It's good luck Horatio is already clinging to the back of a chair. The tremble in his fingers hasn't gotten any better. Far worse, the attack from both sides is enough to send him nearly physically reeling.

There isn't a single tack to take in this. There isn't an answer squarely down the middle, with the merits of his reasoning assailed on the one end and the sharp prickling of emotions besieged on the other. He has Dover bearing north two miles and a nor'easter that veers four points as he's dismasted in the safety of the wardroom.

"Of-- course I had regrets." The crackle hasn't left his voice. That, at least, is a good reason to keep his words soft as his fingers tense on the back of the chair. "But of course I have to think of this first. I won't-- miss something again."

Horatio had missed with Clayton. He had missed with Bunting. He had even missed with Archie--the man he had known best, the man he had the strongest need not to lose track of--and he had missed so that Archie's pulse nearly ran out into nothingness in the dingy dark of Ferrol.

The memory is beyond bitter in his mouth. The hand closest to Archie moves against his will; comes short of properly reaching out to instead land sharply on the table.