Rated: PG
Summary: When Gabrielle must sell her soul to save an innocent, Joxer has to fight back with the only weapon he has.
Disclaimer: This is a complete waste of my typing abilities because if you've dug this far into the archive you've pretty much figured out the disclaimer thing. I do not own the following people: Xena. Gabrielle. Joxer. Xena's unnamed unborn as-of-this-time child. Ares. Aphrodite. Dahok. Alti. Callisto. Perdicas. Spherus. Draco. Yakut. Ephiny. Hercules. Iolaus. Zeus. Hera. Hephaestus. The Furies. The Fates. Discord. Strife. Alcemene. Cyrene. Minya. Hower. Autolycus. Lila. Lilith. Argo. Horse. Revinnika. Ulysses . . . Not all of these people appear in the story.

A good evening, for once. Joxer was getting sick of night after night of sitting by the fire in the darkened woods. Fires made him thoughtful, and since the most convenient thing to think about was Gabrielle's face across from him, bathed in orange light, he tended to get a little depressed. But this was a good evening. The inn room was brightly lit and filled with cheerful, friendly village people, eating and drinking and laughing.

Even his stressed, snappish companions were having a good time for once. Xena was smiling in that fantastically contagious way that he hardly ever got to see. Gabrielle, a grin absently adorning her face, listened intently to a story that their new friend Hesperis was relating.

" . . . and it just fell apart around him! Oh, I nearly laughed myself to death!"

Xena snickered and Gabrielle slapped the table as she threw her head back in laughter. Her short-cropped hair danced around her ears.

A tangle-haired village girl darted through the crowded room and grabbed onto Hesperis' loose sleeve. Tugging vigorously, she demanded, "Hesperis, Hesperis, tell them about the haunted palace! I want to hear it again."

The young man . . . very young, not over seventeen . . . laughed and lifted the girl into his lap. "Awfully scary story for such a little kid."

"I'm not scared! Tell!"

"Yes, tell us, Hesperis," Gabrielle encouraged. "We all want to hear."

Hesperis was the unchallenged best storyteller of the village, and out of respect Gabrielle kept her mouth shut. He reminded her of herself three years ago: idealistic, romantic, naive. Besides, he told a good tale.

"Well," he began, his voice dropping into a smooth, chilling, flowing tone, "It all began many years ago, when a horrible warlord named Sicalus ruled the valley. He slaughtered the people and forced the rest to build him a great palace out in the woods, all dark towers and secret passages and horrible dungeons. It was said that he was so evil he mingled with demons, learning their black magic. He used his prisoners in his spells."

The room was quiet now, listening to Hesperis' intoxicating voice. Joxer leaned forward on the table to hear better, slowly so as to not make anything clank and disturb the mood.

"Of course, you know that all villains get their due in the end. The armies of three kingdoms created an alliance dedicated to destroying Sicalus and his reign of death. They swept down upon the valley and annihilated his army, freed his villages, and tried their best to kill him. But Sicalus, consumed by his desire for power, refused to be defeated. As the last battle of that war raged around the palace itself, he threw out the guards, freed the prisoners, and locked himself in."

Even Xena was holding her breath now.

"When it was all over, they tried to get into the palace. But it was built tough and smart. No one could get in and no one could get out, until months later when they brought enough greek fire to blow the outer wall to kingdom come. For months, mind you. For months, no one could go in . . . and no one could go out.

"But when they finally searched the palace, they found . . ."

He paused to savor the tension he had created in the room.

"Nothing. No one, no body, not even a skeleton. He was simply gone."

Everyone in the room ceased to hold their breath and let chills run the length of their spine.

Joxer wasn't only tickled with pleasant fear, he was curious. "What happened to him?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Well," Hesperis said, grinning, "It is said that he sold his very being for the chance to rise again."

"Rise how?"

"No one knows. But unless you want to be somehow involved in it, you'd better stay away from that old palace."

Someone in the back of the room forced his voice into a tremor and wailed, "Wooooooooo . . . " in a very funny, very ghosty sort of noise. The tension shattered like a mirror as everyone burst into laughter at the joker and applauded Hesperis.

Xena clapped idly, grinning as she hadn't in months. "Bravo," she said earnestly. "That was a performance to remember."

"Thanks." He ducked his head a little, red with pleasure.

"I heard plenty of stuff at the Academy that wasn't anywhere near that caliber," Gabrielle observed to Joxer. "Hesperis, have you ever thought about going to Athens and studying there?"

"Well . . . no, not really."

"You should. You really should."

"Yeah, listen to her," Joxer put in. "She's the expert. She could've gone to the Academy herself, easy."

"Really?" Hesperis asked, obviously impressed. "Why didn't you?"

Gabrielle smiled. "I could never leave Xena and Joxer. I love them too much."

"Strongest power on Earth," Xena observed, leaning contentedly back in her chair and laying a protective hand on her swelling abdomen, where her beloved child was lying still and sleeping.

Joxer shook his head. "No. I don't think so."

"What?" Gabrielle asked. She gave him her undivided attention.

Joxer felt instantly foolish, but he had started to voice his opinion and there was no turning back now.

"Well, I don't think that love's really a power, if you know what I mean. It's the strongest emotion. I mean, if it were a power, wouldn't it be stronger than other powers, like lightning and magic and things that the gods whack Xena with? Wouldn't you be able to stop those things if you loved enough? But there are some things that love just can't do. Lots of things. So how can it be the strongest power on Earth?"

