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Victory, 1811
George, lifted by the smallest midshipman, patted the figurehead and laughed. Joe felt Kite stiffen at his side.
"Be careful!" Kite snapped.
Joe turned his head slightly. Enough so he could catch Kite's eye and still keep George in sight. "Sea's calm enough," he said. "And Annabel's got a grip like a pair of carpenter's pincers. You said yourself that the sooner the twins get comfortable with the ship and her ways the better off we'll all be, and it's already been months."
"Hmm," hummed Kite, through tight, white lips.
"I won't let him go overboard, sir!" said Annabel in her bright, cheerful voice. "An' if I do, there's always a spare."
Joe laughed. Annabel would one day captain her own ship, if she didn't get herself killed first. Kite didn't laugh.
"Put him down now, if you please." The words seemed friendly enough, but Joe could hear the ice laced through them, and it seemed Annabel could too, as her expression switched from smiling to solemn in an instant.
"Oopsie, Georgie, down we go," she murmured to the little boy, swinging him away from the rail and lowering him to the deck. She took his hand, not looking back up at Kite. "Shall we go and find Bee? I bet she's bored of being good for Nurse by now."
"Find Bee," echoed George, and let himself be led away.
Joe watched them down the steps then turned back to Kite. His fists were clenched, knuckles as white as the tight line of his lips.
"Hey, relax. If you're going to worry like this every time one of the twins goes near the edge, you're really not going to enjoy the next few years. Of course, you could just imprison them in the nursery for life. Or--here's an idea--we could teach them how to swim." He pushed Kite's shoulder with a friendly fist, waiting for the careful control to break. It didn't.
Joe's hand dropped. Why was this- Oh. God. He swallowed hard. They had been avoiding this for months, a child-shaped hole in the middle of their happiness. Head in the sand, thought Joe. As if that were ever a long term solution for anything. He stood up straighter, looking over the top of Kite's head.
"I think it's time to talk about it, don't you?"
Joe could feel the resignation radiating from Kite's body. He most assuredly did not want to put them through this, not after everything it had taken to get them this far, but there was no choice. There were some cruelties and violences you could live with, after all, if you could understand them. It was even bravery, sometimes. But he'd never understood this, and it would eat at them both, an unhealed wound, until it had hollowed out their bones.
Without speaking, or beckoning him to follow, Kite crossed the poop deck to the stairs. For a brief second, Joe thought he was refusing to engage, and his bones ached. And then Kite looked over his shoulder, a slow blink of acknowledgment, and Joe breathed out.
Joe followed Kite to the stateroom, closing the door with deliberate care. Kite stood by the windows of the office, his face in shadow. Joe wasn't sure what to do with himself. Did the Navy even have a protocol for discussing with your Captain his murder of a child? Probably they did, he thought, somewhat hysterically, although he'd have to go to the Admiralty to check through the books and they weren't due for shore leave for another few months.
"Shall I sit?" he asked, aiming for neutral-to-jovial, and hitting cusp-of-puberty instead. He cleared his throat. "Do you want to? Sit, that is."
"Do what you choose, Joe," said Kite, who seemed to be bang on at hitting neutral. Joe considered that to be unfair.
He sat on a red, upholstered chair on the far side of the brazier. It hadn't been lit these last few weeks, the weather creeping warmer as the months and the latitude passed. Joe's memories were still all tangled up, the repeated combing through them only shaking knots loose at random, but he could remember late spring being his favourite time aboard, when there was life in the ocean, and warm sun in the sky, with the odd capricious wind and sudden storm to keep things interesting. He stretched out his legs, one boot setting off a sonorous clang as it knocked against the cold metal brazier.
As if it were a signal, Kite moved away from the windows, taking an identical chair on the opposite side of the brazier from Joe. Beyond touching distance. Kite's hands gripped his knees. His back arched as he took in a long, deep breath. He looked up, straight into Joe's eyes, steady and determined. It made Joe want to flinch away, but he forced himself to stay still.
"All right, Joe," said Kite. "Ask."
Everything in Joe screamed at him to run away from this, push it back down. What was understanding against the comfort they had found anyway? Get a grip, you fool, he told himself. You'll destroy everything if you're a coward now.
Joe said, "Fred. I never understood. Why did you kill him, Kite? I know how set you were on me not knowing, but would it have been so horrible? Couldn't we just have had…" he waved his hand between them, "this earlier? And let Fred alone?"
If he had expected a passionate defence from Kite, Joe was doomed to be disappointed. He sat ramrod straight, and Joe saw the exact moment Kite turned to glass. If he reached out and tapped Kite's hand, surely it would shatter under the touch. He'd seen this before, this glass fragility, that had always seemed so incongruous set against the day-to-day reality of Kite: his confidence, his casual violence, the sheer strength of will that kept his body going under circumstances that would have caused most to curl up and die, or at least demand a tumbler of something strong enough to take the lining off your stomach.
