Archive of Our Own

And I am coming home to you / With my own blood in my mouth

And I am coming home to you / If it’s the last thing that I do

The curtain rises. This is how the scene goes:

Here is the tattered camp and the two of them stand vigil; or rather, Silna stands and Francis sits, leans on the cold shoulder of Edward Little – not Lieutenant, not anymore – and gazes at remnants of those which were once his men.

It is all over now – over in the sense that the monster has been slain and the villain defeated, over in the sense that there is a princess and a hero, both alive, and over in the sense that there is no rescue ship, for there are no men who need rescuing anymore. A fairytale ending, suitable for public viewing. Forgotten in favor of the next great ships’ tale.

The curtain falls.

The scene is Aglooka, not quite at farthest North. The actors are now in motion. This is how the story goes.

Ironically, it is Fitzjames who finds him first.

They are trekking across the barren shale when the tents are spotted. Late autumn lends itself to the early sunset and sparse landscape; in another lifetime, he remembers reading about polar regions in the scientific journals, then witnessing the landscape for himself, and how there had been plentiful game and flora abound. There is none of that here, not even now, another remnant of the disaster after disaster which the ships’ arrival had heralded. Weeks have passed since even the concept of an Englishman was present before him; but in his mind the past rises up time and time again, lingering where he least expects it as a man who stands here, dead for men who have died for nothing at all. At least it is nothing which a tableaux, in all its artifice, can ever hope to depict; Aglooka finds some satisfaction in the thought as they crest a small hill overlooking a camp in the distance. From this position, he can see the way in which their placement is intentionally clustered to minimize the size of the perimeter; lookouts are dotted at strategic points, and one even spots them in return and waves. Calls out to a few others, who begin making their way towards the newcomers.

The sight, combined with the sled Aglooka hauls behind him, makes the past sing sweetly in his mind; it is feeling enough to make him nauseous.

Something small bumps into him, nudging the memory away; it is a young boy, who had thus far been keeping silent company beside him. He watches as the child toddles ahead to his father with excitement, burdened by nothing more than his seal-hide parka and the Arctic wind burning redness into his face. By contrast, alongside Aglooka himself, most others of their traveling group continue their steady pace, keeping a wary eye across the landscape.

The word close hovers dangerously in the air, above every man. He does not know the Inuktitut word for it – does not think to ask for it, either.

A few emerge from their various tents to greet the oncoming party as they finally reach the encampment. Pleasantries are exchanged; Aglooka does his part by nodding politely to those phrases which he has yet to understand, and finally retreats until he is at the very back of the group, less among people and more among seal skins and driftwood. He finds himself pitching the tent with ease – with the mindless rhythm he’d once had for tying sailor’s knots and climbing rigging.

A commotion rustles nearby; Aglooka immediately snaps to attention at the rapid staccato of conversation between the leader of his own group – Kumaglak – and the first man who had come out to greet them. He does not miss the sharp glances – odd peering around the furred collar drawn close to his face – thrown his way by other members of the group they have happened upon; but he only has eyes for the raised voices, loud and insistent.

Impossible, groups of dead, Aglooka comes from Kumaglak, that much is obvious. The other man counters with, simply, our own.

A few people leave; more gather around to jostle for a sight of his face. A swell of murmuring ebbs throughout. Aglooka continues to kneel in the stones and dirt, mind empty except for the fact that he is Aglooka; less of a name and more of a descriptor but it is nothing short of fitting because he is the only one left who fits such an image.

And then the ensemble quiets, parts into two like the Red Sea before him until Aglooka realizes that it is not him they are parting for – and there he stands.

The man before him is unrecognizable. His hair grows to his shoulders, still in waves but they are matted; those deep lines at the sides of his mouth are set more like slashes to the jaw and he is ashen, save for the damp spot across his chin where someone must have cared to wipe away food and sickness.

It is the dried blood across the midsection of his shirt which first identifies him to Aglooka, that perpetually damnable stain and then the bone-deep voice–

“Francis?”

He is at a loss for words. Evidently, Fitzjames never is, because he follows it with “Captain Crozier?”, which stings far more than it ought to.

“Hello, James,” Francis finally croaks. The sounds of hello already feel foreign as his mouth attempts to round them out; but he would be remiss to forget the James that follows afterwards, all narrow two-sylabillic noises, a wiry name for the man it describes.

The response draws an incredulous smile out of Fitzjames, and it is nothing short of miraculous when he manages to take one– two unsteady steps towards Francis before stumbling. Another Inuk, unfamiliar to him, catches Fitzjames before Francis can react; shame runs a hot and familiar course through him at the sight and he moves forward to assist, gently helping Fitzjames to a more comfortable position on the ground.

“Francis,” he says again, more concrete than the first time but no less stunned. “It really is you.”

A hand reaches out to touch his face, and Francis flinches. He stills himself in the next moment, but James freezes, smile slightly dimmed, and then drops his hand entirely.

“Of course,” he finally says, and for want of quite literally anything else to do, he staggers to his feet and turns to Kumaglak instead. “This man. We bring him?”

“You know him, then.” It is not a question.

“Yes. Knew him.”

Francis does not fault Kumaglak for his hesitation. The charity of the Inuit is a wholly underserved thing; he knows he is asking much of a man whose first loyalty is to his people, especially in a time where the hunting bounty is scarce and medicines even more so. Unbidden, the image of John Irving with undigested seal meat in his stomach comes to mind; then, a family massacred in broad daylight.

Concern settles itself into his stomach as he turns away from the conversation, struck up with a new ferocity between the two men, and back towards Fitzjames. The man in question is still staring starstruck at the image before him, and Francis cannot help but see him in turn – a sight which blurs the line between admiration and horror. This close, he looks bedraggled; Francis is no stranger to scruff and wears it like a second skin, but Fitzjames had only ever been clean-faced and he looks all the more miserable and beaten for lacking it now. Even the bruising, albeit faded thanks to the treatment by the Inuit, stains his complexion.

