AN: Hmm I'm partially pleased with this chapter. And dealing with Hector's angst was fun. Tell me if it was a little too much, I have this tendency to wax lyrical. And of course we get to meet a few new characters. Including Nestor and Ajax, I know that the whole Salamis/Locris thing might be a little confusing but it was necessary because … well, you'll see later.

Twelve Days

Life should have grinded to a stop, how could people continue to eat and drink and breathe when the people they loved were gone? Their sons? Daughters? Brothers?

Sisters?

How?

He had lost people before of course, brothers and half brothers, but with so many of them around it was easy to be nothing more then acquaintances with some and a little more then friends with others. Besides, they were soldiers, she was … a scared little girl who had trusted him more then was good for her.

The Greeks had pushed their advantage a day into the mourning and the men had begun to drop like flies, without the Princes to lead them the Trojan army had come back defeated and depleted every day. Seeing no other way out of this Priam had ordered his sons to strap on their armour and go back to the field. But Hector had refused. For thirty-nine years he had obeyed his country - obeyed his father, and all he wanted in return was twelve days to mourn the little girl he had loved and looked after like a daughter ever since she was born.

He spent those twelve days mostly in his room with Andromache, the only other person who had ever come close to loving Apollina as fiercely as he had. They holed up together and suffered.

Then the dreams began.

They tore at him, tore him right open and left him sobbing and begging for things that were impossible or laughing at a memory that was suddenly as clear as reality. He dreamed of her as a wrinkly new born with a sorry looking tuft of black hair. He dreamed of when she had taken her first steps, people had been amazed that she had been able to walk at all since he rarely put her down. And that time when she had shut everyone up with her first word, it hadn't been mother, or father, not even his name. She had picked up a Cretan swearword from god knows where and no amount of distracting would convince her to forget it. Even now, he was convinced it was Trolius who had taught her it. He dreamed of her begging him to throw her higher up into the air, 'I'm Icarus, Hector! Look! I'm Icarus!'

Those dreams were hard but the ones of her drowning or - or - lying broken and bleeding to death in the Greek camp just about felled him. On those days he didn't dare leave his room, didn't dare look anyone in the face just in case they could see the curses he wanted to hurl at them for living when she wasn't. Those were the days that he shouted at slaves for no reason or pushed his wife away as she leaned into hug him or punched his brother for spilling wine on his tunic.

But the hardest dreams were the ones that would never come to pass. Those days frightened Andromache the most, silent days with not a word being said or a feeling being felt.

All he felt was dead.

He dreamt of infatuations that would never be talked down from, suitors he would never approve of and marriages he would never send invites out for. Plump babies he would never coo over and years he would never see on her.

He dreamt for twelve days undisturbed and then he put on his armour and left his room.

~X~

"Did you see my brother?" she asked him again as he entered the tent, he had been able to clean up this time before going off to the meeting but she hadn't been inside the tent when he came. Eudorus had informed him that he had seen her up on his ship so he hadn't been too worried. Told Eudorus to keep an eye on her though, just in case.

"No." He had, several times in fact. Hector had come back exactly when the twelve days had finished with a more ruthless sheen and a heavier arm. He killed Greeks like he had a personal vendetta against each one and his wins were beginning to not only stack up but demoralise the Achaeans. The tide had turned with the return of Hector and the Trojans were riding it.

Agamemnon immediately found a way to make it all Achilles' fault, of course.

There was silence for a while and Achilles used the time to look for the empty wine pouch he had left on the bed. Except it was gone. With a sigh, he dropped to his knees and looked underneath the bed only to find nothing there.

"Have you met Theseus?" Achilles stopped his search to look bemusedly up at her.

"How old do you think I am?"

"I don't know. Old."

"Twenty-eight," he thought of adding 'just' to the beginning but the number came out before he could attach the word to it. Too late for it now.

"My brother's thirty-nine." Good for him, Achilles thought bitterly. She was adding a fortress to her new mound. "Who have you met then?"

"Lots of people."

"Like?"

"… Odysseus." She didn't look too impressed, obviously his part in her abduction still rankled. "Menelaus?" That didn't seem to impress her either. "Ajax? Nestor?"

Her face lit up.

~X~

First, he sent her off to be scrubbed clean with a few of the slave girls. She had come back several shades lighter with inches off her hair where the slave girls hadn't been able to comb the tangles out.

Now, wearing the same peplos, though washed, since she had nothing else to wear and wouldn't put on any of the slaves' clothes, with lopsided hair and eyes that were still teary from all that brushing, she was ready to go see Ajax.

