Cover Art by Tango

He who saves one life, it is as if he had saved the entire world

- The Talmud

A Twist of Fate
by LadyKate

Sprawled on the throne in his quarters on Olympus, Ares cursed under his breath.

Everything was in its place: the tapestries of battle scenes, the spectacular displays of weapons on the walls, the jewel-encrusted goblets ... the human skull ornaments at which the other gods sniffed in disdain, and which he kept not only as a matter of personal taste but as his way of saying, I'm not a nice guy -- live with it.

Yes, everything was in its place. And in a few minutes, before he had a chance to take a few sips of rich, blood-red wine from one of those goblets, he'd wake up in that dump of a farmhouse where Xena had left him with a mutt for company. He'd be lucky if it wasn't raining and the roof wasn't leaking again.

Why did he have to keep dreaming about this? It was over and done with, he was a pathetic mortal who would never get his godhood back -- and, most likely, would never even have the one thing that would have made mortal life worthwhile ... a chance to spend it with the woman who was his other source of almost nightly torment. (But those dreams, at least, sometimes got quite enjoyable before he woke up.)

Well, if he had to have this dream, he might as well do something in it. He got up from the throne, walked around, picked up one of the goblets and thought of fine Falerno wine. The goblet in his hand filled immediately and he savored the liquor, swirling it in his mouth and beginning to hope that the dream would last a little longer. After putting down the empty goblet, he took his Sword of Power out of its scabbard and made a few moves, sparring with the empty air.

If things were going so nicely, maybe he could try to transport himself somewhere. Perversely, he thought of the farm. In the flash of a moment, he was standing in front of -- what the Tartarus? The surrounding fields looked pretty much the same, but in place of the dingy shack was a large villa with a luxurious garden. He chuckled: talk about wishful thinking. He made himself visible in mortal form (all the old tricks were working, exactly as if it were real) and came up to a peasant pushing a cart full of vegetables.

"Wasn't there an old farm over there?"

The man looked up at him.

"You from around here?"

"I used to know the family that lived on this farm."

"Really?" the man eyed him suspiciously. "Well, mister, you must've been out of touch with them for a while. Don't you know about the old folks' granddaughter?"

"Granddaughter."

"Yeah. Xena."

"Xena," he repeated, as if he's never heard the name before.

"Right. As in Xena, Empress of Rome."

He burst out laughing, ignoring the shocked expression on the man's face -- after all, this idiotic mortal was only a figment of a particularly weird dream -- and took himself back to Olympus.

Everything was still there, down to the goblet where he had left it.

He tried to remember what he'd been drinking the night before.

Just for the heck of it, he thought he'd try to open up a portal on Xena.

There she was, in a magnificent purple mantle and a golden helmet, atop a black steed, surveying a Roman legion.

He closed the portal and shook his head. For a dream, this one had a remarkable if utterly insane consistency. What next, he wondered? At that very moment, there were two flashes of light, and he found himself facing Zeus and Athena -- looking very real and very pissed off. Of course, that was the way they usually looked whenever he had to deal with them in the old days.

"Oh buzz off," he said. "Let me enjoy my dream."

"Nice to see you too, bro," said Athena, with her usual air of amused condescension. "And by the way, you're not dreaming."

By the time they took him down to the Temple of the Fates, he believed them. The three goddesses -- the crone, the woman, and the girl -- were chained up in such a way as to leave them enough freedom to be able to tend to their loom, but also to hobble and control their movements. Several Proxidicae, special warriors of the gods, were keeping watch.

"Take a look at this, son." Very carefully, Zeus lifted one thread and showed Ares a tiny, barely visible knot in it. "This is where Caesar, having escaped from Tartarus, pulled loose the thread of his own life and then re-wove it -- so that, starting at that moment, his destiny took a different course." Zeus pressed his fingers lightly to the knot, and an image shimmered over the loom, making Ares wince and scowl. It was Xena, naked and moaning in Caesar's arms. Zeus glanced at his son and released the thread, letting the vision fade.

"At that moment in time," Athena spoke up, "your Xena" (oh, the blistering scorn she was able to pour into these two words!) "was merely the leader of a band of pirates which captured Caesar for ransom. He promised her an alliance, only to deceive her and have her crucified; but even then, she had an annoying habit of surviving. Caesar believed it was the resulting enmity between him and Xena that led to his untimely demise, and so he decided to change his fate -- go back to that moment and make a different choice. And his destiny did change, but so did much else. You see, brother, in this world, where Xena became not only a commander in Caesar's army but his wife and the Empress of Rome, she never had that unholy spawn of hers. There is no Twilight, Ares. Zeus lives, as you can see, and so do Hera and the rest of the Olympians. Of course, every good thing has its downside -- you're still a god."

"Gee, Dad" -- Ares pointedly ignored his sister -- "and I thought you were such a stickler for the rules. I seem to recall a lecture about how no one gets to interfere with the Fates' Loom, not even the gods..."

"The gods didn't interfere." Zeus glared at Ares, pursing his lips. "And once Caesar lives out his allotted term in this time, he will pay a price for his trespass. But fate has been altered, in a way that has brought back our lives -- and our powers. It would be madness not to take advantage."

Ares rolled his eyes. "The gods didn't interfere? So I suppose the chains are for decorative purposes. And these guys" -- he nodded toward the Proxidicae -- "are just here to keep the Fates company. You know, you're a real piece of work, Dad."

Old Atropos lifted her head, her reddened eyes mournful and insistent. "Zeus, you must listen to us. You must allow us to undo what Caesar did. This is a world that was not meant to be. The consequences..."

"Silence, you all!" roared the King of the Gods. "Son, I didn't bring you here to bicker, only to show you what is at stake. Nothing less than a chance to save the rule of the Olympians."

"We remember who screwed it up last time, Ares." There was a touch of steel in the silvery voice of the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare. "And we won't let it happen again."

Back on Olympus, Zeus and Athena finished briefing Ares on how this alternate world worked. Right now, they should have been at the point in time at which, in the other world, Caesar tampered with the loom after chaining the Fates -- about a year after the death of Hades had left Tartarus so poorly guarded. However, the disturbance in the timeline had somehow caused it to shift by about twenty-five years, to the point at which Zeus had died; or, as Zeus put it, "when the godless child was born." That explained why Xena looked as young as the last time he'd seen her in the other world (of which Ares still couldn't help thinking as the real world), even without her twenty-five year nap in the ice cave. No mortals were aware that their world had ever been any different, Caesar being one important exception. But the gods knew, and were somehow able to have memories of both worlds.

"Great," Ares drawled, his legs draped over the side of the throne in a pose of studied insolence. "So why's everyone acting like I'm about to do something to mess up this sweet little deal? Mortality isn't exactly an experience I'd care to repeat. Olympus or a filthy farmhouse ... yeah, that's a tough one."

"Well, bro," Athena leaned in, putting her hands on the arms of his throne, her grey eyes boring into him, "maybe it's because the last memories I have from the other time are of Xena's sword slicing through my guts -- not a very pleasant sensation, I assure you -- and you telling me that you had to let me die because you had, what did you call it? -- oh yes, 'a thing for her.'"

"I'd told you that if you had only left Xena and Eve alone -- "

"Look, we're not going to rehash that," Athena said. "That world doesn't exist anymore. The problem is, your little obsession still does. Still thinking with that same part of your anatomy, aren't you?"

He shrugged, without bothering to dispute the charge. "What does Xena have to do with any of this?"

"The thread of her fate in this altered time is intertwined with Caesar's. You start messing with her and no one knows what problems that's going to create."

"Aw, lighten up, sis -- "

"Ares, you listen to me." Zeus' face was as dark as one of his own thunderclouds. "You are my son, but understand this. You put us in jeopardy again, and I will not hesitate to have you cast into the Abyss of Tartarus, you hear? You may yet come to regret your filthy farmhouse."

"Okay, okay." He raised his hands. "I get the message."

Athena arched a brow at him. "Good to see you two are finally communicating."

"Hey Dad?" Ares called out just as the old man was about to depart.

"What is it now?"

"Say, there isn't any chance that in this brave new world, my favorite half-brother has met with some nasty -- "

Zeus cut him off, his scowl deepening. "Stay away from Hercules, Ares. I mean it."

A second later, the two deities were gone, leaving only a shimmer of sparks behind them. Ares shook his head.

"Great. The guy goes and kills him, and it's still 'Stay away from Hercules.' Why won't anyone ever give me a break?"

A quick trip to a mountain ridge where Ares was able to test his resurrected powers by blasting away at some rock considerably improved his mood. He stretched out on a stony ledge and decided to try out his memories of this altered past.

Some wars and battles had turned out differently; the Roman Army had been even more successful in its conquests, and there were far fewer freelance warlords left. Without Xena the Warlord, the conquering army that had once swept through the Greek countryside like a wildfire had been a mere shadow of itself; Darphus was a loser, just as he had always suspected. He was also intrigued to realize that in this world, he had a far closer relationship with Caesar and the Romans, despite their irritating habit of calling him Mars.

And then --

Ares sat up on the ledge so abruptly that he nearly lost his balance (it was a few seconds before he remembered that a tumble down a mountainside didn't have to worry him any longer).

His mind had retrieved a memory from just a week ago.

Xena, straddling him, gloriously naked, her head thrown back, her nipples taut under his fingers...

In this world, Caesar's wife was also mistress to the God of War.

