Suus Caelum
He knows, deep in his gut, that he is not alive. His last coherent thought (or as coherent as fighting through hordes of men, slicing, stabbing, blood staining his skin) was of pain, in between his shoulder blades, and the cold feel of metal in his chest, trying to reject it desperately, before he collapsed into black.
This isn't some battlefield, and the sounds of men fighting and dying and killing, are not around him.
He knows all this, before he opens his eyes.
When he does open them, all uncertainties of being still alive are gone. Because he is lying in a bed, and there is someone next to him.
A long time ago (a lifetime ago, to be precise), most mornings he would awake, with wine in his belly and a whore in his bed. He would slip her a few coins, cold from where his toga had lain the night before.
But now, he's in a big bed carved from wood, too good for his earthly standing, ivory coloured sheets around him and as he shifts, blinking, he then ealises there's someone curled up against him. He peeks his head over the curve of a sheet-covered shoulder, propping himself up with his elbow and his breath stops dead in the cavity of his muscle-bound chest.
It's Eirene, her dark golden hair tumbling behind her, and he can barely believe that she's here. She's there, and solid and she still smells of jasmine, and the sea and sunshine and when his arm slips around her waist, her skin still feels like warm silk against his calloused fingers, when he strokes her belly.
Her belly, which he notes with astonishment, is swollen with the mid-stages of pregnancy.
He feels a sudden rush of anger, but she shifts in her position and turns over, peeking open one eye open and then smiling at him. She leans up, and brushes her lips against him, and he kisses her, hard and loving and possessive, because he hasn't seen her in what seems a million years.
He moves from his upright position and deepens the kiss, moving on top of her, hard stomach muscles sliding over naked, swollen belly.
"I am glad you are here." She whispers, when he eventually lets go of her, hands digging into her hips because he's scared this might be a vivid dream and he can't let her go, not again.
"Where--where am I?" He asks, the confusion overtaking his mind for the moment.
"Somewhere. Elysium." She tells him, her fingers moving over the curves of his face, as if trying to remember his physical appearance, the pads of her digits brushing against his closely cropped hair.
"So, I really am dead." He states and she nods, almost a little sadly for him, but the impossibly wide grin that spreads across his face removes all doubts from her mind, as his lips caress her skin.
"How are you--?" He indicates his wife's pregnant belly and she laughs and takes his rough hand and presses it over her stomach.
"It's yours." She whispers, eyes full of truth and warmth. His mouth drops open and he can't even begin to understand, but his hand begins to stroke her stomach gently.
"How--?"
"Time and possibility don't exist here. When I died, my child's soul was taken here, with me. He will live until he is twenty and then he will not grow. He will remain, forever, here with us. So. he is still your child, and in a few months, you will be a father." She explains and he bends down and kisses her belly softly, affectionately and he can feel the blood they share between them. He knows this is their child and he smiles broadly, before he turns on his side, dragging her gently down with him, so she's spooned against him. He takes in their surroundings properly, some sort of bedroom in a villa that overlooks a glistening lake. In the warm sunlight, the lake glimmers like turquoise one minute, and diamonds the next.
"Is this forever?" He asks and she nods and he can feel her smile and her promise.
"Good." He whispers against the soft nape of her neck.
He slips a possessive arm around her waist, and smells her scent of sunshine and joy, soaking up everywhere. Then he closes his eyes and lets happiness wash over him, while her slender fingers stroke his hands absently in slumber.
Titus Pullo is dead. And yet he's never felt more alive.
Fin.