What Could Have Been?

[Sara]

She chuckled and jabbed him in the chest with her elbow; "You'll need to get a bigger bath then, than that pitiful excuse for what you have in there." She wondered about his friends; probably plebs or equites or even freedmen. She wrinkled her nose, but then sighed. She was nobody to judge - her friends were all high-born nobility, but she no longer enjoyed their company. It was the same mind-numbing conversations with the same mind-numbing people. 

"I want that future so badly." She swallowed and then shut her eyes - trying to cling onto it as something more than just the dream she knew it was. It didn't have to be, but to risk it all for it. She'd be utterly mad. 

"But what if we did it and you hated me? We argue..." They always had - even in their youth and their sporadic friendship, "What if it doesn't work and I throw away everything I have for it?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

"You'll need to get a bigger bath then, than that pitiful excuse for what you have in there."

"It's enough for two people really close" he grinned against her skin. She was already talking like she owned the household. He knew he would give in to her.

"I want that future so badly." 

"Me too." More than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. He curled around her again. She fit so well.

"But what if we did it and you hated me? We argue... What if it doesn't work and I throw away everything I have for it?" 

"Ovinia." Lucius lifted his head to look down at her, more serious than he had been all day. "I would never hate you. It would work. You know it would." It couldn't not work. Not in any world. "I will fight for you. I can't watch you walk away again."

[Sara]

"You can fight all you like." She chuckled and ducked her head to kiss his jaw softly, "But it'll take more than fighting to convince my brother. I need time." Because she was seriously considering this, and it wasn't something to be entered into lightly. 

"I need to speak to him, and warm him up to the idea of divorce and then introduce the idea of you. I can't do that overnight." Much as she might like to simply abandon her old life today, here, now - age had made her practical and this needed to be thought through. 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

"You can fight all you like. But it'll take more than fighting to convince my brother. I need time." 

Lucius sighed. Fighting sounded so much easier than waiting. He had waited long enough, and any longer felt like torture, now that he knew what he had been missing.

"I need to speak to him, and warm him up to the idea of divorce and then introduce the idea of you. I can't do that overnight." 

"It's going to feel a lot longer than that" Lucius muttered, kissing her shoulder "Tell me I get to see you in the meantime."

@Sara

[Sara]

"We have to be careful." She murmured, but it wasn't a no. She had been reckless to come here but the fire provided a cover they'd never have had otherwise. Once the city settled and she went back to her mind-numbing routine, opportunities like this would be nonexistent. 

"How could we see each other again?" She shifted from her back to lying on her side, facing him. Her fingers went up to brush through his hair. "It could take months, years even. And if anybody suspects an affair, it's..." Well, then her joke about exile might well come to fruition. Her family had always been sticklers for the rules. "We what? Invite each other round for dinner and smile politely?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

She rolled over to face him again. They had... thoroughly exhausted each other earlier in the morning, but Lucius felt like he could not get enough of her. He hummed as she ran her fingrs through his hair.

"How could we see each other again? It could take months, years even. And if anybody suspects an affair, it's..."

"Not years." he groaned. But he knew she was right, this was not going to happen from one day to the next. Even if she made a case about being left to die in a fucking fire by her husband.

"We what? Invite each other round for dinner and smile politely?" 

"You know I could never do that even in the old days" Lucius noted. His hand wandered along her side again, then down to her thigh. Maybe he was a bit distracted. "We can find a way. I know the cit better than anyone. if you find a way to get out of your domus, I can find a place for us to meet."

[Sara]

If Lucius was distracted, so was Ovinia although she made a concerted effort to keep this conversation on the serious. She wasn't some young girl anymore with time to waste on daydreams. She was done with waiting for her life to start. 

"And what?" She quirked her eyebrow in challenge, "We meet in sordid, seedy little back rooms in some taverna when I can steal a morning away from home?" She could find the time, that wasn't an issue. Her husband was so largely disinterested in her life nowadays that he rarely cared where she went or what she did or who she saw. If she said she was going to the market  three days in a row he likely wouldn't even notice the oddity. 

