How does a man become wicked? Is there an aptitude for evil that lurks beneath his skin, festering, waiting to emerge from the moment that life begins? I came so unwillingly into this world and my resistance would be my downfall. As a boy, I fought against any integration into the wealth of social obligations that birthed and branched at the front door of my home. I, like my sweet Sebastian, refrained from speech and thrived in solitude. Was it wicked to do so? Was it wicked that, in knowing this, I stood idly by as silence swallowed him whole? I never learned what Sebastian would become, I only witnessed my own destruction.

This is where my story becomes peculiar, dear reader. One would think that a man could name each layer of sediment and stone after passing them by on his way to hell. I could tell you every sin that I committed leading up to the rivers of blood that my vengeance spilled over the Carolinas. I could. Yet, I did not know the ingredients for evil until I saw them unravel, inch by inch as another man neared salvation before my waking eyes. Tavington was submerged in hellfire when Annabelle reached for his hand. He was not a friend to me until the night that I found him on his back, reciting a sonnet of his own creation to a cluster of fireflies in the blue evening.

"I hear tell that you were married before… before that cavalcade of disgusting incidents with Major Andre," Tavington said once he found a natural break in his reverie. "Does marriage truly lead to unhappiness or were you no more than an isolated case, Captain?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, embarrassed that he had sensed me standing there and irritated that he decided to address my presence at all. "Weren't you the one who said that a war is no platform to discuss matters of the heart?" I caught his stubborn glare and admittedly, it was well-deserved. "Marry her. The schoolteacher from Waterford. You would be foolish to let your pride get in the way of joy. As for my marriage, that topic is not open for discussion," I saw him glower and was unafraid. Tavington had the same spoiled and snobbish sneer that Sylvia wore on occasion. It amused me. It shouldn't have, but it did. "The temptations that pulled me from my wife's side were a personal defect, Sir. My marriage was the very picture of joy and perfection. As was my wife."

"Personal defect," he pursed his lips, manipulating them into a sour grin. Annabelle seemed gone from his mind now, replaced by the amusement that he found in my misfortune. "I'd sooner marry a colonial than I would befriend one." Tavington stood and dusted off his behind, a silly thing to do after attempting to sear me with his wit. "That said, I fear for you. I yell 'charge' and you fall behind, you are shite at watching your own back and I have little interest in watching it for you. Major Andre and Colonel Tarleton may have stood in the way of musket fire for you, Captain, but I expect responsibility, maturity and how can I put this gently? Intellect- yes, yes intellect from those under my command. Do I make myself clear?"

"You fear for me?"

He scanned my face with those pale, emotionless eyes. They could not differentiate friend from foe. I had watched him slice into another man's throat while donning that same expression. "Your loyalties are in the right place and you are an above average combatant. Perhaps if you applied yourself, you could become excellent. So, yes. I consider you to be valuable, but you are only of value to me if you are alive. Now please, you have overstayed your welcome."

At one point during his halfhearted monologue, my eyes had wandered to the ground. Neither Tavington nor Cornwallis cared for this trait of mine and I waited for that commonplace command, 'Look at my face, Captain Bordon. Not at your boots.' Instead, he cleared his throat and when I looked up, I saw the smallest fraction of a smile on his lips. "We will be riding through Waterford again tomorrow, Sir. I can keep our men occupied while you-"

Tavington raised his right hand, cutting my half-formed thought in two. "My, what a romantic mind you have! What I would give to live in the olden days when love was considered to be a deadly fever that boils the brain until those affected go mad!"

Slowly, I drew in a narrow stream of breath and released it. The smallest miscalculation in a man's phrasing could set me off and he was in no position to speak of madness in front of me. I knew that he intercepted my letters from Banastre, letters containing sensitive information regarding the deterioration of Sylvia's mental state. "Pardon me." I started to make leave, but he stepped directly in my path. Tears were beginning to pool in my eyes and both of my hands had formed inadvertently into fists.

"Allow me to phrase this in a way that you might understand, Bordon," he loomed over me, each word containing a silent threat of death, "you and you alone are the author of your tragedy. Andre is no more. Your marriage is no more. You closed the door leading to Sylvia with your infidelity. Now, another man not only holds that key, he changed the lock. I need you to think. Think! If I can snatch your letters from the mail bag, imagine how easy it would be for Lord Cornwallis to do the same. Your life in New Jersey has ended. Refusal to rid yourself of the dead weight that you are bound to will only cause you to sink further."

"You are meddling!" I shouted and as I did so, his patience lifted like the morning fog. He was about to swing, but I did not care. "Those letters were meant for me! Not only for reading, but for responding to. I promised her that I would write. When last I heard, she had fallen ill and that she-" my gaze followed his to the camp. It was decent of him, I suppose, to ensure that there were no eavesdroppers although it was for the protection of his own reputation rather than my own. "Cornwallis rarely displays his emotions. He is nearly impossible to read, Sir. But I know that he loves Sylvia. I watch him every chance that I can find, waiting for the faintest sign of change. Losing her would affect him, somehow and I will not-"

"Sylvia," he spat her name out as though each syllable was unpalatable. "I wonder, did you give a damn about Sylvia that night at the theatre? Hm? When you and John were putting on that distasteful display in the balcony?"

I picked through my memory, retrieving only deconstructed phrases and broken bits of jargon that were forged on our commander's tongue and certainly not intended for my ears. Lord Cornwallis was right about Tavington, he was not a gentleman. Nor was I. I studied him for a few short seconds, contemplating what I saw. We were both wicked in our own ways, both self-serving and careless. "Both," I pondered aloud at last, "I loved them both, Sir. I believe that now, as payment for my sin, I am to die alone. Without either."

