A PLACE FOR YOU TO REST

While Alistair and Maximus talked downstairs, Joimus slipped back up to the guest room. He was still asleep and
she simply could not continue calling him 'the man' or 'the stranger' when she believed he was, indeed, Reverend
Cortland Wells. She had also seen the look on Maximus' face and knew what he was thinking. Alistair, of course,
had no experience with such matters, not like Maximus did. But with Reverend Wells, something...different...had
obviously happened, something very traumatic.

Quietly she pulled a small chair close to the bed and sat, watching him sleep. Despite his bruises and abrasions,
he was almost beautiful in a very masculine way. Except for the hair, he made her think of how Maximus might
have looked when he was younger and that, in addition to his plight, engaged her heart in his well-being.

His left hand lay across his chest and she studied the rawness of his knuckles. Had he gotten that fighting to
protect his mission, or was it from being thrown around and dragged? His clothes lay folded on a bench near
the window. She wasn't sure what to do with them. They needed cleaning, of course, but they were not something
one could just toss in a washer. And would he want them cleaned? She decided to wait on that.

His head turned on the pillow and he began to talk softly in his sleep again, reliving the burning of the mission.
Who would do such a thing, and in a place where there were obviously children? Could Rev. Wells possibly
have been a missionary to some poverty-stricken country? That was possible, surely it was, but somehow not
likely. She made sure he had a glass of water on his bedside table, then went back downstairs.

"Still sleeping?" Maximus asked.

"Yes...and dreaming again. He seems to remember things in his sleep that he doesn't when he's awake."

"He may not wish to remember them when he's awake," Alistair said.

"I can understand why," Joimus nodded. "He spoke again of the mission burning...of the children. I think he may
have been in charge of an orphanage. Some things he said rather indicated that."

"Since his mind remembers when asleep, it's very possible his waking memory will return. The memories are not gone altogether,"Alistair commented. "Though he may wish them to be."

He looked at Maximus. "That still doesn't explain how he got to your field. In his condition, he probably couldn't have come from very far."

Maximus turned his gaze to Joimus, not Alistair, as he replied, "I think he has come from very far."

He awoke in the bedroom and realized he was alone. Letting his eyes travel slowly over the room, he knew he'd never seen it before, had no idea how he'd gotten there, had ended up in somebody's bed. His hand touched the pajama top. Or in somebody else's clothes. His heart was beating faster the more he became aware of all he didn't have any explanation for. Grass. What he knew was grass, tall and filled with white puffy weeds. Then...something else. A man. He didn't know the man. A house. He was in a house, but whose...and where?

The glass of water on the bedside table attracted his attention. He reached for it but only succeeded in knocking it to the floor where it broke with a loud shatter of glass. Within seconds the door opened and three people hurried in. "The...the glass," he said, looking over the edge of the bed.

"It's all right," the woman said. "I'll get you another and clean this one up."  She left the room and he let his eyes travel from one man to the other.

"Your...your field?" he asked.

The man nodded. "Yes, my field."

"Who...?"

"Maximus Meridius," the man answered in a cultured English accent.

The man with him smiled. "Alistair Harris, Reverend Alistair Harris." He added the latter in hopes it might mean something.

The reverend had a cultured English accent, too. He felt even more confused. "Eng...England? Here?"

Alistair smiled. "Sounds like it, doesn't it, but, no, this is New South Wales."

"New...? Where?"

"Australia," Maximus supplied.

He felt like he was going to pass out. No, that didn't sound right at all. Not at all! He wasn't sure why it wasn't right, it simply wasn't. "N...no," he half-moaned, clamping his hands over his face.

Joimus came in just then. "What happened?" she asked worriedly.

"Australia," Alistair said softly. "He asked where he was."

"Go easy," Joimus said, setting the water glass on the table. "We have no idea what he can or can't handle." With a dustpan and a small brush, she swept up the glass shards on the hardwood floor then wiped the area with a towel. Picking the glass up again, she sat on the edge of the bed. "Here, let me help." 

With her assistance he drank about half the glass, then she pulled it away. "More later, all right?"

He nodded, looking at her gratefully. "You...?"

"Joimus." She tipped her head toward Maximus. "He is my husband. You're in our house."  When his brow knit a bit, she added, "And you're most welcome. Please know that. You're safe here. It's a place for you to rest."

"Rest," he repeated, his lids heavy.

"Yes," she said. "Rest now. Rest."