HERCULES: THE LONGEST JOURNEY

The forest was no more friendly than it had been the previous night. The only difference was this time it was still light and Iolaus could see the great spider webs suspended between the trees, the columns of busy ants and all the other inviting titbits the undergrowth had to offer.

"Aw hell," Iolaus groaned, walking into his third web.

Hercules looked up from his search for spoor. "What is it with you, Iolaus? You've never been scared of a monster in your life..yet all I've heard on this trip is whining--"

"I DON'T whine--"

"--Whining and complaining. If you didn't want to help me kill the beast why didn't you just stay home?"

Iolaus looked down into the clear blue eyes and shrugged. "You're right. I know I'm not myself, but...have you ever had a...a feeling--?"

"A Premonition?" Hercules offered helpfully.

"Yeah, yeah, a premonition? Like you know you're not going to make it through the next fight--like a certain place--" he looked around them, "is the last place you're going to see..?"

Hercules closed his eyes. The sudden memory of Iolaus in his arms, his life slipping away and then gone, leaving the pale, roguish blue eyes empty, devoid of all that made him the friend Hercules so loved, seared into his thoughts.

"Yeah," Hercules whispered, and rose. "I know. But I won't let anything happen to you." He locked gazes with the living version of those eyes. "Know that now. I won't let you die--"

Again...

Iolaus heard the word in his head, but it hadn't passed Hercules' lips. And yet he knew that Hercules had thought it too.

"There's something about this place, this trip you aren't telling me, isn't there? Isn't there?" he repeated when Hercules remained silent.

"Iolaus--if I thought it would help anything, I'd have told you a long time ago..."

The smaller man followed his friend deeper into the forest. "Told me what?"

"About my first trip to Gargarensia. Do you remember Pithis? The day Anya first cooked for all of us--just before your wedding?"

Iolaus groped a little for the memory Hercules was talking about. All he remembered about his time with Anya was, well, Anya. It had been the best time of his life, and all else during that all too brief period had been incidental...

Finally, through the memory of Anya's shriek at the sight of his mouse-like head in the window, Iolaus remembered Pithis. And that Hercules had known the man's name on sight...

"I think so. Why?"

Hercules stopped and turned in a small clearing. "He was Franko's father."

"But you didn't go to Gargarensia," Iolaus insisted, wanting desperately, somehow, for that to be true.

Hercules' face had lost its robust color again. "I did--the first time. After I convinced my father to reverse time, I knew what the Gargarensians had to do, and I told Pithis. I didn't go with him the second time...because I couldn't."

Iolaus, whose thoughts had been running at the speed of light, looked him directly in the eye. "You knew Hippolyta. It has something to do with Hippolyta. That's why you were so persistent about what she knew about Hera. Hera...again," he spat.

"Hera," Hercules agreed wearily. "The first time, when I went with Pithis, terrible things happened. Hera went crazy. I couldn't leave it the way it was so I pushed Zeus into putting things back the way they were. And then, when Pithis came, I didn't go. Five people lived who didn't the first time."

It was Iolaus' turn to lose the red splashes that had risen in his cheeks.

"I was one of them, wasn't I?" he asked quietly. "I died at Gargarensia the first time, didn't I?"

Hercules actually looked away. "I failed you. I didn't keep you at my back. I should have made sure you stayed with me..." Compassion overrode Iolaus' curiosity. "Why? Why would Zeus let you suffer all these years with those memories, when nobody else remembers?"

"Who knows why the Gods do anything?" Hercules muttered, knowing in his heart that he hadn't wanted to give up any of those precious moments with Hippolyta, or any of what he'd learned from her, or from Gargarensia, about women...and about himself.

And equally well aware that his father had to have known that.

"Do you believe there's a chance history will repeat itself?"

The nervousness of the question drew Hercules' attention. He smiled at his friend. "You wouldn't be here if I did," he pointed out gently. "I won't let Hera kill anyone else. I'm sorry that Pithis is gone. It doesn't seem fair that he should have a second chance only to fall to Hera again."

"And the others?"

Hercules looked inward. "Two of the men, killed by the Amazons as they charged the village under Hera's orders--"

He shivered as he delved back into the memories of that day, of Hippolyta, of laying with her, loving her, of wanting to destroy Hera so badly; of that terrible plunge, a plunge that ripped all the life from him and drowned it, along with Hippolyta's poor crushed body...

"--And, at the last, Hera killed Hippolyta to spite me," he finished hoarsely.

That threw Iolaus. It was okay in abstract to hear about his own death, but to know that the woman he'd broken bread with earlier...

When he'd regained some composure he realized that Hercules was hurting. Hippolyta was more than just a memory. It was obvious the Gods had been killing people Hercules loved, himself included, for a great deal longer than the big man had ever let on...

"How do we stop her?" he asked in a voice that shook.

Hercules looked up, his blue eyes hardened to stone. "We don't. I do."

"But--"

"No," Hercules whispered. "Not again. No more deaths, Iolaus. Help me take care of the monster and the village, but leave Hera to me."

After a very long pause Iolaus nodded. "With one proviso. I have no intention of letting you get killed here either."

They locked stubborn gazes as they had done many times from boyhood and only relented when finally, both found their resolve crumbling with their mouths. The laughter did both of them good.

"Deal?" Iolaus managed finally.

Hercules sighed. "Deal," he said, knowing that less would never pacify his friend, but silently resolving not to allow the situation to arise.

Iolaus stirred restlessly. The place Hercules had chosen for them to spend the night wasn't exactly ideal, being on earth and shale. None of their perambulations around the village had attracted the beast's attention, so they had compromised. Iolaus had wanted to return to the village, and Hercules to continue circling the little settlement. Finally, they'd agreed to camp at the site where the creature disappeared, and to wait for it there.

He sat up, dislodging the various rocks that had been pushing into his back and shoulder as he slept. Irritated at the repeated disruption of his normally predictable sleep pattern, he made a noise in his throat and turned to get up.

This time he saw a fire-lit profile before the cloaked figure vanished. A tortured, haggard profile, but recognisable yet. That the figure had been sitting quietly at Hercules' side was not lost on Iolaus, but he wondered at the significance of it.

Hercules himself was undisturbed, but again curled into a foetal ball, fists clenched at his sides, dusty streaks on his face.

Iolaus straightened and moved away to the edge of the glow from their campsite, where he stopped, deep in thought.

"You're worried."

The soft words made him jump violently, turn with his boot-knife pulled. Then he relaxed.

"Yes. Something's wrong. Very wrong," he agreed, turning back toward Hercules. "I thought you were the cause of it--"

"Until now?"

Iolaus nodded. "Do you know what's bothering him?"

After a moment's silence he turned back and met the other's haunted eyes.

"Yes, I do."

The pale blue eyes flickered. "But you can't stop it? Or--or you're part of the problem?"

The other nodded. "There's nothing I can do right now, except what I've been doing. And it eats at me."

"Which is why you keep coming here?"

Another nod. "Whatever happens, know this: I won't let her kill him. You understand?"

Iolaus finally smiled. "I understand," he said softly. "But I have to find out what's happening to him."

"Find the cause and you'll find your answer," the other said bitterly. "I know he loves you, and you him. Stay close to him, Iolaus. He doesn't know it yet but he's going to need you, more than he can ever know."

