"Are you sure you're okay?" Gabrielle questioned. "You've had such an exciting day, I'm not sure how you've managed not to go into labor!"

Sorrow smiled, "This baby will be born in its own time, I suppose. I just hope it will wait for its father to arrive first."

"He'll be here tomorrow, I promise," Gabrielle smiled comfortingly as she gently touched Sorrow's soft, blue curls. "Xena's never let me down yet!"

Sorrow nodded, but her countenance turned sad as she looked to the fire circle and saw Joxer. The erstwhile warrior looked to be merely adding wood to the fire, but he was radiating with some new sort of sadness, and she recognized the feeling immediately. A few moments later, she felt the full brunt of his unhappiness completely.

He had been happy all during the meal, and afterward when they had talked for a bit, all exchanging stories and laughing. But through it all, one thing had remained constant - his attention to Sorrow and Gabrielle's every want and need, almost to excess. Now, with both women gone from his immediate presence, Joxer was feeling a strange, strong regret . . . and wishing he had with Gabrielle what Iolaus had with Sorrow!

Sorrow almost gasped when she sensed how truly sad Joxer was about the situation. They'd only discussed it a bit before Gabrielle arrived, and obviously not since, but she saw now that the unhappiness of his youth was nothing compared to the hole left in his heart by the Queen of the Amazons.

"Gabrielle, would you do me a favor?" Sorrow asked impulsively, her voice not much above a whisper.

"What is it?" Gabrielle replied, her brow furrowing in concern at the goddess' worried tone of voice.

"I know we haven't known each other but a few hours, and I know we have a lot between us to keep us from being true friends, but if you do feel friendship for me, as I most certainly do for you, then I know you can do this one thing for me - be good to Joxer?"

"Huh?" Gabrielle gaped at Sorrow in confusion.

"Be good to him - he loves you so much."

Gabrielle blinked at Sorrow in silence, unable to speak - she was utterly shocked by the goddess' admonition and reminder of what the wannabe warrior carried in his heart for her. She had tried hard to forget all about that, and she had thought that all was well between them since that time Joxer was so sick and she was taking him to the resin tree. She couldn't comprehend what Sorrow could possibly mean.

"But, I'm always good to him, aren't I?"

Sorrow smiled softly at the Amazon bard's reply, and Gabrielle blushed as she excused, "Okay, so maybe I'm not always patient with him . . ."

"You admitted yourself that you're sometimes a . . . 'bitch' . . . to him, right?" Sorrow grinned confidentially.

"Well, sure . . . but, I never meant to be! I'm sure it was just the wrong time of the moon phase, or something - "

"Don't worry, Gabrielle," Sorrow tried to keep from laughing at the bard as she scrambled for an excuse. "I'll be the first to tell you that it's a woman's right to play the 'bitch card' whenever necessary, but I was thinking that perhaps you could start saving that for the men who truly deserve it?"

Gabrielle couldn't speak for a moment, almost galled that she was being dressed down by this young goddess, and she felt a great wall of defense going up within her. She finally managed to whisper, "Okay, not that it's any of your business, but he and I have already discussed this between us, and last I heard we were fine, okay?"

"You are fine, perhaps, but he is not, nor will he truly be until you are both on equal ground," Sorrow explained, ignoring the offended tone of Gabrielle's statement. "Sure, Joxer isn't the most perfect of men, but surely by now you've seen that perfect men are few and far between. Sometimes you must take the good in them and let it overcast their lesser points, and I should think that would be easy for you to do with Joxer. He has been such a good friend to you all this time, Gabrielle. Can't you take time to count to ten before answering if you find a retort on your tongue instead of a compliment?"

Gabrielle's face was now bright red with a combination of embarrassment and offense, but she was also beginning to feel almost ashamed of herself as she answered in hushed tones, "Okay, I admit, you're mostly right; I have been pretty awful to him at times in the past - but I don't know how to even begin making it up to him."

