Till death do us part
(c) 2023 by ihatemilk
_August 2015
It wasn't his intention to go completely no contact.
At first, he was pissed off and needed to cool off. Then, it was to give her space. Then, he figured the ball was in her court anyway; he told her how he felt, told her what he wanted. It would be a pathetically bad style to chase after her now. He got her hooked, anyway. It was just a matter of time till she came back.
But days turned into weeks and the silence started killing him in a strange, exhausting way it never had before. Like a cloud over his head, like this single sliver that he couldn't get out, that got his mind well up with this raw yearning that made everything he did feel like a drag, like almost meaningless killing time.
And she was fucking everywhere. And every time he was in Yemen, their recent argument would ring in his head, driving him half-mad. She and her damn moralizing; now, wherever he went he got distracted by things he never noticed before. She was right, there were children fighting for the Houthis, but so what? Their personal code of conduct was none of his business. They weren't even his troops, they didn't fight in his name — they were just tools he supplied with arms as a part of the bigger picture.
One day, he landed in Aden to meet up with the leaders of one of the groups. Already inside what the stinky basement they had made their armory, at first he thought it was a prayer; one of the soldiers was rocking back and forth on his knees. But then, the man's wailing made his ears ring. Annoyed, he approached the man to silence him, but the scene he saw silenced him instead. Not even the state of the little corpse, but the way the man held the boy to his chest, like he just lost the only thing that made life worth living; he remembered the feeling too well, it made his throat clench even all those months later. What if it was our son? — her voice in his head combined with the scene at his feet made it impossible to stay there any longer. Closing the metal gate behind him, he snapped himself to the solitude of his terrace, lit up a cigarette and sank into the black cushions that still smelled like her. He didn't feel any better, but at least there was no one here to witness it.
From that day onward, there were no child soldiers in Yemen.
It was somewhat awkward to feel so good about it, but he couldn't help it. What was worse, he went on to establish first-aid centers all around the city. Gods, that he would never tell her, not under the worst of tortures. She wouldn't know, anyway; she got back to New York shortly after Jeddah.
He did spy on her from time to time; the need to know if she was okay would win with his pride way more often than he'd care to admit. She seemed fine overall, but there was something off; he couldn't quite pinpoint it. But then, when he noticed she stopped going to gym, he kept an eye on her day to day. He noticed she would get sick in the morning. Gods, what a clueless idiot he was. Several days passed until it dawned on him.
He was about to go to her right away, in the fervor of the moment, but stopped himself at the very last second, thinking back to one of his therapy sessions. He was supposed to try to give her more space, not push her like he always had. Maybe that was a good time to try it. He would give her space and time to tell him herself.
It was easier said than done. After only a couple of days he was on the border of insanity, euphoria and some bizarre fear eating him alive.
That fear was gnawing at his gut.
And then, one day, he spotted her in the part of Manhattan that wasn't on any of her regular routes; she was walking into a tan-brick building on the corner of Bleecker and Mott Streets; he was in the middle of quite a mess in Yemen at the moment but it sparked his curiosity and he decided to check it out later.
He didn't know why, but it bothered him somehow, and so, after a while he threw everything aside and looked up the address she was at.
Seeing the name Planned Parenthood, he instantly connected the dots and froze on the spot. Technically, she could've gone there just for the check-up, only that he knew she didn't; he could feel it in his bones, and it made his blood freeze.
His first instinct was to go there and stop her, but he was still too stunned to move. She'd been there for ages already, half an hour at least. If he went there and it was too late… he would kill her on the spot, he would blow up the whole damn clinic. No, he had to get his temper in check if he was to go there in person. No matter what, he didn't want to hurt her, he wouldn't forgive himself; it would fuck him up so bad that no amount of therapy would ever fix it.
He had to take a minute to breathe, do the breathing exercise he practiced in his therapy sessions. A minute seemed like an hour at the moment, but too much was at stake to go there riled up as he was.
Then, looking at the portal one last time before transporting himself to the destination, he froze.
He froze, because the entrance door opened, and then he saw her — walking out of the building, wiping her cheeks with her palm, her shoulders shaking. She pushed her back against the brick wall and stood there, catching her breath. He hadn't seen her cry like that ever since Gabrielle's death.
He felt life drain out of him.
