Stupid. He'd been so stupid to leave her, even for a minute!
"What do you mean you met Harmonia?" Hercules gazed down at her in mounting horror. He covered the curve that housed their daughter in one trembling hand.
The baby had only begun to move the day before, but the fact she'd been so active that she kept her mother awake and now lay dormant brought a fresh, sickening wave of panic. She couldn't be dead. Cassandra had foreseen that she would live and thrive.
"In my dream, she looked at least ten years old... she was so real..." Megara's colorless lips strained around the words.
Why was she so pale?
Hercules slid into bed with her and propped her against him. "Okay, Meg, we'll get to the bottom of this. Just stay with me." He started furiously rubbing her arms as if that could get her blood flowing, then got a better idea. He crossed an arm across her chest and kneaded while the other hand brought the watered-down spiced wine he'd provided for her breakfast to her lips.
"She said the same thing," Megara mused in a distant voice before she drank. "Wanted me to stay with her..."
"You're always with her," Hercules said, though he wasn't as sure of his words now that Harmonia was unresponsive. He continued stoking her fires and bent to suck on her earlobe.
A tremor went through her, and he noted color was returning to her features.
"Okay, Meg, now eat something." He hadn't meant it to sound like an order, but the need was too urgent to sound like a request. What he really meant was, 'Stay alive, keep your blood flowing, don't leave me.' Saying any of those things might alarm her, and if there was one thing he knew, it was that fear was dangerous for her in this condition. The condition he'd put her in because he was so selfish and careless.
He let her hold the wine cup in her own shaky hand and brought her an apple to bite into.
She was looking close to normal now, with no trouble eating or drinking. Now might be a good time to ask questions.
"Do you wanna tell me more about what you saw?"
He wouldn't tell her what he'd seen when he returned after morning exercises with the League and a quick dip in the baths. His beloved had been afflicted with a stygian pallor as if she'd been dead for hours. His undying heart had halted at the sight of her. It would have ended his world if leaving her for less than an hour had left a window for death to climb through.
"I was... feeling all this... negativity," Megara told him. "It weighed me down... anchored me in the Underworld..."
Hercules wanted to vomit the words back out of his ears. "Why?"
"It was a dream..." she took another drink of wine. "You know... it was... different down there."
"Different, how?"
"Renovated. Beautified. Lively."
"It was still the Underworld." His wife didn't belong down there. A sickening question fluttered through his mind. "Was that where you met Harmonia?"
The empty wine cup and the half-eaten apple dropped to Megara's lap, and they both placed their hands over her belly to search for evidence of life. They prodded and nudged and rubbed at it, hoping it would wake their daughter up and get her moving.
"We need me to move," Megara concluded after several breathless minutes. "Help me walk to the nursery!"
Quick as Hermes, Hercules had her out of bed and walking down the hall to the nursery on her unsteady, aching feet. Despite dozens of tiny complaints, Megara remained focused on her walk until she doubled over and braced on the nursery doorframe.
"There she is. She did not like that."
"Neither did you." Hercules picked her up and settled her on the couch. He knelt in front of her and once again framed Harmonia in his hands.
Harmonia stretched within the boundaries of her miniature world, hitting her father's palms both with the soles of her tiny feet and the crown of her head.
"Wow," Hercules whispered. "She's really… in there."
"Where else would she be?" Megara asked with a breathless laugh. The journey had taken more from her than he'd expected it to. At least there was color in her lips again, but he ached for her struggles.
"I know that sounded dumb, but…"
"I love her, too." Her lashes hung low, and she leaned back against the wall. "I'm lucky in a way. I can feel everything she does…"
"Yeah," he said, but the toll it was taking on her was filling him with an intense guilt that he couldn't let her see. If there was anything he'd learned so far, it was that fear was poison to her and the baby, so he had to keep it away from her. "You two are so precious to me," he whispered.
Megara opened her eyes to smile sadly at him. "You know the strangest thing about the Underworld in my dream?"
Hercules steeled himself for it. He didn't want to hear anything about the Underworld, but he wouldn't shut her down. "What was that?"
"When I was down there, I wasn't threatened by anyone or treated as a prisoner. I had a job."
That made him sit higher on his knees to get closer to her. "What kind of job?"
"It was clerical work. I think I was… sorting souls?" There was enough color in her cheeks, and the light was in her eyes that it was clear whatever condition had made her sluggish was wearing off. She blinked a few times. "I heard a voice, too. He said it was inevitable…"
Harmonia started tumbling around between Hercules's hands, and Hercules could feel Megara's pulse racing, too.
"Herc! I knew that voice!" She was alarmed now. He'd have to calm her somehow.
"It was a dream, right?"
"How many dreams do I wake up from without a pulse?"
The horror grew on both their faces.
"He said my being there and working for him was inevitable."
Hercules sought her hand and held it while monitoring Harmonia with the other. "Nothing's inevitable, Meg, except that I'll make you a goddess. Harmonia, too."