Probing his new memories further, Ares was irritated to find that something about them wasn't right. They lacked full reality, as if he were watching himself from the outside, and out of focus at that; his passionate dreams from his other life seemed more real in some ways. But no matter -- he would make up for it very soon ... this evening, in fact.

He lay back and closed his eyes, anticipating their meeting. In a few seconds, his erection was straining so hard against his pants that he shifted uncomfortably. He brushed aside the thought of satisfying himself -- good enough for the farm, but it somehow seemed beneath him now that he was a god, and just a short time from fulfilling his fantasies -- and forced his thoughts to drift to other matters. He was relieved to realize that in this world, Xena (a new and apparently much improved Xena) had efficiently put an end to the Dahak mess before it started, wiping out the cult of the dark god and razing the temple just like he told her. Thank all the gods alive, she'd also taken care of that peace-and-love freak Eli, who was stashed away in some Roman prison (preaching his message to the rats, Ares thought with a feral grin). Dear Old Dad had a point -- this world was looking better and better.

He also realized that this time around, he -- or was it a counterpart of his, who had somehow been absorbed into himself at the moment when the timeline switch took place? -- had never experienced two previous brushes with mortality. Of course not; both those incidents were connected to Xena, and the first also to Callisto (of whom, in this time, he had no memories at all). No Callisto ... no Hope ... that meant another difference --

"Hiya, Unc!"

Strife's pasty white physiognomy wasn't exactly a sight for sore eyes, any more than his familiar cackle was music for the ears; nonetheless, Ares was barely able to stop himself from squeezing his idiot nephew in a bear hug. (Dammit, he had to watch those mortal emotions.)

"Strife. Don't you know better than to sneak up on me?" He schooled his voice to the chilly tone the godling could expect.

Strife's beady eyes darted every which way. "Hey, Unc... ya know, that little war we had all planned in Parthia? Well, guess what ... heh heh ... Hercules is meddling again trying to work a peace treaty... what are we gonna do about it?"

Ares sighed. Suddenly, the prospect of going up against Hercules didn't seem at all appealing. He searched his new-world memories for what he could find about this war in Parthia, and decided that it would be a pretty boring affair in any event. He yawned conspicuously.

"Tell you what, I'll leave this one up to you and Discord." (Her annoying head firmly reattached to her shoulders, of course.)

"But Unc -- what if we screw it up?"

"Are you a god or a total incompetent?" he bellowed, hurling a fireball and causing a small shower of splintered rocks to come down on Strife's head. "Can't I delegate anything around here?"

"Okay, okay ... I promise, Unc, I'll do my damnedest," Strife whined as Ares recalled that abusing his nephew had been a lot of fun after all. At the moment, though, he was looking forward to entirely different pleasures.

"Good." He released another fireball into the mountainside. "You bother me again and the next one's gonna be aimed straight for your ass. I'm taking the day... no, the week off."

The feast at the palace was in full swing. Slaves scurried around, refilling cups with wine and carrying trays with such decadent delicacies as roasted swans in apricot glaze; musicians and nearly nude dancers, male and female, entertained the assembly. A sudden hush fell over the banquet hall at the sight of a new arrival: a tall, imposing man in metal-studded black leathers, with a great sword at his belt. While Ares had chosen to materialize outside the hall and walk in rather than make a more spectacular entrance, many guests knew that this was no mere man but the divine patron of the rulers of Rome -- the God of War himself.

The emperor and the empress promptly rose to their feet; it was not often that the Lord Mars honored one of their banquets with his presence. At Caesar's signal, a serving girl, looking down and trying to keep her hands steady, approached the god with a goblet full of wine; he drained it quickly, without breaking stride, and walked right up to the imperial couple.

Caesar, in a white toga with red and gold stripes, bowed his head gravely. "My Lord Mars."

Ares barely acknowledged the emperor with a nod as he looked past him, to the woman at Caesar's side. The empress was clad in a slender purple gown bordered with gold, accentuated by austerely elegant gold forearm bracelets and a necklace. She was wearing a touch too much makeup perhaps, and he was startled to see that her hair was styled in frizzy ringlets. But it was her all right, and she was magnificent.

"My Lord Mars," she said, bowing her head.

Her voice was low and sensuous, but the words were so jarring -- Lord? Mars? For a moment, he would have preferred to hear her call him a bastard or one of those other choice words that she used to sling at him.

"Can we entertain you at our humble dinner, my lord?" Caesar asked. "Or do you wish, perhaps, to talk about the plans for the Egyptian campaign?"

"I'd love to stay and chat, Caesar." Ares' eyes flashed unmistakable mockery at the emperor. "But right now, what I need is to borrow the Empress for -- ah -- a private consultation."

Caesar didn't flinch, but a slight shadow crossed his face; the liaison between the empress and the God of War was an open secret in Rome's high circles, but Mars, or Ares as he preferred to be called, had never yet flaunted it quite so brazenly.

His voice was unfailingly polite. "Of course, my Lord Mars."

All eyes followed the god and the empress as they walked toward the doors. Once outside the hall, he took her hand, feeling the coolness of her slender fingers, and, in a swirl of sparks, whisked them both away to the inner chambers of one of his temples.

She looked at him, a flicker of cool amusement in her blue eyes.

Ares picked up two goblets and handed one to her. "By the way, stop calling me Mars."

"Oh yes," she murmured, sipping her wine, "you prefer Ares."

So at least in that respect, he wasn't different in this world.

"You shouldn't forget your Greek roots, my dear. Besides, I hate 'Mars.' It's lame."

"So, my lord Ares..." He winced inwardly -- from her, it still sounded pretty lame -- but in the next instant, the knowing smile that played on her lips made him forget all about that. "Shall we discuss the Egyptian campaign? Their fleet -- "

He gazed at her, his lips parted, his heart racing so fast that he had to catch his breath. His warrior princess -- or was it warrior empress? -- alone with him in his chambers, with that smile and that glitter in her eye, holding a goblet of wine, the fingers of her other hand playing with the golden clasp of her gown ... that she wanted to talk to him about battles could have been the icing on the cake. But, in truth, this particular cake didn't need any icing.

He threw the half-empty goblet aside and pulled her toward him before she could continue.

"Later."

Her lips opened to welcome his kiss, her tongue thrusting against his. Making an effort to stop his hands from trembling, he undid her belt and the clasp of the gown, and felt the thin fabric slip through his fingers.

Ares took a step back. The soft glow of the oil lamps gave her skin a golden hue. He'd seen Xena like this before, when she so unselfconsciously stood up in her bath at that monk's residence all those years ago ... only this Xena was no innocent. She came closer, pressed her palms to his shoulders and kissed him again, running her tongue over his lips and then probing his mouth before she pulled away, her teeth tugging a little at his upper lip. His breath ragged now, he let his sword belt drop. Her hands slipped the vest off his shoulders and went for the fastenings on his pants, sending little jolts of shock through his body. His arousal wasn't making her task any easier, and he finally did it the old-fashioned way and just wished the damn pants off, along with the boots and gauntlets. The thought flickered in his mind again -- could it be one of those dreams he'd had so many times? Well, if it was ... oh, to Tartarus with it. He clasped her against him, letting out a guttural groan as his cock jutted against her stomach.

Now the only question was whether to bury himself inside her right away, or take it slow and let his mouth make love to every inch of her -- a much more pleasant set of options than any he'd had to face recently.

He pulled her down on the dark crimson sheets of his bed, his lips roaming over her neck then sliding lower; her nipple hardened as he rolled it in his mouth, and she gasped and moaned. He looked up and saw that he had succeeded in wiping that self-possessed little half-smile off her face; her eyes were clouded now, her mouth open in need. None too subtly, she rubbed herself on his leg. No, not yet. He brought his mouth to her other breast before kissing his way down to the dark, neatly trimmed triangle of curls. He had wanted to toy with her some more and linger on her inner thighs before reaching his final destination, but his own need to taste her was too overpowering.

What a thrill, to draw those little sounds out of her and hear them grow louder and more desperate, to feel her quiver as she thrust herself toward him, her fingers clutching at his hair. He knew all the little tricks -- sliding in and out, parting the soft folds, flicking the swollen bud with just a feathery touch and then sucking it hard only to stop before she was too far gone -- but to have her so out of control, so surrendered to his lovemaking ... it was almost like enjoying this caress for the first time. She was nearly crying now, and he knew he wouldn't be able to stand it much longer; this time, he took her over the edge, gripping her hips as she arched, drinking in the cries and the spasms that shook her body and wouldn't stop.

When her tremors subsided, he pulled himself up and lay next to her. Xena finally opened her eyes, the sly coolness returning to her gaze, then lifted her head and leaned forward to kiss him.

"Mmmm ... shall I ... return the favor, my lord?"

"Would you quit calling me 'my lord,'" he whispered hoarsely. "Just 'Ares.'"

She gave him a rather startled look, and he wondered if he could really be that pompous in this world -- until he remembered that such deference had never bothered him in any of the other mortal women he'd bedded.

A few moments later, she could have called him Cupid for all he cared. Oh, it was too much, she was going to leave him as helpless as she had been just now ... and, by Olympus, he didn't mind. Could it be that no woman in thousands of years had made him feel this good? Or was it simply the giddy knowledge that it was Xena, ever so lightly scraping his cock with her teeth, swirling her tongue around the aching tip, teasing him with those butterfly touches, pinching his nipples just hard enough to sting a bit? He clenched his fists, arched his body, muttering incoherent words of encouragement. Just when he thought it couldn't get any more exquisite, she sucked gently on his balls and he could hear himself making a sound that was almost like a whimper; the heat was rising in his body, pulsing and tingling as she took him back in her mouth -- oh yes, just like that -- right there -- don't stop Xena -- by all the gods don't stop --

It took him a while to catch his breath. She was looking at him, smiling, clearly relishing her power. He took her hand and kissed her fingertips.

