Fic: Comfort (HH)
.
Title: Comfort
Author: rosiespark
Characters: Archie Kennedy, William Bush, Dr Clive.
Warnings: No smut, but a hankie might come in handy.
Notes: This is set the night before Revelation. Thanks and love to fajrdrako, a jewel among betareaders.
There is no privacy in a shared cell. Imprisoned as much by the lingering weakness of his own recent fever as by the iron bars of the cell, Lieutenant Bush is unavoidably witness both to Kennedy’s urgent request and to the outraged response it provokes from the doctor.
Kennedy is impervious to both reason and threat. “I must go to the courtroom tomorrow. Early, before they begin the session,” he repeats, and Bush can see his chest labouring with the effort to keep his voice firm and level. Spurred on by the resistance evident in Dr Clive’s face, he continues breathlessly, “It is imperative.”
Clive is at his most supercilious. “As a medical man, Mr Kennedy, I cannot advise-“
Kennedy is inflexible. “It is precisely as a medical man that I require your help, Doctor.” He cuts across the doctor’s protests through sheer force of will, and then pauses, staring absently into the distance with a withdrawn look of concentration. Bush recognises the effort not to cough, not to present his opponents with fresh fuel for their reasoned arguments that will keep him confined to his bed, to this cell, helpless in the face of the travesty of justice that, as is becoming increasingly obvious, requires that a scapegoat be found to protect the memory of Sawyer’s name as one of Nelson’s Own.
What exactly Kennedy hopes to achieve by testifying in person is something that Bush cannot fathom, but it was Hornblower’s visit that was the catalyst for his strange determination. Bush frowns heavily, forcing a mind too long inactive through illness to grapple with the puzzle that is Kennedy’s behaviour.
Clive shaking hands with Hornblower over Kennedy's bed. Buckland making a similar gesture before dispatching Hornblower back to the Spanish fort on a suicide mission.
Both of them, Bush realises, with the air of making their peace with a man they did not expect to see alive again.
Kennedy’s too-bright eyes intent on the man standing at the foot of his bed. “And when they ask you, did you push Captain Sawyer into the hold?” And Hornblower refusing to answer, his face inscrutable in the candlelight.
The nebulous thoughts suddenly crystallise, and Bush looks up and meets Clive’s pale dogged gaze. The doctor, it would seem, has already seen through Kennedy’s elaborate pretence of attending the court martial in person - “so as to eliminate any possible misinterpretation of my written statement”, he keeps saying. The truth is that Kennedy must be intending to change his testimony on the morrow.
“Are you asking me that question now?” The question hanging in the still air. “I am not.” Another evasion. “Then I will answer it when the time comes.”
Guilty or not, Hornblower intends to accept the blame. And Kennedy can only mean to circumvent this with a prior confession. Bush takes a sharp breath to dispel the sudden chill that seems to have settled around him, and directs his attention once again to Clive’s indignant voice. In spite of himself, he cannot help but feel a twinge of black amusement as the doctor is driven to attempting a more conciliatory manner.
“Sir, I am not convinced that you are-“
“Dr Clive, I assure you - I am perfectly sane.” Kennedy’s voice grates. “You have no need to confine this patient within a straitjacket.” He holds Clive’s gaze unflinchingly until ugly blotches colour the doctor’s face and he is forced to look down in defeat.
“Really, sir, I must protest. It would be most unwise. I cannot advise it.” Clive is blustering, outgunned and outmanoeuvred, and they all know it. Yet there is no triumph in Kennedy’s face, only a calm resignation that Bush finds deeply unsettling. Kennedy’s next words are even more disturbing.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” he says quietly, and his lack of emphasis is almost inhuman.
Clive’s response verges on the diffident. “Mr Kennedy, the, ah…prognosis is not in doubt.” All bluster is gone from his voice. “There is, however, a measure of uncertainty as to the timing.”
He falters and briefly turns away from Kennedy’s steady gaze before continuing.
“You may yet live to hang, sir.”
Kennedy’s gaze doesn’t waver. “I hope not.” His voice is quiet, almost contemplative. “For both our sakes, I hope not.” In a flash of painful intuition, Bush knows that these words are not addressed to him or to Doctor Clive, and the shining certainty in Archie’s inward-gazing eyes makes him shiver.
*****
He has done it - the plan is set in motion and it will work. It must. And Horatio’s life, and his splendid career too, will be safe. They have always talked, only half joking, about how Horatio will blaze a trail through the ranks, garnering acclaim and promotions as the Admiralty recognise his quality as an officer, and Archie has never felt jealous. In the dream, he has always been at Horatio’s side - indeed, when has he ever wanted to be anywhere else?
