Heracles' POV

I stood over Sadiq panicking. I looked around desperately. "Someone, help!" I called. I looked down at Sadiq's immobile body confused and frightened. I had no idea what had happened. It was the damn wine Sadiq kept giving me; I couldn't think straight. "Help!" I called again. "Please, anyone!" Sadiq was growing paler by the moment; if the bleeding did stop soon I knew he would die. I waited several long moments before I decided nobody was around to hear me. I remembered my mother telling me to put pressure on a large cut I had gotten from falling off a horse once. I assumed the same thing applied to other wounds.

I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, but I followed my instincts. I ripped a large strip of white linen from the sheets on the bed and balled it up into a wad and pressed it hard against the bleeding wound. I was worried the pressure wouldn't be enough; I wasn't very strong after all. I needed help. I couldn't deal with this on my own. I looked around wildly. "Come on, don't do this to me," I whimpered to Sadiq's nearly lifeless body. I really needed help, the other wrist was bleeding and I couldn't take the pressure off the first wound to deal with the other one, otherwise that one would start bleeding again.

"Help! Someone, please!" I yelled desperately. All the while my better judgment screamed at me to just let him die. But I ignored it. I couldn't just sit back and let him die, no matter how much I hated him. I just couldn't, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did. "Please, anyone?!" I cried hysterically. I would not let him die; I could not let him die. Not in my hands, and not if I could prevent it. "You can't die!" I yelled at Sadiq, "You can't, you're not allowed!" I sobbed and I was surprised to feel tears running my face. I didn't know what I was saying, but this didn't seem right. Not right at all. This was not how it was supposed to be. I was not supposed to hold his life in my hands; I was only a kid. I prayed to the gods not to let him die, I prayed to every single one I could think of.

"Please," I sobbed. "Someone help!" Where was everyone? This place was always swarming with people when you didn't need them, but now I did need them, and no one was around. "Help!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Please, help! Sadiq is dying!" Would no one come to help? Did nobody care that he was dying except me? How screwed up was that? That only one who cared that he was dying was the person who hated him most in the world.

I lifted up the now blood-stained white linen to check to see if the wound had stopped bleeding, and by some miracle it had. I quickly tore off another clean strip of white linen and tied it around the wound tight like a tourniquet, just in case it started to bleed again. Then I started to work on the other injury on Sadiq's other arm by wading up another piece of cloth and applying the same pressure on it. "Come on, Sadiq!" I was beginning to feel hopeful that maybe this was working. "That's right, you don't want to die. Fight, Sadiq! Fight!" I begged. "Someone, help," I called again desperately. And this time, finally, someone heard me. I could hear their footsteps racing down the hall.

"Heracles?" a familiar voice shouted.

"Gupta," I shouted. "I'm in here! Please hurry; Sadiq is dying!"

"What?" he demanded and he appeared in the doorway. His face immediately drained of all color when he saw the scene before him. "Oh, my god!" He rushed over to where I was and grabbed the cloth from my hands and pushed down on the still bleeding wound with more strength than I ever could have managed. "What happened?" he demanded staring at me accusatorily.

I shook my head, "I have no idea. I found him like this."

Gupta didn't look convinced. "Here, move his other arm above his head, it makes it harder for the blood to flow there."

I did like he told me to, hoping and praying that he knew what he was doing. After several long moments of holding my breath, Gupta breathed out a long sigh of relief. The bleeding in the other wrist had finally stopped as well. I watched as the Egyptian tore off another strip of fabric from the bed and tied it like a tourniquet around Sadiq's wrist. I wiped the tears off my face with the sleeve of my tunic.

"What the hell happened?" Gupta demanded once again.

"I told you, I don't know. He was like that when I came back from my bath."

Gupta shook his head. "It looks like he tried to commit suicide."

"What is suicide?" I asked.

"It's when someone tries to kill themselves," he explained.

My eyes widened in horror. "Why on earth would anyone want to do that?"

"He probably was unhappy. Did he leave a note?"

"I don't know. I didn't look for one; I was kind of distracted," I said slightly irritated. I couldn't understand why Sadiq would want to kill himself, that didn't even make sense. He wasn't the one who was captured, tortured, and raped. If anyone should try to kill themselves it should be me. And what the hell was Sadiq so god damn miserable about that he felt the need to off himself?

"I found it," Gupta called from behind me holding up it up. "It's addressed to you."

