A/N: Shoutout to Ames and Guest for their lovely reviews. Ames, it's good to see you round the Pit of Voles again. :)

It was the lack of motion that woke him, the uncomfortable stillness which meant he was once again on land. Next to filter into his sleep-muddled mind was the stifling humidity. His uniform was plastered to his skin from the black necktie loosened around his neck to the long stockings scratching against his calves. Just as Horatio's body accepted the temperature, the stench of sweat and human refuse hit his nostrils.

Horatio's eyes opened of their own accord as the reminders of his present situation sank in. He turned his head to the side, glancing across the bare cell to the boxed bed by the other wall. Its occupant lay as motionless as he had the night before. The man's eyelids, a bruised purple and red, fluttered slightly with each rise and fall of his chest, and his tangle of dark blond hair looked as soaked with sweat as Horatio's felt. Reassured, the acting lieutenant gazed above him to the slats of the upper bunk. Hunter was no longer snoring, which meant he must be awake.

The euphoria of discovery had faded after a night's fitful sleep, and the grim realities of their condition presented themselves. Archie lived, but he was not the Archie that Horatio remembered. A fierce and trapped madness lingered in place of the merry troublemaker who had helped Horatio survive to his eighteenth birthday. Those clear blue eyes, impish and playful in memory, were clouded and wild.

Horatio had not been the only one whose life had drastically changed while they were apart. Archie's sleeping face hinted at horrors that his younger friend could only imagine, and a quiet voice deep in Horatio's bones warned that those horrors would have to be addressed before escape could be seriously considered.

Forced inaction had never suited Horatio – not when such a long road lay ahead and he alone could chart their path back to the Indy. His had been the command, and he had sailed his men, his passenger, and the admiralty's dispatches straight into the welcoming arms of the Spanish fleet. Their safety had been his responsibility, and now, were any harm to come to them – or the Duchess, or the dispatches – the fault would be his to bear and his alone. The weight was crushing. He had failed them, and he must make recompense by bringing them all safely back home again. Especially Archie, who he had failed most.

The beginnings of panic coursed through his veins. He closed his mind to the heat and the smell and the ever-present fear of failure and forced himself to cool. His men were relying on him. Matthews, Styles, Oldroyd were relying on him. In the few days since Le Rêve had been retaken, they had already indicated, with a sidelong glance or a tip of the head, that they were waiting for his signal, waiting for his plan, trusting that once again Mr. Hornblower, with the luck of the Devil himself, would save them.

To fail once would be too costly, both in terms of physical consequences and morale. When they tried to escape, they must succeed. And in order to succeed, they needed to be well-prepared and physically sound. It would take time, and patience. Horatio could do that. He would start with Archie, using the other man's health to gauge when it was time to go.

Filled with resolve and purpose, Horatio swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He pushed himself upright, his stomach flopping half-heartedly against his spine in a futile attempt to be noticed. Its pleas were easily ignored. Three years in the King's service had taken a callow seventeen-year-old youth and had hardened him beyond recognition of that starry-eyed boy who had dreamt of the sea.

Horatio got to his feet, the movement providing a welcome reprieve from the sticky moisture slowly trickling down between his shoulder blades. Moving freshened the air, momentarily creating Horatio's own breeze that gently caressed the scant few inches of skin bared by his uniform. Revolving slowly on the spot, he examined every corner of the ten by ten room where he was to spend the foreseeable future.

Light filtered in through the barred window and the porthole in the door, nowhere near enough to illuminate the room, but enough to facilitate Horatio's peering into the dimmer corners. He noted the two beds with their roughened bedding and their occupants – Hunter leaning against the wall at the head of his bunk, his eyes bright and hard in the midmorning gloom, and Archie, a silent, shifting figure still wrapped in blankets. Apart from these and a wooden bucket with rusted handle in the far corner, the cell was devoid of furnishings. Horatio rocked back on his heels, curiously satisfied. It could be better – and a great deal better, at that – but it could also be far worse.

His survey complete, the man glanced to his right to catch the fleetest moment of reddened eyes looking up at him, before they darted away and fixed themselves to an imaginary point on the far wall. For the first time, hesitation chilled Horatio. Perhaps this would not be as straightforward as he had imagined.

He took a place on the edge of Archie's bed, settling himself by the older man's hip, giving him as much room as he could. Impinging on Archie's space had never been a consideration on the Indy, but now cold reason had pierced through Horatio's earlier excitement. He tendered the distance both as a courtesy and a precaution.

"Good morning, Archie." He bolstered the words with normalcy, telling himself to act as though this was just another day belowdecks.

Archie's chin jerked to the side, and he stared at his former shipmate warily. "Horatio?" His voice was deathly quiet and utterly empty of inflection. Blue eyes swept up and down the unfamiliar face as if on a quest to relearn the new lines at the corner of its eyes and mouth. Horatio remained perfectly immobile, aware of Hunter's suspicious gaze and disregarding it. If this was what Archie needed to remember, to be himself again, then he would have it.

The older midshipman propped himself up on his elbows, untangling his upper body from the coarse horse blanket in the process. A strand of matted hair fell forward from where it had been tucked behind his ear, a visual reminder that not all was as it should be. Archie Kennedy, the relentless optimist of Horatio's memory, had always taken a modicum of care for his appearance, at least where tying his blond hair into a horsetail had been concerned.

"I thought I was dreaming," he continued in that alien voice. "Is it really you?"

Pity twinged painfully in Horatio's chest. "Yes, Archie," he replied, his tone softening from that of Acting Lieutenant Hornblower to plain Horatio. He spoke in a way that would have been entirely unfamiliar to the men in his division: gentle and relaxed and soothing. The sort of voice his father used on particularly ill patients.

Lips pressed close together, Horatio smiled, even as something burned in the backs of his eyes. "It really is me."