Chapter 9
The time came for Alexander and Hephaistion to leave the comfort of the hut and say good bye to the family.
They stood out on the front dressed in the spring clothes that Helen had made out of their winter clothes hugging the members of the family, there was a few tears.
"Thank you all for everything." Alexander took baby Thea off Hephaistion and held her for the last time before handing her back to her mother.
Helen wiped away her tears away from her eyes and nodded. Alexander felt the same sorrow that he felt when he left his mother with her brother all those mouths ago, he found himself thinking about her should he have written just to let her know he was alright, no he thought he did right cause if he had written then may be someone sent by his father would find it and track them both down.
The thought of his father chased away the ones of his mother and he found himself suddenly felling sorry for his old parent.
Those thought continued to plague him long after the little hut with the family had faded into the distance.
"Something troubles you." Hephaistion's voice entered his thoughts. "What is it?"
Alexander signed he didn't know how to say that he missed home, missed his family even though his father was an evil drunkard and his mother to controlling they were still his family, he missed his other friends.
"I miss them." he said softly "I miss them so much."
Hephaistion looked back over his shoulder in the direction they had come from and looked down at the moving ground.
"Me to." he said thinking he was going on about the family.
Alexander smirked good let Hephaistion think that's what he meant.
"Err Alexander."
"Yes Hephaistion."
"You do realize that we are going completely the wrong way."
"How so Hephaistion."
"Well I thought we were meant to be heading away from Epirus, not towards it."
Alexander stopped Bucephalas and the pack horse and Hephaistion stopped next to them.
"What's going on?" Hephaistion demanded
"We are going back." Alexander replied
Hephaistion's mouth dropped open and a look of horror appeared on his face
"Why?" he asked
Alexander knew he was going to find it hard to explain so he said the first thing that came into his head.
"I don't know."
"You don't know." Hephaistion repeated "Alexander what ever it is please don't you said yourself you don't need them."
But Alexander just looked blankly at him as if what Hephaistion was saying wasn't getting through, his shoulder slumped
" I was wrong," he said " Hephaistion what I said I just need to make sure that they are all right, my father may be a bastard sometime, but that doesn't change the fact he is my father."
At that moment Hephaistion knew what Alexander meant, having had similar experiences with his father.
He signed as children they had sworn an oath to stand by each other no matter what and even if the other didn't agree.
"Fine," he said "but I still think it is a bad idea."
When Alexander and Hephaistion through the palace gates word spread like wild fire and King Alexander and Olympias rode out to meet them where as soon as Alexander saw his mother he leapt down from his horse and pulled her down from hers in a hug with tears of joys streaming down his face and shook hands with his uncle.
"Come now for tonight we feast in honour of our wayward sons." said the king
As Alexander and Hephaistion rode back to their normal lives.
As soon Alexander told Olympias of his plans she didn't waste anytime beginning to plan his return to Pella.
She told him that his father Phillip had angered himself into an illness and according to her contacts still at the palace he spent half the time ranting disillusion nonsense about his son.
"You should go now and clam him unfit to rule." she would say over and over again "and restore me as queen mother."
But Alexander refused her help "We tried it your way now I am going to do it my way."
But seeing his mother laugh at his way made he sometime wish he had listened to Hephaistion and stayed away.
