Authoress' Note: This story begins in late June of 2001, approximately two weeks after 'Soul Possession' and 'Being Ares: The Pilot', which took place on the same day.
P.S. While you have to be familiar with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess to read this story, you don't need as much background on 'Being Erica' to follow along. In that series, Erica Strange, a 31-year-old woman living in Toronto in 2009, undergoes the same time travel therapy featured in this story, in order to learn from her regrets over her past choices. While Erica's doctor is Dr. Tom, the therapist featured in 'Being Ares', Dr. Naadiah, appeared in a handful of 'Being Erica' episodes and was once Dr. Tom's therapist and his mentor during the series. In short, 'Being Erica' lends its premise and a few of its characters, but this is first and foremost a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys / Xena: Warrior Princess fanfic.
Being Ares: The Vague-Ares of Fate
Part 2
A Xena: Warrior Princess / Being Erica Crossover
By Arianwen P. F. Everett
When Ares arrived at Cyrene's tavern, the dinner hour was in full swing and the woman was dashing about with full plates and mugs, never sloshing a drop or stopping for a second. He could see where Xena got her gracefulness from in the tavernkeeper's movements and began to wonder what type of warlord the mother might have made in her prime. Certainly she couldn't have been any worse than her husband. Despite Atrius' skill on horseback and with a sword, even Joxer had more common sense and self discipline than the man Cyrene had married. Realistically, she couldn't have been any worse.
Setting aside his ruminations, Ares settled on a plan. First, he had to freeze the room. Like her daughter, Cyrene didn't cower before gods and she would be impatient and unwilling to listen to what he had to say if her business was apt to suffer as a result of taking the time to speak with him. Stopping time cinched that problem right up and gave him leverage. If she wanted to get back to work, she'd have to chat.
Seeing everything stop around her, Cyrene froze of her own volition and scanned the room, her eyes finally stopping on the leather-clad God of War that had tried to have her killed by her own daughter at the temple of the Furies. Not wasting the time-stop, Cyrene placed the dishes and drinks she'd been carrying in front of her unmoving customers, and after calmly wiping her hands on her apron, looked Ares straight in the eye, refusing to be intimidated by his godly tricks. "Well, what do you want?"
"You know, you sounded so much like your daughter just now, I'm almost too creeped out to have this conversation, but to answer your question, I'm here to arrange a prisoner exchange. Caesar has captured Gabrielle and plans to crucify her at first light. Unfortunately, a few years back, I Caesar my word that I wouldn't directly interfere in any of his campaigns, which prevents me from simply busting Blondie out, but if I can offer him someone whose crucifixion would be equally distracting to Xena, he might be willing to bargain for Gabrielle's release," Ares explained succinctly. Xena hated winded speeches and Ares doubted her mother would be any different, especially when she was as busy as she'd been a moment earlier.
"And why do you suddenly care so much about Gabrielle's safety? From what I've seen, it would suit your interests just fine if she died on a cross like a slave," Cyrene questioned, confused as to why Ares was willing to sacrifice someone he barely knew to the savage Roman, but was pulling out all the stops to rescue a young woman he genuinely hated.
Ares bit back a bitter retort about how poorly Gabrielle's crucifixion a few years from now had served his interests. That was one of the draw backs of time travel. You had to curb your tongue, else you could seriously damage the timeline with an offhand comment. "That's my business, and this is not open for discussion. I will be trading you for Gabrielle tonight; however, your courage in dealing with the Furies a while back has earned my respect, which is why I'm giving you a heads up. Pack a bag and change into something warm; Britannia is far colder than you're used to."
"What about my tavern? What about my customers? I can't just up and leave?" Cyrene wailed, biding for time. She wanted to help Gabrielle, but she wasn't a warrior and she had a business to think about. If she left, she might come home to a ransacked shell. At the very least, she'd loose a lot of regulars.
