Within the walls of their home, the only sound aside from the two of them breathing was the trickle of the fountain and the rustle of trees. They were beyond the city walls, and even a bustling town like Thebes eventually slept. In that relative silence, without the stressors of the palace, nothing could distract Megara from the sludgy morass of emotion that threatened to swallow her.

"That was… a lot," Hercules ventured.

"No kidding. I'd almost forgotten how much I hate parties," Megara sighed heavily. One shaky hand went up to rub her forehead and incidentally cover her eyes. If she weren't careful, he'd see–

"Hey," Hercules brushed tears off her cheeks with his thumbs. "I know you handled it like a champion back there, but you don't have to pretend anymore. It's just me."

"I'm not…" mostly because she couldn't. At the party, she'd kept all the holes in her emotional jar plugged up, but now the seals had broken off, and the contents were spilling all over the floor. "I can't… believe it…"

"I've gotcha." Hercules lifted her into his arms and carried her… somewhere. "If it makes you feel any better, I can honestly say those two are both so terrible they deserve each other." Hercules set her down on... something, tilted her face upward, and examined it between his hands. His face was blurry through a veil of her tears, but she could feel his concern in every motion. He kept trying to wipe away her tears, but they just kept coming. "What did I miss?"

"Oh, it's…" she closed her eyes and wheezed until it sounded like breathing. "Listen, I don't believe any of this– it's not your fault– I won't hold it against you."

"All of those things you just said are not as encouraging as you think they are," Hercules replied with a nervous laugh.

"It has to do with what comes after Harmonia," Megara said. "I'm going to be… different."

"Well, obviously, but–"

"You know I won't… I can't ever look as beautiful as I was before this. I wanted to believe that wouldn't matter, but people like that woman will never stop throwing themselves at you." Megara folded her hands together and clasped them into a vice. She had to stop crying. This was pathetic! She couldn't even tell him what she was thinking, and this was important!

"And I guess she thinks telling you that will make me less likely to ignore her?" Hercules set a hand on her tight-wound fingers. He cradled her hands between his and brushed a circle into the back of each palm until she opened her hands for him. "People like that don't understand what beauty is. That's why I'm with you and not someone like her. I know that doesn't make it better right now, but eventually it will. I'm sorry I didn't leave you here for a little while and smite that guy like I should've."

"If I hadn't talked to her and let the others deal with her…"

"That's not who you are, and I should've known better. But it looks like we learned our lesson, huh? Come on, let's clean off your makeup and get ready for bed, all right?"

"That sounds logical…"

"Thanks!" He stretched his smile to its limit. "It wasn't easy!"

"I'm… really proud of you…" her tears had ceased to make any sense, but now they were giving her the hiccups.

"Aww, you don't have to keep boosting my ego when you're not feeling well. Let me do the rest from here."

"Even so, I have to–" she was interrupted by her own weepy hiccup, "-wonder. What did you say to Theron?"

"It was kinda weird, honestly," Hercules's voice lowered into a sullen huff. "He kept trying to think of some other way to badmouth you. It was all inconsistent; it just ran along the same theme that I couldn't trust you and that you were promiscuous."

"The supreme irony…" she sighed.

"What? Because Deianeira said the same thing about me?"

"No, because… well, yes, actually. I just meant because he's… Wait…" Megara blinked a few times, and the tears stopped flowing. She brushed her eyes clear and fixed them on her husband's face. "You made a good point."

"I did?"

"They want us to distrust each other. They came here intentionally." She sat up straighter and recognized her surroundings enough to see she was sitting on a bench in the baths. "They knew we'd both be here. For some reason, they were ready to confront us, and they both had the idea to try and undermine our trust in one another."

"To what end? Pure cruelty?"

"I don't know…" And she wouldn't know for some time, but she had no doubt the answer would reveal itself.

"You went to school with that woman. Do you know anything about her?"

"She's always got flawless hair and enjoys the color red. I didn't even know her name. She wasn't involved in extracurriculars like I was, or I'd have known her better. I wish I could tell you more."

"Don't worry too much about her. She's banished now. But I have to wonder what brought them here. What did they want from us, and did they get it?"

"Those are the sorts of questions I'd usually be asking," Megara sighed. "I'm losing my touch."

"No, you're just distracted because of how many terrible people you saw today." Hercules smiled for her. "Let me make it up to you." He removed her sandals. "Are your feet hurting?"

"Somehow, not that much, but go on."

Eager for a task to prove himself, Hercules assembled supplies, and then he was hard at work massaging her foot with aromatic oils.

"Thanks…" Megara sighed. "That woman was just so exhausting… But she didn't know you… she doesn't understand."

"Doesn't understand what?" he asked, happily working at the arch of her foot. He was doing so well that she forgot how much those words had hurt long enough to repeat them.

After a pause to moan encouragingly for him, Megara answered, "She said because you have more options than any other man in the world, you'd start picking other girls to sleep with after a while. She thinks you're going to lose interest after I give birth."

Hercules paused. "You don't believe her, do you?"

"No… I just have the words in my head now, so even though I know what you're about to say, I also know I can't predict how I'll look or whether I'll feel sensual enough to keep up with you anymore."

Hercules took a deep breath and switched from one of her feet to the other. Megara hadn't expected him to smile at her after she said that, but there was understanding in his eyes that made up for her own confusion. "Harmonia's going to change everything, even me. I already made you a mother, but you're also making me a father." His smile grew. "I didn't know how bad I wanted that. You're the one who's given me that gift. I'll always be grateful that it was you who taught me how to grow and change so I can be what you need me to be."