"You know, if I were still mortal you might have killed me."

Oh damn.

She raised her eyebrows. "My lord, your sense of humor is ... fascinating."

"I mean -- if I were mortal." Ares paused. "I told you, stop calling me 'my lord.'"

She nodded and looked at him sideways, obviously trying to figure out what he was up to. He didn't give her too much time for that, grabbing her and pulling her on top of him.

"Let me inside you," he said, his voice thick. "I want you now."

She glanced down and smirked. "Oh yes -- I sometimes forget that you aren't limited by, ah, the weaknesses of mortal flesh -- "

Well, he certainly wasn't going to let her forget it tonight.

As she straddled him and he felt her silky warmth enveloping him, Ares knew he was about to be lost once again. While he was still able to think, he looked at her and thought that he hated her hairstyle. He stroked her hair and, mustering all the concentration he had -- which wasn't very much -- used his power to straighten out those ridiculous ringlets. He hoped that, in the heat of passion, she wouldn't notice for a while.

Ares opened his eyes, coming out of the pleasant half-dozing state into which he'd allowed himself to drift a few hours ago. He looked at Xena, asleep by his side, breathing softly, her head nestled on his shoulder.

The chamber had no windows, but he knew it was high noon. He'd really worn her out, hadn't he. Just as he had suspected, Xena had quite an appetite; but he had godhood on his side, and more than thirty years of frustrated passion. He wasn't sure how many times they had enjoyed each other last night, or in how many ways. He would collapse on top of her, shaking and groaning, and start again almost immediately -- flipping her over on her hands and knees and slipping a hand down to stroke her until she cried out and bucked against him, or kneeling and lifting her supple legs up on his shoulders so he could thrust even deeper into her and watch those lovely full breasts bounce with each move. Then he would lie back and let her take charge, riding him, sometimes ceasing all motion and using just her inner muscles to drive him wild -- keeping him on the brink of release until he rasped, "Xena ... please," not quite sure if he was begging her to end the torture or draw it out even longer.

Now, as he looked at his sleeping princess, Ares ran his fingers through her hair and idly wondered if, some day, he should get Uncle Hades to reduce Caesar's punishment for tampering with the Fates' Loom.

"Your wake-up call, madam."

Xena stretched luxuriously. "Ah ... my l- -- uh, Ares... good morning..."

"Good afternoon, my dear."

"Have I slept that long?" She smiled, catlike. "You were ... ummm ... unusually enthusiastic last night... did some battle go especially well?"

"No, I've just missed you, that's all." He drew her toward him.

"Oh?" There was a note of sarcasm in her voice, but before she could say anything else, he covered her mouth with his.

"I'm still enthusiastic," he whispered, breaking the kiss.

"Oh no -- Ares ..." she laughed, "I'll barely be able to walk... let alone ride..."

"Come on, you're much tougher than that."

After a moment's hesitation, she kissed him back. He eased himself inside her; this time he was slow and gentle, stroking her face, planting little kisses on her eyelids and her nose, pressing his mouth to her neck and shoulders where he had left purplish marks the night before.

And then, as they lay quietly in the afterglow of their lovemaking, their fingers intertwined, his face buried in her fragrant hair, he murmured, "I love you, Xena."

He heard her low chuckle.

"My Lord Ares -- as I've said ... your sense of humor is exquisite ... but I confess, at times my poor mortal mind just doesn't get the joke."

The sweat on their bodies felt sticky and clammy, and he was acutely aware that a strand of her hair was in his mouth.

By the time Ares raised his head and looked at her, he had managed a mischievous smirk. "I just wanted to see what it would be like -- you know, to say one of those silly things you sentimental mortals say at moments like these."

The Empress rolled her eyes and sat up. "Well, you should have tried it on one of your other girls, then. I may be a mortal, but you ought to know that I am no sentimentalist... In any case -- I think it's time for me to get back to the palace. I must look a total mess." She ran a hand over her hair and gasped. "What happened to my hair?"

He grinned a little sheepishly. "I thought it looked better this way."

"Better?" Her eyes flashed with anger. "I didn't know you doubled as the God of Beauty Tips. Do you realize it took hours to style?" The deference was momentarily gone, and she sounded very much like the old Xena ... the other Xena ... whatever ... berating him over some dirty rotten thing he'd done. Dammit, it was refreshing.

"Hey. Those silly curls make you look like a simpering Roman socialite, not a warrior."

Xena glanced at him, obviously taken aback by her own outburst, but then saw that he wasn't angry and shook her head. "I can't go around the palace like this ... I look like some barbarian queen."

"A gorgeous barbarian queen."

She chuckled and went over to pick up her gown.

When she had finished dressing, Ares took them back to her quarters at the palace.

"Still mad about the hair?" He nuzzled her neck.

The War God's mistress ran her hand up his chest and brushed her lips against his. "Thank you for a lovely night ... Ares."

He pulled her toward him. "I want to see you again tonight."

She laughed huskily. "Have mercy. I must save something for my lawfully wedded husband, you know."

"I outrank him," growled the God of War, crushing the Empress's lips under his. He no longer felt like trying to get Caesar any breaks in Tartarus.

Back in his throne room on Olympus, Ares reflected on the situation.

Okay, maybe this world wasn't quite as perfect as it had seemed.

But it was still pretty good.

The battle had not yet wound down when Ares transported himself to the top of a hill a short distance away. He'd always gotten a kick out of assuming the form of a common soldier and throwing himself into the action, often taking turns on both sides if he wasn't backing one of the combatants. Yet now, the fun just didn't seem to be there.

He wasn't quite sure why. After all, both Egyptian armies -- the one backing Queen Cleopatra and the one championing her rival brother and nominal husband, young Ptolemy -- really fought quite well, for non-Greeks. Besides, he should have been taking an interest in the matter; after all, his protegees planned to take Ptolemy's side and use the civil war to bring Egypt under Rome's thumb. This time around, Xena's presence had apparently prevented Caesar's alliance with the queen -- hardly surprising, considering how it had been cemented -- and the Romans had obviously calculated that the boy king would be easier to handle.

Maybe everything in this new world still seemed a little fake to him, staged, like the Romans' gladiator fights. Or ... what if he wasn't up to the job anymore? He hadn't even gotten all that upset when Strife had -- naturally -- botched the job in Parthia and let Hercules work out the peace deal; sure, he had blasted his nephew with a couple of fireballs and sent him scurrying away whimpering, but that was more of a formality. And down there just now, while chopping his way through Cleopatra's ranks, he was aghast to find, somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought that this wasn't very sporting -- while he exulted in his skill at parrying his opponents' blows, he was invulnerable to them anyway. This latest, extended stint as a mortal must have really messed with his head.

Maybe that was also why this business with Xena was such a distraction.

It had been three weeks since their first meeting. There had been many more, not only in bed but in the council chambers, where they had discussed war strategy -- sometimes along with Caesar, which couldn't be avoided since he was the Emperor after all -- and in a training arena where they enjoyed bouts of swordplay, much like he'd once done with Livia. (To his amusement, he had discovered that the non-existent Livia's old nickname, the Bitch of Rome, had now stuck to Xena in those parts of the world where Rome wasn't well liked.) The swordplay, of course, would usually have a follow-up in bed.

She was everything he could want in his warrior queen: a fighter of superior skill; a strong leader who wholeheartedly embraced the idea of world domination through force on which he had tried in vain to sell the original Xena; a lover of whom he couldn't imagine ever tiring.

Except that...

For one thing, he found that sharing her with that bastard, her lawfully wedded husband, enraged him. His imagination painted such vivid scenes of Xena and Caesar together that he finally decided the real thing would be easier to deal with and opened up a viewing portal into the imperial couple's bedroom; a few seconds later, he blasted a hole in the wall of his own temple where he happened to be at the time.

But, perhaps worse, every time he saw her, there was some fresh reminder of all the ways in which she wasn't the original Xena.

The hair -- the silly ringlets were back -- was the least of it.

In the other world, he had long reconciled himself to the fact that, however much Xena the dark warlord had drawn and excited him, the Warrior Princess he loved was the one who had channeled her fire and rage into self-sacrificing heroics, into fighting against him and atoning for everything she had done in his service. The irritating blonde, he had to admit, was on to something back there in Amphipolis -- when, in response to his taunt about how much he'd liked the old Xena, she asked why, in that case, he was so obsessed with the new one.

But this Xena was neither of those women. In this life, Cortese's raid and her brother's death had still forged her into a warrior; the union with Caesar, though, had turned her into a politician. There had been no betrayal by a man she had fallen for, no agonizing near-death to send her careening into true darkness, no need to fight her way out that darkness as violently as she had once embraced it. Instead, she had gained power, and had worked carefully and cleverly to preserve and expand it.

