Hector was tired, so very tired. Tired of the war. Tired of responsibility. Tired of death. Coming into the high-walled citadel of Troy, he contemplated taking off his helmet, but decided that seeing Andromache was more important.

He quickly flew from the front doors of his house to the back rooms where he knew she awaited his gentle touches. He softly spoke her name as he rounded a corner. She turned her lovely face toward him and smiled in a way that only he knew. He slipped out of his helmet and set it to the side and approached her. She floated into his arms and held him close. Oh, how he wished for the delicate touch of her while he was fighting tooth and nail for his very existence. "Have you missed me?"

"Hector," Andromache half whispered. "I miss you always. Every time you leave me I fear you will not return. I fear that one of those barbaric and hairy Greeks shall run you clean through and, buried underneath the bodies of our warriors, no one would be able to find you. I fear that you will be lost to me. Gone forever and taken by the holy gods themselves."

"Don' t speak." He cradled her head and kissed her deeply. She responded warmly to this attention, and allowed her hands to wander, until she found the very fasteners that held his armor to his body. He helped in this release and cast aside these things. Now, with nothing between them but the rough wool of their garments, he could feel the heat of her body warming him. "Let me take you away from this horror, even if it is for a mere moment."

She stopped, gazing up at him with doe-like orbs. He reassured her with a soft smile, before again taking control of her lips with his own. She attempted to stifle a moan as his tongue tasted hers, but her vocal cords failed to respond to her mind's request and she fell deeper into his embrace.

His hands wandered the entirety of her body through her clothes. She began to take the initiative and started to slip her clothing over her head until she was as true in the flesh as the day she was born. He couldn't help but stop to admire this lovely work. It was almost unreal. In a matter of seconds, he too found himself in a delightful state of nudity.

She allowed her eyes to wander down his body; understanding not for the first time that he was her husband, her one and only . the only man she had ever been with, the only man she had wanted. She smiled seductively as she slowly moved her hand down his rippled chest. Before he even had a chance to groan, she grasped his manhood, stroking it evenly until it became rock hard under her touch.

It was sensations such as these that made him believe in the reality of the gods. As her petal soft hands reminded him that he was indeed human and not some cold machine whose only purpose was to kill, he took the opportunity to move this encounter toward the bed. She laughed in a seductive manner as he positioned her on the mattress. "Tell me that you love me."

"Hector," she said lightly as he kissed her eyelids. "You are the world to me." She held him close to her and placed her ear to his chest so that she could hear the sound of his heart as it beat faster and faster.

He glanced at her movements, curious as to what had caused her sudden hesitation. As he watched her, with her head pressed so closely to his own chest, he began to understand - she was, once again, cherishing his very life force, his psyche. "I would never leave you by choice," he stated. "You are my heart. Know that forever."

Hector's hands wandered for the last time as he met that sacred place with his fingers. He knew that she was nearly drunk with the need to have him within her. At this juncture it was his turn to hesitate for a moment. He looked into those brown eyes of hers, sinking into that abyss of her everlasting gaze of love. He was suddenly desperate to exist within her divine warmth. She kept laying delicate little kisses on his skin as he was preparing himself to become one with this woman he loved so. She closed her eyes, awaiting that sensation of his physical body, completing the sacred relationship that only a husband and wife could possibly know.

He braced himself against the bed with his forearm and slowly entered her. Her eyes locked onto to his, silently whispering her love for him. She nodded once, granting him permission to continue. He felt the wave of pleasure radiate through him that only came when he lay like this . only with his Andromache .

Her tiny hands held him about the lower back, encouraging him to keep giving her this wonderful pleasure. For this moment, the war lay as a ruin in the back corners of their minds, leaving only the fever of lovemaking on the forefront of their consciousnesses. He catered to her wicked need and embedded himself in her until the impulses in his brain came close to overloading. She cried out his name as he clenched his teeth as part of this tornado of corporeal and mental sensation invaded his thought processes and abandoned him to his deepest animalistic desires.

He clenched the woolen spread underneath their conjoined bodies for fear that his grasping hand and nails would hurt her soft skin. When the waves of the first sensations reached their climax, Andromache firmly wrapped one her legs around his waist, encouraging him to bury himself further inside her bourgeoning heat.

Such was this, the act which created life . . . His once subtle and gentle movements had become almost harsh, but still brought forth cries of abject pleasure from his lover. Any tension which may have existed melted away with silky fluids that made this journey easier. As his pace quickened, what little control he still had over himself obliterated. There was only one thing that mattered to him. Andromache held fast to him as he enticed the right reaction from her. He stopped speaking and clenched his teeth, knowing that the ultimate moment of this encounter was soon at hand.

Her voice had grown hoarse with cries of pleasure as he continued his rhythmic thrusts. Her fingernails had drawn blood, she knew, but her body refused to obey her mind while he repeatedly drove into her. She watched as his deep brown eyes turned to opaque. He was surely nearly coming upon the point of absolute pleasure. If it were possible, she would have clasped on to him harder during this moment, but the flood of emotions had caused her to be completely helpless under his power.

Their bodies arched into one another as they simultaneously experienced the very pinnacle of human existence. Everything that had ever been important to them no longer mattered. They were the only things that deemed the attention of any creature real or imagined. It was this that meant more than either war or peace, the afterlife or the underworld. . . Love seized this man and his wife, plucking them from the horrors of their collapsing world and delivering them into a place where they could relish one another.

"Hector," she nearly sobbed as she felt his warm seed of life enter her. He could only groan in response to her vocalization of unconditional love.

Dawn swooped down upon them and reality imposed itself on the remnants of an exquisite night. He left Andromache sleeping, still showing the form she'd assumed as he'd protected her as they'd gone on to dream one another's forbidden ambitions.

A battle continued to rage outside the city walls, one he could not leave or ignore. . . Hector lifted his helmet up from the table where it lay and prepared to meet what became his untimely doom.

"Sleep, sweet Andromache," he told the goddess. "I will return to you. But I cannot run. I will never run from my fate."

With that, he left, understanding that the battle with Achilles was imminent and impossible to avoid. For, indeed, it was Hector's destiny to fight this war, to defend this city, to create a world where his only love would be safe .