"Dead? Why would you be dead?"
"Well," Horatio began, and then stopped. Was there a way to put this delicately? Probably not. "You're dead. And you're here. And I'm here. So..." Archie began to laugh, then stopped himself when he saw Horatio's face.
"I'm not dead, Horatio. I told you, I'm waiting." He sighed at the skeptical look on Horatio's face. "Does this look like Heaven to you?" he said, gesturing at the view in front of them. Horatio had to admit that it didn't bear much resemblance to the Heaven he had learned about as a child. It had far fewer Angels and clouds and light than he would have expected, and much more in the way of dust and rocks and more dust.
"You seem very confident we would both go to Heaven," was all he said.
"What? You think we're in Hell?" said Archie. "Surely neither of us have done anything that bad, have we?" For a second the old Archie was there; eyes twinkling, mouth smiling. "I don't think a couple of girls from Drury Lane are enough to get a man sent to Hell. Anyway," he continued, clearly on a roll now, "I sacrificed my good name in an heroic manner to save my friend's life. Surely that's worth a spot in Heaven."
"Indeed it is, Archie," Horatio said, smiling. He looked around again at the barren landscape. "Purgatory, then. You said you were waiting."
"I am waiting, but not for that. Besides, Purgatory is a ship stuck at Spithead. You know that." Archie flashed a quick grin, but this time it didn't reach his eyes. Clearly, wherever they were, the ghost of Simpson had still managed to follow Archie there.
"Anyway, I know where we are." Horatio raised his eyebrows at this.
"You do?" he said. "Where?"
"Astra Major."
"Astra what?"
"Major. Astra Major. It's a planet."
"A planet?" Horatio was growing increasingly convinced that Archie had, in fact, run completely mad.
"Yes. A planet. You know. Like Earth, but not Earth."
"You mean, like you but not you?"
Archie considered this. "Yes, in a way."
"The not you that we're waiting for?"
"Yes, that's - wait. We? You're going to wait with me?" A slow, delighted smile spread across Archie's face.
"It would appear so, Mr Kennedy." Horatio watched as Archie appeared to struggle with what to say next. He couldn't help smiling at Archie's surprise. Did he think he was going to leave him here alone?
"Thank you, Mr Hornblower," Archie said eventually.
*****
The two men continued to sit side by side. Horatio had no idea how long they sat there; the sun was strange here and it was impossible to judge the passing of time.
"How long are we likely to have to wait?"
"I don't know."
"How long have you been waiting?"
"I don't know."
"You're dead, Archie," Horatio said. Archie sat up in surprise. "You have to be. You died. I saw you."
"I'm not dead, Horatio. I told you. I don't know how to make you believe me, but I'm not dead. And you're not either."
"How did you get here? I don't understand. You died, I saw you die. I sat by your bed for hours, hoping for some miracle, hoping there had been some terrible mistake. They came and took your body away and still I sat there. How can you be here? How can you be real?"
Archie frowned as he tried to pull his thoughts together. "I don't know. It's strange. They came and got me."
"They?"
"Yes, they," he said, as if it were perfectly obvious. As if it were perfectly normal to be sitting on a rock in a desert on Astra Major with your dead best friend, waiting for not-Archie to arrive at some unspecified point in the future. "They took me from the hospital, more dead than alive, and they healed me and they brought me here."
"But how, Archie? How did they do these things?"
"I don't know. I know that they did them, but when I think about it too much, it slips away again."
"Like trying to remember a dream," Horatio said.
"Yes."
"Like you but not you."
"Yes."
*****
"Horatio?"
"Archie?"
"How did you get here?"
The question surprised Horatio. He'd been so focused on Archie he hadn't given any thought to his own situation. He tried to remember where he'd been, what he'd been doing. Strange, it was so difficult. It was like, Horatio almost laughed at himself as he thought it, like trying to remember a dream. He had been at a wedding. His wedding.
Oh dear.
Archie was watching him, waiting for a response. Horatio tried to tell him exactly what had happened, or at least what he thought had happened. He had been at the wedding. No, wait. It was before the wedding. He was still on the ship and feeling decidedly ill. He had been talking to William, thanking him, saying he could think of no-one he would rather have standing beside him. Then nothing. He could remember nothing until he arrived in this place and began his long walk towards Archie.
Archie looked amused throughout Horatio's disjointed story, though a closer look revealed that, once again, his smile did not quite reach his eyes. "Married, Horatio? Congratulations. It's not Kitty Cobham, is it?" Horatio actually laughed at that.