If he had been stunned before, he couldn't name what he was feeling now. He just knew he couldn't go there anymore. Not now, not later, not ever.
If he went there now, he would either break down or just straight on kill her, or both, and it wouldn't change anything now. It might have, minutes ago, but not anymore.
Surprisingly, his rage started subsiding, his throat tightening with slow, choking despair. In trance, he wiped his face with disbelief, examining the moisture on his palm. It felt surreal, as though neither the face nor the hand was his.
The next couple of days were a blur. He only remembered that Julia wanted to meet, and he said he was out of town. She might have been a bit of a band-aid, but he didn't feel like seeing her. Besides, he was too unhinged to be near anyone.
Eventually, he went to Yemen and busied himself with work; he half-assed most of what he did there, but it served as a much-needed distraction. Apart from that, he couldn't do anything more; Afghanistan couldn't be half-assed at the current stage, so it had to wait until he was more mentally functional.
He rang up Julia. And it was weird. Awkward and terrible at first. His body refused to work; and this time thinking about her not only didn't help but worked quite to the contrary. He had to use his powers. Not that Julia knew about it, but it terrified him. He knew that mortal men had issues in this department at certain age, but he wasn't mortal; he was a god, for fuck's sake, and this shouldn't happen to him. It never did.
He knew that Julia felt something was off, but she didn't push. He liked that about her. They weren't exclusive, each had a life of their own, and they never brought any of it to the bedroom. But in all the silence — they didn't talk as much as usual — he found himself drifting to places that he wanted to stay away from as long as she was there; it was hard enough to be a witness to his weakness himself; he couldn't stomach having audience for it. But something in the way she touched him made him close his eyes and think back to the hotel room in Raffles, when another hand combed through his hair as he was melting into the body he wanted to stay inside till the end of his days, and that was the last straw.
"If you wanna talk, I will listen."
"I don't."
"Feels like a fall you'll never recover from, doesn't it..."
"It's still a no."
"There's no cure for it, you know?"
"That was insightful, thanks."
"Talking helps, though."
"I'm not much of a talker."
"You know, when my first husband told me he was leaving me for his secretary — what a timeless cliche — it felt like my life ended; and well, soon after, it almost did."
He frowned, giving her a questioning look. It was good, it took his mind off reality.
"I almost killed myself…"
He smirked. "Suicide is a tastelessly melodramatic way out."
"Believe me, I would make it tasteful."
"It's cowardice no matter what a show you make of it."
"You obviously haven't been stabbed in the heart by the person you loved."
"You would be surprised..."
"It's just craving relief."
"What?"
"Only those who haven't tasted real pain call it cowardice. Relief from pain that gets so unbearable it makes your head explode — that's what makes a person take their own life; not fear or sadness."
"Ain't there pills for that?"
"You've clearly never suffered from severe depression..."
"Well, I'm a tough guy."
"And what's a tough guy doing on the verge of tears?"
He was about to leave at that point, but that was when she put a glass of scotch in his hand. When he downed it all at once, she poured him another one, and one more, and then he lost count. Fuck it, he didn't want to be alone now. He wanted to drink straight from the bottle till he passed out, and he didn't want to be alone.
He woke up in the middle of the night; it was the same fucking dream, over and over ever since Raffles; the same hotel room, he was smoking at the window, her voice behind him; she was wearing a black satin robe, her hair wet; coming up to him, she took a hit of his cigarette and said he was an pigheaded idiot and how if he had let her in on the Yemen campaign from the start, it would've all gone smoother and without the major humanitarian crisis.
"Oh yeah, like you would've agreed to join me on the campaign..."
"If I'd known you would make such a mess of it, I wouldn't even think twice—"
"Whatever happened to not telling me how to do my job?"
"I reconsidered."
"Let me guess — I'm too much of a pigheaded idiot to let me work on my own?"
"Well, I'm glad we have that settled..."
Then, he would turn back, and she would be right in his face, piercing him with catlike eyes, letting her robe slide down to the floor, and gods — and then, his eyes snapped open, and the warm, nude body in his arms was not hers anymore, making him sober up in one painful second. Abruptly, he pulled away, waking up the woman whose touch now burned him. It was time to go home. Go home, throw himself down on the terrace sofa and make it all go away.