An impish smile lit the War God's handsome features, and Cyrene had to suppress a snort of laughter at such a childlike expression on such a dark and dangerous god's face. "Oh don't worry about that; once I have my deal with Caesar, Gabrielle is going to find herself standing right where you're standing now. Grab a scroll, some ink, and a quill; leave her instructions on caring for your business if it's that important to you. Caesar won't acknowledge his captives until he's done inspecting his men and dealing with the couriers who are bringing him news from Rome, so we have a little over an hour before we have to go. I can wait here till you're ready."
"I'll go to my room and pack," Cyrene nearly growled in resigned indignation knowing she was beaten. If her daughter couldn't dissuade Ares from a chosen path, what hope did she have? All she could do was keep her eyes open for trouble and remain as insignificant as possible. That had always been her trick to surviving. The sole time she'd broken that rule was to protect her daughter's life, and the consequences had lasted decades.
While he genuinely believed the tavern owner was doing as she'd been instructed, Ares kept a sense of Cyrene's whereabouts to ensure she didn't try to run. She was Xena's mom after all, and he'd learned long ago not to assume anything about the love of his life's intentions. That craftiness had to come from somewhere.
However, that didn't mean he couldn't sate his curiosity about something he'd ruminated on as a mortal farmer. Strutting into the kitchen of the inn, Ares easily located the the cook pots and examined the contents of each one. During that week when they'd stayed with him on the farm, helping to cement his new image as a humble farmer, he'd heard Xena and Gabrielle go on and on about Cyrene's magnificent rabbit stew, and how it was such a shame that Ares had been a god for nearly all of Cyrene's life and had never gotten a chance to taste it now that he was mortal. Finding the right pot, he snatched up a bowl and ladled out a serving, grabbing a knot of bread and a simple wooden spoon on the way back into the time-frozen tavern hall.
Before he could seat himself at the sole empty table, Ares noticed Dr. Naadiah standing by the entrance of the tavern, examining the place. While she seemed extremely interested in the detailed decorations and architecture, his mortal therapist paid no mind to the frozen men and women around her, as if she'd witnessed a time freeze before and thought nothing of it. Considering the powers he'd seen her demonstrate in her office, he concluded that she probably had. "Primitive, I know, but nobody knew any better back then, save we gods, of course."
"Having a snack?" Dr. Naadiah questioned as she drew closer to the God of War and gestured towards the bread he was about to dip into the stew.
"When I was mortal, Xena and Blondie mentioned that this had been the best rabbit stew in all of Greece. Those conversations, that week they stayed with me after word had gotten out that I was mortal, those moments were.. are.. very.. important.. to me. The way Xena laughed at my jokes and smiled at me when I finished a project around her grandparent's dilapidated old farmhouse… It was all so… Look, nobody had ever treated me like a real person till Xena came along, and she raved about the stew, so I figured I'd give it a try on her recommendation, that's all," Ares confessed, mixing the stew around in the bowl as he spoke. Talking about his feelings had always been incredibly hard for him, but without the marriage contract, this could be his and Xena's last karmic go-around, and he had to do whatever it took to win a permanent place with her. If giving himself up to Dr. Naadiah's process was the price, he'd give himself whole, no questions asked.
"And yet you intend to hand her mother over to Caesar tonight?" Dr. Naadiah asked neutrally. There was no judgment in her voice, only an attempt to reconcile two ideas that seemed to conflict with one another, and Ares felt the need to clarify. Dr. Naadiah might be mortal, but she had earned his respect.
"Xena is already planning a rescue with Boudicea. In the original timeline, Caesar had Gabrielle tied to the cross, but Xena prevented her legs from being broken and then cut her down, catching her as she fell. Cyrene isn't some wilting violet; she's tough. The worst she'll endure is a good scare and, maybe, some rope burn," Ares detailed, knowing Xena would save the day, just as she always did.
"So Xena will save her mother and take her back to Boudicea's camp, and Gabrielle will be teleported here, to Amphipolis?" Dr. Naadiah reviewed, ensuring she understood her patient's intentions, while allowing him to hear them out loud.
