Title: Far Away From Here

Chapter: Second part

Fandom: Alexander (historical)

Rating: PG-13 this chapter. Will rise by final.

Summary: That famous quarrel with Craterus, and Hephaestion's summary decision to return to Macedon.

A/N: I must apologise for some few anomalies in this chapter, which mostly appear because I could not find the correct words for Macedonian concepts, which is why such words as 'duel' crop up, which are more reminiscent of the 17th century perhaps. Also apologies for the fact that I cannot for the life of me think up decent character names, any help in that direction- or formatting is greatly appreciated.

Dedicated to: Again this chapter is dedicated to Moon71, as I'm still enjoying Rediscovery!

I also have to say I was overwhelmed at the response to this. Thank you very much for reviews to: chibisanzo, CoralDawn, HavenRain, moon71, Fanfic Lover 4evr, Lysis, Yolass, Arlad, Sunny-seid-up, Baliansword, Sushoo, TrustNoOne, Mariana, Queendel, Manidefronsac and KK

The first Alexander heard of the situation, was not from Hephaestion's lips at all, but from his page. Laonicus was a good friend of Timonus, and the other boy had instantly sought him out, when he had been given instructions to fetch wine- in other words, to leave Hephaestion alone, in order to share the piece of gossip. Lord Hephaestion was leaving the army to return to Macedon! Laonicus was properly astonished, and Timonus was pleased at his reaction. "Does King Alexander know?" asked Laonicus, already certain that he did not. Alexander when he had last seen him, had been in a bad mood, but not in the sort of mood that his best friend abandoning him would have meant.

Timonus shook his head earnestly. "I don't think so. Lord Hephaestion only summoned his deputies in a little bit of time ago, and they were the first people he spoke to between now and.." he hesitated, looking for the right words to describe the vicious attack Alexander had made upon Hephaestion, "the incident," he finished with finally.

Laonicus tapped his lips with a finger, thoughtfully. A handsome boy, he was taller than Timonus by half a head, and six months older, sharing the rich blond hair of his master, though his eyes were brown rather than green. "If Lord Hephaestion does leave, will you go with him ?" he asked directly.

Shifting uneasily, Timonus wondered how to reply. "I think Lord Hephaestion will decide that," he said finally.

Laonicus pressed on, strangely insistent. "But what do you want to do?"

As always when put directly to the question, Timonus attempted to evade it. "It really isn't my choic.." he began, only to be stopped by a raised eyebrow. Laonicus always had the ability to cut right to the point, something that Timonus by nature longwinded, envied deeply. "I don't want to go back," he said, startled to find that was the truth. True, he did often get tired of the long marches, and constant waiting upon Lord Hephaestion, though he honestly wasn't a strict master, always preferring to dress himself, quite often giving Timonus the night off when King Alexander came round to talk strategy to him and not expecting Timonus to share his bed, as many of the other pages had to with their commanders, but that didn't mean he wanted to go home to Macedon, before he even got a chance to be a hero. This was the greatest campaign ever, and Timonus didn't want to miss it.

Laonicus smiled, "fair enough," he remarked casually. "But now my dear friend, you have given me a difficult problem, and must help me find its solution. Should I tell the King what has happened, or should I wait for your lord to tell him? If I do not tell him now, he might accuse me of knowing and not telling him, but if I tell him then he is certain to get angry. So cough up an answer."

Timonus sighed. "Why do you always ask me hard questions?" he complained. Laonicus merely smiled. Timonus thought for a few moments, then shrugged. "Tell him I suppose.." he trailed off, before raising an objection to his own line of reasoning, "but then he might think it was public gossip and everyone was talking about it."

"Which they are," pointed out Laonicus.

"Just you and me," Timonus objected. "That's scarcely public gossip is it?"

"Well that's two people, who know before the king does, and then there are the Lord Hephaestion's deputies, and probably their pages know by now, so soon everyone will know."

Timonus nodded, figuring he probably wasn't cut out for being a leader, if he found it this difficult to decide on an answer to the question. "Don't tell him," he said finally, "but pretend to be shocked when you find out."

Laonicus nodded seriously. "I think you're right you know," in that half mocking, half serious tone that he sometimes adopted with Timonus, when he thought the younger boy should have thought of something faster.