Francis only receives a pair of raised eyebrows in response to his apprehension, bleeding onto his face even despite his best efforts to stem it.

“Help a man up, would you?” Fitzjames gazes at him with the sort of casual contemplation which is only learned through practice before a mirror;

“You’ve no idea how good it is to see you,” Fitzjames begins. Turning towards Francis, he smiles wide; and now he sees the full extent of scurvy’s ravage in the form of Fitzjames’s missing teeth.

But there are also the crow’s-feet lines around his eyes and those raised eyebrows upon the high forehead, proud nose, and not for the first time Francis understands why the Admiralty to Sir John had been charmed right down to their boots by him. He is beautiful, even now.

“The same to you, James. I’d thought–” the words are barely manageable, as if by speaking them out loud he might awaken from a dream– “I’d thought you were lost forever.”

Fitzjames shrugs, all faux-nonchalant. “I’d have walked right back to England,” he says, and Francis cannot help but smile at that. Nevermind the bloody spots on Fitzjames’s shirt as Francis helps him back to the sick tent; he very nearly believes it, the best walker in the service.

“Not aboard a sailing vessel, then?” He finds that he has craved this sort of rapport – celebratory dining-table small talk, albeit without the propriety and with the cheer of Fitzjames alone.

“There’s no sailing for me yet, I’m afraid.” At this, Fitzjames flicks his eyes upwards, as if seeing something Francis cannot. His smile grows wistful. “There’s more work to be done at home.”

Before Francis can ask him what he means, Fitzjames pulls him ahead and into the tent. As they settle, Fitzjames turns to him again, eyes soft. Haloed by the sunlight diffusing its way throughout the tent, his face takes on more color – alive, as compared to the sickly pallor from outside.

“Christ, Francis. The way your presence alone brings me relief is worth more than anything in this world. Where have you been? What’s–” thin, elegant fingers with the calluses from any Navy man encircling his stump of a missing hand– “Did Hickey’s mutineers do this to you?”

And it is the way he says it – casually enough to greet an old friend at the train station, with enough weight to speak for a city’s worth of well-wishers crowded around a shrinking dockyard. Francis feels the odd fluttering of kinship in his heart; even now, it feels strange to be the main audience of Fitzjames’s genuinity. A private thing.

“They came upon us; it appeared as though they’d been trailing us for a while. They– well, Hickey, at least.” He pauses, feeling for the right words, knowing simultaneously the sanctity of Tuunbaq and the lack thereof offered to it by Fitzjames. “He’d gone mad with delusions of godhood by the time I saw him again, and thought he could tame that creature. Got the entire lot killed in the process. Silna – Lady Silence – was the one who saved me. She’s gone now, too.”

“Good riddance,” Fitzjames mutters, crossing his arms; Francis cannot tell what he means such a phrase towards.

He watches as Fitzjames presses his lips together.

“The rest of the men. Are they–?”

Anything other than the truth would have been unfair. He watches as Fitzjames closes his eyes, painful, and then opens them again – resigned.

They sit together for a moment. Francis realizes with a start – it’s the first time he’s seen Fitzjames upright in a very, very long time. There’s a healing strength to him, still sick but far enough from death’s door; and then there are his eyes, alive and shining fever-bright out of the otherwise sunken qualities of his face.

It pains him to think of what might have happened within Edward Little’s camp; not because of the actions Fitzjames might have taken to save himself – certainly not, when Francis himself had let Hickey make a wreck out of Goodsir – but because it unsettles him to remember Edward’s face, and then the camp, and then the marked lack of Fitzjames. He knows it is nothing short of a miracle that the man sits before him now, risen from the shale, all in his boots; still, Fitzjames had always been a man of truth, not in background but certainly in action.

And here they are now – Francis in Fitzjames’s sweater, his one glove, while Fitzjames wraps animal skins around himself, dressed in nothing but the remnants of the officer’s slops he might have otherwise died in. He shakes off the feeling. The two of them together – it very well should have been like this since the beginning, clothing be damned. Fitzjames aboard Terror, the way they would have conquered the ice and Sir John and every other thing the journey home might have thrown at them.

They do not stay long with this group. Francis can detect relief in every feature of the foreign Inuit hunter as Kumaglak agrees to take Fitzjames; in a fit of cowardice, he does not stay to listen to the following conversation. Because he was once a leader, too, and thus understands the pinch of sparse resources, and the burden which will now be borne by every single one of their group as a result of Francis’s own want.

He is only grateful to have such a proposition accepted on the first go-around, instead of having to ask again. But he would ask twice – would ask more than twice.

On the last night of their camping with this new group, he finds Fitzjames walking circles, already restless and ready for the long walk which awaits them the next morning. It’s a shaky gait even in the flat floor of the tent, but at least he is standing and awake – leaps from the last time he’d seen Fitzjames, then bed-bound and delirious with pain.

“Your sweater,” Francis says. He proffers the object in question, holes in its sleeves and thread thinned in the most worn of areas; tries not to think about how much agony it’d once caused him, to watch Fitzjames fall apart in front of him while his sweater fell apart around Francis’s own body.

“You mean Dundy’s?” Fitzjames pauses, replies – miserable.

“Pardon?”

“It was Dundy’s idea, I mean. To get those sweaters. A proper send-off for men of the Arctic, right when he received his posting while the ships were at Woolwich.”

He sighs.

“You can keep it. I’ve no use for it anymore.”

Francis had hoped for Fitzjames to take the sweater, given the plummeting temperatures day-by-day; simultaneously, there is a pit in his stomach, the regret of having offered Fitzjames a reminder of his failings. And so the sweater he continues to keep for himself, and the glove too, even though he watches Fitzjames’s fingertips turn red and then purple in the cold.

And this is all they speak about.

