Chapter 10

Aaron was able to take some of the treasury with him as one of the liberators of the nation. He tried to refuse it, but they called it his retirement fund and wouldn't let him return it. He had enough to make him very wealthy when they left.

And after the ceremony of changing offices was over they all took the three week's journey back home.

To say what happened was a surprise when Aaron and Gemma finally met, after being apart for seasons was unexpected, would be a world class understatement.

After going to their home and getting a good night sleep, or morning because they got home in the wee early hours, they waited till late the following afternoon, just as the sun was starting to set before they took Aaron to see Gemma.

Aric at first wanted to wait to give Aaron time to adjust to. Brianna want to do it now to get it over with, before Aaron could give it a real second thought and bolt, now that he was here.

Brianna won that argument because her logic made sense. After all, they had been watching Aaron's face the closer they got to home.

Once they reached the tavern, Aaron entered right behind Brianna and Aric, with his small son in his arms. Once inside they stood side by side letting their eyes adjust.

Gemma noticed Aric and Brianna, smiled widely, and waved to them from across the room, but she had not yet seen Aaron, and she started towards them.

Aric and Brianna looked at each other when she got about half way there, and both of them stepped away from each other, and poor Aaron was suddenly left exposed with no where to go.

What happened next seemed like it happened in slow motion to everyone who saw it.

Gemma stopped smiling, or moving, once she saw Aaron. Her face took on a look of stark terror and she screamed out.

And before anyone knew what happened, she clutched her stomach, dropped to her knees, where she bent over and threw up by the window that she was standing next to.

Aric didn't realize the human stomach held that much volume. It almost appeared as if she was a human fountain that would never stop. Her reaction shocked them all into inactivity.

Just as Aric and Brianna started forward concerned, as suddenly as she had started, she stopped and jumped up.

With great big tears streaming down her face as she was running away, she screamed out "OH MY GOD NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! WHY IS HE HERE! I treated him so badly! I betrayed him at every turn and he only gave me kindness! I'm such trash! He's too good for someone like me! How can he stand to look at me! My god nooooooooooooo!" Gemma was suddenly now fleeing to the safety of her room in the back of the tavern.

Once there, she slammed the door, and everyone could clearly hear the bolt for the door being thrown.

Aric and Brianna looked at each other amazed and then back at Aaron. Aaron himself was still in shock at her reaction.

He didn't know what to expect, but that certainly wasn't it.

At Gemma's first scream, the patrons looked from her, to the door where the newcomer was, then back to Gemma. They were shocked by her reaction because she was normally so calm and collective.

Not one of them could think of any reason that she would react that way, she was the nicest person most of them knew. Once she locked herself in her room they started looking around and to murmur amongst themselves.

A few moments after this happened, just as Aaron set his son down in a chair and turned back to talk to both Aric and Brianna about how this was maybe not a good idea, suddenly everyone heard a loud bang as Gemma's door flew open and hit the wall behind it. Then she came racing out of the room as fast as her legs would carry her, but still with a look of sheer terror on her face.

One would have thought the tavern was on fire.

She launched herself at Aaron, wrapped both of her hands around his neck in a death grip, buried her head in between his shoulder and chest, and kept alternating between great wracking sob, that caused her body to shake violently, and trying to talk very fast.

Now all the patrons of the tavern were staring quietly and openly at her reaction. You could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet from them.

Aaron didn't know what to do, except hold her while she sobbed so pitifully.

Gemma kept saying over and over how sorry she was. How she wished she could take it all back and be the wife he deserved and give him the family he always wanted. How she had desperately tried to changed and dedicated her life to make sure other women didn't make her mistake.

That she even changed her name to try to make her a better person. How she was sorry that she ruined his life. Could he please forgive her? Please! How once she realized how much she hurt him and how selfish was, she wanted to take her own life, and even tried quite a few times. Could he please somehow forgive her!

It was hard to follow all of what she said because she kept saying it over and over again in one great breath each time. Sometimes she changed the order, but it was obviously the same words she started with.

