A/N: And you all thought I was dead... ;)
"Give him back to me."
Achilles looked at the king as though he had said that the cursed woman was being sent back to Sparta with her foundling prince.
"Give me my son."
Achilles turned away from the aged king, wishing that Priam was back behind Troy's walls where he belonged. Not here, putting words to what Achilles asked every night in his sleep. He gave a terse command and left the hut, making his way to where Hector's body lay. He didn't see the features of the body, only knew it was battered and bloody but all in the sake of protecting Patroclus' name.
Give him back to me!
Oh, the thought had come as a sharp command, a groaned appeal, an angry order, a wept whisper. No one had answered. Nothing had come with tidings. He had given up consciously asking, but the thought remained in his mind as a constant prayer. He just had not realized it until Priam said the words.
"Give him back to me."
You are a fool, old king, if you think a body will do you any good.
Achilles pressed his palms to his eyes, angrily pushing back the tears. He wanted to stride along the sand and fight the ocean, fight whatever crossed his path. "This body is not Hector!" he wanted to shout. "This thing that you ask for is not your beloved son. This body will not bring him back!"
He knew. He had Patroclus' body. He had washed it, anointed it, clothed it in linens, covered its eyes with coins, wrapped its wounded throat. But he had not done that to Patroclus. For Patroclus, yes, but not to him. He had burned the body. It was only a painful and shocking reminder that no voice would ever warm its lips again, no soul would spark its eyes.
Priam, for all his wisdom, was naïve if he thought a body would staunch his grief. "No, great king, a body does not help. A body is only useful when it houses a soul. A shell offers no help for the living." The statement would come to nothing. Priam would die before he left without Hector's body. Once, Achilles might have felt the same. But now…
He finally let the tears fall, their tracks now so familiar to his face. In their wake he could see the body of Troy's prince, really see it, for the first time, and it almost caused the tears to come again. The kind face was battered almost beyond recognition. Sand crusted the wounds along with the dried blood. Soon the maggots would be at it, a disgrace for any warrior. He had only this to offer Priam. But what had Priam to offer him? They were equals in something, now, he and the king. Their greatest treasures were stolen from them, like two stars colliding and drawing only black in their wake.
"Give him back to me," Priam had said.
Give him back to me, Achilles had pleaded.
The gods had not listened. And he could not grant what Priam really wanted, what he truly asked for.
"I can give you his body, O king, but I cannot give him back to you." His chest contracted as he pulled a cloth over Hector's face. "No one can—" Give him back to me…