Title: "After Ecbatana"

Author: Baliansword

Chapter: 16, "Understanding Hephaestion"

A/N: Once again, thanks to all. Hope you are still enjoying.

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Alexander pushed himself onto an elbow so that he could better look at Hephaestion. He ran a finger over the line of his jaw. For some time he just traced Hephaestion's features, and Hephaestion bless him, just sat there watching Alexander do so. His cerulean eyes were centered on Alexander, but Alexander was more concentrated with tracing the line of his jaw, his lips, his nose. It was as if Alexander was discovering him all over again for the first time, as if he were blind even.

"She knows," Alexander whispered as he continued to trace the lines of Hephaestion's neck and shoulder. He did not have to state who he was speaking of. He was speaking of Aryse, and Hephaestion knew this as well. But bringing her up no longer meant anything between the two of them. She was Aryse, a friend and companion to Hephaestion, and Alexander was going to have to accept that. She was, after all, carrying Hephaestion's child –his child too. It was ironic really, that it had taken Hephaestion one try to do what it had taken Alexander years to do.

"I told her where I was going," Hephaestion replied. He enjoyed the touch of Alexander's fingers against his body. Something had changed in Alexander, he noted. He was soft now, touching him as if he were that fragile. There was something about the tenderness in the way that he had been with him tonight, made love to him tonight, that made Hephaestion want to stop speaking and do it all over again.

"But does she know?"

"I told her everything," Hephaestion assured him. He kept his eyes on Alexander's face. He continued to touch him, lightly, sometimes returning to the same spot on his chest to feel him again. "I told her long ago Alexander, when I told her of our childhood in Macedonia. All of my stories have you in them though, and I trusted her, so I told her about us. I told her everything Alexander, about how I knew that I loved you, our first time, and almost every time after that. Without you there is nothing in my life to tell."

Alexander smiled softly, but at the same time his smile was sad. Hephaestion wanted to hold him, to whisper sonnets into his ear, and whisper that everything would be fine. Never would he be separated from Alexander. What he had with Aryse was different, so different. He loved her, yes, but she was not Alexander and would never be. He thought that Alexander had known this, had understood it before. But while he thought this, Alexander thought as well, and he did understand Hephaestion. He knew why he loved Aryse, where he stood in Hephaestion's heart, but he would be a fool not to still worry.

"Phae," Alexander whispered.

"What is it Alexander? I can see it in your eyes. There is something that you have wanted to say for weeks. Just tell me what it is. Please, do not shadow me from your life."

"I would ever do that Hephaestion. For you are my life." He kissed Hephaestion lightly on the lips, and only pulled away so that his lips would move, and he then whispered what he wanted to say. "Phae, don't stop loving me as you do now."

"Never," Hephaestion said as he placed a hand on Alexander's cheek. He let his thumb rub against Alexander's flesh. He felt the warmth there. Oh, how he wanted Alexander to understand so that he would stop worrying. "Alexander, I love you. I will always love you."

"Its not you Phae."

"Do you not trust her?"

"No," he whispered, "it isn't even Aryse. I don't know how to explain it. It isn't that I don't trust her, or even you. I know that you love me. But –god, it's this feeling that I can't seem to get past. I know that you love me, and that I love you, and that nothing will come between us. I know it. Yet, there is something else."

"You fear what would happen if I didn't come back one night," Hephaestion said as he propped himself up on an elbow. It was his turn to begin to trace the features of Alexander's face. When he finished tracing each individual area, the brow, the lips, he kissed him. "You know somewhere deep in your soul that I will come back, yet you still fear it, the uncertainty. Because deep down, in that same part of your soul, you know that if I were to leave you would be powerless to stop it?"

Alexander sighed as Hephaestion kissed his brow. He wanted to have him this close forever. He wanted to be locked in this moment for the rest of his life, with Hephaestion lying beside him, touching him and only him as if there were no others in the world. He wanted Hephaestion to be his and only his. He did not want to share him with anyone, not even the gods.