"That wasn't fair," She groaned and buried her head in his chest, she knew they didn't really have any other options. "At least make it an upmarket room?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

"And what? We meet in sordid, seedy little back rooms in some taverna when I can steal a morning away from home?" 

Lucius sighed. Yes, their options were not great, and their outlook was bound to get worse before it got better. He did not want to think about going to sleep without her next to him. He refused to entertain that thought, and he gathered her to his chest as she gave up the fight.

"That wasn't fair. At least make it an upmarket room?" 

"Please, you know the plebes love me." he chuckled, kissing the top of her head. "I can swing better than that. Gods, if you are willing to go through a religious revival, I know a very nice Eastern sanctuary with some very cozy rooms for worship..."

@Sara

[Sara]

She chuckled as he did and groaned, nodding. She'd be willing to actually convert if it meant more snatched moments like this. Gods, how desperate was she? Maybe it was the fact that it had been fifteen years in the making, or that she was so desperately unhappy at home, or that it was Lucius enveloping her in his arms, or that...to put it crudely, this had been the first decent sex she'd ever had, but she didn't want this day to end. 

"Just send a note. I'll speak to my brother as soon as he's back in the city." How on earth that conversation would go, she had no idea. 

Settling into the crook of his arm, one of her own languidly draped over his chest, she stifled a yawn against his skin. She really had no concept of the time but judging from the silence in the house the slaves were either asleep or not working. Servants, she corrected herself with a huff of amusement, Lucius didn't own slaves. The fool. "Are all your staff off for Saturnalia?" She mumbled sleepily, trying to divert the conversation away from the serious. "How are we going to celebrate?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Sara]

---

September - nine months later
A villa outside of Lupiae (modern day Lecce), 11 days ride from Rome

Late summer sunshine streamed through the peristyle, warming Ovinia's face as she tried to concentrate on her stitching. Gaius had evidently chosen Lupiae - or rather a villa half a day outside of it - because there was absolutely nothing to do here and no reason why any self-respecting Roman would want to visit it. It cut the chances of Ovinia running into friends or acquaintances to practically zero, but it also meant that she was utterly bored stiff. She was a person that thrived on other people - she needed conversation and socialisation to feel alive and sitting here, now for the better part of two months, alone in every sense of the word - she thought she'd go mad. The fact that Gaius, nor her other brothers hadn't visited her and he'd signed away the majority of her rights to see and raise Tadia in the divorce proceedings, meant that the days passed in a blur of loneliness. She didn't even know if he knew. 

The villa was at least grand. Gaius hadn't allowed her to go their usual spot in Baiae for fear of her running into friends, but he'd rented a house just as grand for her here. She supposed it was a small mercy but a very pretty, very expensively furnished prison was still a prison. The staff, likewise, were not of her choosing besides her bodyslave. They were perfectly pleasant and attentive but she knew she was being watched. They wouldn't even send letters directly for her - instead they send them to Gaius to vet and then send on if he deemed them appropriate. She supposed she should have been accepting of this as a punishment; she was alive, free from her husband, healthy and in a beautiful house - it was more than most women in her position with her sort of family got when they were revealed to be with child from an affair. But gratitude had always been hard for Ovinia, and as the weeks wore on and the morning sickness abated and the curve of her bump began to show under her tunica, it was becoming harder and harder to be thankful. 

Distracted in thought, as she threaded the needle through the palla she was mending, she stuck it into the skin of her thumb. Yelping in pain, she immediately plucked it out tried to stymie the small prick of blood that was blooming. This would undoubtedly be the most exciting thing to happen to her all day. She couldn't help but laugh. 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

It took Lucius almost a whole month to find out where they were keeping Ovinia. Her brother Gaius had not been very forthcoming with details after he showed up at his house and threw a punch and left him with a bloody nose. Lucius did not put up a fight. It was clear Gaius knew about the affair now (the divorce negotiations had been ongoing, but Ovinia had tried to keep the rest a secret). He did not exactly have the moral high ground.

