Deja vu and the Clones

Previously:

A woman named Annie sees on TV that a vigilante dressed as Xena the Warrior Princess is fighting evil at night. She is convinced she is her, and she is the reincarnation of Xena. When she tells her husband, Harry, he doesn't believe her. They go to a Past Lives Councilor named Mattie. Through hypnotic trances, Mattie takes them allback several times and they discover that Annie was actually Joxer in a past life, Harry was Xena, and Mattie was Gabrielle.

Annie tells Harry they can't be together because he (Xena) and Mattie (Gabrielle) are soul mates. Annie goes off alone, vowing to be Xena in her next life. Mattie and Harry move in together.

When a scroll is found in the Ionian Sea asserting that Xena and Ares were married in front of the Fates, a press conference is held to report the details of the scroll to the public. Annie, who has held several menial jobs to fund her publication "The Joxer the Mighty Quarterly," is in attendance. In the meantime, Mattie and Harry have come home after a trip to Greece. Going through the piled-up mail, Mattie finds the letter about the conference and its subject. They hurry to get to it before it is over. Ares shows up, and convinced Xena will honor her vows, switches her spirit from Harry's body into Annie, and puts Joxer's soul into Harry. After much confusion and fighting, the scroll is destroyed, Ares is thwarted, and Annie and Mattie go off together, with Harry trailing behind.

Chapter One

The A&M Detective Agency

"Annie, you'll never guess what today is."

Annie looked up from her desk where she was reading the morning newspaper. Mattie was doing the same at her desk, only she was reading the LA Times online. Both had coffee and donuts, thanks to Harry, their receptionist/secretary/gofer. After Ares had switched Xena's and Joxer's spirits into Annie's and Harry's bodies, Annie and Mattie decided to convert the Past Lives clinic into an office for their new detective agency. What better way to find and to help those who need it?

All three of them were living in the house that had been Annie and Harry's, then Mattie and Harry's. Annie and Mattie moved into the master bedroom, and Harry was in one of the two spare bedrooms. (Annie and Harry had divorced not long after he and Mattie moved in together.) It seemed to be a satisfactory arrangement. Being early risers, Annie and Mattie were always up with the sun, and after a shared, long, hot shower, they would make their way to the office for the peace and quiet that inevitably ended when Harry showed up around eight thirty with a dozen donuts and large coffees.

Annie had decided she needed a new look, and had dyed her dark brown hair a bright golden blond. Mattie dyed hers a dark shade of red, and both kept their hair shoulder length or longer.

"Well?" Mattie asked again. "What day is it?"

"I don't know. Unless maybe it's the one year anniversary of Ares switching Joxer and me into our right bodies."

"You remembered!"

"Well, after you mentioning it every day for the past month, it was kind of hard not to."

"I didn't think you were listening."

"Are we going to go through that again? You bitched about it when you were Gabrielle and you still won't let it go."

Mattie grinned a big grin, letting Annie know she was just pulling her chain. Annie flipped the newspaper at her, then went back to the classifieds. Mattie turned back to her computer, looking for possible clientsas she scanned the news stories.

They were doing all right, now. It was tough at first, but with perseverance, and a bit of luck, they were able to help out a few high-paying clients -- recovering the kidnapped daughter of a movie producer unharmed, locating a stolen Escalade before it could be disassembled in a chop shop (and getting some appreciation from the police at the same time), and catching the stalker who was threatening a well-known television actress. They weren't rolling in money, but their joint checking account had enough in it they could go six more months without working and still pay the bills.

Harry, tired of losing at computer Solitaire, stuck his head through the door that separated the reception area from Annie and Mattie's office. "You girls about ready for some lunch?"

Mattie glanced up at the wall clock. It was a replica of Xena's old Chakram they bought online. "It's only 10:30. You can't be hungry already!"

"Are you forgetting who you're talking to?" Annie answered as she returned to the front page.

"Wait until 11:30, then you can go after something," Mattie told him.

"Anything in particular? After all, it IS a special occasion."

"Whatever you get will be fine with us."

"Nothing with celery or bell peppers," Annie instructed. "That stuff gives me heartburn. Or cucumbers. They give me gas."

"Any special dessert?"

"You really have to ask?" Mattie replied.

"Right! Anything with chocolate. And the more the better."

Harry went back to his desk as Mattie went back to scanning the news. "You know, they never did find those Xena and Gabrielle look-alikes who broke out of jail last week."

"I thought the Xena one sprung the Gabrielle one."

"Yeah, but they're still out there. Maybe we ought to look for them, you know, to give us more credibility with the cops."

"Is there a reward for them?"

"I don't think so."

"No pay, no work."

"Okay," Mattie said, and clicked on the link for the next page.

At 11:15 they heard Harry yell out that he was leaving to go after lunch. He knew what they both liked, and it would take three stops to get what he was after, including the one for the double Dutch chocolate cake he knew Mattie liked so much.

Harry was reasonably content to be the second banana. He loved them both, and the memories of being with both of them, both emotionally and sexually, gave him the glimmer of hope that maybe someday things might change back. He knew they depended on him for the more mundane things in their lives, such as bringing them coffee and donuts in the morning, and going after lunch, and answering the phone at work. He also did most of the cooking and cleaning at home. He also knew they appreciated him, in their own way.

Harry's first stop was for the spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread from the Italian restaurant Mattie loved. His second stop was for the takeout sirloin steak (well done) with grilled onions, baked potato with sour cream, and Caesar salad for Annie. His last stop was at a bakery that specialized in unique desserts for the cake. It also had a section set aside for sit-down customers who liked to savor their distinctive desserts along with their own line of exotic coffees. Unfortunately, there was more of a crowd than he expected, the owner was short handed, and he was getting impatient having to wait, knowing the food in the car was getting cold.

"Come on!" he yelled out to the woman behind the counter. "I'm a regular here. How about a little service!"