Whatever rage she'd ever possessed had been subsumed into ambition; whatever fire burned within her was a controlled, well-behaved little flame. And love ... ? The memory came back to him of how, in his other life, after the Furies had nearly driven him to kill Xena, she came up to examine the bruises and scrapes on his face where she had punched him during their fight, and then leaned in and kissed him softly. It was much too chaste a kiss, and seconds later she told him he had a one-in-a-billion chance of ever being with her. But there was an even smaller chance that, in all those hours of rolling around in bed, Empress Xena would give him a fraction of the tenderness that had been in her kiss and in her eyes just then.

So now he was fantasizing about his life as a mortal. Great, just great.

Ares snapped out of his reverie when a human stampede came charging toward where he sat invisible to mortal eyes. Ptolemy's men were on the run; it was too late to turn the tide of the battle now ... godsdammit, he had promised the Romans to swing this one Ptolemy's way. All this nonsense was indeed affecting his job.

Moments later, he was thousands of miles away from Egypt and in his temple in Rome, pacing back and forth in the inner chamber. It was time to admit it; he wanted his girl back.

Easier said than done, of course.

What could he possibly do?

The Empress opened her eyes and closed them again, feeling the heat of her divine lover's body beside her. Well, that had been one weird dream... She didn't know what time it was, but she needed some more sleep; she wasn't getting nearly enough of it in the past weeks, ever since ... well, ever since whatever had gotten into Ares had gotten into him. She shifted a little to get more comfortable.

"What were you dreaming about?"

She started and turned her head toward him.

"What?"

He was staring at her with a quizzical smile. "You said some very interesting things in your sleep, my dear."

Damn. "Such as what?"

"Something about wanting me to kill a chicken. That's generally not my specialty, you know. And I think you wanted me to fix the roof or something."

She cursed inwardly. Did she actually talk in her sleep?

"Oh it was nothing..." She smiled coyly. "Just some ridiculous nonsense..."

"Tell me." He propped himself up on an elbow, looking at her. "I like hearing about dreams. Even ridiculous ones."

"You do?"

"You learn new things about me every day, don't you?" He chucked her lightly under the chin. "Come on, I want to hear this. Sounds funny."

"Well all right..." She hoped he wouldn't take offense. "It was funny but -- in a way -- it was almost ... blasphemous."

Ares cocked an eyebrow. "Blasphemous?"

"In my dream, you -- you were mortal."

He seemed to take that in stride. "Go on."

"And we were on my grandparents' old farm outside Amphipolis..."

"You and me?"

"And some blonde girl... I don't even know where that came from, she didn't look like anyone I'd ever met."

"You and me and a blonde, on a farm together? That does sound like fun."

"Oh it wasn't that kind of thing." She winked at him. "And then we found a dog, a funny-looking little mutt with one blue eye and one grey... Anyway, the roof was leaking and..." -- she laughed almost girlishly -- "I asked you to fix it... and then you were supposed to kill a chicken for dinner and you were chasing chickens around with your sword and the dog was chasing after you..." She decided to skip the part where he had tripped and fallen flat on his face in the chicken pen; so far he was being good-humored, but that might be too undignified.

"Fascinating. So what were we doing on your grandparents' farm?"

Could that part get him angry, too? "Uh... I don't remember. You know how it is with dreams -- "

"Oh, I think you do." He was smiling but there was just a hint of danger in his eyes. "Go on."

Xena scrunched her eyebrows, as if straining to remember. "Oh yes -- it's coming back to me now ... well, this is really funny ... some warlords who had old scores to settle with you had found out that you were mortal and they were trying to kill you... and that blonde girl and I decided to hide you on the farm until we could lure them away."

"Really. Well, that was quite a dream." They lay in silence for a while as he put an arm around her and ran his fingers through her curls; she wondered what he was thinking. Then he asked, "Would you do that for me?"

"Would I do what for you?"

"If I became mortal and some vengeful warlords were after me, would you protect me?"

To hear him speak of her protecting him was not just laughable but disconcerting. Still, he was obviously in one of his strange moods again, and she'd have to play along. She coaxed her voice into its most tender expression.

"Of course I would, Ares."

He stared at her intently, brushing the hair away from her face.

"Liar."

His voice was quiet but she still felt a chill as her stomach tightened. His sardonic smile did little to soothe her nerves.

"You're a military strategist, my dear. As a mortal, I wouldn't be of much use to you, would I? And suppose you needed an alliance with one of those warlords who were after me. Wouldn't you personally separate my head from my shoulders and have it delivered to him in a gift box tied up with a nice ribbon? Come on. Tell me." The chill gave way to a feverish warmth, and the Empress felt tiny beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead. What answer did he want to hear? Damn him and his little mind games.

"Wouldn't you?" he repeated.

She made an effort to compose herself.

"I'm sure I'd find -- some use for you as a mortal," she purred, stroking his chest and then moving lower, feeling him stiffen instantly at her touch. Ares shuddered slightly and drew in his breath; unfortunately, it still didn't distract him from his line of questioning.

"You mean, you couldn't find anyone else who'd fuck you so good? Yeah, I'm sure you're right. But you're a warrior and an empress, aren't you? You know where your priorities are. Would you put some hot action in the sack ahead of your strategic interests? So tell me again. The truth, Xena. Would you?"

"Would I what?"

His hand in her hair, he pulled her head back a little; his breath was hot on her face.

"Kill me, my dear. If it would serve your purposes. Or turn me over to the tender mercies of those warlords."

"Yes, I probably would," she said slowly. "But I would say good-bye to you very nicely." She leaned forward and kissed him, draping a leg over his hip, guiding him inside. He looked at her, his eyes misty with desire but still inscrutable, and then rolled her over, biting her lips hard enough to draw blood and ramming into her so brutally that, for once, she cried out with pain rather than pleasure.

He lay stretched out on his bed, fully dressed now. Dammit, at least a part of him should have been proud of her answer; she was no sentimentalist, just as she'd said. And yet ... the ice in her stare when she told him she'd kill him if she had to -- and of course it was true, she might as well have left out the "probably" ... In a fit of morbid self-torture, Ares imagined himself on his knees, hands bound behind his back, trying desperately to get one more glimpse of his beloved's face before the blade came down on his neck, and seeing that look in her eyes.

He thought of how he had felt when Xena, the other -- the real Xena, had offered him her help, rejecting his plea that they fight the warlords together, telling him that he would forever be a hunted man unless he let her hide him and help him assume a new identity. He vividly remembered the hot flash of humiliation, and then the tiny feeling that spread inside him like the warmth of a fine wine ... one of those new feelings he still wasn't entirely sure how to handle ... the knowledge that she cared enough to, to -- all right, then -- to protect him.

Well, at least she'd fallen for that talking-in-her-sleep line and told him about the dream -- so now he knew that the dream trick worked and he could, in fact, make her have visions of her other life. Maybe this meant that somewhere, hidden deep inside the Empress, his Xena still existed.

The Empress slipped out of bed, glancing back at her husband, listening to his soft breath to make sure he was asleep. She picked up a stole, wrapped it around her shoulders and walked out on the balcony, the coolness of the floor on her bare feet bringing her back to reality. The night breeze might help her gather her thoughts.

She didn't know what was going on anymore. First there was this weirdness with Ares, wanting all of a sudden to act like her boyfriend rather than her god (she felt certain, although she'd never ask, that she was the only woman he'd had in the past five weeks or so), going all clingy and moody on her, and paying little attention to important matters like the Egyptian campaign ... he'd blown it at Naukratis, letting Cleopatra's forces carry the day, and then given her some bullshit story about being called away on urgent business. Of course, Caesar was getting to be a problem too; he'd never objected to her affair with Ares before, knowing how advantageous it was -- but he didn't like having it flaunted and he didn't like having his wife away from the marital bed every other night, and often too tired for anything but sleep when she was there. She couldn't say she blamed him for being cranky.

And now there were those dreams, more vivid and lifelike than any she'd ever had. There was that awful one in which she was a pirate, back when she and her men had captured Caesar for ransom and he had won her over and gotten her to take him to Rome -- only in the dream, he betrayed her, and mocked her cruelly as she was being crucified on a beach ... mercifully, she'd jerked awake just as her legs were about to be broken on his orders and her body tensed in anticipation of the pain. It occurred to her that it actually could have happened that way -- she had trusted Caesar so completely, had made herself such easy prey ... she shivered and knew that it wasn't from the breeze.

That nightmare, at least, could be explained as a reflection of her hidden mistrust of her husband; but what about the rest? She'd had yet another dream in which Ares was mortal, and had been driven mad by the Furies -- they got into a vicious fistfight, and when it was over and he had recovered she stroked his bruised face and kissed him; she could still remember how tender she felt, how her heart ached for him because ... well, that's when it got really bizarre ... she knew he had given up his godhood for her, and he told her that mortality might be worthwhile if he could have her love -- and a part of her yearned to melt into his arms but she had to tell herself he would be bad for her.

It got worse. In the other dreams, she had a child, a baby girl whose birth -- she shuddered at the sacrilege -- was supposed to herald the end of the Olympian gods. She was on the run from gods and priests and killers, and the blonde girl from the farm was there again (now she had a name, Gabrielle), and Ares was after her, telling her he would protect her and her child and willingly become mortal if they could only be together; but she didn't trust a word he said, not even after he had her baby's life in his hands and chose to save it.

And then tonight... she shook her head, as if trying to get rid of those appalling visions, and rubbed her face. She really needed sleep, she was supposed to meet with the ambassadors from Ch'in in the morning -- but how could she possibly go back to sleep after this?

