CHAPTER ONE :
THE GOD OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME

Xena winced as her lover cleaned out the deep gash on her shoulder. It would have to be stitched, though it was not that bad, the Warrior Princess had certainly had worse. The blade that had cut her this time, however, had been dipped in some kind of sulphurous solution and it burnt like Tartarus. The warrior that had inflicted the wound had, of course, paid the price on the end of Xena's sword.

"Sorry," said Gabrielle as she heard Xena gasp sharply, "I'm trying to be gentle."
"I know...it's okay. Just....aagh...just do what you have to, Gabrielle."
In an attempt to take Xena's mind off her discomfort, the young Bard engaged her in conversation, asking "Do you think it will always be like this, Xena? I mean people fighting eachother. Do you think we'll ever learn to settle our differences peacefully?"
Xena smiled at her bard and answered honestly, "I don't know, Bri. I'd like to think so, but..." she squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden pain and whimpered, catching her breath with difficulty before she went on, "there does seem to be something in human nature that compels us to always be fighting for something. I'm really not sure if we can change."
"I hope not, I'd be out of a job," boomed a deep male voice behind them. Both women jumped with surprise and turned to see.....
"Ares!" groaned Xena, turning back in apparent disinterest, "what in Tartarus do you want?"
"Now Xena," replied the god, in mock irritation, "you are so cynical. What makes you think I want anything?"
"I know you" countered the warrior, a look of utter distrust on her face. Ares sat beside her but even he didn't dare to touch her uninvited, not in her present mood.
"Can't I just come to see if my warrior is alright?"
"She's not your warrior anymore, Ares," Gabrielle interrupted, "can't you get that through your thick head?"
"Oh don't worry, little wifey, I haven't come to take her away from you."
"Then what do you want, Ares?" repeated Xena, anger darkening her face and her voice.

Ares sat back against a clump of rocks and answered "well, I couldn't help overhearing you just now."
"Have you been eavesdropping on us!" asked Gabrielle, her voice filled with contempt.
"No, of course not, I just happened to be passing..."
Xena let out a scornful sigh, "yeah, right" but Ares stared at her admonishingly and continued,
"As I was saying...I just happened to be passing and I thought you might like an answer."
"An answer to what?" Xena sighed impatiently.
"To your question about the future. I thought you might like to see whether your pathetic species ever manages to overthrow me and give up war."
"Ares, I'm in no mood for one of your twisted little plots right now, so either tell me what you're talking about or get out of here."
Ares smiled lasciviously and got up as if to leave, "Oh you'll see what I'm talking about very soon, Xena." He began to walk away but turned as if he'd had an afterthought, "Xena, try to get some rest....you look like..." and with that he disappeared.

Xena collapsed back onto her bedroll. "I swear that guy get's crazier by the day" she complained, as Gabrielle resumed treating her shoulder. She turned her face away from her companion so that the young woman would not be able to see the expression of pain on it, but Gabrielle knew her wife too well and she wasn't fooled. She sat back on her heels, tying to work out how to finish this job without causing her lover any more pain. Suddenly she remembered a gift she had been given and, putting down the seasponge, moved over to Argo to retrieve a small bottle from her saddlebag, bringing it back to the reclining warrior. "Here," she said, offering Xena the vial "try this."
Xena eyed the small, green bottle suspiciously and asked "What is it?"
"Vidalis gave me it months ago," the bard replied gently, "he made it with herbs from his garden. Apparantly it relieves any pain and lets you sleep soundly."
Xena's eyes brightened, Ares had been right about one thing - she did need sleep, but then they shaded again. "Are you sure it's safe?"
"That's what I asked him."
"And what....did he say?"
"That as long as you only take a tiny sip, it's no more damgerous than wine or mead."
Xena shifted a little and wave of stinging heat in her shoulder made up her mind. "Alright..." she agreed, "let's try it." She took a tentative sip and as soon as the liquid hit her gullet she fell back onto the ground, stars swimming around her head.

