Post-"Quest"

Here's a brief transcript from the end of "The Quest," followed by a brief post-"Quest" reflection.

"Yes?" Xena looked up from sharpening her sword at Autolycus, who had come to sit near her and who was looking particularly full of himself.

"Well, I'm just giving you your chance. To thank me."

"I thought I already did. But if you need to hear it again, then thank you—for helping to bring me back. If you ever need a favor, it's yours."

"Bringing you back?" he laughed as though at her misunderstanding. "Oh no, no. I let you experience what it's like to be Autolycus," he said, with a sharp thump to his chest. "You were in there. You were controlling my bodily functions. That's not something I do for everyone."

Xena stared at this performance in dismay. Leave it to Autolycus to make everything about his self-importance. She began to smile. But, she knew better now—and she had him.

"No, you don't often let people see who you really are either. I was in there. I know." Oh, he was starting to look nervous—good. "In spite of all your bluster and bravado, you're a nice person." He glanced down in what she could tell was extreme discomfort at the direction her words had taken. She spoke in utter seriousness then. "I knew I could trust you, and I always will."

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Xena was smug, and Autolycus—uncomfortable. She knew too much now, things he didn't like to look at, to think about. His cover, and the reasons for his cover.

"Yes…well…" he muttered, looking down. He didn't meet her eyes. "Yes. There you have it."

Then he looked up at her warm, amused expression and spoke, "thank you," in the voice of some other Autolycus, some person he wasn't (or, had not been for some time, since before…since before).

But, he was that person. And she'd seen. No hiding. He saw a kindness in the warrior's eyes that scared him more than her ferocious fighting could. And one word wouldn't leave him: trust. She trusted him. He was well and truly busted. Oh, he could continue the game—and he did, blathered on about the favor she offered, kissed her hand and smiled suavely as he departed—but now she'd always see through it, now it was just a hollow show.

Even "favor" haunted him as he walked away—glancing back to see the two friends—the two so much more than friends, he knew for sure now—she had offered a favor. That meant he could count on her. That meant she was his friend—not just a person who helped people, and he happened to be one of them, because she did that kind of thing, or another person he could use or dupe or fail to dupe in a ridiculously entertaining way—but, friend.

One thing he knew, the thought of romance with her was flown completely out of his mind—because what he saw between the warrior and the bard was so much larger.

His thoughts returned to his own paranoia. It wasn't fair. Xena now knew his deepest secret—she'd had the power to know anything she damned well wanted—and he: he'd only gotten a glimpse of her, had only seen what was glaringly obvious. Enough to know she had been as scary and violent once as reputed. Enough to know—quite well—her impatience, especially with him, and her ferocious determination which was precisely the same as her gentleness—especially toward the gentle one, and he didn't have to glance back this time to know the smiles on their faces toward each other.

And he'd said too much to Gabrielle, as well, he realized ruefully—"I wish I had as good a friend as Xena does." Maybe it had been from the shaking up of having been connected to Xena's soul. Maybe that had made it impossible not to see the glowing power of Gabrielle's love for Xena and remark on it. But that didn't mean he needed to admit his own emptiness.

He chuckled to himself. This uncomfortable feeling was humility, he realized: in the presence of two such souls, how could he not feel small? How could he not—he recognized it but knew he must never let it be seen—have the most thorough loyalty to them? But it was too late. Xena had seen. And Gabrielle—she knew people too well, trusted them too much, thought the best of them whenever there was but the slightest evidence.

His cover was completely blown with these two, and there was nothing he could do about it, except ignore this odd sensation, that he always seemed to get when he cared about people, of not deserving them. (That is, when he let himself notice that he cared about people.) If he could just get them to see that his act—his bluster and bragging and swagger—his selfishness and opportunism—was in fact not just a careful cover up of some other self but was in fact the actual underlying truth. Convoluted, he had to admit, but—that was the situation. Surely Xena had seen that, had seen the pettiness in him, the smallness. Maybe she saw good in him because he had never been a cruel murderous warlord as she had been—so he looked good in comparison. Yes, that had to be it. Had to be.