What he did have, it turned out, was a baby on the way.

Ovinia had been spirited away outside Rome, to keep a lid on the scandal. The divorce was done in a hurry. He could even marry her, eventually, once Gaius had blown off the steam. But they were not allowed to meet. Not until Ovinia's return. Petty vengeance, at best, but he couldn't exactly blame the paterfamilias.

However, he wasn't going to obey him, either.

Good thing the vigiles were on good terms with the people of the street, and Lucius was on good terms with everyone. Eventually, someone slipped a piece of information. Lupiae. The ass end of nowhere. Lucius traveled immediately, but it still took him almost a week to find the villa, half a day outside of town. The family had literally gone to great lengths to hide that Ovinia was having a child out of wedlock.

Lucius dismounted his horse, and tossed the reins to a slave who looked more than a bit baffled, but did not try to stop the praefect. The look on Lucius' face probably told him that was the wise thing to do. As he rounded the corner of the building, he heard laughter; Ovinia's soft voice. His heart jumped when she came into view.

"Ovinia!"

@Sara

[Sara]

Ovinia physically jumped as she heard her name called. She'd recognise that voice anywhere, but even if she hadn't, nobody had visited her here in the months she'd been sequestered away and she was unused to the idea that somebody would be here to see her. She glanced up and saw him, and for a moment wondered if she'd actually, fully cracked and lost her mind or was Lucius really standing in front of her in her villa-prison with that look on his face. She blinked, almost comically, to make sure she wasn't hallucinating and when he was still there after a sizeable pause, she launched herself from her chair and bounded to him, wrapping her arms around his neck before he could do anything. 

"You came." She breathed and she felt the loneliness ebb away almost immediately. In her darker moments she had wondered, self-consciously, if he did know and decided against pursuing her further. She recalled the conversation they had had that first time she had seen him, all those years later, where he'd admitted he didn't have children, and again on Saturnalia when he'd proudly proclaimed that he didn't care if she was barren, that all he wanted was her. What if he didn't want the child? What if he didn't want her now it had become so much more complicated? She blinked against his neck but didn't release her crushing grip on him. "How are you here?" Had Gaius sanctioned it?

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

Ovinia stared at him for a long, incredulous moment, before she ran into his arms. Lucius wrapped her in a hug, almost lifting her off her feet. It was hard to tell in the dress she was wearing, but with her body against him, he could feel that she was showing.

"You came."

"Of course I did." he sighed, holding her; she was clinging to him for dear life. Lucius turned his face to press a kiss to her temple.

"How are you here?"

"I rode a horse." he quipped with a smirk. "Your brother really went the extra mile with this place. Or the extra hundred... Are you alright?"

@Sara

[Sara]

She let out a little laugh at his joke, terrible though it was and relaxed enough to release him although both her hands still gripped his arms, she at least settled down from her tip-toes. 

"Out of sight, out of mind." She mumbled with a little glare at one of the slaves who was standing, clearly uncomfortable and unsure of what to do a little way off. Relief washed through her at the sight of him, that she didn't even attempt to talk about the pregnancy. It was old news for her, she was even bored of thinking about it, and in that moment it didn't even cross her mind to talk about it with him - even as the curve of the bump was further revealed by the movement of her tunica. 

"I'm fine," She swallowed - she wasn't, but she wasn't going to lay out just how lonely and depressed she'd become. He was here and she would be fine now, wouldn't she? "Please tell me you've come to take me home?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

She finally released her grip on him, but they still held each other. Lucius looked her over. Gods, she was beautiful. He could see the change in her body now, and the way she carried herself. Reality was sinking in.

"I'm fine, Please tell me you've come to take me home?" 

Lucius sighed, turning his attention away from her body and looking up. "Not officially. Your brother... doesn't exactly know I'm here."

