While Theseus and Galatea had gone home in the intervening days, Cassandra and Icarus were still in Thebes to soak up the benefits of their longstanding connection to Hercules. They were still living out of Hercules's villa, along with his step-parents. Medusa joined them as well, having bonded with Cassandra over shared memories of the few days she spent masquerading as a human and with Hercules's parents, as they were more susceptible than most to her positive emotional influence.

It was more difficult to acquire Megarion for the day, so he drove up with Cassandra from the palace later in the day. Cassandra explained that she'd spoken to the king on his behalf with some pride. Megara might have lingered on that and wondered what they spoke of as they rode through the city had it not been for the sheer state of her brother.

He seemed more gaunt than before, his eyes staring out from hollows made darker by the shading of his curls that hung low on his brow. Cassandra had driven the chariot to the villa, and now she helped prop him up as they walked.

"What happened to you?" Hercules asked as he ushered his brother-in-law to a couch in the dining room. "You look like someone put you through Spartan boot camp!"

Megarion shook his head, and his sister sat beside him, leaving him framed on either side by her and Cassandra. "It's because we didn't tell Creon I was here, isn't it?"

Megarion nodded slowly. "Listen. When Father realized I hadn't been honest with him, he told me you were back. He took that personally. He has ways of making every day a Tartarus if you let him."

"I know," Megara whispered. She took her brother's hand. "But we always got through it together."

Megarion shot her a look that reminded her of how she'd abandoned him, but neither of them spoke further.

"Whoa, are we gonna take that?" Icarus jumped out of the spot where he'd been trying to fix one of his wax wings to stand atop the dining table. "I'm seeing a lot of sad faces, but we've got the Hercster right here! Go on, tell 'em what heroes do for family!"

"I'm not sure what the right move is here," Hercules said. "I guess the first thing is to give you something to eat." He offered Megarion a bowl of olives and cheese. "Something small to get you started so we know you can handle more."

Medusa took the initiative to kneel in front of Megarion with the soothing sway of her snakes and a brilliant smile. "I hope while you're here, you'll feel better."

From the flow of her power, Megarion soon sat straighter. "Thanks, miss," he said. "I remember you stopped my father from being a complete killjoy at the parade. It's nice to see you again."

"Thank you!" Medusa beamed.

"Excuse me? This is all very nice, but I've got one question: Why aren't we talking about going to King Creon and teaching him what for?" Icarus asked.

Medusa's head whipped around, confusing Icarus into silence.

"Because he's a king, and there are divine laws against doing anything that would overthrow a king," Hercules said. "I don't like him, but I also don't want the divine retribution of the Furies. That could get in the way of me spending the rest of my life with Meg, and I'm not risking that. There has to be a peaceful solution."

"Creon will do what he wants until he dies because he believes he is always right," Megara said. "Nobody can tell him otherwise."

"I can," Hercules responded stubbornly. "Don't underestimate how scary I can be when I need to be." Stormclouds gathered on his features as surely as if he were the storm god, his father. Then they dissipated into his usual gentle demanor. "But that's not right now. For now, it's time to build friendships that'll last forever." He went around the room, serving out wine to everyone and bringing a couple extra shares of pork skewers to Megara and Megarion. Then he gathered Megara into his lap and clasped his hands across her legs.

"I'm glad to see this maturity," Cassandra said. Her eyes flickered in the direction of Icarus. "Wish it was contagious."

"I won't let anything get in the way of this new life, not even my own impulses." Hercules kissed Megara's cheek. "Last night, we had a big heart-to-heart, and now I'm ready to open the floodgates. You can tell her all about what happened when we were all at Prometheus Academy, and she's promised to tell me some stories, too."

"Really?" Icarus asked, his mismatched eyes fluctuating in ways Megara couldn't quite understand under his unibrow. "You're ready to let her know how freaky you are?"

Megara checked Hercules's face for confirmation that Icarus was using that word correctly. She found him blushing.

"No, I– that's not— But I was a dork. And sometimes a geek. But that's all right."

"Are you sure you're ready to hear the stories we can tell, young lady?" Amphitryon asked. "There were a couple of times I called Hercules home to watch the flock. He didn't do so well."