They continue to walk – for encampment land, for foraging, and for hunting. Previously, Francis had walked in the middle-front of the group; but now, he lags behind, always at Fitzjames’s side. He thinks it better for Fitzjames to rest on a sled, but he also knows better than to offer such a solution.

Pride is a transcendental thing. And – Francis remembers – men are not easily rid of their vices, and to him, Fitzjames is nothing but. Certainly not now, when each painful step only makes him more irritable and, in turn, determined to press forward. Few words pass between the two of them, now. Even as they settle for a more permanent camp, they do not see each other much; Francis departs every single day to hunt, whereas Fitzjames stays in the camp. More often than not, he rests; notably, he does not ask after Francis’s company, and in turn, Francis tries not to miss him too much.

After all, there is much to be done for the both of them; he leaves Fitzjames to his own machinations.

For himself, there are many things Francis still understands as fact; chief among them being that the sky is blue, water is wet, and that he loves James fiercely.

This last fact, at the very least, has been his one constant companion throughout the three-or-so years of the last expedition of his life. He loves him enough to place his outline and gait among the other men – mere dots on the rocks from this distance, a great deal away from the main tents even for a foraging party – who are spotted walking towards the Inuit encampment.

Reliable as ever, Sir James Clark Ross has come for them.

He can see the sweet image in his mind: one or perhaps two ships kneeling grand and glorious on the edge of the ice, still safely in their territory of the great dark sea and not locked in some expanse of white; and so it pains him greatly, to make his way to the first tent and duck inside to give those words to Kumaglak – Tell him that there is nothing here, we are gone, dead and gone.

Dead and gone – barring one man.

Francis goes to find James Fitzjames next.

Fitzjames lies in the same state Francis had left him in – hands clasped and folded neatly atop his midsection, staring mute at the ceiling. With a strange twist of his heart, Francis is struck by the notion that he looks distant – more akin to the man he’d seen at admiralty gatherings, and combined with the contrast of the state he is in, he looks as if he is attending his own funeral. The only sign of life is when his eyes flicker over to Francis as he enters the tent.

“Good morning, Francis.”

Francis makes himself comfortable on the ground before responding.

“Good morning, James. Sir James Clark Ross is here.”

Fitzjames sits up with an immediacy that belies the wound in his stomach, as if he expects the man in question to enter and call for inspection. He only makes it about three-fourths of the way before pitching forward, hissing in pain – Francis makes an aborted motion to help him, but stops a hair’s breadth away.

For a moment, there is nothing but the sound of Fitzjames’s heavy breathing as he labors to school his face into impassivity.

“So they still remember us,” he gasps between breaths, hands pressed tight to his side. But his eyes are bright – feverishly bright, just as they’d been the first time Sir John, Fitzjames, and himself had set eyes on those two great ships.

“Ja– Sir James still does, at least.” Unbidden, he is suddenly possessed by the horrible notion that it would have been better for James to have never come. In the next moment, he hates himself for the thought.

“He is meeting with the Inuit now. There is still time to let him know that you still live; I can speak with them now, and you’ll have your wish to return.”

Fitzjames makes an aggrieved noise. “That’s hardly my wish.” He says it as if it’s obvious, natural – and Francis cannot help but be left with the very distinct and familiar feeling that he has missed something important. A truth, just out of his reach – he should either understand it already, or it is information not befitting a man of his status.  

“James,” he says, leaning forward, “What exactly do you intend to do?”

“The men,” he replies, meaningfully. “I intend to do right by them. As soon as we return to England, there’ll be a court martial, no doubt. But it’ll be the perfect opportunity to make our case heard; the public’s opinion would matter far more to those families of the lost than the Admiralty’s word, which is of greater import anyways. And with two captains of the ships – our connections too, I’m sure the Barrows would put in a good word for me and Sir James on your behalf – there would be no brooked contest to our testament.”

His hands are flighty things as he speaks, but his voice is steady and only grows louder as he continues; he’d be pacing around the tent, if he still retained the ability to. Francis finds himself stricken with a vague sense of disbelief.

“Let them throw the blame onto our shoulders if they must; but it would be a far greater blow to my conscience if the crew was not remembered with the heroism they deserve.”

“How, James? They’ll call for the heads of these people. They’ll do worse.”

“I–” And for a second, Fitzjames hesitates– “I’ll see to it that the story is set straight.”

“The Admiralty would never allow it. They’d sooner scalp your head for the entire country to see than blame those Goldner tins.”

“I’d let them, if only for the sake of the men. Would you not do the same?” Fitzjames’s eyes are suddenly fierce upon him, and this time Francis does not have the fire of whiskey to counter it. And this is Fitzjames, after all; he no longer has the appetite to skirmish over decisions made in anger rather than sound mind.

“I would,” Francis replies, and this much is true; he would have done it while even under the influence of both whiskey and his fury at Sir John, for all the good it would have done them in the end. But then he chases down the truth with “I’ve yet to consider the testimony,” which is a lie; he’s run through a thousand scenarios with every last ounce of wit afforded to a former captain, and so he understands it will be a futile endeavor.

To let Fitzjames go – horrifying even to himself, he might actually be able to bear the concept. His own return is out of the question; Fitzjames’s far less so. From a practical standpoint – and he has never been anything less than practical, for all the good it did him in the end – England would do him well, a world which is foreign but no less comforting to Fitzjames, and in turn he is a man with enough tales for them to feast and gorge upon. From a practical standpoint, Fitzjames needs England – for his conscience, certainly, but not least of all because there is a devastating lack of supplies, and no matter how hard the Inuit try, his wound refuses to close entirely.

At least, it is what he tells himself.

“Then I’ll let Kumaglak know of your intentions, and to prepare for your departure. I’ve given him a cover story for your survival–”

“Are we not to depart together?”

Francis steels himself.

“I do not intend on meeting with Sir James.”

A sharp inhale from Fitzjames.

