You'd Be Surprised What You Can Live Through
by, Phoenix Bradley

(Summary: Takes place after Jafar's death in the 2nd movie and after the Hercules episode "The Arabian Night" –if you haven't seen it, long story short, Hades brings Jafar back and they team up in an attempt to kill both Aladdin and Hercules, fail, and Jafar gets pulled into the River Styx. You can see it on youtube.- Jafar manages to get out of the river and while wandering around to look for a way out he comes across the fates toying with another mortal's life. Only this time that mortal is Jasmine and he realizes a lot has happened since he's been gone and he wants to go back. Rated T, I own nothing.)

Hades was seated on his thrown, reading over the list of newcomers when he could hear the crashing and thumping coming from the corridor and he groaned, rubbing his forehead. One of these days Pain and Panic would have to master the art of entering in a room without stumbling over each other. He soon saw their shadows darting closer and they tumbled in, one after the other, their worried expressions not concerning him in the slightest. Considering they were in the underworld there was only so much the dead could do… which really wasn't much anything at all.

"Yes?" he asked almost bored. Pain stumbled and stammered over his words then threw Panic in front of him and shoved him towards Hades' feet.

"You tell him!" he ordered. Panic looked up at Hades, shaking profusely.

"Tell me what?" asked Hades, still bored.

"Um…" stammered Panic. "Remember a few months ago… that new guy?"

"I get a lot of new guys, okay? You're gonna have to be more specific."

Panic cowered and shoved Pain in front of him. "You tell him!"

"Just TELL ME!" shouted Hades, fire erupting from his skin as he lost his temper. Pain and Panic screamed and stood there trembling before Pain finally spoke up.

"The tall and dark guy… with the twisty beard… what was his name? Jafa?"

"Jareth I think…" said Panic

"Jafar," groaned Hades.

"That's him!" Pain and Panic said in unison.

"What about him?"

"Uh… well…" stumbled Pain. "He's… gone."

Hades looked up, now interested. "Gone? What do you mean gone? He was pulled into the river Styx, there's nowhere for him to go. No one gets out of there."

"Begging your pardon your highness, but he… did…" stuttered Panic.

"Well then where did he go?"

"We… don't… know…"

Hades leapt to his feet. "What?! Find him! I can't have the gods thinking the lord of the dead has lost his touch! Go find him!"

"Yes sir!" they shouted and took off like a shot. Hades groaned and sank back in his throne.

"There's nowhere that guy could have gone. This is the underworld and no one escapes." He smiled to himself. "Besides even if he did he's dead, what's he gonna do, fly through things?" He kicked back and nodded. "No need for alarm."

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"Come on Panic! He can't have gotten far!" They scrambled over towards the river to see if they could see where Jafar could have possibly gotten out. Normally he could be seen floating near the edge, but now he was nowhere to be seen. Panic moved near the edge.

"Excuse me but have you seen a man climb out of here?" he asked. Pain struck him upside the head.

"They're dead you idiot, what do you expect to learn from them? Come on." He turned to leave but was stopped by a transparent figure standing before him.

"Panic!" he shouted but his warning was too late, in one swoop they both were knocked off the edge and into the river where souls clamored around them, dragging them under.

"No hard feelings gentlemen, but I simply cannot afford to be stopped by two blundering imbeciles such as yourselves," he said, turning slowly then glancing over his ghostly shoulder to them. "I'm sure you understand." He strode out smoothly, leaving them to their fate.

He wandered around the corridors, wishing he at least was familiar with the layout of this place. Even in his brief visit months ago he'd never really seen the whole of the underworld. But an exit couldn't be that hard to locate. "Soon I will be free of this accursed place, and I will have my revenge at last!" he growled to himself. "That street rat will regret the day he sent me here! He and that street mouse Jasmine. They will be the under world's most beautiful couple, doomed to circle the River Styx together for eternity!" He let out a loud evil cackle when a voice interrupted him.

"Keep it down will you?"

He turned, noticing a room at the end of the corridor and headed strait for it, peering in to find three women gathered around a table, a thread laying in the center and a pair of scissors. Beside them was a mirror with an eerie glow.