Only that when he entered the terrace, he could still see her there, leaning against the railing, nude under the night sky. He still had the picture he sneakily took back then; with a grainy noir filter it looked like a nocturnal scene from an old movie. The number of times he'd stared at it was too embarrassing to count.
For fuck's sake, even damn smoking made him think of her. Everything in this place was contaminated. Maybe he should be spending more time with Julia. Why the hell couldn't he just move on? Why couldn't he want Julia like that? Maybe he should try harder.
He would.
He would call Julia tomorrow.
#
And then, after several slow steps forward, he took a step back when he heard the familiar voice in his ear. He was in a meeting and it unhinged him so much that he had to get out for a good minute or two. He was torn; he ached to go to her but couldn't bring himself to go; it still made him sick to think about her. When she said his name again, something stirred in him; her voice was quiet and soft, unlike her. Automatically, he took out his phone and dialed Julia. Thirty minutes later he was ripping her clothes off in a wild frenzy, but the voice calling his name played in his mind on repeat, until he thought he would lose it — he was close to just going to her, at one point he almost did — but there was no point — there was nothing she could say that he would want to hear now; no words could undo what she did.
A part of him was tempted to open the portal to just look at her, but the hurt part of him dismissed the idea with a grimace. Actually, he should work on dimming his telepathic connection with her somehow. They'd always had some level of connection like that, but it had never been as sensitive as recently, and from now on, he needed it gone completely.
He started to suspect that he might have succeeded in weakening his responsivity to her, because for the following couple of weeks he hadn't heard or felt her at all.
But there came a day when it turned out he was wrong.
#
September 2015
Weeks later, it turned out he was wrong about their connection fading. And tragically wrong about yet another thing.
He was in a rather culminative moment of his meeting with Julia when he felt the unmistakable stir in his chest. Groaning in frustration, he hesitated for a second, but then he felt another pang, so strong he shivered. Pushing Julia off, he closed his eyes to locate the woman that was way more important than this, for whom he just went as far as to pull out right before finish — dammit, he wished she could appreciate it.
Seconds later he materialized himself at her place in Brooklyn. As soon as he stormed through the open bathroom door he was hit by a stench of vomit. She was sitting on the edge of the tub, her head hanging down, one arm wrapped around her waist. There was blood on the huge, white T-shirt she was wearing, more blood on the floor.
"Gods, Xena, what's wrong?"
She looked up at him, wincing, her face twisted in what looked like both pain and disgust; pale as a ghost.
"What the fuck are doing here?"
"I sensed you were in pain," he answered honestly, taken aback by her hostility.
"Go to hell," she uttered, panting, looking like she tried to stop herself from screaming. She stood up, took a step forward and stopped, trying to keep her balance, reaching to the wall for support. Not waiting further, he scooped her in his arms. Gods, she was shaking.
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
"It's the baby…" she sniffled, clutching her stomach. His eyes followed her hand, and he froze when he saw the unmistakable swell. His heart went up to his throat.
Then he looked at the puddle of blood on the floor and his stomach contracted.
"Gods, no..." he muttered, feeling his knees go weak. "But how? I thought you… I saw you leave the clinic—"
"I didn't go through with it. Which you would've known if you gave any fuck about it," she spat, making him frown in confusion as he was starting to put two and two together.
"Xena, I had no fucking idea, if I had known—"
"I tried to tell you."
He felt his head was about to explode when the full picture of the current predicament rendered in his mind. That's why she called him, she wanted to tell him about the baby… gods, he was such an idiot.
"Dr Griffin at TBHC," she tapped on her phone screen. "121 Dekalb Ave, Brooklyn, now!" she moaned.
"You can catch up with your doc later, now I'm taking you to the doctors I trust," he decided and with a snap of his fingers they were in Manhattan.
Next minutes were a blur; the only thing he clearly remembered was that he couldn't let go of her hand even for a second.
What brought him back to reality was the touch of a hand on his face, the touch he would recognize with his eyes closed.
"The baby's fine," she said, holding her hand on his cheek until he looked at her. Her face was shiny with relief, and he closed his eyes to keep his own emotions under his lids.
"The baby is perfectly fine," echoed the voice of a stranger, and only then did he dimly realize there was a doctor with them. "It was a false alarm. It does happen sometimes. It's called a threatened miscarriage, looks scary but it doesn't harm the baby in the slightest. The bleeding should stop within days."