“Your–” James starts, stops; makes some sort or other of a wide gesture– “He is your friend, Francis. We’ve not seen a single glimpse of any other countryman since we left Baffin Bay and you lack the courage to face him?”

The  careful choosing of words, and the knowledge that the chosen is at least some of the truth, stings hard. He clenches one fist behind his back, willing himself to be still.

“It’s not a dearth of courage I speak from. I’ll not drag Sir James into a sham trial which will only result in more turmoil. He’s the only one of the Admiralty I still hold in any sort of esteem.”

It is as charitable of an interpretation as he can muster to a coven of men responsible for this ill-fated adventure in the first place; he knows it is also his last chance to speak reason into Fitzjames. He knows what he holds dearest; he sees now, a life forever live in the shadow of the empire. Not for the first time, he wishes Fitzjames would have been on his own ship instead of Franklin’s; he sees two men cut into similar molds before him now, desperate.

“Do not think for a moment that any member of that lot will offer you any sort of charity. They are not the sort to tolerate failure; they condemned Sir John for it and, James, they’ll condemn you, too. Push you into some corner of the world.”

If he were standing, Fitzjames would have the height advantage; now, he has no choice but to sit, and Francis feels his distinct fury at that alone.

“I’ve no idea what delusions you’ve gotten, but we are going to go back.” His voice crackles, but Fitzjames’s tone brooks no contest. “We are going to go back to England, and you are going to tell the Admiralty everything that has happened on this godforsaken land, and ensure our men get the recognition they are due! Christ, Francis–” he runs a hand through his thinning hair and it comes away with more strands than Francis is comfortable seeing– “this is not about me. It never was, and I don’t see why you intend on making it in such a way. Let the Admiralty have their peace, if that’s what makes them happy. Their decisions were hardly a factor in the end.”

“You would take the Admiralty’s side in this?”

Fitzjames’s mouth wavers before setting into a thin, straight line.

“Theirs is the only side I can take, Francis. What else would you have me do?”

Francis stays silent – incredulous, of a horrified sort.

Perhaps, for himself, there had once been a fantasy of the Passage and a hero’s welcome; but there is no intention of returning to England now. Not to a country which would offer nothing but misgivings even on the off chance that, by some miracle, a story was believed; and then there is the matter of the sheer artifice, a thought which makes him more nauseous than any ocean ever could, the knowledge that any sympathy towards the events would be superseded by gilded stories more appropriate for drawing room chatter.

An environment which had always suited James more, his vices supply unhelpfully. It makes his skin prickle, knowing that it is a wholly uncharitable interpretation of a man who had only been open in those final, horrible days. That dragon, vanity – he’d hoped James was beyond it. He still hopes.

In a desperate bid to ease Fitzjames’s sullen mood, he tries for encouragement. “You must have given it some thought, James. Of this, and everything.”

“Naturally. The tins – Christ alive, we should have checked them.” An uncomfortable beat. “And the lack of game. Documentation in the cairns. And especially–” he pats an object to the side of a makeshift headrest and Francis hears the thump of papered board in response– “Erebus’s logs.”

In the dim lighting of the tent, Francis can just make out the hard edge of a logbook; a thousand thoughts run through his head, and he stares at it for a long while.

“How?” He manages, but it is obvious; there is the report of Bridgens, disappeared into the barren landscape with only a journal. Henry Peglar’s journal, if speculation was to be believed.

Fitzjames has a faraway look in his eyes, as if he is not entirely here when he speaks.

“When the Esquimaux found me, I had them take it with us. A captain goes down with his ship, does he not?”

Francis is grateful that Fitzjames does not ask after Terror’s logbook; it is long lost, crushed to dust by the ice, and Francis thinks it is all the better for it.

“Your faith is unshakeable, James.” You might have very well died with it in hand goes unsaid.

They settle in the quietude; for a second, Francis hopes that Fitzjames has taken his comment to face value. But he’d always been a bad liar.

“It was the only thing I had for company.”

Fitzjames has ignored those last words entirely.

“I was–” He clears his throat, voice deep as if trying to lift a great weight off his chest– “I must confess that I do not remember much from my time with the others. You understand that I was on the edge of death for much of my time until they happened across me; at one moment I was in the sick tent lying next to a dead man, and the next I was here.”

Francis is quiet. Then, “The Inuit say they found you a while away from the other encampments.”

To his credit, Fitzjames hardly looks shaken.

“Was I?” he says softly.  

“James,” Francis says, and then kneels down next to Fitzjames’s bedside just as he had done time and time again in those last moments – because here it is, here must be the ice rendering them apart piece by piece, “it was never my intention to leave you behind. The mutineers – they took Robert Golding, killed Thomas Hartnell. I had no choice but to go with them, but Edward was sent back to watch over you.”

“Of course.”

It is hardly an answer. Francis presses further, “He was my best man.”

Fitzjames shutters his eyes as if in pain.

“It’s no fault of yours, Francis. You chose your lieutenants well.”

A beat. Francis runs through the muster list of both Terror and Erebus in his head, as he has a thousand times before.

“Le Vesconte? Henry?” He asks, and then immediately regrets it.

Something crumples in Fitzjames’s expression. “I’ve no doubt that Lieutenant Little would have gone back for you. But Francis,” and he turns his face away, “do you have any idea whose idea it was to continue walking? To leave men behind?”

He ought to feel aghast. Instead, there is only the hollow ache of disappointment, Cracroft a thousand times over – that even such a decision had ultimately failed to save them.

Fitzjames, evidently, does not share in this sentiment. Francis says what he can.

“His decision is not yours to bear, James. You were in no position to command.”

The protestations that Francis had come to expect throughout the expedition never come. For the first time in a long time, Fitzjames looks forlorn and lost; he had borne the mantle of second-in-command with infinite grace, ever the word of order in those decisions made when Francis had been sick with whiskey. Now he is left with only the anger in the wake of a great blow, as if Franklin is freshly dead and he is not a new man three years in the making. It is not an expression which suits him; Francis wishes nothing more to comfort him with promises of companionship and brotherhood, but Fitzjames is now made all the more upset by any mention of connections, alliances made fickle like seafoam upon the sand. And then there is the feeling of undeserved trust – glimpsed, then hopes dashed by those last few deaths – which trumps any confidence in himself.