"But we both know its you he needs. Don't you think its time--?" Iolaus began, but before he finished the sentence he was alone, only the sleeping Hercules in his sight.

"I'm beginning to understand why you hate your relatives," he muttered and kicked at the firestones as he went back to his bed roll.

It was less than an hour before dawn when the retort of a snapping branch in the undergrowth alerted a sleepless Iolaus to trouble. For a moment he stared hard to focus tired eyes, to see who the intruder was.

Moments later, the beast loomed from the undergrowth, forcing him into action, Hercules close behind, still smarting from a sharp waking kick to his long shin.

Iolaus watched it with a combination of disbelief and disgust. "You have to kill this?"

Hercules snorted. "Yeah, I have to kill this. You got a problem with that?"

"Yeah. How are we going to get close enough to kill it without passing out from the stench?" he drawled, his face screwing up at the putrid waft coming from the creature.

Hercules made a face. "I wouldn't worry about that. If you care to take a look it happens to be on its way over here right now..."

"No," Iolaus muttered. "I don't think I do care. I think I want to go back to your mother's."

Hercules shot him a glance, despite the creature's approach. Iolaus' brow was clammy with sweat, despite the coolness of the evening, and his hand wasn't quite steady. A tremor of foreboding went through him.

"Stay at my back! And this time OBEY me," he commanded, as the beast leaped.

The fight went on for some time, Hercules almost single-handedly preventing Iolaus, who was amazed at the creature's tenacity and the extraordinary number of raking scratches and slashes it managed to inflict, despite Herc's apparent upper hand in the fight, from joining the battle.

Eventually Iolaus tired of obediently defending Hercules' back. He stepped away, stooped low, slashed both the creature's hamstrings before throwing the sword to Hercules in almost a single movement.

It toppled over with a blood curdling yowl. Hercules delivered a merciful deathblow to its neck with every ounce of power, of strength in him, as if somehow it could sever the vile umbilicus between himself and his stepmother.

Then both leaped back as the massive figure disassociated itself into a writhing cloud of green energy and vanished, leaving nothing but the stench in its wake.

"Well, that was easy," Iolaus couldn't resist cracking between rasping breaths.

Hercules turned and looked at him, but instead of the usual retort the big man seemed deep in thought.

"Too easy," he said eventually. "I was right. This was just the bait. The Gods only know what Hera will do now."

"Maybe we should leave, while we can? I mean, the village is safe now. It's us--you she wants..."

"I know," Hercules acknowledged, his mind filling with memories of his previous visit to the shabby little settlement. "But I also know Hera. I know what she's like when she doesn't get what she wants. Gargarensia may be in more danger now than before we arrived. If we stay, she'll come after me. If we go, they'll pay. Trust me, they'll pay...all of them."

"So what happens now?"

"We go back to Gargarensia and we try to end this thing."

"Shanna?"

"If Hera hasn't killed her in a fit of pique," Hercules retorted bitterly, indicating the spot where the creature fell as he strode past his friend. Blood matted Hercules' vest and trickled down one arm, but if he noticed, he didn't show it.

Iolaus lengthened his stride almost to a leap to keep up. He knew well enough that his friend felt every inch of those scratches, and would pay later for every moment of inattention.

"Yeah, well, we'll know soon enough," he pointed out. "Do you think we could eat before we go to the temple..?"

Gargarensia was just beginning to stir. The smell of morning wafted on the breath of a crisp dawn zephyr as it reached its fingers through open windows, doors, tree branches, and wended its way playfully around buildings and over roofs.

When it reached the two men approaching the door of the ad-hoc temple it caressed their faces, lifting the hair from their brows, as if trying, oh, so gently, to convince them to turn back.

Iolaus' stomach had given up rumbling and was now churning in response to the stink of the perished offerings.

"After you," he gestured.

Hercules made a face at him and strode into the building, oblivious of anything but the need to deal with his stepmother. Hera however, appeared to have other ideas. The altar was deserted. It remained deserted for the hour they stayed, waiting fruitlessly for Shanna to reappear.

The third time Iolaus' stomach growled loudly enough for Hercules to hear it, the bigger man, who was stiffening up and looking more than a little strained around the eyes, gave in.

"All right," he growled. "We'll go and find some breakfast. It's obvious that we're not going to get anything done here today."

As their backs disappeared through the doorway, however, a slim figure appeared at the altar, her eyes gleaming in the dull light of the building. She laughed, a deep, throaty, truly evil laugh, snapped her head back, and laughed again as the clutter of offerings and utensils vanished, leaving a wealth of flowers, seasonal and unseasonal, covering the crude altar.

"Come back soon," she purred.

They made their way toward the only food vendor in Gargarensia, aware that no enticing aromas emanated from the hide and timber building, no smoke from the roof, nor did there seem to be any significant level of activity.

"This doesn't look good," moaned Iolaus, his stomach growling violently again.

Hercules sighed. "There's always lunch," he offered, a gleam in his eye, despite the pain.

Iolaus turned to retort, saw the gleam and punched him in his good arm instead.

"You two look like you could use a decent breakfast."

Both men wheeled in gleeful anticipation to be brought up short by the identity of the offerer.

Hippolyta was standing in the doorway of her home, several metres away, a water vessel under her arm.

Iolaus sprinted. "Let me do that for you," he offered enthusiastically, helping himself to the big pot. "What are we having?"

Hippolyta laughed. "What ever you want."

Iolaus sighed contentedly and marched off to fill the urn.

"You've made his day," Hercules told her, schooling himself into a smile as he walked over to her.

"We don't have many visitors. And the tavern doesn't open until after lunch. The families have to see their men for at least part of the day."

Hercules couldn't argue with that, though it disappointed him to realize that at least some of the men he remembered trying so hard to improve themselves to win back their women had drifted back into old habits, and broken promises.

He sighed again, thinking of his own family and how unjust the fates, and the Gods, could be, separating a family as close as his and Daenaira's and leaving together so many unhappy alliances...

Hippolyta was watching him and wondering what could bring such pain to the eyes of such a powerful individual, when he drew close enough for her to realize that it was blood that discoloured the vest and not filth. Then she could see the pain around his mouth as well, though it was different from the hurt that had been in his eyes moments earlier...

"Come inside," she said gently. "There's fruit and bread for you to start on, and I made fresh cheese this week. Oh, and if you'll let me, I'll dress your wounds. Your clothes are torn to shreds."

Hercules looked down at her, unaware that the surge of fondness he felt glowed in his smile.

"You sound awfully domesticated for an Amazon queen," he teased gently.

Hippolyta's eyes bored into his. "What we choose, and what the Gods decree are not always the same. That was a long time ago, and I was much younger then. There are others to carry that mantle, now."

Hercules nodded and followed her into the house. It smelled good, filled with the aroma of fresh baking, a hint of cleaning, and a redolence of fresh flowers.

Like going home to his family used to be, he thought sadly.

The sound of Hippolyta's voice interrupted him.

"What?" he barked, unable to quite believe what he heard.

"I said: would you like me to wash your feet after I've tended your wounds?" she repeated patiently.

"No!" he barked again. "You don't wash feet." It tumbled out before he could stop it. The woman warrior he'd loved would wash no man's feet.

He took the bowl and pitcher from her and sat her down. She watched incredulously as he removed her sandals carefully and, still kneeling, placed one of her well-formed feet on his thigh.

