captainhornblower | Fourteenth Dispatch

Fourteenth Dispatch - [written]

[He's been here a year now.

An entire year.

And it doesn't feel any more like home than it did the day he arrived. If anything, his obligations feel even sharper than they did then. Because he has been away from them. Even if no one would know he'd been gone, he knew.]

Person or thing, either way--

What would you most like to see here?

Hornblower

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's the "right" answer... but not for the right reasons.]

My wife.

[Because then he could stop feeling like he'd abandoned her. He could take care of her. Ease his conscience. He couldn't escape to sea here, but that was better than leaving her with nothing. Even if she'd never know he was gone.]

Right. ~~I keep forgetting you're...~~

Makes sense. I mean. Married people probably...miss...each other.

My Maria has been on my mind often, lately.

It's been a long time since I last saw her.

[And it's all the wrong reasons that he's wanted to see her again. So he can protect her. So he can stop feeling like a failure. So he can know she's not fretting over the baby or money or him.]

...How long? Longer than being here?

Only the year I've been here, really, but even then had only been home for five days, and we'd been married for months.

[Not that he minded, being out to sea as a newly-wed. He preferred it, actually, to being home.]

I would not normally wish this place on her, but not hearing from her, knowing nothing about how she fares. I know others assure me that no time passes while I am gone, but that does little to ease my worries.

I hear that it's an occupational hazard. Loneliness. Or -- no. Not that.

Separation.

It's... a small sacrifice to keep our country safe.

...It's perfectly alright to call it a big sacrifice, you know.

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Then I guess it's not the size of your sacrifice that matters. Just -- how you use it.

[ oh she cracks herself up. ]

[You may be waiting a bit, Buffy. He has no idea how to reply to that. Mostly because... He's trying to figure out how else one would use the same sacrifice.]

[ so once she's calmed down... ]

What's she like?

[Simple.]

She's warm and kind, a perfect heart.

[Plain.]

Nothing but goodness and gentleness. All patience, too.

I could not ask for a better wife.

[And this... This he can mean with all his heart:] She will be a perfect mother.

...Do you want kids, ~~Hora~~Captain?

My wife is with child, actually.

[ ............oh

stilted: ] You must be very happy.

I am.

[And he is...

And also scared to death.

He wants to take care of his family, but that doesn't matter in terms of making him feel he can.

Especially since he knows he can't even do that much here.]

That's...very endearing, Captain.

Endearing, Miss Buffy?

Looking forward to it. Starting a family.

If I were you, I'd be running in the opposite direction.

No you wouldn't.

...No one deserves a Vampire Slayer for a mother, Horatio.

Maybe not.

But I know you. Only a coward runs away from a family they've started. You're not a coward.

I wish I could say that I've never run away...

[ not the point, though. still -- she thinks on the children jack has invented for them; dreamed for them; tried to erase for them. ] Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?

A healthy child and a healthy mother to care for it.

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