Since there were two Ajax's, he took her to see the one from Locris first. Ajax of Locris was a small man from a rather poor city but was a great shot with an arrow - one of their best marksmen - and humble as they come. He was dismissed immediately as being "rather weeny."

Ajax of Salamis was not "rather weeny" at all. He was a mountain of a man who dwarfed horses and shrugged off gushing wounds like one would shrug off a mosquito bite.

Apollina was struck dumb. Achilles was so jealous he almost dragged her back to their tent. Flexed his muscles and stood straighter but she barely noticed.

"Ajax," his friend turned and then raised his eyebrow at the sight of the awestruck girl beside him. "This is Apollina - uh - she-" … Do something impressive …

"Can you lift up a horse?" Apollina interrupted with avid interest. Achilles turned the gnashing of his teeth into an amused eye roll.

Ajax narrowed his eyes, "… I've never tried." He couldn't … at least he didn't think so …

"How many people have you killed?"

"… I don't know." Far less then Achilles.

"What's the most gruesome way you killed someone?" Through the eye, straight into the skull. Man stayed alive for hours.

Ajax looked at him, a bushy brow raised high. "There was this girl. She kept asking me all these stupid questions so -"

BAM!

Ajax brought his heavy stone club down to the ground hard. Apollina shrieked and ran into the circle of his arms.

"-And she was flattened," Ajax finished with a grin.

From the safety of his grip her muffled remark was, "I hope you drop that thing on your foot, you overgrown oaf."

~X~

After Ajax's poor reception it had taken some persuading to convince her to come see Nestor, and even after she saw that he was a wizened old man with a receding hairline and deep wrinkles on his leathery face, she still stayed behind him. Nestor had come here - not to aggravate everyone like Odysseus often joked - but to advise Agamemnon and support his many sons. Nestor had more experience with wars then anyone here but had a way of rambling on and on and on …

"Nestor," he called out loudly - he was a little hard of hearing, the man came and greeted him warmly, he was in fine spirits after the return of his sons.

"Ah Achilles, I was just telling-" he cut the man off knowing that if he didn't he would be here all day hearing about what conversations he'd had with whichever poor bugger hadn't been fast enough to evade him.

"This is Princess Apollina, Nestor, I told her that you had met Theseus and she demanded to see you."

That was all it took, Nestor's old face broke into a wide surprised smile that was missing a few front teeth and he launched into his tale with gusto.

~X~

The moon was already high up in the sky by the time he had managed to drag her away from the old King, when he had used hunger as an excuse the man had sent for his slave girls to prepare meals for them, and he had only managed to leave now because Nestor's eldest had helped distract his father.

But it was worth it. She was grinning from ear to ear. It was worth it.

"Can you believe he actually met Theseus!" she screeched excitedly as she jumped up and down on the bed.

"Come and sleep," he moaned, ignoring the spike of jealousy. One day she would be gushing about his deeds to other people.

"And Theseus slaughtered all those centaurs even though he was drunk and he even took on ten at a time!" She mimed a wobbly sword fight with invisible foes, her stance so terrible that an enemy would be able to knock her off her feet with just a push. He huffed and turned on his side away from her. He had sacked the Trojan beach with only fifty men, he had fought Hector at the very walls of Troy and decided to let the man live, he had sent son of Troy after son of Troy to be burnt on a pyre before their time. But he had a feeling that she wouldn't be as excited to hear those stories.

He felt a thump as she jumped into a sitting position then fell down next to him. He turned to her and opened his arms, her smile diminished but she slid on top of him nonetheless, snoring slightly while pillowed on his chest.

Achilles stayed up for quite a while with a smile on his face.

She didn't call for Hector.

~X~

He must have drifted off sometime in the night because when he woke he couldn't feel the weight of her sprawled on top of him or hear her running around the tent flinging sand this way and that. He had gotten so used to her always moving around and getting up at night for water that he hadn't even noticed that she had left. He was getting soft. It was rather a good feeling. "Apollina?" he called out groggily. Surely she hadn't wandered off to someone's tent again. He hoped for Agamemnon's sake that it wasn't his.

Fear rose quickly when he remembered Agamemnon's cruel streak, the King had after all beheaded children and sent them back to their parents whilst being dragged by their sisters. And this streak tended to be especially more pronounced where Achilles was concerned. He rushed outside and was greeted by a bleary-eyed Eudorus; the men were wobbling around like toddlers, some face down on their pallets while others retched into the sea. "Had a bit of a mourning last night, my lord-" One of his men's brother had been slain in last night's battle.