Hippolyta's breath caught in her throat at his touch. He was close enough for her to smell the scent of his mother's herbal soap in his hair, and the faint tang of maleness and exertion mixed with the smell of old, well-worn leather. The sudden knowledge that she'd been there before, that this wasn't new, rocked her. She struggled to find a breath.

How could she know this man? How could she love this man, when she'd never seen him before?!

Hercules filled the bowl from the pitcher.

She wanted to touch the bent head, to feel his hair in her fingers. The fire spread as the wet cloth slid from her toes to the base of her leg, over her ankle, down to her heel, and was slowly drawn over her sole back to her toes. It was almost unbearable.

"Hercules..." she whispered.

The dark golden head turned upward, the blue eyes searching her face.

"Hippolyta?" he mouthed softly, hope rising in his heart, to be followed closely by dread. "You...remember?"

She reached out and touched his hair. "I...know you," she said carefully. "I know us. But...I don't understand."

He closed his eyes as her fingers stroked his brow. "We knew each other once," he breathed. "But the Gods made certain that we couldn't be together."

The fingers paused. "The Gods? Hera," she spat.

"Hera," Hercules confirmed. "I couldn't let you die, so I had to let you go," he admitted with more difficulty than he could ever have imagined, and mechanically began washing the other foot.

"When?" she whispered.

Hercules stopped washing and closed his eyes again. "A long, long time ago."

"Before we came back to Gargarensia?" she guessed.

He nodded, without looking up. "It...its better if you don't know any more. Zeus himself made time give back all that Hera took. I...I missed you."

Hippolyta's hand trembled. She rested her fingers against his cheek.

"I would have missed you too," she breathed. "I don't know whether to be angry that a part of me has been missing all these years, or--"

Hercules finally looked up. "Don't--don't be angry. Please, there was no other way--"

He found himself lost in her face, in the lips that hadn't changed, the eyes that were even more striking than he remembered, the tiny lines at her mouth that he found so telling all those years ago, the still perfect sweep of her small ears...

Hippolyta in turn was mesmerised by the tormented blue eyes. "I'm not," she admitted. "I should be, but all I can think of is how much time we've lost..."

Hercules let his knees rest on the floor and straightened on them so that he was looking down at her. Slowly, almost tentatively he slid his big, rough fingers over the softness of her face and into her hair, leaned down and covered her lips with his.

The years rolled back. In the silent, closed-eyed intimacy of their kiss, there was only touch, only the fire of lips, of soft skin, of tender hands, as there had been so long ago.

Hercules wanted to stay where he was forever, to hold that moment for eternity. It was as though every love that had ever been ripped away from him had returned in that moment. Hippolyta had once taught him how to really love, had been his first real love, could have been forever, had the Gods not...

He drew her out of the chair, his powerful arms wrapping tenderly around her and clamping the still slender body, unresisting, against his. He was about to lower his head again, when there was a crashing in the doorway and a great deal of muttering.

They both jumped, separated unwillingly and turned to the door. Water trickled across the floor from under it, as it opened.

Iolaus clambered in. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, water all down his trousers. He held up the urn. "I almost dropped it, but I didn't. It kinda slopped over though..." he added, as if noticing the small river of water for the first time. "Is there something I can use--?"

Hippolyta and Hercules rose without looking at one another.

"I'll get you a cloth," Hippolyta muttered, and to Hercules: "and something for your wounds," before disappearing through the doorway that led to the rest of the house."

Iolaus blinked. "Ah...did I interrupt something?"

"Did you..?" Hercules snorted. "What could there be to interrupt?" he asked with uncharacteristic acidity.

Iolaus blinked again. "You okay, Herc?"

Hercules half turned to the door Hippolyta had gone through. "No," he said through his teeth.

At that moment Iolaus' stomach turned a rumble into a roar. The aroma of the new bread was too much. He took another look at Hercules, who was still watching the doorway. There was nothing he could do to help, except...

"I'm starved," he announced, melodramatically. "I've gotta eat."

Hercules turned and watched with amusement as he took the urn into the kitchen, set it down on the floor and helped himself to the wide, flat loaves cooling on the workbench. The smile was reluctant and tugged itself into place, but it came nevertheless, as Iolaus' had intended.

"You want some?" Iolaus' voice was muffled by the bread stuffed in his mouth.

Hercules was about to shake his head, still smiling in spite of himself, when Hippolyta returned with some rags to mop up the water, a new bowl and a cloth for Hercules' back. She'd barely begun to mop the water when Iolaus arrived at her side and took them, his mouth still stuffed with bread, smeared with some of the new cheese. Hippolyta shook her head as he worked quickly and clumsily to soak up the puddles, then turned to Hercules.

"Take off your vest," she told him. Ultimately she had to help peel it away from the blood caked mess on his back. After rolling up the remnants and dumping them outside the door, she sat him on a stool and drew the bowl close. It smelled marvellously aromatic, redolent of herbs and soap.

"This will probably hurt," she warned.

"Not any more than it already does," Hercules told her wryly. His face however, told another story as she worked carefully to gently clean each slash.

He was pale and a little unsteady when she was done, but the blood was gone and the wounds were clean.

"Are you all right?" she asked when he stood and faced her.

"I will be," he said softly.

"I'm sorry about the vest."

"Don't be. My mother keeps a dozen of them for me. She says I'm so hard on my clothes that I don't deserve anything better." At Hippolyta's surprised look, he smiled. "What she means is that nothing else would last as long," he qualified.

At that she smiled back. "Well, it may not last as long," she said, stepping toward a chest that rested against one wall, "but there's something in here that will do for the time being.

It was a sky-blue silk shirt, wide in the shoulder and full in the sleeves. It crossed over at the waist and tucked into his pants, cool and soft against the heat of his back.

"Definitely your color," Iolaus teased from the doorway, returning from squeezing out the cloths from his mopping up.

Hercules rolled his eyes and finished tucking it in.

"My father was a big man," Hippolyta explained, watching him. "He wore this the day he married my mother. I still have the shawl she wore. She, however, cut her marriage gown into clothes for me before I was even old enough to object."

"I might bleed--"

Hippolyta shook her head. "By the time I was old enough to know what these were he was gone. She always said he died in the war, but I never knew which one, or where. Then one day when I was about fifteen, he came back. He spent all of one day with us, asked my mother for what little money was in the house and vanished again. She refused to talk about it. I haven't seen him since. Not even for her funeral."

He stepped toward her.

She raised a twisted hand. "Hercules, I need time to think. I don't know what's happening to me, to us. I don't really understand any of this, except that the Gods seem to be at the bottom of it. Please, give me a little time--"

The hurt was back in the blue eyes, but Hercules nodded, wearily. "Take all the time you need," he said without rancour. "We aren't going anywhere for a while. Iolaus..."

Iolaus looked up from disposing of the cloths, saw the expression on his friend's face, swiped another chunk of bread, shrugged and half smiled at Hippolyta, then followed his friend out of the house.

"Where are we going?" he asked for want of something better, and to prevent himself from barging in where angels fear to tread. He was barely keeping up with the larger man's deliberate strides.

"To the temple. I'm going to settle this once and for all. I have a right to a life too. I'm tired of being told what I can't have, what I can't do. I can't have a father because he's a God. I can't love a woman, because she belongs to Hera. I can't have my family because she took them...I can't even make a new life--learn to love someone new, because Ares decides that he has to have her..!"