"No, Archie. Not her."
"Pity. She would have been good for you," Archie said, surprising Horatio again. "And you were snatched away from Earth just at the point where you were saying that William Bush was the only person you wanted standing beside you." Archie pondered this for a moment. "Interesting. Apparently the people who saved my life are still looking after my interests."
"Archie, are you suggesting that some being or beings swooped down and snatched me from my ship, as they apparently snatched you from your deathbed, to stop me marrying Maria and being friends with William?"
"I'm not saying they necessarily wanted you to stop those things. But clearly, they thought being with me was more important." Archie grinned at him again. "Do you have a better explanation?"
"You mean, other than us both being dead?" Horatio said.
"Yes."
Horatio had to reluctantly admit that he didn't.
*****
"Archie? Are you alright?" Horatio asked. Archie had gone quiet. The kind of quiet where he was wrestling with himself and his fears. Horatio knew it well; he had seen it enough times. "Are you alright?" he said again.
"I'm fine, Horatio. It's just the waiting. After a while, it's just you and your thoughts. It's enough to drive you mad."
Horatio remembered the bridge at Muzillac. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I know."
"It will be better when he gets here," Archie said. "There'll be no more waiting then."
*****
They had just dozed off, Archie's head dropping onto Horatio's shoulder, when they heard the noise. An unearthly, ungodly noise, coming from the sky. Both men scrambled to their feet, looking for the source of the disturbance. They didn't have to look far.
Some Thing was coming towards them out of the sky - a giant mechanical bird with fixed wings, white and red. Horatio could do nothing but stare at what appeared before him. He glanced across at Archie; his face showed wonder but no surprise. "Did you know about this? Did you know this was coming?" he said. Archie nodded.
"Yes. Yes I think I did."
The 'bird' landed several yards away from them; Horatio could see now that it had some sort of glass cover on the top; there was someone inside. The cover slid back and the person got out. A man, Horatio could now see, wearing the strangest clothes he had ever seen; dark green, they seemed to shimmer in a way Horatio had never seen before. He walked towards them purposefully. He knew exactly where he was going, exactly what he was here for. His face became clearer as he got closer and Horatio knew, as he had known since the moment he heard that sound, that this was who they had been waiting for. Archie but not Archie. The hair was darker and shorter, the shoulders slightly broader,the gait more self-assured, but the face and the eyes were oh so familiar. Though Archie, his Archie, had never carried the burdens this man clearly had. It was hard to look at the face he knew so well and see it so careworn. Archie's demons had made him seem young and vulnerable; whatever haunted the young man before him had made him older than his years.
Archie hadn't taken his eyes off the man since he arrived. He seemed to be studying him as Horatio was, looking for similarities and differences. What Archie thought of what he saw, Horatio couldn't tell. He simply looked.
"What, no greeting?" the man said, and his voice was like his face. Archie but not Archie. "I've been looking for you everywhere. I've crossed galaxies to find you. What the hell is going on with you, Arch?"
The two men simply stared at him. What could there possible be to say? Horatio eventually found his voice. "I'm sorry to seem rude, but who are you?"
The man smiled politely and held out his hand. "Lee Adama," he said. "Pleased to meet you."
Horatio grasped the proffered hand. "Horatio Hornblower, sir." He let go of Lee's hand and gestured towards Archie, who still didn't seem inclined to speak. "And this is Archie Kennedy, though you seem to know that already."
"Yes, I know who both of you are." His gaze ran over them both appraisingly. "You're both exactly what I expected, yet nothing like I imagined." Horatio was flummoxed again. Social situations were not his strong point at the best of times; this was certainly well beyond him. Archie was much better at this sort of thing, but Archie seemed happy to let him do all the talking.
For a while, the three men simply stood there watching each other. Or rather, Archie and Lee watched each other and Horatio watched Archie and Lee.
Horatio could feel himself getting annoyed. Who was he? Who was this man, showing up here with Archie's face and Archie's eyes? So similar and so very, very different. It wasn't right. How could it be? How could such a thing exist? Lee's voice jolted him out of his thoughts before they had a chance to really get going. "Shall we go then?"
"Go?" Archie spoke at last. "Go where?" His gaze fell on the machine behind Lee "You mean in that?"
"Don't be silly, Archie. You can't fit three people in a viper." Lee said this as though it was something any child might know. Which, Horatio reflected, where he came from it probably was.
