A/N: I'm very sorry for my lack of updating on this story, (my muse ran away), but here's another chapter! I don't think you'll need tissues, but take some just in case. Hephaistion must deal with very conflicting feelings, but I urge you to interpret this as you see fit.

Don't own them, never will, original characters are mine, haven't we been over this before?

Reviews always welcome

Chapter 11

Heard me correctly, you did. I fell in love with Heshaylae soon after my father had forced us together. The night I took her for the first time I was reluctant to share myself with her. I had never been with a woman, nor she with a man. Our lovemaking that night was slow, tentative, neither of us knowing what the other was capable of. You could come to the conclusion that this is precisely why Cleitus hated me so. It was because I had taken his daughter but I had not married her. Thinking me a sod, he always held that sort of inclination toward me.

Now, as I lay with her in my arms, I saw none of the man who I had hated for so long. The only person I saw in her was the woman whom I was in love with. The next morning I awoke to the sight of Arties and Media arguing over who had go fetch I and Heshaylae from our bedchambers.

"By Zeus, children, you must quiet yourselves," I tore them apart and held one in each hand. "Your mother is asleep."

"Papa, we were just deciding who was going to wake you and Momma," Arties insisted.

"Rather loudly," Heshaylae came out of our bedchamber, rubbing her eye.

"Rather loudly indeed," I set them down gently to the floor and went to the counter, where a knife and cutting board had been laid out.

"But Papa," Media protested.

"Enough!" I snapped. I could not control myself. "Children, please, just hush!" I took the early fashioned knife I had been chopping fruit with and slammed it into the cutting board I had fashioned only a few days before. "Shaye, excuse me, I need to leave…" I put down the knife and left the house.

"Momma, where does Papa go?" Media asked as I turned and left. "Does he not love us anymore?"

It broke my heart to hear that, but my heart was already broken, though I would not admit it. As much as I despised the man I was becoming; I suppose you could say I was becoming an animal, I did not know how to stop it.

I mounted my steed and made my way to where I knew Cassander now resided. In Greece. It was not a long ride from Macedonia, but in my mind the ride to the familiar plains of Greece seemed to take a lifetime, and then more time added to that.

Whence I arrived, I was not surprised to see that Cassander had taken his division of Alexander's kingdom, and made it to prosper. As I walked through the cobbled stone street near his residence, I was in awe of what the man had accomplished. The structures had been rebuilt since the time of Philip, women were free to do as they pleased, in fact I saw several wooing one man at the same time, and never had it been so beautiful.

It was not until a few moments later that I noticed Cassander emerging from the crowd around him. I was too stunned to shout his name, but somehow, he knew I was there.

I stood still amid the sea of Greeks around me. I was sure I looked like a fool, standing in the middle of the street, unmoving. My arms crossed over my chest, I breathed a harsh sigh and walked toward him.

Suddenly, when I was close enough, his hands clasped my shoulders. I, still rigid, did not know what to do. And so I stood there, my arms still crossed. I did, however, grant him a look into his eyes.

The eyes I had known to be warm when seduced and hard when enraged… seemed enraged still. I was not sure if it was the fact that I had decided to come to Greece, or the fact that I refused to admit that Alexander's death had left a hole in my heart so large it was like the River Nile had burst through a dam.

My hands went up and clasped his wrists. For a long while we said nothing, we did nothing but stare at each other.

Suddenly, my resolve ended, and I felt a single tear roll solemnly down my cheek. I could not, would notbreak down in the middle of the street, in public, and humiliate myself. Cassander, sensing such a thing, moved so that my arm was around his shoulder, and helped me into the house.

He offered me a cloth to wipe my face. I accepted, dried my eyes, and handed it back to him.

Taking it from me, he did not say a word as he turned his head toward me, came closer, and kissed my forehead. I felt my eyes close as he backed away.

"I told you, Hephaistion, if ever you needed me, I would be here…" he told me. I did not respond. My eyes told a story, I'm sure. I was actually not sure how I felt. Did I feel hurt? Betrayed? I did not know. Was I saddened by the fact that I could not say goodbye? Was I denying myself these feelings? Was I undeserving of such things?

Cassander said nothing. Instead, he took a step toward me, wrapped his arms around me, and held me. I felt myself let go, and I cried. Good sweet Aphrodite, I could not recall the last time I had cried like this. Not for many years, I'm sure. I had not even cried like this when I had been reunited with Heshaylae and my children. True, being with my family after seven long years was rewarding in itself, but only Cassander could truly understand the pain I felt. He had been there with me as Alexander reined abuse after abuse upon me.

I may go as far to say that I took the abuse in stride. I covered it with the façade that Alexander loved me, and that he would never intentionally harm me. I knew this was true, I had to believe it.

But I could tell by the way Cassander had always looked at him that he did not feel this way. There would be times he would look over the rim of his wine goblet and look at Alexander as though he wanted him dead, as though his eyes could shoot daggers and pierce Alexander through the heart.

Had I still been on good terms with Alexander but that time I would have defended him, but instead I chose to believe that Cassander was right, and I myself wished that I could stab Alexander through the heart.

I believe I did.

I believe I killed him with the monstrous way I left him in India, and the way I had refused to acknowledge him even after I had settled back in Macedonia. I told this to Cassander as I held on to him tightly.

"You did nothing I would not have done myself, Hephaistion," he whispered to me. "You did not kill him… as you said he brought it upon himself."

I was still not convinced.

"He drank too much and rested too little," Cassander pulled a piece of hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. Gently, he placed a kiss to my temple, and I felt my eyes close. Twas not a sexually natured kiss, he meant to comfort me. "You did not kill him…" he assured me again.

As I said my goodbyes to the man I had come to respect as a comrade, a friend, and a lover, and made my way to Macedonia once again, I could not help but wonder what life I could have led had I never gone.

Heshaylae would tell me that I was meant to be a philosopher, a teacher, like Aristotle had been. I was meant to write books on poetry and rhetoric, and pass that knowledge on to the next generation. I was not meant for battle, to wash blood off my hands every night, nor was I meant to see women and children raped and murdered for the purpose of gaining one more village in hopes of reaching the end of the world.

That night, whence I entered my home again, my children came to me with tears in their eyes. Both of them wrapped their arms 'round my waist and looked up at me.

"Papa, please do not leave again, you scared us," my son begged me. Looking down at him, I saw only a trace of his grandfather Cleitus. Arties and Media looked so much like Heshaylae I was almost in awe of them.

Media could not speak, only hugging me tighter.

"I promise, my children," I swore to both them and their mother, who had appear by my side and sought shelter in my arms. "I promise I shan't leave like that again…" I fought the tears in my eyes. "I love you."

And with that, Arties and Media let go.

Heshaylae and I stayed together in a long embrace, watching Arties and Media together. We had the most beautiful children, I decided, and I was not going to let a haunted memory of my past take them from me.

In fact, I wanted to leave my past far behind. I decided, then and there, that I would seek an oracle when Apollo sent the sun over the horizon again.

I would forget all that I had done, all that I had known, and start anew.