"Right. Cyrene is of no use to Dahok; she's killed before and she's too old to bare a child. Even if Gabrielle left Amphipolis immediately, it would take her over two weeks to reach Britannia, and by that time, Xena and Cyrene will be on her way back, hopefully with Caesar's head stuffed in Argo's saddlebag," Ares smiled broadly, imagining a triumphant Xena, safe and sound, riding home with her mother at her side and Caesar's severed head as a trophy.
"And you don't think this Dahok's followers won't just pick another girl to rape and impregnate once Xena and Cyrene go on their merry way?" Dr. Naadiah rebutted, needing Ares to see that this therapy wasn't about quick fixes.
"Dahok chose Gabrielle himself, and he can't just order his people to grab any fertile village girl who's never taken human life before. He needs to be able to manipulate her into committing murder, into sacrificing her blood innocence within his temple, before he can enter the world and rape her on his alter. Gabrielle is already used to fighting. She already has combat reflexes for Dahok to exploit, which is why she didn't just freeze up the first time around. Finding a healthy, young woman, who has the skills and experience he needs, but hasn't already lost their blood innocence in the course of learning those skills and gaining that experience will take time. That time will be mine as well, and unlike before, I won't waste it playing Olympian politics and armchair quarterbacking two blood rivals more interested in destroying each other than in stopping a threat to all life on Earth," Ares grumbled in his upset with his previous choices, and committed himself to doing whatever was called for to see that things didn't go down the same way as they had before.
Dr. Naadiah saw Ares drifting farther into his plan and she needed to pull him back. All too often, patients saw this therapy as a way to change their past rather than a way to learn from it, and as a new patient, Ares was uniquely susceptible to this misunderstanding. Yes, there were ways to change the details, but Ares needed to work on himself, not the situation, and it was Naadiah's job to get him back on that course. "And why is it all on you, Ares? I mean, the other gods are ignoring the threat, I get that, but surely there are others who'd take Dahok more seriously. Your brother, Hercules, for instance, or Xena…"
"I tried going to Xena! I tried explaining, but she had her head so far up Caesar's ass, she couldn't hear me! She willfully refused to see the danger Dahok posed, and she passed off my warnings as a selfish desire not to have my power usurped by a foreign god! It was only after Dahok raped Gabrielle that Xena understood, but even then she refused every offer I made to help her fight for this world, as if she blamed me for what happened to Blondie because I hadn't been persuasive enough to get her attention in the first place," Ares defended, needing Dr. Naadiah to see his attempts at persuading Xena to recognize Dahok's evil before it was too late had been genuine.
Dr. Naadiah knew her patient wasn't going to like this next suggestion, but he needed to understand the options that he had if he were going to complete this regret. "Ares, you said that, in the end, it was your brother, Hercules…"
"Originally it was, but not this time. Besides, you said it yourself; this therapy isn't about changing other people's past actions, only my own. I need to see this through, my way," Ares insisted, refusing to even dwell on his infuriating half brother. He needed focus now, not rage. If he failed in Britannia, Hercules would get his chance at Dahok two years from now, but Ares was determined not to let it come to that. He knew a lot more about love and sacrifice than he'd known the first time Dahok had attempted to enter the world, and he was sure he could stop the one great evil himself. Xena needed him and he would be her hero this time, whether she chose to acknowledge his contribution or not.
