Kingston, Jamaica
January 23, 1802

At this point in life, it is meant to be healing to gather ones thoughts and order them. I can sum up my own thoughts by saying simply how much I hate what I have become.

At least my Captain could blame his mind for his actions. A brave and just man turning into a lunatic - a tragedy. But a sensible and reasonable man turning into... a monster, for no reason at all, is inexcusable.

No, not for no reason. For love, of all things.

It began only a few shorts months ago. Perhaps it was that night when we first shared a watch. Yes, that was the first time I truly looked at him - associating with midshipmen was not a habit of mine, after all. This one though... he was different. It would be some time before I found out exactly how different.

That night, all I knew for certain was that he was beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful. His skin - sickly pale by day - glowed in the moonlight like precious ivory. His eyes - avoiding everyone as they habitually did - gazed out to sea, unguarded. Dark jewels against his luminescent beauty. And those high cheeks... as rosy and perfect as his lips.

Have I ever looked that young? I cannot remember. I know I was never beautiful like him, even though I had once been quite handsome; or so my Captain had told me. The Captain for whom I had taken a shot from a clumsy pistol, for whose sake I had my own face disfigured with scars. I had never minded that - he still thought me handsome afterwards.

But all that lay in the distant past, long before the Renown embarked on this fateful voyage to the West Indies.

Lately, I was certain that my Captain no longer remembered what we had shared once. I have heard it said that love never lasts, and sadly, it seems to be true. He never lost my loyalty though - that at least he still needed until the very end. God knows everyone else had deserted him.

My heart, meanwhile, grew colder and colder just as quickly as my Captain's mind was growing dim, and so for a long while after that first night on watch with Henry Wellard, I had no idea what had happened to me. The less my Captain was conscious of my presence, the more I began not to desire his. Or anyone's except... Wellard's.

Boredom. That was how I at first explained to myself why I could not tear my eyes away from that boy's face. Nothing else to look at, I told myself. But that did not do him justice, and I eventually had to face the truth.

"Is anything amiss, Mister Hobbs?" he asked me during another watch, somewhat uncomfortable with how I was staring at him, no doubt.

What angered me more, I could not be sure. The fact that something was amiss, or the fact that he had noticed it.

"Nothing." I glared at him, not certain why. He frowned and I added a quick and somewhat sour, "Sir." It was then that I began to behave ever more inexplicably toward him.

Before long, he began to avoid me. Not that I could blame him. I was quickly becoming more and more horrid to him, in part because I foolishly blamed him for what was happening to me.

Did he need to be so desirable? Did he have to tempt me into this adoration and then disgust with that very adoration? He was only a boy - but I desired him so much, it hurt.

I had no illusions from the beginning. He would not want me any more than a prince would want a beggar.

It only began to truly hurt when I realized that he was not beyond wanting, desiring and, perhaps, even falling in love. Not with me, of course. But with another vision much like him. Too beautiful for words, too beautiful for a mere mortal to aspire to. Someone so good and clever and loyal, it was hard to hate him, but damn them both, I was going to.

I made myself a promise that I would hate this rival all my life, together with his dark curls and big brown eyes and courage and all of his perfection. Third Lieutenant Hornblower was not to have what I could not have.

Soon, life onboard the Renown became unbearable for me. There I was, having to watch my Captain rapidly descend into madness. Furthermore, I had to stand by and watch him inflict injustice after injustice on Wellard - the object of my affections as well as my bitterness. My affection for him demanded that I take his side, that I dissuade my Captain from this course - I knew I was the only one who could, no matter how the lieutenants might try. But my bitterness always won out and I stood by, watched, took a sick pleasure even from Wellard's suffering, because after all, I was suffering too.

It was only at night that I truly saw myself for what I was. Haunted by dreams of his tear-filled eyes glazed from the laudanum he had to take for his pain, I suffered doubly each night, but I deserved it. I deserved his disgust and hatred, and no doubt I had both.

After all, when the sun rose again, I began to terrorize him anew. I took each and every opportunity to taunt him, to watch fear mingle with his pain as he was barely able to withstand my verbal abuse. Did I delight in that also? Perhaps not, but I continued nonetheless. More than once, I found myself wondering whether some of my Captain's madness had not made its way into my own mind.

