"You should have seen her, Dud. Her face turned almost as red as the wine. Anyway, I had to go clean up. I got washed and changed in the bathing chamber, and I decided what the hell--no need to go through the trouble of hiking outside and breaking my back, drawing water. I started to wash it in the bathing pool, crouching down like a pioneer woman, getting ready to beat the laundry against a river stone."

Her words had been gradually slowing through the last part of the story. Now she stopped entirely. Lupus had watched her during most of her narrative. His expression now was one of pain, and regret. She hadn't mentioned her near escape from Celsus outside the tavern, and he hadn't prompted her. He would be considered a little old fashioned by some modern people, but he was of the ancient mindset that a woman could have secrets, and it should be her choice to be open, or not. Watching the emotions flicker across Dudley's face as she related her trials, Lupus thought that she was being reticent not from shame, but from concern. If she had been hurt, he would be hurt, and she wanted to spare him that, but she wasn't going to be allowed.

"One of the guests came in and, uh, we got into a fight, and he got the worst of it. The law being what it was back then, I was on the wrong end of things. I was locked in the back shed, preparatory to being turned over to him the next day. Gaius came and let me out, bless his heart. I ran, and ended up back in the temple I'd arrived in, fell asleep on the altar again, and woke up back in the museum." She looked over at Lupus. "Who did that temple belong to?"

"Discordia, Goddess of Mischief and Conflict." He shook his head. "Bad goddess to offend."

Dudley held up a finger. "You really believe in all the old Roman gods, that they affect your day-to-day life?"

Lupus nodded. "You do not believe that of your god?"

Dudley opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked back at his sister. "Okay, that's the basic story." His expression became serious. "Now, what aren't you telling me?"

Mozelle shifted. She'd left out her intimate relations with Lupus, and exactly what the fight with Celsus had entailed. Her brother had always been very protective. He wouldn't be able to do anything against Celsus, so that incident would just cause him pain. But Lupus was here, and... There had been a time when she might have enjoyed having Lupus get a good thrashing, but now she didn't think so.

Lupus had changed since she first met him. He'd been--humanized. She knew that he had come to understand that even though she had been a slave, she had emotions and sensitivities on a level with his own. He realized that his actions, both physical and social, had hurt her deeply. And he regreted it. He was making an effort to make it up to her. *He knows that I feel something for him, but he's not pressing the advantage,* she thought with dawning understanding, *He wants me to like him, as well as love him. He wants my respect. God, he's trying to win the respect of a former slave. He has changed.*

"Mozelle?"

"What? You want the day-to-day scoop on things like toilet facilities, marketing, and such?"

"Let's pick one incident. What was that guy at the party fighting with you about?"

She hesitated. "I doused his sister--in public. He didn't like that."

"I wouldn't have, either, but I wouldn't have followed the waitress and physically confronted her. What happened?"

"We fought. I won--sort of."

Wordlessly, Lupus reached out and tugged her collar away from her neck. She quickly pushed his hands away, clutching the cloth back, but she wasn't quick enough--her brother had seen the bruises. The marks Celsus had left on her throat were fading, but still clearly visible, and clearly the mark of rough hands.

Dudley sat forward abruptly, and his voice was suddenly cold. His words said that he knew clearly what must have happened. "Did he?"

She understood the question, and shook her head quickly. "No! No, that's why he was trying to kill me. I yelled 'fire', and people were coming, but the bastard was set on killing me. I got hold of a sort of paring knife and stuck it in his shoulder." Her shrill, nervous giggle was shocking. "He thought he was such a man, and he fainted"

"But he lived?"

"Not from my lack of effort, believe me."

Dudley had struck Lupus as a cheerful, easy-going young man--up to this moment. But now he knew that one of his family had been hurt, and a dangerous edge peeked through the affable image. He didn't look at Lupus as, voice low, he said, "Who is he, and where do I find him?"

Mozelle put a hand on his knee. "Sweetie, he's been dead for centuries."

"Then I'll dig up his bones and spit on them," he said grimly. He looked at Lupus. "She was in your household, under your protection. How did this happen?" His voice grew even colder. "Did you do anything to her?"

Mozelle felt alarm. There had been many times when she would have appreciated seeing Lupus get a thorough thrashing, but that had passed. It was hard to blame Lupus for having a specific mindset, when he had grown up knowing nothing else. "He didn't do anything."