"You don't have to, Gabrielle," Sorrow smiled broadly and laughed a little. "Don't you know that Joxer's love has made it possible for him to forgive you everything? He's never held anything against you. All he has ever held onto was his undying love and admiration for you, Gabrielle. In fact, did you know that the day he first fell in love with you was the day you first kicked his ass!?"

"You're kidding!?" Gabrielle gaped in surprise.

"No, I'm not!" Sorrow affirmed. "The moment you stopped fighting him and started asking questions was the moment you opened the door to his heart - a door that no one else had ever cared to open. In a way, he was like a puppy who had been kicked around a lot; he was used to it, but he wanted to follow the first gentle hand that petted him. That was your hand, Gabrielle, and no matter what you have dealt out with it, be it love or otherwise, he has accepted it with love, because he does love you so very much. It is that love that has kept him by your side through all the hard times of your life. Whether you return his entire feelings or not, don't you think that's worth a bit more consideration, Gabrielle?"

"I . . . I think I don't want to be having this conversation right now, if you don't mind?" Gabrielle struggled to speak, putting up her hands in a gesture of defense, for she felt something close to panic coming over her. "I don't know how to discuss this further without offending you."

"Just be good to him, Gabrielle. That's all he needs, and that's all I'm asking of you," Sorrow reiterated her simple request with a slight timbre of authority in her voice, then took a deep breath. "Now, I think I must go to sleep! I've got so much strength to recover, and sleep is the only thing that's good for both man and goddess alike! Thank you again for everything you've done for me today, Gabrielle, and please thank Joxer again for dinner, won't you?"

"I'll thank him," Gabrielle assured her uneasily as she helped the young goddess to a comfortable repose for the night.

"And you will wake me when Iolaus gets here, won't you?" she asked urgently, and Gabrielle bit back a smile.

"Of course we will, Sorrow," she reassured. "Now, get some rest, and we'll keep watch, okay?"

Sorrow nodded, and laid back on her pallet and closed her eyes.

Seeing that all was well with the young goddess, Gabrielle took a deep breath before turning around to face Joxer again. He was staring straight ahead, and it was obvious that he hadn't heard the contentious conversation they'd been having, and she was grateful for that. She had no desire to discuss this topic with him tonight, or any night for that matter, so she felt it was safe to return to the fire. Hypnotized by the flames, the would-be warrior didn't really seem to notice her presence, so she took advantage of his distraction to roll out her bedding and crawl into it, begging sleep to come upon her quickly.

"You found him that way?"

The master thief rolled his eyes and shrugged, "What can I say, Xena? I found him in the deepest, darkest hole Corinth has to offer, and he was trying to drink his way to the bottom of the barrel!"

"Are you telling me that he was like this when you found him - that you didn't have to get him like this to get him to follow you?"

"Get him like this to follow me!?" Autolycus echoed defensively, turning to point at the unconscious warrior splayed out on the horse behind him. "Just look at him, Xena - do you really think I hit him over the head to get him like this? He's drunk, okay? He's probably been drunk for months, and he probably would have kept on drinking if I hadn't found him when I did - which, by the way, was in the last place I could possibly look for him in, in this gods-forsaken city!"

"Iolaus was drunk?" Xena queried to herself, completely unable to believe that the warrior she'd come to know so well could fall so deep into despair that he would drown his sorrows in drink. "Sorrow," she whispered slowly to herself, realizing then that her friend must have been deeply wounded by Ares' antics, and she instantly felt sorry for him. "Well, if she's why he's drunk, then we'll see to it that he's cleaned up and ready before we take him to her. I don't think he'd like Sorrow to see him this way."

Even though she said it out of love for her friend, Autolycus noticed a certain disdain that came into Xena's voice whenever she mentioned the young goddess, so when he fell in beside her on the walk back to the open road, he excused, "She really is beautiful, Xena, and sweet, too. I hate to admit it, but she's the perfect match for ol' Goldilocks back there, if I do say so myself."

"You just did."

"What?"

"Say so yourself."