"We'll walk. It's not too far."
"That's good," said Archie. "The walking, I mean. I don't think Horatio would like flying." He glanced slyly at his friend as he said this, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "He's afraid of heights." Lee laughed at this, and when he did, his face transformed. His cheeks dimpled and his eyes crinkled at the corners and he looked more like the man Horatio knew.
"I'll bear that in mind," Lee said as they set off walking, leaving the Viper behind them.
"But where are we going?" Archie persisted.
"It's not far. You'll like it. Tropical beaches, clear blue water, palm trees. I think there might be a bar."
Archie turned to Horatio and smiled; his cheeks dimpled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. "You see?" he said. "Better already."
Fandom: Hornblower.
Characters/Pairing: Archie, Horatio. Plus, special guest appearance.
Disclaimer: Archie and Horatio belong to CS Forrester, and possibly A&E/Meridian. Lee is the property of whoever owns Battlestar Galactica.
Summary: Horatio and Archie are lost and confused until they meet someone unexpected.
Rating: No idea. PG?
Notes: Inspired, bizarrely, by the interview Jamie Bamber did with the Bunnies where, when asked how Archie survived (which he did - no Archies were harmed in the making of Retribution), he said "So they carried a corpse away and aliens came down and they resuscitated him and now he's living on Astra Major in some other galaxy. And maybe Lee Adama will come across him, you know, what the hell is going on with you, Arch?"
Horatio Hornblower smiled wearily as he finally reached the rocks where he knew, somehow, his friend would be found. It had been a long, hard walk, but it was worth it. "What are you doing, Archie?" he asked as he sat down.
"I'm waiting."
"For what?"
"Not what. Who," Archie said.
"Alright. For whom are you waiting?"
"Him." Horatio looked at the man beside him. His eyes suggested that he hadn't lost his wits entirely, but it was clear his thoughts were elsewhere. Horatio was not going to get his answers easily.
"And who is 'him'?" he said. For several seconds there was a silence in which nothing moved, not even Archie. The the whole place was eerily quiet and still. Archie stirred himself, but it seemed to be an effort.
"I don't know," Archie said. "I'll know him when he gets here, I think. It will be better when he gets here." Horatio was about to respond, though he had no idea what he was going to say, when Archie interrupted him. "Me," Was all he said. Horatio thought about replying, but he still had no idea what he might say, so in the end he said nothing. "Me," Archie said again. "I'm waiting for me. Or not me. I don't know. Another version of me. Another life." Horatio began to wonder if his previous assessment of Archie's mental faculties had been accurate after all. Archie glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, a slight smile twitching at his lips.
"I'm not crazy, Horatio. Someone's coming. He's coming. I don't know how I know, but I do." He paused for a second and fiddled with his cuff. He looked very far way. "I know he's coming, but if I try to grasp hold of the who and the what and the why, it slips away. Like trying to remember a dream." Horatio nodded. It still didn't make sense, but trying to put his strange feeling into words seemed to agitate Archie, so it was probably best not to push too much. Better just to let him answer in his own time, when he was ready.
*****
The two men sat in companionable silence for a time - five minutes? five hours? Horatio didn't know - simply enjoying being back in each other's company. Archie studied the ground, face impassive, lost in his own thoughts. Horatio studied Archie. It had been a long time, and he needed a new Archie to imprint on his mind. Images of the enthusiastic, optimistic young man who fought off his demons so bravely had been replace by memories of a pale, dying figure, lying helpless on a bed in a prison hospital; still brave, still smiling. The man beside Horatio now was more like the man Horatio knew before, though still not quite his old, sunny self.
Occasionally he would glance up at the empty sky.
Finally, Horatio asked Archie the question he had wanted to ask all along, the question he had walked so far to ask. "Archie, am I dead?" Archie turned, laughter and surprise brightening his face.
"Dead? Why would you be dead?"
"Well," Horatio began, and then stopped. Was there a way to put this delicately? Probably not. "You're dead. And you're here. And I'm here. So..." Archie began to laugh, then stopped himself when he saw Horatio's face.
"I'm not dead, Horatio. I told you, I'm waiting." He sighed at the skeptical look on Horatio's face. "Does this look like Heaven to you?" he said, gesturing at the view in front of them. Horatio had to admit that it didn't bear much resemblance to the Heaven he had learned about as a child. It had far fewer Angels and clouds and light than he would have expected, and much more in the way of dust and rocks and more dust.
"You seem very confident we would both go to Heaven," was all he said.