Hercules stopped, his eyes wide. He'd been yelling in Iolaus' face, and his friend had stood fast and taken it. He hung his head.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I shouldn't be taking it out on you."

Moved, and remembering the same kind of pain in another, older face, Iolaus shrugged. "Who else are you gonna take it out on?"

Hercules found a half smile, shook his head and dropped an arm on his friend's shoulder as they turned for the temple.

"Nobody ever had a better friend," he said brusquely. "Just don't get yourself killed. I don't think I could take ano--"

"Don't worry," Iolaus cut in. "I'm not going anywhere, except to the temple of decaying food, of course..." he added facetiously.

"Yeah, well, at least the villagers got that part right," Hercules muttered.

Iolaus, nostrils already pinched, arrived at the temple doors a little ahead of Hercules.

"Huh?" he grunted and took a deep breath. "Flowers? Around here?"

Hercules paused at his side, frowning. "Don't think about it. We're not playing any mind-games with Hera. And watch your back."

He strode forward and bashed open the doors. By the time Iolaus caught up he was systematically destroying the altar, flowers strewn everywhere, and more flying across the room.

"He-ra!" Hercules cried out amid the crashing and smashing, as Iolaus had heard him do few times before. "No more, Hera! I want it to end here. Face me, now, and have it out!"

Iolaus moved nervously to guard Hercules' back. The room remained ominously silent, but outside a rumble of thunder seemed to grow ever nearer. The hair on his neck stood up.

As if sensing his discomfort, Hercules turned. "Whatever happens, Iolaus, I'm sorry for dragging you into this."

Iolaus blinked. He'd never seen that look in Hercules' eyes before. A look of resignation. The look soldiers got in their eyes when they knew they were going to die...

A truly eerie ripple went down his spine as he watched the big man standing in the ruins of the altar.

Then suddenly they were not alone any more. The crone shuffled toward Hercules.

"This was a mistake," she told them as the rumble became a roar. "Now everyone is in danger. You have to move your fight away from the village."

Iolaus' eyes narrowed as he watched the eyes in the shrivelled old face.

"She's right, Hercules," he said unexpectedly. "We have to get away from Gargarensia now, or it won't only be us knocking on Hades' front door--"

Hercules' thoughts were racing. "Why are you telling me this? And where is Shanna?"

The crone shook her head. "The child is no longer needed. Don't worry about her. You have more important things to worry about now. The kind of wrath you have wakened can only end in disaster. Where that disaster happens is now up to you..."

Hercules made a frustrated noise in his throat and strode from the building, Iolaus right behind. They didn't stop until they reached the clearing where the beast had been felled.

Above them the sky was growing darker and darker, the clouds tinged by an eerie yellow green haze as they swirled together.

"What do you think she'll do?" asked Iolaus, his mouth so dry he could barely get the words out. "

Kill me," Hercules said simply. "But not before I make it hurt, a lot, I hope," he added darkly.

Iolaus shrugged, scanned the sky, and the surrounding area, the waiting making his skin crawl.

"What is she doing?" Hercules muttered. "She never does anything up front. If she hurts anyone else-->"

A bolt of lighting rent the bile colored sky, making both men jump like startled cats, and exploded like a thousand clashing shields above them.

Hercules recovered himself to spring about in a fighting position, ready to defend himself. Iolaus was doing the same, but he turned toward the town first.

"Herc--" he called in a sickened voice.

Hercules turned. Smoke rose from Gargarensia's town square, and with it came wailing and screaming. Both men bolted for the town as the thunder and lighting intensified, filling all of creation with terror.

"No-o-o!" Hercules screamed as he ran. "Not them. Not again, you bitch!"

It was difficult to know what to do first. The well in the square was a smouldering mess, straw roofs were on fire, animals lay dying in the street. More lightning strikes hit the building housing the destroyed altar. Soon it was an inferno, oblivious to the piddling buckets of water thrown on it by desperate Gargarensians.

Hercules was forestalled from the decision he'd just made to find Hippolyta by her arrival in the square. Iolaus was helping to stop the fire from spreading.

"Hercules, we have to do something!" she cried, coming to a halt at his side.

"Like what?" he demanded angrily. "She's a coward. She won't face me."

At that the sky seemed to tear itself in two. A blood red ball of energy emerged to fill every centimetre of the air, stifling, almost choking in its intensity.

"I'm here," a voice seemed to whisper from all directions at once. "What do think you can do to me, son of a mortal whore?" it laughed.

Hercules' face filled with such violent hatred that Hippolyta stepped back, and Iolaus, who'd just come to a halt in front of them, drew a sharp breath.

"I can make you wish you'd never been born. And there's only one whore in my family," he added contemptuously, causing the red air to electrify, sizzling up all their arms and tingling across their scalps.

"That's right. Rage away, stepmother, because that's all you've done since the day I was born. What a waste of life, of your own miserable existence! All that hatred, and you think I've suffered? What have you accomplished since the day I was born? Nothing! All you've done is destroy! And in the process all you've really been doing is destroying yourself!"

The sizzling intensified.

"Look at you. All that's left is ugliness and spleen. You don't know how to do anything but hate!"

A bolt shot across the sky and struck the ground a few metres from Hercules' feet. Iolaus and Hippolyta were thrown to the ground. Hercules almost fell, but somehow remained standing.

"Not going to work, Hera!" he jeered.

Another followed, but this time it went over his head.

"N-o-o-o!" he screamed, turning to see it impact on Pithus' mud and hide hut. The crude little home exploded in flames, pieces of dried mud and leather flying in all directions.

Hercules was there in seconds, trying desperately to reach the screaming occupants. He didn't notice the eerie green glow of the fire as he lunged, again and again, trying unsuccessfully to get through the inferno.

"Wait!" Hippolyta and Iolaus cried simultaneously. By the time Hercules had swivelled to look at them, then stepped into the flames again, the crone was walking towards him through the maelstrom of fire, completely untouched by it. Beneath each arm and just as untouched, were Franko and Neria, terrified yet subdued. All of them were surrounded by the same strange, green glow.

When they reached Hercules, Neria hurled herself at him and Franko shuffled defensively behind him.

"Their mother?" Hercules demanded, Neria's arms wound around his legs.

"Down by the river, safe out of harm's way," replied the crone, smiled unexpectedly and then vanished.

Hercules blinked, picked up the trembling Neria and held her close, talking in a low, calming voice as the blood-red of the air intensified alarmingly.

The little girl stopped sobbing and smiled. "Really?"

Hercules nodded. "Really," he promised, set her on the ground and watched her run to her brother.

Iolaus and Hippolyta returned to his side.

"What can you do, Herc? She's a god. She won't play on even terms--" Iolaus complained.

"If my father had any backbone that wouldn't be an issue. He'd make things even, let me settle this once and for all!" Hercules shouted, more to the sky than to his friend.

Iolaus winced, remembering the sad figure coming and going in the night.

"Herc--" he began, too late.

It was as if the very air had been smashed with a hammer. The red shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, all vanishing within moments of each other. In its place was a vast red figure, a travesty of Shanna's form, with Hera's eyes, looking down at Hercules from a great height. It was disconcerting to realize that there was nothing more, no sky above, no firmament below. It was as if they were all suspended in a great emptiness, somehow, yet none of them felt any different.

