The skies had darkened the farther they got from the coast, accelerating as the day went on. It was raining steadily by the time the coach had entered into London proper. Despite the chill gloom Horatio cracked open the shutters and stared out at what he could, catching glimpses of towering masonry and hurrying crowds.

"I'll take you on a tour tomorrow and you can gawp about with your mouth open all you like, but only if I don't catch my death from that infernal draft."

This acid pronouncement seemed more than a little ridiculous coming from a boy who had stood watch three nights together in the heart of winter, without coming down with so much as a dripping nose. Archie was impossibly robust. But Horatio's traveling companion had also been growing steadily more taciturn and spiteful the closer the coach drew to London. As Kennedy's tone could now effectively slice a roast, Horatio elected not to argue. Better to save both their energies for whatever scene his friend seemed to be anticipating on their arrival.

Horatio slumped back on the bench, closing the window securely. "Thank you for the offer, but I have been to London before, Mr. Kennedy," he smiled, without any answer, "And I should be on my way to Kent in the morning in any case." He tried to say it gently, not wanting to rile the suddenly prickly boy.

"No, you shouldn't." Horatio didn't know what to make of this curt, petulant statement.

"I... well I have to go, Kennedy, you know I do. As soon as I can get a seat on a coach. It's too kind of your family already, putting me up for the night. Are you sure it will be all right?" Horatio could not help nervously straightening his rumpled uniform. Try as he might, he couldn't quite keep from thinking about Captain Kennedy-to his mind rather like a taller, healthier, more sarcastic Captain Keene-sneering down at him resentfully like a rat flushed out of the sewers and sprawling on the Lord's doorstep.

"Stop fizzing, Hornblower. It will be fine, they are welcoming home the prodigal son for the last time before going off to war. Probably to get myself killed. My parents will hardly complain about anything I do. And I distinctly recall inviting you to stay the week at least."

"You were drunk. You said a great many things you didn't mean." Despite the scolding, he found himself polishing a button that had managed to acquire a tarnish in the last day.

"If I was all that drunk, I'm sure I meant everything. I certainly meant to ask you on a visit. And you agreed."

Horatio looked up, confused. "I didn't actually, Mr. Kennedy."

"You did. You said you would stay for my birthday party."

Horatio had spent the better part of the day's silences, which though infrequent at first, had grown as the journey lengthened, on reviewing and dissecting every detail of the previous night. He could recall each word he and Kennedy had exchanged, as perfectly as he remembered the texture of the boy's fingertips on his throat, or the heat of Kennedy's back pressed tight against his own in the pre-dawn hour.

Horatio had said only that he might, depending on what the Earl allowed, he was as sure of that as the smell of Kennedy, all lavender and young animal. But he still didn't want to argue, so he said nothing, lost besides in trying to forget the sensation of muscled limbs stretching against his own.

"Are we ever to be friends again, Horatio? Just when I think things are better, you go stiff and cold on me. We're to serve together, and we were truly friends, once. Say that I have not ruined it forever."

The change of mood and topic roused him from his reverie immediately. He couldn't quite make out Kennedy's expression in the gloom of the carriage. The other boy was mercifully staring down, rather than at Horatio.

I thought you were my friend. I hate you. The accusation echoed in his head. No matter that Clayton claimed Kennedy hadn't meant it. No matter how Kennedy tried to pretend the words hadn't been spoken, that the incident in the hold hadn't happened. Horatio couldn't join in the pretense.

His feelings, his... affection for Archie had been violently rejected, spat on and made vile. Horatio forgave Archie. Whether it had been meant or not, said out of fear, surprise, wanting to protect him from Simpson, for any reason or none at all, he forgave Archie equally. The flaw was in him, after all.

But Horatio could not forget. Not the words, or how it felt, that moment when the sun seemed to fall out of the sky forever, or his desperation after. Better to keep his distance, if only Kennedy would let him.

He could not say that, though, not with the boy looking so small, curled into a corner. "Of course we are friends, Mr. Kennedy. You are a very good friend to me, as you always have been."

