Chapter Text
It was past midnight when Odysseus crossed the palace threshold. A property dispute between two farmers had kept him out in Ithaca’s furthest fields until sundown, and then, with only starlight to guide him homeward on this moonless night, he’d had to walk his horse lest she injure herself on an unseen hazard.
He’d never intended to stay out so late. Though he’d been away from his wife and son for less than a full day, it was the first time since his return that he’d spent more than an hour separated from one or both of them, and he was discovering that he disliked it immensely. No, it was more than that: every moment they were apart stabbed dual knifepoints of worry and yearning through his heart.
He ought to chide himself for such sentimentality, but instead he indulged it. He paused at the door to Telemachus’ bedchamber, and, intending to reassure himself with a quick glimpse of his son’s sleeping form, he poked his head inside—only to find the room empty. His heart stuttered; the boy was not one for staying up late.
But a quick—and slightly frantic—survey further down the hall located his son in moments. Telemachus was indeed asleep, curled up on a messy pallet apparently of his own making, on the stone floor outside the door to his parents’ bedchamber.
Odysseus paused, letting the momentary terror that had gripped him ebb away, and bent to tuck the blanket more snugly around the boy’s shoulders. Then he carefully stepped over his son and opened the door.
The room was lit warmly by a pair of oil lamps, and Penelope was seated on a low couch by the window, bent over the half-finished embroidery project on her lap.
She looked up, saw him, and the smile that spread across her face made his heart hurt, but in a pleasant sort of way.
“You’re back,” she said, standing and casting her embroidery aside so quickly it nearly fell to the floor.
“I’m sorry to be so late.” He crossed the floor to her and took her hands in his. “I didn’t expect you to wait up for me.”
“Oh, well.” Her gaze dropped from his briefly. “It’s not—” An involuntary yawn betrayed her— “so very late.”
He almost laughed, but some instinct stopped him, a sense that he was missing something—that his sleeping son’s presence outside the door was not the evidence of a childish whim or prank but rather…
“My love,” he said, “Did you know Telemachus is sleeping outside our door?”
She blinked. “What?” Then she pursed her lips. “I thought he’d returned to his chambers. I told him there was no need…”
“But he thought there was a need?”
Again she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. There was a moment of silence. He waited.
“He used to do this…on nights when the suitors were particularly…rowdy. He was trying to protect me.” Her hands in Odysseus’ trembled slightly. “Of course, he couldn’t understand that his presence only made me more anxious… He would have been powerless to stop them, if they really…” She let the thought remain unfinished. “He was only putting himself in danger's way.”
Odysseus realized he was gripping her hands rather too tightly for comfort. He released them.
She continued, looking steadily past his shoulder. “He was such an obedient boy in general, but in this, he wouldn’t listen to me. If I sent him away he’d only sneak back again later, and I’d find him there on the threshold in the morning.” She shook her head a little, her lips tilting in a smile that was more melancholy than wry. “I suppose that’s what he did tonight.”
Odysseus’ throat felt tight. “I didn’t know.” It was a stupid thing to say, an obvious thing. Of course, he had known that the suitors’ presence in the palace had been a constant strain and stress on his wife, and that, as the years wore on, they had become actively dangerous, that she had not been able to walk through her own palace without an escort of guards… It had been foolish of him to suppose that she could have ever felt safe behind the closed door of their bedchamber while those unscrupulous men had free reign of the palace halls.
And with only her young, brave, foolish son daring to plant himself between her and them…
“Oh, Penelope…” Oh, Telemachus. What you both must have suffered. He did not feel worthy to take her into his arms, yet to leave her standing there, worn and afraid and alone, was unbearable. So he opened his arms to her. She melted against him, bending her neck to press her face into the crook of his shoulder. Her fingers bunched the fabric of his tunic.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I should have been home sooner.”
He was no longer speaking about tonight.
She began to cry, with small, hitching sobs, and he held her, stroking her back, feeling the dampness of tears on his neck, and murmuring her name.
She spoke without lifting her face from his shoulder. “I—was so afraid. For so long.”
He held her tighter.
“I thought that… now that you’ve returned, I could make myself forget. Leave it behind in the past. But—” She shuddered against him. “I'm still afraid.”
He could tell it hurt her to admit to it, as her fingers tightened their grip on his tunic.
“And Telemachus could tell. I’m sure that’s why he came to see me tonight. He—” She drew a small, ragged breath. “He’s very observant, our son.”
“He’s like you that way,” Odysseus murmured, still rubbing her back in soothing circles.
“But I didn't want to burden him with my fear. I thought I was stronger than this.” Her voice was thick with self-recrimination. Though the emotion was one he knew well, it hurt Odysseus uniquely to hear it in his wife. It was rare for him to fumble for words, but he struggled now.