This time was different. This time the gears clicked round in Joe's head, opening up a new layer of sight. Kite was shifting sands, blown this way and that by powers beyond his control like wind across the shore: Agatha, the Navy, Lawrence, hell, even the Kingdoms who had shifted the course of his history. Where would he have been without the defeat at Trafalgar? Without Jem? And he'd done what he was ordered, done his duty, no matter what that had cost him. How could anyone survive that without squashing every difficult thought and feeling down to the very core of him? Of course he was glass: sand under heat and pressure.
Joe desperately wanted to reach out for him, pull him into a comforting hug until Kite relaxed against him, safe enough to feel something at least. But he couldn't. Not yet.
"Kite," he said into the silence. "Miz, please."
"I didn't want to." Kite was so quiet Joe had to lean in to hear. He couldn't bear the idea of making Kite repeat himself.
"I think about him every day. I don't know why out of all the- But I do. There were so many lives at stake, Joe--our whole country--and you would have known. I know you would. That I wouldn't--couldn't--hurt you, or let you be hurt, if you'd made up your mind not to help. Even with England at stake I couldn't- Fuck, I'm pathetic." He pressed his hands into his face, and Joe could see his skin whiten around the edges of them.
Joe's heart strings pulled so tight he had to sit back up. Kite would have sacrificed England for him. What had he ever done to deserve such devotion? He hadn't been particularly heroic, or even that interesting beyond being from the future, as far as he could tell. He supposed that he had been able to dazzle Kite with equations, but that was no foundation for empire-ending love.
And still, there was a dead child.
"The needs of the many requires the sacrifice of the few," he said slowly.
Kite nodded.
"Bullshit." Joe was angry now, a hot flash like a spark set to spilled gunpowder. "I could have been the few. Fred could have told me my name, you could have clapped me in irons and shoved me in the brig so I didn't yell about it, and shipped me off to Lawrence the second we smashed the blockade. We lost a fair number of the few then and you didn't even break out your contingency apple. I'm all for sacrifice to end a war, but shouldn't I have had the choice to make it mine?"
Kite dropped his hands. "Did we all have a choice when you sailed through the stones and changed everything?" There was no animosity in his voice, but Joe felt it like a knife anyway.
"Are you saying Fred's death is my fault now?"
Kite shook his head, appalled. "No! I don't blame you for anything. I did, I think. But for turning up at the lighthouse not because you remembered, but because you were the person I'd already planned to pressgang. I blamed you for that. I hated you too."
"Oh," said Joe, voice barely audible to his own ears.
Kite grimaced. "You were only a mirror, Joe. It didn't last long. You're just so damn charming." The grimace transformed into the ghost of a smile. Kite rubbed over the destroyed tattoo. Joe had started on the other arm some months ago. It was a work in progress. He was using waveform equations, taking measurements randomly en route and converting them into diagrams, tattooing each in a bracelet around Kite's arm. He was halfway to the elbow by now. He could-Fuck. Fuck.
"Dammit, Kite!" Joe was unsure if he was angry with Kite for distracting him, or angry with himself for allowing himself to be derailed so easily by Kite's good or bad opinion of him. He leapt to his feet and started to pace, heart beating like a trapped animal flinging itself at the bars of a cage. "This is not something you can slide out of or shoot your way out of. You killed a boy. A child. And not only that, but you decided that you were judge, jury and executioner of my life. You killed Jem, or at least you seemed determined enough to keep him dead once he'd gone. Fred is worse--far worse--but Kite." Joe choked and pulled up short, fighting against a swelling in his lungs like he was going under. He looked at Kite.
Kite had never seemed smaller than this moment, never so far from the psychopath Joe had been so sure he'd seen in those early days after the lighthouse. His skin was ashen, the burn scars silver rivers ridged across the side of his face. If Joe hadn't known better he could have sworn the coat that had fit perfectly across Kite's shoulders only minutes ago was now two sizes too big, Kite diminished inside it. Sorrow and remorse clung to him like barnacles to the hull. They would be as difficult to scrape off, too.
With a wrench, Joe heaved himself round to the door, hand grasping the wooden handle, smooth from years of use. Walking away with everything at sixes and sevens between them was as crushing as it had always been, no matter that Joe understood now that it had been Jem's desperation reaching out and not some strange psychiatric compulsion or deathwish. He twisted the handle and paused, glancing back over his shoulder,
"I have to go away now," he said. "I don't think I can be in the same room as you."