... Her daughter was all grown, which was absurd because she and Gabrielle hadn't aged a bit, and somehow ... even to think this was blasphemy ... she, Xena, had the power to -- kill gods as long as her daughter lived. The gods were still after them, and she'd already killed several; then Gabrielle and Eve, her daughter, were badly hurt, and she'd somehow persuaded the goddess Venus, or Aphrodite rather, to take them to Olympus so she could get Athena to heal them. Ares stood in her way and she shot him in the leg with a crossbow... then she and Athena battled fiercely as Olympus trembled, and the two wounded women lay near death on the floor ... her sword slid harmlessly through Athena's smooth flesh and the goddess taunted her about losing her god-slaying powers, and she knew her daughter was dead. She still fought, until she was on her knees with Athena's sword over her, and in desperation she thrust her blade forward once more -- and saw the crimson blood and the goddess's face contorted in shock and pain. And it was Ares who'd saved her, healing her daughter and her friend without Athena's blessing at the cost of his own immortality. She heard Athena's dying gasp, "Why?" and Ares' voice, sad and gentle, "I'm sorry, but I have a thing for her."

She rushed to embrace Eve and Gabrielle and then remembered ... she had been wrong about Ares, he truly did love her -- she felt stunned and moved and a little guilty ... as she approached, he stood there looking at her almost fearfully, and with so many emotions whirling inside her, all she could say was, "Thank you." And yet it seemed to be enough for him -- he nodded a little and swallowed, his face and eyes almost radiant with quiet joy.

... What could it all mean? The Empress looked up at the stars, and down into the dark and silent garden below. She had a sneaking suspicion that Ares had something to do with these dreams, was trying to screw with her mind for some reason ... get her to fall in love with him, perhaps? But why? And what if it wasn't Ares, what if these dreams were omens of something terrible? A practical-minded woman, she had always been inclined to scoff at the superstitions so common among the Romans, at their obsession with signs and dreams; but now, she wasn't so sure.

She had to go and talk to the priests.

"Mom -- Dad -- Sis -- to what do I owe the pleasure?"

They stood in the War God's throne room on Olympus -- Zeus fuming, Hera's face coolly disdainful, and Athena wearing an expression of controlled fury and yet also of near-glee, as though she relished the fact that her no-good brother had lived down to her worst expectations.

"I think you know what the occasion is, Ares," said the Goddess of Wisdom. "You were warned not to mess with Xena, weren't you?"

He lifted his eyes with a "Who, me?" look of surprised innocence.

"What exactly do you mean by 'mess,' sister dear?" The mock innocent expression gave way to a deliberately lewd grin. "You seem to forget that in this wonderful World According to Caesar, Xena has been my very intimate friend for the past five years."

"And you seem to forget what Father and I told you." Athena pursed her thin lips. "We won't have you endangering the rule of the Olympians again."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that you made her have dreams about the Twilight of the Gods!" shouted Zeus, his face growing purple. "Would you care to explain why you would go and do an insane thing like that?"

Ares turned away, his cheek twitching slightly, and twiddled his dagger-shaped earring.

"Because it amused me."

Zeus exhaled noisily. "Ares. I don't know what's stopping me from hurling you into the Abyss of Tartarus right now, but -- "

He whipped around. "Yeah, really -- what's stopping you? I give up. What could it possibly be? I mean, it's not like we're family or anything."

"Ares." This time it was his mother who spoke, her eyes hard as crystals. "Shut up."

"Am I permitted to speak now? Good." The King of the Gods paced back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists and occasionally glancing at his wayward son. "I'm giving you one more chance. Let me spell this out for you. Stay away from that woman. Stay out of her bed. Stay out of her life. And, especially, stay out of her dreams."

Ares sat up abruptly, feeling a cold heaviness in his chest. "What are you telling me, Dad? I can't see my girlfriend? Oh, that's great coming from you." (Hera's murderous glare brought him a moment's sick satisfaction.) "Besides, I'm the patron god of the Emperor and Empress of Rome."

"Not anymore, bro." For a second, the gloating in Athena's melodious voice rose to the surface. "I'm afraid I've taken over that position."

"You -- ?"

"Ye-es," she almost sang out. "Oh, and feel free to try and see your girlfriend. She may not be very eager to see you."

They stood silently, giving him time to digest the announcement -- two female faces frozen in implacable smiles, and a male one drawn into a terrifying scowl.

"Son," Zeus finally said, his face softening slightly and a twinge of regret creeping into his voice. "Do you understand that this is your last chance?"

He looked away and said nothing.

"Well." This time the voice was his mother's, and the tone the chilliest she could muster. "I certainly hope you do."

When he made himself visible sitting on the ledge of her bedroom balcony, she turned and looked at him, unsurprised -- even though, unlike his Xena, the Empress had no ability to sense his unseen presence.

He reached out to touch her face and she flinched away. "Please leave."

"I just got here."

"Ares, it's over."

"Xena -- you don't mean that -- "

She gave him a scornful look. "Which part of 'it's over' don't you understand?"

He wanted to tell her, however uselessly, that he loved her; but the War God had never found it easy to say those words ?? and the way she had reacted the last time didn't make it any easier.

"Why did you do it, Ares?" she asked suddenly, with just a hint of softness and sadness.

"Do what?"

"All of this. Things were going so great -- we had such a wonderful time mixing business and pleasure -- and then you had to ruin everything. Minerva -- Athena said you gave me those dreams because you wanted to set me against the other gods..."

He snorted, looking down. "Is that what she said."

"And you tried to set me against my husband, too. Making me dream that he had me crucified with my legs broken ... Ares, that was a horrible thing to do!"

Ares was strongly tempted to say, "He really did, you fool," but then thought better of it.

"Xena..." he stammered. "I -- I -- I have feelings for you, dammit..." He had a vague sense that he'd spoken those very words to her before -- well, to Xena, anyway -- and then he remembered: of course, in Tartarus when she was making her getaway with her dead son, and was about to give birth to Eve.

She replied exactly as she had then -- perhaps she remembered from her dreams -- and for once, the contemptuous narrowing of her eyes was all Xena. "Are you trying to tell me that you love me?"

"Yes," he said, his voice a little choked. "I am. I do." Was she going to do it again? Challenge him to say those words? He should manage this time ... except that he'd already said those words to her that morning and --

The Empress let out a mirthless little laugh. "The God of War in love. How stupid do you think I am?"

"Stranger things have happened," he said simply.

"Like what?"

"Like Xena becoming Empress of Rome."

She sighed impatiently. "Enough of the head games, Ares."

He looked up at her. In her gauzy white nightdress, with her pale face bathed in moonlight and reflecting the unsteady light of an oil lantern, she looked almost ghostly -- and so beautiful that the thought of losing her again was tearing him apart. Why had he been such an idiot? Why couldn't he just accept whatever she could give him?

They were both silent for a minute, and Ares noticed that the sneer on Xena's face had dissolved into a look of bitter melancholy.

"The last man who said he loved me -- do you know who it was, Ares?" she said quietly. "My husband. And I suppose he does, in his own way. But if somehow getting rid of me served Caesar's political advantage, he'd do it just as readily as -- as I would have sent your head to those warlords. That's a fact. He would regret it, of course, but he'd do it. Just as he didn't feel good about my being in your bed, but he went along with it because it served his interests."

"It served your interests too, didn't it?"

"Of course it did." Her voice hardened again. "And it was great fun too. I'm not the one talking about love, Ares. I don't know what your game was, but I think you've lost."

She turned around and went inside, never looking back.

"I don't know if I did the right thing, my love. But I have found out that there is something even more important to me than the right thing."

The slender chestnut-haired actress stood in the middle of the minimally decorated circular stage, her words addressed to the audience as much as to her stage lover.

"Our love?" the actor said, taking her hands in his.

"Your life."

That was the final line of the play. As the actors took their bows, the applause was a little timid at first. The message of the Greek play, after all, was rather at odds with Roman notions of duty and honor -- the heroine risked much more than her life to save her beloved, putting him ahead of her family's and her city's survival -- and its title, The Greater Good, could even be seen as a mockery of these cherished ideals.

Then, the Empress rose in her box and began clapping enthusiastically; more and more spectators joined in until the applause became a standing ovation.

When the noise died down, the lead actress stepped forward. "And now, citizens of Rome, I have the privilege of introducing the author. The new sensation of Greece and now, for the first time in Rome -- Gabrielle, the Bard of Potedaia."

Out of the corner of her eye, the Empress noticed Caesar flinch and frown slightly, as though the name had been an unpleasant surprise. Had he had an affair with the girl? Not that she'd care much. Then another thought struck her. Gabrielle ... an unusual name, and one she'd heard somewhere before. Oh yes, of course -- the blonde girl from those awful dreams of a few months ago.

And there she was, standing on the stage -- her hair much longer and styled in fashionable curls, with a softer and less muscular frame, wearing a long, flowing gown rather than an Amazon-style short skirt and skimpy top -- but it was her, no question about it.

Could this young woman be a pawn in some new game Ares was playing? Xena somehow doubted it, and actually found that, for whatever reason, she didn't want to believe it.

The young woman pressed a hand to her heart and bowed several times, her face flushed.

The Empress motioned to one of her attendants who was holding a rose wreath; she always brought one to the theater in case she wanted to bestow a special honor on a performer or author.

"Give it to the playwright."