* * * * * *

Xena floated in blackness, the stars round her head seeming to buzz as they swirled. After a while the swirling stopped and she was suspended in a black sea of stars that looked like the night sky over Mount Athos. Suddenly a light flashed past her, something like a shooting star but much closer, and then the buzzing stopped to be replaced by a distant hum. In her mind she heard Ares' voice calling her name softly and yelled "Ares! What in Tartarus is going on? Where have you taken me?"
"Relax, Xena," said the voice in her ear, as the god materialized at her side, "I haven't taken you anywhere. You're still in Greece, you're just unconscious, that's all. I thought I'd take advantage of your temporary state."
Xena tried to pull away from the wargod's clasp, but since she wasn't standing on a surface it proved dificult. She managed to turn to Ares and snarled "if you think that, unconscious or not, I'm ever going to let you touch me again, you...."
Ares looked hurt and insisted "Oh come on Xena, I don't want anything as ordinary as sex....not that sex with you was ever that."
Xena sneered and enquired with forced calm "then what do you want?"
"I want to show you something...something that may just convince you to return to your true path and become my warrior again."
A look of sheer incredulity came over Xena's face as she took a breath to argue, but she was silenced by Ares' large hand over her mouth. "Just hear me out, Xena, that's all I'm asking" and he lowered his hand to his side.
"All right," she said petulantly, "I'll play. Guess I don't have much choice. What do you want to show me?"
The god of war looked smugly at the warrior and said "first I should explain the situation."
"Yeah, that would be good" said Xena sarcastically.

"Where do you think we are Xena?" asked the god, as he steered her along in the weightless environment.
"Looks like we're in the sky" she replied.
"You're half right. Actually, we're way above the sky. This may be difficult for a mortal to understand but try to concentrate."
Xena looked at him dispargingly, but her interest was peaked in spite of her better judgement, so she kept quiet and obeyed. Ares began his explanantion, telling the warrior all about space and stars and planets, and then came on to Time. "We haven't just moved our place in the universe, Xena, we've also moved our point in Time. From your perspective this is almost two and a half millenia in the future. A lot has happened to your species in that time but they haven't really changed as much as you'd think." He went on to explain about space travel, starships and aliens, and when he fell silent he looked over at his stunned audience and waited for her reaction.
"How do I know you're not just making all this up?" she asked suspiciously.
Ares merely shrugged and admitted calmly "you don't, and I'm not going to waste my energy trying to convince you, but hear me out then decide for yourself, okay?" That wasn't like the great Ares, god of War, at all.
"Okay" she agreed tentitively.
"Good. Now...hold on, I'm going to show you something."

* * * * * *

"Bring us about, Mr Paris!" called the compact little red-head, grabbing onto the rail in front of her to avoid being blown off her feet as the ship rocked once more. "Tuvok, target their warp engines." Xena shielded her eyes as a flash of light errupted beside her and turned towards her guide. "Where in Tartarus are we, Ares?"
"I told you. We're in your future. This is the starship Voyager of the planet Earth.....your planet." Xena turned back to watch the amazing goings on, wondering why none of the strangely clad crew had noticed her extraordinary presence. "Don't worry," Ares reassured her, as if reading her mind, "no one can see us and you can't get hurt. You're only here in spirit so just enjoy the show, Xena. Learn the future of humanity."

Another spray of sparks spewed from a console and a man in gold and black fell moaning to the deck, his hands pressed hard to his bleeding face. The young man was promptly hauled to his feet and helped into the turbolift as the captain was thrown to the ground by the power of the next blast. The small woman leapt to her feet and, running to the console her injured crewman had vacated, began tapping buttons. "There's another one on our tail," she announced over the din as a blasted piece of conduit landed barely an inch from her head and smashed into the console. "Evasive manouever Alpha 6, Tom."
"Aye, Captain" shouted the sandy-haired pilot as he sent the ship into a diving roll that would take them under the belly of the enemy ship, Tuvok firing rapid volleys of laserfire as they rose on the other side. "Full spread photon torpedoes" yelled the captain, and Tuvok obeyed, the missiles hitting their target square on its massive hull and impacting with devestating force. "They are disabled, Captain," Tuvok announced, his tone betraying not a hint of his feelings on the subject.
"And the other one?"
"It is retreating."
The captain took a deep breath and nodded. "Let them go," she said, "we'll be out of their territory in a few minutes. Set a course, Tom. I'll be in sickbay."

Throughout the course of the raging battle, Xena had been staring wide-eyed around the bridge, her mouth dropping further open with every passing incident. Now she found herself back in the emptiness of open space, alone but for Ares and the stars around them. The god gave her a few minutes to think and then asked, "You see, Xena?"
The stunned warrior turned to her former mentor and enquired "what am I supposed to see?"
"Oh, come on, Xena! Twenty-five hundred years and humans are still fighting, only now they've extended their battles to include the entire universe. The technology may be more sophisticated, the weapons more deadly, the ships faster, but basically nothing's changed." He turned towards Xena and took her shoulders in his big hands. "Come back to me, Xena. War and death are in your blood, in the blood of your entire species, and they always will be. You can't change that so why not accept it and use it?"
Xena laughed incredulously and sneered, "use it to do what, Ares? Honour you?"
"Yes, and honour yourself. I'm your destiny, and the destiny of your race, Xena. Don't fight that, it's one battle you can never win."
"Maybe," said the warrior quietly, "but that doesn't mean I should give up trying. You know me well, Ares. You know I've never surrendered to anything, and I'm not about to change that now."
Ares dropped his hands and took a step nearer to his target, placing himself before her and fixing a gaze on her that would have made a lesser mortal whither. "No surrender, huh?"
"Never" she confirmed, shaking her head. The God of War took a step back and nodded slowly, a smug smile tugging at his mouth. "We'll see, Princess," he promised as he began to fade, "we'll see."

