Work Text:
A thousand urns of sunlight give way to an outstretched, golden-skinned arm, and the waiting face of Achilles. I had not believed I would see him again. But he had waited.
He draws closer and cups my cheeks in his palms. I don't look away, drinking in the golden locks, the green in his eyes.
"I am sorry," are his first words. I know. But I need not say so.
"Could you have stopped it?" I say, instead. He had felt Apollo's arrow, even if only for a second.
"It does not matter to me. I am just a mortal," and this time when he says it, he smiles, like it is the best thing to have happened to him. "They would have found another way."
He leans forward, until his forehead touches mine. His breath is warm, even in death. "And I am done with fighting."
I felt the words he did not say. How he had waited for the blow he could not prevent, and welcomed it.
Still, it was all as the Fates decided. His death was seen long before that day on the battlefield. It was inevitable.
"Hector is dead."
"I saw."
"I gave his body to his family." He wants my approval, my forgiveness. I lean in, and a smile stretches across his face, and it's enough.
At the end of it all: Phthia and Troy, his hubris and his legacy, our ashes mingled in an urn, and the thirteen-year-old son who refused his father's last wishes; he stands here with me, in the underworld. He kisses me, long and sweet.
We have tonight, and tomorrow, and all the days after that.