There were gasps in the audience when Gabrielle took the wreath. She looked troubled for a second and seemed to hesitate before finally placing it on her head in a graceful gesture. It made her look lovely, the dark red of the roses setting off the pale gold of her locks and the light blue of her dress.

Caesar, who had also risen from his seat -- out of politeness, Xena suspected -- gave her a sideways glance she couldn't quite interpret.

"Well, I see that you really enjoyed the play."

She shrugged. "Well, it was a tad sentimental ... and with a somewhat questionable moral. But I thought I'd lend some support to a former compatriot." She paused as the Emperor nodded, looking at her expectantly. "She's coming to the reception at the palace, isn't she? I'm looking forward to meeting her."

"I'm sure you will enjoy it very much, dear," Caesar said slowly; there seemed to be something in the back of his mind but she couldn't imagine what. "I'm sure you will."

"Do you think such love really exists? The kind where you would risk not only your life but ... the whole world for the person you love?"

The Empress reclined on a couch, absent-mindedly slipping slices of peach into her mouth and sipping her wine. The young playwright, who had been given the place of honor next to her hostess, blushed a little.

"I do, my lady."

"Because you want to be with that person more than anything in the world."

"Because that person is your world. Even if you may never have a chance to be with them."

"Really." Xena put a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "You know, some people would say that's just a way of putting a romantic gloss on our -- base animal instincts."

"Oh, but it doesn't even have to involve -- " Gabrielle stumbled and blushed even more.

"Sex?"

She nodded. "It's just a -- connection between two souls, so deep that you become -- the whole world to each other. It's almost as if the other person is more yourself than you are."

"Is that something you've actually experienced?"

"No, I have not, my lady." The young woman looked pensively into the distance. "And yet -- sometimes I think... I can't quite explain it... I know it's going to sound crazy, but it's almost as if it's something that happened to me in a past life."

The Empress raised her eyebrows. "A past life?"

"Some philosophers believe that we have lived many times before."

There was a brief silence between them, and then Gabrielle asked, "Have you?"

Xena turned to her with a start. "Have I what?"

The playwright's face was crimson. "I'm sorry, my lady -- I was just lost in thought and -- I don't even know what I said -- "

"No, no." The Empress looked at her intently with a little half-smile. "You wanted to ask if I've ever experienced that kind of love?" Gabrielle was staring into her goblet. "And then you thought it was a rather inappropriate question to ask of an empress."

"I'm truly sorry, my lady," the young woman muttered.

Xena chuckled. "No need. Artists are allowed a bit of license, even in the presence of emperors. It's not inappropriate, really ... just -- naive. It wouldn't do at all, you understand, for an empress to feel that way." She looked at Gabrielle again and shrugged slightly. "Let's change the subject, shall we? Tell me about your life -- this life, not a past one. I'm told you were a slave once?"

"Yes, my lady. Some five years ago, I was taken by slavers in Potedaia and brought to Athens."

"How does one go from slave to famous playwright?"

Gabrielle looked up; a sudden shadow darkened her face.

"I was b- -- I was taken into a household where -- they appreciated literature and the arts." Her voice was strained, as if she had to force every sound out of her throat. "My -- my masters, Kyrillos and Myrrhina, had wanted an educated slave to tutor their children -- but then they saw some of my writings and -- liked them... So they encouraged me to write more. And then they released me and helped launch my career."

"Lucky for you, then." Xena saw the look in the young woman's eyes. "What?"

"Not at first." Gabrielle spoke almost in a whisper.

"How so?"

"I had some -- bad experiences with my first -- masters."

Whatever it was, she obviously didn't want to talk about it. The Empress felt almost relieved when she heard her husband's voice.

"Excuse me, ladies. Is a mere male permitted to join this conversation?"

"But of course, my Emperor," she replied with a slight toss of the head.

The Empress paced around the balcony, finding little relief in the muggy air of the summer night.

Why would Gabrielle have appeared in the bizarre visions that had once haunted her dreams? Maybe Ares had put her in them for some unfathomable reason of his own. Or maybe there was more to those dreams than mere Ares-induced delusions ... a sign of some special connection between herself and the Greek playwright?

She shook her head at this inane idea. And yet there really was something special about the girl. Perhaps it was the fact that she was so unlike everyone else Xena knew, in the palace or in the army. She actually said what she thought and felt, or showed it in her face and voice; more remarkably yet, it seemed that she never said anything she didn't think or feel ... almost like a child, and yet not at all infantile. Indeed, Xena felt certain that, at her fairly young age, the playwright had been through some rough stuff.

She looked down into the garden and stopped in her tracks. In the moonlight, she could plainly see Gabrielle -- who had been invited to spend the night in the guest quarters of the palace -- sitting on a bench and looking up at the sky. The girl had not seen her, yet she quickly stepped back into the shadows.

Suddenly, Xena knew she wanted to go and speak to her. Tomorrow, everything would be back to business as usual -- the new ambassadors from Ch'in still being cagey about the trade agreement, the Egyptian campaign stalled now that Ares had thrown his support behind Cleopatra's forces (which bothered her far more than it had any right to). But tonight, she and the girl could just talk as -- two people.

A few minutes later she was down in the garden, striding toward the bench where Gabrielle still sat lost in thought.

"Hello, Gabrielle."

The girl turned around with a gasp.

"My lady..."

Xena sat down next to her.

"What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep and ... it's so beautiful out here."

"It is, isn't it. Too bad I hardly notice that anymore." With a sigh, she looked at Gabrielle and was startled by the pained and somehow puzzled expression on the young woman's face. "What is it, Gabrielle? What's wrong?"

Gabrielle looked down at her hands.

"You can tell me. No one can hear us."

"I never thought you'd be like this," the young woman blurted out in a whisper.

Xena chuckled. "Of course. You expected the Bitch. Isn't that what they call me in the home country? The Bitch of Rome... the Butcher of Cirra..."

The playwright looked away. "I'm -- I'm not really interested in politics."

"But you know about Cirra. There was a rebellion against Rome and my troops put it down. And then they rounded up everyone over the age of sixteen and executed one out of every ten, randomly picked." In the dark, fragrant stillness, she could hear Gabrielle's agitated breathing. "So because of that, you think that I should be like the Gorgon with snakes in my hair -- and I most certainly shouldn't be able to enjoy something pure and noble like your play."

"I'm sorry, my lady." Gabrielle choked back a sob. "I should go back to my room."

"No, stay." She held out her arm with a habitual commanding gesture. "You see, Gabrielle, things aren't so simple when you have to deal with reality. If you start writing a play and you screw up a scene -- you can just go back and rewrite it. If I start a campaign and I screw up a battle -- well, it's a little more serious. Do you know what would have happened if we hadn't made an example of Cirra? More rebellions. In the end, more people would have died, not only adults but children."

Gabrielle finally mustered the courage to look at the Empress. "So you believed that you did was -- for the best?"

Xena's mouth was distorted in a bitter smirk. "The right thing, as you would have put it."

After a long pause, Gabrielle murmured, "I'd -- I'd like to believe you."

"Why? Because you like me?"

"Because I usually like to believe the best about people."

"You do?" She chuckled again. "You were taken by slavers, Gabrielle. Your first master -- " She glanced at the girl. "Did he rape you?"

Gabrielle bit her lip. "No, but he -- tried to."

"And then what happened?"

"My mistress came in and caught him and she thought I had encouraged him, and she -- did some things to me."

"What did she do?" Xena asked, a steely edge in her voice.

"She had me whipped and -- and -- she had my head shaved." The young woman's shoulders quivered a little, and she rubbed quickly at her eyes.

"And you still like to believe the best about people."

Gabrielle made no reply, and after a while it was Xena who spoke up again.

"Gabrielle, I want you to have a job at the palace."

"A job?" she echoed, her voice barely audible.

"I'd like to -- Caesar and I would like to do more to cultivate the arts and letters. Many people think we're not interested in anything except expanding the empire, but it isn't true. We want Rome to be a cultural capital the way Athens once was ... and you know as well as I do that the Golden Age of Athens has long passed. We want to build up an imperial library. We want to encourage writers, philosophers -- playwrights. We need somebody in charge of those projects, and I can't think of anyone better than you. You could still go on writing your plays ... you'd have very appreciative audiences here." She paused. "And I'd enjoy having you around."

The playwright sat twisting a fold of her gown until the fine fabric was all wrinkled. When she raised her eyes again, she looked as if she were bracing herself for a blow. "I'm sorry, my lady. You've been very generous, but -- I can't."

There was the briefest of silences and then the Empress rose brusquely to her feet, as though slamming a door shut. "Pity, but no need to apologize. I've made the offer, you've turned it down; I'll just find someone else. This is good-bye, then -- I know you're going back to Athens tomorrow afternoon, and I have a lot of business to attend to in the morning. It was -- interesting to meet you, Gabrielle of Potedaia."

She walked away briskly, her black robe and dark hair blending away into the darkness of the garden.

Xena had been wrong about one thing: somebody could hear them.

Unbelievable, he thought. They were bonding again.

For these past several months, Ares had often wondered if the Abyss of Tartarus could be any worse.