"Yes," said Lupus. "To my shame, I did nothing. I let them..." He swallowed hard. "I would have let them take her, give her to him, when I knew... I knew what he was. But I thought that night. She said 'this is my life'. I realized, yes. Hers, not mine. I went to free her, but my brother had done it." He smiled. "Gaius was so small, but so wise."

"Okay, that's how she got back home," said Dudley. "What about you? Why are you here?"

"I love her." Dudley and Mozelle stared at him. The statement had been so clear, so simple. "She does not believe, I know. I must show her, must prove myself worthy."

After a moment, Dudley grunted. "Only you, Sis. Only you could pick up a boyfriend in such a bizarre manner."

"Dudley! I didn't... I..." He smiled at her, and she said in exasperation, "You snot. I'm not sure what he is, but he's not my boyfriend."

Lupus looked sad. "Not friend?"

"Oh, lord. Not my boyfriend."

There was just the faintest hint of a smirk in his expression. "MAN friend."

"You're a man, and you're a friend, but you're not my manfriend, or boyfriend. Two separate... I'm not going to try to explain this right now. Dudley, the thing is, I couldn't just leave this doofus standing on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown Houston. Hello, Stinkerbelle." Dudley's pet, a more slender, sleeker, female version of Stinkpot, had entered the room. She went straight to the couch and started investigating the feet of the two guests. Mozelle absently picked her up, settling her on the cushions, and stroked her head. "So I brought him home, and now I'm stuck with him because of this stupid sense of responsibility."

"Yeah." Dudley watched pointedly as she petted the cat. "You'd have brought home every stray in Texas, if Mom had let you."

Lupus said quietly, "You believe?"

Dudley shrugged. "Yeah."

"I didn't believe."

"You don't know her like I do. She can bull shit me some, sure. She could watch me go nuts looking for my keys while she was sitting on them, but a story that elaborate? She couldn't keep a straight face long enough. And she's never lied to me about anything more important than a Christmas present, or a surprise party, and an entire person," he raised an eyebrow at her, "who is apparently sharing her life is more important than that. I believe her."

"But what am I going to do with him, Dud?" she exclaimed. "He's too expensive to keep as a pet. I mean, feeding Stinkpot is expensive enough, and Lupus is a lot bigger. He's already cost me most of a paycheck just to get him dressed in a manner that won't get him hauled in for observation. He needs a job, and frankly, I don't think INS would be as accepting of my story of how he got here as you've been."

"No joke. So, you came to me because you think I'll have a better chance of figuring out how to weasel around legal requirements?"

"I'm not saying you're criminal, Dud--I'm just saying you can be gloriously devious when you want to."

"Flatterer. First thing to do is get him papered." Dudley got a pad and pencil. "Let's see... Minimum we're going to need is a birth certificate, a DMV ID, and a Social Security Card. If we get him a certificate from Italy, we're going to at some point want to get him a passport and a green card. If we stick with an American certificate it's easier, but then we have the whole language issue to deal with. I wish you were a little older, dude."

Lupus had patted his thighs invitingly, and Stinkerbelle had been more than happy to settle down on his lap. Now she was purring and kneading at his leg while he petted her. He looked up from his task, a little indignant. "I am not too young for her."

Dudley gave him a wry smile. "That's not what I meant. I trust her to have decent sense about who she hooks up with. What I meant was you look--what? Twenty-one, two?"

"Twenty-one."

"That means you would have been born in the early eighties, and by then they were starting to really put everything digital. If you were about twenty years older, born in the sixties, it would be a lot easier to fake stuff up. They'd have to sort through paper to figure out things were out of line. Buuuut... As long as you don't go for something that requires security clearance, we ought to be able to fix you up with something that will pass casual inspection, and the longer you get away with it, the less likely it'll be for someone to question it."

"You can do this?"

"It'll take a little while, and we'd have to tell at least one other person, but I think I can set up something that should pass, as long as you don't get the federales interested in you." He grinned at Mozelle. "Sis, how do you feel about motherhood?"

She blinked at him. "Wouldn't we have to already have him papered before I adopted him?"

"I'm not suggesting you adopt him. I'm suggesting that you become his mother."

"Uh... Dudley..."

"Hear me out. You know that it was pretty easy to claim to be whoever you wanted to be way back before women routinely had their babies in hospitals, right? It all depended on how good the local doctor or midwife was at filing paperwork. Some kids weren't reported till they were ready to enter school."

