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Hornblower stood in his cabin, peering over his charts, fingers drumming on the table as he ran the calculations a third time. He had to make the decision soon - no more than five minutes, at the most, if he was to take advantage of the weather. And he would make it, and with time to spare, besides.
But that didn’t mean it would be easy.
Very few decisions had been, since taking command of the Retribution. Not that he had never anguished over his choices before, but it was different now. Now, there was a tightness in his chest as he examined his options, dread weighing so heavily over him that it was difficult to breathe, no matter what solution he considered. He never let it show, naturally, and no one watching him could guess that he was anything other than what he had been before, but the struggle was beginning to gnaw away at him.
“You have to choose something, Horatio.”
He snapped up, eyes flicking towards the door to see who was intruding without permission, even though on some level, he already knew it couldn’t be anyone of his crew. None of them would talk to him like that, so blunt and yet so gentle. None of them would say his name in that tone. Only one man ever had.
Sure enough, the door was closed; his privacy was undisturbed.
Slowly, he swept his gaze around the room, finally turning to look behind him, where he met the deep blue eyes of…
But it couldn’t be. Hornblower had seen his wound. He’d sat beside him as he died. He’d attended his funeral.
Briefly, he considered the possibility of a ghost. But the thought had barely crossed his mind before the figure gave an amused smile. “Really, Horatio. You’ve never been one for superstition before. Surely you’re not going to start now.”
Of course. A product of his mind, then. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and, despite it all, tried to bite back a laugh. It was bad enough that he was struck with terror at every decision that had to be made as of late; why not also be plagued with visions of the friend he had lost?
“You have a course of action in mind?” the figure - he was loath to refer to it as Archie, even in his own mind - prompted, reminding him of the issue at hand.
“I… I do,” he said, straightening up, pulling himself together as much as could be expected, given the circumstances, and slipping into the demeanor he would use to deliver his decision. “If we-”
“If you know what you want to do,” the figure interrupted, quiet but firm, “then what’s keeping you?”
Hornblower stood agape for a moment, unable to explain as the icy grip constricted around his chest once more. He glanced back to the charts, forcing himself to formulate an answer, something, anything.
But when he looked back to reply, Archie was gone.
*****
His strange visitor had nudged him out of his indecisiveness, at least, and he went on deck before he lost his nerve, telling the crew of his idea and the logic behind it, the same explanation he’d been about to give to the figure before it cut him off. The action went as planned, and none was the wiser about the doubts that had very nearly overwhelmed him. Hornblower dared to hope that this was a turning point, that the strange symptoms he’d been experiencing would fade away in the face of this new confidence. And for a time, it seemed as though he was correct.
So he was ill prepared when those same symptoms came back with a vengeance a few weeks later. He’d never before been grateful for his seasickness, but when he had to hastily excuse himself because of how much his stomach was tying itself in knots, everyone simply assumed it was more to do with the choppiness of the sea than anything else.
The contents of his stomach emptied, he slumped into a chair and buried his face in his hands, trying to force his breaths to come evenly despite the fact that he felt unable to fill his lungs. It wasn’t exactly a complicated choice. Sail on the expected course, or take a bit of a detour where they were less likely to be spotted. But that...
“That’s exactly what landed you in El Ferrol, isn’t it?”
He squeezed his eyes even more tightly closed. “What do you want, Mr. Kennedy?” he asked, beyond caring at that moment whether this figment of his imagination should be called by his friend’s name or not.
“No offense, Horatio, but all things considered, I think if either of us wants something, it’s you.”
It was true enough, but it didn’t exactly help anything to point that out, didn’t relax the squeezing on his chest that he felt sure would burst his heart or lungs or both. It was hard enough to breathe, let alone think , and everyone was waiting on him for a decision, and if he couldn’t manage this then how could he be counted on when the action had to be more urgent? How could he be counted on to captain this ship? How--
“Horatio.”
“I- I can’t do it, Archie,” he choked out, hating how distressed he sounded, even if the other man wasn’t actually there to hear.
“Then you’ll just anchor here forever, will you?” the figure asked wryly.
Hornblower knew that wasn’t truly an option, but for a flicker of a moment, it seemed the ideal solution. But no, of course, even if it weren’t preposterous from the outset, such an action would have its own arguments for and against; it would do nothing except complicate matters further. “It was my choice that day, Archie,” he forced himself to say. “My choice, that landed my whole crew in that prison.”
“And saved the crew of the Almeria.”
“You- I can’t know that,” he answered testily. “If events before that had been altered, if I’d completed my mission and returned to the Indefatigable as planned, her course might have been different, and the Almeria might not have been driven to that spot at that time.”
“Well, you saved me, at least. You can hardly argue against that, can you?”
The voice was so soft that Hornblower finally looked up at the figure, even though a part of him feared it would be the thing that pushed his heart past the breaking point. It wasn’t, thank God, but it was still a shock: While last time, he - it - had appeared as Archie usually looked while on duty, now it looked as Archie had that day in El Ferrol when he had almost died.
Hornblower had brought him back to the Indefatigable, yes. But before that, he’d nearly driven him to starvation. Could it truly be said he rescued him? And there was something else, something nagging at his mind that he couldn’t quite place.