"Yes," he answered. He looked at Hephaestion then. How could he have pulled the thoughts from his head? But Hephaestion only blushed and glanced away. When he looked back, Alexander had figured it out. Phae had felt the exact same feeling when he had taken Bagoas, and Roxanne, and perhaps even Stateira.

"Do you remember when we were boys, the summer when you found the fossil in the cave?"

"Yes, why?" Alexander meant nothing by his asking. He remembered, just wondered why Hephaestion chose to bring up the memory now. Hephaestion continued to play with his hair, but at the same time his tale.

"You were different then," Hephaestion said. "I had just begun to fall in love with you and I thought perhaps that it was wrong. First, I did not know if it were permitted for a man to love a man in the way that I found myself loving you. I did not love you the way I did my mother or father, but I loved you in a passionate way, and I lusted for you. I went to bed every night, dreaming I was wrapped in your arms, or touching you in some other way.

"It was so wrong then Alexander, for me to think such things. But I loved you, and I began to stop caring that it could be wrong, or that you were a prince and I was not worthy of you. I wanted only you Alexander. That day, when you asked me to come with you to the caves, I knew it was wrong. Everyone had told you never to venture that far. But I had to go, not really to protect you as my role quickly became in your life, but just to be with you.

"As we scavenged that cave, I found myself desiring only you. Then you found that rock, and told me there was a creature in it. Do you know that I believed you even before you forced me to look?"

"You were probably the only one," Alexander agreed.

"Even Aristotle did not believe you when you told him. Instead he scolded you first, telling you what you already knew. 'Don't go to the caves,' he said. Then you looked at him, and told him exactly what you thought of that. 'My good man, there is no area that Alexander will not venture'.

"I should have known then where your future would lead you, but I didn't care then. I loved you and wanted only you. Eventually Aristotle looked at it though, proclaimed it to be a fossil, and then congratulated you on your find. He believed you then, after seeing what you held in your hand. That is what separated me from him that day, because I believed you just because you had said it to be so.

"I never have stopped believing in you Alexander. You said when we were older that you would be the first to enter Persia, and take it from whatever king ruled it. You said many things like that, and once it began, many laughed. Many did not believe it would be possible for you and your small army to take over Persia. Yet you did, and I believed you. When you said that you wanted to go further, I knew you would, and I agreed to follow you into India.

"I never stopped believing, and I never stopped following you Alexander. I still will not stop. I will follow you to Arabia, as you so desire, if only you ask it of me. I will believe in whatever dream you tell me, no matter how demented it may seem. But to you know what I will do before all of these things Alexander? I will love you, and I will never stop. I vowed it long ago and even if you were to kill me with your own hands, I would go to Hades in the Underworld, and I would tell him that I loved you."

Alexander stared at Hephaestion, looking into the depths of his eyes. Hephaestion could take any of their childhood tales and make it bring tears to his eyes. There were tears there now, as he wrapped his arms around Hephaestion and held him. He loved Hephaestion in the same way that Hephaestion loved him. But sharing him had never been part of his plan.

"Alexander," Hephaestion cooed into his ear, "I have to stop following you, just for this one matter. I have to do something for me. Alexander, for once, please follow me somewhere. Let me lead the way for just a little while."

Alexander nodded, still holding Hephaestion close to him. "I will go along with you Hephaestion. For you are me, and without you I am nothing. Marry the girl, and have children with her. But promise me that you will always love me, even if we never share a night like tonight again and we grow apart, promise that you will love me still."

"Alexander, I will love you always. But I cannot promise such to you, because I refuse to even think that we could grow apart. I promise you my heart and my love, and my soul. It will always be yours. I will always be yours. There is nothing that will separate us."

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Three months had passed and many things had changed. Olympias looked around the ceremony as Hephaestion Amyntor was being wed to Aryse. She saw first Drypetis, whom Hephaestion had released from all of her wifely duties to him. She stood with a man that looked very much like Bagoas. The man had his arms around her and she looked happier than Olympias had ever seen her. All said the same thing about her.