In all this time, he hadn't seen her once; or, to be more exact, she hadn't seen him. He felt certain that now, he had lost her far more irrevocably than the other time. Throwing himself into his job hadn't worked, though he did take some pleasure in wars that could be a serious nuisance to the Romans. In Egypt, this vendetta had led to an attempt at another kind of distraction. Queen Cleopatra, thrilled to have the God of War on her side, had made it clear that she wouldn't mind having him in her bed as well. Her lithe, tanned body, sphinx-like almond-shaped eyes and slightly irregular features hinted at interesting possibilities -- a vast improvement, at least, on the stable of girlfriends kept by this timeline's earlier version of himself (among them, to his bitter amusement, that twit Mavican). The queen was smart, witty and charming, with an arsenal of expert caresses which might have exceeded that of Empress Xena; but in the four or five nights he spent with her, Cleopatra's company made him miss Xena all the more.

It didn't help that he knew his obsession was the subject of gossip and ridicule on Olympus, and apparently beyond. His lowest point, perhaps, had come when he finally locked horns with his bastard half-brother over some trifle of a local war. Hercules coolly remarked, "You know, Ares, just because your girlfriend kicked you out on your ass doesn't mean you have to take it out on innocent people," and in a surge of blinding rage that nearly made him flout the no-killing-Hercules rule, he yelled, "Yeah, like you don't have the hots for her yourself!" The slip having been made, there was nothing he could do to avoid seeing the hero's eyes roll all the way up into his forehead or hearing the inevitable rejoinder: "Excuse me? For Xena? The Bitch of Rome? No thanks ... she does seem much more your type." (Hercules had walked away from this encounter firmly convinced that the God of War had finally flipped.)

In all that time, there had been nothing to suggest that things with Xena might change. Until that evening -- when he succumbed, once again, to the urge to open up a viewing portal on the Empress, and saw something that gave him more of a shock than seeing her walk into that arena in Rome after being dead for twenty-five years.

There she was, at an imperial banquet, chatting with Gabrielle.

Within seconds, he was at the palace -- for once, grateful for her inability to feel his presence.

And now he stood in the garden, watching as Gabrielle burst into quiet sobs when the Empress had stalked off, and then finally got up and wandered slowly back to the palace.

If anyone could reach the real Xena, it was the blonde bard. He hated to admit it -- after all, the little pest had been instrumental in keeping Xena away from him in the other world, and she clearly had a special bond with Xena that he would never fully understand; he had seen the evidence of this just now. On the other hand ... if he could use her now to actually get through to Xena ... there would be a certain delicious irony in that. For the first time in months, Ares found himself grinning.

But tomorrow, she would be gone. No, that would never do.

A plan was forming in his mind. His relatives had warned him not to mess with Xena's buried memories of her other life; but no one had ever said anything about messing with Gabrielle.

By the time she got back to her bedroom, he was already there, waiting.

Gabrielle sank down on the velvet-covered seat in front of the dressing table. Her eyes were red and puffy, her lower lip a little swollen where she'd been biting it. Partly, it was reliving the events of her first months as a slave that had brought on the crying jag; she closed her eyes, her mind flashing to the moment when Cleone, her first mistress, had dragged her to a mirror to make her look at her pitiful pink head. Yet, those memories aside, the entire evening had left her shaken. She had come prepared to be polite and deferential to the Empress -- her manager had strongly warned her not to offend their hosts -- but nothing she'd heard about this woman made her sound remotely likable. And yet there had been times, at the banquet and later in the garden, when she felt she could have thrown her arms around Xena, held her in a tight embrace, and confided in her about anything.

Absent-mindedly, she began to remove the pins from her hair, thinking about the trip home. Then, she looked up at the mirror and felt as if she's been punched in the gut. There was a man standing behind her.

He was very tall and dressed in black leather, with a sword at his belt; he looked like a warrior, and one of high rank, yet he certainly didn't seem to be a Roman officer. He watched her with hooded eyes, his face still and unreadable.

The man made a step forward. Gabrielle managed to take a breath and open her mouth -- but before she could make a sound, the man waved his hand lazily and her vocal chords were paralyzed. She lifted her hands to her throat.

"Hello, Gabrielle." His voice was low and smooth, and yet not at all reassuring. "I'll release you if you promise not to scream. I'm not here to hurt you. Promise you won't scream? Just nod."

Gabrielle nodded; he moved his hand again, and the hold on her throat was gone. She whirled around.

"How did you do that?"

He smiled. "All in good time."

"Who are you?"

"Why don't you let me ask the questions for now." The stranger pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. His deep brown eyes were extraordinary -- lusciously soft and searingly intense at the same time -- and she felt as if she had looked into those eyes before, even though she was certain she had never met him; she would have remembered him alright.

"Gabrielle, why did you turn down the job the Empress offered you?"

She felt dizzy. "Did she send you?"

"Oh no." He appeared to be amused by the suggestion.

"Then how did you know about this?"

"I was in the garden."

The thought that this man had overheard some of the things she'd said made the blood rush to the bard's face. "Eavesdropping?" she snapped, briefly forgetting her terror.

The man chuckled. "I do that a lot."

One of Caesar's spies? Her mind was reeling.

"You haven't answered my question."

"I don't have to answer any of your questions."

"No, you don't." He put his hands on the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. She remembered the stories she'd heard of how the gaze of a snake could mesmerize its prey and leave it unable to move. "Why did you turn her down, Gabrielle?"

She sighed. "Because I can't ... some of the things she's done are so ... horrible."

"But you still like her, don't you? Isn't that what scares you, Gabrielle? You don't want to feel like you're connected to her -- but you are."

She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to free herself from the spell.

"Why are you saying these things?"

"Look at me, Gabrielle. Look at me."

His velvety voice was as compelling as his look, and she felt her eyelids lifting almost of their own accord.

"I can help you understand why you feel that way."

"What are you talking about?"

"Remember what you said at the banquet? About loving someone so much that they matter to you more than the world itself? And how you think you may have experienced that kind of love in a past life?"

Gabrielle thought she would faint. "You heard that too?"

"I can help you figure it all out."

"I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying."

Her mystery visitor leaned in closer, as if about to kiss her.

"Do you want to know who you really are, Gabrielle? Where you get your ideas, your passions, your dreams?"

As if from the outside, she heard herself whisper, "Yes."

"Good." The suave sensuality in his voice was replaced by a businesslike briskness. "Why don't we -- go someplace a little more private."

Before Gabrielle could ask where, everything seemed to disintegrate around her in a swirl of light and it felt as if she were being pulled into a tornado. When the blur cleared up, she was in a completely different room -- windowless, rich but sparsely furnished, mostly war-themed silver decorations supplying the only colors other than black and deep crimson.

So that was it. She was dreaming.

"Ready?"

Without waiting for an answer, the man pressed his palms to the sides of her head. This time, the sensation was entirely different. She was falling ... falling into a void -- and then the void began to fill with images.

Ares took a step back. Good thing he'd taken her to his temple; those shrieks would have brought half the palace running to her room.

He hadn't given much thought to how Gabrielle's mortal mind would react to being crammed full of memories from another timeline, another lifetime. Now, as she rolled on the floor clutching her head, her small body racked by piercing screams, he reflected that some of those memories had to be pretty intense; the Dahak and Hope business alone could drive a person mad. Damn -- she might die, or turn into a raving lunatic ... not that it should bother him, but in that case she'd be of no use to him at all.

The screaming stopped and Ares saw that she had passed out, a little blood trickling from her nose. He bent over her and made sure she was alive, then picked her up and carried her to a couch.

It was a few more minutes before her eyes opened. She stared at him and sat up brusquely.

"Ares."

The little blonde's voice was raspy from the screaming, but she sounded much like her old self.

"Oh, so now you remember me." He handed her a goblet of wine. "Here, this may help."

She drained the cup and dabbed the blood away from her nose. Then she looked up and asked, her voice hushed, "Am I crazy?"

The God of War chuckled. "Not any more than usual, I think." He was grudgingly impressed; underneath all the gooey drivel, the girl did have a lot of stamina.

"I feel like I've had -- two different lives... in two different worlds... but I'm not sure which one is real."

He rolled his eyes. "Gabrielle, I'm not especially interested in talking metaphysics."

"But ... how could this be true? I know that Xena is the Empress now, and yet in that other life she was a warrior who fought for common people -- and she was" -- her eyes flickered and brimmed with tears -- "my friend ... my -- soulmate..."

He grunted. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Look -- "

"And Caesar..." She gasped. "Caesar was her mortal enemy... he had us -- " she shivered and hunched over, grasping her shoulders.

"Gabrielle, I know what the son of a bitch did. I'm something of an expert on all things Xena, remember?"

"I just don't get it. How could all this have happened? I mean -- where did it happen? When?"

He realized he'd have to tell her or she really would go mad. The bard listened rapt, taking it all in. Obviously, after all the extraordinary things she'd encountered in her life -- her other life -- it didn't strike her as completely insane that a dead Roman emperor would escape from the underworld, chain up the Fates, and alter the thread of his own destiny and the world with it.

"So you're a god again," she said thoughtfully when he was done.

"Yup."

"And Zeus and all the other gods -- "

"The whole gang's here. And if they ever find out that you and I have had this little chat, it's going to end most unpleasantly."

"For you or for me?"

"Well, I was thinking about me, of course," he retorted with a crooked grin; oh, she was so much more fun to torment than Strife, with that look of outraged virtue on her face. "But I can't imagine that it would end very pleasantly for you, either."

Gabrielle seemed to digest this for a few moments.

"So why did you do it? Bring back my memories?"

"I'm surprised you have to ask, Gabrielle. I just want Xena to have her best friend back."

"Oh please," she snorted. "You expect me to fall for that? What have you got up your sleeve?" He mockingly raised his bare arms and she gave an exasperated sigh. "Ares, come on. What's the scheme?"

