Fic: The Simplest Gift (HH)

[rosiespark]

.
I have just made myself all sniffly by watching the end of Retribution, hoping that it would provide inspiration for (ETA: a title for) this tiny little ficlet-thingy that I wrote the other night. It did.

Title: The Simplest Gift
Pairing: none is made explicit
Notes: It's post-Retribution but Archie is a central presence...


When he meets Hornblower again, months later on the bleak streets of Portsmouth, it is of Archie that he thinks. Hornblower is pale and strange, with his gaunt face and his threadbare clothes, and his defensive pose of normality moves Bush to angry despair. Was it for this, he asks himself, that Archie made his sacrifice?

When Horatio’s promotion to Commander is confirmed and Bush accepts the post of Lieutenant on the Hotspur, it is Archie’s words that keep running through his mind. He will think he has no-one left in the world, William, and that is when he will most need his friends.

The Hotspur has been at sea barely two weeks and Bush has lately begun to fear that he knows the answer to the question he would ask, if only he could. My friendship for him is not in doubt. But will he accept it, Archie? Will he?

***



I'll probably cross-post it to crumpeteers.

Comments

[fairestcat]

*sniff* Oh, that is wonderful.

[tanacawyr.livejournal.com]

The fact that this hurts like hell and is entirely accurate is why I refuse to admit that Archie died. :-} He's alive and well and snuggling with Horatio like clockwork, I tell you. Making Horatio live after losing Archie is like condemning him to purgatory.

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I can't watch post-Retribution Hornblower at all. I love Horatio and Bush, but I just miss Archie so damn much and it seems as if he was never there somehow. They really killed the heart of that series when they killed off Archie. So I'll stick with the AUs and pretend he never died, because that's the purpose of fan fiction, isn't it? To rewrite canon? Don't tell anyone in LotR that I said that. :D

But this captures the feeling of Horatio without Archie very nicely, and certainly doesn't need to be even one sentence longer.

[timberwolfoz.livejournal.com]

*applauds until my hands sting*

Perfect. Just perfect.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous! *sniffles*

*refuses to believe a word of it but loves madly regardless*

[black-hound.livejournal.com]

Lovely. Precise and emotional.

I am certainly an advocate for everyone creating their own art from what we were given in the HH series, be that LKU or DKU or AU or whatever. But, in my heart of hearts I think it is important to see Kennedy die in the movieverse, just as it is important to see Bush die in the book canon. I love the romance and adventure and the pretty military boys in very pretty uniforms, but this was still a war -- with loss and broken lives left in its wake -- and sometimes that point just needs to be made.

[sjkasabi.livejournal.com]

Oh poor lovely Mr Bush.

*sniffles*

Painfully beautiful.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ooh, how wonderful. Have I mentioned how I love Bush? Er, I mean, William Bush, not any other possible Bushes.

will he accept it, Archie? Will he?

He will accept the friendship, William. More than that: he desperately needs it.