"Mummy," he whispers through dry lips and a cracked throat, "Mummy? Will Daddy come home?"

She nods, as there is no other response. She does not know when or if her Captain will make it home, but she knows that he has sworn his return and, as such, will do everything to honor it. She presses the cloth to his mouth and squeezes it, trickles running past his lips.

"He's on a boat, Mummy?"

"Yes, Horatio." She smoothes back his damp hair and manages a smile that costs her much. "A big boat. A ship. The Atropos. And he's protecting England. Protecting us."

"Why?"

The question hurts her more than she can say, for it is the one she does not know the answer to. Truly it was Horatio's honor that attracted her first - the upright sense of pride and responsibility, the pains it cost him to continue to live on their meager generosity - but the honor that lies in his duty is one she'll never understand.

"Daddy made a promise to the King."

"What did he promise?"

"To serve England. To be a sailor in His Majesty's Navy. To protect us all." She presses her lips together, holding back the threat of tears that burns her throat. Her little boy is beyond even Horatio's protection at this point, beyond what sword and cannon can fight for. Little Maria's muffled cries from the other room remind her of that as well. "Your daddy is a good, honest, hardworking man."

His eyes close, satisfied perhaps, or merely exhausted from the raging fever that ravishes him. Maria squeezes her eyes shut and struggles to control the sobs that beat at her lips to escape in a wail of despair. She is not strong. She is not wise. She is not up to the task of this.

"Horatio," she whispers softly, moving away from the bed to the window where her husband had stood many a night, staring at the water, at his ship. "Come home to me. To them?"

She presses her hand to the glass and bows her head, resting her forehead - not feverish, merely warm - against the cool glass. He cannot hear her and the letters do no good. Even if he could, he would be bound by duty and honor to be a sailor first, a Captain. His family was only a distant second, lost far beyond the horizon.

"No," she tells herself softly, firmly. She will not allow herself to think badly on him. He loves his children, loves her though she knows she is not deserving of his love. She knows she is not a Captain's wife. She does not say the right things or know the right things. She sees her husband looking at her with eyes that wonder at the things she says, the things she omits.

"Horatio loves me."

He does. She knows this in her heart. Loves her, loves their family. He lies with her in their bed and touches her. He treats her with kindness beyond what she deserves and respect that she does not know that she's earned. His eyes, when they find hers, are filled with a soft kind of adoration that is more than enough with the heavy gold of his ring on her finger.

She moves into the other room and gathers Maria to her breast, bringing her back into the front room and laying her beside her brother. She settles into the chair beside the small bed, her hands over her waist and her eyes on her babies. She'd given him babies.

The man in her head does not wear the King's uniform. The man in her head holds his son over his head and then drops him down, precariously close before hoisting him skyward again. That man wears trousers and a loose shirt and laughs deeply. His eyes dance and his smile widens. Her husband is a man the Navy does not know and never will. He is a man she's not sure she knows herself.

"He did not court me," she whispers to her sleeping children, telling them stories she knows they will not grow old to hear. "He rescued me and would not leave me behind. He does not like to lose those he's saved, your father. No one is left behind, even those not worthy of saving."

"He does love me," she assures them, reassures herself. "He is good and kind. He does things I know he does not like purely for my benefit. He makes me forget the things that I should not and he spoils me. When he sees me, I am the only woman in the world, better suited to him, in that instance, that the finest ladies of the court, or even the wooden bulk of his ship."

She turns her head away and sighs, the exhale shaky. "I loved him since the day I met him. He walked in through the door, a fine lieutenant fresh from Jamaica. He was sad - not sad that there was peace, though it left him poor. His sadness went deeper than that, and I could not touch it, even with kindness. I don't know that he'd ever known kindness before."

The children lay still, their chests barely moving, barely rising. Horatio turns his head; his dark curls so like his father's falling down over his eyes. "He is a hero, you know. Not just to me, but to England. He's done many things. Many wonderful, amazing things. He's a fine sailor - he must be, for he's been in the paper. Your daddy's been in the paper." She sniffs back the flood of tears that sting her and looks away. "I do not know what he does or understand it. I do not know why he must leave us and not come home for so long."

Her voice breaks and she stops, the pain thick and raw in her chest, in the hollow cavity where her heart used to be. "He is a fine sailor, your father. A fine man." She reaches out and touches Horatio's face and then Maria's before pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders and closing her eyes, letting the tears fall from beneath her lashes. "I only wish that he were here."

She does not know this man returned home to her. He is not Horatio, nor is he her Horry - she knows he does not like the name, but it is the one thing of him that is hers alone - he is a stranger wearing her husband's face in a scowl so fierce she fears the he will frighten the children. She knows the scowl - knows he searches his great mind for what to do, how to save them. But she knows, as well as he does, that there is no way and they are doomed to this fate.

She hovers at his elbow, unable and unwilling to leave his side as he stares down at Horatio and Maria, his fingers not quite brushing their skin. The children should not be here, she knows. She and Horatio should have them locked away so that they will not spread the bite and blister of the disease, but when the doctor suggested it, Horatio had drawn up to his considerable height and roared a curse that had made Maria blush as red as her poor babies' skin.

Since then he has slumped in his seat, staring down in stony silence until one of the children stirs and opens tired eyes and smiles.

Maria moves away from him when this happens, moves to the opposite side of the room so she can watch the transformation. Horatio's dark eyes lighten and brighten and a smile etches across his face. Pure delight touches his features and he leans in, uncaring of the heat radiating off of the small bodies.

"How is my boy?" he asks softly, his fingers lighting on Horatio's cheek, brushing the flushed skin. "My big boy."