A faint smile animates his face as he contemplates just how far Horatio has come since the day he clambered awkwardly up the Justinian’s side, all those years ago in the rain. In every sense that matters, his own life can be said to have begun on that same rainwashed day. So it is far from unfitting, is it not, that his life should come to a premature end in order to ensure that Horatio’s does not. There is a sense of symmetry, even, when the affair is viewed in this way, which Horatio’s mathematical bent should allow him to appreciate. Or perhaps not. For the first time, a thread of doubt voices itself: Horatio will never accept this from you. Archie shivers. He must. He will. He must be given no choice.
*****
Kennedy is tossing restlessly, muttering broken syllables that are easy to decipher, the one name that he has consistently spoken in sleep and delirium, and Bush finds it impossible to remain inactive on his cot any longer. He carefully levers himself into a sitting position and eases himself off the edge of the bed. Three steps bring him to Kennedy’s side.
“Archie”, he says, capturing one restless hand, and Kennedy stills immediately, his drawn face relaxing into a faint unfocussed smile even before he opens his eyes.
“Mr Kennedy”, Bush says, with unintentional harshness, and Kennedy blinks and focuses as if with a painful effort. And then smiles again, lucidly this time, a controlled tightening of the mouth that just serves to underline his utter exhaustion.
“Archie. Mr Kennedy.” Bush stares down at the painfully young face on the pillow and asks before he can be tempted to censor his own words, “Are you sure?”
“I believe Archie will do.” The slight smile is a trifle easier this time. A halting breath, and the smile slips from Kennedy’s face. “It must be done”. The tone is matter of fact. The shining certainty of earlier has gone; in its place is a tired resignation that claws at Bush’s throat with a rush of choking emotion. He opens his mouth, but is betrayed, as always, by his inability to find words that express more than worthless commonplaces. An instant of hesitation, and the moment slips from his grasp and is lost.
Kennedy’s eyelids have drifted closed again, but his voice is calm and infinitely kind. “Go back to sleep, William.”
And Bush finds that, unlikely as it may seem, rather than dispensing comfort as was his intention, he has himself been offered some form of reassurance. So he settles himself in his cot again, and passes the hours till dawn dozing fitfully, and listening to the sound of the faint breathing that is Kennedy’s tenuous grip on life.
********************************
Cross-posted to crumpeteers. I was hoping to post it to article_xxix as my inaugural squee, but haven’t had a reply to my membership request - so here it is anyway.
::waggles eyebrows suggestively in the general direction of the article_xxix mods::
Title: Comfort
Author: rosiespark
Characters: Archie Kennedy, William Bush, Dr Clive.
Warnings: No smut, but a hankie might come in handy.
Notes: This is set the night before Revelation. Thanks and love to fajrdrako, a jewel among betareaders.
There is no privacy in a shared cell. Imprisoned as much by the lingering weakness of his own recent fever as by the iron bars of the cell, Lieutenant Bush is unavoidably witness both to Kennedy’s urgent request and to the outraged response it provokes from the doctor.
Kennedy is impervious to both reason and threat. “I must go to the courtroom tomorrow. Early, before they begin the session,” he repeats, and Bush can see his chest labouring with the effort to keep his voice firm and level. Spurred on by the resistance evident in Dr Clive’s face, he continues breathlessly, “It is imperative.”
Clive is at his most supercilious. “As a medical man, Mr Kennedy, I cannot advise-“
Kennedy is inflexible. “It is precisely as a medical man that I require your help, Doctor.” He cuts across the doctor’s protests through sheer force of will, and then pauses, staring absently into the distance with a withdrawn look of concentration. Bush recognises the effort not to cough, not to present his opponents with fresh fuel for their reasoned arguments that will keep him confined to his bed, to this cell, helpless in the face of the travesty of justice that, as is becoming increasingly obvious, requires that a scapegoat be found to protect the memory of Sawyer’s name as one of Nelson’s Own.
What exactly Kennedy hopes to achieve by testifying in person is something that Bush cannot fathom, but it was Hornblower’s visit that was the catalyst for his strange determination. Bush frowns heavily, forcing a mind too long inactive through illness to grapple with the puzzle that is Kennedy’s behaviour.
Clive shaking hands with Hornblower over Kennedy's bed. Buckland making a similar gesture before dispatching Hornblower back to the Spanish fort on a suicide mission.
Both of them, Bush realises, with the air of making their peace with a man they did not expect to see alive again.
Kennedy’s too-bright eyes intent on the man standing at the foot of his bed. “And when they ask you, did you push Captain Sawyer into the hold?” And Hornblower refusing to answer, his face inscrutable in the candlelight.
The nebulous thoughts suddenly crystallise, and Bush looks up and meets Clive’s pale dogged gaze. The doctor, it would seem, has already seen through Kennedy’s elaborate pretence of attending the court martial in person - “so as to eliminate any possible misinterpretation of my written statement”, he keeps saying. The truth is that Kennedy must be intending to change his testimony on the morrow.