His perfunctory tone had not gone unnoticed. Horatio was fixed with a pale, level stare. "Not always at all, not even mostly."

How did one weigh a handful of nuts tucked in his pocket, against a few crude jibes at his expense? Fingers spelling out jokes and dreams versus a fist in the face that revealed a nightmare? Which meant more, the gaze turned away while he was beaten, the callousness that urged another man to die in his place, or the limbs wrapping his so he would not fall, and a scarf, tucked about his neck with tender care?

It was a calculus too complex for Horatio to unravel. "We have both made mistakes, perhaps."

"Perhaps. But can't we leave those behind us now? Justinian was a foul place. It made everything twisted and confused. Can we not start over?"

Horatio could not help but feel this was another veiled reference to his intemperate kiss, and made a stiff reply. "I am very glad to serve with you, of course, and I know I shall rely on you in our first weeks, as I already have. But surely you can think of more reasons than I to confine our association to our duties. We were thrown together, Mr. Kennedy, on Justinian. It will be different in our new posting. We will both, I hope, find company that is more congenial to our spirits."

Kennedy made no answer at first, just stared at him, before laughing harshly. "More congenial company. I wonder if you have any notion of how you sound, Hornblower. I thought you were still mad at me about Clayton, But this is about that business in the hold! Do you still think I honestly care about you kissing me? Good God, I'm not that much a hypocrite."

Horatio took some time to untangle this mess of reasoning, for he did care-very much-about Clayton, and he didn't know how to reconcile that with his feelings for Archie, pure or impure. Precisely because it was so alluring, so easy, to fall back into their old closeness, they had to part. It was best for both of them. He was just drawing breath to say so, more bluntly, when Kennedy kissed him.

It was firm, and sudden. Horatio was more aware of the strong hand wrapping the back of his neck, holding him still, than the pressure of lips. He felt the puff of warm air against his skin, and then it was over, Archie pushing him back to arm's length.

"There. Now you may hit me, and we shall be even, and we can put this all behind us."

Horatio had just enough grasp of his senses to protest that. "But you said... I don't care about your fists, you said you hated me."

"Then hit me twice, for being a damned liar, Horatio. I'll pay whatever penance you ask," Archie had the nerve to grin at him. "Even kiss you again if you like. Only say that we can be true friends again, and you forgive me."

Horatio was tempted enough that his hands clenched. Not because Archie had convinced him with this nonsense, but because he was so angry. There was mockery in Kennedy's expression, as if these last weeks were just a joke gone wrong, and not the most important and devastating events that had ever happened to him.

The maddening boy just sat there, waiting, apparently unconcerned as to what he might do. And in the end he could only cram back into the corner of the bench, as far from Archie as he could get, and snarl, impotently. "I don't understand you at all, Mr. Kennedy."

"Really? I think I'm being uncommonly clear." The boy slowed down, enunciating carefully. "I am very sorry for almost everything that happened on Justinian, Mr. Hornblower. But we are free of her now. And while you might very well find someone among our new comrades that is more sober and mathematical and kind and far less trouble than I have been, I cannot as easily replace you. So, I will do anything to keep you, and if you can't comprehend why, it's only because you understand yourself even less than you do me."

Horatio didn't know what to make of this little speech at all. Archie hardly seemed sincere. However pretty the words, the boy's whole manner was still flippant, as if his compliance was already taken for granted. It was all enough to make his head ache. His lips had begun to tingle, besides, and he found himself rubbing them with the back of his hand. The motion of the coach, now starting and stopping frequently because of the city traffic, was making him queasy, too, and when his mind began to catalog his growing miseries, his eyes began to sting as well.

"We are almost home, Hornblower. You'll see I have some worth as a friend then. But you'd better let me re-tie your queue. It's gotten disarranged somehow, and you want to make a good impression on the Earl."

Horatio hardly cared, now, but he obediently turned anyway, and let deft fingers pull out the ribbon and smooth his hair.

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