Authoress' Note: This story beings immediately after the events of the Season 6 Xena episode 'Soul Possession', and approximately eight years before the pilot episode of 'Being Erica' takes place.

PS. 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: Pilot

Part 3

A Xena: Warrior Princess / Being Erica Crossover

By Arianwen P. F. Everett

"I don't understand. I never even saw Nemesis, much less slept with her," Ares grated out, his voice not having been used in over a week as he'd sat with Rhea. Though she'd been asleep, he knew that she understood what it was to love and loose profoundly, and he needed that understanding along with time to think. With the exception of Aphrodite and Persephone, none of the remaining gods had that knowledge, and Persephone blamed him for siding with Xena and getting Hades killed, so silently sharing their grief together wasn't an option. Aphrodite had never had the time or the patience to just sit for days at a time without saying a word, so while her presence could be comforting at times, there was a limit. He knew Rhea wasn't really there for him, but as a child she had been, and some of that love still seemed to cling to his perceptions of her.

"No, you didn't, and as a result Evander was never born, but I don't believed this regret had all that much to do with Nemesis or your son," Dr. Naadiah offered, hoping to draw her patient out. She knew he'd come to some realizations while in his past and he needed to say them, to solidify them for himself.

Ares sighed glumly in agreement. "I guess it didn't. It was all about Xena. It never occurred to me back then, heck I wasn't even sure love was a real thing back then, but whether I believed in it or not I see now that I was already head over heels in love with Xena, and yet, I also understood that she saw me as unworthy of any future with her. I made that deal with Nemesis because deep down I knew it wouldn't work with Xena, and yet I wanted a child, a family, with her. I regretted Evander because he wasn't Xena's son, and had I raised him, I probably would have treated him the way my parents treated me. It's for the best he no longer exists.. but I need to know, does Hera? I mean, is she still stuck in the Abyss or…?"

"No. Without Evander, Zeus used your nephew Cupid's son, Bliss, to rescue Hera and Xena killed her on Mount Olympus almost thirty years later. I'm sorry, but your mother still died in the Twilight." Dr. Naadiah explained, her sorrow for her patient's loss coming through her voice. She'd seen how the Queen of the Greek Gods had feigned fear over her son's near demise in an attempt to control him, yet she was still his mother and there were plenty of unresolved issues her patient would have to deal with in the future. Dr. Naadiah knew that in time they'd get to those; she already knew that at least four of Ares regrets involved his mother in some way, but that hadn't made dealing with her again any easier for the God of War, or for his therapist to watch.

Ares turned his head to the side, not wanting to look Dr. Naadiah's pity in the eye, yet needing to know how his mother met her end this time. "Did she.. did she betray me again? I mean, the fireball.. did she…?"

"Ares, this therapy needs to be about you, not about Hera, not about Nemesis, not even about Xena. Now, if you feel you need to witness what happened during the Twilight in this thread, I believe the gods have a way to view the past back on Mount Olympus, but dissecting other peoples' choices isn't part of our work together," Dr. Naadiah laid down the law, needing to make this point abundantly clear. Learning to accept the choices of others as their own was often the most difficult lesson to learn, especially when the patient had to live with the outcomes of those choices in all their horror. Ares needed to understand that he couldn't go back to alter Hera's decisions, only his own. Everyone needed free will, even the long dead Queen of the Gods.

"You're right, I can always look it up when I get home. If she's dead, it's not really that important anyway," Ares conceded. He hated mysteries, so he'd see it all with his own eyes later, but Dr. Naadiah was right. In the past he remembered, Hera made the choice to side with Hercules and to attack her own son. That had been her decision and her mistake; he had enough of his own to deal with.