He sighs. Bows his head and settles on, “Forgiveness, James. For the others and for yourself. It’s the only way you’ll be at peace.”

“Have you found it, then?”

“Of course. I’ve forgiven all of them, really. I forgave them even before the business with Hickey–”

“I mean peace, Francis. Have you found your peace here?”

Francis looks up sharply to find Fitzjames’s eyes screwed shut, jaw hard set. The corner of his mouth wavers. For a brief second, Fitzjames reaches out – he grasps his hand tightly in return, hard enough for him to feel it in his bones, and Francis can feel the shaking down to his own bones.

“Come with me. Back to England.”

Shame runs its course through Francis, quick as a river. He steadies his voice.

“I’ve made my choice.” And you have, too. While we both lay dying in the care of the Inuit. 

He is struck by the way the creases of Fitzjames’s face age him. Once upon a time, they lended themselves perfectly to Fitzjames’s image, as all things he possessed had; what he’d lacked in Polar experience, he had made up tenfold with handsome charm and the face of a midshipman wise beyond his years. Wavy hair, just long enough to flirt with the line of propriety. Now, it is all gone; he just looks tired.

“It might be better,” Fitzjames starts quietly then stops, clears his throat, and tries again. “The hour is late and it would be inappropriate for me to hold you here any longer.”

He knows a dismissal when he hears it; the fact that it comes from Fitzjames makes it twice as barbed.

“Of course,” he says, too quickly – hates himself doubly, for keeping Fitzjames from rest and for lacking that genuine grace with which the other had taken every insult lobbed at him. Fitzjames has not yet let go of his hand and so Francis squeezes it in what is meant to be a comforting way, laboring to his feet and feeling his age in his joints and the quickness in Fitzjames’s eyes as he follows his every move.

“Rest well, James.”

“The same to you, Francis.”

He hears the rustle – and then, settling – of heavy sealskin before he opens the tent flap. When he looks back, Fitzjames has already turned the other way.

Francis catches no sight of Fitzjames for days afterwards; partially because James Ross is frequently in and out of the tent; partially because he is afraid of being overheard altogether; and partially because he is still nursing the sting of their last conversation, however insignificant it is. God knows they’ve traded harsher words – and fists – than it. Fitzjames, for all his strength, seems to have moved beyond it; but it’s beyond in the other direction, drifting more and more distant.

It is Kumaglak who takes the initiative to inform Francis of the development – that the newcomers and Fitzjames are to depart soon. He thanks him while pushing away the unease of any word from the man in question. No doubt Fitzjames might have departed without a sound, and it would have fully been his decision to do so. He would benefit from it, too; a final confession left behind with the only witness to it is a weight lifted.

Or perhaps it is simply because Fitzjames resents him. Lack of courage roots its place in his head alongside worst kind of first – but Francis, perpetually scorned twice and yet perpetually willing to try for a third, makes his way back to Fitzjames on the final night before his departure.

Upon entering, Fitzjames is already poised, with little surprise in his expression to see Francis before him.

There is no greeting and he offers none in return. Another mark of trust, or perhaps he is simply not worth the effort of artificial politeness; Francis hopes for the former and braces for the latter.

“Will you at least take this with you?”

He reaches into the pouch hanging at his side, rifles around before extracting a ring. Its plated edges glitter in the low, warm light of the whale-oil lamp; the three stones set into its sides nearly glow.

Fitzjames narrows his eyes at the sight. Francis steps closer.

“Doctor Goodsir entrusted this to me. He was on Erebus for a time; struggled to recount where he originally obtained it, but I was hoping you might put it to more use than either him or I can.”

“Francis,” Fitzjames carefully says, “What would you have me do with this?”

“When you return to England, it would have meant a great deal for him to see it returned to some sister of a crew member aboard your ship.”

Fitzjames gives a short, quiet exhale; a stifled sigh, if Francis ever heard one, and he has heard plenty of the sort from the other man. He gently passes it to Fitzjames’s open palm and watches its inspection; or rather, Fitzjames leans back and pinches it between two fingers, turning it with a slightly muted expression.

“Do you recognize it?”

“It is hardly in a commander’s duties to know every trinket and treasure a sailor carries with him,” says Fitzjames.

A beat. He slumps further down into the bedding.

“Rest assured, Francis. I’ll see to it that this is sent to the right family.”

Francis rises to take his leave. As he opens the flap to the tent, he sees – out of the corner of his eye – Fitzjames lying wrapped in furs, still inspecting the ring.

There are no parting messages between the two of them.

The years between when James last stepped off Erebus in favor of a domestic life and when Francis had seen that great ship for the last time have not dulled Ross’s efficiency one whit, and so he runs as tight of a ship as ever. He wakes early and moves fast, the weak sunrise casting long shadows throughout camp by the time Kumaglak informs Francis of their departure. Evidently, there are no more men left here and an entire captain might be enough to appease the Admiralty on the loss of two ships’ worth of men and the discovery of the Passage entire. To quell their appetite for this region; to turn theirs and the public’s sight towards warmer climates and away from the tragedy here.

And in return for such protection of the legacies of both their men and this place, Fitzjames will be eaten alive when he returns to England – this is a surety. He thinks Fitzjames is sure of it, too; but he has said his piece, and Fitzjames his.

Francis watches from far away as the men depart. The day they leave is good weather for traveling, which is to say that it does nothing for Fitzjames; it is a slow procession which makes its way across the uneven shale, James and his accompaniment on either side to support an unsteady Fitzjames.

He remembers a time when Fitzjames was known for the horse-like grace to his walk, good on land and even better at sea – a true thoroughbred. Now, it is coltish at best; he trods on as if the weight of the whale boat is still at his back.