Eventually she wound down and was back to the deep soul wracking sobs and the violent shaking she started with.

It didn't even seem to bother her that she was doing it all out in front of her customers. She was so scared Aaron would leave her after she finally got him to see her, that she wouldn't dare let him go, and didn't care who saw what she did.

Aaron looked over her head at Brianna and Aric and asked if there was somewhere they could talk privately, and Aric suggested the room that Gemma just vacated. He said that they would watch Aaron's son Bryan while they talked.

Aaron tried to pull Gemma's hands from his neck, but was very unsuccessful, so he eventually gave up, picked her up in his arms, and carried her back to the room. The whole time Gemma was still holding on and sobbing uncontrollably.

After Aaron kicked the door closed, Aric got a mop and a bucket and started on cleaning up the mess by the window and Brianna sat with Bryan who was staring at all the commotion unsure how to take it all in as most small children do.

Madelyn came over and told Brianna that Rayne was at her house with her kids and husband, and then she asked who the man was and what was going on. Brianna told her it was Gemma's ex-husband and was apparently still the love of her life. Madelyn was shocked Gemma ever wanted anyone, but wisely didn't ask for any more details.

After about two hours Aaron came back through the door alone. He asked if they could watch Bryan tonight. Gemma had finally fallen asleep.

She seemed exhausted, but while she had fallen asleep, she was still crying and begging for his forgiveness even in her sleep. The only thing she had done when they were alone was cry and begged for him to forgive her non stop for hours, and he never did get to say much to her.

While they still had much to talk about, he had no idea she was carrying that much baggage around about what she did to him.

He also said it really cut at his heart that she was so desperate for him to forgive her. He was worried that while she seemed this desperate, that if she woke up and he wasn't there, she might think he rejected her again, and that this time Gemma might successfully harm herself.

Aric and Brianna agreed with him.

After that night they convince Aaron to stay in the city for awhile. The best argument used was that no one he knew was here, that he was now well over half a continent away from his former home. And Gemma still needed time to talk to him properly.

It took weeks, but Aaron was able to finally sit at a table with her and not get immediately furious. At first it was all he could do just to sit there, even though she looked so pitiful every time. But over time she found the right words to calm him down enough that they could talk.

The worst was early on when he asked about her times with the nobility. She looked at him in horror and begged him not to ask about that, but as he was insistent she told him. She still couldn't lie to him even after all these seasons.

After she finished telling him everything, he got up and walked away from the table and didn't look back. Gemma broke down and just cried with her face on the table for hours. It was four days later until he was able to sit a table with her and look her in the eyes again without a mask of anger on his face.

He admitted her actions still hurt him even now, but it was over 20 seasons ago at this point, but he would need some time to get past some of the things he was just now learning about her. Some of it would still be painful and he had been angry and hurt for so long at her actions.

But he had to admit to her that he had visited quite a number of whores himself now and then over the seasons at the time to get through it, and had eventually even been married to a lovely woman who bore him a son before she died.

During their discussions when she asked he told her how Lichelle died, Gemma immediately put her head down on the table in her arms and cried. She realized the other woman had been a far better wife than she ever had been to Aaron and sacrificed her life rather than betray him. She suddenly felt even worse and more guilt than she ever had all those seasons before.

Afterwards those revelations hurt Gemma deeply to learn, because her dream came back to her at nights of Aaron taunting her and with him having a family with another woman, and she always awoke crying out in tears with a deep pain in her chest.

But she felt she had no room to ever complain or say anything to him about it. She knew none of it would ever have happened if she hadn't given into selfishness. But even then sometimes she would give in to depression when no one was around about how badly she messed up her life with Aaron.

Since they covered most of the time she was away when they were married early on, they tried to avoid anything that would set Aaron off and they talked about everything else from her new life to his son.

Aaron quickly learned that she was well respected and loved by most of the people around her. Brianna wasn't the only one who had nothing but good things to say about Gemma when Aaron brought her up in conversations to see how others felt about her.