"You're going to take that job at the palace now, aren't you?"

"You haven't answered me. What's your game, Ares?"

He looked down, fidgeting a little. "I want her the way she was."

"Oh really." Ares glanced at the bard and saw her smirk bitterly. "I would have thought that Empress Xena would be much more to your taste."

"Gabrielle." He fixed her with a glare, and her frightened expression told him that his impulse to blast her to bits had registered fully in his face. "We are not going to discuss my taste in women. Got that?"

The young woman nodded. He turned away and began pacing slowly as her eyes followed him, a little nervously.

"You don't think that the way Xena is now is what she's meant to be, do you? No, I'm sure you don't. So go on, take the job and just -- do your thing."

"If you want the real Xena back, why didn't you just bring her memories back the way you did mine?"

Ares shrugged. "It's complicated."

After a pause, she said, "Is it because she won't have anything to do with you? And to do this trick, you need to have the person's mind open to you?"

"Not quite." He wondered if that was true, though -- if he did defy his family and try to bring Xena back directly, would he able to? "I told you, I have my reasons."

"You always do. Well, what if I refuse to play my part in your little game?"

"You mean, if you walk away from your friend."

He heard her sigh and knew that he had won.

Gabrielle mulled it over. "I assume Caesar knows everything about -- the other time?"

"Clever girl."

"So he knows who I am. I wouldn't imagine he was very happy to see me around his wife." She darted her eyes toward Ares. "You want me to go into the lion's den and stick my neck out for your plan ... because you're afraid to stick out yours."

Generally, whatever slurs she cast on his character could only amuse him, but this time her words stung. "I won't let you come to any harm, okay?" he said, his voice edgy. "I promise."

She rose from the couch and looked up at the War God. With her hair a mess and her dress rumpled, she looked more like a little girl than ever, but her stare was defiant.

"I would have done it anyway," she said. "Because I love her."

When Ares transported himself back to Olympus after dropping Gabrielle off in her room the palace, he was still scowling. His plan was working, but, godsdammit -- in this round, the irritating blonde had actually had the last word.

When Gabrielle requested an audience the next morning, she was told that the Empress was busy. She had no choice than to wait interminably, with a throng of other hopeful petitioners, outside the hall where the ambassadors from Ch'in were being received. (Caesar, luckily, was away from the palace.) Finally the doors swung open; the emissaries left first, walking stiffly in their exotic embroidered robes. A few minutes later, the Empress, in her formal purple gown and tiara, came out followed by her attendants. The crowd of petitioners stirred, and the bard cursed her short stature. Somehow she managed to elbow her way to the front; miraculously, Xena looked straight at her -- and right past her. The clear blue eyes that Gabrielle now knew so well held no touch of warmth or personal connection.

"My lady!"

People were pushing her aside; another few seconds and there would be no chance of catching the Empress's attention again.

"My lady, please!" she shouted, desperately wishing she could just call out, Xena! "I -- I was wrong -- I would like to accept your offer."

She got some strange looks. Clearly, people were wondering if she was deranged or if she had actually rejected some kind of offer from the Empress; in their view, it would undoubtedly amount to the same thing. However, Xena stopped and slowly turned. Her eyes were still icy, but what she said -- instantly turning the suspicious stares to envious ones -- was, "Come and see me in two hours."

That afternoon, the actors from Athens and their manager returned home without the playwright. Gabrielle, the Bard of Potedaia, had taken up residence at the imperial palace of Rome.

"What's wrong, Gabrielle? Do you know Ares?"

They were alone in a small room in the imperial library where Gabrielle worked on her first official task of collecting and cataloguing scrolls, and where the Empress would stop by to visit her protegee. In their conversations, Xena generally said little about her own life, letting Gabrielle do much of the talking. But today, about a month after their initial meeting, the discussion had drifted from Gabrielle's play to the general issue of love and then to something unusually personal. Xena had disclosed, albeit in a studied tone of droll nonchalance, that her husband had gone along with her taking a lover because the connection had worked to his advantage. And then, the unspoken puzzlement in the little bard's eyes -- whose good graces could the Emperor of Rome have possibly wanted to buy with his wife's favors? -- had led the Empress to mention a name.

Helplessly, Gabrielle knew that her reaction was written all over her face -- and was reflected in Xena's face, suddenly full of wariness.

She'd never get away with trying to lie, and yet she couldn't tell Xena what was actually going on. The only way out, however she felt about it, was to go with a half-truth.

"My lady..." She felt herself blushing fiercely. "I should have told you... shortly after I first met you ... he came to my room..."

Xena grabbed her wrist. "What did the bastard do?"

"No, no, my lady -- it was nothing like that... he wanted me to -- give you a message of some sort..."

"Of what sort?"

It took a supreme effort not to avert her eyes from Xena's piercing stare. "I have no idea, my lady -- I told him that I wasn't going to serve as his intermediary."

"Good for you. But yes, you should have told me sooner." Xena let go of her wrist and exhaled. "Watch out for Ares, Gabrielle. I think he may have had a plan for some time to somehow use you to manipulate me."

The bard felt a little stab of fear, wondering what she'd gotten herself into. "What do you mean?"

Xena shivered slightly, with an absent look in her eyes. "A while ago ... in the last weeks that we were -- together ... he gave me some very strange dreams and for some reason he planted you in them. At least I think he did."

"Me?" she whispered.

"Well, you looked quite a bit different in those dreams -- dressed like some kind of an Amazon, and with short hair -- but it was definitely you. Your face, your name..."

"What kinds of dreams were they?" Gabrielle tried not to sound probing.

"Weird, sick ones -- about fighting against gods and him becoming mortal ... I'm not sure why, but I think he wanted to persuade me that all the other gods hated me and that he -- " She stopped, her face tightening. "I shouldn't talk to you about that nonsense, Gabrielle. Just be careful. Somebody as innocent as you..."

"My lady." Painfully aware of crossing a line, Gabrielle put her hand on Xena's. "You know that I would never do anything to harm you."

Almost a full minute later, Xena's fingers closed around her hand.

"Gabrielle? I thought those dreams were completely evil ... but now -- " Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. Then she said, "In those dreams, you were my friend."

Gabrielle was glad she was sitting down; her temples were throbbing, and all of a sudden there seemed to be too little air in the room.

Xena moved her hand away and added quite casually, "By the way, when we're by ourselves -- you can just call me Xena."

Later, when she was alone, Gabrielle thought of the God of War. She was dimly beginning to understand what he had tried to do, and why. She still resented the way he was manipulating her; yet on some level, she couldn't help sympathizing.

While Ares had not heard that conversation, he had heard many others, and he was almost in equal measure irritated and pleased by how things were working out. He was painfully jealous, much as he had been before, of all the hours when Gabrielle was with Xena and he was not, of the affection and closeness between them -- and now, of her ability to get through to the real Xena. But of course, it was on this very ability of hers that he was now pinning his hopes.

Xena was coming back, he could feel it. He had to hand it to the bard, she was no dummy. She had come up with the idea of writing stories, for her friend's eyes only, about some of their adventures from their other life; she'd even had the nerve to keep "Xena" as the name of her Warrior Princess heroine, and to tell the Empress with a straight face that she had chosen the name in her honor.

None of his relatives on Olympus had a clue; why would they? Unlike him, they knew nothing about Gabrielle's place in Xena's life or the unique bond between the two women.

All he had to do was bide his time, and eventually he might well have the best of both worlds. Xena would recover her old self, and now, after everything that had passed between them, she would come back to him. And if the bard had a problem with that -- well, she'd owe him far too much to dare stand in his way.

Ares distracted himself from these thoughts to check up on his girl through a viewing portal. There she was, in her military outfit -- a short black leather dress not unlike his Xena's, only with arm-length sleeves and a golden Roman eagle on the breastplate -- inspecting the twenty newest members of her own elite fighting corps. They included two women, a sight that still piqued Ares' interest no matter how preoccupied he was with one and only one woman warrior. His appreciative eyes traveled over the female figures in sleek uniforms, and rested on a familiar face. It wouldn't be familiar to Xena, of course -- not in this destiny.

He sat up, frowning. It might be a coincidence ... or not.

In the next moment, the God of War was at Xena's side, remaining invisible.

When the short sword sliced through the air, aimed straight for the Empress's throat, Ares was there to block it with his hand -- slowing it down just long enough for Xena to lurch backward, and for the other soldiers to disarm the dark-eyed blonde and wrestle her to the ground as she screamed, "Butcher of Cirra!"

The dank, stale air of the Roman dungeon made Gabrielle slightly ill, bringing back memories of the other time she had smelled it. She'd rather be almost anywhere but here. Still, she had to come down and see the would-be assassin for herself. She had heard a description of the woman, and knew about the mention of Cirra. Could it be -- ?

The bard handed her pass from the Empress to a soldier of the Praetorian guard. When she looked up at the lanky man, she blinked hard, her mind reeling at the twists the threads of Fate had taken in this altered world: standing before her was Joxer, in a Roman helmet instead of that ridiculous contraption on his head. So he had, in a way, fulfilled his ambitions for a warrior's career -- only to be stuck guarding prisoners of state. No matter; he didn't know her, and that wasn't going to change.

Acknowledging her credentials with a nod, he opened the door with a clang and let her into the cell.

The young woman sat in the corner, chained and clad only in a grey shirt of rough cotton. S