* * * * * *

Gabrielle laid the cool, damp cloth on Xena's glistening forehead and stroked the hair from her face. She had been nursing her wife through this fever for two days now and, though she knew from experience that Xena was on the road to recovery despite evidence to the contrary, she couldn't stop the pangs of worry that kept clenching her gut. Xena moaned and began twisting her head as if in distress, dislodging the cloth from its resting place. "It's alright, Xena," Gabrielle soothed, not sure whether the warrior could hear her or not, "you're going to be okay."
"G..Gabrielle!" Xena groaned, her unseeing eyes flicking open and her arm thrashing on the earth.
"I'm here, love," the bard reassured, catching hold of Xena's hand and holding tight as her other hand stroked the warrior's brow, "I'm right here. It's okay."

Slowly the dark eyes seemed to focus on the bard and Gabrielle smiled tenderly as the warrior came back to awareness. "Hey you," she said softly, "welcome back" and she leant down to place a gentle kiss on the warrior's cheek. Xena smiled and made a move to sit up, but her wife put a gentle hand on her chest and eased her back onto the bedroll, telling her to rest. She found a water bottle and held Xena's head up so she could slake her dreadful thirst and wet her parched throat, and then she leant against a tree and cradled the warrior's head in her lap. Xena looked up at her beautiful spouse and smiled warmly. Now that she was feeling more comfortable she said "Gabrielle, I have to tell you where I've been."
Thinking Xena was still a little delerious from her fever, the bard tried to soothe her and said "sssh, Xena, rest. You haven't been anywhere, my love."
Xena smiled and lifted Gabrielle's hand to her lips, reassuring her, "I know I haven't actually been anywhere, but while I was under Ares came and showed me the future." She laughed at the incredulous expression on her wife's sweet face and continued "I know it sounds crazy, but I promise I'm not delerious. Just listen, okay?"
"Alright, tell me" smiled the bard as her hand stroked gently down Xena's cooling cheek.

When Xena had come to the end of her story she looked at her wife's face and felt the wonder and confusion. "How do you know he wasn't making it all up?" asked Gabrielle indulgently.
"I suppose I don't really," answered the warrior, "I just think that if he were going to make something up to get me back, it would be something a little more believable than flying ships and weapons made of light. I mean....." but her sentence was cut short by the sudden appearance of a stranger.

The stranger materialized out of thin air and stood staring down at the couple, a look of utter disdain on his haughty features. He was dressed in a style that Xena recognized but Gabrielle found strange in the extreme. "Xena...Gabrielle," the man greeted cordially, "I am Q, and I'm here to set the record straight."
"Q!?" said Xena, "what kind of name is that?"
"The only kind I have, I'm afraid" replied Q, kneeling down before the weakened warrior and resting his forearms on his knee. "As I said," he continued, a little superciliously, "I'm here to set the record straight as regards the future of humanity."
"Are you a god?" asked Gabrielle.
Q shifted so that he was sitting next to the warrior and, flicking his eyes between the two, answered "yes, if you like, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I'm here to tell you that what Q....I mean, what 'Ares' told you is not entirely true, Xena. He only showed you a tiny part of the story."
Xena let her head drop back onto her wife's lap and groaned "why doesn't that surprise me?"
Q cocked his head slightly in a gesture of agreement and said "I would like to send you back to the future, I mean both of you. I'd like you to experience it and see the truth of what will be for yourselves, and not just in spirit but in fact."
Xena was suspicious and asked "why?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Q, "call me a sentimentalist, but I think you should see all sides of the story before you make any descisions about your personal future. Will you let me send you there for a while? I promise it won't have any effect on this time or place."
Gabrielle answered immediately "Xena's in no shape to go anywhere at the moment."
"Well if that's all it is" said Q, running his hand over Xena. Within half a second her fever vanished and the warrior felt completely well and very strong. She sprang up to her feet and took in a deep, refreshing breath. "What did you do to me?!" she demanded, staring down at Q with a mixture of gratitude and suspiscion in her eyes. "Cured you," Q replied in an absolutely matter- of-fact voice, "now are you both ready to go?"

End of Chapter One

SW
09/07/01