“You are strong,” he said finally, into her hair. “But you don’t have to be strong all the time. No one could be.” He paused, and cleared his throat. “I’m certainly not. I—I’ve been afraid too. I was afraid the whole time I was away from you today. And I was terrified when I saw Telemachus wasn’t in his room tonight. I… I don’t expect those instincts will change anytime soon.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him tearily. He gazed back, willing her to see the truth of it in his eyes: the fear he’d carried so long, the pain, and most of all all the unwavering love he bore her. He would never condemn her for being afraid.
“We’re a matched pair,” she said thickly.
“Indeed.”
After a time, her crying slowed, and he guided her gently to their bed and helped her sit. His thumbs brushed at the tear tracks on her cheeks. She leaned into his touch, and he pressed his forehead against hers, unspeaking. They stayed that way for a long while. Finally he leaned back. “If you don’t mind, my love, I think I should rescue our son from the floor. He can’t be comfortable there.”
“Yes, but he sleeps like a rock. I doubt you’ll be able to wake him…” She gave a true wry smile this time. “Another reason I tried to dissuade him from standing guard for me.” She made as if to rise. “Perhaps I should bring him another blanket…”
“No need.” Odysseus stood and strode to the door, which he’d left ajar on entering. He squatted down next to his son, and listened to the boy’s slow breathing for a moment. It was true that he seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully, but Odysseus wasn’t about to leave him in the corridor. He slipped one arm under his son’s upper back, the other behind his knees, and gave a great heave, getting back to his feet. Thank the gods the boy had a lankier frame than him, despite being a bit taller, or he doubted he’d have been able to make it back across the room to the olive tree bed. As it was, he gave a relieved groan when he deposited his burden on the woolen mattress. Penelope shifted over to make room, arranging pillows for her son’s comfort and tucking a blanket over him.
True to his wife’s words, the boy hardly stirred throughout the whole process, except to wiggle slightly deeper into the blankets. In sleep, he looked younger than his twenty years, especially with the shadows obscuring the traces of a young beard on his chin. Odysseus’ heart hurt again for all the years he had missed, which could never be called back. He supposed his heart would never stop hurting. Just as he would never stop being afraid.
But as he settled into the bed between his son and his wife, there was a warmth in his chest alongside the pain.
“Just like old times,” he said softly into Penelope's hair as he tugged her into his arms once more. His memories of the weeks after Telemachus’ birth were precious but worn around the edges, for all the time he’d spent pulling them out and turning them over and over in his mind like a sacred talisman during the lonely nights of the long years spent at Troy.
“Not quite,” she murmured back. “I remember you were so afraid of rolling over and crushing him in your sleep that you slept on the very edge of the bed—I believe you even fell off a couple times.”
A chuckle escaped him. “I do remember that. At least that worry can be left in the past.” He reached over to tousle Telemachus’ curls. The sleeping boy let out his breath in a huff reminiscent of a dog’s.
“And you spent hours carrying him all around the palace,” Penelope continued, “nevermind how it interfered with your duties. Some days you only let me have him back to nurse him. And even when he was quite clearly hungry, he never seemed to prefer my company to yours, for all I was his only source of sustenance.” Her tone was wry.
“Ah…” At the time he had only thought of his delight in his infant son, and the assumption, reinforced by the fussing of maidservants, that Penelope needed quiet and rest after the ordeal of childbirth. “Was I a trial to you, my love? I’m sorry for it.” Except that was not entirely true. He could not regret any of the fleeting moments he’d spent with his baby boy. Though he hadn't known at the time just how fleeting they would be.
“No, I may have had my moments of parental jealousy, but…I was pleased to see you so attached to him. Some men have no use for their offspring until they are nearly full grown, but you were a devoted father from the moment he was born…No—” Her lips quirked, though her eyes glistened— “from the moment I felt his quickening.”
They were both silent for a moment, lost in precious, distant memories.
“I am convinced that…if you had not had to go away to fight in Troy, the two of you would have…” Penelope bit her lip. “But it’s no use thinking of impossible things.”
“If I had not gone away to Troy, the two of you would have been able to sleep peacefully in your own palace,” he said quietly. “My son would have no need to guard his mother’s door at night…”
She shifted restlessly in his arms, and he forced himself to relax his body again. He stroked her back soothingly.
“But you’re right, my love. It's no use thinking of what can’t be changed. Still, from now on…I’ll be careful not to stay out late again.”
“There’s no need—”
He gently hushed her with a kiss to the forehead. “For my own sake, as well as yours. I've no wish to sleep anywhere else but at your side. So indulge me, please.”
She snuggled in close. “As my husband wishes.”