"Oh, yeah," he chuckled, trying to ignore the strain in her voice. "I guess I did!"

They walked on in silence, relying on the near-full moon to illuminate the road for them, and as they walked, Autolycus struggled to maintain his good humor. But, he didn't have much to be happy about, from his point of view. First, Xena had accused him of harming the hunter to get him to the gates, and now she was allowing her problems with the gods to cloud her judgment of the Goddess of Lamentation. Even with his adamant praises of young Sorrow, Xena seemed to be building up a wall against the girl before even meeting her, and that just seemed unfair to him. It was one thing to judge him, for he was the King of Thieves and judgment was a hazard of the job, but Sorrow was one of the few goddesses who actually cared about humanity. It just wasn't like Xena to be so prejudiced, and he took it personally that his word wasn't good enough to vouch for Sorrow.

Autolycus knew Xena was anxious about any interactions with the gods, which was why he had tried earlier on the road to tell her that Sorrow wasn't like all the other gods and goddesses of Olympus. While she nodded her head and grunted in agreement, the master thief knew from experience that Xena wouldn't believe it until she saw Sorrow with her own two eyes. As a result, he was trying very hard to be patient with her for the time being.

After at least an hour of walking, the thief had finally made up his mind to ask about camping for the night when the Warrior Princess suddenly turned off the road, following a trail only she could have found in the dark. Autolycus followed, trusting she knew where she was going, and after a short trek through the brush they came upon a clearing with a ready-made fire circle, and a small supply of firewood. Body-sized indentions by the circle told that the site had welcomed many a weary traveler, and only asked that ample firewood be left for the next traveler who happened by.

"We'll camp here for the night," she announced sternly as she began pulling her extra blankets from Argo's saddlebags. She then prepared a place for Iolaus to sleep off to the side of the fire circle while Autolycus pulled out his flint rock and began working on a small blaze from the remains of a previous traveler's fire.

Together, they then lifted the diminutive, drunken hunter from the back of the thief's horse, and Xena finally saw that Autolycus hadn't lied to her.

"Whew! What has he been drinking?" she whispered in exclamation as they carried him to the blankets.

"You don't want to know," Autolycus replied unjokingly as they laid him out. "But he's had a lot of it, and he's been at it for a long time, I think."

Xena frowned as she gazed down upon the sad warrior who slept so soundly in his drunken stupor. She had never seen him this unhappy about any woman - even herself - and she could only conclude that either this goddess had cast some sort of spell over him, or she was truly his soul mate. Xena's best instincts told her otherwise, but she consoled herself with the thought that she was perhaps taking Iolaus back to his true love and true destiny.

"He'll be okay," Autolycus said gently as he moved up alongside her, putting an arm about her as he did so. "We're all doing what we can to get him back to Sorrow, and I don't know that we could do any better for him than that. You're a good friend, Xena."

"So are you," she added firmly, her voice indicating that she would entertain no arguments on that point. A short moment later, she pulled away from him. "Let's set up camp. I could use some food and my bedroll."

Autolycus let his now-empty arm drop to his side and sighed unhappily before following the Warrior Princess back to finish unloading their packs and unsaddling the horses for the night. However, he was beginning to get seriously perplexed. No matter how hard he tried, Xena always found a way to put an end to the proceedings and put some distance between them. Tonight was apparently going to be same old song and dance, so he dug down deep and found the strength within to put a cap on his frustrated desires and prepared for another cold night on the ground by himself.

Autolycus set up camp while Xena took to the woods to find something to cook, and now that they were fed, the two conscious campers were seated across from each other, silently whiling away the last few hours of the evening before going to sleep.

The thief sat on the ground, leaning back on a fallen tree trunk while he watched Xena through the flickering flames, admiring her openly. She sat up cross-legged, seemingly oblivious of his deliberate survey of her, for she was focusing a good amount of time and concentration on the sharpening of her sword.