“Are you asking me that question now?” The question hanging in the still air. “I am not.” Another evasion. “Then I will answer it when the time comes.”
Guilty or not, Hornblower intends to accept the blame. And Kennedy can only mean to circumvent this with a prior confession. Bush takes a sharp breath to dispel the sudden chill that seems to have settled around him, and directs his attention once again to Clive’s indignant voice. In spite of himself, he cannot help but feel a twinge of black amusement as the doctor is driven to attempting a more conciliatory manner.
“Sir, I am not convinced that you are-“
“Dr Clive, I assure you - I am perfectly sane.” Kennedy’s voice grates. “You have no need to confine this patient within a straitjacket.” He holds Clive’s gaze unflinchingly until ugly blotches colour the doctor’s face and he is forced to look down in defeat.
“Really, sir, I must protest. It would be most unwise. I cannot advise it.” Clive is blustering, outgunned and outmanoeuvred, and they all know it. Yet there is no triumph in Kennedy’s face, only a calm resignation that Bush finds deeply unsettling. Kennedy’s next words are even more disturbing.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” he says quietly, and his lack of emphasis is almost inhuman.
Clive’s response verges on the diffident. “Mr Kennedy, the, ah…prognosis is not in doubt.” All bluster is gone from his voice. “There is, however, a measure of uncertainty as to the timing.”
He falters and briefly turns away from Kennedy’s steady gaze before continuing.
“You may yet live to hang, sir.”
Kennedy’s gaze doesn’t waver. “I hope not.” His voice is quiet, almost contemplative. “For both our sakes, I hope not.” In a flash of painful intuition, Bush knows that these words are not addressed to him or to Doctor Clive, and the shining certainty in Archie’s inward-gazing eyes makes him shiver.
*****
He has done it - the plan is set in motion and it will work. It must. And Horatio’s life, and his splendid career too, will be safe. They have always talked, only half joking, about how Horatio will blaze a trail through the ranks, garnering acclaim and promotions as the Admiralty recognise his quality as an officer, and Archie has never felt jealous. In the dream, he has always been at Horatio’s side - indeed, when has he ever wanted to be anywhere else?
A faint smile animates his face as he contemplates just how far Horatio has come since the day he clambered awkwardly up the Justinian’s side, all those years ago in the rain. In every sense that matters, his own life can be said to have begun on that same rainwashed day. So it is far from unfitting, is it not, that his life should come to a premature end in order to ensure that Horatio’s does not. There is a sense of symmetry, even, when the affair is viewed in this way, which Horatio’s mathematical bent should allow him to appreciate. Or perhaps not. For the first time, a thread of doubt voices itself: Horatio will never accept this from you. Archie shivers. He must. He will. He must be given no choice.
*****
Kennedy is tossing restlessly, muttering broken syllables that are easy to decipher, the one name that he has consistently spoken in sleep and delirium, and Bush finds it impossible to remain inactive on his cot any longer. He carefully levers himself into a sitting position and eases himself off the edge of the bed. Three steps bring him to Kennedy’s side.
“Archie”, he says, capturing one restless hand, and Kennedy stills immediately, his drawn face relaxing into a faint unfocussed smile even before he opens his eyes.
“Mr Kennedy”, Bush says, with unintentional harshness, and Kennedy blinks and focuses as if with a painful effort. And then smiles again, lucidly this time, a controlled tightening of the mouth that just serves to underline his utter exhaustion.
“Archie. Mr Kennedy.” Bush stares down at the painfully young face on the pillow and asks before he can be tempted to censor his own words, “Are you sure?”
“I believe Archie will do.” The slight smile is a trifle easier this time. A halting breath, and the smile slips from Kennedy’s face. “It must be done”. The tone is matter of fact. The shining certainty of earlier has gone; in its place is a tired resignation that claws at Bush’s throat with a rush of choking emotion. He opens his mouth, but is betrayed, as always, by his inability to find words that express more than worthless commonplaces. An instant of hesitation, and the moment slips from his grasp and is lost.
Kennedy’s eyelids have drifted closed again, but his voice is calm and infinitely kind. “Go back to sleep, William.”
And Bush finds that, unlikely as it may seem, rather than dispensing comfort as was his intention, he has himself been offered some form of reassurance. So he settles himself in his cot again, and passes the hours till dawn dozing fitfully, and listening to the sound of the faint breathing that is Kennedy’s tenuous grip on life.
********************************
Cross-posted to crumpeteers. I was hoping to post it to article_xxix as my inaugural squee, but haven’t had a reply to my membership request - so here it is anyway.
::waggles eyebrows suggestively in the general direction of the article_xxix mods::