They are both cold and pale beneath their fever-scarred skin. They lay on the bed, now dressed in their finest clothes, waiting for their final outing. Maria leaves them in the cool, dark room and doesn't go back, preferring to huddle near the unlit fire, staring sightlessly in front of her. Her hands betray her, seeking out children to soothe and petting nothing to try and quiet non-existent cries, while the rest of her remains motionless, frozen.

He makes the arrangements, watching as a strange man comes to remove his children from their room. He follows him out to the carriage and glances back at Maria. She has not looked away from the fire, and he wonders if she ever will again, and if she does, what it is she will see.

The funeral is small and private, only himself, Maria and Mrs. Mason there beside the graves. He ignores the service as it drones on for too long considering the youth of his children, and he holds his hand carefully against Maria's shoulder. She doesn't cry, her eyes achingly wide and dry. He assumes she has been so free with them that she has no more tears left, whereas he has only ever been able to find tears in anger and frustration, his own inadequacies fueling the desperate salty sting.

When it ends, Maria's mother leaves them alone, glad of the coin Horatio gives her to find a drink and a bed elsewhere so that he and Maria can be alone. Maria doesn't notice her mother's absence or, if she does, makes no mention of it. Instead she returns to her chair beside the fire and sits.

"Maria?"

He is fond of silence, but knows this is not his wife's natural state, and finds he misses the constant chatter in the distance, tuned out unless he hears the hated 'Horry' and forces himself to pay her mind. The house is far too quiet for his own sense of loss.

"Would you like some tea, my dear?"

She looks up at him, and he doesn't recognize her for a moment as rage and grief and self-loathing race across her features. She schools them quickly, a serene blankness that speaks only of boiling emotions beneath settling back over her face. "No thank you, Horatio."

"You should eat something. You've not eaten in days."

"I'm sure I have. Properly sized and shaped for childbearing, the midwife told me once, you know. Perfectly proportioned to have your babies." She turns back to the fire and her voice comes from a place inside her Horatio had no idea existed. "And perfectly incapable of keeping them safe."

"No. You could not have known…"

"What's done is done." She cuts him off, not looking back to see the shock he can feel settling over him. "Nothing to be gained in thinking otherwise and might have been." She closes her eyes and settles deeper in her chair, her hands pale against the dark black of her dress. "What's done is done."

He goes out to the shipyard and watches as the large wooden vessels come and go. He rarely remembers his life before he boarded Justinian, and what he does remember is a blur of grey, figures looming large in the background but unreal and sometimes nightmarish. Since then, the sea has become his home, even with a true home to call his own. He writes Maria from his ships out of duty and propriety, but if left to his own devices, he would forget everything that ties him to the shore while he feels the sea beneath his feet.

He hears a child's laugh and turns his head in time to see a mother hurrying her child along. Coarse words and coarser offers are made down here near the waters, and it is no place for children, but still the light sound of his voice and laughter on the air makes Horatio's heart beat faster, ache as though it is strained to its limits and ready to burst.

It is nearly night when he returns home, his winding paths taking him everywhere but there until his stomach rumbles and guilt keeps him from spending coin on food when there is likely something hot waiting for him at home. Instead though, the house is dark, even the fire unlit. The cold air from outside swirls in with him and he shuts the door quickly, glancing for Maria.

Her chair sits empty, and yet the house is not, so he knows she's there somewhere. No sound comes from any of the rooms, and he starts first in the kitchen, though the lack of heat and noise gives him his answer long before he sees the empty room. He stands in the door to their bedroom, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark. A faint streetlight shines in the window as though through a thin layer of wax, distorting everything.

The crib has been destroyed, shattered into pieces large and small. A sharp desire to chastise her for the money they could have made by selling it, as it was solid and well-cared for, but the words turn to ash on his tongue, his conscience goading him at the thought of making money from his children's deaths. He would no more rob a dead sailor's sea chest than sell the crib, and better that it is destroyed than reminding Maria, mocking them both from the corner, empty of soft cries and coos in the night.