"I'm sure it's a mismatch of talents," Megara said. "Not everyone has that kind of patience, but he's protective enough for when it counts."

Though he didn't speak, Megara felt his gratitude in the way Hercules caressed her thigh.

"Hercules has always been a little over-eager, but in a charming way," Alcmene confirmed.

"That's one way to describe it," Cassandra said as she restrained a laugh. "But what about our mysterious new friend? I feel like maybe I met you once before I showed up for the wedding, but I think I would've remembered you if we met more than once. I'm surprised you two didn't start dating after the first time I saw you."

"I went to Athens a couple of years ago…" Megara sent a quick glance her brother's way.

Megarion snickered. "It was bad."

"Are you ready to talk about it?" Hercules whispered and nipped at her earlobe as if somehow she could say no after that.

"Sure. We're among friends."

"Meg told me she met Adonis in Athens," Hercules said, preening Megara's hair for her and draping it over her shoulder. "She thought you might have an interesting perspective on that encounter."

Megarion's withered features lit up. "It was entertaining in some ways. Mostly, the whole event was a disaster, but it's fun seeing Meggie all worked up like that."

Megara shot her brother a warning look, but he kept going as if unaware of what he'd called her.

"We had to bust down the door, though." His smile faded. "Adonis wanted his guards to… bring her over to his couch." The Theban prince's pallid cheeks showed some color, and he flicked his eyes around the room to see if he'd offended anyone. "I'd rather not mention any details in front of her husband."

Hercules didn't need the explanation. His breath quickened along with his heart rate. "He… he didn't just want to sit with her. Did he?"

"No," the twins responded in unison.

Megara scratched soothingly at Hercules's arm, but the gesture didn't calm him. "Adonis thought since I was a princess, he was entitled to me, and I simply had to fall for him. But he didn't even understand all the insults I was throwing at him."

"He wasn't too bright," Cassandra said. "But what made him think he could get away with assaulting royalty? And where was Helen? How did she let him get away with this?"

"I think I remember a while when Helen broke up with Adonis," Icarus said. "We all had hope for her, but she got back with him."

"So that accounts for why Helen wasn't in the picture, but it doesn't make sense that he'd go after another princess and treat her even worse than he treated Helen," Cassandra got up and paced the emptier end of the dining room. "He's stupid, callow, rage-inducingly vain, but that's another low. I didn't think he was capable of that."

"Maybe it wouldn't have been all princesses, but this was during the time we were under the Theban curse," Megarion spat. "At the time we were doomed to fail in every war, we posed no threat."

"What broke the curse?" Cassandra asked.

The royal twins bowed their heads.

"I know this one!" Icarus cried, elated. "Prince Menoikeus sacrificed himself before the battle of the Seven Against Thebes! For the first time in a century, the city was victorious!"

Alcmene covered her mouth in her hands while Amphitryon shook his head. Medusa covered her mouth in both hands, bowed her head and all her snakes, and sat on a couch by herself. "I know what it's like losing siblings. I'm sorry you went through that."

Hercules shifted under Megara, first from the concern over Megarion and Megara's memories and then over how he'd been responsible for killing the Gorgons.

Megara, however, had no guilt over that incident, so she spoke up. "We were all out there… that's when Megarion was shot with a poisoned arrow. I thought he would die, but Menoikeus turned the tide for all of us… his pyre wasn't taken down before the business with Antigone started."

"It's a shame all our cousins weren't like Ismene, but at least she got out of here alive," Megarion mused.

"This is all… tragic," Hercules said, and Megara felt a resurgence of his anger beneath her. "Everything is. But there's one thing I need to understand: Adonis wanted to… he thought he could…?"

"Yes. Like the river guardian planned to. And several dozen others. But you can't punch every problem away."

"It seems to work pretty well usually," Hercules growled.

"Adonis is the only heir to Thrace, and as the gods put his line in control of the kingdom, it's unlawful in their eyes to end it."

"She tried, though," Megarion said. "Haemon had to carry her out of the room because she kept threatening to castrate Adonis."

"Is that so?" Hercules chuckled slowly as if his rage had made him forget how. "I'm proud of you for that, Meg… but if I ever see Adonis again, I don't know what I'll do. I keep imagining myself ripping parts off him."