"You don't need that old weakling to arrange this battle!" the figure cried in a distorted voice. "Nothing on this earth would cause him more pain than your death. Nothing, except that death be at my hands, that I extinguish any breath of immortality in your body, and consign your ashes to the earth beneath Hades' feet. No Eleysian fields for you, bastard child! No afterlife, no place on Mount Olympus for half-human get of a broken down God, so busy whoring that he doesn't even know what's going on in his little mortal playground when his own progeny are involved--"

"She's really pissed," Iolaus muttered, vaguely penetrating even Hercules' violent hatred. It was little more than a flicker in the flashing blue eyes, but it was enough to encourage Iolaus to speak.

"Hercules, she'll kill you. You won't do anyone, including Daenaira and the kids, any good if you let her destroy you like this--"

Hercules turned a stony face to him.

"It's too late, Iolaus," he said, remarkably softly.

"No!" It was jerked from Hippolyta's lips. She recognized the truth, but the pain of it was too much.

Hercules hesitated. Then he put out an arm and drew her close enough to brush her lips with his.

"I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, let her go and turned to Iolaus, regret blurring the blue eyes.

It hurt him to see the pain in the normally jovial face. "Iolaus...I'm sorry, my friend." He sighed, then shared a rare embrace with only brother he'd every known, while Hera laughed.

"You're pitiful," she stabbed as the men parted. "They'll make a perfect audience for your execution. The only thing that will give me more pleasure than your death and your father's agony, will be their faces when you die!"

Hercules stepped away from his friends. At the back of his mind something stirred at the use of the word 'agony' to describe any possible reaction of Zeus', but the rage, the hurt, the adrenalin coursing through his own body as he faced his stepmother kept the suspicion from forming. He lunged forward, snatching Iolaus' sword from his hand as he passed.

As he advanced, Hera began to hurl fireballs but Hercules rolled, deflected and dodged as he strode relentlessly toward the grotesque figure.

"What are you going to do, little Human? Kick me in the knee?" she jeered as he closed the distance between them.

Hercules sliced the sword across the red knees.

Hera shrieked with shock, if not pain, which worried Hercules not a jot, but the faint echo of another crying out in agony set his nerves on edge.

He looked up at the huge face, trying to see something human in it, some further foul twist of Hera's, but all there was to see was Hera.

"She'll kill him," Iolaus whispered, instinctively moving shoulder to shoulder with Hippolyta, frustrated by his helplessness. In fact, a part of Iolaus had already begun to grieve for his friend, for the future, even for Zeus--for the love he'd seen in the old man's eyes.

"That's it!" he cried suddenly, to no-one in particular, ducking as yet another fireball sailed overhead, deflected off Hercules' blade.

"What?" Hippolyta demanded through clenched teeth.

"Zeus!" Iolaus exclaimed. "She's doing this because of Zeus. It's all about Zeus, not Hercules. It's always been about Zeus. All this time, we thought Zeus wouldn't help because he didn't want to, because he was afraid of her." Iolaus shook his head.

"And--?" Hippolyta prompted impatiently, watching Hercules trying again to cut down the great red legs.

"He's not. He's staying out of it because he loves Hercules. If he got involved, if he put Hercules ahead of any of the Gods, including Hera, they'd side with her, and there'd be no-one to defend Humanity, no-one to stop Hera from destroying it--or Herc--at all..."

"That's a big extrapolation from very little evidence," Hippolyta muttered. "How can you know anything about the politics of the Gods? Zeus is their king. His wishes--"

"I know enough," Iolaus shot back as Hercules rolled away from yet another swipe of the great hands. Hera was playing. "And Zeus may nominally be king, but with the gods power is relative. You get enough of them together against one and it doesn't matter if he's Zeus, Hera, Poseidon or Cronus himself. We already know that Zeus can't be everywhere at once or he would have saved his grandchildren--" Pain flickered across the handsome face as he remembered the day Hercules told him. "What do you think would happen if a bunch of Gods got as mad as Hera is now? There's no way Zeus could control them, or save Herc, or Humanity in general, if they got seriously pissed."

"But how does all this help Hercules now? All you're saying is that he's is going to die, because not even Zeus can help him," she pointed out desolately.

"No! Don't you see? It has nothing to do with Zeus being Herc's father, or fighting alongside him, or even punishing Hera. It's so simple--I don't understand why anyone hasn't thought of it long before now--"

"That's exactly why," a voice said behind them. Iolaus wheeled as Hercules went spinning past them, blood blowing from a slash across one cheek.

The old crone stood there, her eyes deep pools of pain. "Because it is so simple. Because the simplest things are often the most agonizing. Because..."

They all three turned at a screech from Hera. It was immediately obvious that the Queen of the Gods had tired of her game. The fireballs had stopped. Hercules was hanging in mid-air above them, like a rag doll, choking sounds coming from a face they couldn't see.

"That's it, boy-child. You've had your challenge, and I've had my sport. Now its time to end it all, to make Zeus rue the day he ever touched a--"

Red foam dripped from Hercules' mouth and spiralled away crazily into the nothingness below them.

The crone closed her eyes while Iolaus and Hippolyta made frantic attempts to reach the dangling form.

Finally the she opened her eyes again. At the same moment the bent body began to grow. By the time Iolaus blinked she was as big as Hera, and had assumed the form of Cronus the Titan.

Iolaus did a double take and then another. He could have sworn a tiny voice chuckled at the back of his mind.

The giant Cronus plucked Hercules from the air and put him down next to his friends before facing the twisted red effigy of Shanna.

"Let the girl go!" the Cronus-giant rumbled.

"Leave now, and you won't be destroyed, little freak," Hera roared back.

"There is no destroying me," the other retorted. "You have done enough. Let the girl go!"

A great hand reached out and locked around the red throat. The crescendo of thunderous noise and frantic flashing of light, strangled screaming by Hera, flaring of flames and titanic grunting from the Cronus-giant threatened to drive Iolaus and Hippolyta insane even as they tried to free Hercules from the invisible vice-like grip that was still killing him.

The battle raged for what seemed like an eternity, until, eventually the Cronus-giant was lifted bodily and hurled across the nothingness. It landed on its back, and transformed shockingly, into the body of Proteus: the small, broken-bodied god who was Hercules' boyhood friend.

Hera laughed an insane laugh and put red hands on her 'hips.'

Proteus lay gasping for air and holding his ribs as Iolaus reached his side.

"Its you--I thought...never mind," he puffed in half breaths. "What can I do--are you--will you be okay?"

Proteus groaned and shook his head, then closed his eyes. A golden light seemed to pour from his lips. When it ceased Proteus groaned again, and vanished.

"YOU!!!" Hera roared in a frenzied screech.

Iolaus didn't have to be told, didn't have to see. He knew who it was, could feel who it was. There was that chuckle inside his head again...

"This is my dreamscape," thundered the coalescing gold figure, "and there's nothing the rest of them can do in here unless I allow it. You thought you created this? Think again, Hera. You're so vain, so lazy, so full of hatred, you didn't even notice when I slid you across your dreamscape and into mine, didn't even notice me inside Proteus."

Iolaus! We're losing him!" Hippolyta gasped, helpless to stop Hercules' torture.