Henry Wellard began to fear me soon enough. Did he hate me as well? I thought myself safe from his hatred to begin with, because after all, a sweet boy like that did not hate. But this one did. I could see his hatred of my Captain most clearly when I first confronted him about that "accident" in the hold. And I saw then that he would not give out the name of the man who had pushed my Captain. Was it loyalty that kept him silent? Or was it love?

Oh yes, he loved him. His pretty eyes used to light up whenever his hero was in sight. His cheeks flushed whenever Hornblower spoke to him and glowed feverishly when he praised him.

I should have praised him, too. But everytime I attempted it, such as when I complimented him on his conduct in the tunnel, I turned that praise into foul abuse in the blink of an eye. And I watched his brief delight turn into wariness and fear just as quickly.

Could I ever have had that love if I, too, had been as generously kind as Hornblower? If I had spoken up for him? Protected him? Let him know how important he was to me? Would he have looked at me only once with that kind of affection? I fear I will never know, but I would give my miserable life to find out.

Too late. Much too late now.

Only once - except for when he died - did I tell him something I truly meant. When we attacked the Spanish fort and I told him to stick by me and that I would look out for him, that was the one brief moment of honesty between us. And tragically, but not surprisingly, he never even realized.

He looked at me then with that suspicious, fearful gaze I had grown so used to, and he walked on, leaving me in no doubt that he neither wanted me to look our for him, nor did he trust me to. He was doubtlessly right - a clever boy indeed.

What would I do if time could be turned back? What if I could change only one thing that has happened in the past few months? Would I bring my unfortunate Captain back to life? Or would I choose Henry Wellard, continuing to live with the torture of his hatred for me and his love for Hornblower? Yes, of course I would. I gladly would. After all, I could look into his eyes sometimes, even though they would look back at me with disgust.

I have come to realize far too late that to be loved in return is not important. Much as I would sacrifice everything good I have ever known for a single kind word from him, I know now that to simply hear him speak at all even one more time would make me happier than I have ever been. Much as I yearn to run my hand through his dark hair only once, to see the sun catch its shades of red as he turns his head would do for me, truly it would. Even to catch a longing gaze at his Lieutenant as it travels by me would warm my heart beyond measure.

But time cannot be turned back. The dead cannot be brought back to life. All that can be done is to at least attempt to make amends where it is still possible.

For Henry Wellard, there was nothing more important than to protect the life of the man he loved and to keep that man's secret. I suspect he was willing to kill to do so - perhaps that was why I found him in my Captain's cabin that fateful day?

I would have done the same. I, too, would have killed for love and loyalty.

Even if he could not or did not want to tell me who had pushed my Captain, I had known it all along. I had also known that after Wellard's death, that man's life would be in my hands.

Did I want him dead? He who had been given the affection denied to me? Did I want to see him hang for the attempted murder of my Captain? Certainly I did.

But what I wanted more was to make my peace with Henry Wellard. That, and nothing else, was the reason why I did not say the word that would have sent him to the gallows.

Would Wellard love me for this? No. But he might not hate me quite as much anymore when we meet in the afterlife. That is now the only thing of worth to me, for very soon, I shall join him there.

I knew when he breathed his last breath against my cheek. When I felt his soul drift from his body, even as my hand was beneath his nape, I knew that I never would have deserved him. I had no right to tell him then that he was brave when I had lied to him so often, making him into a coward he had never been. I was not worthy of being the one in whose arms he died.

Everything was over then. The darkest day. I lost the only two men I have ever loved within moments of each other. I was too late to save either of them, and I heard the dying words of the one I loved more desperately.

All that is left for me is to hope that once this life of mine is over, I may be more deserving. There is always hope, is there not, that I may finally make him feel some affection for me?

The only thing left that may, perhaps, make my black heart worthy of his is to follow him. I shall do so now and I shall do it with the aid of his pistol. If he had been more like me, he would have enjoyed that thought. It is, of course, the coward's way out.

But first, I shall destroy this letter - no one must ever know the truth about any of this, or all my hopes of redemption would be crushed.

And then... all that I would want anyone to know is that I, Christopher Hobbs, was glad to die.