"What? You think we're in Hell?" said Archie. "Surely neither of us have done anything that bad, have we?" For a second the old Archie was there; eyes twinkling, mouth smiling. "I don't think a couple of girls from Drury Lane are enough to get a man sent to Hell. Anyway," he continued, clearly on a roll now, "I sacrificed my good name in an heroic manner to save my friend's life. Surely that's worth a spot in Heaven."
"Indeed it is, Archie," Horatio said, smiling. He looked around again at the barren landscape. "Purgatory, then. You said you were waiting."
"I am waiting, but not for that. Besides, Purgatory is a ship stuck at Spithead. You know that." Archie flashed a quick grin, but this time it didn't reach his eyes. Clearly, wherever they were, the ghost of Simpson had still managed to follow Archie there.
"Anyway, I know where we are." Horatio raised his eyebrows at this.
"You do?" he said. "Where?"
"Astra Major."
"Astra what?"
"Major. Astra Major. It's a planet."
"A planet?" Horatio was growing increasingly convinced that Archie had, in fact, run completely mad.
"Yes. A planet. You know. Like Earth, but not Earth."
"You mean, like you but not you?"
Archie considered this. "Yes, in a way."
"The not you that we're waiting for?"
"Yes, that's - wait. We? You're going to wait with me?" A slow, delighted smile spread across Archie's face.
"It would appear so, Mr Kennedy." Horatio watched as Archie appeared to struggle with what to say next. He couldn't help smiling at Archie's surprise. Did he think he was going to leave him here alone?
"Thank you, Mr Hornblower," Archie said eventually.
*****
The two men continued to sit side by side. Horatio had no idea how long they sat there; the sun was strange here and it was impossible to judge the passing of time.
"How long are we likely to have to wait?"
"I don't know."
"How long have you been waiting?"
"I don't know."
"You're dead, Archie," Horatio said. Archie sat up in surprise. "You have to be. You died. I saw you."
"I'm not dead, Horatio. I told you. I don't know how to make you believe me, but I'm not dead. And you're not either."
"How did you get here? I don't understand. You died, I saw you die. I sat by your bed for hours, hoping for some miracle, hoping there had been some terrible mistake. They came and took your body away and still I sat there. How can you be here? How can you be real?"
Archie frowned as he tried to pull his thoughts together. "I don't know. It's strange. They came and got me."
"They?"
"Yes, they," he said, as if it were perfectly obvious. As if it were perfectly normal to be sitting on a rock in a desert on Astra Major with your dead best friend, waiting for not-Archie to arrive at some unspecified point in the future. "They took me from the hospital, more dead than alive, and they healed me and they brought me here."
"But how, Archie? How did they do these things?"
"I don't know. I know that they did them, but when I think about it too much, it slips away again."
"Like trying to remember a dream," Horatio said.
"Yes."
"Like you but not you."
"Yes."
*****
"Horatio?"
"Archie?"
"How did you get here?"
The question surprised Horatio. He'd been so focused on Archie he hadn't given any thought to his own situation. He tried to remember where he'd been, what he'd been doing. Strange, it was so difficult. It was like, Horatio almost laughed at himself as he thought it, like trying to remember a dream. He had been at a wedding. His wedding.
Oh dear.
Archie was watching him, waiting for a response. Horatio tried to tell him exactly what had happened, or at least what he thought had happened. He had been at the wedding. No, wait. It was before the wedding. He was still on the ship and feeling decidedly ill. He had been talking to William, thanking him, saying he could think of no-one he would rather have standing beside him. Then nothing. He could remember nothing until he arrived in this place and began his long walk towards Archie.
Archie looked amused throughout Horatio's disjointed story, though a closer look revealed that, once again, his smile did not quite reach his eyes. "Married, Horatio? Congratulations. It's not Kitty Cobham, is it?" Horatio actually laughed at that.
"No, Archie. Not her."
"Pity. She would have been good for you," Archie said, surprising Horatio again. "And you were snatched away from Earth just at the point where you were saying that William Bush was the only person you wanted standing beside you." Archie pondered this for a moment. "Interesting. Apparently the people who saved my life are still looking after my interests."
"Archie, are you suggesting that some being or beings swooped down and snatched me from my ship, as they apparently snatched you from your deathbed, to stop me marrying Maria and being friends with William?"
"I'm not saying they necessarily wanted you to stop those things. But clearly, they thought being with me was more important." Archie grinned at him again. "Do you have a better explanation?"