Maria is asleep on the floor beside the scattered pieces, though real sleep seems less responsible for her state than sheer exhaustion, taking her away from her guilt and sorrow and rage. Her hands torn, bloody with splinters and her nails are broken, some bleeding. Her hands look much like a faint memory from childhood of farmers coming to pay his father in food and animals ripe for slaughter, their hands red and cracked from hard work and cold air.

"Maria. Come to bed."

He helps her stand, feels the lack of strength in her limbs as she lets him support her, guide her to their bed. It is cold as ice and he urges her beneath the covers, not bothering to undress her. She shivers from the cold, no doubt deep within her bones, chilling her blood, and he knows she'd rather take warmth from the cotton and wool than from his arms. Her hands slide along the indentions in the cloth that are no longer there, ghosts of their children haunting the room. He remembers the child's laugh and hears Horatio in his memory, calling his name and giggling as Horatio lifted him higher and higher, soaring up toward the sky as if the wind would carry him away.

"I'm so sorry, Maria."

She looks at him, and for a moment, she's there in her eyes. He sees the concern and compassion, overwhelming emotion he cannot understand, does not endure. It vanishes in an instant, replaced by nothing as she turns away from him, her face toward the wall. "Really? I cannot imagine why."

He feels helpless, stranded in a life he doesn't understand any longer. There is no ship for him to take command, and nothing that requires his presence. There are rumors of him being called before the Admiralty to discuss Bonaparte's plans and progression, but they are all distant whispers told behind the backs of losing hands of Whist. He pays little heed to the well dressed men, simply takes their money on good nights and leaves with little of his own in his pockets on the bad.

He stays out later and later, unwilling to go back to the house, to see the darkness that creeps out from the corners like something spilled on the carpet, slowly leaching its way into the heart of the room. He remembers the short amount of time he used to spend home between missions and assignments; the hearth would glow with fire and noise would come from everywhere. Maria would bustle about her routine, telling him about the minutiae of her day from the scandalous prices at the market to the uncertain gentleman down near the park. Telling tales of Horatio's bravery in facing down a very large bug and Maria's desperate attempts to eat the same bug before the creature was freed back into the wild. Small things of no consequence that filled his house, his home.

Now it is bleak and soulless. He tries to remember what it was like before Horatio was born, but the only thing he can remember is the sad look in Maria's eyes when he left her the day after their wedding, disappearing for months on end with no real word to her. A few sentences written hastily and guiltily when he remembered, lies and words he didn't feel but knew had to be said.

He stands outside the door and sighs, glancing around the darkened street. The streetlamps burn oily gold and he feels his key hard and sharp against his palm. Closing his eyes, he counts the moments in heartbeats, remembering the soft rapid patter against his ear as he laid his head on Horatio or Maria's chest. Moments ticked by too soon by those measurements, disappeared too quickly. Perhaps that was their death knell before the fever could even touch them, their lives racing away in seconds where everyone else's disappears in years.

He glances around the silent street and then at his pocket watch, the seconds like tiny heartbeats as he then turns his gaze to their bedroom window. Another sleepless night of watching Maria grieve, of wanting to share her emotion, for once; to take it on himself where he feels he has none of his own.

Turning from the door, he pulls his coat tighter around him, moving off into the night. He winds through streets, taking the back routes and alleyways to keep out of the lights, lest he meet men he knows, too drunk to hold their tongues, too knowledgeable and offering condolences on his children. He wishes no words tonight, does not want things spoken, made real. He wants the night to remain lost in the mist the creeps like a living blanket across the cobbled streets and the silvered wood as he makes his way to the docks.

