--VII—
They stared at each other for a while before Gabrielle broke eye contact. Rolling her head back she groaned and held a packet of frozen peas to her head.
"It's too hot."
Xena smirked, it appeared that Alti did too.
"We have this wonderful technology called air conditioning. It's been around for a while, maybe you know it?"
"Oh ha-ha Xena," Gabrielle rolled her eyes. "When I came home this afternoon it wouldn't turn off heat and then when I tried to turn the entire thing off that wouldn't work either…"
"So you've been sitting in an apartment with the heat on all afternoon when it's sweltering outside? You didn't think to just unplug it?"
Gabrielle lowered the packet of peas to reveal a deer caught in the headlights expression.
"You can do that?"
Xena opened her mouth to reply as the doorbell rang. Turning she opened it to come face to face with Ares. Crisp white shirt, black slacks and a tool box?
"Hi."
"Hi."
Gabrielle rolled her eyes, "Hello, other person here too".
"Do you often walk around a foreign city with your tool box?" Xena pointed towards the shiny red object, ignoring her friend.
Gabrielle materialized beside her, "Dirty".
"Apollo called and said you needed help with something," Ares eyed Gabrielle for a moment before ignoring her just as Xena had.
"Hel-lo, if you can bear to pay attention to me for one moment," Ares raised an eyebrow and turned his attention to the smaller woman. "I called Ly and Lo looking for Xena. The problem has since been solved though, thank you very much. Who are you anyway?"
"Ares."
"Ares? Oh geez," Gabrielle rolled her eyes. "I'll be in my room. You two try not to play Mr Fix It too loud."
Xena scowled, "You are never getting those DVD's back".
The sound of a door slamming was the only response.