They were all staring at the abstract, moving image on the screen in front of them.
"So, we are at week sixteen, and we got a strong little heartbeat here… which you're gonna hear in a sec..."
The moment the sudden, rhythmic thumping sounds filled the room was the moment something snapped in his head, throwing him back into the present moment so fully, with such a thud, flooding him with the current reality as it was — mind-blowing, surreal, the time measured with the frequency of her squeezes on his wrist. Right now, she was gripping him so hard it hurt.
"I'll leave you two for a while," the doctor's sheepish voice reached him. When he opened his eyes, they were alone, just the two of them.
"Xena, I'm sorry... I'm an idiot." He pressed his forehead against her hand that was still clutching onto his wrist. Her skin was warm, felt so good against his forehead.
"Trust me, I've noticed."
Her voice had its usual steely edge to it. He looked up, expecting the contemptuous glare, but like him, she was crying.
He sniffled, inhaling through his mouth with effort. "When I saw you leave that clinic, I—"
"It's okay..."
No, it wasn't fucking okay, and when he felt her soothing touch on his head, her fingers running through his hair, he was close to losing it. The scene flashed in his head as if it was just yesterday, seeing her leave Planned Parenthood crying, sending him spiraling down into rage and despair he never knew he was capable of. Gods, if only he had gone to her right then... She didn't kill his child, she wanted it... He clenched his teeth, clutching the bedsheet not to make a sound, but when she pulled him close against her chest, and kept stroking his head, it all just poured out; and she held him down, until he almost dozed off.
The doctor's voice snapped him out of his half-slumber. "Would you like to know the gender?"
"Yes," was their simultaneous answer, and after that he just remembered the tingle of goosebumps down his arms and then it all got blurry again, apart from the short glimpse when he felt her nails dig into his forearm when the doctor's voice broke the silence.
They were going to have a daughter.
He said it out loud, but it didn't sound any less unreal than it did in his head.
#
She needed to go home.
They were standing outside the hospital for a minute or two, silent, the protective feel of his embrace making her yet more lightheaded.
"I'm taking you home," he said, his arms around her and the concern etched on his face adding to her already overemotional state. She needed to go home and lay down, and sleep it all off.
"Mmm," she responded, feeling him stroke her head, catching her breath as she felt a wave of nausea building up in her stomach. Closing her eyes as she felt him tighten his arms around her before the teleport, she opened them seconds later to see they weren't in Brooklyn. In fact, they weren't even in New York anymore.
But it was a place she knew well; the place, the heat of which melted her as much as he did. The place she couldn't stop thinking about for the last three months. The place she felt safe in, the place that made her wonder what a life with him would feel like; although she would admit none of the above to him, because she didn't want to be here now; she didn't want to be here just because she was pregnant, just because he was worried not as much about her, but the offspring he always wanted, his legacy that he'd tried to get from her for years. His future project, future weapon of mass destruction.
But then there was his face when he found her in the bathroom, the way he held her hand during the ultrasound, his shiny eyes when they heard the baby's heartbeat; he held her hand and cried, they both did, and just remembering it now made her eyes water, made her wish it could be simple, that she could just love him, the way mortal couples do. And it exhausted the hell out of her that she couldn't. Because she couldn't, not with all their conflicting differences, not with his conditional interest.
But here they were, outside the huge tower of his Middle Eastern home, and she was standing here, in his arms, sweaty and pregnant, and it altogether made her weak in the knees.
"You were supposed to take me home," she complained feebly, clutching his shoulder for support and cursing when she felt another wave of nausea coming.
"I have," he firmed his hold on her.
And that was it — she needed the restroom fast, which was undoable, so she only managed to push him out of the trajectory before she vomited right onto the sidewalk they were standing on.
"I did have a feeling you won't be crazy about the idea," he commented wryly, making her chuckle.
There were people walking by but she didn't care; she was hardly standing on her legs. An English-sounding passerby mumbled something under his nose.
"My wife's pregnant — got a problem with that, asshole?" he snapped, wrapping his other arm around her. Both the gesture and his words made her weaker in the knees than she already was, and, as much as she hated herself for it, right now she just wanted him to scoop her up in his arms, take her upstairs and put her to bed.
"Ares, I'm not moving in with you just because I'm pregnant," she protested, mustering up what little was still left of her resistance.