Kite flinched, but nodded, letting his head come to rest at the bottom of its arc. Joe read resignation in every line. "I understand. I wish I could say the right words, but I'm not sure I could find them even if they do exist."
He sounded so defeated that Joe had to plant his feet hard against the ground to prevent himself from running to gather Kite up. But that wouldn't get them past this and Joe had spent too many years lost to let himself be lost again.
"You'll work it out. I know you will." And then, because the pain in Kite's eyes was more than he could bear, "I knew this about you when I came with you. When I kissed you. When we- I knew and I came anyway."
He opened the door, not waiting for a response, and stepped out into the daylight.
Victory, one week later
Joe did not spend that night in the repurposed Admiral's sleeping cabin, nor the next either. His excuse that he wanted to spend some time with the children as he had in their old lives wore thin very fast. Joe and Kite may have been careful not to call attention to the recategorisation of their relationship, but most everyone aboard understood how it was nonetheless. Those who had been with Kite since the London evacuation mostly thought that anything that brought him a measure of peace worked out well for Kite and them alike, no matter if what happened between watches made some imaginations curl.
Ship life continued on, however, and Kite and Joe were forced together to teach the young midshipmen. Joe seemed not to have a care in the world, joking with the children and awarding points to those who cracked his toughest equations the fastest. Kite tried his best to emulate Joe, but the merest glance at Joe's face made him sick to the stomach, already imagining a world where they were become strangers a fourth and final time. He had always had a talent for compartmentalisation, but here, it seemed, he had reached his limit. Like the great train that had brought them north, Kite thought perhaps at some unknown point along the way he had filled completely. Standing room only these days.
The children sensed the ropes strung taut between them, glancing at each in turn with unease. Every single last one was on their best behaviour, both in lessons and on watch, as if sheer goodness of will could make any hint of darkness disappear. Not one of them had made the Outstanding Idiots board in the last week.
Annabel looked up at Joe from where she had been diligently working on waveform equations. "Could you find the height of waves in a storm, sir?" she asked. "And so the force? Then perhaps we could predict if the mainmast may break and ship it sooner?"
Joe frowned in thought, the bridge of his nose crinkling like always. It was one of the first things Kite had loved about Jem, and one of the first he'd wanted to kiss away. Kite's stomach protested the thought, and he gritted his teeth against it, determined not to show his junior officers any weakness.
Joe said, "That's an interesting thought. Perhaps some sort of triangulation. And then you'd have to have wavelength too, which isn't so easy in a moving vessel. Worse still in a storm with the wind changing direction and confusing the ocean. Of course, it would have to be tested in controlled conditions first. Not the kind of situation where you'd want anything to go wrong."
"Right, sir. But-" What Annabel's 'but' was went unexplained as the ship's bell rang and Joe hurried all the children out of the door to the galley.
"Have you eaten something?" he asked Kite as he passed. "You should eat something."
Kite could think of only one thing he wanted less.
Once the room was quiet, Kite sat behind his desk, the divots blown out of it by the bombing now sanded and shellacked as if it had never been designed with four straight sides in the first place. Kite had long learned to love it for what it was. He leaned sideways and opened a lower drawer. On top of The Forest of Montalbano--a book Joe had bought for him before they'd shipped out of Southampton--was the scarf Joe had worn on his last trip through the stones. Kite picked it up and lifted it to his face, breathing in deeply. It still held Joe's scent: one of the golden threads that ran through every iteration of Joe.
Kite remembered when he'd first smelled it on Jem, on one of those confusing times Jem would come close, clasping Kite's neck, and how it had immediately smelled like home. And how, over the months and years, it had come to represent both safety and arousal, and how Kite had fought to kill the one whilst saving the other. It hadn't worked, of course, and if Joe smoking cigarettes in close quarters had been hard enough, lying next to him that night in the lighthouse had been close to unbearable. Kite had wanted to bury his nose in the crook of Joe's neck and breathe him in, promising himself it was merely a different kind of farewell. Joe's face was so like Jem's in repose that Kite could let himself believe for a moment that Jem's forgetting had all been some sort of fever dream, and here they were again, the two of them, ready for the next adventure.
Only Joe had made a soft, snuffling sound in his sleep, one arm flopping over Kite's chest. It was nothing like Jem, who tended to fall asleep at his convenience as silent as the grave and wake in the same position he'd begun in. Kite had jerked himself away, forcing himself to leave the warm comfort of blanket and Joe's side, and gone to sit on the cold stone of the stairs until he had wrested himself back under control.
When Joe had come aboard--no, thought Kite, tell the truth now, if only to yourself. When Kite had kidnapped and pressganged Joe, he'd kept his distance as much as possible. Not only for many practical reasons, but also because he knew that if something were to break him, were to push past Kite's honour and duty and desperation to save what was left of the adopted country that didn't even love him back, it would have been his face pressed to the notch below Joe's collarbone, drinking him in like the addict he was.
