Hello, lovely reviewers and readers!! Welcome to my newest chapter!

I am truly sorry it took so long- in my opinion, this character is the most important to witness Hector's death (mostly because this character was most important in his life) and I wanted to get it just right. Unfortunately, I am no Queen Arwen, nor is this chapter anywhere near as good as her fic of the same story line, From the Walls. So if you want a really good one, go read hers, but if you're okay with mediocre, you've come to the right place!! Heh.

Anyway, this is the second to last chapter. YAY! To celebrate that, I'm going to begin this chapter with the most fun things of all- disclaimers! Okay. Here we go- I do not own the song "Remember" performed by Josh Groban and Tanja Tzarovska, which belongs the The WB, it's affiliates, and James Horner. I do not own the books "Troy" by Adele Geras or "Goddess of Yesterday" by Caroline B. Cooney, nor do I own the writing styles or references contained in those books.

Those were just to be safe, they might not even apply to this chapter.

Enjoy the story, and keep reviewing!

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I did not think I could love him when I met him. Now I fear I can never let him go.

The thought has passed through my mind countless times, over and over and over again. Every single time Hector was at risk, which was often, I would think of how I could never lose him. Each time, I would worry to the point of hysteria.

And as I stand here on this wall, I wonder what happened to that hysteria.

I am not calm, exactly, as I watch him prepare for battle. I am almost... cold ... indifferent even. As if my heart had already rendered a verdict on this battle, and my soul had already made it's retreat. I can feel, in a place deep inside myself, a space being made, a giant hole that he has inhabited for so many years. Already I feel the emptiness, already I feel him gone.

It was not supposed to be this way.

When my father sent me here, it was for safety. It was for love. And on my father's dying day, the people said he thanked the gods I was safe. In Troy. City of the strong walls. City of the strong rulers. City of the strong.

For so long, it was. Though I hated him at first, I grew to love Hector. Anyone privileged enough to know him does. He became my savior, my protector. When I cried, he dried my tears. When I fell, he was there to pick me up.

Hector is my world.

A better husband you could never find, a better father you could never hope for. He is kind and gentle and loving.

But Hector has never been a prince of peace.

For so long, we fought over his place in his father's kingdom. For so long, I begged him not to go, not to fight. And every day he was gone, I prayed to the gods he would come back to me.

And he did. Every time he did. Through wars, through rebellions, through long trips at sea and longer battles on land, Hector returned through it all, safe, unharmed, smiling and beautiful as he always was.

I think that is why I was most worried about this war, the first war on I had witnessed on Troy's own soil. I think I knew that all my prayers for his safe return would do no good here, in the place of his ancestors. There was no escape, no return.

I knew from the moment the Queen arrived that Hector's days were numbered, that his life hung on a thread.

And now he is about to fall in front of my eyes.

My husband, my life. How can I go on without you? How can our son live without a father? Every particle in my being prays for you, longs for you. There can be no Andromache without a Hector. I cease to exist without your existence.

It is as I think this that he falls, and the pain begins.

The darkness of my heart explodes, spirals of anger, hopelessness, sadness, mixing together in my brain, stopping my heart and torturing my soul.

I can't seem to focus on what's in front of me as my mind reels with memories of all the times Hector had been there.

Hector.

He is panting, he is struggling, he is bleeding...

And suddenly I am falling, too, my body curving downward, stone and tears obscuring my vision of the plains.

And this time, Hector is not there to catch me.