"Why not?" he asked, so casually that it completely took her off guard.
She didn't know what to say to that. Why not? It was out of the question, but somehow, it was hard to suddenly come up with a single reason why.
"I don't have all day to make you a list."
"So, what, you're gonna stay in Brooklyn all by yourself, when you can hardly even walk?"
"Ares... you only care because of the potential that child holds in your eyes, and I'm not a vessel for your damn war legacy or whatever you think it's gonna be."
"You don't get it, do you? For fuck's sake, Xena… I only care because it's you. You fucking matter to me, alright?"
"Yeah, I've noticed."
"I would've been there if I had known!"
"I tried to tell you."
"Yeah, only when you decided to keep it."
"Well, I don't remember you being around much."
"I was giving you space!" he spat, with so much frustrated honesty that she went speechless for a moment.
Only then did she notice how shaky his breath was. But underneath all the anger oozing off his pores, his eyes shone with such hurt that her own anger faded.
"What do you want from me, Ares?"
"I wanna be with you, I wanna… do it with you, together," he said, trapping her breath in her chest.
She inhaled slowly, calming herself before she spoke. "Ares... having a child is a lot of work, it's a full-time job, it changes your life for years, it requires settling down and—"
"So?"
"Don't tell me you wanna settle down..."
He looked down, clenching his teeth.
"Oh gods, you do..." she whispered in disbelief. She could feel the rhythm of her heartbeat echoing in her ears.
"Why not, people do it all the time."
A wave of heat washed over her. She tried to steady her breath, her heart racing, head spinning.
No, she couldn't do it now, couldn't let him get to her like that. He might act human, but it was still him, and he was only in places when there were things for him to gain. He'd tried to get the offspring off her for years, of course he wouldn't pass up this opportunity.
"Come on, I'll take you upstairs."
"Don't."
"Why the fuck not?"
She sighed, clenching her teeth in frustration. The thought that he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the baby needled her in a way so annoying and unbearable that she couldn't stand looking at him; but she would rather walk the Gauntlet again than tell him that.
„Go back to your girlfriend, I'll be in touch."
"You gotta be fucking kidding me," he gripped her upper arms with such force that she knew he was way beyond being just mad. „I won't let your pride put our child's life in jeopardy."
She hated to admit it but he was right. Worst of all, she couldn't believe it was him of all people that pointed out such error in her judgement, something that now made her feel such shame. Did her blind animosity towards him cloud even her motherly instincts? Maybe she indeed wasn't fit to be a mother in this lifetime.
"Do you hate me that much that you would rather risk your own child's life than let me take care of you?"
His question felt like a stab to the chest. The ominous familiarity of it made her blood freeze, just like the last time she heard similar words from him, when he demanded she bore him a child in exchange for him protecting her daughter from the Olympian pantheon, threatening to otherwise assist the gods in killing Eve. Whatever feelings she might have had for him back then, that moment killed them all. It was the first time in her life when he evoked in her hatred so deep that it sickened her to even hear his voice; the voice that kept whispering in her ear, nonetheless. "Does the thought of being with me sicken you so much that you'd rather let your daughter die?"
The very memory of it made her stomach churn now.
But the moment she threw him a hateful glare, the moment their eyes met — and all she could see in his usually smug eyes was hurt — a lump formed in her throat, a pang of shame cutting her breath short.
It couldn't just be an act, gods, he really was changed; odd as it was, in therapy or by some miracle, he somehow developed human feelings. Come to think of it, she'd seen his tears too many times to doubt it.
"Let's go before I'm sick again," she sniffled, fighting another wave of nausea as she waited for him to teleport them upstairs, but he just wrapped his arm around her waist and stood there looking at her. He was still fuming, his jaw tense, but the softness in his eyes made all her remaining resistance fade away. There wasn't a reason she couldn't spend a day with him — they needed to sit down and talk anyway, sort things out, like co-parenting and all the adjacent issues.
The pharmacy.
"Wait, I need to pick up stuff from the pharmacy... the prescription."
He brushed away the strand of hair that was stuck to her cheek. "You're tired, baby — let's get you upstairs and I'll go myself," he wiped the corner of her mouth with his thumb, making her feel like a child. She wanted to be pissed off, tell him not to call her that, but she just stood there, blinking back the excess moisture her eyes welled up with.