Kite buried his nose deeper in the scarf, crushing it between his hands. Joe. What was he supposed to do? Even facing certain defeat at Trafalgar, Kite had never felt so helpless. How was life negotiated when not following or giving orders? Sometimes--at his most drunkenly maudlin--Kite wondered if things might have worked out differently for him if he'd chosen another name. Kites: only ever in control of the person holding the string or at the mercy of the winds. They had no freedom to chart their own path, to be unpredictable, unexpected.
He let the scarf drop, twisting it compulsively around his wrist. Kite had accepted a long time ago that what had happened with Fred--honesty, Kite--that killing Fred was an unforgivable action. Even if the wave had been about to take Fred with it anyway, Kite had withheld his aid, had slapped Fred's hand away as he'd reached for Kite's arm. That was murder, pure and simple--not an act of war. And if he hadn't believed it, Fred's expression, transformed in an instant from mutinous anger to disbelieving terror, would have hammered the point home.
He hadn't wanted to be forgiven for it either. He’d pushed Revelation Wellesley to be angry with him, to hate him, to force the issue and perhaps have him relieved of command if he'd survived what was coming. Instead, she had come to him later, whilst the surgeon was fixing his shoulder, and told him that she didn't have to understand every decision taken in war, it was enough that Kite had deemed it necessary. He had wanted to shake her hard. Would no one hold him to account?
But Joe. Before Joe had spoken, Kite had never considered that he had done anything wrong by him. He thought he had been keeping both Joe and his people safe. He was used to making decisions that could have a devastating impact on his crew: that was war. It didn't do to second guess himself, and to take the time to consider each move from every angle. This was only a leisurely chess game for those at the top, moving their ships and regiments across the global board. Here, on deck, in the midst of it all, there had to be clarity, confidence and quickness of thought. He had to believe in himself as a strict, but benevolent, father to them all. Everyone had their role and importance, but only the Captain took responsibility for every choice: the good and the terrible alike.
So he'd fought his recalcitrant emotions, and set his course of action. Joe must help. Joe must not understand the whole of his life. This was what Kite kept coming back to, night after night, alone under the tent of his bed, wondering if Joe slept in the nursery or stared up at the ceiling, counting the days until they made landfall and he could take the children and be off, away from Kite and his horrific decisions. Joe must help. Joe must not understand the whole of his life. Kite's hand, still twisting and untwisting the scarf, froze. Oh god, how had he been so blind to this before? Joe hadn't been a member of his crew, even if Kite had sought to bind him with the Articles of War. Joe had been at best one step above a prisoner. Joe had been someone Kite loved with everything that was in him to love. Kite had been so devoted to his own misery of having Jem's mirage in front of him every day that he had imposed his will where it had never belonged. Love should never be about control. And yet- Agatha had wanted to tell Joe everything, and Kite had hardened like granite against the idea, convinced of the superiority of his own strategy. Was it mere jealousy all along? That Kite had Jem back, even if it was only some twisted semblance of him, and that as long as he knew nothing Kite could keep it that way? No, surely not just that.
"You idiot!" Kite banged his hand down on the desk, the stinging burn across his palm a stern reprimand. Joe was right. Kite had no place keeping his history from him, for not allowing him to make his own choices and live by them. Of course--of course--Joe had been desperate to get home to Lily, but might not knowing his past have meant he was willing to make that sacrifice? Perhaps if he had understood that his arrival through the stones had been why England was in this mess in the first place, a desire might have been sparked in him to make some recompense by sharing his expertise. On the other hand, he may well have refused his assistance, and then Kite would have had to take action. He may have been too weak to carry through his numerous threats of harm, but was Joe right again? Had there been another way?
Kite gripped the edge of the desk with both hands and laid his forehead on it. Chalk another one up to the failures of Missouri Kite, he thought. I'm sorry, Joe. Part of him wanted to run to find Joe immediately, to grab his hands and apologise: for all the terrible things he'd done to keep Joe from himself, for choosing that course in the first place, for Fred, for not understanding that freedom, like love, meant accepting the potential of loss. The other part--the part whose heart kept a steady pace in the face of cannon fire and the driving of a sword into a man's guts at close quarters--told him no, slow down, wait, think. Get this right. Kite, though considering himself entirely rational at the time, had listened to the first voice when he'd lied to Joe, whispering in his ear the horror of being found out as a fraud, as a pathetic romantic who couldn't let go. Perhaps it was time to listen to the second. Forgiveness might be out of reach, more than Kite deserved, but maybe there could be the clean pain of a lanced wound between them instead of this constant dull, festering ache.
