God and Mortal

by Emma

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, I am nobody official, etc.

Rating G, nothing bad happens.

This takes place sometime after Eve was born and before the time warp. Gabby’s not here
for some reason, Eve is still a baby, and Ares and Xena have some unresolved feelings,
which get resolved in a kind of unexpected manner....

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The familiar tingle up her spine made Xena spin around and grab her chakram.
"Ares, don’t touch her. Get out of here."
He sighed and materialized a few feet behind her. "Xena, I’m not after your baby.
Will you just listen to me?" He had a lonely, longing look in his eyes, but she seemed
oblivious.
"What do you want? You’re wasting your time. You’re not getting Eve, and
you’re not getting me either, in any way. Please do us all a favor and go." He started to
speak, but closed his mouth abruptly with a hurt expression. She turned finally to face
him, but when she saw the unusually expressive look on his face, she glared at him and
snarled disgustedly, "Stop it with that, Ares! Stop acting. We all know what you’re really
like - and I don’t want any more to do with you."
It hurt to say that. It wasn’t true, she knew, but she figured that Ares was
probably too caught up in his own emotions to notice the deceit in her mind. Xena didn’t
even really know why she was pretending. It was rather pointless to be so mean to him,
and pretty unfair. She *did* have feelings for him, and maybe it was time to admit them.
The hurt he showed was genuine...but then again, so was the malice and hatred she’d seen
in him so many times.
‘All right’, she thought. She’d compromise, and give him one chance. It was too
hard to confess her own softness where he was concerned unless he confessed first, so she
decided to goad him into admitting in plain Greek his feelings for her. He’d hinted at it
before, whispered "I love you" at her when she was asleep, but if she could make him
admit it out loud, she would in turn tell him about her own emotions. A flood of relief,
accompanied by a warm tingle of anticipation, washed over her then. Finally, she could be
clean and honest with him. Xena smiled happily. All he had to do was take the first step.
"Ares." she began slowly, breaking the silence. "You’re here for a reason. I’ll
listen to you, but first I want you to answer me one question." He nodded warily. "All
right, here: I know you gods are busy people. So why do you waste your time chasing
me around night and day, when you could be doing something important? And don’t give
me a crap answer about me being a good fighter. I want the real reason, Ares - why do
you constantly follow around a mere mortal?" For a moment, she saw the answer she
craved hovering in his eyes. The words "because I love you" were on the tip of his
tongue...she could see it. Then, suddenly, Ares seemed to really think about the question
for a moment, and his gaze changed abruptly.

The utter absurdity of the last few years dawned on him then. He stared at her for
a moment...at *her*, a mortal....and then began to laugh loudly. Not mean or maniacal
laughter, just the laughter of someone who realizes that a giant, incredibly funny joke has
been played on him. When he finally stopped laughing, he smiled at her and said with
plain, friendly courtesy "You’re right, Xena. Wow. It’s been really, really stupid of me to
chase you all this time... After all, you’re a mortal, and I keep forgetting that. Your
whole life span is so short...I’ve taken naps that are longer than the entire time you’ve
been alive. There were probably other mortals just like you, women I had feelings for too,
long ago, but so much time has passed that I’ve forgotten them, as I will eventually forget
you. It’s been unworthy of me to spend my time chasing you. In the blink of a divine eye,
you’ll be gone and buried, and I should be concentrating on more lasting issues than
personal interaction with a single mortal.
"Xena, I’m sorry I ever bothered you, I see now that the last couple years have
been very important to you. Don’t get me wrong, they were important to me too at the
time, and I did really enjoy your company, but...you’ll carry our time together for the rest
of your life, but for me it will fade in what seems like a second. I have millennia of
happiness left for me, but you don’t, so I won’t take up any more of your time. This is it,
Xena. I’m sorry I confused you, I guess I was a little confused myself, forgetting the
differences between gods and mortals.
"If you ever want to lead an army again, just ask...I think I’ll come up with some
interesting campaigns soon, and I can always use a good fighter. And of course, if you
ever want to...burn off a little energy at night post-battle, come see me. You really are
beautiful. Goodbye, Destroyer of Nations and Confuser of Gods. Goodbye, Xena." He
looked at her for a moment more, then shook his head and laughed again. He disappeared
in a flash of blue light, rolling his eyes and chuckling quietly.
Xena stared blankly at the place where the god had been, a look of
noncomprehension on her face. She whispered, "Ares?", half expecting him to come back
and grin roguishly and say, "scared you, didn’t I?". But he didn’t come back, and she
stood staring for a long time, her thoughts in a mad whirl. A cruel joke, it had to be; just
when she was ready to declare her feelings for him, she found that those feelings didn’t
even matter. Finally, all of a sudden, realization hit her in full. It all made sense....the God
of War...a force since the beginning of time. Why had she ever thought she could change
him, win his love, worm her way into his heart? It was like loving the ocean - she could
swim in it for awhile, but then it would be over and the waves would roll on without her
until the world ended.
Xena drew her sword as though in a dream. "I dedicated this sword once to the
God of War" she thought distinctly. He was no longer Ares to her. The God of War, a
fittingly cold title for the being who intended to walk away from the remains of her heart
and spirit, take a nap, and forget the whole thing. She meant to run herself through with
the sword, but somehow lacked the strength to do it. Instead, she dropped it on the
ground, collapsed beside it, and began to cry. Xena could hear Eve sobbing right next to
her, equally miserable, but she still felt, for the first time, completely alone.

Fin.



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