I walked over and grabbed the letter from his hand and tore it open. I read it silently. I was angry that he thought I would be happy about this. I didn't want him dead, I felt bad for the guy in some weird sick way. Rome had royally screwed him up, and my mother didn't help matters either. I hadn't known he felt so bad about what he did, but god, he was so stupid! Why did he think killing himself would make anything better? If anything, it would have made it worse; if he had died I would have felt awful and totally responsible. I didn't want anyone to die on behalf, even if they did it themselves. Tears sprung up in my eyes again. This was stupid. I shouldn't be crying for the bastard.

Maybe he did love me. That was a strange thought. But if he was willing to kill himself just so I could be happy, that had to mean something. He had been insisting he loved me since day one, and even though it didn't make much sense to me, that doesn't mean it isn't true. And that made me look at Sadiq in a totally new light. Maybe I shouldn't hate him so much. I hated what he did to me, but I didn't hate him. To some people it was the same thing; I thought the same thing for so long, but this hate was wearing me thin. I hated to hate him anymore. I was tired of it, and it was eating away at me. I didn't even feel like myself anymore. I was never so angry or bitter in my entire life, however short it was. The anger had been consuming me, and I could let it do that anymore. I had to accept that that this was the way life was right now, even if I didn't like it. I hated the things Sadiq did, not Sadiq himself. And to be honest, day to day life with Sadiq wasn't that bad.

It was like there were two people living inside Sadiq. One was nice and tolerable and even lovable at times; the other was mean and nasty and cruel. And I hated the latter. But fortunately for me he didn't show up too often. I felt a sudden need to give the mean Sadiq a different name; it wasn't fair to call them by the same name, when they were both so very different.

I thought carefully for a long moment. Ate was the Greek god of evil and misfortune, but I wasn't sure I wanted to name it that. It seemed too harsh. Perhaps Melancton was a better name as it meant dark flower in Greek. To me that's exactly what Sadiq was. And the Melancton side of Sadiq I knew came from his days while he was imprisoned by Rome. It wasn't his fault, and I shouldn't treat Melancton like the same person as Sadiq, because they weren't. Sadiq was loving, and considerate and kind, and gentle, while Melancton was sick, utterly sadistic, and extremely possessive. The burn on my backside was a testament to the last one. I could live with Sadiq and maybe even love him, but Melancton was intolerable.

But as long as I could tell the difference between the two conflicting sides I could deal with it. And the person who had tried to kill themselves was Sadiq and that was who was lying motionless on the bed. He had felt so bad about what he did; he thought he needed to do this. Because Sadiq had fallen victim to Melacton.

"What does it say?" Gupta said, interrupting my thoughts.

I silently handed over the letter, and turned my back to Gupta as he read it. I wondered what he was thinking. The note hadn't said anything about him, and he knew that Sadiq and Gupta were on good terms, almost friends. This was such a selfish thing of Sadiq to do. Hadn't he known I wouldn't be the only one who cared if he was dead?

"Well it's a good thing he didn't try this in the bath house in water, his blood wouldn't have clotted," Gupta said. I nodded silently in agreement, although I had no idea what he meant. "I want you to stay with him until he wakes up; make sure he's still breathing."

"I will." I had been planning on it anyway. And without another word Gupta placed the letter back on the desk and walked out the door. I looked at the blood-soaked bed clothes and contemplated finding a way to change them, but I didn't see a way to do it. I couldn't move Sadiq off the bed by myself. So I decided just to settle on the bed with Sadiq.

I could hear his heartbeat as I lay close to him. I had never been so relieved to hear the familiar sound, as I was now. It was strange that Sadiq's heart kept fighting, so hard, even when Sadiq's mind had so desperately wanted to die. Or at least he had thought he wanted to die; but I didn't really think he did, not really anyway. And now I knew that I didn't really want him dead either, although before this incident I thought I had. I wondered if I would live to regret the decision to save him. But, I reminded myself, even if I did regret it later on, it had been the right decision. It wouldn't have been right to just leave him there to bleed to death if I could stop it.

My cat Pandora walked into the door and meowed very loudly at me. I sighed and called to her softly and she promptly walked over to the bed and hopped onto it. I scratched her head and she flopped down against my leg, purring her head off. "What are we going to do with Sadiq?" I asked her in Greek softly.

She answered me with a little mew and stared intently at me. That was one of the many things I liked about her, you could carry on an entire conversation with her and she'd always answer you with a little meow or chirp or whatever other random sound she chose at the moment.

The steady rumble in Pandi's chest was very soothing. I turned to the bedside table and grabbed a book that was sitting there. I thumbed through pages, I was pretty sure I knew the story already. It was by Menander, one of my mother's writers. He was considered 'the great comedy writer'. Although I didn't care for his work much, there was too much violence in his plays. I preferred Aristophanes. But it didn't matter, I was bored and I didn't know how long it would take for Sadiq to wake up.

