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Jacob’s loss.  “He’s my husband in all but name.  I can’t just sit back and let him go insane and watch a… a creature like Agrippina sink her claws into him and manipulate him!  I just can’t!  Don’t you understand?!  This isn’t his fault!”
    Galba was so impassive during her plea that at first I thought he was patronizing her, but then he spoke.
    “Of course I understand,” Galba assured.  “I am not a loveless man, but I am not afraid to tell you that I simply do not care.”  Helena cocked back a hand, ready to punch the ugly Roman, but he held a hand up so suddenly that she stopped.  “However, while I care not for Hunter or your desire to help him, I do care about Agrippina.  I care very much about apprehending her and seeing justice done.  And since she and Hunter are together…”
    He trailed off, and there was just enough suggestion in his voice that I already knew what Helena was just slowly coming to understand: that our goals were in fact mutually beneficial.
    “What are you suggesting?”  Helena finally asked cautiously.
    “A partnership.”  He said immediately.
    Helena looked confused.  “With me?”
    “Why not?  You always did seem more rational than Hunter.  Even now, with all you have been through, I sense shrewdness within you. I do not believe your partner would have been so equally understanding.”  He took a step toward John, flicking a hand in his direction and then at James.  “And with these two in the condition they are in, and the big one never appearing as though he desired a leadership position, I can think of no one else.  I do not know your new friends, so you are my only option.  I believe it will be refreshing to deal with someone else for once.”
    She still looked confused.  “But I’m…”
    “A woman, yes,” Galba said with a nod, “but I know such a distinction matters little from where you come from.  Perhaps it would serve us well to forget such a divide here as well.  Were you not known once as the mother of this legion?  Do you not have a relationship with them?”
    “That’s not what I was going to say, but, yes, I was, but… I’m not interested in leading them…”
    “By the gods…” Galba muttered, shaking his head, “…I am not as foolish as Vespasian, woman.  I am not offering you a command or a commission as legate; I am simply asking that you keep your unruly lot disciplined while we search for Agrippina and Hunter together.  Can you do that?”
    “I… yes, I think so.”
    “Then let’s get started.”
     
    ***
     
    The next morning, we gathered for a funeral.
    Two of them.
    I knew very little of battle strategy or post-battle rituals, but the act of burying the dead was one I was extremely familiar with.  Back home, hardly a month went by when the need to lay to rest a family member or friend didn’t present itself.  Whether they were killed in action on the battle field abroad or from a domestic attack, or even natural causes, people died all the time, and we’d grown accustomed to it.
    Until yesterday, our most recent casualty had been our medic, Patricia Martin, who had been killed during the sea voyage that had taken us from Alexandria to Britain.  I’d barely known her.  Archer’s team had been thrown together a month before I was even thought to be brought in, and they’d trained for what everyone had considered a one way trip.  Archer had ordered them not to get too friendly with each other for that very reason, and was probably why Georgia Brewster and TJ Stryker had been chosen to begin with.  So when Patricia had died, not a single tear had been shed, and life had continued unabated.  Our people were conditioned to deal with death and Jacob’s team had barely even known her.
    Even now, I still found it hard to believe that they had spent half a decade here, cut off from anything familiar or normal.  I’d seen it in Jacob’s face the entire time I’d been here.  I barely even