From his vantage point, Francis is suddenly nauseous in a way he had never been, not even because of the sea or whiskey or death. It must be from the barren landscape, the way there is a moment where, dizzily, he fumbles for the fur edge of his hood in an effort to get a better glimpse at the departing Ross and Fitzjames, before he realizes how catastrophically terrible it would be should either one of them choose to look back. Impossible to explain, and a ruination of both their reputations.

Francis realizes he’s losing Fitzjames and now they are walking out onto Beechey Island all over again, powerless to stop the rot and decay. And he is not James’s superior anymore – has no right to order him around, has no claim to his happiness. They are brothers, and as a man who forfeited his own family at age thirteen for the sea instead, Francis has never been more at a loss.

So he does not ask Fitzjames to stay. Fitzjames does not ask him to leave. When he wakes the next day, it is as if Fitzjames had simply never been there in the first place.

And instead, he undoes the flaps of the tent opening; gathers his tools, spear chief among them; and follows a small group of hunters out onto the ice once more.

There is a time before, and then there is the aftermath. It would have been ridiculous to consider Fitzjames’s departure as the demarcation, so instead Francis thinks back on the year of 1846 and regards everything which came afterwards as a long, slow, inevitable decline.

And as a continuation of the decline – of losses – he leaves Kumaglak’s party at the first sight of a new year’s new sun rising above the still snow-capped shale. Of his own choice, although Silna’s decision to cast herself away must have left some sort of indelible mark on his own conscience; nonetheless, he was always a fast learner and the way in which the Inuit skillset has built upon those which he once obtained as a fresh-faced sailor lends itself to him striking out on his lonesome, walking away from yet another second chance.

Francis is not a man able to bend the world into a form which might be able to be held with two cupped hands; having been to the two farthest reaches of the world, he realizes now how it might always spill out of his hands – regardless of the power of a nation’s entire navy or the desires of one person as he is, the forces of nature are blind to human agonies and in doing so it metes justice in fair portions no matter how hard he might attempt to rail against it.

But everything he’s ever loved eventually finds him again. He learns to read the sky as the Inuit do, until Wednesday becomes a foreign concept to him – traded away with the sun in favor of the moon and constellations. In the last winter he spends with Kumaglak, he pitches tupiqs with ease and finally makes his own ulu. The blade, composed of shale rock, is easy to come by; he salvages the wood handle from another party’s gathering expedition and tries not to search for any clue of its origin. He proves to be good at a kakivak because Francis had always been of the opinion that any sailor worth his salt would be familiar with fishing; less so at using a spear, catching seals only provided if they are far from an ice hole; and the domain of hunting caribou lies entirely out of his reach as the missing left hand relegates him instead to the pursuit of stalking and tracking. Francis knows these are all staples of their diet and he would be remiss to pass off the opportunity to learn more should the ice become even more resilient in resisting any effort to break through in favor of the icy waters below; but, perhaps unsurprisingly, he finds both himself and most other Inuit lacking in the time department. There is a continuous rush, bordering on panic, for hunting and gathering parties, and bereft of a tutor Francis instead falls back on past knowledge – navigation and keeping watch and maintenance – out of a want for familiarity and a need to be useful. For a surprising amount of time he is accompanied by some curious child or sullen teenager or another, wanting to know about his strange stories or wanting to be left alone; young and older, they run circles around him until he relents and hands them an arrowhead and then is tasked with ensuring that they do not stab themselves or someone else or the newly-mended sealskin with it. Sometimes, he teaches them how to bind the arrowhead to a shaft, to then loop the twine and tie it securely, to practice in such a manner until they can do it in the darkness with both eyes closed.

Always, the company of children reminds him of the Ross offspring. Sometimes, they remind him of the life he might have had, if not with Sophia Cracroft then with the sea itself – aboard a ship, overseeing the new hopefuls of the Royal Navy. Mostly, they remind him that he is not his father’s son, a fact which he takes pride in the knowledge of.

But it does little to ease those long stretches of night when he understands that his presence here takes and takes from people who are already stretched thin. And so he leaves, thanking the Inuit for their charity and begging off any further assistance. He is a burden at the camp; every day is always one ache or another crying out for attention and he finds his memory lacking even of recent events, all the markers of a man who has survived trials which have killed everyone else.

He might live. He also might die – but now there is no Ross or Blanky or Fitzjames to plead or fight in opposition and for better judgement. Which hardly affects him, because there was a time before he knew each of them and he’d survived it just fine – nevermind the fact that it is now a time where none are accessible to him. In any case, he packs light, now less than two drawers’ worth – as if that were ever a metric applicable to him – and walks back out onto the shale.

Francis still remembers the first time he’d been informed of the expedition’s muster list. Despite his best efforts to steer clear of it – or indeed, perhaps because he’d vied for a seat at the table in the months before any official postings were made – the rumor mill had spread names of this captain or that commander, whispers which had reached even his own ears; nonetheless, his rank and proximity to Ross had all but assured him of a satisfactory posting.

Being second to Franklin was satisfactory. The usurpation of his role as magnetic observations by none other than the Royal Navy – the Admiralty’s – rising star, in the form of James Fitzjames, was not. He recalls the bitterness of such a decision with no small amount of embarrassment now – blind to Fitzjames’s competency and ignorant to his desperation.

Now he wonders – more than a few times – if ignorance had clouded his judgement yet again, in allowing his incorrect estimation of Fitzjames’s closeness with England and the Admiralty; and then he wonders, no longer or perhaps more so, when he returns from a day’s worth of fishing chasing the tail end of the sunset to find none other than the man in question – standing at ease, devil-may-care, right in front of his tupiq. Head tilted as if in casual inspection – but nothing is casual with Fitzjames, nothing escapes his attention.