"Want me to get anything else?" he asked, taking the prescription from her hand, just like that, like they were just a regular couple. She kept blinking hastily to stop the tears from falling. It took her a while to regain her voice.
"Menstrual pads and a toothbrush. And dental floss."
"Roger that," he said, brushing his thumb against her lower lip in a way that made her forget what she was thinking.
"You won't remember it, I'll go with you."
"I'm taking you upstairs and that's non-negotiable. And thanks for the vote of confidence. What's dental floss?" he frowned. "What?"
"It's what you use to remove food from between teeth," she couldn't help a smile.
"I gotta say, mortals have really upped their game since ancient times," he said, making her roll her eyes. "Ready to go?"
"Wait," she managed to utter before grabbing his hand and pulling him aside to another nearby lawn just in time before another wave of sickness cut her breath off. He stood behind her, his arm encasing her securely as she emptied her stomach on the freshly cut batch of grass, making another passerby raise eyebrows at them. "Now we can go," she uttered, realizing that she was still clutching his hand. She was so lightheaded that she welcomed it when he picked her up and transported them upstairs.
The terrace was just as she remembered it — the black sofa and the rattan coffee table with a black, stone ashtray and a familiar packet of cigarettes, no lighter. The only difference was that seeing the cigarettes now made her nauseous.
Closing her eyes, she eased into the cushions against her back, trying to fight off the nausea with deep breathing. She scanned the surroundings for any vessel big enough to use in case she wouldn't make it to the bathroom in time. There had to be something in the living room, but she was too weak to move.
She wished she could fast-forward time because this pregnancy felt like being hungover and having flu at the same time. She sometimes wondered if it was just because the father was a god, or because it was the God of War, who was a pain in the ass of a whole different caliber, and it made her smile despite herself.
She didn't want to love being back here, but as much as she hoped it would fade with time, as much as she wanted to blame it on the pregnancy — gods, she missed him; the hormones just made it worse. And when she remembered their last time together, she missed him more than ever. The night they went out drinking; nothing really happened, but when they came back, it was different, something was different. Sex was different. He was so tender with her, and she let him, and didn't want him to stop. She hoped he was too drunk to remember she cried. But she'd had a job to do, she didn't have energy or patience for his selfish outbursts, his constant undermining her principles.
They hadn't parted on the best of terms back then, but the long silence that followed irked her. But the more she missed him, the more she couldn't bring herself to call him.
He was giving her space. Well, she didn't want his damn space, she wanted him. She wanted him to show her she could trust him. She wanted him to take her home and make her feel the way he did back then, and make her feel it was real, that he meant it.
She flinched when the sharp sound tore the ether, producing the silhouette she hadn't seen in ages. Like her brother, she seemed to give up her traditional attire for the sake of modern wardrobe, but the Goddess of Love it was.
"Aphrodite..."
"I know it's not me you were expecting — by the way, you couldn't have done a worse job at hiding it..."
"I wasn't—"
"Aw, it's so cute how you and bro are so alike, and speaking of which — girl, we need to talk..."
"Why, is he so much of a coward that he sends his sister to break the ice for him?"
"Are you kidding? I'm officially forbidden to talk to you..."
"What? Why?"
"You tell me... you know he's a lunatic — that's why we only have minutes. Look, I promised him not to meddle, but this does it — I can't stand by when you're about to let a stupid misunderstanding mess up the lives of both of you."
"The red-haired misunderstanding?"
"No, look — Julia is my fault, it was my idea — yes, I arranged for them to meet to make him get over you after the damn conference — I'm sorry — but he spiraled out of control when he learned about you and Gabrielle... and I mean like World-War-III out of control..."
She froze in terror. "Oh gods, so the war in Yemen..."
"Well, Ar gets aggressive when he's hurt, but girl, after that conference... and no matter what, he can't know I told you..." Aphrodite lowered her voice, "...he started seeing a therapist, realized how much he screwed things up between you two, and then avoided you for a while because of that. Then, when he finally went to see you—"
"...he saw me with Gabrielle and went no contact..."
"He lost you again, babe — and after only just finding you..."