While watching, Autolycus became entranced by the movements of her hand as she passed the whetstone up and down the graded edges of the imposing sword. However, after some time, her hand movements began to gradually wind down to a slow, deliberate stroking of the blade, and all of a sudden he felt something move in his trousers. He gulped nervously as he further watched her burlesque actions, seeing far more than the sharpening of her sword going on, and suddenly he felt very angry.

"Come on, Xena - have a heart, will ya?" he blurted on impulse, his voice exhibiting the level of his strain.

"What?" Xena asked, sounding rather overly innocent.

"There's only so much a guy can take, you know!" he evaded answering, but could not restrain himself from chastising.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Autolycus," she continued taunting him. Xena had noticed his watchfulness of her actions, and had indeed wanted to punish him in some small way for all the liberties he had taken with her that day. He'd had no indication from her that such attentions were wanted, and she wanted to get a wee bit of revenge on him by teasing him. She was not surprised in the least that it had worked.

"You know darn well what you're doing!" Autolycus accused, wagging a finger at her in chastisement. "It's not fair play, Xena, and you know it!"

Angered and hurt, the King of Thieves rose up from his reclining repose and stalked away from the camp, going into the woods where he could deal with his emotions in private. However, Xena was quick to follow him, intent upon talking this out between them so things could go back to normal. She chased him for only a few yards into the trees before she reached him, and then she wished she hadn't.

Autolycus had heard her approach behind him, and before either one knew what was happening, he spun around and seized Xena by the shoulders, pulling her firmly to him and pressing his lips to hers hungrily. She squeaked in major surprise at his bold move, and she was extremely amazed at herself that she was allowing him to do it.

~ Oh, but he's such a good kisser! ~ she excused to herself, feeling something stirring deep within her as his tongue sought further access to her sweet mouth. She gave permission without hesitation, and relished the sensations that ensued with her entire being. She wouldn't say that she loved Autolycus, but he was a good, trusted friend, and gods knew he was certainly a "bad boy," and extremely handsome, too. He had all the makings of the perfect foil to her being, and without a second thought, she began to participate fully in the kiss.

When Xena's arms slipped up around his neck, Autolycus seemed to finally come to his senses, and he was horrified with what he found himself doing. Fearing deadly retribution, he abruptly ended the kiss, stepping away from her as quickly as possible in case she wanted to flip him, or worse.

"Oh, geez, Xena, I'm so sorry - I don't know what came over me!" he apologized sincerely, with more than a touch of fear to his voice. "Believe me, I'll understand if you have to kill me . . ."

Contrary to his fears, Xena appeared rather dazed and not the least bit upset at what he had just done. With a touch of a satisfied, but somewhat dopey, grin on her face, she patted him on the shoulder lightly and nodded, "That's . . . okay . . . just give me fair warning next time, will ya?"

Autolycus watched in amazement as the former Destroyer of Nations turned and walked back toward camp, accidentally stumbling on a tree root before exiting the forest. "Well, I'll be . . !" he gasped in amazement, for he never once believed that Xena could be affected by his attentions, but the evidence had just proven quite the opposite, and his pride swelled a great deal as he watched her exit the forest.

However proud he felt, though, he still wisely waited in the thicket a good while before daring to return to camp, and he was extremely glad to find Xena fast asleep in her bedroll when he returned. He sighed in relief as he thanked his lucky stars that he would not die at the hands of the Warrior Princess that night.

Not long after Joxer and Gabrielle fell asleep, Hercules materialized in the entry hall of the cavern, just steps from the main room where the two warriors and the goddess slept. After a quick inspection of himself to make sure he'd arrived in one piece, he peered into the cave and espied his two friends dozing by the fire, with the form of the sleeping Sorrow laid out on a natural rock tablature way off behind them. All was quiet and, for the time being, all was well.

~ For once, I'm arriving before I'm needed! ~ Hercules chuckled to himself as he moved into the main cave. He tried to be quiet, but his heavy footsteps stirred the two napping warriors, and they jumped groggily to their feet in semi-readiness for a fight.

When they saw it was the demigod who approached, they lowered their guard immediately and whispered simultaneously, "Hercules! Are we glad to see you!"