He does not care for cost tonight, though usually he counts each pence he spends carefully. There is less worry now, fewer mouths to feed, bodies to clothe. He has spent his last shilling on them, lining small boxes with silk and burying them in the dark frozen ground. He does not even bother with the niceties of talk or alcohol. He absorbs the sound of the tavern and the drunken voices raised in revelry. It's a foreign sound, a loud cacophony, a harsh bleating that hurts his ears, angers him.

The joy and celebration in their tone slides under his skin like the splinters that ripped apart Maria's flesh. He pushes away from the bar, stopping as he sees the woman. She is clearly for sale; her brash and bold painted face offering that up to the world. What stops him is everything else. She is blonde and slim, her face indifferent and cool despite the warm red paints that darken her skin. She is different from Maria in every physical way, and that is enough to hold him in place, enough to push everything away for an instant and slow his heartbeat down so time stills, nothing changes, nothing passes. No one lives. No one dies.

"Two shillings."

He nods and follows her up the stairs to the rented rooms, not looking at the darkness that pervades here as well. Here it is laced with mold and decay, the musty smell more like death than the still air of his home. He shakes his head and tugs her to him, finding her mouth in desperate kisses, hungry for oblivion. She lets him lead her, following his insistent hands and insistent body, her skirts and legs parted and lifted as he thrusts into her. He buries himself in her body, willing his mind to stop working, stop spinning, willing himself to hear the shouts from downstairs, anything but the soft drone of the prayers offered up by the priest as he buried his children.

If she notices the changes in him, Maria says nothing, pays no mind. He no longer bothers to make his way home for dinner; he slides into bed beside her long after sleep has claimed her.

He has created his own routine in the absence of one at home, his world revolves as Maria's stands still. He eats and drinks and lives and breathes as she rocks back and forth in her chair, never quite leaving and always returning to the same place.

His mornings are spent at the Admiralty. He is dressed and gone before Maria is even awake, awaiting orders or declarations or anything that will carry him away from this life, this death.

When nothing comes, he finds the shipyards and learns the men there. His next voyage will be spare - he will have just Maria to tend to, but as she is, he has no idea how such a thing is even possible. As it is, he knows the men to know now, who is honest and who not to trust.

Luncheon is spare silence, as Mrs. Mason has given up on trying to make Maria eat; contenting herself instead with feeding Horatio cold meat and cheese and hard bread in whatever pale light steals in through the windows. He eats and leaves and never lingers, never touches the ghost of his wife on the way out the door.

Drinks and talk and whist fill his nights, redolent with fools and the uninformed amidst the spare few who know of what they do and speak. The rest is filled with nameless, faceless sweat and sex. It is release and atonement that cries out for further forgiveness form the woman he cannot ask. He does not know how to reach her, how to ask her for anything and, at this point, forgiveness is something he is no longer sure she would grant.

They live their lives in false motion - Maria going nowhere and himself running in place.

He wakes to the sound of tears.

It startles him, the sudden balance shift, like he's put to sea after being on land, and the sickness builds at the base of his throat, bile threatening bitter and acrid. He gets to his feet and feels everything settle as the sounds fall into place. Maria's place in the bed is empty and he moves to the door.

Her chair is empty, so he moves to the kitchen and finds Maria huddled in a corner, clutching a small rag doll in her bandaged hands. She brushes back the limp yarn hair, once bright yellow, but now faded to the color of winter sunlight. Her hands shake and tears roll down her hollowed cheeks. Her sobs are silent for the most part, but occasionally one breaks past and echoes around the empty room, more and more slipping past her defenses until the room seems filled with it, the walls uncertain what to do with the sound.

He moves over to her cautiously, kneeling beside her. She curls in on herself, shaking her head as he reaches out to her. He stills, hand still extended, remembering suddenly, sharply, when he was just a boy, barely seven, and he had found a wounded dog, how it had whimpered and cried, but snapped sharp teeth when comfort came near. "Maria."

"How you must hate me." The words are broken, thick with tears. She pressed the doll to her face and draws her knees up, shrinking inside herself.

"I could never hate you, Maria."

