Title: Hostage

Author: Trust No One

Rating: PG-13

Summary: AU where Hephaistion is taken prisoner by the Persians ahead of the Gaugamela battle. Things are complicated by the fact that Hephaistion has lost his memory due to a head wound.

Written for the weekend challenge at the LiveJournal Community of ATGStories for a story where Hephaistion gets amnesia.

Disclaimer: Sadly, they are not mine.

A/N: Not really my usual fare, AU's so go gentle on me.

Prologue

It was meant to be no more than a skirmish and yet out of the fifty-odd men that had been sent out, only five returned.

None had wanted to be the one who had to tell Alexander that they had seen Hephaistion fall. Wounded, dead, or taken captive they did not know, even when repeatedly questioned by the King himself. None had seen a man more engulfed by despair even as he had roared his orders. He rode away with only a handful of men, deaf to the other generals' vociferous protests.

'I will not believe he's dead until I've seen his body. And if he is dead, it's only fitting that I should find him myself,' he declared.

They had to know that Alexander would not bow to reason, at least not where it concerned Hephaistion.