Gabrielle, rather than brushing him off, for once thoughtfully considered his question. "You know what, Joxer? I think that love can do all those things. We know, at least, that it can heal . . . Eli proved that. Maybe it's just that humans, being imperfect, can't love enough. But love can do anything, even if we can't make it do everything."

"Well, something has to make it do anything. And don't you always say that there is nothing so magnificent than the human soul?"

"But a human soul loves many things. We have the greatest capacity of any living thing to love, and I think we use that capacity well. We love everything we can, not one thing as much as we can."

Gabrielle smiled at herself. She sounded so much like Eli . . .

Joxer shrugged. "Maybe so." But still he didn't believe it. He'd loved with all his soul, for years now, and it hadn't done anything he'd wanted it to. It hadn't changed her mind, it hadn't opened her heart, it hadn't saved her soul. He'd lost his faith in love . . . even if he couldn't stop loving.

"Hey, Hes!" another young man called, making his way across the crowded room. "Great story, man. C'mon, we've got to go home."

"All right, I'm coming." Hesperis set the girl in his lap gently on the ground. "You go find your mom, 'kay? And tell her I said hi."

"Thank you for the story," she said politely.

He grinned. "You're welcome. Don't have nightmares, now."

She ran off, and he stood up. "Well, guys, it's been a pleasure meeting you. Safe journey."

"Stay well, Hesperis," Gabrielle told him. "And I was serious about the Academy. You could get in."

Another smile. "I'll think about it. Good night."

"G'night," the threesome answered in unison. They watched him and his companion until they'd reached the door and disappeared into the warm night.

As if taking a silent cue, most everyone else started the long process of going home . . . paying their bills, bidding good-bye to the inn staff, hunting down friends whom they had to talk to in the morning.

When the room had mostly cleared, Xena did a little bartering with the innkeeper, who was a sympathetic, charitable man. A poor businessman, but in such a small community such things didn't matter.

"Hey," she began, "my friends and I are a little short on money right now, and they're sick of sleeping outside, so we were wondering if you'd let us set up camp in the common room here tonight. Just to have a roof over our heads for a while. For . . . say . . . half price?"

"Sure," he told her with a smile, "You're welcome to. Just push some of the furniture away from the fireplace. Do you need blankets or anything?"

"No . . . we've got our own. Thanks." Xena dug a handful of dinars out of her belt pouch and counted them out into his hand. "The extra's for my horse's lodging."

"Thank you. My room's just off the kitchen if you need anything."

"Thanks; we'll be fine."

She went back to the table and settled into her chair again. "All settled. I hope you two are happy."

"We're sleeping between a roof and a floor," Gabrielle announced. "I couldn't be happier."

"Likewise," Joxer added. "Come on; I'm beat. Bedtime."

Gabrielle groaned. "There was a time . . . or maybe it was just a dream . . . when the word 'bedtime' meant just flopping into bed and going to sleep. Now it means finding my bed, assembling it, and collapsing into it."

"Come off it; you're not really that tired." Xena told her. "If you and Joxer will go get the blankets, I'll move some furniture around so we can sleep somewhere."

Joxer and Gabrielle went to work without question. Setting up a camp . . . even an indoor camp . . . was automatic after so many years of doing it. They went out to the stable where Argo and her burdens were being housed, dug out their blankets, and hauled them back to the inn. Bedrolls were laid out in perfect rhythm, goodnightes recited, assorted bags formed into pillows through violent pounding, exactly as it had been every night for years.

The flicker of the dying fire . . . Gabrielle's mumblings as she worked out new stories in her half-sleep . . . the occasional clatter as Joxer shifted and bumped into his pile of armor . . . all the sounds that reminded Xena of the important things in life. She had her friends, she had her sword and chakram, she had a full stomach and a safe place to rest and a child growing inside her. Life was good, when you got down to brass tacks.

That was all the philosophy she cared to dive into, so she settled her head into it's makeshift pillow and fell asleep.

And woke up.

The door had smashed open, and Hesperis' companion charged in . . . alone. He flopped against a table, gasping for breath.

"Gabrielle, Joxer, wake up," Xena ordered. "We've got company."

"If it's Alti again, I'm going back to sleep," Gabrielle muttered.

"Hey, it's you!" Joxer announced, not recalling the young man's name. "What's up?"

He had flopped into a chair and gotten some of his breath back. "You guys . . . you're, like, heroes or something, right?"

"Yep," said Joxer.

"Joxer!"

"Well, you are!"

"Great," he panted. "I didn't know anyone else to come to. Hesperis . . . he's in trouble. It's my fault. Please, help."

"Calm down," Xena ordered. "Tell us what happened. Where's Hesperis?"

"In . . . in the old haunted palace."

Xena sighed as she stood up. "And how, pray tell, did he get there?"

The boy hung his head. "Well, we both walk past there to get home, and we were talking about the old story . . . you know, about Sicalus and all . . . and I sort of dared him to go in. And he did, but he didn't come out. And then I heard screaming, and I ran for it."

Xena snarled. "Teenagers."

"Hey!" Gabrielle snapped. "I still resemble that remark."

"All right, you two, another late-night rescue mission. You can forget your indoor sleep."

Joxer groaned. "I'm giving up my warm bed for a stupid ghost story?"

Xena's eyes flashed. "Don't underestimate ghosts, Joxer."

He snapped his mouth shut and didn't press the issue. The others were arming up; he did the same, although he couldn't think what good it would do. If there were ghosts or whatever . . . which was doubtful . . . how would swords and staffs help them?

"Show us the way," Xena ordered the boy.

Still visibly shaken, he nodded. "W . . . what are you gonna do?"

"We'll figure that out when we get there. Hurry."

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