Title: Phantoms
Author: Monica
PG or G rated even! mostly conversation....

Commodus looked up, moonlight deepening the dark shadows under his eyes.

Lucilla moved across the onyx-colored floor in her dark-blue nightdress with silent grace, her eyes cautiously watching her brother as he swayed queasily on the edge of his bed, his hair ruffled and his nightshirt askew.

"I heard a scream," Lucilla ventured, "I thought it might be Lucius."

"It's so dark in here, Lucilla. It's too dark in here."

"Here, brother," Lucilla disappeared quickly around the side of the bed and emerged moments later with a large candle, which she proceeded to light and set near the bedstand, "The moon is full tonight, you must have seen a shadow--"

"It was no shadow..." Commodus said softly.

Lucilla stood rigid, puzzled. "Commodus, what are you saying? Was someone here, in your room?"

At this thought Lucilla took a quick look around the enormous palace bedroom herself, her cool eyes searching the draperies and corners with hastened urgency.

Commodus watched her with languid eyes, "You won't find anything, Lucilla. There's no one here except you and me."

Lucilla looked back at her brother, a faint smile across her lips, "Did you have another nightmare, is that it?"

Her brother shook his head, despondent, "It was father."

Lucilla's chest tightened, her expression melting into a frozen look of horror, "Father?"

Commodus stood up, his eyes glazed, his brows sunken in ebony shadows. His shoulders slumped slightly as he crossed the room towards his sister.

"He was standing there, just about where you are now, just looking at me."

As he spoke, Commodus drew closer to Lucilla, but his eyes were locked in the distance to a vision in his mind's eye that haunted his brain.

Lucilla watched him, noticing a sheen of cold sweat reflecting on the skin that was exposed through his gold embroidered gown. She reached out and touched his pale face with her fingers as he moved past her.

"Commodus, it was just a dream."

Commodus hesitated, reaching up to hold his sister's long fingers against his cheek, "Lucilla, my eyes were open, and I could see his lips move. He was talking to me but I couldn't hear him--."

"No," Lucilla pulled her hand away and withdrew a couple of steps, "We shouldn't talk about this. Not now, not here. You're frightening me."

Commodus clenched his arms together, embracing himself in a shudder. Tears were gathering in his eyes but he held them back, "I had no choice, Lucilla. I couldn't let him give the Empire away. I had no choice."

"Quite saying that, Commodus," Lucilla said sternly, "We shan't speak of this, not here, not ever. What's done is done. It cannot be undone, brother."

Commodus watched her for a long moment, their eyes locked in mutual horror and knowledge. Commodus found himself puzzled by his regal sister--her austerity and coldness right now fascinated him.

"Sometimes I think you should be in my place, Lucilla."

Lucilla shook her head, moving a step closer, "You mean a Caesar? Father said that to me once too," she reflected thoughtfully.

Commodus winced, "Did he?"

"Yes," Lucilla smiled, her teeth like white pearls, "I miss him, Commodus. I miss him very much."

Commodus pursed his lips, his green eyes locked on an empty space across the ebony floor, "I...I don't think I knew him well enough to miss him," Commodus said vacantly.

"He was a very busy man, Brother. He loved us as much as he could for an Emperor of Rome."

"I love you more than he did, Lucilla," Commodus spoke with rising emotion, "I've always loved you better than he did."

Lucilla felt her heart skip a beat,"You and I spent more time together, Commodus. Here at the palace or in the villa during the summer as children. We were always close, you and I."

Commodus looked through the darkness at her, his eyes smoldering in the moonlight, "But we aren't children any more."

Lucilla felt his stare and its intensity disturbed her, "No, Commodus. We're not."

He sighed, perplexed, "I wonder what Father was trying to tell me tonight? Why he came and stood at the foot of my bed, speaking without a sound? Didn't Brutus see Caesar's ghost before the battle of Phillipi?"

Lucilla tried to repress a shudder as the draperies moved with the night breeze. The thought of a ghastly apparition appearing in this bedroom made her heart turn to ice. Too many ghosts and too many restless shades of men wandered these palace grounds of the Palantine Hill. She didn't answer him.

