"Ares…let's face it- if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't even be here anyway…I would have probably bled to death…." she admitted straight up, making his heart stop for a moment…..
But no...he was just being paranoid, there was no way she could have known anything...Dite would have never dared act against his orders, she wouldn't have risked telling her- not after their last nerve racking conversation….
….And then, all of the sudden, the following words tripped off her tongue, leaving him completely breathless...They felt worse than a kick in the guts...
"You were the only one left- in my mind- even when everything turned black, you were still there, with me….They all vanished, but you...you never left ….." she whispered, tears streaming unwillingly down her grief stricken face.
An unprecedented wave of fear, confusion and panic started building inside the War God, pressing uncomfortably against the walls of his troubled soul….How could this have happened? How could she have found out? Had it been Blondie who had spilled the beans?! He hadn't seen that blabbering bitch ever since his Princess' miraculous return….By all the nine Muses he was going to cut her open with her own quill!
"I don't know what you're talking about …" he muttered unintelligibly , his nervous half laugh only making the Warrior Princess' gaze turn even softer.
" … I thought it was only my imagination at first, a dream or something- …and then you mentioned the fever, so I kept telling myself they must have been hallucinations after all; and then somehow, during the night, bit by bit, it all started to come back to me...and it made sense ." she concluded, a moment of silence later- precious seconds that the even more alarmed Ares desperately used in trying to come up with some reasonable excuse to vanish from the room….Damn it, he should have stayed away!
"...Thank you…" she murmured- boundless honesty and love reverberating from her voice clearer than he had ever heard coming from her. The feather-like touch of her hand on his shoulder though brought him instantly back to reality, making him literally jump to his feet…..
…No, no , no…..this was wrong. His presence anywhere near her…he was like a sickness- like an incurable disease…He was worse than poison, that's what she said once during one of their fights, a sweet poison meant to wither her soul, inch by inch until there was no life left in it….. Had he stayed, he would only end up destroying her, and their last experience was the ultimate proof that they should really part ways- before the unthinkable and the unavoidable occurred..…
" This was a mistake….." he said in a remarkable effort to act on those intrusive, pain inflicting thoughts.
"What?!" she asked, staring at him in disbelief.
"Me…coming back here…."
" You shouldn't have left in the first place. "
" I should have stayed the Tartarus out of your life when you decided to start fresh! My bad….Goodbye Xena….." he lowly added, the bitterness of those last words making his stomach twist horribly…
" Don't even think about it ! " she harshly commanded, instinctively grabbing his hand right before he disappeared. " In my dreamscape, right before we …" she started, just to stop abruptly as a new wave of vivid memories rushed into her mind. When she continued, the tone of her voice had a certain note of wonder in it... It was impossible to miss it " …you told me you love me like you have never loved anyone in your life …" she stated, gazing into his dark amber eyes, searching for the truth hiding behind them. " Did you mean it….?"
" It doesn't matter….Xena, listen to me…What we had…." he gently began to explain, hardly standing to look into her teary blue moons – something deep inside him refusing to accept the fact that he was the cause of that liquid proof of pain…
" Did you…?" she insisted, stubbornly ignoring his evasion, clutching his hand even harder the moment he tried to free it from her grasp.
" No." he finally uttered- as cold, heartless and acidly as possible. " You were falling apart. I had to give you something to hold on to…- hope, illusions of any kind were the most efficient ones according to Dite" he bluntly lied, his suddenly absent gaze holding an obvious disinterest now .
Almost mechanically, the Warrior Princess' grasp weakened. All those images…that overpowering feeling of them together, the still burning sensation of his lips brushing against every single inch of her skin….the longing….that impossible to deny awareness that they belonged together- that she was meant to be his…Had that all been a lie? Had he faked it all?
" I don't believe you….." she finally murmured- once her mind cleared a bit from the shock of his unexpected response.
" Suit yourself. " he casually replied, arching an amused eyebrow at her. He definitely hadn't anticipated this scenario…..He was playing his part to perfection though- and it couldn't have been otherwise, for, millennia of practice had thought him all about acting like the ultimate, self conceited jerk. " …Sex was great though- even if it only happened in that obscene, tricky mind of yours…We should definitely repeat it sometime…in real life ….." he dispassionately suggested, plunging yet another invisible knife straight into her heart….the last card he had to play; his last way out…..
…And for a moment there was silence again…Unlike the previous moment though, his Princess' pain was almost tangible now…- he could clearly feel it, like a dark shroud, covering her heart….Damn that connection they shared! It only made everything even more difficult…It was not enough that his own heart felt like having been ran down by a heavy Roman chariot, now, he also had to face her grief….
" …Supposing that were true, what was with that lame story about you fearing you're bad for me, then?"
….A good question indeed- which left no room for doubt- she wasn't going to cut him any slack!
" It was the first thing that popped into my mind ok?!" he defensively exclaimed, fighting back the urge to just pull her in his arms and keep her there until the end of time...
She just threw him an incredulous, somehow irritated look…
" I was with… someone….! That's why I didn't come…." he confessed, finally breaking their gaze, a bit surprised himself at how uncaring he had managed to sound...
Nonetheless, his flawlessly interpreted part didn't appear to convince his ever so observant Chosen...
" You just said you did…..every time…." she reminded him, carefully scanning his face….
" I lied ok? I didn't want to…upset you…"
"To upset me?"
" Yeah…call me old fashioned but I've always considered privacy a vital component of any relationship…..Now if you'll excuse me…I have….things to attend to…."he rudely concluded- disappearing in his usual blue flash- leaving a speechless Warrior Princess standing in the middle of the room.
" Aphrodite!" she yelled anxiously, about a minute later, certain that there was more to the story than Ares had been willing to share….For some reason, the coward was lying through his teeth and if he had thought for one second that she would buy that lame crap he was selling, he was dead wrong…Whatever he was hiding from her, she was going to find out one way or the other! What they had lived in that dreamscape felt as real as real could be, and nothing he said now could make her think otherwise…But what was he hiding and why?!