"You always have been. You just have an easier time expressing it now." She leaned over to run a hand through his hair.

"I could say the same thing about you," he whispered, still cradling her foot as if it were a handful of diamonds. He moved higher up her leg, and neither of them commented on it. "We have tomorrow all to ourselves until day two of the party tomorrow… unless you'd like to skip that? I could spoil you all week if you want. We can work in Harmonia's room or do nothing, whatever you want."

"No, no. We already have so many people who saw me facing off against that woman; I don't want them to think she won and drove me away. I've got to prove I'm not a victim. Nobody else gets to see my tears. There are too many people out there looking to spill them."

"I understand." Hercules slid both his hands up her legs and wrapped them under her knees to tug her closer. "I also know there's no shame in a woman who's not a fan of parties skipping one or two, especially when you're carrying a little demigoddess who I'm sure is taking a lot from you, and there will be parties all week."

"Don't tell me you know what's going on in there."

"I worked alongside Doctor Hippocrates," he reminded her. "Maybe I'm not a midwife or anything, but I'm not completely ignorant, either. I know you're connected to her, and she takes from you. So let me give back to you because you're doing something I never could, and I'm forever grateful."

"You realize any woman in Greece would do the same, right?"

"And I didn't pick any of them, did I?" Hercules squeezed her thighs. "I picked the woman better suited to me than one I literally sculpted from my dreams. The one who'll face off against gods and monsters without flinching and either build or destroy with her words. Nobody else seems to get it, and sometimes you don't, either. But that's all right." He turned a faucet, released a flow of water into a basin, then dipped a woolen towel to dab her face with. "I'll never believe someone's lies about you. We're unbreakable. I'll love you more and more every time someone tries to tear us apart."

Megara folded her hands in her lap, incidentally cradling Harmonia in the process. "I'm not going anywhere intentionally."

"Or unintentionally. I know you're afraid of what happens when Harmonia's born, but my mother won't let you down. There's no woman in the cosmos who will be better cared for than you when that happens, and I'll be there, too."

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that men don't attend such things? Besides, you'd go insane hearing me scream."

"Correction, I'll go insane knowing you're in pain and abandoning you. That's one of the major differences between you and that rat you knew before. Did I tell you he was creeping around in a back alley when I found him?" He wrung the cloth out and left it folded beside the basin.

"No, but that seems to be what he's best at, so it makes sense."

Hercules responded with a low, dismissive puff of laughter. "Yeah, I kind of wish I wasn't so strong, just so I could beat him up, and it wouldn't have to escalate to murder. Please tell me he used to at least pretend he wasn't the scum of the earth when he was with you."

"Give me some credit; I'm not actively attracted to slime. He could be sweet, but I thought the occasional negativity was teasing, or maybe I deserved it."

"You didn't."

"Maybe not. But you know how I like to banter. I sort of thought… we were just clever people in a bad situation, so we vented in ways that amused us both."

"I get it, but I'd never be like that with you." He scooped her off the bench. "Bath or bed?"

"Bath." While Hercules was undressing her for that, she said, "You could tease me a little bit, but thanks. I love who you are. I don't need you to change how you talk to me."

"I'm glad because I'm not that good at teasing; it turns into compliments, and then I'm worshipping you."

"I'll learn to cope somehow."

Hercules grinned, and now that she was bare to him, his hands trailed down her body from shoulders to hips. "Just like I'll cope with getting to look at the world's most beautiful woman every day. I hope the next time you hear that woman's words in your head, you remember the way I'm looking at you right now and laugh." He tossed off his ceremonial armor, then stood ankle-deep in the water where she could admire him to his fullest advantage.

"Maybe she's just jealous of me because she thought she stole the best from me, and then I found better." She removed her crown and set it down atop the rest of her clothes, then walked into the water toward Hercules's outstretched arms.

Once he had her, Hercules carried her to waist depth in the water, stretched her out on her back, and held her up along the surface. "I don't get it, but maybe that's a good thing."

"It is. She must be miserable, though, defining what she wants by whatever someone else has."

"That's…" Hercules paused, frowning at the ceiling. "It's probably true, but how do you know that?"

"I was brought up among royalty. We're not so different from those who wish they could be us, except they're never satisfied. It's not enough to tear me down once. When I moved on from the first time she devastated me, she needed to prove she was still superior, so she tried to poach you right in front of me."

"I kinda thought she just wanted to distract me from tracking down her husband, but… yeesh." Hercules lowered her a little deeper into the water, then lifted her back up and helped her stand on her own. "Well, she won't get me. I made that clear to her. Besides," he grinned down at her and moved a hand into her hair. "I'm into brunettes."

"Oh, so she's only going to fail because she's blonde?"

"Brunettes with purple eyes and sassy wits whose loyalty outshines the sun." He spun with her and brushed his nose against hers. "But I promised you a little something, and I don't break an oath." His hands hovered near her chest. "How ready would you say you are?"

"It was a pretty tiring day, all things considered." She yawned theatrically and stretched her arms overhead, innocently arching herself into Hercules's waiting hands. "I had to talk to lots of your friends, and then I even sang for you, twice, and I even had to wear a crown."

"I'm so sorry to put you through all that," Hercules replied, his lashes low over his eyes. He settled his hands firmly in place and gave her a quick squeeze. "How can I make it up to you?"

"I'm sure we can think of something."