Timonus had long ago stopped being annoyed at such comments, Laonicus was permanently good natured, and Timonus loosing his temper only seemed to amuse him even more. He merely seized the wine and made his farewell. Hastening back to the tent, he walked timidly into the room. Hephaestion merely glanced up at him, and bade him set the wine down. When he had done that, he backed towards the door. Hephaestion though almost invariably good-tempered, could sometimes break spectacularly loose, and Timonus didn't want to be anywhere near by, when that happened, as he was certain it was going to do. He had no such luck in his attempted escape however. Without even looking up again, Hephaestion told him to wait. Inscribing a final word on the document he was holding, he sealed it, and held it. "Take this to the King," he said politely. "Wait for an answer."

Timonus with visible reluctance accepted his charge, and with dragging footsteps walked to the King's abode, where the aforementioned King was pacing nervously and dragging his fingers through his hair. Timonus exchanged a look with Laonicus, and raised his eyebrows as he did so. Alexander recognised Hephaestion's page of course, and instantly seized the letter from his hands. "I was told to wait for a reply," stuttered Timonus.

Alexander did not appear to hear him, absorbed as he was by the letter he was currently reading. When he looked up, Timonus barely restrained his surprise. Alexander's eyes were lethal, more those of some wild beast, like those of the wolf than of a Gods-fearing man. Another man, might have given vent to imprecations, perhaps resorted to physical violence on the furniture, Alexander merely expressed his feelings through his eyes, yet Timonus shrunk back from him, as though from the God-touched, some one more gifted, and more real than any mortal had the right to be. His words were calm and steady. "I will convey my own reply Timonus." There was no arguing with that voice. Timonus instinctively bowed low before a King whom he had never seen truly before so close. That preternaturally restrained voice continued speaking. "I shall be there in a few minutes."

Timonus took that as his dismissal, and hurried to warn Lord Hephaestion of the King's imminent arrival. Hephaestion neither seemed abashed nor surprised, instead he gave a queer little smile that Timonus could find no cause for her. It was not until he was older, that he realised it was the sort of a smile given, when something came to a head, was now utterly unavoidable. The smile one turned on fate, when she attempted to trip you up. Quietly he dismissed Timonus, fixing him with a look that he did not even need to explain. This was one conversation that Timonus would not 'overhear.'

Hephaestion himself was utterly calm, when he received the news that Alexander was hastening towards his attempt. With the immovability of one who truly believes himself to be morally in the right, he was entrenching himself mentally within a chosen position, and sticking to it. Too long had he been the willing, subservient other half, of a man who truly assumed that Hephaestion could be cast aside like any other tool that had been used up. He would not debase himself, by shouting, by turning this into a screaming match for the whole army to hear. He would not act the jealous jilted lover, for the amusement of his erst-while friends. He would act with dignity, and ignore all Alexander's frenzied complaints. He had no doubt they would be there. Alexander's grip on those he loved, was a death grip, even those for whom his love was fading were suffocated by his hand around their throat, demanding what any other lover would have begged. It was unfortunate that some of these very respectable resolutions were broken within moments of the argument beginning.

One of the reasons why Hephaestion particularly wanted to keep the argument quiet, without any of the shouting and general aggression that his arguments with Alexander usually consisted of, even apart from not wanting the entire world to known his affairs and business, was because such arguments could only end in one way, with them choosing to fight it out in bed, rather than with words after time, and he wanted to make it clear that was not a satisfactory conclusion to this argument. He was not to be beguiled into forgiving and forgetting this time. He was going to carry his resolution through if it killed him.

It was thus a rather different situation in which Alexander and Hephaestion met to one that they had ever met in before, and both of them found something secretly to surprise them in the other. Alexander found a resolve, and a steely determination that though he had known Hephaestion had possessed such qualities, had more often been used in defence of Alexander, or in his service than as an attack against him. Hephaestion saw a part of Alexander he had never seen before, a part that was almost savage, chained and leashed by an awesome self-will. As Timonus had thought, now so did Hephaestion. Alexander's eyes were more reminiscent of a wolves than a mans.

Alexander's first words were almost civil. "I've come in reply to your missive," he said so calmly, that Hephaestion hoped for a moment that there would be no fight, that Alexander would gracefully bow to the inevitable. One look at the other man's eyes though, and he was disillusioned from such a hope.

Hephaestion picked at the thread dangling from his sleeve. "I'm glad you received it. Perhaps you have come to tie up some loose ends?" Given his current action, he was hard put from a fit of nervous laughter, that accosted him at the pun.

Alexander said, with no drama. "I will imprison you before allowing you to return to Macedon."

Hephaestion stared at him with eyes that strayed perilously close to insolent. "Really? And would you care to elucidate why my King?" The title held a world of contempt for the force that Alexander could employ.