Aphrodite's words resonated in her head, one after another, and then just randomly, mixing with her memories from the day he showed up at the revolver statue, to chat and taunt her, and the look in his eyes when he asked if Gabrielle and her were an item and she didn't deny; the look that haunted her for many months to come; the look that now gained a context that formed a knot in her chest.
"Well, he moved on just fine."
"That's the thing, babe — he never moved on. He can't replace you—"
"I'm not a fucking charity."
"Why are you sabotaging this, Xena? You're so in love with him it gives me goosebumps to feel it! And you're carrying his child—"
"So?"
"What do you mean, so? The god with a heart made of stone — goes to therapy for you, sits home wasted for weeks after every encounter with you, cries in your arms when he learns you're pregnant — should I go on? He was at your bed day and night when you didn't wake up for weeks... Xena, I never saw him in such state and I swear I never wanna see it again," Aphrodite breathed, sniffling. "He wouldn't even talk. I thought I'd never hear his voice again..."
She blinked back tears, trying to shake off the image of Ares at her hospital bed.
"Aphrodite — me and Ares, we're too different to ever be together," she said, feeling the tears fall. "He refuses to get it, and it only hurts us both more."
"Xena, you love him..."
"He doesn't want to be a father, he wants legacy that he once tried to blackmail out of me—"
Aphrodite sighed. "You know, he figured you were pregnant… Xena, he had tears in his eyes when he told me; he was goings nuts… he wanted you to tell him yourself..."
"No, please..." she breathed, the lump in her throat choking her as the full picture was forming in her mind. Gods, why didn't he just come? Why would he—
"He kept an eye on you, so the day when he saw you leave the clinic, he just put two and two together and—"
So that was why he ghosted her... he thought she went through with the procedure...
"Gods, why wouldn't he come and talk to me first..."
"Babe, he lost it, he totally lost it — and then he was gone — I couldn't get in touch with him for weeks..."
She remembered that day too well. She got back to New York from Jeddah a while earlier and killed herself in the gym day and night not to think about him. When she found out she was pregnant, she wanted to run away from that, too.
But that she didn't manage.
The inhumanly white walls, the faces of women in the waiting room. The thought, the sudden single thought, the epiphany. The liberation of a different nature than she came there for. And then, the doubt was gone — if she would make it to be a mother, if she would manage to protect the child from him, from who both of them were — it all dispersed when she remembered holding Eve in her arms for the first time. Maybe this was her final chance to be a mother, to see her child grow up. Maybe it would make him more human. Deep down she felt he would love their child as much as she would. The guilt about what she came here to do gripped at her throat. Shaking, she stormed out of the waiting room, out the front door, struggling for air. Once she let it all out she couldn't stop.
Her hand went to the swell of her abdomen and her heart welled up with such an overwhelming mix of guilt, gratitude, and wild relief that it all trickled down her face uncontrollably. "I'm sorry," she sniffled, because she felt she was being a lousy mother already, his words from earlier still ringing in her ears. "Do you hate me so much that you would risk your child's life because of it?"
"I don't hate you," she said, forgetting about Aphrodite.
"That's a serious step forward, Xena. Your shrink would be proud of you if you had one."
When she opened her eyes, Aphrodite was no longer there, and he was standing in front of her, amused, with a glass of water in one hand and a champagne bucket in the other. The glass of water reminded her how parched she was, but her eyes remained glued to the other item. Did he just bring her a golden puke-bucket? She bit her lip to stifle a laugh.
"What? Who says you can't throw up in style? Oh, and I got you this," he reached into the bucket.
"A banana?"
"The doctor said it helps with the sickness," he said, sitting down inches from her.
"He did? He didn't tell me…"
"You haven't asked," he said smugly.
Speechless, she watched him examine the fruit at different angles. "I don't know how you open this," he frowned.
Trying to keep her cool despite how moved she was, she took the fruit out of his hands. "Like this…" she said, breaking the skin at the end and peeling it off, imagining feeding it to him. "Haven't you eaten a banana before?"
"The way apes do – no," he raised his eyebrows, making her laugh. "How is it?"
"It's perfect, mm…" she uttered with her mouth full.
"Glad you like it."
"What's so funny?" she wanted to know as she caught him grinning at her.
"Nothing, I like watching you eat—" he said before she cut him off by sticking a piece of banana in his mouth. "Mmm… oh, it is good…"
"Do you have peanut butter?"