"Hey guys! How's Sorrow doing?" Hercules asked immediately as he accepted a hug from Gabrielle, not sensing any sort of panic in their synchronized greeting.

"She's sleeping," Gabrielle quietly reported. "No sign of the baby yet, thank Heaven, but she looks due any time now."

Joxer chimed in, "Xena and Autolycus have gone for Iolaus - Auto helped Sorrow escape from the Halls of War this morning!"

"Yeah, so I've been told," Hercules nodded hesitantly, worrying what might become of the thief if Ares ever found out. "So, when might we expect their arrival?"

"They'll probably be here sometime tomorrow afternoon - that is, if he was easy to find," guessed the bard. "If they've found him, then I would guess they're camping near Corinth right now."

"Corinth? Iolaus went back to Corinth?" Hercules mused, for he hadn't seen Iolaus since the day the Golden Hunter gave up the road and disappeared forever into the forest with Sorrow's fighting staff in hand, saying he didn't have it in him to fight the good fight any longer. Hercules had been sorry to see him go, but he understood. The demigod had suffered much loss in his life at the hands of his godly family as well, and he could not see fit to stop his friend from going and mourning his own loss properly.

And Hercules knew it had to have hurt Iolaus even more deeply because he knew his love was alive, locked up in the Halls of War where he couldn't get to her. It wasn't fair, and as a result, the poor hunter had walked away from his life entirely, mournfully protesting the rotten hand he'd been dealt.

"If they're in Corinth, then I reckon we have at least half a day's wait til they arrive," the demigod finally reasoned, then cast a doubtful look toward the pregnant goddess. "I just hope Sorrow's baby can wait for them."

"I sorta hope it can, too," Gabrielle nodded with a certain degree of self-doubt. "I'm not quite as skilled as Xena when it comes to childbirth!"

"Sure you are!" Joxer contradicted in a loud whisper. "You know practically everything Xena knows! Didn't you help her deliver Eve? Why wouldn't you do just as well as she would?"

Hercules grinned at the would-be warrior's emphatic words, and said, "Well, that's one vote of confidence in your favor, Gabrielle."

Gabrielle smiled wryly at the demigod and excused, "Joxer is clearly biased."

"I am not!" Joxer almost squawked aloud, then looked warily left and right to make sure no errant ears could hear what he was going to say before he excused to the bard confidentially, "You know I like girls!"

Hercules stifled a laugh at the confession, and Gabrielle felt a verbal barb rise to her lips immediately. Her hand even wanted desperately to reach up and thump his ear in irritation, but then she heard Sorrow's words echoing in her head, and she forced herself to behave.

Instead of inflicting pain on him, she slowly explained, "That's not what I meant, Joxer. I meant, you think I can do anything, and that's just not true. I only attended Xena when she gave birth, and even then she did most of the work herself."

"How does she do it?" Hercules wondered aloud to the bard. "I mean, I'd think she was a demigoddess or something, except no one on Olympus seems to want to take credit for her! What's her secret?"

"I haven't a clue," Gabrielle confessed truthfully, shaking her head emphatically. "She simply amazes me."

The three friends chuckled together over the many skills of the Warrior Princess before settling down by the fire to wait out the night and watch for day, as well as keep an eye out for any career thieves who might happen to wander upon the cave so often used by the felonious folk of Greece.

"Hey!" Joxer suddenly bobbed up from his bedroll. "How did you know we were here, Hercules? And how did you know that Autolycus was the one who freed Sorrow?"

"Yeah!" Gabrielle bobbed up, too, realizing that the wannabe warrior was right. "You never said how you found out about all this!"

"Aphrodite, but don't advertise it," was all he would say, and he rolled over to go to sleep.

"Ohhhh!" the two warriors both replied, nodding their heads in full comprehension, and they laid back down again, satisfied that no one nefarious on the outside of the situation had a clue where they were, and soon all were sound asleep.

On to Chapter Twenty Six

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