"Da," Little Horatio sighs so softly it's almost not even a sound, though his smile matches the brilliance of his father's. Horatio slides off the chair onto his knees and closes his eyes, resting his forehead against his child's. "Da."

Something shakes him, hammers at him, and his body convulses. His eyes close tightly; the dark lashes nearly invisible against his skin as he chokes back the sound. "Hello, my boy."

Horatio's small hand fists in his father's hair, tangling in the curls before falling away, tired from the effort to play. Horatio rests his head on the side of the bed and guides his son's hand to his head again. The boy's fingers tighten then release and he sighs softly, drifting back to sleep. Horatio disentangles his hand, holding the small one against his much bigger palm, and runs his fingers over the skin. His eyes remain closed, his face a mask of agony and Maria returns to her feet, to her place behind him.

She reaches out as her son had done to touch the tangled mass of curls grown wild during the weeks that Horatio has sat beside this bed, but she does not touch them. She had done so once and earned herself a snarl and shudder of regret in the same instant, his touch soothing against her cheek as he apologized for his reaction. She had nodded and smiled and backed away, and has not touched him since.

Three days later the children's bodies are rent with blistering pustules and even their sleep is full of fitful cries. Horatio sits staring at them before he lifts his eyes to her, letting them roam over her as if seeing her for the first time. Her heart stops in her chest and her lips quiver, aching to curl into a smile, to bask in the light of the love she has not seen since he came ashore. "Horatio…"

The moment is broken by the sharp knock at the door. Horatio ignores it as Little Maria's eyes open, her mouth issuing a soft mewl of protest. Getting to her feet, her hopeful smile in ruins, Maria opens the door and shakes her head.

"No."

"I've an official despatch for Captain Horatio Hornblower, Madam."

"No." Tears overcome her and she turns her face away, knowing that she shames Horatio with her words and her tears. Her chin quivers and she shakes her head. "No."

Horatio approaches the door, Maria in his arms. Her face remains flushed with fever, the hard pellets of the pox prominent on her delicate skin. "I'm Hornblower."

"Des…despatch, Sir." The messenger holds the letter out with shaking hands, fear shining like fever in his eyes. It nearly falls from his hand as Hornblower reaches out for it, takes it from the messenger as though his fingers were lifeless. He turns to go, the command that follows his movement stopping him.

"Wait."

Horatio takes his time, walking to lay Maria down next to her brother before breaking the seal on the letter. The messenger shifts away from the door, his eyes continuing to dart past Horatio to the children then back to Maria, as though for guidance. Horatio reads the letter in silence and then meets the messenger's gaze.

"Tell them no."

"But…but Captain."

"Tell them…" he glances back and then returns his gaze to the messenger, no quarter given in their dark, pained depths. "Tell them no."

The messenger nods and salutes, reaching out on instinct for the despatch then jerking his hand away as it nears the door frame. He turns quickly and hurries down the stairs, sword and boots clattering in his rush.

"You would tell them no?" Maria's voice is aching and soft, pained almost beyond speech. "You never tell them no. You left the day after our wedding. You would not tell them no for me."

"You were not dying." It is the first time the word is spoken, and something in his gaze lets her know that he should not have been the one to say it. "Were you, Maria?" There is no hardness in his tone, no bitter recriminations. Those are all in his eyes. "Were you?"

"No," she admits, giving away nothing in the truth, "Not then. But now…inside? They are my babies too, Horatio." She presses her lips together and moves past him back to the children, sinking down into his chair, saying nothing as he comes and stands behind her, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder, his fingers grazing her face in the closest he can possibly come to apology.

There are three of them at the graveside - Horatio, herself and her mother. The priest says words she does not hear through the blood that pounds in her ears. Her babies are gone. Dead.

Her babies.

She touches the hard pine of the coffins, both so small they seem unreal. Horatio stands opposite her, his hand mere inches away. She pulls hers away before he can move and closes her eyes against tears.

It is a moment, she thinks, of definition. She was Horatio's wife and mother to his children. And now she is not. His face has lost the dark scowl, though he is a changed man, no longer does he smile easily or often. His face remains impassive and she never hears him, so lost in his own silence.

He wears his uniform again, his ship to sail at dawn. His days have been spent aboard the Lydia with men she will never know. Hers have been spent at home, folding away clothes that no one will wear again.

Horatio nods to the priest and then turns toward Maria. "I'll take you home."

She nearly shivers at the words, the soft tone of his voice. She doesn't remember the last time he's spoken to her. She stands and takes his arm, a tearful smile on her face. He places his hand on top of hers and they move together, the silence like a dirge.

He escorts her to their rooms, which are stripped of every vestige of the past few weeks. The windows are open and the curtains blow in the afternoon breeze. Her hand tightens slightly on his arm and then releases him. She gasps slightly as his hand closes around her wrist with a mixture of force and tenderness.

"Maria?"

She nods, unable to speak past the tightness of her throat. There is, for a moment, her husband in his eyes. There is gentleness and respect, duty and honor. There is her hero there, her Captain. "Yes, Horatio?"

He doesn't answer her with words, his lips brushing hers softly before he pulls away. When she opens her eyes, he is gone - the man she knows. In his place is the man who leaves her to put to sea every time. A man who no longer serves any master save the King, any mistress save the sea.

He could not protect them, can not. She knows that now. She knows that he is just a man - a good man, but a man nonetheless. She knows that he knows no more and suffers no less than she does. He can sail the seas and fulfill his duty and fight until there is peace or he is dead.

She touches his cheek with her fingertips and kisses him once more, wondering if she'll ever taste his kiss again. He turns and heads for the door, for his duty, and she watches through the haze of tears.

He cannot save them all, but he has saved her. She does not understand this man - her hero, her Captain, her husband.

But she will always love him.