"No!" Iolaus turned to the gold form. "Do something! She's killing him."

"Hera! Let him go! It was never about Hercules and you know it. If you kill my son I will never forgive you. More, if he dies, I die. I told you that once before."

Hera answered with a scream of rage.

"This is not how it should end," Zeus told her. "He can't take away your pain. Only one person in the universe can do that."

It seemed to be the last straw for Hera, who inflated the red form to a dozen times its already giant size. At that moment Hercules began to scream.

Zeus wheeled and bent to his son, taking the convulsing body into his arms.

"If you're going to kill him--" Zeus thundered, disassociating again into a golden light that seemed allow itself to be inhaled through Hercules' slightly parted lips. "--Then you'll have to kill both of us!" the dual voices of Zeus and Hercules finished as Hercules' body sat up suddenly and blinked.

Iolaus thought he was going to faint. He put out a hand at the same moment to steady Hippolyta.

"NO-O-O!!!" raged Hera.

Hercules gained his feet and faced his stepmother. "If you kill him here, I will die," Zeus reiterated, his voice echoed by his son's. "If that is what you want, if that's what you need so badly, then do it. And I'll make certain you go with us. Let there be an end. Let Humanity be rid of all of us! Don't you understand? I didn't create them to be toys for the Gods, woman, I created them to be all that we couldn't be. Their mortality drives them as we never have been: to find the joy, the pleasure, the passion in life. They live, they love, they die with an intensity no god has ever known, because we've never tasted death--it's all just a boring game to us... To them its life itself--their reason to exist. The reason why I love them--"

Hera scowled, making a scoffing noise in her throat.

"Yes, love them," Zeus repeated, "is because they're more real, more alive than all of the gods put together."

The overwhelming red presence faltered slightly in its intensity.

"And the rest of us? We have no place in your affections--we shallow immortals--we who have lost the art of living?" Hera demanded sarcastically.

"I've never cared any less for you, or the others, for all my affection for Humanity," Zeus owned, surprisingly candidly.

The redness wavered again. "I will never forgive you for what you've done to me!"

Zeus closed Hercules' eyes wearily and shook his head. "I don't want to be forgiven, Hera. I just want what Hercules wants--what Humanity wants...I want to be left alone. You and I have nothing left between us. And our father saw to it that neither of us would ever win any awards for our...how to put it?" He seemed to look inside himself, or at least inside Hercules. "Yes...our humanity. How could there ever be anything fine or noble between progeny of Cronus the child-killer?"

Hera roared again, this time in pain, the redness folding in upon itself until only the silk-clothed body of Shanna, little more than a child, stood before them, her frightened eyes still bearing the soul of the Queen of the Gods.

"Oh, Hera," Zeus said softly. "Have you so little faith in yourself that you still have to hide behind this little girl?"

Shanna shivered. "I am who I am," dual voices issued from her red lips. One was old, weary and hard, the other tiny and frightened. "I am as I was made, and as you have made me, Zeus. My humiliation is your humiliation. Your brothers, your sons, all the other gods see you now for what you are--"

Zeus nodded. "That's the joke, Hera," he told her wearily. "They've always known--and they've never given a damn. Do you understand what I'm saying? Not one of them ever gave a damn about me--or about you. They still don't..."

Shanna screamed and collapsed, fiery red energy issuing from her parted lips as she fell and filling the 'sky' above all of them.

"I will not forgive you!" Hera's voice thundered in a half-hearted echo of her former rage. "Not now, not ever. Never!"

The cry continued to echo long after the 'sky' tore open and the red cloud of energy exhaled itself through the rip.

In a blink Iolaus found himself back in the clearing near Gargarensia, Hippolyta at his side. She went immediately to Shanna, standing at Zeus' side, shivering and in shock.

Hercules, death white and unconscious, was again prostrate on the ground.

This time however, he lay in his father's arms. Hippolyta looked down at his face as she comforted Shanna and made a small noise in her throat at his nearness to death.

Only when he moved to comfort her, did Iolaus realize that Hippolyta's hair was now dark and flowing, her face smooth and unscarred. And when she closed her fingers around his as he momentarily beamed with delight, discovered that her hands were no longer crippled.

They both turned to Zeus again, the momentary joy quashed by fear and grief for their friend.

The old god's hands were trembling. "Son," he called tremulously. "Son, don't die. Hades doesn't need you down there now. People need you here..."

Iolaus' frustration got the better of him. "Make him better! You're the king of the gods--you can cure anyone if you want to--"

"You mean if they want me to," the old man corrected, without taking his eyes from Hercules wan face.

"He doesn't know if he wants to live. Daenaira and the kids are waiting on the other side, and he's tired, so tired..."

A strange look passed over Hippolyta's face.

"Unless he can find it in his heart to forgive me, I can't save him. If he chooses death now, he'll be turning his back on me forever--I'll never see him again. He's got to want to come back," Zeus explained, near to tears.

"But--but he has to live...he can't die. Not now. He--you--both of you defeated Hera--"

Zeus shook his head. "No one was defeated today. We just...agreed to disagree. He knows that. Maybe, if I'd punished her for what she's done, it might have given us both some satisfaction...but he knows as well as I that it was never really an option."

"Not even in the dreamscape?" Iolaus asked incredulously.

"Not even there," Zeus confirmed. "Hera must never know, but it wasn't entirely my dreamscape. The best I could do was to, well, superimpose mine over hers, but she never completely lost control to me. I couldn't risk her finding that out." Iolaus' eyes widened. "She's that powerful?"

Zeus half smiled. "We're both children of Cronos, boy. Whatever I am, so too is she, and the rest of the children of Rhea and Cronos--and their children. But you already understand that, don't you? I heard you earlier, you know."

Iolaus turned scarlet as he drew closer to Hercules' side.

Zeus looked down at Hercules again and found him unmoved, before looking back up at Iolaus.

"It's all right, boy. Being right isn't a crime. And sometimes even an old god like me needs a kick in the pants to get things in perspective."

Iolaus nodded, and put a hand on Hercules' shoulder. "Herc, you've gotta come back," he begged plaintively. "We need you here--I know you've heard that a thousand times, but, well..." he looked up at Zeus, held the ageless eyes for a moment of immutable truth, then looked down at his friend's near-lifeless face again. "But we love you--we need you. I can't imagine life without you, without fighting alongside you in battle, without knowing you'll be there when...when I need a friend."

Suddenly abashed at his painful honesty, Iolaus withdrew, turning away from the others to hide his shame.

Zeus moved strands of hair from Hercules' closed eyes, willing his son to open them again. He drew a sharp breath when he realized that the almost-blue face was slowly being suffused by a pale pink glow.

"Hercules?" he whispered. "Hercules, please, live. I love you so much, son. I have so much to say to you--so much I couldn't say before..."

He drew his arm more tightly around Hercules' shoulders so that his son's blood-soiled face was cradled against his chest. "I visit Daenaira and the kids regularly, you know." He chuckled. "They're great kids...that Clonus, he's a real chip off the old..." He choked on the words. As he looked down again, helplessly, a drop of moisture slid off his jaw and splashed in Hercules' right eye.

It flickered, the droplet splintering among the long lashes.

Zeus held his breath.

After a couple of beats both sets of lashes flickered again.

"Son..?" he whispered tremulously.

Slowly, the beloved eyes opened, squinted against the light, closed, then opened again and focused.