Trembling, he asked the figure, “Are you saying I made the right choice?”
“I’m saying, Horatio, that it’s not that simple. Every choice is going to have consequences you can’t possibly plan for, no matter how much you try.”
He was frantic, now, and though he wanted to shout, it was suddenly hard to force his voice into anything more than a whisper. “Then what am I supposed to do, Archie?” he asked desperately; if this apparition could give him answers, he was going to take them. He wasn’t sure there was an alternative. Not when the tightness in his chest was beginning to make him wonder if he would actually die before a decision could be made.
A knock came at his door, and his eyes flicked towards it for a fraction of a moment.
When he looked back, the figure of his friend had vanished, and he was alone once again.
*****
He decided on the alternate route, loathing every moment of it. He had tried to find a way to justify staying on the original course, but no, in any calculation he ran, any scenario he could imagine, the risk was minimized by altering their trajectory. In the end, he couldn’t ignore that, even if his every sensibility told him that this choice would end badly, just as it had before.
It would be three days until they were back on the expected course.
By the end of the second, Hornblower could hardly leave his cot, he was so ill. He did, of course, refusing to shirk his duties, but any moment he wasn’t needed on deck, he was spending miserably in his cabin, trying to will himself into feeling normal once more. “Why is this happening?” he forced out to the empty room, as he sat, crumpled, in a corner.
“Do you really not know?” a voice answered him. “Have you really not figured it out yet?”
Hornblower’s head snapped up, finding more relief than he should have at seeing his dearest friend crouched before him, dressed once again as if ready for duty; the fact that this was a sign that his wits were leaving him yet again seemed irrelevant at the moment. “Archie,” he sighed out, not bothering to keep the emotion out of his voice. He wanted to ask what the figure was doing here, or what was wrong with him, or how to make it stop, or any number of questions, but, drained as he was, he couldn’t quite find the strength to do so. What finally came haltingly out of his mouth was, “I… I wish you were here.”
“But I’m not,” Archie replied softly, gazing up at him with a sad smile and eyes full of sympathy. “And nothing is going to change that.”
“I know that Archie, but-”
“Do you?”
It was such a simple question that it caught Hornblower off guard. “I-” He struggled for a moment to compose himself, and cleared his throat before continuing, “Of course I do.”
“Then why are you now, here, in your cabin, waiting at any moment for disaster to strike?”
“Well, that’s…” Hornblower paused, deciding how best to word his answer. “The same sort of decision landed us in trouble before,” he answered simply.
“That’s all?”
“What else would it be?”
“You’re so close, Horatio,” the ghost said gently, “but you’re missing the bigger picture. Tell me, what were the consequences of being sent to El Ferrol? What happened that was so bad that you fear repeating it so much?”
Hornblower opened his mouth to answer, but no words would come. He was imprisoned for months. His men rebelled. He was forced into a hole in the ground. He lost some of his crew. It was terrible, but no worse than anything one might expect. And good came of it, as well. He had found Archie, hadn’t he? He had brought him back to the Indy, they had been able to serve together, until…
Until…
Oh.
“You might still be alive,” Hornblower choked out, as if the words were being wrenched from deep within him. “If I had left you alone, you might be miserable, and hopeless, but alive. Safe.”
“I might be,” Archie agreed, without judgement.
“Then… Then I killed you. My decision killed you.”
“It’s possible. It’s also possible a Spanish guard would have. Or I would have given up sooner, with no one there to talk some sense back into me. But it’s happened, now, and you can’t change it.” Archie sighed, giving him a crooked smile. “But you also can’t kill me again, Horatio, no matter how much you seem intent on believing your choices hold that much power.”
At that, Horatio let out a short laugh, in spite of himself. “...I miss you,” he whispered, after a few moments of quiet, to the figure that he sensed would soon be leaving.
“Obviously,” the imitation of Archie answered with a smirk, “or else I don’t imagine I would be here. But you should rest, while you can. The captain needs to be in top shape, after all, and you’re in rather a sorry state.”
Having no strength to argue, Horatio laid down and did just that.
*****
When he awoke, he looked quickly around his cabin, but the figure, of course, was gone. But in his search, his eyes fell on something he hadn’t thought on for some time: An old, worn copy of Hamlet, which Archie had presented him with, declaring, “Really, Horatio, you should at least be familiar with the play that includes your namesake.”
It had been too painful to look at once Archie was no longer at his side.
He now strode across the room and took the book from the pile, thumbing through it idly, until seeing one section with a note in the margin. The passage read:
HORATIO: If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.
HAMLET: Not a whit. We defy augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
He turned the book sideways, looking at the note in familiar script:
“Simply speaking, Hamlet is saying that if something is going to happen, nothing will stop it; all things, including death, will come eventually - all that matters is being ready for it. Or, to put it even more simply: Stop agonizing over every decision, my Horatio, and let things come as they will.”
Hornblower stared at the writing left by his friend, then shook his head. His fears didn’t dissipate, but the icy grip on his chest, which had become such a constant, started to loosen. Not entirely, perhaps not even much. But it was enough.