"Ares, it's natural to want to be loved, by our parents, by people we're romantically attracted to, by our children, but back there you proved that you understood that your own opinion had to matter more. You wanted Xena's love, yes, but you had the courage to stand up for yourself and you did what you had to do to survive, even when you knew that she'd misinterpret your actions and think the worst of you. Whatever your sister, or your mother, or that warlord may have said, you're not whipped. You're hurting, but you're not whipped," Dr. Naadiah emphasized, needing her patient to view his inner strength for what it was, not what others told him it was. If Ares was to change his life, he needed to learn to listen to his own inner voice, not just react to other voices or let his godhood do the thinking for him, and today in his past, when he'd defended who he was at his core, he'd done just that.

"Thank you," Ares responded, not used to compliments about his character. He knew his therapist was being sincere, but that didn't mean she wasn't wrong. His love for Xena did control him. He might be able to defend himself and he fought her time and again, but in the end she always won and he came back for more. Maybe that wasn't 'whipped', but it wasn't strength either.

"You're welcome. Well, you have an immortal life to get back to and I have a dinner date with a lovely woman I met at the book fair last weekend, so I think we'll end here and pick this up at our next session," Dr. Naadiah announced, standing up from behind her desk and motioning for Ares to as well. While his experiences as a god gave him a leg up on some of the metaphysics of time travel and how this type of therapy worked, the intimacy of the experience and the changes to both his history and himself would required time to examine and integrate into his present life. Once he'd processed and the time was right, she'd bring him in for another session. They had a lot of work to do, but Dr. Naadiah could tell Ares was truly committed to that work.

"And when does this next session begin?" Ares asked, curious as to how the timing of this thing worked.

"Whenever you're ready. Our sessions take place when you need them. There are no set appointments here. You just go about your life and eventually you'll find yourself back here," Dr. Naadiah explained, giving Ares what he needed to know without going into too much detail, some of which he probably knew anyway, the rest he'd learn by doing, the best way to learn anything.

"Alright then. Ugh, how do I get out of here, wherever here is, that is?" Ares fumbled with the question. His understanding of timelines and alternate states of consciousness really were really being tested today, but then he could always look some of her early lessons on the subject up when he got back to Olympus.

"Well, my mortal patients tend to use the door, but feel free to teleport as you normally would. I can bring you here, but I can't force you to stay," Dr. Naadiah conceded, knowing Ares commitment would bind him to this therapy as much as it would a human patient, if not more so. What's more, he wanted this therapy. He knew on a basic level that he needed it, even if he still believed it was primarily to win Xena.

"You mean I could've.. Lady, you are good," Ares chuckled with realization. When he'd first arrived and Dr. Naadiah had shown her control over this domain, he'd assumed he was trapped here until she said otherwise or died of natural causes. Now he knew he'd always been free to go at any time, but had ended up binding himself by his word to see the process through. Well, maybe it was like the mortals said 'when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me'.

"I'd have to be in order to be your therapist, wouldn't I?" Dr. Naadiah countered, causing Ares to burst out into a full laugh as he turned the door handle and let himself out the mortal way. As he went, she could see he wasn't going back to Olympus, but had entered some sort of crowded resteraunt, which judging by the unaccented, English speaking voices, along with a dollar denominated price list etched in multicolored chalk and hanging on the wall, appeared to be somewhere in the United States. Maybe sleeping wasn't the only mortal habit he'd picked up during his time as part of her own species.

The thought of food made Naadiah's stomach gurgled and she decided to head back to her own apartment for a small snack before going out. She didn't want her digestive tract to insult her date with hunger grumbling as they waited for their meal to arrive. Shanly was special and while this was only a first date, but Naadiah had a good feeling about it. Returning to her desk to pick up her purse, with her copy of Bulfinch tucked safely, if heavily inside, Dr. Naadiah left her office the pride of a job well done putting a spring in her step as she went.

As Ares finished off his moussaka and tyropita, he sighed contentedly. He loved America, he really did. At their core, they were his kind of people, always looking for the next opportunity to go to war and always improving upon dishes from all over the globe, even the food of his homeland. The fact that the head chef was born in Patras and married an Californian girl who'd been working in Greece over the summer probably contributed to the quality of the cuisine, but who was he to argue.

