Thank you Riverslegacy, tiffanybkr29, Maria, Annemone Lee and Guests for your kind reviews of the two last chapters.

Thank you also for the new favs/follows of this story.

And thank you all very, very much for your patience with my ups and downs.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

After a while I shuffled back to where Iphis sat. She'd woken up when I'd gone over to you and she'd heard the whole exchange between us.

It was hard. Hera, it was so hard!

Iphis curled her arm around me and put aside her own ache to try and comfort me.

"He suffered, you know", she whispered. "He tried to hide it, but I've seen him crying, actually crying, with tears running down his face, after they took you away. And Patroclus and I would hear his stifled sobs, night after night after night. Don't ever tell him we heard. He'd be too humiliated. But he did go through hell. Nothing compared to what we all believed you were going through, of course, but it was terrible for him nonetheless." She paused, then went on: "And he didn't get involved with anybody else until you sent him that message."

I looked abruptly up at her, something that went beyond curiosity clenching my gut:

"Did you believe it?"

"That you were content with Agamemnon and wanted to stay with him? No, of course not. I knew there was something weird about the whole thing. I had no idea why you'd say that, but I knew for sure it wasn't true."

The feeling of anguish gave way to a leaden sadness: "So you know me better than him. He believed it."

Iphis managed a thin smile. "I'm not a jealous guy who'd just been told that the woman he let down had decided to move on with another man. I think that's the real reason he believed it: he blamed himself for not having tried to fight to protect you. I suppose in his convoluted, unforgiving mind he figured you were getting back at him."

I felt my own lips tugging upward in a pale shadow of a smile. "Then he'd probably think I was right to do it."

To my surprise, Iphis nodded: "I honestly believe he did. He became very pale when Antilochus finished, then said, with his voice breaking all over, 'Well, I suppose I had it coming. Why shouldn't she? I failed her.' Then he left to that cliff where he goes to be alone. When he came back, he was... well, I don't really know how to describe it you. Changed. Distant. It was as if something had shattered inside him and he'd somehow become disenchanted with everything."

"I see what you mean", I said, remembering what Patroclus had told me when I'd met him outside Nestor's hut. "And that's when he went for the other girl." I didn't need Iphis to answer. I carried on: "So, strictly speaking, he didn't really betray me. He believed it was over. That I'd put an end to everything."

I stood up to add a new log the fire, then sat back down next to Iphis, musing aloud:

"Even the rest, I mean, his not having tried to fight for me… It would have been impossible. He knew it then, just as I did, and however he may feel about it now, it's still a fact. If there was any need for proof that this whole camp is indefensible from an attack from within, Hector's advance proved it: once the Trojans broke through the fence, not even the full force of the Achaean army was managing to stop them from setting fire to the ships. And in that case it was the attackers who were outnumbered – the Achaean army is bigger than the Trojan one. If Achilles had tried to resist, with his own men outnumbered the way they were…" I shivered. Iphis nodded in agreement.

"I think the reason the arrival of the Myrmidons made so much difference was that they were rested, whereas all the others, Trojans included, were exhausted from a string of days of continuous battle", she said. "That was Patroclus' reasoning, anyway, when he was asking Achilles to allow him to lead the men out…" Her voice broke. She swallowed hard and I suddenly felt intolerably selfish.

"Here we are discussing my problems when you're struggling with a much bigger loss. Forget about this. I'll be alright", I said, sincerely ashamed of myself. But Iphis shook her head:

"You're struggling with loss as well, aren't you? Not a quite so irreversible one…" her voice broke again, but this time she forced herself to keep talking, "but still you're grappling with the idea that you may have lost everything you spent the last four years hoping and fighting for."

It was my turn to swallow in a dry throat. "Did I?", I asked in a small voice.

"Not unless you want to", she said. "I mean, unless you really are through with Achilles and don't want any part of him ever again, which, by the way, would be perfectly understandable. But barring that, no, he's not lost to you and you can still get everything back. Rather, it's the other way around: he believes you are lost to him. No longer because of that unfortunate message, of course – that's been settled since Patroclus came back with your explanation – but because he can't forgive himself for the situation he put you in."

"Which leads him to believe I can't forgive him either." It wasn't a question. I knew it to be true.

We sat in silence again for a while. I was pondering, not only what Iphis had just told me, but your own words and actions.