"You mean, other than us both being dead?" Horatio said.
"Yes."
Horatio had to reluctantly admit that he didn't.
*****
"Archie? Are you alright?" Horatio asked. Archie had gone quiet. The kind of quiet where he was wrestling with himself and his fears. Horatio knew it well; he had seen it enough times. "Are you alright?" he said again.
"I'm fine, Horatio. It's just the waiting. After a while, it's just you and your thoughts. It's enough to drive you mad."
Horatio remembered the bridge at Muzillac. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I know."
"It will be better when he gets here," Archie said. "There'll be no more waiting then."
*****
They had just dozed off, Archie's head dropping onto Horatio's shoulder, when they heard the noise. An unearthly, ungodly noise, coming from the sky. Both men scrambled to their feet, looking for the source of the disturbance. They didn't have to look far.
Some Thing was coming towards them out of the sky - a giant mechanical bird with fixed wings, white and red. Horatio could do nothing but stare at what appeared before him. He glanced across at Archie; his face showed wonder but no surprise. "Did you know about this? Did you know this was coming?" he said. Archie nodded.
"Yes. Yes I think I did."
The 'bird' landed several yards away from them; Horatio could see now that it had some sort of glass cover on the top; there was someone inside. The cover slid back and the person got out. A man, Horatio could now see, wearing the strangest clothes he had ever seen; dark green, they seemed to shimmer in a way Horatio had never seen before. He walked towards them purposefully. He knew exactly where he was going, exactly what he was here for. His face became clearer as he got closer and Horatio knew, as he had known since the moment he heard that sound, that this was who they had been waiting for. Archie but not Archie. The hair was darker and shorter, the shoulders slightly broader,the gait more self-assured, but the face and the eyes were oh so familiar. Though Archie, his Archie, had never carried the burdens this man clearly had. It was hard to look at the face he knew so well and see it so careworn. Archie's demons had made him seem young and vulnerable; whatever haunted the young man before him had made him older than his years.
Archie hadn't taken his eyes off the man since he arrived. He seemed to be studying him as Horatio was, looking for similarities and differences. What Archie thought of what he saw, Horatio couldn't tell. He simply looked.
"What, no greeting?" the man said, and his voice was like his face. Archie but not Archie. "I've been looking for you everywhere. I've crossed galaxies to find you. What the hell is going on with you, Arch?"
The two men simply stared at him. What could there possible be to say? Horatio eventually found his voice. "I'm sorry to seem rude, but who are you?"
The man smiled politely and held out his hand. "Lee Adama," he said. "Pleased to meet you."
Horatio grasped the proffered hand. "Horatio Hornblower, sir." He let go of Lee's hand and gestured towards Archie, who still didn't seem inclined to speak. "And this is Archie Kennedy, though you seem to know that already."
"Yes, I know who both of you are." His gaze ran over them both appraisingly. "You're both exactly what I expected, yet nothing like I imagined." Horatio was flummoxed again. Social situations were not his strong point at the best of times; this was certainly well beyond him. Archie was much better at this sort of thing, but Archie seemed happy to let him do all the talking.
For a while, the three men simply stood there watching each other. Or rather, Archie and Lee watched each other and Horatio watched Archie and Lee.
Horatio could feel himself getting annoyed. Who was he? Who was this man, showing up here with Archie's face and Archie's eyes? So similar and so very, very different. It wasn't right. How could it be? How could such a thing exist? Lee's voice jolted him out of his thoughts before they had a chance to really get going. "Shall we go then?"
"Go?" Archie spoke at last. "Go where?" His gaze fell on the machine behind Lee "You mean in that?"
"Don't be silly, Archie. You can't fit three people in a viper." Lee said this as though it was something any child might know. Which, Horatio reflected, where he came from it probably was.
"We'll walk. It's not too far."
"That's good," said Archie. "The walking, I mean. I don't think Horatio would like flying." He glanced slyly at his friend as he said this, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "He's afraid of heights." Lee laughed at this, and when he did, his face transformed. His cheeks dimpled and his eyes crinkled at the corners and he looked more like the man Horatio knew.
"I'll bear that in mind," Lee said as they set off walking, leaving the Viper behind them.
"But where are we going?" Archie persisted.
"It's not far. You'll like it. Tropical beaches, clear blue water, palm trees. I think there might be a bar."
Archie turned to Horatio and smiled; his cheeks dimpled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. "You see?" he said. "Better already."