Live, Die, Repeat

Chapter 10

Cassius Chaerea saved me in Germania. I had been injured in a battle, lost my damned arm at the elbow to an axe. Dying hurts, but it's temporary. Losing your arm sticks with you. I returned to Rome with him, I wasn't going to be able to stay in the army without an arm. Though I had considered letting myself die again, I had become a sounding board of sorts to Chaerea, who had just become a Praetorian Guard under the new emperor, Caligula.

Caligula was one of the worst of the Roman emperors, and almost daily Chaerea would return to our little house and grieve over the way he was treated working under him, and the way the emperor was acting towards the people. Money was being wasted, people randomly killed, Caligula would sleep with the wife of almost anyone, even allies, just to prove that he could do whatever he wanted. Chaerea was safe, he had no wife, just me.

By the time I had met him, I was well past worrying about genders anymore, and while he was a mighty warrior, he was also a kind man. While that served him well in our relationship, his personality was a source of ridicule by the emperor, who seemed to have no liking at all for Chaerea, though he had known him much of his life.

After several years he had enough. Even I could see the change in Chaerea who was becoming more and more bitter. Not wanting to see the man I was sharing my life with become worse, I suggested that we just kill the emperor. He wasn't doing Rome or anyone else any good, and while I didn't have an arm, I could still wield a sword.

But I was too late, he had already become worse, and I missed all the signs.

4 days later, we and several other guards killed Caligula after the Palatine Games. But Chaerea had already taken it further, ordering the murder of Caligula's wife and baby as well. When I begged of him to give them mercy, he refused. So I tried to protect them with my one arm, and the man I had spent the last few years with killed me himself.

It was the only time I think someone had been sorry to have killed me.

Ash kicked the door to the bedroom closed and pushed me to the bed until I was sitting on the edge as she stood in front of me, hands on hips.

"I thought you were a...."

"I am. I'm in here to give you the chance to tell me the story," she said, obviously angry. "So, spill, give me the lie."

"I'm not going to lie to you. Though I don't know what I can tell you," I admitted. It was true unless you counted lies of omission. How could I even begin to explain the situation?

"Huh. And here I thought you were going to spin a sob story about witness protection, alien abduction or running away from home," she said sarcastically.

"But they're not true, and you know it," I stated.

"Stop that!" she said in a low growl.

"What?"

"Being good."

"Ash, listen. My past is a mess, and there is no way to tell you everything and not have you think I'm a lunatic. I wish there were an easy way to explain it to the people I'd like to do so with, but there just isn't. it would require leaps of faith that most people just can't take because of the perception people have about the world we live in."

She put her hand on her forehead and sat on the bed next to me. "I was afraid you were going to say something like that."

"Why?"

"Because I know it's true. I was half hoping to hear some bullshit lie and be able to be angry," she said bitterly.

"Ash, I told you I'm not going to lie. I may not be able to tell you everything, but I'll never lie. I've never had many friends, which if you knew my past is an odd thing, but I always do my best to support them," I reassured her.