Gaius had been awake since dawn, as was his habit, so he was at least dressed when he was suddenly transported. He's heard of this happening before, but it's never happened to him until now. One moment, he is finishing up his usual morning prayers, the next he is ... not, and he doesn't know where he is. He only has time to recognize that he's with someone else, the young woman called Sam, before he finds himself once again seemingly in Rome.

It's not the first time that's happened, but it is the first time he's been transported somewhere first. Before, he'd been walking through the village when the world changed around him. Here, it's like he's been brought here just to see Rome again. He recognizes the room; it's his home in Rome, the house he'd grown up in, the house his brother had lived in until his death. It's the atrium, a wide, high room with an opening in the ceiling and below it, a small pool in the floor.

Footsteps sound from one side, and a man comes in, wearing in a toga and the purple-edged tunic of the equestrian class. He's a few years younger now that Gaius is, but a family resemblance is clear in the jaw, in the proud carriage of the head and shoulders. It's Tiberius, his brother, as clear as he had been the last time Gaius saw him alive.

And he knows what this is. This is a dream that he's had before.

"Gaius!" he calls, across the room, then steps closer. "Gaius, why do you wait?" he asks, holding his hands out in supplication.

"You cannot escape. One life and one death is appointed for us both, to spend the one and meet the other in the service of the people."

His prophecy spoken, Tiberius fades from view, and the atrium is once again empty, before it disappears and the scene changes.