@Sara

[Sara]

Disappointment and upset visibly flashed across her face, settling her features into a frown and a bitten lip. She felt foolish - that Gaius would have forgiven her transgression and allowed her home with the father of her child. Two months in this purgatory clearly wasn't enough for him. She still remembered what he'd said to her as he'd shown her round the villa; 'Get used to it. You've got until the child is weaned to get to know the place.' 

She swallowed the temple-sized lump in her throat and exhaled through her nose, finally releasing him. He was still here - she still had company, but clearly not forever. He'd have to head back to the city again before they knew it and she'd be left alone. Again. "He'll be furious when he finds out." She murmured mildly with a little shrug, "You should have seen him when he found out about the chil-" She blinked. The child. She looked between Lucius and then the curve of her bump and then back at him. Way to skip over the important things, Ovinia. 

Self-consciously, she placed her palms over it and swallowed. "I-I wanted to tell you first. A slave found out..." She winced, "...surprise?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

She looked disappointed. Lucius wished he could tell her he was taking her home. He would have taken her right away, if he had not thought it would make things worse.

"He'll be furious when he finds out."

"I don't give a shit." Lucius pointed out matter-of-factly.

"You should have seen him when he found out about the chil-" 

Lucius' look softened as she stumbled over her words.

"I-I wanted to tell you first. A slave found out...surprise?" 

He smiled. Everything had gone wrong in all kinds of ways; Gaius knew she was with child before he did. And he had to find out in a very painful way. And yet, he was still happy about it. Incredibly happy. He reached out, carefully touching her bump, smoothing his palm against it. "That... is our child."

@Sara

[Sara]

She let him reach out, and his hesitancy was almost amusing. She supposed without a wife or a permanent lover he'd have never felt this, unless he Vipsania had let him with her brood. She covered his hand with her own and laughed a little, awkwardly. Why isn't he saying he's happy? 

"Yes." She swallowed. She wouldn't go into the details of how she knew it wasn't her husbands, although it was a very short story given he preferred the whores of the Venus than her and hadn't touched her in months before she found out she was pregnant. "I know it's not what we planned." There was supposed to be a neat divorce, a quiet reflective period and then an even quieter second marriage to him. No baby or exile to stupid fucking Lupiae. She swallowed, "But I'm happy." She squeezed his hand over her belly, "Are...you?" 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

So far in his life, Lucius had missed out on family moments. He did not have a wife, or children. He loved Ovinia, more than he could put into words, but her getting pregnant was wholly unexpected. He had even wondered for a moment if it had just been an excuse for Gaius to spirit her away. But now, he could feel it.

"I know it's not what we planned. But I'm happy... Are...you?" 

Lucius realized that he had not really reacted to the news, as much as he was just gently rubbing his palm on her belly. He looked up, a dazed, stupid grin lighting up his face. "Yeah. Yes, I am." He leaned down, finally kissing her. He knew he should have started with that.

@Sara

[Sara]

His grin spoke volumes and she felt herself relax. The knots worked their way out of her shoulders, her breathing slowed and the frown melted away from her forehead. She exhaled deeply and moved a hand to cup his face as he kissed her. It was slow and gentle and tender, and absent of the passion that coloured most of their interactions in their little rented room in Rome, but it was exactly what she needed. With her other hand still over his, she squeezed it and then finally drew back from the kiss. 

"It only gets more complicated from here." She groaned and then leant forward until her head was on his chest, and she mumbled into it; "I...think Gaius intends for the child to be left behind here, deny that it's mine, if he brings me back to Rome." She swallowed, "Even if we married now it's too late to claim we conceived this one in marriage." 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

The kiss felt like water after a long trek through a desert. Lucius hummed, smiling against her lips, then kissed her face and her nose, and her forehead, and held her close.

"It only gets more complicated from here. I...think Gaius intends for the child to be left behind here, deny that it's mine, if he brings me back to Rome. Even if we married now it's too late to claim we conceived this one in marriage." 