"A grim testament," his thin lips grinded against one another. He relieved them of their tension only once and I could have sworn that I witnessed a momentary smile within that pause. "What would your death say about me, I wonder? That I do not look out for my own?"

I parsed the ground between our boots, knowing for certain that his work was already cut out for him. Tavington, as ever, would offer up a pre-solved riddle to our commander. It was selfishness masquerading as compassion and he knew me well enough to determine where my stoicism would derail: that trace of humanity within him, that semblance of pure love that at one time might have matched my own. "You are to look out for me, then?"

In the place of the sneer that I had anticipated, that I had surely earned, Tavington inched away from me in defeat, voicing a tense, "I dismiss you, Captain. Good-night." when I was no longer within his field of vision.

It was hardly a promise that I could confide in- it was hardly a promise at all, but I found peace and reward within it during our dark stay in the golden Carolinas. You see, there was a soreness in my soul that zinged with pain each time Lord Cornwallis was present. Though Tavington insulted me freely and cared no more than a button for my wellbeing, he could sit where companionship was due. Companionship was what I required, after all, while living in fear. I was a dying man, a haunted man. Perhaps he saw that, perhaps he understood.

Knowing that my letters would no longer be intercepted and that Tavington would not reveal me, I sent letters out like flares into the darkest of nights. I wanted to be found, I wanted to be saved. I was tormented by the foretelling of my own demise. For months, I was frightened to dream at night, knowing far well that the moment I abandoned the present, I would be forced to revisit what awaited me at the end of the war. I had evaded death many times, escaping it narrowly like a coward. Now, I only knew that the end was drawing nigh and could meet me around any corner.

What if I had known all along? What if God had whispered in my ear the first time I saw that pampered child in her frills and lace snatch a parcel from my hands, duck beneath that dreaded marble table and spill its contents on the floor? Would I have believed that the tabletop clock would vanish, the porcelain figurines would be swept away and the fine crystal glasses would return to the kitchen to make room for me?

The devil within me that was born the day I buried Sebastian continued to whisper in my ear. In the daylight hours, I followed Tavington's commands. Each stalk of life I chopped down, each corpse that my hand created from living, breathing men took the place of my own. I killed because I sought to kill the bitter irony that I was what she anticipated now. My darling Sylvia would wait at her window and watch over misty hill and dale for my return. I felt her prayers, they found me at night and soothed me as best they could, but they could never alleviate my fears or banish my destiny.

I would be the parcel. I dreamed that dream a thousand times from the encampments and battlefields that I now called home. My life hung in the delicate balance of my own cowardice and my commander's hubris. The only potential escape that I found came in the form of a letter from Banastre Tarleton who Cornwallis had commissioned to take Tavington's place. Hushed conversations transpired and bled through the walls at Fort Carolina. Rumor reached my ear that perhaps I, too, would be stationed elsewhere.

Tavington did not learn this from me. But I knew that he felt threatened, I knew that his desperate search for The Ghost would soon derail. Waiting for Banastre to arrive, to speak to him and garner any word he carried from Sylvia caused my armor to crack. It took but one moment during an ambush, when Tavington was reloading his pistol and I was blindly depending on him to defend me as he always had, that a dagger tore into me. My uniform, the colors that I wore for King and country fell apart so easily. My loyalty, my misplaced loyalty in Sylvia's homeland, in Tavington's friendship, Banastre's swiftness and my own vengeance could no longer shield me.

I was dead to my commander the instant that my body hit the grass. He did not come to me and knowing that he would never come, I did not call out for him. I thought of my son, then, how quiet and dignified he was when death stole him away. That little baby, Christlike in his inability to cry or show any trace of selfishness at his birth, inspired me to let go in peace. Sebastian was with me, I felt his presence in the chattering cicadas and the rumbling bullfrog's throat beside the stream. He helped me hold to silence, to remain in a deathlike trance until the rebel soldiers came and went, removing the bodies of their fallen friends and sons.

After rolling onto my back, the searing pain transitioned to a frigid numbness. Even the warmth of the sun, high in the cloudless sky, blanketed me like a cool fog. My mouth was parched, my lips were dry and the flavor of blood turned stale on my tongue. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was home, that she was there to comfort me as my soul escaped and rose towards the heavens. I felt a hand then, so real, so palpable against my brow and convinced myself that it was hers.

"Sylvia?" I mouthed her name, but no noise resounded in my throat. "Sylvia?"

"Captain. Did he abandon you, Captain? You must come with me. Come with me this instant. I will save you. I promise," that voice, although familiar, was filled with panic that I never knew its owner to be capable of harboring. "I will save you!" He pleaded again. "Open your eyes. Be strong for just a while longer. Captain Bordon?" I blinked, flinching as the light filled my eyes. I was not ready to sit yet, let alone stand, but Banastre decided for me what I was capable of.

He pulled me into his arms, his slender albeit agile body arced and formed a surface for me to lean against. He held me close, as though I was his dearest friend in all the world and begged me to stay strong a while longer. I abided. I allowed this unearned companionship, this compassion out of nowhere to preserve my life in the presence of death. I found that it was stronger than wickedness born of fear, but what kept me alive, above all else, was to behold in full the wonders that a human heart is capable of holding. Even if that heart belonged to Banastre Tarleton.

A/N: Sorry for putting Bordon's story on such an extended hiatus, especially this late in the game. This fanfic is incredibly dear to me and after starting graduate school, I found myself putting it off because I wanted to do it justice. To remedy this (hopefully), I found a way to extend the story to one and perhaps even two more chapters. A lot of it is already written and just needs to be edited. More to come! Thank you for reading! X