A/N – Sorry it's been so long! I've been struggling quite a bit with writer's block at the moment, and the holidays have just started, so it's been really hard to make myself sit down and write my way through it, but here you go! It's arrived at last. I'm off on camp on Saturday, so you won't hear from me for over a week, but I might just be able to get another chapter up before that – but don't hold you breath!

And thank you, as ever, for all the wonderful reviews. May marshmallows and Ben and Jerries Phish Food Ice Cream rain down on you all :)

Chapter 9: So Beautiful

'I heard that you were living well, but you don't look like your living to me
Though the sparkle is gone, the smile is in place so that everyone watching can see
You've got them all convinced, but I know it so well
That you could list your friends, but you can't count on them
Hold it now
You've got everyone convinced that your alright
When no one else is quite as vulnerable'

Dashboard Confessional, 'So Beautiful'

Briseis changed. She kept herself to herself, never turning visitors away, but hardly welcoming them either. Paris noticed her grow thin and gaunt, for she ate only when forced to do so, and hardly slept, until she had dark bags under her eyes and a haunted expression on her face.

Only Cassandra knew what it was that had killed the grieving Princess, and nobody listened to her, so Briseis suffered alone. It was as if she had given up. She no longer cared about her life enough to fight for it, and, left to her own devices, Paris had no doubt that she would have let herself starve to death.

He was walking down the palace corridors on the eight day of Hector's funeral games. The sun was streaming though the arches in the wall, bathing the stone of the walls in a golden light, and he smiled quietly to himself, remembering how he had left Helen curled up under the silk sheets in their bed, her tousled hair framing her face as she slept. Gods, Paris thought, but he loved her so much.

He paused outside Briseis' room, listening for sounds inside before raising one hand to tap on the door. It had got into a routine: he would stop by on his way to court in the mornings and make sure she ate breakfast. Then he would spend his day trying his hardest to fill Hector's shoes: listening to the various soldiers and priests argue about their strategy once the truce was over, settling petty discussions between citizens of Troy, organising money to be sent to the widows and orphans of soldiers who had been killed in the conflict. He did not know how Hector had coped with it all and still gone round smiling. Then, as the sun was setting, he would make his way back to Briseis' room to ensure that she ate once more, while trying to instil some enthusiasm for life in her, before finally returning to he peace and serenity that only Helen could bring to him.

Hearing no answer to his knock on the door, Paris pushed it open, stepping inside the room. It was so strange, he thought idly, looking about, that nothing in the room had changed since before the war, and yet where once it was the essence of everything that was Briseis: the white gowns, the statuette of Apollo, it no longer fitted its inhabitant.

Paris sighed sadly as he made his way to the balcony where he could see the figure of Briseis curled up.

"It is a beautiful morning," Paris commented to her, stepping onto the rough stone of the balcony, and looking out across the city. And it was a beautiful morning. The sun struck the stone, leaving the city basking in a gentle glow. The air was cool and clear, and outside the city boundaries a light mist was just rolling over the earth.

"Yes," Briseis agreed quietly. "It is."

"Come, Briseis," Paris said in an overly cheerful voice. "What will you have for breakfast today?" and he handed her some bread and fruit, which she ate dutifully while he watched on.

Briseis sat alone when he had left, curled up in a ball on the floor with her hands firmly clasped around her bent legs, her cheek resting against the railing of the balcony. The days had previously passed so slowly for her: each hour stretching out for an interminable length, the days and nights blurring at the edges and merging into one another until Briseis no longer knew how long it had been since her lover had left her bed. Each day now slipped away with unreasonable haste. Each minute brought her one step closer to the day when they would find out about her pregnancy.

Briseis' life was now governed by fear. Fear of her family's reactions when they found out, which they undeniably would do, fear of being outcasted, fear of the birth, fear of having a child as a constant reminder of the man she had known.

Though she knew it was wrong, Briseis hated the child that grew within her. It was nothing like the romantic stories she had read when she was innocent: a lifetime away now. She didn't want something to remind her of him. She didn't want a child as 'her only link to the man that she had loved'. That might work for Andromache, but it didn't for her. She didn't want to remember Achilles. She didn't want to bear his child. She didn't want to live the rest of her life with the memory of him weighing down on her heart.

And so Briseis retreated further and further into her shell. She knew that refusing to eat would not stop her swelling waist, or that by not sleeping, time would pass slower, but she was trapped in a cage she could not escape, bound heart and soul to the man that she, in the same breath, loved and hated.