Dr. Naadiah sighed, knowing how very much her patient wanted to be Xena's hero here and now, but that wasn't in the cards. Ares was right. During the Twilight he'd learned much about love and sacrifice, and even more still in the years and centuries that followed. But the Ares of this time didn't understand any of these things, and when her patient returned to the 21st century, the previous Ares wouldn't understand his actions and would be unable to acclimate to his new choices. During his first regret, Ares only had to analyze his motives more closely and act on that analysis, something he could have done had he chosen to the first time around. What Ares was now proposing was drawing from life experience that wouldn't be learned for at least several more decades, and that was against the rules. "What I said was that dissecting other people's choices wasn't part of our work together. Going to Hercules for assistance would still be your choice and…"
"No.. just.. no! I can't! I can't watch him use this situation to push her further away from me! What happened in the original timeline was bad enough, but if I concede that I can't do anything here, that I'm powerless to help Xena in even the slightest detail, Jercules will take full advantage of that failure! You saw how he convinced her and Blondie to hop on a plane to DC and interrogate me about Evander's disappearance! He could have come himself, demanded answers himself, but hey, why waste a golden opportunity to drive an even deeper wedge between me and the only woman I've ever loved? Make no mistake, Dr. Naadiah, that was a preemptive strike to prevent me from apologizing for what happened at the press conference. I fell back on old habits and I tried to manipulate her. I get it, and I'd intended to apologize once Xena had settled into her new life and was ready to hear my apology. Now Jerkules has her believing that I killed my own son, so there goes that plan," Ares sighed with exhaustion. He was so tired of all this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't bullshit, but he couldn't afford to rest.
"Ares, I know many of your deepest regrets involve your relationship with Xena, and I also know you didn't kill Evander, but that's not what you're here for right now. In my office, you told me that you wished you'd taken more direct action in Britannia, and that you planned on getting Gabrielle out before Dahok could rape her this time. That needs to be your focus," Dr. Naadiah cajoled, understanding Ares frustration, but also knowing that the lesson he needed to learn had nothing to do with Xena, his son, or his brother. It was about how he came to the decisions he made, and right now, he was falling into the same pattern that had led him to make an ass of himself at the press conference several hours before their first session.
"Look, you said it was my choice, and my choice is to trade Cyrene for Gabrielle and then deal with Dahok's cult before the one great evil can pick another girl to violate and carry his soul-less, puppet-spawn," Ares stated firmly, finally digging into the stew he'd been playing with since his therapist's arrival.
He'd barely gotten three spoonfuls into his mouth when he heard Cyrene's footsteps returning to the tavern hall. The middle-aged woman, who now had a bag slung over her shoulder and was wearing a travel coat and a thicker dress, was giving him the hard, assessing glare he'd dreamed about for centuries from her daughter. "Alright, I'm ready."
Turning to introduce Cyrene to Dr. Naadiah, as he figured Xena's mother surely wouldn't miss the motile therapist sitting next to him, he found that she'd already left. Being a god, he was used to this from his family, but on the rare occasion where he ended up on the receiving end with a mortal he'd always found it downright disturbing. Recovering quickly, Ares materialized a ten-dinar piece and tossed it to Cyrene, who caught it expertly before giving him a questioning look. "For the stew. I served myself; it was uncommonly good. I can see why Xena and Blondie enjoy it so much. Now let's get going."
Not mentioning the compliment or the gross over payment, Cyrene merely pointed at her frozen customers and staff. "And them?"
"Oh they'll unfreeze as soon as we leave. Don't worry about it," Ares answered before placing the now empty bowl down on the table, standing up straight, and teleporting the two of them to the high plain where Caesar and his men had made camp.
As Dr. Naadiah was returning to her desk in order to follow her patient's progress and mull over his previous words, a knock on the inside of her seamless white door startled her and she looked up to see her mentor and former therapist, Dr. Arthur. "You wished to see me?"
"Yes, I'm having a bit of an issue with a new patient, Ares, and I need your guidance," Dr. Naadiah began as she watched her mentor take the seat across from her. This man had helped her come out to her family and deal with the consequences of her mother's cruelty and subsequent death. If that were all he'd done, she'd be eternally grateful, but he'd also gotten her to the point where she could help others, help people like Ares who felt trapped and unable to fix their lives, the way she'd felt in her final semester of college when she'd attempted suicide after her girlfriend of two years had left her. The day he'd walked into her hospital room six years ago was indeed the luckiest day of her life.
"Well we knew working with a god would present unique challenges, but he was chosen, so.. what seems to be the problem? Is he resisting the process?" Dr. Arthur asked as he folded his arms and settled in for a long conversation.
