without_hesitation | (no subject)

Though she would not give voice to feeling, Ilithyia finds herself nervous at prospect of having Spartacus in home. Besides Capua, they have limited interactions to public venues, even in intimate moments, and though she has little love for the apartment she has been given, it is still a home of a kind. To open it to enemy leaves her with unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Yet she cannot be sure he still truly stands as enemy.

She has done nothing to prepare home as she may have with others. There is no food set out, no wine waiting for him. There is only her home as it is most days, clean, well-kept, a state which may surprise Spartacus when she has no slaves at disposal, but Ilithyia is a woman used to certain standards of living and will not live in squalor simply because she must now pick up after herself.

From the living room, Albinius makes a noise of protest and Ilithyia turns in time to see her son lose grip on couch and fall from standing position. She smiles fondly, watching as he struggles once more to stand.

He is growing more with each passing day and she cannoy deny she fears influence Spartacus may have upon him. It is no secret he detests her and she would not have him turn son against her. Yet there is little she can do to prevent such short of turning Albinius against Spartacus before he has time to truly change her son. It is with these thoughts whirling through mind she finds herself waiting for Spartacus, to introduce him finally and formally to his son.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Is that so?" And yet he's not even truly asking her. The full of his attention is now focused on the child, who is still regarding him solemnly, reaching up for his chin...

And then Albinius breaks into a smile, the kind that only young children can manage simple and guileless and somehow wise.

"Will you grow to love might and power, I wonder?" he murmurs, half to himself. "Or will you bear greatest love for freedom, whatever the cost?"

"He is but child," Ilithyia says, reaching out to touch Spartacus, fingertips grazing his arm briefly. Every passing moment spent in company of this man confuses her further and her desire to return to Capua, though useless, given what she knows of her life there, does not diminish. If nothing else, she understood her place in such a world. Here it is difficult for her to find footing. "Let him be a child."

It almost shocks him, to hear it from her. Not the words themselves, but the way in which she says them, the softness in them - softness which is, as far as he can tell, no pretense. Genuine.

And the touch.

"Yes," he says, still quiet. "Yes, he is. May he remain so as long as he is able."

Should he desire to take her child, she thinks he might have done so already. He has not physically harmed her since initial meeting -- not beyond what she has asked him for in her way -- and in Capua, she watched him kill her husband with little remorse.

Perhaps he will never be ally, but he is the father of her child. And perhaps he is no longer enemy.

"We can make arrangements for you to see him," she decides. "More often, if you so desire."

"Such arrangements would be met with... appreciation." Again, surprise lances through him. That she would let him see her child is surprise enough. That she would let him hold the child, even more so. That she would allow such a thing more than once...

"I never thought," he says, quiet again. "I never thought, after Sura was torn from life... that moment such as this would ever be but distant dream."

"Nor I," she admits, unsure of why she is letting such words fall from tongue. "Gaius wanted an heir and yet after years there was nothing."

He was unable, not her, as evidence of her own fertility smiles and squeals and grabs at the material covering his father's chest.

As Lucretia had, she would have found a way, but it has always been comfort to know issue did not lie in her womb.