It took another two days before Kite had crafted, polished and rehearsed the speech with which he planned to present Joe, offering it as a gift with no expectations. He had never been much of a talker, and allowed himself to feel a little proud that it took an entire minute to recite end to end. He had even timed it. But if he had been hoping for the right time to lay it at Joe's feet, he was to be sorely disappointed. It seemed as if when Kite arrived anywhere, Joe was just leaving. It wouldn't do to have the Captain calling lovesick after one of his Lieutenants and begging him to stay, so he didn't.
On the third day, Kite strode onto the quarterdeck to check the carpenter's progress on the port elm tree pump, the sole remaining repair after their latest skirmish with a French gunship. Three sentences into their conversation, a marine passed by, looking upwards and let out a long whistle of surprise. Kite followed his gaze. Iron grey clouds rolled across the blue expanse like rot across a barrel of fruit. It was as if they had materialized from nowhere, and Kite knew enough about these kinds of storms for a thrill of fear to run up his spine. He looked out at the water and the cat's paws were widening, the seas rising up behind them.
Kite stifled his concerns and a sigh. Really, this was all very annoying. He had other things to do. "All hands!" he yelled. "Batten every last thing!"
The crew stared at him, stupefied by this sudden change of direction on what had promised to be an easy enough day. Kite stabbed his finger skyward.
"Move!" he shouted. And they did because the sun had just been blotted from the sky, and no one could miss what was coming.
Kite wheeled on his heel, and walked with calm purpose up to the poop.
"Captain," said Wellesley, Officer of the Watch, standing by the mizzen, straight-backed and ready.
"The usual," said Kite. "We need to feed the crew. Port watch first and then back on duty. Starboard watch next and then to hammocks. If we can manage this delightful weather event without exhausting everyone, then it's all to the good."
Wellesley nodded, and relayed the orders. Joe's voice cut through the clamour of noise, ordering everything made safe, and there was nothing in his voice to suggest that this wasn't just another ordinary everyday occurrence and what was all the fuss about? Kite relaxed very slightly, amused at how quickly Joe had assumed the authority of a naval officer of years' standing, rather than one who had forgotten everything he knew twice and still had recurrent bouts of seasickness when the wind blew in the wrong direction. He hoped someone was following him with a bucket, just in case. In the few minutes it took for the Port watch deckhands to return the wind was gusting fast enough that Kite ordered most sails reefed, allowing only a single fore staysail to remain. Sailors swarmed the rigging, the symphony of creaking from canvas, mast and stays quieting down as each sail was lowered and bound.
"Our last known position was here," Wellesley squatted on the deck and pointed to a place on the chart she'd had rolled under her arm, keeping it from flying away by the genius plan of standing on it. She looked up at Kite, the wind lifting strands of her hair from its well-groomed plait and whipping it about her face. She spat hair out of her mouth. "We're at the end of a larboard reach, so we need to go about, get some sea room and then run. Who the hell knows how long this will last?"
"You heard the woman," Kite said to the helmsman, an old hand known as Young Bill, raising his voice to be heard over the whine of the wind and the high-pitched humming of the lines. "Ready about."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n."
Kite took the wheel alongside Young Bill, and they hauled together, the ship shuddering through the waves crashing against her bow. For a moment it looked as if they were in irons, with no choice but to run before the wind backwards, and then Victory was moving again, yawing violently like she was shaking off unwanted attention.
The deck rolled and groaned under his feet and Kite locked his knees to steady himself. "Come on girl," he said, patting the wheel as he let go of the helm. "We can do this."
Wellesley rolled up her chart and stuffed it inside her coat. Just in time, it turned out, as the heavens lit up with a thunderous crack and the rain started to fall. It was cold, driving rain, slicing into bare skin with the force of scattershot. The deck--and everyone on it--was soaked in seconds. Kite pulled on his leather gloves and stood with Young Bill, taking over the helm after a few minutes, giving him the chance to ease his arms and to push away the hair that was plastered across his eyes. It was almost night-dark and the rain and spray from the waves was limiting the visibility further, anything forrader than the main mast a guess at best. It occurred to Kite he couldn't hear Joe anymore. His stomach lurched in concert with the ship as it took a wave broadside on.
"Can you manage here?" he yelled at Young Bill.
Young Bill wiped his eyes against the arm of his coat without taking his hands off the wheel and nodded.
"I'll send someone along," Kite promised. He made his way down from the poop, moving forward, leaning into the wind, passing men checking the lanyards around the carronades were secure. If one were to loose it could blast right through the deck rail and take God knew how many of the hands with it.