Alexander could not even explain to himself that motivation, perhaps the covetous nature he had inherited from Philip was shining through. Not greediness for gold and jewels, nor even for the good opinion of others, but merely and simply for love, and for possession. "You told me once Hephaestion that you loved me." Words that could have sounded humble, even repentant from another mans lips, sounded arrogant from Alexander's, a denial that he could ever be crossed in his will. "Is your love so inconsistent, so fragile indeed?"

There was a short pause, while Hephaestion struggled to enunciate his reply. "I could ask you precisely the same question. The Sacred Band of Thebes chose to die in their lovers arms, rather than be shamed by fleeing. I do not ask you to die for me, but I expect as any man has a right to, that their lover would rather die than denigrate their honour, or allow their honour to be denigrated without combating the cause. I fight your battles by your side Alexander, have fled with you in the night when you feared sudden death, and yet all I asked in return was reciprocation of my feelings, not the heartless taunt of a man lost to the common decent impulse."

Alexander licked his lips. "I am the King, Hephaestion."

The response was quick and bitter. "But you are also a man, and once I believed you a lover. Did not Plato expect different conduct from lovers, even granting them leniency he would grant no-one else? 'The actions of a lover have a grace which ennobles them,' he quoted bitterly. "I am the fool, not you Alexander. I believed that perhaps I meant more to you than I do. And I pay for my foolishness, as fools do and must. Now I inform you, that I am leaving, and I tell you to stand aside. Tell you, not entreat."

Anger hardened Alexander's face. "You will tell me nothing. I was angry when I said what I did, angry that you of all people should start a quarrel, when the situation was so tense, that you should bring it to the point of swords. If you killed him, then what? I lose an excellent commander, and a good man, a friend, and gain merely the hostility of those he commands. And if he killed you? I lose the person I love most in all the world. Neither loss is wanted or needed. What should I have done? Let you both in your pride, and destructive anger force the situation?"

"Yes!" Hephaestion's reply was swift and anguished. "Yes Alexander, out of love you should have left us to it. By saving a man's life, you destroyed my honour. By the Gods Alexander can you not see? A man is nothing without honour. His word is not to be trusted, his embrace of fellowship a mere deceit, he is little better than a slave. And if insults were the only way to accomplish this 'saving of life,' then why target me so viciously? Why not us both? Your mere presence was enough to stop the duel from going ahead." He finished hopelessly. He could have enumerated the points for hours, so intensely had he thought them over, but he doubted Alexander wanted that, wanted his actions scrutinized so deeply that all shields seemed as but water. "Love is not rational," he said softly. "It is without reason or rhythm, it does not bow to the dictates of the head. If love had motivated you, you would have taken Craterus's death, rather than my dishonour."

"No," argued Alexander. "If you had killed Craterus, then public opinion would have run high against you would have clamoured for your head even. Your claims that love would have allowed the killing are absurd."

"Just let me go home," Hephaestion said through gritted teeth. "You deny me honour, and you deny me love, and I cannot tell which of the two hurts more. Let me leave Alexander, as a wounded to the death animal does, crawling off to lick its wounds and die alone. Leave us with memories of what we once had, before you begin to hate me for whatever reason your mind dredges up." He hated how defeated he sounded, and thought wryly of how the conversation should have gone. Alas high sounding convictions cut no ice with Alexander, who viewed the world as his realm, and its people his subjects.

The next words struck him dumb. "Your problem Hephaestion is that you are cold." This from a man who had in cold blood insulted and betrayed him, stabbed him in the back even, as Hephaestion's colourful imagination painted it, was almost too much to take. Before he could voice his outrage, Alexander continued on relentlessly. "You do not see what is done for your sake, only what is not done. You never stretch out a hand to anyone. I had to win your favour, win your love when we were scarcely more than children, and hold it throughout all trials, without you ever indicating you would in any way be the poorer without it. And then you wonder, how my anger can be such as to throw such terrible insults at you in front of others, after you the man I expected to try to keep the peace, deliberately disturbed it out of mere antipathy towards another man. You abused your position, and I won't stand for it." Deliberately, he locked eyes with Hephaestion. "You are not going back to Macedonia. You will stay and build a kingdom with me, and with Craterus and Perdicaas and whomsoever I chose. Because that my love," the last two words were almost bitter, " is the price of my love for you. If it won't be paid for in the coin of generous free love of your own, then you can damn well pay for it with the coin of co-operation."

Fighting words indeed. Only a couple more chapters to go, unless the muse strikes (unlikely.)