I was almost on the last part of the book and several hours had passed by, when I finally heard a groan come from the other side of the bed. I looked over to see Sadiq finally stirring. I held my breath; I wasn't sure what I was going to say to him. He gingerly sat up and looked around. Sadiq stared around the room intently for a long moment and then he turned and looked at me. He looked surprised. I could almost just hear his mind working. I knew he was thinking that Elysia looked an awful lot like his home, and he probably was expecting to be greeted by my mother or his friend Cleopatra.

"You're not dead," I quickly answered his unasked question. Sadiq stared at me silently as if he was trying to figure out something very complicated. "You were very close to being dead, but you're not."

He looked down at the tourniquets around his wrists. "They hurt." He said looking at me as if this surprised him.

"Well, I imagine they would, you did slice through them with a knife after all." I said resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I saved you," I muttered softly. I felt my face grow red.

"You what?" Sadiq asked disbelievingly.

"I saved you." I said again, this time a little more loudly and confidently.

"Why? You hate me."

"I don't hate you, but you are such an idiot!" I said shoving at him with all my strength, but he hardly budged. Typical. I felt tears running down my face again.

He stared at me with surprise, but then he grinned that stupid smile of his and pulled me into a hug. "How could you be so stupid?" I demanded even while I wrapped my own arms around his neck. Sadiq's hands moved to my head and pulled me close against him. "You are such an idiot," I sobbed.

"Don't you ever do that again," I demanded suddenly. "You scared me half to death, you bastard!"

Sadiq murmured an apology softly and then said, "Please don't cry, it's ok. I'm alright." He gently wiped away the tears in my eyes. But that didn't stop the fresh tears forming.

"No it's not alright. You tried to kill yourself, Sadiq!" I let out a heavy sigh. "What were you thinking?" I pleaded. I needed to know why he really did this and not just what he had written in that stupid note.

"You wouldn't understand," he said shaking his head.

"Try me," I asked while I made myself more comfortable in Sadiq's arms.

Sadiq looked at me for a long moment and then closed his eyes and scrunched his forehead like he had a headache. "Heracles, please, just leave it alone. I don't want to talk about it."

I sighed again and didn't say anything. I knew better than to push the issue. But I wasn't about to forget it, Sadiq still had some major explaining to do. But for now I accepted just sitting in Sadiq's arms for awhile. It was strange how our bodies fit so well together. After a long while in silence I spoke up. "You need to go talk to Gupta, I think he's really upset," I said. "Not that he'd tell me, you know what he's like, but I can tell. Besides he helped me save you." And he deserves an explanation just like me, I finished in my head.

"I will, but it can wait for now." He nestled himself closer to me. "I don't feel very well, can we lie down?"

I was surprised to be included in the proposition; I had been expecting to leave when he went back to sleep, but I nodded. Sadiq adjusted us so we were both lying on our sides. He had one arm draped around me, pulling me even closer. It was like he was desperate for human contact. I wasn't tired but I knew losing all that blood must have made him weak. Sadiq being weak was very strange. He was so much larger, and had so much power over me. Sometimes I felt like his toy; he loved to play with my emotions, and my body. I felt like one of those puppets that have strings on each of their joints and Sadiq was the puppet master. And he would send me twisting and spiraling around making me do this elaborate dance. And he knew he had this power over me. And what hurt the worse was that he chose to use it. Maybe he didn't mean to use it, but that didn't make it any better.

And because of that stupid dance my emotions were all tangled and twisted into a knot. One minute I hated the bastard so much I could hardly breathe, and the next something vaguely like fondness or maybe even love would wash over me. And I reminded myself that Sadiq is the good guy and Melancton was the one I didn't like. Sadiq buried his face in my neck and placed a kiss on the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. "I love you," he said.

Shortly after that he fell asleep and I answered him back. "I think, maybe, I might love you too," I whispered softly.

Author's Note:

So here it, finally. I know this took a horrifically long time. And I know with such a cliffhanger I left it at, it must of been very annoying. I apologize so much, it's just been a crazy last couple of weeks.

Did anyone really think I would let Sadiq die? Never, I love him to much. I actually ended up liking Sadiq a lot more since I started writing this fic. I think he's a fascinating character.

As always I thank my reviewer/favoriters/and alerters. I thank you all so much. I can wait to see what you think of this chapter.

Chapter 11 is in the works