"Don't take chances. Lash yourselves now," he shouted, his voice blown backwards on the wind. He mimed tying a rope around his waist. The men nodded. One frowned and pointed back at him. Kite grinned and shrugged, indicating his epaulettes, and went on his way.
Drake, now Captain of the Marines, scuttled past, clamping his hat to his head, on his way below. Even over the roar of the wind and water, Kite could hear the dull, steady beat of drums from amidships on the lower gun deck, keeping the men on the chain pump moving in time. Kite put out an arm to stop him.
"Have you seen Joe?"
Drake shook his head. "Couldn't see my own prick if I hauled it out in this, Captain!" he said, and Kite once again wondered if other Captains had to manage with this degree of oversharing or if it was his sole prerogative.
Refraining from snapping out a curt rejoinder and only asking Drake to send up someone on the chain pump to the helm, Kite kept moving, scanning the deck as he went, hand over his eyes to keep the rain and sea foam out. He was used to the roll of heavy seas, keeping his knees loose so he wouldn't stagger, but even Kite couldn't withstand a sudden yaw as the Victory was struck abeam by a wave that washed across the deck and poured into the tops of his boots. He lurched sideways, grabbing onto the lashings around the stowed boats to steady himself. Something round pressed into his ribs. No need for the contingency apple yet, thought Kite. We've weathered far worse storms than this.
He straightened up, keeping close to the relative protection of the long boats. As he emerged onto the fo'csle, he could hear Joe's voice, though not what he was saying. He could just about make him out, too, a misty figure looming near a smaller one, just too far to reach.
For a second, Kite breathed a sigh of relief. Or at least that was his plan, only then another huge wave chose to smash across the hull, causing the ship to tilt at a crazy angle to starboard. Kite barely managed to keep his feet this time, grabbing onto the belfry to keep himself from being swept overboard. A stay came loose from the foremast, whipping across the fo'csle, and catching the small figure in the chest, already wrongfooted by the deck being several feet lower than their boot was expecting. Kite watched in horror as the child lurched backwards, unable to fight the momentum that tumbled them over the rail. Joe lunged after the child, already climbing the rail before Kite could move.
And then Kite was running the short distance between them, the "No!" already forming on his lips. "Joe!" he yelled. "Don't!"
Joe's head twisted round as he balanced on the cathead on the wrong side of the rail, and he stared, eyes wide, at Kite, who instantaneously prayed to every Saint that would listen to keep the seas from taking him too. If you are testing me, he offered, couldn't you have come up with something a little less on the nose?
"It's Annabel," shouted Joe. "The little idiot was trying to measure storm waves. I can see her!"
Kite understood. He nodded at Joe--you do what must be done--and stepped forward, grabbing hold of the lanyard Joe had used to make himself fast and wrapping it round his hands. He was close enough now that he could make himself heard without yelling. "Go and get her," he said, and braced himself against the rail.
He watched as Joe somehow managed to get down onto his hands and knees on the cathead, the waves coming up perilously close. From here, Kite couldn't get a good idea of where Annabel was, but Joe didn't let himself down further, simply turned his body so he was half hanging into the air and disappeared from view.
Kite felt the bite of the rope against leather as it pulled, and he pulled back. Oh no, you don't. He didn't know how long he stood there, unknowing, every muscle in his body tight and straining, but he could hear voices coming up behind him, and someone picking up the slack of the rope. Another wave crashed over the rails portside, and again the ship heaved. Kite had never felt this sick in all his years at sea. Finally, against all sense and hope, Kite saw first one, then two little hands grasping the rail and then, either side, two larger, gloved ones. Kite heaved with all his might, as did the other person on the rope, and both Annabel and Joe slithered onto the deck at Kite's feet, sea creatures made real.
"You're safe now, Annabel, don't fret," Kite said, to the sodden heap in Joe's arms. And, without looking up, "Take her below and get her warmed up immediately." Rough hands gentled a white-faced Annabel away.
"Sir," said Wellesley. "I saw...Is everything all right?"
Kite forced himself to look away from Joe. "I would say we need to heave to at this point, don't you? Time to drop sea anchor."
"Yes, sir. Absolutely a fine idea. I shall see to it."
"Oh, and Wellesley?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have command."
"Yes, sir." Wellesley's glance between Joe and Kite was the merest flicker, but he saw it all the same. He found he did not have it in him to care.
Kite only waited until her back was turned to drop down next to Joe, pulling his head into his lap, wrapping Joe's rope around his wrist and his arm around Joe's chest. He turned them so that the rain lashed against his back and protected Joe's head from the worst of it, as little good as that did at this point.
Joe mumbled something and Kite bent down close to his face to hear it. He caught "bell" and a questioning tone.