A moment later they filled with moisture.

Zeus laid a hand against Hercules' cheek as though he were a child. "I'm not worth it, son," he muttered unsteadily.

Hercules covered the hand with one of his own. "Dad..." he whispered. "I missed you..."

The old man's face creased with hurt and regret. "I missed you too, boy," he managed. "It's been so damned long--"

Hercules chuckled weakly. "Not for a god..."

Zeus made a noise in his throat. "No. Not for god. For a father," he growled brusquely.

Hercules struggled to control his own emotions. "I saw it. When you were part of me. I saw it all. Why didn't you tell me before?"

Zeus shrugged. "Would you have believed me?"

Hercules looked away. It was true. Had his father appeared after Daenaira's death to try to explain that Hera had deliberately waited until her wandering husband was in the throws of passion to destroy his family, he would have told the old god to go to hell--or worse.

Knowing the reasons why Zeus had stayed away, knowing that he wasn't betrayed, didn't lessen the pain, but it did release him from the relentless rage he'd carried since the day he and Iolaus had buried his family.

And with that sudden release, combined with the comforting warmth of his father's arms, came the tearing away of the walls he'd built to hold back the tide of grief and anguish that had threatened to engulf him so many times since that terrible day.

Hercules found himself helpless against the intensity of it, his shoulders rigid as he tried to choke back the pain, blink back the bitter tears, but the memories, all the bitter, despairing memories, conspired to assault him at once.

When he pushed his face rebelliously into Zeus' tunic, the old god held him against the silent, wracking sobs that came anyway, and closed his own eyes against the betraying moisture that continued to trickle from them.

Yesterday they might have shamed him. Today they were a link to the only thing left that he truly loved...

A moment later he looked across to the thirteen year old child-woman, Shanna, talking quietly to Iolaus and Hippolyta, and nodded to himself.

He would not make the same mistake again. And that she-wolf, Lysia, who'd willingly given her own child--his child--to a--thankfully unwitting--Hera, was going to know his wrath...

When he looked down again, Hercules was scrubbing at his face with a blue sleeve, and was attempting to sit up. Zeus helped him raise himself to a sitting position.

"What hit me?" he complained shakily.

"Hera," Zeus said dryly. "It's going to take a little while, but you'll be fine."

Hercules half smiled at him. "I've been angry with you for so long I still have this incredible need to hit you," he admitted.

Zeus laughed, a loud, long belly laugh.

Hercules thought of something, and his expression took the smile from Zeus' face.

"The hinds?" his son asked.

Zeus looked away. "Don't ask me, son."

"I have to know."

Zeus turned haunted eyes back to him and nodded reluctantly. "I owe you that much. Hera was going to use their blood to kill--"

"You..!" Hercules finished bitterly.

Zeus shook his head sadly. "You."

"No..." Hercules voice broke.

"I'm sorry. It was the worst thing I've ever had to do, but if she'd been able to--" But he was interrupted.

The others approached, Shanna moving to Zeus' side, and Iolaus and Hippolyta to Hercules' as he gingerly found his feet. When his eyes found Hippolyta's, they widened momentarily, half in amazement, half in wonder at her transformation.

It was obvious that the child-woman and the old man knew each other. Iolaus, looking from Hercules to Zeus and Shanna, suddenly realized what it was that bothered him about her back in the temple.

Her eyes were the same shape and the same blue, her hair shone the same golden-brown in the sun...

Hercules, about to speak to him, allowed his gaze to slide to where Iolaus' was riveted. The elder blue eyes widened as Zeus dropped an obviously affectionate, but completely inoffensive arm around the girl's shoulders.

His expression was wry. "Father?"

Zeus shrugged. "I put Gargarensia back the way it was, didn't I?" He looked down at Shanna. "There are some things I won't reverse, even for you. After she was born her mother took her to another Amazon tribe, rather than settle in Gargarensia. Even after all this, Hera doesn't know."

"Don't be too sure," Hercules said darkly, remembering the sounds of Shanna's suffering during his battle with Hera. Her legs were still badly bruised, even faintly lacerated across the knees.

Zeus' eyebrows rose. "She may suspect, but if she knew, Shanna would be dead, probably at your hand, son. I've taken great care to ensure that she won't suffer as you have."

"Then why did Hera choose her?" Iolaus chipped in.

Shanna turned to him almost shyly. She was pale, and still showing signs of shock from her ordeal. "Because my mother offered me to her. Lysia doesn't know that Zeus is my father."

Zeus shrugged again. "I never told her. Given her affection for my...wife...it didn't seem like a good idea," he offered. "But I'm very proud of my daughter..." He looked from one off-spring to the other, his eyes resting with particular intensity on his son. "I'm proud of both of you. Shanna may have her mother's stature, but she inherited your heart, Hercules."

"What will you do?" Hercules asked her gently.

Shanna shrugged, much like her immortal parent. "I can't go back, but I have no other home..."

"Then come to mine," Hippolyta interceded.

Hercules turned to look at her quizzically.

"I have a life to rebuild," the former Amazon queen continued, "and I would prefer not to do it alone. Circumstance has prevented me from having a child of my own, but I would be honoured to have the daughter of Zeus as my guest."

Shanna looked from one adult to another, suddenly looking, for all her womanly assets, like the child she was.

"Done," Zeus agreed for everyone.

"Zeus, is Proteus--?" Iolaus suddenly remembered.

"He'll be fine. I won't let anything happen to him," Zeus told him, and everyone knew that he meant it. "Now I think Hippolyta and Hercules have things to discuss. Why doesn't Iolaus here show us the way to Hippolyta's house?" he suggested.

"Food..." groaned Iolaus, suddenly remembering how long it had been since his last meal.

Hercules watched the trio head down the path to Gargarensia, still trying to come to terms with the changes in his life, in his relationship with his father...and a sister? A human one? He shook his head and turned to Hippolyta.

He tilted it to one side. "I guess we have a lot to talk about."

At the small, hesitant smile playing about his lips, she smiled back.

"You could say that," she agreed dryly as his eyes slid away for the third time, to the almost-out-of-sight party heading down the road.

After a beat he focused on her face. "You look...exactly as I remember you--"

She smiled. "But am I exactly who you remember me to be?"

Hercules looked bemused. "I don't know," he said finally. "But I haven't changed the way I feel--"

"The way you felt about the Hippolyta you loved once, long ago," she said softly, her eyes almost luminous in their strength of feeling for him.

Their gazes locked for long seconds, then Hercules bent his head and caressed her lips with his before taking them completely. Hippolyta gave herself to the joy of it for a time, then drew back, turned toward home and smiled wryly.

"We mustn't keep the king of the gods waiting."

Hercules watched for a beat as she struck out for Gargarensia.

"Gods forbid," he muttered, falling in at her side.

Iolaus and Shanna were still eating when they arrived, both sitting on the workbench in Hippolyta's kitchen, their mouths stuffed with bread and cheese. Zeus was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is he?" Hercules asked without prevarication.

Iolaus shrugged. "He was here up 'til--"

"Until Iolaus couldn't wait any longer. We were very hungry. We were cutting bread, and then he wasn't here any more," Shanna added. She looked tired and flushed, but seemed more relaxed despite the strain still around her eyes.