There was also Roxanne. She held a four- month-old infant in her arms. The child was amazingly beautiful. He had the spirit of his father though. As a grandmother this worried her, but Alexander could not be happier with his son. Hephander was constantly with him, or if there were an emergency, he would be with Hephaestion. Only few times had he been placed in the care of Bagoas or Aryse. This was only when there was no way for Alexander of Hephaestion to take him with them to meetings or out of town and such.

Roxanne was a fright. She looked terrible, and her spirit was much the same. Olympias had told Alexander of her fears of the woman. Alexander said he would take it into consideration. Yet, even though he really was telling her that he could not believe her, he took Hephander away from Roxanne that very day. Roxanne had never been alone with the child again. Instead she was constantly watched with the child, sometimes when she herself did not even know it.

There was Hephaestion, who was becoming a man. He had already been a man she supposed, but now he was considering his own life. He still hung on everything that Alexander said, did, or thought. But at the same time, he had a pregnant wife. Aryse's belly was beginning to grow and she had the glow of a woman with child. Already Olympias could see by the way her belly grew that she carried a daughter. Most men would have wanted a son, but she knew that Hephaestion would welcome a daughter as if she were gold.

Already she had had dreams of what would become of that daughter. She would look like her mother, but have the heart of her father. Thus, she would be much desired by many young suitors. Yet they would stand no chance against Hephander, who would grow to be the most hansom suitor of them all. Not to mention he would love her like his father loved her father.

She looked at Alexander, who stood very close to Hephaestion and held the ring that Hephaestion would place on Aryse's finger, and smiled. She smiled for Alexander, because he did not seem hurt. Instead, he smiled as if he too were finally happy for Hephaestion. Perhaps he finally had begun to understand where Hephaestion's heart was leading him. In his understanding, it had only brought the two of them closer.

But Olympias then looked to Cassander. He did not see her at the moment. He was raising his glass to toast to Hephaestion and Aryse. The toast was led by no other than Alexander. As she watched Cassander, she found herself wondering about the way of things.

What is it that makes a man or a woman fall in love? It certainly could not be the work of the gods, for they would make sure that everyone fell in love at some time in their life. They would not give love and then take it away so easily. What was it then? Was it the way they spoke, or the way they walked, or just the feeling that you would get when around them? Or could it be something far simpler perhaps?

Olympias did not know, but she knew that she did not have to know. She only had to be in love. It was something that she had vowed not to do when she had married Philip. She had kept her promise and never loved him, not even a little. Yet she had somehow fallen somewhere on the way and found herself in love with Cassander.

It didn't matter that he was younger. It didn't matter that he was a Companion to her son. It did not matter to her what others would think. It did not matter if it were wrong or right anymore. She knew only that she loved Cassander, and that was all she needed. It was all anyone in the world needed. Perhaps that was what Alexander had meant when he had wrote to her, saying that he would unite the world, and that then it would all be clear. Did he mean that he would unite them, in love?

Olympias raised her glass as Alexander finished her speech. He was thirty-three now, and was at the height of his life. He had everything that he could possibly want at the moment. He had a son, and someone that loved him, and an empire that any would be proud of. He had the world. But what he really had, was love. Olympias drank deeply from her glass, thinking that everything was perfect in this moment.

She did not know how her life would end. She did not know what would become of her and Cassander, of Hephaestion and Aryse, of Alexander, of Roxanne, or of Hephander. Yet she knew that it was love that kept her waking every day. It was what kept everyone waking. If there was not love in the world then there would be nothing sacred, nothing worth getting out of bed in the morning for. The world would be a vast abyss of nothingness.

So she drank, drank to love, and to the world. She looked around the ceremony once more. There was nothing that could be better. She then looked at Alexander, and he saw her and raised his glass to her. She dipped her head, showing her respects to him. Life was perfect. Where it would go from here, she could only imagine.