"We have that in common. At least I got to frighten him in public." Megara continued to stroke his arms hoping eventually he would relax.

"We learned after that: no more blind dates for the princess," Megarion continued. "I recall that was one of the last times we were all together and happy, though. Before Father heard that, she burned that bridge with Thrace. It didn't matter why. And then Meg ran away for a few days."

"You did?" Hercules seemed distracted from his murderous musings, at least. She suspected it had something to do with an intentional wave of positivity from Medusa's end of the room.

"I don't remember…" Megara furrowed her brow. "I had some crazy plan, though. I wanted to run off and find Lethe water so I could stop thinking of Adonis and how smug he was when I tried to put him in his place. I'd never felt so powerless."

"You don't remember what happened when you went to find Lethe water." Cassandra tilted her head. "Methinks I sense a correlation."

Megara huffed. "I think I found a centaur who said he'd get the water for me, but he never came through. I was gonna round up some schmuck who'd help me, no questions asked. I think Adonis mentioned someone likely to…" her eyes widened. "Oh, no."

"That's why I remember you!" Cassandra jumped out of her couch. "You found us at the Speedy Pita, and Herc turned up at school a couple of days later looking like he'd been on a bender! He didn't remember anything from that weekend, so I never got the full story!"

Megara and Hercules stared at one another.

"So… you found 'some schmuck' to help you out?"

"Evidently… but if neither of us remember… How is it fair that I remembered him and forgot you?"

"Maybe it didn't go so well with Round 1, so the gods made you forget to try again!" Icarus suggested.

Hercules made a sour face. "Maybe we really didn't get along when we met back then…"

"You were just as into her back then," Cassandra said. "I had to translate for you because you kept stuttering."

"We don't know what happened once we were alone. Maybe you were helping me, but you were clumsy, so we fumbled the water."

"That makes sense," Cassandra chuckled. "I guess it worked out fine in the end, though. You were destined to end up together, and you did. What else have you learned about Prometheus Academy?"

"I learned about the job fair, the whole reason Galatea exists, and about the time Herc sank Phil's island. It was all kind of adorable."

Cassandra eyed Megara with great skepticism. "Are you just saying that because you have a hyper-sensitive hero right under you?"

"That's my genuine opinion. It's fine if you disagree. You didn't marry him."

"Let's see how far that goes," Cassandra said, despite the way Hercules steeled himself for impact. "There was this one time that Herc and Icarus were so desperate to attend an Orpheus concert that they re-wove the Tapestry of Fate and almost rewrote all of existence in their own image– permanently."

Megara shook her head. "I know you're going to try and make that sound bad, but it's just silly teenage stuff. Probably could've turned out way worse, but we're all here, anyway. He wouldn't do it again."

"I would if something happened to you, and it was the only way to fix whatever it was," Hercules said.

"How about the time he blew off studying so he put Morpheus to sleep to pull an all-nighter?" Cassandra asked.

"Oh! Oh, I've got one!" Icarus hopped up and down on the table. "I was there for everything! But when I wanted to go to a Myklos comic scroll convention, Herc pretended he had a new fatal disease so he wouldn't have to go!"

"Probably because it would be too awkward to tell you why he didn't want to go, and he's too agreeable to say outright when he doesn't want to do something. We're working on that." She scratched his chin. "Don't worry, you two. We're solid."

Hercules sighed dreamily and rested his chin on her shoulder. "I love her…" he murmured.

"See? I told him he didn't need to be so embarrassed around me. Nothing could make me love him less."

"She's always telling me I'm perfect, but I think she is," Hercules said from the same depths of his daydreams. He turned his face to nuzzle against her neck, leaving soft kisses, then latched onto her earlobe and made her squeal.

"Okay, I picked the wrong couch," Megarion said and scooted to the far end of the dining couch. "But I'm very happy for you two."

"Sorry!" Megara's voice was strained as her breathing turned ragged. The heat flowing through her whole body made her self-conscious, but there was nothing she could think of to remedy that.

Icarus's wild eyes trailed up and down the display of his best friend and his wife, and something altered in his mismatched features. One eye was red and bloodshot, and this one seemed to swell, taking up more of his face. He turned to Cassandra and hopped into her lap, making her shriek. "We should show them what true love really looks like!"