"Grip like a carpenter's pincer, you said so yourself. A real survivor. And lucky, too, to have a friend like you."
"'s good."
Kite swallowed and leaned in close to Joe's ear, learned speech entirely gone. "Joe," he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. "I did terrible things. Unforgivable things. Not just Fred or you, but so many more. And any excuse I've ever tried to make for them was just to stop the howling panic in my head. I can't make it right. I can't undo what I've done. And the thing is-" He gripped Joe tight, as if that could somehow help him understand. "I will no doubt have to do more terrible, unforgivable things, because we are still at war, and I am still Captain. I can do better by you, though, Joe. I will."
Under his hand, Joe shuddered. He looked pale, and was probably going into shock. Bad time for your fancy speeches, Kite, he reprimanded himself. Keep your men alive. Kite could feel the motion of the ship subside as they hove to. It would be easier to keep their feet now, and he needed to get Joe inside.
"Come on, Joe, up with you," he said, shaking Joe's shoulder. "I'd carry you, but we both know you're a lump and I'm a mere sylph by comparison."
Joe rolled to his knees and fumbled at the lanyard at his waist, muttering curses under his breath as the wet knot stubbornly refused to come apart.
"Let me." Kite's practised fingers made short work of it, and the rope slid to the deck. He looked up at Joe, whose eyes were starting to take on a worryingly vacant stare. "Joe. Up. Now," he ordered in his best Captain's voice.
The part of Joe that had been a sailor for the best part of a decade seemed to snap to attention and he staggered to his feet. Somehow they were able to get along the length of the ship and into the stateroom, the noise of the storm deadening as Kite fought the wind for control of the door and won. Overhead he could hear footsteps and voices in the officer's cabin. It was soothing, not to have to worry if they were doing the right thing. They always did.
"Take your clothes off," commanded Kite, already shrugging out of his coat as he unlocked the small cabinet atop his writing desk. Thank fuck he was good at keeping the emergency brandy for actual emergencies. He pulled it out with a sturdy glass tumbler, and poured a generous measure.
Joe was still fussing with his buttons and muttering about how superior officers shouldn't be taking advantage at such a vulnerable time. Kite suppressed a grin and settled for rolling his eyes and pressing the tumbler into Joe's hand.
"Drink."
Joe rolled his eyes right back. "Aye, aye, Captain," he said with what Kite assumed was an attempt at a smart click of his heels. It came off with more of a squelch. Nonetheless, he downed the cognac as ordered. Kite nodded, pleased, and took the empty glass away, making sure to stow it, and the bottle, safely.
"Good." He turned back to Joe. "Now can you manage by yourself or do you want me to undress you?"
Joe tried a leer, but there had been too much time since they had last been alone together, and too much left still to say for it to take root, and it faded almost as soon as it appeared.
"My fingers don't work." Joe sounded apologetic, and Kite couldn't imagine what for.
"Right. Well, shift them out of the way, then."
The hardest parts were the boots, his and Joe's, the leather gripping tight to the material underneath, the constant rolling of the ship fighting attempts to pull them off. When they finally came loose they spilled saltwater across the floor. But eventually Kite had them both stripped, and he turned Joe by the shoulders, pushing him in front of him to the bed, still the same as in Nelson's time, gratifyingly close to the floor and much easier to manage than a hammock, at least in this instance. Kite leant down and pulled back the covers.
"Get in."
"What? Now?"
"Yes." Kite could hear the acerbic bite in his tone, but was helpless to control it. He knew what Joe meant, that they were here, naked together in daylight--unofficial as that was with the storm raging--and that they had agreed this should not happen, but as the ship rolled with the waves, so must one roll with changes in circumstance. He forced himself to sound more gentle. "Joe, you're freezing. You're halfway in shock and I don't want to answer for the consequences if I let you get all the way there. Now get in the bed before I take your knees out and force you into it."
Joe held up his hands in defeat. "Fine. Fine. You don't need to be so pissy about it."
Kite, manfully resisting punching Joe in the kidneys, followed him into the bed, tucking the covers up around them both. "Ideally, I'd have more warmth to share with you, but I'll heat up soon enough under here and you can have all you need. Roll onto your side."
Joe obeyed and Kite rolled behind him, tucking his chin over Joe's shoulder, and pressing his body tight to Joe's. He was under no illusions that it was merely the covers that were heating him up, but whatever worked, and as long as he kept very still, no one could ever accuse him of inappropriate behaviour.
They stayed together like that for some time, unspeaking, as the ship creaked and groaned and rolled. Every so often Kite would put the back of his hand to Joe's cheek, his chest, his thigh and be gratified that the clamminess was dissipating and warmth slowly returning.
Eventually, Joe said, "Was it bad?"