She laughs and it's a hard and bitter sound. "You have hated me since the day your ring fit over my fat finger."

Horatio falls back slightly, shocked by the words and the tone. "No."

"There's no need to pretend anymore, Horatio. There's no one to hear the truth but us. You hate that you married me, and tolerated it only for our children. I must have been blessed to bear one so quickly so you would not have to find excuses not to come home."

"Maria. Stop."

"What holds you here now? Nothing. You cannot even stand to come home to me. Who can blame you? Are they pretty, Horatio? They must be. You would want a woman who was pretty. Someone who wouldn't remind you in any way of the creature you have waiting at home."

"Maria. Stop." He grabs her arms, holding her, shaking slightly. She keeps her head turned until he grabs her chin, forcing her to look at him. "I do not hate you."

"No?" She blinks, the tears standing in her eyes falling down her cheeks, her skin blotched red. "Do you love me then?"

"Yes."

"Yes." She nods. He can see the disbelieve in her eyes and wonders at it.

"Maria…"

"No. Horatio." She shakes her head and shakes off his touch, gathering herself to her feet and moving away from the corner. "You're likely hungry."

He shifts to sit on the floor, watching her in confusion. It is clear she does not believe him, and he cannot truthfully blame here. What love has he shown to her? At best he is tolerant and affectionate; he has no true grasp of how to feel, how to show her the same emotional reaction that pours out of her like a flood. "My dear."

She looks back at him, and she seems to be Maria again, the unknown creature he's spent the past three months with gone as if she never existed. There are dark circles beneath her eyes and her cheeks are sunken, there are lines around her eyes that were not there before. She is no longer the hopeful girl he married, and he wonders if it was the fever that took her away from him, or if he's done this all to her himself. "Coffee to start, I think. You do love your coffee."

He lets her move through the kitchen, slowly turning what had become a tomb back into a home, chasing out ghosts and shadows with fire and light. Her hands still shake as she lights the fire and sets the water on to boil, but he can see all her reserves coming out, as if she has infinite wells of patience, forgiveness, understanding. He can see the past sloughing off like an old skin and she is Maria again, somehow.

He could ask her anything at this moment, and he imagines that she would laugh and oblige him, teasingly calling him 'Horry' and blushing. He is amazed by the transformation. He wonders that one statement from him can do this to her, or if it is simply her hiding behind false colors, putting on a brave face and saving her grief and pain and anger for the months he is away from her.

He will tell her tonight. He will come home early for once and lie with her, kiss her and make love to her, whisper back to her the sweet words she once called him. Afterwards, warm and spent and sated, he will tell her that he has spent his days outfitting his ship, that he will sail in three days time. He watches her as she begins to make breakfast, falling into routine like a proper sailor, doing the job that needs be done. He will make sure she is cared for, make sure that she will need nothing in his absence.

He stands and moves back to the bedroom, checking his bag for his uniforms, making sure all is in readiness. She will notice now, so he will have to tell her soon. Tonight will be best. Or perhaps tomorrow. He looks down as he closes the bag, surprised to see the doll laying on top of his coat. He doesn't remember picking it up after Maria dropped it, doesn't remember holding it at all.

He takes it from his bag and sits on the bed, staring at the drawn on face and the limp yarn hair. The dress is made from the worn and faded wool of one of Horatio's old uniforms. He traces the fabric and the face and closes his eyes, imagines it clutched in little Maria's tight fist.

"Higher, Daddy! Higher!"

He gasps at the sudden wave of heat and buries his face against the doll's, bowing his head as tears assault him, blind him and spill down. He lays on the bed, curled up like a child. He hears Maria's skirts as she comes to the door, and feels her as she lies beside him, wrapping her arms around him. She whispers words that mean nothing and everything all at once and he turns into her arms, her embrace. She kisses him softly, tasting his tears and soothing him, her hands stroking his back as he sobs, mourning his children.