Francis’s world spins at the sight; he reminds himself first that it is not unheard of for ghosts and other spirits to roam unhappily, then remembers that Fitzjames is not dead at all. He tenses at the thought; his arm tightens around the kakivak tucked underneath his right arm, the sinew of his fishing net digging into his fingers even through the glove. There is no reaction as Francis clatters his way to the tupiq with the net in tow until he is very nearly right next to Fitzjames, upon which the other man jumps as if noticing his presence for the first time.

He smiles slightly as their eyes meet – thin and wan, liable to be easily startled. There’s a list to his step, like a ship mired in unsteady waves, and this is when Francis realizes that Fitzjames is leaning heavily on a walking stick.

“Have you gone mad?” Francis says, by way of greeting. “You’ve walked all the way out here, alone– James, it’s very nearly sundown.”

As he draws closer, it becomes apparent that his time in England has done less good than Francis might have hoped. There are bits of the same man in there, but clearly weathered around the edges; it’s a new double-breasted greatcoat and shined boots for him, but the man contained in them still tucks his left arm stiffly against his side. Francis realizes the foreign manner in which Fitzjames’s mouth now twists; the corners go upward more, lips pressed tighter against teeth, a clever way to conceal what must be the shine of false teeth and the gaps left even with those in place.

Fitzjames gives Francis a one-over and then an exhausted sigh, letting his shoulders drop once more.

“I truly believed you might have quit this area. The natives– it was incredibly hard to understand them, and I couldn’t have asked any of the crew for a translation. I’m afraid I’ve lost most of my capacity to learn much of anything now.”

He gives an uncomfortable chuckle. And despite all their differences, it discomfits Francis as well to hear Fitzjames make half-spirited barbs at himself.

“You– well.” He stands stiffly, unsure of how to proceed. He’s not even sure if he should entertain the notion of Fitzjames’s return as good news rather than more devastation on behalf of the Royal Navy.

Francis settles on, “I suppose I should inquire about your intentions, then. You wouldn’t call upon me without reason.”

Call upon – it feels strangely casual to say, as if they live only a day’s train ride away from each other and not an entire ocean separate.

“No, I–” Fitzjames shrugs, trying and failing to cut a nonchalant figure. “It’s another attempt at the Passage. This one, I mean. It’s why we’re here now. It’s pure convenience that you were nearby, though.”

Francis sees how he watches him carefully, gauging every change in his face. Once upon a time, he might have cared – but this is not that time.

“The Admiralty’s lost their minds. You’ve lost your mind, James, coming back here in your condition, leading those men here – and haven’t we caused the people here enough trouble? They’re starving. Most, if not all of them.”

“It was Barrow’s decision. George Barrow. Sir John Barrow passed away last year, and it was only through my arrival in England a month before his departure that there was enough good grace for this expedition.”

As if it is any excuse – both of them know it. Fitzjames tries again.

“They’ve made me a captain,” he murmurs. “They haven’t completely done away with me yet.”

“And is it not unbecoming of a captain of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy to abandon his ship at odd hours of the night?” Francis replies; he does not need a chronometer to tell him that the dog watches switched positions not long ago.

Fitzjames bows his head.

“The North Star is just a depot ship, Francis. It’s not like I have the bearings for a full command anymore. She’s dropped anchor in a bay and we’re planning on overwintering while Edward – Edward Belcher – goes forward.”

“Belcher?” He says, incredulous. “And whose choice was he?”

Fitzjames looks at him sideways, slightly energized. “No one’s first, I assure you. The man’s one of the worst I’ve suffered. But he had his reasons for coming – looking for Sir Richard and Sir Robert – and there was little opposition to his personal investment in searching for either them or the Passage, on account of Barrow's backing of the latter. Lady Jane especially–” he presses his lips together, uneasy– “she’s incredibly vocal about her support for him, or anyone else willing to attempt a rescue. Gone half mad for any more news of Sir John.”

“Yours wasn’t enough?”

A sardonic puff of air. “We’re hardly on speaking terms now.”

There is at least some kinship to be found there, for all the good it does now. A part of Francis is tempted to ask after the rest of England – not nearly enough for him to say it out loud, but enough for James to shoot him an ill-humored look as if to say “You understand her general demeanor”, in all the tone of a bad joke.  

And he does, too well for comfort; he can only imagine the public outcry, the strings Fitzjames might have pulled and the favors called to escape a disastrous court martial – all for the comfort of familiarity. The man now stands next to him, still shivering in the cold – staring at him, wide-eyed.

The offer of Come inside, you must be cold is not yet sounded but rather the puff of a warm breath in cold air when Fitzjames suddenly draws himself up, caught.

“It’s late. I should be taking my leave now – can’t have the men thinking that I’ve died out on the ice.” A practiced smile and the averted eyes of deference are drawn up; Francis feels no small annoyance at the sight. He wants Fitzjames gone nearly as much as he wants him to stay.

He asks for neither.

“If you think it’s best,” he says, watching Fitzjames for any indication of disappointment or relief. He gets neither.

Instead, there is only a quick goodbye and goodnight, with Francis attempting to take his fill – and then some – of this sight of Fitzjames, miraculous in its appearance but no less realistic in the way it is taken from him as soon as he might grow comfortable with it.

And then Fitzjames draws his coat tightly around his face and hurries off into the night, leaving Francis wondering if the interaction ever happened at all.

This time, he does not wait long for Fitzjames. Francis is not deterred by the appearance of the HMS North Star, but he does take more caution to avoid the area which Fitzjames had departed. Fitzjames, evidently, does not practice the same carefulness; it is not three days since their last conversation before he returns around the same time, now complaining of boredom with a renewed energy. Most of the talk is Fitzjames hovering around as Francis works or rests, and then it slips into Francis’s interjections on any given subject that Fitzjames has elected to spin a yarn about.

Sometimes he has half a mind to reprimand him of a captain’s duties, and the consequences of shirking them for late-night rendezvous – but then there are Fitzjames’s tales of sailors with a boredom that their own expedition’s members had been robbed of in those final days, and Francis finds it hard to begrudge them of that.