"That'd be right," Hercules muttered, more disappointed than he wanted to admit. He remained subdued for the remainder of the afternoon, although he ate well and joined in the almost-artificial post-trauma reverie of their meal together.

It wasn't until late in the evening that the day truly began to take its toll. Hippolyta, herself growing more tired and irritable by the moment, saw Shanna washed and into bed not long after sundown. Even Iolaus found himself yawning, his thoughts sluggish and his muscles weary.

Hippolyta was finishing the re-dressing of Hercules' back when Iolaus said goodnight. Both were surprised when Hercules rose stiffly and announced that he also, was going to retire for the night. Though disappointed, she let them go without further comment.

Iolaus' fair, boyish head barely touched the pillow before he was snoring.

Across the room, laying on his stomach on his bed roll, his eyes closed, Hercules smiled to himself at the sound. It took much longer, however, for the son of Zeus to find relief in sleep. Memories of Hippolyta and even more of his father churned in his thoughts. He'd have given anything to be with Hippolyta, but there was Shanna, sharing the only other bedroom.

Sleep finally came in the pre-dawn hours. And the dreams came soon after. At first, there was the pure, sweet joy of playing with his children, of tucking them in and turning to Daenaira, the woman--the friend--he loved most in the universe, glowing and happy at his side, and sharing his feelings openly. It felt so good it hurt. Hurt more than almost anything he could imagine...

And then the nightmare: the violence of the fireballs searing their flesh, wrenching them all from him; his own helplessness, and the vision, somehow, of his father standing there, watching, without lifting a finger.

The anger, the anguish, was immeasurable. And again, as it was every time he dreamed, he raged and rebuked his parent and again, as it always did, the figure began to turn away, its face unmoved by his agony.

Then, as if the dream-moment had suddenly blinked, the figure was coming towards him, warmth, pain in the old eyes.

Hercules' heart leaped to his throat as the figure drew close enough for him to see the leathery old face wet with tears.

Zeus stopped less than a metre from his son. "I knew she'd keep doing this to you, just out of spite," he said quietly.

"Then...then you're not part of the dream?"

Zeus shook his head. "I came because I owe you something, Hercules; because I couldn't tell you any other way." He looked back at the doorways to the bedrooms of Hercules' family and the smoke still issuing from them.

"I'm sorry." He turned back and looked directly into his son's grieving blue eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't there--haven't been there, when you needed me. More sorry than you can ever know. Whether you forgive me or not doesn't matter, today. All that matters is that you know."

Hercules woke with a start, to nothing but a moonlit room and a snoring Iolaus. He closed his eyes again, part of him desperate to get back to that moment with his father, but it was gone. He made a noise in his throat and sat up, rubbing his face. When he looked up again, ostensibly to tell Iolaus to turn over, he saw a cloaked figure.

"Wait--!"

The figure halted and turned slowly.

"Why did you keep coming--when you knew what was going to happen--when you knew how I would react?"

"I had to. If I hadn't been there Hera would have had Morpheus do terrible things, things that might have driven a sane man to madness--"

"Then you never really were part of the dreamscape?"

Zeus shook his head beneath the hood of his cloak. "But you had to believe I was, so that the others wouldn't notice what I was doing."

Hercules frowned, trying to shake the weight of sleep and to concentrate on the import of his father's words.

"Then, you let me keep having these nightmares--you were controlling what happened?"

"No, not exactly. You see, son, I can't undo what the other gods have done, but I can sometimes superimpose my will over theirs, and in some cases, redirect their intentions. What Morpheus intended you to see and experience after you relived the death of your family now resides in the nightmares of certain deserving souls down in Tartarus."

Hercules raised his eyebrows. "I'm not sure how I feel about that but...thank you. So will I have this nightmare again..?"

Zeus shook his head. "Not unless it comes from your own sub-conscious. Now that you know Hera was manipulating you, even Morpheus won't be able to fool your unconscious mind any more."

Hercules exhaled a long breath and lowered his head.

"It still hurts, doesn't it?"

He looked up and nodded. "I think it always will. Even when I found Serena all I could think of was how Daenaira was going to feel...and I hurt her, a lot..."

"Not so much," Zeus said gently. "She knows you have to go on living. The hurt was more for herself, for not being able to give you what you found with Serena. She's a very special woman."

Hercules smiled sadly. "She was...and more. I will never love anyone the way I love her."

Zeus didn't miss the tense change. "And Hippolyta?" he asked.

Hercules frowned. "She was the love of my life--before I met Daenaira. It was real and painful and I thought it would last forever, but when I met Daenaira I knew that what I'd felt for Hippolyta was a combination of passion and admiration. I wanted her, I admired...I loved everything about her, but what I didn't realise until I found Daenaira, was that I didn't know her. Within hours of meeting Daenaira I knew who she was. I could almost feel her in my heart. Hippolyta, on the other hand, was this wonderful mystery that I fell in love with, that I wanted to spend my life exploring..." He shook his head. "I never knew her. I was in love with Hippolyta, but I never really loved her the way I loved Daenaira."

"That's an impressive insight, son. You've come a long way, maybe even further than your old man," Zeus teased.

"Gods, I hope so," Hercules said fervently, and grinned at his parent, who grinned back. Then the smile faded. "All I have to do now is tell her."

"Maybe not," Zeus offered, straight faced, and stepped aside, revealing Hippolyta standing at the door with an extinguished candle.

"Hippolyta--" Hercules said helplessly, followed by another of Iolaus' snores.

She shook her head, her hair rippling in the moonlight spilling through the window above Iolaus' bed.

"Don't. What we felt was what might have been, a dozen years ago--an echo if you will. Back then it might have been grand...might have been worth everything...but not now. We've both been through too much, seen too much. We'd do nothing so much together as remind each other of the past, of all that might have been. Well, I haven't come this far to live for 'might have beens.' I want to make new tomorrows and new and better yesterdays for Gargarensia."

Hercules swallowed. She meant it, but there was still sadness in her eyes.

"I won't forget you," he said softly.

"I know," she whispered, and slipped away again.

In the silence the two men looked at each other, then Zeus spoke.

"You can open your eyes now," he said dryly.

Iolaus sat up and stretched. "Ha, ha. I thought I was being polite," he shot back.

Zeus chuckled. "You were, for an eavesdropper."

Iolaus grinned sheepishly and shrugged. "Didn't have much choice." He noticed Hercules wasn't looking at him. "You all right, Herc?"

It was Hercules' turn to shrug. "I'm alone again," he said without looking away from the door, infinite sadness in his voice.

Zeus and Iolaus looked at each other, and then back at Hercules.

Iolaus picked up his pillow. "I..." he said, hurling it at Hercules, "don't..think..so."

Zeus roared with laughter as his son caught the full impact in his face and rolled backward, then got up and hurled two pillows back at Iolaus, causing him to crash noisily off the low bunk.

Then the king of the gods caught Hercules eye and the laughter faded. "It's true," he said softly. "You'll never be alone, son."

Their gazes held as Iolaus dizzily dragged himself back onto his bunk. Then Hercules allowed his eyes to slide momentarily to the red, bedraggled face of his best friend before meeting Zeus' ancient eyes again, the strength of sudden emotion now in his own.

"Yeah," he whispered, the sombre face slowly wreathing itself into a grin.

"I--" But he didn't get any further. His mouth was too full of pillow.

THE END