Author's Note: Today is not turning out to be a very good day. Maybe some fanfiction will help.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Maui was watching the door with every nerve on the alert when Moana stepped into the room. She had that set, determined look on her face that he'd come to know so well, and for a split-second, his heart leapt, and then, almost instantly, felt like it had frozen over.

Moana was ghastly pale, almost white in the light of the sun shining through the waves above, and she was wearing the cloak of a Turehu, the garment that marked her as a welcome resident of the underworld, and of a servant hand-picked by the goddess herself.

It got her after all, thought Maui dully, disbelieving. I…I should never have left her alone…and Hine-nui-te-po probably knew all along. Maybe she drowned trying to come after me. Maybe the ocean took her the moment I left. What…what do I do now?

"Maui!" Moana called for him, rushed towards him, but Maui wasn't sure what to say. He felt like he couldn't even move. Everything seemed to have sort of slowed down. Nothing felt real.

"M-Moana," he began, wanting to apologize but not sure where the hell to start. "You…?"

I'm so sorry, he thought, but that felt stupid, meaningless, and it only made him angrier at himself. Really? That's all I've got? 'I'm so sorry?' Pathetic lot of good that does her now…but at least I'm not alone anymore.

That horribly selfish thought took him by surprise, and he sunk his head down on his chest, disgusted with himself, no longer even willing to look her in the eye.

Moana stopped, frowned, and looked surprised. There was still plenty of life in her eyes, Maui realized and, now that he thought about it, what was she doing in a red and gold cloak, if she'd been drowned in the sea? Red and gold were the colors of-!

""What? Me? No, no, no, no, no. Nope." Moana shook her head emphatically. "Look!" She blew hastily on her forearm, displacing a lot of white sand which floated away in the water, revealing the healthy, vital brown skin of her bare arm. "See? Good disguise, though, right? It was the ocean's idea. Oh, man, though, I didn't think it'd be good enough to fool even you!"

She grinned, vivacious as always, absolutely alive, and Maui wondered, as about forty different confusing and rather uncomfortable emotions bombarded him all at the same time, if this was what a heart attack felt like.

"Uh," he mumbled, shaking his head, waiting for the relief to stop hurting quite so much so that he could find the words again. ""I think that you may have just taken several years off my life…and that shouldn't be possible, for, uh, obvious reasons."

He hazarded a smile, and Moana, looking almost as happy as he suddenly felt, threw her arms around his neck and hugged him hard.

Gingerly, still just a little afraid to believe, Maui wrapped his arms around her and held her against his chest. She felt real, warm, definitely human and still undeniably alive, and that gave him confidence. He hugged her tighter, brushed his lips hesitantly against her hair, suddenly very unwilling to let her go.

"I'm so sorry," he mumbled, and he meant it. "This was, uh…really dumb."

"Well, yeah," agreed Moana, grinning even more broadly, now. "I'll be honest with you, wasn't the best decision you've ever made, but we can talk about that later…and just so you know, Maui, we are going to talk about this later. Might be a good idea for us to set down some ground rules about when it's not okay to play the hero…. but that's for later. Right now, let's just worry about getting out of here."

She pulled away, and he, reluctantly, released her.

They both looked up to find Hine-nui-te-po standing in the doorway, glaring at them with the full force and presence of an enraged, all-powerful goddess from the dawn of time. There was nothing even remotely beautiful about her face now. She'd contorted it into a kind of maliciously miserable grimace, and the amount of angry fire in her eyes looked like it might have set the room ablaze at any time, even at the bottom of the sea.

Moana sucked in a sharp breath.

"Oh," she whispered. "I…uh-oh."

"It's okay," Maui assured her, shaking his head. "She can't hurt us anymore."

Moana gave him an extremely doubtful look.

"Really?" She frowned nervously. "Because she sure looks like she's going to try." Dropping to her knees before Hine-nui-te-po, Moana bowed her head low. "Please, goddess, I understand how angry you are, and I know you have every right to your rage, and your feelings…but I beg you, please, let him go. I'll…I'll do whatever you need me to do."

