DESPERATE  MEASURES

PART TWENTY-TWO:

He lay there on his side, just as he had fallen, all the rest of the day. For a while

at Sid's hut, he'd felt like a stump, but now he knew he was a tree not just felled,

but uprooted. And he lay like that, as though he had truly been toppled in a storm.

His eyes were on the distant horizon, that indeterminate place where blue blended

into blue.

He was meant to die. He'd known that all along, known he was heading there, unafraid

to head there. Seeing it, though, brought it into reality for him in a new way, made the

rightness of it explicit, made the unfulfillment of it unbearable. He had been taken from

the tunnel at a time when Commodus would be left as Emperor, when both Lucilla and

Lucius were in grave peril, when all his friends and fellows faced execution. What had

become of them, without him, what had happened? It was there, still, on that round

thing. His death was still there. Yet he lived. He had been taken...out? How could one

simply be...out? What was 'out'? Where? Which was the reality?

He was one of many. One of a large number of men who all looked more or less like he

did. All of them had lives on the little round things. You simply slid them into the

opening, and their lives were there before your eyes inside the square box. His life. 

His life was inside the box. Was nothing as he had believed? Was all of it...all of it...

just a story written by some other? It was all too impossible. There had to be some

other explanation. There just had to be!

Yet...there was Cort, the young man who had wanted to offer him hope. Why? Did this

Cort know his life was on a round thing, too? Was that it? He had been...removed...as

well. And the centurion. He had a life on one of those things as well. What had Sid said?

They had all been made by the same man. Sid, too. My gods...Sid, too? How could he

have the same source as a being like that?  Who WAS this...source? Could one find him,

make him stop? Images of the other men rolled over him, blending into him, floating off,

then layering atop him again so that he ceased to know where he ended and they began.

As dusk finally came, he rolled onto his back, watching the moon rise, a bit less round,

yet still rather full. He stared at it, unblinking, until it seemed to slide forward, its light

filling his eyes. He sucked it into himself, yearning for its luminous blankness. Stop

thinking, he told himself. Just...stop. But he couldn't. His mind was wild with thoughts,

piled thoughts, jumbled thoughts, too many thoughts to keep straight. Finding out he

was not in his own time had nearly thrown him, but now he had been told he was not

even...real. He knew he was real! Damnation! He KNEW it!

Exhausted, he slept, attacked by tigers in the night, his sword lost.  They tore at him,

ripping him to shreds, but still he did not die.  He reached desperately for the gateway

to Elysium, but it shrank away from him. He ran toward it, but the tigers clawed at his

feet and great crowds shouted "Commodus...Commodus" over and over. He had let

everybody down, had saved nothing, no one.

Morning came and he opened sand-caked eyelids, looking blearily at the sea. For a

moment he thought he saw himself out in the waves, just his head, enveloped in the

crushing, crashing breakers. On hands and knees he crawled into the sea cave,

making his way to the small spring where he splashed water on himself then curled

once again on his side, watching the little rivulet flowing down the rocks. He lay there

all day, not moving, not eating, just watching the little flow of water, knowing it should

have been his blood but was not.

The next day he sat up, taking a mango from his pile. It was over-ripe and sent his

stomach into spasms, but he'd tried to open a coconut and found he didn't have the

strength. So he lay again beside the little spring, watching the small flow of water,

trying not to think.

The following day he sipped water from time to time. It was steadily getting easier not

to think. He slept fitfully off and on, not liking sleep because the tigers came. It was

easier just to lie there and watch the water...or the changing lines of the shadows on

the walls of the cave as sunlight came and went in the distant doorway. If he forgot, if

he let his mind begin to think, then Sid began to laugh because the crowd was shouting "Kill...kill... kill", wanting his blood because he had failed, because he had accomplished nothing, avenged no one, saved no one. He answered Marcus too late. By how many

minutes had he missed preventing that murder? He had arrived too late in Spain. By

mere hours he had been too late. He had not kept his appointed meeting with Cicero.

Everything was lost. Everything.  The words of Proximo's speech before the first fight

in Zucchabar rang hollowly in his ears. Die like men. He could no longer die like a man.

He was no longer sure he even was a man. Perhaps he was just one of those little round

things with a hole in its center? He had a hole in his center. He knew that for certain.

He could feel it widening, taking up more of him, of whatever he was. There was less
of him each moment, more of the hole. He was glad. He had made the wrong decision in Zucchabar. But... then...was Zucchabar only on the round thing? Did any of it matter

any more?  Sid said he was only a story. Yes. Only a story.  Like Rome being the light.

Or like his being alive made any difference. He was probably not alive anyway, had

never been alive. The rivulet of water had little bubbles in it from time to time. He

watched them pop as they went over a sharp section of rock.  How easily they popped.

How very, very easily.

A week had passed with no further sighting of Maximus.  Brianna figured he must

just be keeping to himself, must not want to be around her and Sid together. Sid had

told her earlier about the big sea cave, had told her so she would know he was all

right. Yet she found herself worried about him, remembering how he had held his

side.

Yet she was happy with Sid, who positively lavished her with attention and love. At

his slightest touch, she was ready to lie with him. He loved her. His every look, his

every act was an open expression of that. She basked in it, flowered in it, opened

herself completely to him.

It was evening and she lay nestled in his arms.  "I love you," she murmured, aware of

how he loved to hear her say it.

He never tired of it.  His hand moved slightly, cupping her breast. Her flesh was soft

and warm under his palm. He found her infinitely more precious since she had come

so close to dying in his arms, fully realizing the treasure he had in her, in the simple

fact of that soft warmness to her flesh. Bending his head, he let his lips linger on her

nipple. Her back arched as desire for him seared through her.

"Oh, God, Sid," she gasped, wrapping her arms around his head. She could feel his

lips curve into a smile against her skin then she dissolved into a series of little cries

as he kissed his way lower and lower down her torso.

Later, they lay entwined, and she sighed.  "No wonder."

"No wonder...what, my Love?" he asked, lifting his eyes to hers.

It was her turn to smile. "No wonder I am very late."

"Late? What are you late for?"

"Not 'for' anything.  Just...late."

His eyes widened. "You can't possibly mean...."

"Oh, but I can," she laughed.  "And I do."

He almost stopped breathing. "My...my seed?"

She found his state of astonishment adorable. "I don't think it was sunflower seeds."

"Oh....my!" he said, his jaw dropping open. "Really?"

"Really," she smiled. "I'm never late. Ever."

"A baby? You're...we're...having a...baby?"  It was beyond his wildest dreams. Him!

He had fathered a child! "Do you know what this means?"

"I'm fairly sure," she chuckled. "But you can tell me anyway."

"I have SEED!" he almost shouted.

"Do you ever!" she laughed again. "I should know."

Sitting up on the bed, he pulled her with him, staring at her in utter amazement. Then

his eyes dropped to her stomach and his hands reached out, absolutely reverently,

resting on it very lightly.  "Oh, my...God."  He was speechless. His eyes found hers again,

tears sparkling. "Th...thank you," he whispered.

"You helped," she smiled. "A lot."

He wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin, and just sat there,

lost in the astounding wonder of it all.

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