TITLE: "Let him go"

CHARACTERS: Alexander and (implied).

RATING: PG

CATEGORY: Historical AU.

SUMMARY: It is the second hardest day in Alexander's life.

DISCLAIMER: I do not know the people involved, no harm intended; everything is the product of my imagination. Alexander and Hephaestion belong to History and to each other but I would not mind sharing my life with the blue-eyed man.

My mother tongue is Spanish and I work without a beta so all the mistakes are mine.

FEEDBACK: comments are love! Any kind of them will help me to improve my writing or leave it forever.

WARNING: Major character's death. Angst.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: October is the month when we remember our favourite Macedonian General.

Fat raindrops fell over the silent city, not even the people or animals dared to defy the mourning feeling floating in the air.

The royal palace at Ecbatana was so quiet that it seemed to be empty or sleeping an eternal dream.

Servants and the rest of its inhabitants moved slowly, silently, as if making any noise would offend the gods, who were also mourning. A female sob or two were heard around the halls but they were swiftly muffled as if crying had been completely banned.

Low whispers among the Generals and Companions, like the humming of busy bees, were the only sounds that had been constant for the last three days.

They had reached a decision and now it had come the hardest moment of the whole discussion, the time to tell the decision to their King and friend, to the very same man who had not loosen his tight hold around his beloved's cold corpse.

The former blue-eyed General needed to be buried and taken to his last resting place but the King of the known world had not yet accepted that his lover was no longer among the living.

The door to the royal chamber was opened slowly and the image they encountered was the saddest one those tough men had ever found.

Alexander was sitting on the floor, with Hephaestion's head on his lap, and while he was retelling his dead lover many of their joyful moments together, he was cutting his long blond tresses with Phai's dagger and let them fall around them.

Alexander was mourning and honouring his lover as his true hero had done before him.

Ptolemy approached the king and Alexander lifted his face and the elder blond was shocked, Alexander seemed to have aged twenty years in the last three days and his two mismatched eyes had lost the glow that used to live in them.

- "Ptolemy, my Phai is so cold, can you bring me his fur cloak that is on our bed?" the king asked.

The General did as he was asked and saw how Alexander wrap the cloak around his lover with such tenderness as if the dead man were made of the finest silk.

- "He is so quiet. Have you ever seen my Phai so quiet before?" Alexander asked and Ptolemy realized that the king might be losing his mind due to his deep pain.

- "You must let him go, Alexander. Let me take him and prepare him and then you can conduct his burial" Ptolemy suggested.

- "A burial, my friend? What are you talking about? My Phai is just sleeping" he added and caressed the marble-like cheek.

- "Alexander, he is not sleeping, he has been dead for three days" Ptolemy replied, feeling desperate because Alexander was daydreaming.

- "You are lying, how can he be dead if I am still breathing? Soulmates cannot live without the other, Phai is my better half and everybody knows that no one can walk on earth with only half of his heart and soul" Alexander replied and a fat tear rolled down his wrinkled cheek.

.

Ptolemy remained in silence, not knowing how to convince Alexander. He didn't want to take Hephaestion's corpse from him but something had to be done and quickly.

- "I can't let him go, we have not fulfilled all our dreams and I need more time with him, to love him, to take care of him and to be whole" Alexander added while his tears went on falling down his face.

- "That is not Hephaestion anymore, just only an empty shell of the great man he was," Ptolemy said, kneeling by his king and friend.

- "All right, I will let his body go but my love will chain him to my heart and soul"

.

No more words were exchanged between the two men and Alexander did let Hephaestion's body go but he also let go his wish of living in a world where his Phai was no longer by his side.