Kite shook his head, chin pivoting in the dip behind Joe's collarbone, lips brushing the edge of his jaw. "I didn't even break out the contingency apple."
There was a pause, then, "You had both your hands full."
Kite squeezed his eyes shut. "I would have found a way."
"Joe," he said, after another long pause when he thought Joe might have fallen asleep. "I want you to understand. I will never not mind you putting yourself at risk, because I love you. I think we're both clear on that part, at least. But I accept your choices are your own. And that they always should have been."
Joe came alive like a sleeping giant then, all slow rumbles and shifting ground. He turned in the bed to face Kite, shuffling down until they were eye to eye. He took one of Kite's hands in his and gripped it between their chests. And, though Kite had been trying to give his warmth to Joe, he felt it return to him, like fire in his veins, giving him the strength to keep going, to put it all on the line.
"The choices I made for you were truly unforgivable. I killed a child. I keep trying to think, have I done worse, and I'm not sure I have, though I've done so many despicable things I can't remember them all. That scares me, Joe. You have no idea how much. I won't make your choices for you again, but I can't promise you I won't make more choices that will make you hate me. I wish I could, but I can't. And if that isn't enough for you, well…" Kite trailed off, unwilling to put words to the end of the thought. He'd said his piece, explained as well as he could, and now his life was at the mercy of Joe, just as his ship was at the mercy of the storm.
Joe's first response was to frown, his eyes searching Kite's face for something. He must have found it as the crinkle above his nose eased. His second was to lean in and place a gentle kiss against the corner of Kite's mouth, lips still cool enough to make Kite shiver. His third was to take a deep breath and say, "You are the Captain. I do understand that. I've seen how horrific this gets, what you have to go through every day. The weight of the decisions you have to make so we can just get on and follow orders. No one has to bear that the way you do."
He paused, and touched his forehead to Kite's, tilting his head to rub their noses together. It was such a gentle gesture, Kite couldn't help but fear the words still to come. Joe exhaled, withdrawing a little, but still close enough for Kite to feel the warmth of his breath as he spoke. "So, yes. Sometimes, you will make choices that affect me that are for the good of the ship, or the crew, or the Navy, and aren't about me at all. And I can't promise that it will always be easy to separate the two, but the thing is you're my Captain, too. Here." Joe tapped their joined hands over his heart. "And we'll work through it, won't we? The two of us?"
Kite nodded, eyes stinging from more than the flung sea foam.
Joe tapped agan. This time twice off Kite's chest. "Fred. What you did. It was the worst thing. I hope very much that nothing like that will happen again, and that you understand what would happen for us if it did. But I've been thinking these past few days about you, Kite, and what made you, and if you ask me, it's pretty fucked up. You're a hideous, tangled mess, and how would anyone even start unravelling that?"
Kite stilled, suddenly freezing cold, and Joe must have noticed because he shook his head and gripped Kite tighter. "No, no," he said. "Kite, don't- I'm not explaining myself very well. Here. You think you are unforgivable and so you will continue to do the unforgivable, because once damned, why not, hey? So. I forgive you. I do. Truly and sincerely and without motive other than wanting better for you than you've had, I forgive you. You are not mine to condemn, nor anyone on Earth either."
He stopped and Kite, unable to look at him any longer, dropped his head and pushed his face into the crook of Joe's neck. He had warmed up now, and with the warming came the familiar scent. Kite breathed it in, beyond grateful that he could be here, now, even if Joe's words only squatted on the surface of his mind, refusing to sink in. His chest heaved. Joe wriggled his other arm round Kite's back and patted it gingerly, as if Kite were something delicate that could break if he held it too hard.
"I won't forget, though," Joe said. "You need to know that, too. And you need me to remember, to keep you from the part of you that doesn't know when to stop. You're my Captain, not my god, and I am allowed to doubt you."
Kite hitched a laugh, which caught on an unaired sob, and came out as more of a hiccough. "I rather like the sound of being your god. Does it come with Communion wine?"
Joe kicked his shin. "Don't push it."
Lifting his head, Kite looked Joe in the eyes again. "I shouldn't be this lucky," he said.
"But…?"
"But I'm not going to question it. At least, not right now." Kite twisted his own arm behind him, loosening his grip on Joe's so that now both Joe's arms were round him. He wasn't quite up to asking for a hug, but a hint tended to work wonders, and so it did here. Joe tightened his arms, pulling Kite into a fierce hug that Kite surrendered himself to entirely, his body, at least, accepting everything that Joe was offering.
Outside, the squall began to calm as unexpectedly as it had begun, the ship's rolling gentling to a pleasant rock. Inside, Kite, who had had quite enough of the twisted humour of Whoever Was Watching, thank you very much, ignored it and held on.