"I don't think so. The pantry is stocked up with the food I eat, and I'm not familiar with peanut butter. Unless Paco got one for himself."
"Paco?"
"My chef."
She couldn't help it, she had to laugh.
"What?" he asked with mock hurt.
"Nothing," she wiped off the residue banana from his beard and licked her finger. When it occurred to her what she'd just done, it got her wondering when exactly they had gotten so close that she was eating food off of his mouth without realizing it.
His phone started ringing. He took it out of his pocket and checked the screen, not long enough for her to read the caller's ID upside down.
"Sorry, gotta take this," he said before making his way inside the apartment.
She couldn't help but wonder who it was, and why the fuck it irked her so much that he picked up that phone.
She knew he had a hard time keeping his dick in his pants with that godly libido of his, but then again, it never bothered her before. Now, it made her blood freeze with fury that made her want to skin him alive.
She took a deep breath. One thing at a time.
"We're gonna have guests over," he announced, and exactly a second later the doorbell rang, making her freeze in her spot. When she finally walked into the living room, she froze again — at the sight of a little dark-haired girl — five, maybe six years old — running straight into Ares with a high-pitched squeal that would've woken up the dead, and Ares catching her up in his arms, raising the sound frequency of the squeal to a level that should by all means break glass.
There was someone else standing in the doorway, but the sight of the small arms wrapped around his neck effectively kept her from noticing anything else for those next few moments when the two of them approached her.
"Is she your girlfriend?" the girl's brown eyes narrowed in disapproval, her affectionate embrace turning possessive, making it hard to keep a straight face. She already liked the kid.
"Xena, meet Sofia, my neighbor."
"Your favorite neighbor," the girl's eyes narrowed even more, and at that point suppressing laughter turned out impossible.
"What's so funny?" the girl asked accusingly, sounding so much like Ares that it was both funny and scary.
"I'm sorry, don't mind my daughter, she is always like this with strangers," the sheepishly apologetic, warm and low female voice laced with foreign accent reached her ears before the short, round silhouette of a kind-faced woman in her early forties came into view. Like Sofia, she had black hair and her skin was a light shade of golden brown.
"Maria," the woman introduced herself.
"Maria is Paco's wife. They live downstairs," Ares chimed in casually, as if it was completely ordinary that the God of War had neighbors who would drop in for a chat from time to time, and whose daughter adored him to the point of obsessive jealousy, apparently — though, to be fair, she couldn't blame the kid in the slightest. She shook her head, suppressing a smile.
Ares headed to the kitchen area, the girl still sitting on his hip.
"I'll just take one," Maria said, opening one of the wall cabinets.
"Take as many as you need."
"Take three, mom!"
"Sofia!"
Finally, Ares put an end to the argument, putting Sofia down and taking out several cans of what looked like beans and handing it over to her mother.
"Thank you, Paco will get them back tomorrow—"
"Don't worry about it."
"Is she going to stay here?" Sofia asked, lowering her voice confidentially, after stealing a quick glance towards her.
"I hope so," he grinned, ruffing the girl's hair playfully.
"Are you gonna have babies?"
"Sofia!" her mother scolded, but neither Sofia nor the God of War seemed to notice.
"We are."
"That's fine. But don't have girls. I don't like girls," Sofia informed matter-of-factly, utterly unmoved neither by her mother's invocations to divine entities nor Ares choking with laughter.
"She's pretty," Sofia added, stealing another sideway glance.
"She is, isn't she?"
"What's her name?"
"Xena."
"What a strange name!"
"Sofia! That's it, we're leaving," Maria's voice resounded amidst the little high-pitched laughter and Ares' low chuckle as the three of them walked towards the entrance door.
And then — as if the whole scene wasn't surreal enough — he ended up carrying the cans of beans downstairs himself.
She sank down on the terrace sofa, the random bits of the last few minutes replaying in her head, her heart racing. He was so human, gods, he was... like when he was mortal, back at her grandparents' farm. The vision of him with the girl in his arms made her chest tighten.
"We're going to have a daughter..."
Her hand went to her stomach. Maybe it wasn't a mistake, maybe it was the best thing that could happen to them. Maybe, if she learned to trust him, maybe they could make it work.
But even if they couldn't, even if they went their separate ways, she knew one thing for certain.
She wanted their daughter to adore him the way Sophia did.
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