"Moana," began Maui, but she wasn't listening.

"I don't know what I CAN do," Moana went on earnestly, "but I want to make this right. I want to stop your pain…but I won't let you kill him. I'll do whatever it takes, but I'm not leaving without him. Oh, and if you kill me, then you'll lose the ocean."

She glanced over her shoulder at an empty patch of water behind her. There was a nervous sort of swish as the current unexpectedly reversed direction, showing Maui that the ocean wasn't too thrilled about this either, but that it definitely wasn't ready to contradict Moana on the subject.

Hine-nui-te-po raised an eyebrow in surprise, and directed her next remark at the open sea.

"You, then," she murmured, sounding genuinely hurt. "You…would betray me, too? I never thought…"

The water rose up around her and danced around her head, leaving droplets in her hair, but Hine-nui-te-po just gave a derisive little snort, and batted them away.

"So be it, then," she whispered. "So be it."

"Moana." Maui struggled to his feet, although he still couldn't seem to wrench his chains off the wall. "You can get up, it's okay. We're done, here. You've already won."

"Huh?" Moana blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I'm holding you to your oath, Hine-nui-te-po, goddess of the dead." Maui didn't smirk. He didn't crow. He didn't hold his triumph over her head. Instead, he stared hard at the goddess until their eyes locked, then held out his shacked arm to her and gave her an expectant look.

"With the ocean as your witness," he reminded her, "you promised that if she came for me, you'd let us both go free."

Moana gasped.

"You said you'd never come after her or her people ever again," he went on. "You heard that too, didn't you?"

Maui glanced into the water, and the ocean bubbled its agreement.

"There's no way out of this one." He shook his head at Hine-nui-te-po. "Guess you were wrong about mortals all along, huh? Maybe that'll mean something someday; I don't know. Anyway, now, you need to keep your promise. Let me out."

He glanced significantly at the shackles on his wrist, and Hine-nui-te-po sneered at him.

"As you say, Maui of the Wind and Sea," she hissed. "I suppose…there is a lesson to be learned here, after all."

He didn't like the way she said it; not at all, but she did come forward and removed a key from somewhere in her hair, unlocking Maui's bonds and setting him free. Then she took a few steps back and simply watched both him and Moana with emptiness in her eyes.

The moment Maui had his arm back, he spun around and snatched his fish hook off the wall, using both hands to wrench the thing forcibly out of its chains.

"All right, Moana," he said, holding it out in front of him, menacing Hine-nui-te-po with the curved blade as he started forward. "Let's go."

Moana looked uncertain for a moment, gazing back and forth between him and Hine-nui-te-po.

"This wasn't what I wanted," she whispered, more to Hine-nui-te-po to Maui. "I'm…I'm sorry."

Hine-nui-te-po just snorted a single, mirthless laugh.

"What was it you wanted, little girl?" She rolled her eyes. "A happy ending? There are no happy endings. Look around you; in the end, we are all in the same…boat, I think you'd put it. I'll be seeing you again. We won't be strangers…don't worry."

She smiled, and Moana looked beside her into the empty ocean.

A jet of water reared up behind Hine-nui-te-po, resting gently on her shoulder, playing with her hair.

Hine-nui-te-po jerked fiercely away, striking the water with the back of her hand, sending it spraying out in all directions.

"Traitor," she muttered. "You, at least, I cannot dismiss. If we cannot be friends, then we must at least be hostile neighbors. For now, go with the girl. I've no more use for you."

The jet of water retreated, dissipated, melted into the sea all around it with a sad little splashing noise.

"The ocean was only trying to make things right," insisted Moana. "It didn't want to see you hurting any more. The only reason it helped me at all was because-!"

"GO," snarled the goddess, turning on Moana with her eyes blazing.

Moana swallowed hard, then rushed out quickly through the door that led into the rest of the palace.

Maui took a few steps after her, and then turned and gazed at the goddess. She was standing stock-still, with her eyes cast down, and Maui realized that, when he walked out, he'd be leaving her entirely alone, without even the ocean to comfort her, now.