"She's so beautiful," Megara whispered. Tears rolled down her face. "I wish you could've seen… Her messy ginger curls and her little oval face… she had my eyes, but…" She combed her fingers through his hair, looking at it between her fingers as if checking for how similar the shade was to Harmonia's.
Hercules got up on the couch with her so he could cradle her against his chest. "I will see her, Meg, when she's ready to be seen. She'll grow up and be just like the vision you saw. But she'll never have to go down there. We'll keep her safe." He looked around the room at the cloudy aesthetic they'd decorated it with. "She'll live on Olympus and visit Earth with us."
"He's seen her, but you haven't!" Megara lamented, and it was all he could do to hold her as she was racked with sobs.
"He's not coming back, Meg. I won't let him have you." It was two separate, incompatible promises, but he had meant them when he made them.
"Wonder Boy… Do you know what Harmonia said to me? She said you were on Olympus with your family…"
"You're my family."
His statement had the opposite of its intended effect.
Megara wailed into his shoulder while all he could think to do was rub her arm and wipe her tears with a blanket. She had started to hiccup through her sobs, and he knew at that point she was in deep. He'd never seen her like this before. Would any of his usual methods work at this point?
"We– are!" she gasped out. "But that's what I– told her! And she– said–" She broke off again, incoherent.
"We don't have to repeat it," he said, though he was desperately curious. If this was a real vision, this could be a clue to how to save them both. If it was a vivid dream, it could be a chance for him to speak to the real issues plaguing her and help rescue her from the pain that was tormenting her.
"No…" She steadied herself, gripping his bicep for stability. "She said we were your family but that I wouldn't stop bleeding!"
That was an image he could see more clearly than his daughter's face. All their friends would be there to witness the birth of their daughter and give Megara their support, only to watch as her blood flowed incessantly.
Dizziness overcame him, and his heart ached. "That won't happen… My mother won't let it happen."
"It was so real…"
"But I won't let you die! I'm a god now. It has to mean something."
"Is childbirth a domain of yours?"
"No, but I have direct connections, and they won't go to waste." He reached out in his mind for his mother but then remembered his father's resistance to the topic of Meg's immortality. Hera might play by his rules, but he now knew someone who might do otherwise. "Rhea," he called. "Grandmother! Please heed my call and lend your mercy to my beloved."
Before long, his grandmother stood at the center of the nursery. "What seems to be the trouble?" she asked and glanced around the room. "I can see that the two of you care a great deal for your child. It may be that you're overly concerned out of an abundant affection."
"Meg had a dream that we think you can help us interpret," Hercules said.
"Dream interpretation is not my domain," Rhea said gently.
"It was about my baby," Megara said. "Or about… after giving birth to her."
Rhrea knelt beside the couch and took Megara's hand. "You are in no danger, daughter of Cadmus. Nor is your precious one."
"But I saw…" Megara hiccupped again but forced the words out, "We were in the Underworld. Together."
"That is a reasonable fear for any mortal."
"In my dream, I felt as if I was there, and Harmonia blamed me for dying and bringing us both there. I died… and I kept bleeding…"
Rhea set a hand on top of Megara's head. "Do you know what power I derived my name from?"
Megara shook her head. "I may have at some point, but I'm so…"
"Of course, you're distracted by your fear," Rhea whispered. "But remember this: I am the goddess of the flow. I am counting the days and hours until my great-grandchild is ready to meet the world, and when that time comes, I will control what flows from you. I will not allow you to lose your life when I am so proud that you have entered my family. One day, I know we will crown you as a celestial princess. You don't have to be afraid."
"I don't know how to engage with that logically when my whole mind is consumed with these images and these fears," Megara confided to the goddess. "I want to let it all go and believe in you, but I feel so powerless."
"You needn't be ashamed of that, either," Rhea replied. "Your fear is a symptom of your love for your daughter and admirable."
"There's more to it, too," Hercules said. "When I found her still in the dream, her face was so pale… and she couldn't move. It took her a long time to wake up all the way. Also… her skin was sort of greenish…"
Rhea frowned. "Nothing is physically wrong with her. That shouldn't be happening."
"If nothing's physically wrong with me, did my own nightmare do it?" Megara asked her.
"No. Someone's malign influence did that. It's almost like witchcraft. Do you know any witches?"
Megara and Hercules exchanged a glance.
"I put Hecate in Tartarus," Hercules said. "I don't know any witches currently, but if there are any, they'd target us for what they saw as a legitimate reason."
"A witch would have to have access to us somehow," Megara said. "She'd have to plant something on us or speak a curse on us."
Hercules finally noticed a family resemblance to Hera when they both stared at his wife in confusion.
"I went through a phase," Megara explained. "Plus, I used to drink with Hecate in the Underworld."
"So it can't be a witch, can it?" Rhea asked. "It would have to be someone with a hold on Megara."
"I'm the only one who can hold her," Hercules said, even if he wasn't entirely sure what his grandmother meant by that.
"Someone with leverage," Megara said grimly. "Who's running the Underworld these days?"
"Nobody," Rhea replied.
"When was the last time someone checked?"