"I fear I am loosing losing him, though", I confessed at last. Iphis looked questioningly at me and I explained: "His attitude. The way he's behaving, the things he says and the way he's saying them. The look in his eyes. What he's done to Hector…" I felt my throat choke with revulsion all over again. "Iphis, I'm afraid he's losing his mind."

Iphis' eyes narrowed in thought. "I admit I haven't been paying him much attention. I've been more focused in my own grief", she said at last. "To tell you the truth, I was glad to see him bring Hector back, broken and dead and dragged through the dirt." She chuckled mirthlessly. "Does it make me a very bad person? Or mad?"

I hesitated: "Do you still feel glad?"

She squinted at the shadows around us. Hector's body was laying on the ground on the edge of the camp, so she couldn't see it from where we sat, but she seemed to be picturing it.

"That the murderer of my man is dead? Yes. That his body's been desecrated and is now laying there to become fodder for crows? No. That's too... hateful. Unnecessary. It's wrong to take a person's dignity, even if they're dead. And the family should be allowed to mourn him. It's too much cruelty to deprive them from that. Just imagining I might not be able to mourn Patroclus…" She shuddered. "No, I'm not glad at all. And Patroclus wouldn't want it either."

I nodded. "The Achilles I knew wouldn't have done it", I said. "He was always fair to the defeated. Even respectful, when they had shown bravery. This is completely out of character. And there's that callousness, both in his words and his tone… You heard him, how he told me all those things, knowing full well that they were hurtful, but acting as if he couldn't care less about the way they would affect me. Not to mention that terrible obsession with dying."

Iphis looked up at me, surprised:

"Obsession with dying?"

"Yes, didn't you hear him saying he was the one who was supposed to die and that he would do just that? He had already told me something along those lines when they brought Patroclus' body back." I felt her breath catch and stroked her hair gently. "He said that Patroclus had died in his stead and that it should have been him. I took it as a sort of wild expression of guilt and grief, but the way he put it just now… He means it, Iphis. He wants to die."

"I see", Iphis said, looking pensive. "I think you were right the first time and it is about guilt and grief. He's obviously crumbling under the weight of both. The problem is that those things sometimes just keep building, going deeper and deeper, until they can end up actually destroying the person. However strong he purports to be, he's no more immune to that than anyone else." She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then added: "It will have to be you."

"Excuse me?", I asked, completely lost.

Iphis nodded confidently to herself. "You. You're the only one who can pull him back before he reaches the tipping point."

I stared at her. "How can I do that? Particularly under the circumstances. I don't seem to be able to get through to him at all. You say he's not lost to me, but I'm not sure my very presence isn't working as a sort of reminder of things he'd rather forget."

She pursed her lips. "Maybe. But even so, you're still the only person who can reconcile him with life. Remember how he used to say that you were the one he relied on to remind him that there was more to life than war? Who, how was it you told me? Who helped him remain human."

I nodded slowly, recalling that long ago conversation. "That's what he used to say, yes."

"Well, I believe it's still true. I think the way he changed when he thought he had lost you had to do with that. He was slowly becoming dehumanized. That's exactly the word. And now this…" She gestured at Patroclus with a shaky hand and couldn't go on.

"Proved too much for him, especially because he feels Patroclus died doing a job that should have been his", I finished for her, then nodded again. "I suppose I see what you mean. I don't see how I can do it, though."

She looked straight at me, but there was understanding in her eyes:

"I heard what you told him about still feeling a lot of anger and bitterness. And, like I said earlier, it's perfectly understandable if you can't bring yourself to get too close to him, at least for a while."

"No, it's not that", I interrupted. "Anger and bitterness… they seem almost futile now."

"Considering what caused them in your case, I wouldn't call them futile." She smiled thinly again and I smiled back.

"I guess not. But they do lose quite a bit of importance in the face of death. Or the possibility of death." I took a moment to think. "Maybe that could be the way in to him", I said at last. "You say he couldn't forgive himself for not having been able to protect me. Now he can't forgive himself for having let Patroclus go into battle without him. If I could show him that it's possible to forgive, both the others and ourselves, that it's possible to live through the pain by focusing on building what can still be built, as opposed to destroying whatever hasn't been destroyed yet…"

Iphis nodded heartily: "Precisely. You, of all people, could teach him that. After all, it's exactly what you've always done."

It was true, I thought to myself with an unexpected sense of pride. That was what I had always done. To try and build a life for myself with whatever tools I was given.

I'd try to do it again now, both for myself and for you.