Cassandra shoved Icarus off her lap and stood over him with her empty platter wielded like a shield in both hands. "Stop! We're not kids anymore; it's not cute, and it never was! Leave me alone!"

This altercation snapped Hercules out of his lovesick daze. "Hey, you two… you need to calm down."

"Clearly, only one of them is reasonable, and it's unfair to put all the pressure of getting along on her," Megara said.

"You're right…" Hercules admitted reluctantly and hung his head. "Ick… you've got to accept that Cassandra doesn't feel the same way about you and maybe find someone who does. You'll be much happier if you can find someone who likes all that… ah… quirky… genius… of yours. And all your energy."

"Or at least accept that you'll never truly be Cassandra's friend if you're constantly ignoring her preferences and proving you don't understand her. Real love comes from understanding someone and accepting who someone is. So can you even love Cassandra if all you ever do is stomp all over her personality as if it doesn't exist?"

The longer Megara spoke, the more dread she saw on Icarus's face until his features went blank. She couldn't read the expression that ensued beyond thinking maybe he'd understood her.

That was before the rage erupted.

"So!" pure venom snapped out of him and dripped from his lips. "You think you know so much better than me, and you want to shame our love?"

Medusa interceded by jumping between Megara and Icarus. "She's trying to philosophize on the nature of love," she said. "As an emissary of Aphrodite, I must provide an alternative to this unhealthy dynamic."

"What?" Icarus burst into tears and shot an accusatory finger in Medusa's direction. "How could you betray me like this? I helped Hercules realize he shouldn't attack you!"

"It's because of the most important lesson I ever learned," Medusa said. "In the words of my goddess: if you live a lie, you'll never know who your true friends are. You can't live with the false belief that Cassandra loves you forever. Today would be a good day to recognize that you have built a false version of her and that you love that imagined version of her. You forgot to recognize who she really is and appreciate her. She's begging for you to understand her as a person, and if you claim to love her, then you have to let go of the lie and do what's best for her."

Megara dug her nails into Hercules's arm, waiting for the fallout that might ensue.

Instead, the diminutive creature took several steps back from Medusa and bowed his spiky head. "You may be right…" he said.

"Ick," Hercules moved as if to put Megara down, but he held still instead. "I'm sorry it hurts to hear that."

"No, no! I have to live in reality." Icarus picked up his wax wings. "If that's how all of you feel, then it's time I went off to find this truth you speak of." He shot another spiteful look at Hercules. "So this is how you repay me for years of dedication. You betray me for a girl you just met."

"I didn't betray you, Icarus," Hercules said, seemingly exhausted. "All I did was ask you to respect the other friend who stood by me all those same years. She's put up with a lot from you, and Meg's good at noticing when things aren't working."

"No, no!" Icarus lifted his pug nose into the air and marched toward the door. "I get it! No more time for ol' Icky now that you're a married man! You can't stand to let anyone else be in love around you!"

"That's not true!" Hercules sat up straighter and set Megara down beside her brother. "You have to listen to the advice you're hearing and take it seriously, though. I understand there are limits for you, but I really want everyone to get along when you come to visit, and that means not making Cassandra uncomfortable."

Medusa concentrated on Icarus a moment longer, then said, "Everything will be all right. You should go out and fly so you can clear your head. It will make you happy."

"Don't try to manipulate me with your snakey powers!" Icarus stalked out of the room. "Good-bye!"

"I didn't realize you were inviting me to dinner and a show," Megarion murmured. "Thanks for the entertaining afternoon."

"You should stay," Megara said. "Let us figure out the Creon situation and focus on feeling better. Help me put together a guest room for when you stay here. Make every excuse until you feel better and you have the chance to feel more like yourself."

"I'd hate to be the reason Father sent a squad of soldiers to your beautiful home to wreck your day and trample your lawn. I'm the last one of his sons. He can't kill me. I need to find some way to manage him."

"I don't agree with that. He needs to treat both his surviving children better," Hercules said. He put one hand on each twin's shoulder. "You're my brother now, and nobody bullies my brother, not even my father-in-law. I want the two of you to stay here tomorrow, and I'm going to have a chat with King Creon. Don't either of you worry about it. There's nothing he can do to me. One way or another, I'll make this right."