Let them be bored – any good sailor will make a good story of it once we return. And besides, Pullen is capable enough. It might earn him a promotion in the next few years.

Winter approaches, and this time Fitzjames makes the call to overwinter in the safety of the bay. It’s made of sound mind and experience, even if it means that Francis sees him less and less as both the weather and captaining robs him of their dialogues. He himself has the good fortune to encounter a group of Inuit making winter camp in the area, and elects to join them; his fishing bounty is shared among them as he once again keeps himself busy within the party and tries not to miss Fitzjames too much.

Springtime makes itself known once again through hairline fractures in the ice; Francis spends his last days with this group warning the younger children away from the open waters and back towards helping their older relatives with the task of disassembling tents and assembling sledges for the long walk towards better hunting grounds. It pains him greatly to watch them depart and simultaneously knows of such an inevitability.

And then he waits for Fitzjames. Regardless of if he chooses to sail forward following the path of the other ships in Belcher’s ensemble or not, Francis understands there are leads to be mapped and land to be surveyed and sails to be mounted in the new year. Even if the other man’s absence – and simultaneously close proximity – makes it seem as if the world is balancing on the tip of a knife, perpetually ready to fall off and away from Francis – he is patient, and waits for Fitzjames’s return.

As with all things concerning Fitzjames, it does not happen until it does, suddenly and all at once as the man in question sweeps back into Francis’s life in the middle of the night. This time, it is well past dog watch; he would have feared that Fitzjames had fallen through the ice on his way to Francis’s encampment, had he not shown up harried and frenetic but otherwise dry.

Francis immediately stands up at the sight of Fitzjames, silhouetted by the moonlight at the entrance of his tupiq.

He is beautiful, even now. It’s a thought which makes itself known now, but Francis finds some sort of solace in the feeling that it has always been there, in the back of his mind; he knows it as a fact.

He barely manages to ask after James’s condition when Jjames, in a rush, lets out– “They’re– Kellett, from the Resolute, is returning to the North Star – he’s sent a forward party. Belcher and the rest may be making similar plans; they’ve been locked in the ice for months now.”

He takes a familiar seat on Francis’s bed and does not look at him. In any other circumstance, it would have been welcome; now, Francis prepares himself for yet another inevitability. Before him is a man who might yet still make a career and a name for himself; he has not burned out of luck quite yet.

“So you’ll be leaving soon.” It is not a question. James offers no response except to put his head in his hands; there is a painful sort of solidarity to be found here, too.

It would be easy to let James go for a second time. He is well-versed in disappointments and even now this new life is full of them; and yet, if there is one entity which he has consistently railed against for his entire life, it is the Admiralty – and to watch them win James over for the second time in a row is painful, even for him.

This time, he spares nothing. James might very well never speak, if Francis does not do so first.

“It hardly matters to me whether or not you go to England again, James. I’m sure you’ve surpassed any reputation with the Admiralty that I might’ve once hoped to achieve. But at least indulge me in why you’ve come back here. Of all the places in the world open to you.”

This finally manages to rouse James from his momentary weakness. He looks at Francis, shaken.

“You and I lost an entire expedition’s worth of men here. And you were right – the Admiralty refuses to see them for who they were. They were still waiting around to mount a search party by time others were sponsoring ships, let alone offering condolences to the waiting families. But here–” he tilts his chin towards the outside– “I can remember them far better. I dream them alive.”

Francis follows his gaze. It is answer enough for him.

“Let the dead rest, James. You’ve given their families more closure than any other man ever could.”

“I should hope so. Do you remember the ring you gave me?” James’s eyes glitter with pride. “I managed to get it back to her. David Young’s sister.” He tilts his head and one side of his mouth quirks up.

“And to think you meant it for me.”

Francis freezes. He watches as James continues to stare doggedly ahead. This close to him, there are a multitude of actions he might take; but it has been a very, very long time, and he might yet break this delicate precipice they now stand atop.

Silence is the wrong choice; James’s smile grows sharp and self-loathing. It’s a familiar sight.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come here–”

Francis’s mind whirls for a response, any response. “Your condition hardly allows for expeditioning, I’m surprised any doctor signed off on your release–”

“Francis,” he says, voice pained and deep. “I’d rather be out here than stuck in some countryside. But that’s not what I mean – I came back here for you, too. For one more glimpse of you. And now I find myself at a crossroads.”

He remains unflinching as Francis takes a seat next to him.

“Nobody can captain forever, James. My greatest mistake was not realizing sooner.”

“And then we might have never met.”

A sort of fond exasperation bubbles in his chest, and Francis cannot help but smile at the words. James startles as he grasps his hand and settles it between them.

“My second mistake, James, was not realizing sooner that you were too good for the Admiralty – not the other way around. There’s still time yet.”

James does not smile. He very nearly looks as if he is on the verge of tears – and Francis, very desperately, wishes to erase the expression from his face.

“Are you,” James says carefully, with just the slightest of waverings, “asking me to stay here? With you?”

“Only if you’ll have me.”

James releases his hand from Francis’s grasp. For a brief second, the words hang in the air and he thinks they might have been the wrong ones – and then James cups his cheek with the misbegotten hand and gently knocks their foreheads together, closing the distance between them.

“I very well might,” he says. This close, James’s smile is a blur; but Francis can imagine it, the way it might show every last imperfection and the way he has survived it all.

Quieter, James whispers, “Will you kiss me?”

“I very well might,” Francis replies, and it finally draws a short laugh out of James, right before he leans in and does just that.

This is how the ending goes: one-hundred-and-twenty-nine Royal Navy sailors aboard two of the most scientifically advanced ships of their day enter the Arctic labyrinth and vanish, some of them earlier than others. Naturally, there are tales of survivors – the ice keeps their secrets.

But no secret stays buried forever.