"Enjoyin' a taste of the homeland after all that ruckus ya caused this mornin' at the press conference?" a familiar Irish brogue asked, causing Ares to sigh with impatience.

All he'd wanted was a few moments to sip his after-dinner coffee before heading back to Olympus like he'd promised Aphrodite. Now Jercules' ex was here to grill him. Watching the petite redhead sit down, Ares just rolled his eyes and tried to enjoy his drink. "Well if it isn't the Guardian of Justice, what can I do for you, Morgan?"

"Hercules called me. He's worried about your son, Evander; says he can't reach him. His email keeps bouncing back as well. You wouldn't know anything about that, would ya?" Morgan questioned, watching the Greek God of War for any sign of deception.

Ares had spent a lifetime keeping his facial expressions in check in order to keep the likes of Morgan from reading him, yet internally he was extremely confused. Ares had changed the past. Evander no longer existed, yet somehow Hercules remembered him and was searching. He wasn't sure whether Morgan had ever met the immortal Ares had created in his original dealing with Nemesis, but she was asking about him on Hercules' behalf, and Ares had to come up with a believable answer. No way was he going to admit that he was in therapy and that this brand of therapy involved time travel and changing the past.

"I haven't seen, spoken, or in any way interacted with Evander in over seventy years. So no, I don't know where he is, nor do I care. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to finish my coffee and head home," Ares replied honestly. He really didn't know where demigods who were never even conceived went when the original timeline was altered. Hera had taught him about time travel long ago, but as he'd rarely ever used it, he'd forgotten much of her lessons. It was one of the things he planned to look up when he got home, and when he next saw Dr. Naadiah he had to ask why his half brother remembered someone who was never even born.

"Ya know, I would think you'd want to help find your son, considering how many times you tried to get Xena to give ya one," Morgan responded, needing to let the God of War know who was boss.

"I don't think Xena or either of her little friends had anything to do with Evander apparent disappearance if that's where you're going, and just so you know, I would've been just as happy with a daughter from Xena, as any child of ours would have been truly exceptional from birth," Ares replied, attempting to sound casually annoyed, all the while feeling the ever-present pain in his heart surge in his chest at the thoughts Morgan's choice of words had brought him.

At least he'd given unto Morgan as good as he'd gotten. Morgan's mother, Badb, had been a colleague of Ares' and he distinctly remembered all her complaints about her mongrel little girl, how Morgan would never be exceptional with a sword, how Morgan would never be an exceptional strategist, how Morgan would never be an exceptional beauty, and he knew Morgan had been told it all long before it had reached his ears. For the redheaded demigod, that word 'exceptional' was a prize she'd spent her entire youth trying to win, but had never achieved. By letting Morgan know that a child of Xena's would automatically have been exceptional in his eyes, he was rubbing all of her childhood pain back in the smug woman's face. His and Xena's child would never have to crawl on their belly to win their parents' love the way Morgan had, and Ares was making sure she knew it. If his own parents' example had taught him anything it was how not to treat a child you genuinely cared about.

However the insult was a double edge sword, for Ares had spent centuries wishing for that child's presence in his life. Once made immortal, their child, be it Eve or another, would have been such a comfort as he'd tirelessly searched for Xena's reincarnated spirit and the scroll that would unite them for eternity. Evander had only been an irritant, and on a few occasions, a burden. Ares was glad to be rid of him, but Hercules' memories could cause problems down the line.

He would definitely have have to speak with Dr. Naadiah about it. Perhaps she'd have some insight to the incongruity. Right now, Ares was too focused on his memories of today. He needed to see what had changed and what hadn't. He needed to find out what had happened to his family this time around and most importantly, he needed to understand how his and Xena's relationship had been altered by his efforts in the past.

Yes, Ares was looking forward to his next session with Dr. Naadiah, so much so that he missed the fact that for the first time in thousands of years, he was looking forward to something other than seeing Xena again.

THE END