And then there was the knowledge that Paris would fight Achilles. She felt the all-too familiar dread and sick, hollow feeling as she remembered the long night she had spent, alone in the Greek camp, with no one but the body of a much-loved cousin for company. She knew that if Paris crossed swords with Achilles than he would not walk back through the gates of Troy on his own feet, but carried, a fallen warrior, by the great men of Troy. And Briseis also knew that the accusatory eyes would turn on her: if Paris died trying to defend her honour, then it would be her who would be held accountable for his death.

Life was not fair. But it was even more unfair to a woman who had lost her worth on the marriage market. Briseis had lived her whole life knowing that she was inferior to her male cousins: it was just the way life was, and she had never before resented it, until now, when she truly saw how low a standing women, even princesses, had in the Trojan community. She was nothing. No. She was worse than that. She was nothing that had been tainted by the hands of a murdered.

Not that she was ever treated with anything less than utmost love and respect by her family, but Briseis knew that that would all change when they discovered that she carried the child of the man that had murdered Troy's heir, and would undoubtedly murder the next heir of Troy, unless she could somehow make Paris withdraw his challenge.

And it was with these thoughts that Briseis woke each morning, with this in mind that exhaustion took her and sleep claimed her each night. She was alone and afraid.

Far away on the Greek beaches, the father of Briseis' bastard child was having different problems. Where Briseis fought against sleep, Achilles fought against wakefulness. He seemed unable to sleep, for each time he closed his eyes, he saw her face there, sobbing as he told her that he loved her.

"Dammit!" he roared in frustration, rolling over and slamming his fist into the soft blankets of his bed, wishing it had been wood or stone, so that he could be distracted by the pain. As it was he stood up sharply, giving up on sleep, and pulled a black robe over his head.

He stalked out of his tent, and along the sand of the beach, unarmed but unafraid of the potential dangers of walking alone close to enemy territory so late at night. His whole vision was taken up with her face, and so he did not notice that his traitorous feet had brought him to the wreckage of the temple of Apollo. Her temple.

Achilles walked slowly through the temple, ignoring the bloodstains on the walls and the damage that had been caused by soldiers ripping everything of value off the walls. He came out at the place where he had seen Hector for the first time: the gallery that looked out over the beaches. He moved to the spot where he had stood on the day when he had taken the beaches, covered in sweat and blood, his sword raised to acknowledge the salute of the Greek soldiers, and he looked out once more. The Greek camp was quiet now: a thousand fires burnt across the beach: each surrounded by a group of soldiers enjoying the last few precious days of safety before they were called on for the raid of Troy.

Achilles sighed and turned his eyes to the city itself. Even from this distance, smothered in darkness, it was a formidable sight. He wondered what she was doing now: probably sleeping, he thought ruefully. He wished, now, that he had dared to ask her to leave Troy and come with him, but he hadn't, and now she was far out of his reach. But, he thought, squaring his shoulders, it was for his own good that he had not asked her. Had she come with him to live on the beaches, and he had been killed, she would have been left totally alone. At least now, when Troy was sacked, he could go straight to her, and protect her, and if by some chance he was killed, her own kin would at least be there for her to turn to.

But all this logic did nothing to stop Achilles wanting, no, needing, her. He missed her. It was as simple as that. Achilles had never missed anything before in his life. If he didn't have something he wanted, he got it. Possessions, land, women: he had never gone without something he wanted. He supposed he was quite spoilt in that respect. He chuckled to himself at that: before her he had never questioned his character, but she had made him do a lot of things completely out of character, and what was even funnier was that he didn't actually mind.

Eudorus, who had woken as his master had stalked past where he lay asleep in the sand outside the tent, started slightly as he heard Achilles' laugh softly to himself. There was something distinctly sinister, Eudorus thought, about the half-dressed warlord standing on the moon-drenched stone of the temple, laughing to himself.

Eudorus felt a shiver shoot up his spine, and he backed slowly away from the madman that had replaced his Lord. Women did strange things to men's brains, he thought, shaking his head. He only hoped that Achilles would come to his senses soon, and return to being the hardened warrior that he had known.

Still, he thought, squaring his shoulders as he made his way back to the Greek camp, Neoptolemus: Achilles' only recognised son, should be arriving on the Trojan shore the next morning. Perhaps he could remind his father of what a warrior should be: strong, ruthless, a killer. And as he slowly drifted off to sleep, leaning against the canvas of the tent, Eudorus thanked very God that he could remember, that it was Achilles he worked for, and not his cruel and merciless son.