"And this has what to do with our situation?"

"Well, they've tightened the requirements for filing the paperwork, but there are still home births, and it just so happens that I have a friend who's a midwife."

"Ee-yah. Okay, assuming that she's willing to file some papers for us," she waved at Lupus, "he'd be the biggest newborn on record. Makes me wince just thinking about it."

"We alter the certificate, Sis. After we set him up with a social security number, that is. Birth certificate and social security cards are the cornerstones for identification. Once we have those, the ticklish part will come in. There must be some doctoring. Mozelle, I just wish you'd had your adventure four years ago. Then we'd only have to change the zero to an eight. NOW we've got the whole damn 'turn of the century' crap to deal with. I hope she fills in the certificates by hand. It's almost impossible to match the level on typed documents. Once the certificate says what we need it to, we're pretty much set. We can get him a driver's license, and..." She was laughing. "What?"

"Preparing him for the written test would be worse than trying to cram me for a test on quantum physics. And as for the actual driving test... No. I don't hate him, I'm not putting him through that. Not for a long time, anyway."

"But without a driver's license..."

"Dudley, what if someone actually asked him to drive? I'm not going to take responsibility for that disaster. No, they have perfectly good state IDs. It isn't as if every person who is of age drives. There are a lot of people with physical problems, or heck, phobias about driving. We'll just say he suffers from panic attacks whenever he tries to drive." She shot Lupus a wry glance. "It isn't far from the truth. Anyway, we're making a lot of plans, and we're not even sure yet if your friend will be willing to help us. It's a lot to ask, especially if you're thinking of telling her how he really got here."

"Oh, that should be the least of our worries." He grinned. "I met her through the Society for Creative Anachronism. She's a regular at the Renaissance Faire--in costume. In fact, she stays pretty much in character for a week before and after each Faire. Her husband says that he thinks that some day she may just decide not to 'come back', and he'll find himself married to someone from the middle ages. He just hopes that it happens during a year when she's a wench, and not a noblewoman. Wenches are more fun. And as to her worrying about fooling the government... She made a pilgrimage to San Francisco in the Summer of Love, and claims to have dated Abbey Hoffman," he shrugged, "or someone who looked a lot like him."

"When can you talk to her?"

"She'll be home tonight, if she isn't attending a birth. I'll give her a call and invite her over. She'll want to meet Lupus before she agrees. If she doesn't get good vibes from him, she won't want to be involved."

Lupus looked puzzled. "Good vibes?"

"You just have to charm her," said Mozelle.

"Oooh." He grinned.

"Oh, lord." She looked at her brother. "She'll either report us, or end up wanting to take him home and mother him."

There was a quiet bubbling noise. Dudley and Mozelle exchanged looks, then both of them looked at Lupus. He was staring in horror at his own belly. Lupus noticed the other two's regard, and blushed. He quickly picked up the cat, and said, "Sono cattus."

Mozelle smirked. "Cattus esurio?"

He looked sheepish. "Yes, very."

She stood up. "I'll go in the kitchen and see what I can fix for lunch. Dud--bond with him, or something. He's going to need at least one guy friend."

She went into the kitchen and began opening cupboards, and considering options. She heard the television go on in the living room at about the time she decided that there wasn't enough of any one thing to comfortably feed them all. Dudley came into the kitchen, and she said, "If you ever get stranded here for more than a day, you'll starve to death."

He pointed to a menu stuck to the front of the refrigerator. "Not as long as there is delivery pizza. Give 'em a call, and I'll spring for it. I have a coupon. Get a super large garbage pizza, and the next smaller of whatever you want."

"I'm telling them to cut the bell peppers and olives."

"Aw..."

She was dialing the number. "You don't know how heavily olives figured into the diet in ancient Rome. I didn't like them when I went back, and I abominate them now. Suffer."

"Fine. Even now I take my revenge. I'm corrupting him."

She paused, clicking down the call button. "You haven't shown him the Playboy Channel, have you?"

"Please. As if I'd pay that kind of money for soft core when I could rent perfectly good porn. And not with my sister in the house, anyway. No," he gave her a wicked smile. "I've found another way."

Lupus came into the kitchen. "Mozelle, what is 'quarterback sack'?"

"Dudley!"