"Is she here?" he interrupted.

Eudorus looked baffled, "no, not here my lord."

"Then find her. Fast. Send out everyone who is still upright."

~X~

He was, in essence, a man prone to spontaneity, which, Chiron had taught him, was his one weakness. His tendency to act first and think later had gotten him into a lot of trouble as a youth, but he thought he had outgrown it years ago.

Apparently not.

Because now he was in Agamemnon's tent and he was throttling the purpling King against the walls of his chamber. "Where is she? What have you done to her?"

Agamemnon could barely grit the words out. "Nothing, I have done nothing!"

Odysseus and Ajax of Salamis ran forward to try to stop their friend from killing him. Agamemnon looked a little faint by now. Odysseus was grabbing the arm that Achilles was using to hold the King up when Achilles shoved him away. With a crash he fell off the raised platform right on top of the new vase Agamemnon had been having made. A small paint speckled fellow with a shock of yellow hair began wailing for the muses to give him strength.

Ajax had somehow managed to gather Achilles into a precarious bear hug while Agamemnon exited the tent as fast as his little legs could carry him. "She's with Nestor, Achilles, I saw her there," Odysseus winced as he dusted bits of pottery of his back and arse.

Achilles pushed Ajax off him and marched out as well, Odysseus and Ajax followed just in case he started suffocating old Nestor too.

~X~

She was lying on the sand on her stomach, listening to Nestor's yarns with a wondrous expression on her face and Achilles felt the anger ebb away. As easily as that.

"Apollina. Nestor," he called out as a greeting. They both turned to look at him, Nestor smiled and motioned for him to approach but Apollina turned back to the old man.

"Achilles my lad, I was just telling the young Princess about the time when King Theseus invited me to go with him to the underworld," the old man informed him.

"Oh Zeus, poor girl, she'll be unintelligible for days," Odysseus murmured making Ajax snicker; he had to leave for fear of offending Nestor.

"She was here the whole time?" Achilles asked ignoring his friends' antics.

"Oh yes, right here," the old man assured him.

"No one gave her trouble?"

"No of course not, in my protection wasn't she. I may be old but I can still take on any man here. My loins are still girded enough to fight beside Theseus as I once did in my Prime." Odysseus had to leave as well after that one.

"Well then, we have to go, it's time for breakfast-"

"I gave her breakfast."

"Still we have-"

Apollina turned around and looked at him with big grey eyes, eyes the colour of fish scales - no still too light, "can I stay a bit more?" she pleaded. "Just till we finish the story?"

~X~

"So if she says jump?" Odysseus asked gleefully.

Achilles rolled his eyes in exasperation, "I would say," he answered monotonously, "Ida's not quite high enough sweetheart, why don't I try Olympus?" Odysseus almost hurt himself as he fell about laughing.

"What's so funny?" Patrolocus asked as he entered the tent. Everything went silent. The boy had been avoiding him for weeks now and it had rankled. He had thought everything would go back to the way it had been before but Patrolocus had hidden himself inside his tent as soon as Achilles had beaten him. Not wanting Patrolocus to have to face the jeers of the other men, Achilles had told Eudorus to take his meals to him and decided to give him time to lick his wounds. Both type of wounds. Patrolocus fidgeted at the lack of response, "I'm here - for training cousin."

Achilles remained quiet.

Odysseus looked between the two and pulled the boy further into the room, "The boy's here for training. Go on, forgive the lad already. We all get those heroic notions in our heads at his age and when you add a Princess … well, you know the tales." Achilles remained stony faced. "Go on, he's sorry," urged Odysseus. "Aren't you lad?" Patrolocus nodded firmly.

"What was the moral of that lesson Patrolocus?" Achilles questioned.

Patrolocus looked at the ground. "Never underestimate you."

Odysseus got ready to break apart another brawl but relaxed when Achilles smiled instead. "Good, go get your wooden sword and meet me outside."

AN: I know 28 … is a little old for her, but in those days girls married young, extremely young. So I had to make her young enough to not be married, and even then I probably made her too old. And I didn't want Achilles to be a boy, he had to be old enough to have the confidence and grace that comes with age, a man in his prime. Patrolocus is the youth, he shows us how he behaves because of the naivety that his age gives him. Achilles, hardened by war and age, gives us the perspective of a battle hardened man. And anyway Menelaus/Helen … Icky but true. And she probably married him when she was around 14.