"Gaius can go suck a toad." Lucius growled. "My wife, my child." He blinked, looking down at her. "If we marry, you belong to my family, not his. He doesn't get to decide."

[Sara]

A shiver ran the length of her spine at 'my wife, my child'. She'd never felt more in love or more enraptured by a man. This was what her naive, girlish dreams of love and lust had looked like. Not her first marriage with its boredom and loneliness. This was what she had been waiting for. 

"Only if we marry the old way, cum manus and I become your property rather than his." She rolled her eyes a little. "And we'll need his permission for that, which he's not going to give easily given..." She winced, "The adultery, love-child business." She sighed. It could have been worse, Gaius had the legal right to kill both her and Lucius or at the very least tell Spurius, and bring criminal charges which would have resulted in Lucius undoubtedly losing his position. He hadn't though - he'd merely sent her here, which she supposed was his way of being merciful. 

Swallowing, she finally pulled back from his chest and sighed. "Come sit with me in the gardens, and we can plan? And yes Ajax, you can write to your master to tell him all about this." She offered the slave who stood by with narrowed eyes a smug, self-satisfied smile and then tugged on Lucius' hands to pull him into the villa.

"How did you find out?" She asked him as she walked.

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

It was almost laughable, being this close together: Ovinia, divorced, and pregnant with his child. And yet, they were still miles away from living the way they wanted to. Now, instead of Spurius, the person standing in the way of their happiness was Gaius.

"Only if we marry the old way, cum manus and I become your property rather than his. And we'll need his permission for that, which he's not going to give easily given... The adultery, love-child business." 

Lucius sighed. She was right, of course. Ovinia had always been the more practical of the two of them.

"Come sit with me in the gardens, and we can plan? And yes Ajax, you can write to your master to tell him all about this." 

Lucius glanced over at the slave, giving him a glare. Gaius was going to find out. But the distance he had put between Ovinia and scandal cut both ways: the letter was not going to arrive in less than a week.

"How did you find out?" 

Lucius followed her to the garden, finding a seat in the shade of a bay tree. He pulled her down until she was sitting on his lap, and wrapped his arms around her again. "I have friends in low places." he smirked. "One of the household slaves talked. They didn't know exactly where you were, so  have been wandering this damn countryside like a lunatic." Unable to resist the urge, he placed a hand on her belly again. It was hard to talk about relaities while he was distracted.

[Sara]

She let herself be pulled down until she was sprawled on his lap, legs dangling over the armrest of the chair. She chuckled at his description, and couldn't help the frisson of excitement as his palm found her bump. It seemed he couldn't keep away. 

"I meant how did you find out about the child?" She would not have put it past Gaius to simply ignore Lucius in the hope he'd leave Ovinia alone. "But it's good to know you were out here scaring the elderly senators in their villas in search of me." She raised his hand from her belly to lay a soft kiss on his knuckles, before dropping it back down. 

"If I thought we'd get away with it, I'd suggest we just get married now - without his permission." She sighed and shook her head, "But he'll not brook it and he's just as likely to make us divorce as accept it. But I can't stay here alone much longer Lucius." she swallowed, "I'm going out of my mind..." 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

"I meant how did you find out about the child? But it's good to know you were out here scaring the elderly senators in their villas in search of me." 

"Oh" Lucius chuckled "I found that out when your brother barged into my house and cracked my nose. It was completely worth it. Didn't even hurt. Though he's pretty strong for a senator."

"If I thought we'd get away with it, I'd suggest we just get married now - without his permission. But he'll not brook it and he's just as likely to make us divorce as accept it. But I can't stay here alone much longer Lucius. I'm going out of my mind..." 

"Shh, it's alright. I'm here. It's going to be alright." he muttered, kissing her forehead. It had to be hard on her, finding out she was pregnant, then being sent away in shame, with no prospect of returning. "We have come this far, we'll figure out the rest. Besides, what else is he gonna do? Try to marry you to someone else, and risk them finding out?"