"Hey," he began uncertainly. "L-listen, beautiful. I…I'm sorry about what I did. I never thought…well, I guess that's it. I never thought. I didn't think about who it would hurt. I guess I…didn't care. I was wrong. I wish I could take it back."

Hine-nui-te-po didn't respond, and Maui, a little worried, reached a hand out towards her.

Without warning, the goddess's head snapped up, and she was staring directly into his eyes, all the fire, rage, misery, and triumph alive again. She snatched his hand and held it tightly in a vice-like grip that Maui found he couldn't shake off, no matter how he tried.

"You can't take it back," she whispered. "'Sorry' isn't enough. Apologies won't correct what you've done. It isn't that simple, Maui, darling, not this time…. but I will have something for my sorrow, I will have something from you. If I can't have you for eternity, then neither will the rest of the world. I promised you I'd let you go with the girl, but I never committed to letting you leave intact, now, did I?"

Maui tried desperately to jerk his hand away, but Hine-nui-te-po turned it over, took her other hand and sunk her nails deeply into the flesh of his palm.

"You said," he managed, "that you wouldn't give me any trouble. You made an oath!"

"Death," murmured the goddess sweetly, "isn't trouble, oh Maui of the Wind and Sea. Death is the end of all trouble…and I am going to give you that blessing. What good is immortality to a man who doesn't appreciate it? If you want to be like those precious mortals so much, then you can…you can be JUST like them. You can age, and wither, and die just like them…painfully, slowly, over time. That seems fair, doesn't it? No, Maui, I'm not going to kill you…but someday, life will leave you…and then I'll have you back with me again. I can wait that long. I waited over two thousand years the last time. I oh-so-patient, darling."

The deeper Hine-nui-te-po's nails went into his skin, the more nauseous Maui felt, as though something strong, powerful, uplifting was being sucked out of him through his fingers. His legs felt suddenly unsteady, but he managed to stay on his feet as the last vestiges of his immortality shot through his fingernails, out into the ocean beyond. Finally, the goddess finally released his hand which, now bleeding from several punctures on his palm, fell limply to his side.

"And now," breathed Hine-nui-te-po, "you have what you've always wanted. You're mortal! I'd say you're human, except that you're still technically a bizarre abomination who can shapeshift into animal forms at will, so I suppose you're more monster than human, really. I'm not at all sure I feel like arguing the semantics of it, honestly. Anyway, you're free to go. Have a nice lifetime, Maui, darling. After all, you've only got one left."

She shook her head, smiling wryly to herself, then swept past him through the door and out onto the palace grounds.

Maui stood very still for a moment, his head reeling, wondering if what she'd said was even remotely true.

He didn't want to believe it. He didn't, honestly, feel all that different. He wasn't struggling, or feeling particularly weak or frail anymore. The only lingering trace of Hine-nui-te-po's final curse, in fact, was the blood oozing from the wounds in his hand, and the after-taste of that strange, sinking, pulling sensation that he'd felt a few moments ago, like the life had quite literally been sucked out of him.

"Maui?" Moana was suddenly in the doorway, looking alarmed. "Are you okay? Aren't we leaving? What happened? I thought you were right behind me, and then I turned around, and-!"

"I'm, uh, fine," mumbled Maui, shaking his head and hurrying to join her. "Sorry. Just wanted the chance to make my apologies to the goddess. Worked last time; I figured it couldn't hurt this time, either. I figured there's no point in leaving things unsaid."

Moana smiled.

"You're getting the hang of this compassion thing," she told him, taking him gently by the arm. "We might make something human out of you, yet! Come on…let's go home."

Home, thought Maui, no longer entirely sure where that was.

Making a fist out of his throbbing hand, he placed it carefully at his side, where Moana couldn't see the blood.

"Okay," he agreed. "That sounds…it sounds great. Lead the way, Moana."

Author's End Note: I know, we have a little bit of Hercules going on here, but I'm willing to own that.

In other news, just as I was finishing this story, I got an interview request from a local preschool. Things are looking up…