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💘And truth was spoken💘

Author: GermanShepard
Located on AO3

Summary: AU of the ending of the 3 episode trilogy to the ends of the earth, in which Benét dies in command of the ship, Charles is stuck in Australia waiting for a new command, and Edmund is stuck without a confirmed position, thus allowing Edmund and Charles to reveal their feelings for each other.

~*~

The smoke was already billowing from her mast before anyone noticed she was in difficulty.

By the time Charles Summers reached the dock, there was a considerable gathering of people watching the flames spring up along her deck.

Without thinking clearly, he rushed forward, looking for a jolly boat or some other means to get to the ship, but the wiry hands of a friend grasped his arms from behind.

"Charles, you must stay here."

"Captain Benét is still aboard!"

"You will be killed; it is too late to help him. He will choose to go down with his ship, will he not? That is what's done in the Navy, yes?"

Charles relaxed somewhat and took half a step backwards. The fire was too far-gone to get to the ship in time. And Benét would refuse any help offered to him. Charles knew he would have done the same.

"Anyway it is his own fire," Edmund added.

"Edmund!"

"It is the truth."

They looked out over the cove where the ship began to crumble into the water, burning down to the waterline. A ship aflame was wrong. No matter how run-down or ungainly the vessel, the sight was always distressing to a seaman.

~

"It was wrong of him to accept command as he did," Edmund said. "It was a display of arrogance."

They stood on the edge of the veranda at Government House. From where they were, they could see every inch of land down to the wharf. It had been a week since the ship had sunk and Edmund had not spoken a word about it, but now, for some reason, he decided to speak up. Maybe he had been waiting for Charles to work out his distress at its sinking. In truth Charles had been less affected by Benét's death than by the demise of the vessel itself. Men died in the service. It was nothing unusual. But somewhere inside he felt some satisfaction. Was that inhuman? It was Benét's own fire, after all. The man's arrogance had been the end of him.

This was not a sentiment he would freely share.

"A promotion generally goes to the first lieutenant, yes," he said evenly.

"By all rights, he should have declined and suggested you for the post." Edmund shifted his weight, and his mouth twitched in a way that said he was about to go out on a limb. "I am glad the man was so conceited."

Charles looked at him.

"Or it would have been you on that ship, Charles."

"He died a commander." A breeze wrapped around their shoulders. "I am ashore, during peacetime, without a ship."

"But you are alive."