"Lucilla?"

"There are no ghosts, Commodus. If there were we would not be able to walk through this palace there would be so many of them," she answered soothingly.

Commodus smiled at her, something which Lucilla had not seen in months. It recaptured an innocence and a tenderness which she had thought was dead inside of him. She found herself taken aback and she smiled in return.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she looked away, embarrassed, "You just looked quite sweet when you smiled just now. It made me happy, that's all."

"Huh," he exclaimed as he sat down on his bed, his hand smoothing out his dark, tousled hair, "I forgot what it means to be happy. That seems like such a distant memory. I wonder why?"

Lucilla shrugged, her eyes on the moon as it hung lower and lower over the city, "Growing up, Brother. We forget how important little things like happiness are sometimes."

Commodus watched Lucilla's tall silhouette as she stood by the window, her figure and soft feminine curves outlined with radiant silver light. She seemed like a goddess standing there beside marble columns---the Mother of Rome, a Vestal Virgin, perhaps even Venus herself. Lucilla, always attuned to her senses, felt his stare and looked over her shoulder at her brother.

"You don't think I'm a ghost, do you?"

"A goddess maybe," he whispered.

"Then I assure you, Commodus, that you are dreaming with your eyes open. I'm no goddess."

"You look like one, Lucilla."

She laughed, hands closing together as she moved away from the window sill, her blue silken gown flowing behind her on the ebony floor, "Commodus, stop. You think too highly of me. I'm just a woman who happens to be your---"

"My sister," Commodus finished, looking up at her where she stood, "Will you kiss me goodnight then, now that you've chased all the phantoms away?"

Lucilla bent forward to kiss her brother's blueblack hair. As she pressed her lips to his head, she felt her wrists gripped tightly.

"A real kiss?" Commodus pleaded softly.

Lucilla froze, her face crushed against his cool black hair. She hesitated, pushed herself away and held his face in her hands, "Wasn't that kiss enough?"

Commodus shook his head, his fingers still tight around her wrists. Smoky green eyes that betrayed immoral fantasies blazed up at her. Lucilla faltered, her mind racing with a panic that pounded suddenly in her ears. She closed her mind to a flash of what those emerald eyes were thinking about and where this awkward moment could lead to.

Tenderly she returned the terrifying gaze with her utmost composure and leaned forward, "Kiss me goodnight, Brother," she proffered lovingly.

Commodus took Lucilla's face in his hands as she closed her eyes and waited. He vacillated as he studied her closely, suddenly abashed and uneasy.

"You don't want me to kiss you, do you?"

Lucilla kept her eyes closed, "I want you to kiss me goodnight so I can go back to sleep, Commodus. It's very late."

"You can sleep here, with me, if you like."

Her eyes snapped open, "Are you still afraid to go to sleep, Commodus? Lucius is never this much trouble."

"He sleeps more soundly than I do, sister. I've never slept very well. I used to sleep better when you were beside me when we were children, don't you remember?"

"I remember I used to have to climb into bed with you after mother died to keep you from crying all night," Lucilla said.

She took Commodus' hands away from her face and climbed into the silken bed with a resigned sigh. Arranging the pillows to her satisfaction, she reached out a hand to her brother.

"Come, lay your head on my shoulder and go to sleep."

Commodus turned and curled up beside Lucilla as she blew out the candle on the bedstand. Wrapping his arms tightly around her waist, her sunk his head into her throat, smelling her perfumed skin and hair. She returned his embrace and settled against the cool pillows, her chin resting on her brothers head as her long fingers stroked his hair and traced imaginary patterns across his pale face.

"Chase the ghosts away, Lucilla," Commodus whispered softly.

"I will, Commodus," she answered protectively.

Entwined in his desperate embrace, Lucilla waited in the moonlight as Commodus fell restlessly into a light slumber. The night passed while Lucillla's own heart raced with the thought some ancient phantom appearing hideously at the foot of the tapestried bed, or perhaps even the specter of her own murdered father.

THE END