"Uh oh, we've got a live one!" spoke the shortest of the three, an eye resting dead center in her face.

"Hades' not going to like this…" said the second, a taller skinny woman with green skin and yellow hair that stood out in jagged strands. She seized the eye from the shortest and placed it in one of her two empty sockets.

"How did you get up here?" demanded the third, a taller woman with blue skin who took the eye from the second and placed it in one of her eye sockets.

"Never mind him, we have a job to finish!" said the first, seizing up the string. The eye was thrown up into the air and turned into a glowing portal which soon showed the image of a room where a young woman was sitting beside a bed where a young man lay. Jafar's eyes widened as he recognized them.

"Wait a minute… Jasmine?" He moved up to the image and got a better look. It was Jasmine all right. She was sitting on the edge of a bed in the palace and beside her was her husband, laying pale and sickly. "Aladdin?"

"It's a pity he couldn't have caught that sickness a few hundred years later," said the short woman. "They'd have had more than enough medication to cure it before it would have even put him to bed."

"But you can't pick your fate," said the blue woman.

"But we can!" they said in unison, delighted. They stretched out the thread as one of them reached for the scissors.

"What is that?" asked Jafar.

"His life. And it's about to be cut short," they cackled. Jafar smiled, catching on.

"So tell me then, if you end lives, can you also give them back?" They looked at him suspiciously.

"Don't even think about it," said the green woman. "You've already cheated death once."

"You're dead, enjoy it!" said the blue woman.

"Besides we're fates. We don't make mistakes. You're here because you're supposed to be here. We're not sending you back."

Jafar put a hand on his hip but turned on his charm. He would not be defeated this easily. "Ladies," he said with a grin. "Surely you know I was murdered. Forgive me if I'm wrong but wouldn't that mean I was taken before my time?"

"Murdered?" they scoffed.

"You met your fate fair and square," said the short one. "We make no mistakes."

He sneered and watched them stretch out the thread again and he couldn't help but feel his anger rising. Here he'd tried so hard countless times to accomplish what they were about to do in the blink of an eye with almost no effort. "Still…" he muttered. "It's a pity I met my time before that street rat." He grinned, "But then again, at least I get to see him meet his fate."

They stopped and looked to him, the short one giving him a smile. "Oh?" She turned to the others. "Perhaps a deal can be made, if this one thinks he can our job better than us."

"He obviously thinks he knows how to judge when man's time is up," said the blue one.

"And he's already dedicated himself to ending the life of another. Perhaps a deal can be made."

The green lady handed him a pair of old jagged scissors and the short one stretched out the thread. "We will send you back, if you truly feel your life is more valuable. All you have to do is cut the thread and end a life."

He looked to the image again. It was obvious the boy was going to die soon anyways so at the very least he would speed up the process… though ending his suffering almost didn't sound satisfying. The look on Jasmine's face as she held her husband's hand made him smile and make up his mind. At the very least it would get him even with her and he would have the thrill of watching her suffer. "You drive a hard bargain," he cackled with a smile, opening the scissors. "I'm afraid I'll have to accept!" And with a snip that echoed throughout the underworld, he cut through the thread. He could hear Jasmine crying as the image vanished and the eye fell back in the short woman's face, and the green woman shouted, "Incoming!"

Aladdin's transparent spirit floated by like a cold breeze and the women cheered as he floated past and towards the river. Jafar smiled eagerly and threw back his head in a loud bout of laughter. "Yes!" he shouted. "At last I have had my revenge!" He laughed again then turned to the fates. "I believe we had a deal."

They all grinned mischievously. "A deal is a deal. You will return to Agrabah," said the short fate. "However there is a catch."

Jafar's smile vanished. "What?!"

"You will return in the form you died in," said the blue woman. "A genie."

"What?!" he shouted again, but before he could do anything they snapped their fingers and a black lamp appeared beside him. "NO!" he shouted but it was too late. Smoke fired from the spout and engulfed him and he was pulled in angrily shouting curses at them while they cackled in delight.

"A deal's a deal," they laughed in unison.

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(A/N: R&R. This will be primarily an Aladdin fanfic, not Hercules, that's why this is in the Aladdin category. There will be very little more of these characters. Except for Jafar of course.)