"No, no, Ares is very committed and more on track than most new patients in their first few sessions. The problem is his brother, Hercules. Two thousand years ago, shortly before their demise, Hercules studied with the druids and learned the path of illumination, which is enabling him to remember the original threads. Ares first regret involved his decision to manipulate a former goddess, Nemesis, into giving him a son. When Ares made a different choice, and remained on Mount Olympus the night that his son, Evander, was originally conceived, the immortal man the child grew into, who was still alive in 2001, ceased to exist as well," Dr. Naadiah explained, laying it all on the line in the hopes that the two of them might find a door where she was only seeing a brick wall on her own.
"And Hercules has lost contact with him due to the alteration to the timeline, doesn't know why, and is worried about him," Dr. Arthur concluded, beginning to see a very messy situation brewing.
One of his other former patients, who'd been a doctor for nearly a decade now, was a big Renaissance Pictures fan and had happily loaned Dr. Arthur his entire collection of video-taped episodes when his former therapist had briefly mentioned there was a new patient who was involved with the Hercules and Xena TV shows. While Naadiah had declined watching the tapes for background, due to her insistence that she didn't want any preconceived notions about her patient to get in the way of his therapy, Dr. Arthur had been curious and after scouring the internet, had located the episodes Ares played a role in and watched them. He knew who Evander was and that he was close with Hercules, seeing him more as a substitute father than an uncle, and if the relationship between Ares and his brother was even half as bad as the series' depicted, Naadiah had good cause for concern.
"Yes, but it gets worse. He's actively involving other gods, some immortal friends of his, and now Xena and Gabrielle's reincarnations, in searching for his nephew. They broke into Ares' apartment in Washington DC and interrogated him earlier this afternoon. I dragged him out of the situation and he happily went on his next regret, but it's affecting his choices in the past. He refuses to examine viable options out of worry that his new decisions will be used against him once he returns to the present, and I can't promise that they won't be," Dr. Naadiah finished with a sigh. Under normal circumstances, patients lived with the changes they'd made to the timeline and learned from them, but nobody else was supposed to know there had been another reality. Hercules not only knew, he was making Ares' present more difficult for it.
"That is most definitely not good. Ares can't move forward on his regrets if he has to watch his back every time he returns to the here and now," Dr. Arthur stated, trying to tunnel his way around this conundrum.
"And I fear it's causing him to lean on his godhood with his current regret. He's waging a war, not seeking viable solutions to the problems before him," Dr. Naadiah added, worrying about her patient's perspective. Perhaps she should have dealt with the Hercules situation before sending him on his second trip into the past.
"Then he will live with the consequences. You know as well as I do that sometimes repeating mistakes can reveal more to a patient than rectifying things the second time," Dr. Arthur reminded, bolstering his protege's confidence in her course. They were all in uncharted territory offering this therapy to a god, but that didn't necessarily mean Naadiah had taken the wrong path. Even if she had, mistakes were an inevitable part of life's journey, for gods and mortals alike.
Dr. Naadiah nodded thoughtfully, an idea presenting itself with her mentor's words. "And maybe I've been wrong in assuming that Ares needs to completely separate his godhood from his time in therapy. In his previous regret, he told Xena in no uncertain terms that he was born to be the God of War, that it wasn't a choice or a convenient excuse to kill mortals, but a fundamental part of his nature. If so, asking him to work on his regrets solely as a human would is both unethical and completely counterproductive."
"Indeed. Indeed. Okay, how about this; I will give some more thought on the Hercules situation and you will focus on your patient and his current regret. Once he's returned to his present day life, we'll meet back here and confer again. Hopefully we'll have more of a sense of how to proceed," Dr. Arthur proposed as he stood up and moved towards the door to Naadiah's office. He had some contacts he'd generated over the past twenty years he'd been a therapist and they might be able to help him figure out how to proceed with the most well known hero in history who was currently posing as an actor.
"Alright then. I'll see you soon," Dr. Naadiah replied, feeling a bit more confident, despite not having made any firm plans. They were all in motion and doing their best. She had faith they'd figure something out.