Hercules' Baby

Xena, Solan and Gabrielle stayed at Cyrene's tavern for an entire week. Joxer left a few days earlier. It was a while before they were back in Cori but they finally arrived. When they got there they ran into Iolaus. Gabrielle and Solan tagged along with him so that Xena could talk to Hercules alone when she found him. While she was walking, a man tried to attack her from behind and she gave him a good kick without even turning around.

"Nice try. When will they learn?" Xena asked herself. She kept walking until she saw Hercules helping some people. He noticed her when he was done.

"Xena!" He hugged her."How are you?"

"Fine. You?" Xena asked.

"Good." Hercules replied. "Where are Gabrielle and Solan?"

"They're with Iolaus... We should talk." They took a walk until they found a huge rock to sit on. "We didn't talk much about what happened between us before, that's not really like us."

"Xena-" Hercules started.

"I'm pregnant." Xena blurted out, cutting off whatever Hercules was going to say.

"...You're pregnant?" He asked looking at her stomach, though her stomach had grown some, the dress and coat were hiding it pretty well. She opened her long, black coat and put her hand on her baby bump to reveal that it was there. "You're pregnant. You're pregnant!"

"And it's yours if that wasn't already clear."

"Yeah I got that." They shared a small laugh. "You're pregnant! We're having a baby. Whoever saw that coming?" Hercules hugged her. "Wow. I wanted to be a father again..." After a few seconds, the expression on his face went from happy to worry.

"What's wrong?"

"I really want to be happy it's just that Hera already killed my first family and Ares got my second wife killed. What if one of them or someone else tries to hurt this baby, kills them?" Hercules said. Xena hadn't thought about that before.

"We won't let that happen... we'll stay a step ahead of them."

"How?"

"I don't know how but we will. Something I learned in India is to have faith and we need to have faith that this baby will be alright." Xena said and put Hercules' hand on her stomach.

"So how are we going to do this, parent together?"

"I don't know but we're sticking around for a while so we can figure it out."

"You know as long as you're all here you all have a place to stay." Hercules said before Solan, Gabrielle and Iolaus found them.

"I understand congratulations are in order." Iolaus said.

"Yeah! We're having a baby." Hercules said.

Later that night after Xena tucked Solan in bed she talked to Gabrielle.

"Did you talk about your relationship?" Gabrielle asked.

"There's nothing to talk about. We're friends." Xena said then went to bed where Solan was already sleeping. Gabrielle slept in the next room. The next morning Xena smelled Hercules cooking breakfast so she went in the kitchen.

"Hungry?" Hercules asked.

"I can't eat right now. I've been sick all morning. It wasn't like this with Solan, by the time I reached this point I was over morning sickness. I would think the child of Hercules and Xena would make me stronger. I don't remember the last time I felt this bad." Xena said. Solan and Gabrielle joined them and they ate a wonderful breakfast together. Later Solan played with some of the kids that were around the neighborhood and Iolaus came over. It all felt so... normal. They kept this up for a couple months along with saving people who needed to be saved as usual.

Xena, Solan and Hercules were eating out when Xena felt the baby kick for the first time.

"Oh! Hercules, feel! The baby's kicking!" She placed his hand where he could feel.

"This kid has a mean kick." Hercules said.

"Well of course, it got it from me." Xena said. "Here Solan feel it." Solan felt the kick. "That's your little brother or sister in there." Suddenly they heard claps. They looked up and saw Ares walking toward them.

"If it isn't the big happy family." Ares said.

"What do you want?" Xena asked.

"I had to hear from somebody else that you're having a baby with my brother." Ares said.

"So?" Xena said with a nonchalant attitude.

"Why him? What's he got that don't got?" Ares asked.

"This is not the time or the place, nor do I care about your opinion or whatever about this. Do you care Herc?" Xena asked.

"No, I don't care." Hercules said.

"See." Xena said.

"This isn't over."Ares said before disappearing.

"I suppose you've heard that Ares claims he's in love with me. For that reason alone, he's not a threat to our baby." Xena said.

"Unless he wants revenge or something." Hercules said.

"Even if he tries, he'll never be able to go through with it. Trust me. He'd save this baby before he'd hurt it, even if it is your baby." Xena said.

"Because it's your baby." Hercules said.

"Exactly. Hera on the other hand, we need to look out for." Xena said. After lunch they headed back to Hercules' house but ran into Iolaus on the way.

"I'm going fishing, Solan, do you want to come?" Iolaus asked.

"Yes! Mom, can I go?" Solan asked.

"Sure. Be careful." Xena replied. "Where's Gabrielle?"

"She's back at my place meditating." Iolaus answered then Solan went off with him and Xena and Hercules headed back to the house. Hercules closed the door then kissed Xena.

"What was that?" Xena asked.

"Something to see if we both feel the same way because for some reason we won't tell each other how we feel and that's not even like us. Xena, I love you." Hercules said.

"... I love you too." Xena said. They kissed again then Hercules picked her up, carried her to his room and they made love. Afterward, they finally decided to get how they felt out on the table.

"I've known I loved you this way since the last time you were here." Hercules said.

"I've always known how I felt, I never really stopped. I just moved on. When you got married before... I was jealous. I said that I didn't care but I did. The problem is that I can't stay in one place for too long and sometimes you travel too. Where's the stability in a relationship like that?"

"You can't or you don't want to? You've been here two months and you've been fine. Besides, we're going to figure out how to raise this baby together, why can't we figure out how to be together?"

"Yeah but I'm leaving in a few weeks then I' ll come back before it's time for the baby to be born." Xena said. "I don't know, maybe we can compromise. Maybe we can travel together sometimes as a family and other times we can stay here as a family." Xena suggested.

"Maybe." Hercules said simply. Xena ran her hands through Hercules' hair and kissed him leading to them making love again.