HE TRIPPED OVER A FOOTSTOOL when he entered the apartments, and the noise woke Gab. She came out from behind the curtain, yawning, her eyes still unfocused with sleep, her hair going every which way. She looked adorable. Joxer stumbled over his words as he'd stumbled over the furniture. "Gabrielle, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up, I..."

"No, s'all right." She yawned, a huge, open-mouthed yawn, and scratched her back. She had a lovely yawn, Gabrielle. "I wanted to get up anyway. I'm going down and see Suleiman and try to get some practice in before it gets dark. I've been too busy lately, and I thought of some more things I want to try."

"Cool. Listen, Gabrielle, I..."

"What's up with you? You look like you've been running. Nebula having you carry messages all the way down to the Harbormaster's again?"

"No, it's not that, I..." He tried to remember other times when he'd had something important to tell Gabrielle, and his mind flinched away from remembering the details--they generally hadn't gone well--but he remembered one thing. The only way he could do it was to blurt it all out at once, and so he took a deep breath and did so. "IthinkKhalildidn'tdoit."

"What?"

"I said, I think Khalil didn't do it." She was giving him one of her arched-eyebrow there-he-goes-again looks, and he hastily filled in the details. "Didn't try to kill Nebula."

"You saw him do it."

"I saw someone do it. I saw someone throw the knife, and I saw Khalil running, and he tried to stab me with the knife. The one that he threw."

"If he threw the knife, how could he try to stab you with it?"

"Exactly! Exactly, that's why I..." Joxer's voice trailed off as he realized Gabrielle wasn't agreeing with him after all. She was just playing with him, the way she did when he said things she thought were nonsense. "Gabrielle," he said, "I'm serious."

"Oh, Joxer, don't be stupid."

He started to protest, and then stopped.

It was stupid. If he was right about this, then it was the stupidest thing he had ever done in a lifetime that seemed to be nothing but stupidity. Stupid, and worse, evil. What would everyone say, about that stupid outlander who almost had a prince of the blood killed for no reason? What would Xena say? She would drive him off, she'd threatened to before. What would Gabrielle say? Don't be stupid, Joxer. Gabrielle, who said she admired him for his bravery and his accomplishment and his goodness, what would she say if it turned out he had done nothing worthy of praise, in fact only just about the worst thing that could ever be done? What would she say?

"Joxer." Gabrielle's voice was soft, and the touch of her hand on his cheek gentle. He would never see such a look in her eyes again if what he suspected was true. "I know you're upset over this. Just hang in there. In a couple of days, it'll all be over and then we can all relax. Okay?" She took his silence for assent, and stood on her toes to give him a quick kiss. "I'm going to meet Suleiman and get a little practice in before it gets too dark. I'll see you when I get back, okay?

"Okay."

She turned to go, looking back over her shoulder at him and flashing him a smile that turned his knees to water. Gods, she was beautiful. He stood alone in the room after she was gone, the lengthening twilight casting long golden streamers across the apartments. His apartments. His home. His position, his purpose, his family, his love.

No. To lose this...he'd rather die.

But he could not stop asking himself the question: would he rather Khalil die instead?

-----

Gabrielle knew all the passageways in the labyrinth. She'd investigated them thoroughly when she'd arrived, and even mapped them out on scrolls she kept in her writing-desk in her private chamber. Joxer had been way impressed, as always, with her intelligence and her talent and her cleverness in finding things out. But he had trouble following maps, and he'd taken her advice to stay out of the tunnels to heart. So to go to the dungeon he had to go the only way available above ground, which was to leave the palace proper, go out across the plaza with the almost-full moon making crisscrossing shadows everywhere, past the platform where the execution would be held, across the whole front of the palace and down the street at the side, and into the only publicly accessible entrance to the dungeons. There was a small room where you came in, and there were always two Guards there, and if they let you pass you went down a long, long flight of narrow and slippery stairs off which labyrinth entrances opened here and there, past smaller and smaller torches to another small room, and there were two more Guards there. "I'm here to see the prisoner," Joxer told them, as he'd told the first set up where there was still light and air. "The Queen's orders."

They knew who he was. He wasn't hard to miss, the outlander Vizier with that strange pale skin, and they nodded and opened the large, heavy door on the far wall of the room. It swung open slowly, heavily, like the gate to a tomb.

Beyond the door were the cells proper, and here Joxer found oddly he could relax a little. Jails were jails, no matter where they were. Familiar. Two large cells with hard bare benches along their walls, where many men could be kept together, and beyond them where the passage grew dimmer smaller, darker, more ominous rooms, no more than closets, and the bars blocking what little light there was. Joxer slowed, not quite able to see; and he heard a rustling from one cell, not like the kind rats made. He peered into the gloom and slowly made out the figure of a man. "Khalil?" he said.

The prince sat on the rush-strewn floor, his spine straight, as dignified and calm as if he were sitting on a throne. He took no notice of Joxer, and Joxer spoke again. "Kha--"

Khalil spat. "I need nothing from you, softskin. Begone."

Joxer leaned on the bars. "Did you do it?" he asked softly.

"What difference does it make? I am to be executed for it either way."

"But did you do it?"

"Fool!" In a single swift, elegant movement he sprang to his feet and charged, and Joxer barely jumped back in time to keep the Sumerian's hands from closing on his throat. "Murder the Queen, in full view of the Court? Do you think for a second I could win the throne after such disrespect for the royal line as that? What would I have to gain from such a thing? And murder my own sister?" As abruptly as he'd risen, he turned his back on Joxer and stalked away across the cell. Joxer reapproached the bars cautiously. "Then why did you fight?"

"Because it is as I said." Khalil's voice had a slightly familiar weary tone to it, the kind of tone people often used when talking to Joxer. "Once the accusation was made, I should be executed either way. I had no desire to be flayed in front of a crowd. It is most undignified."

"But if you talk to Nebula, to Xena, I'm sure--"

"The Court has spoken. The people want blood. They're getting mine."

"This isn't right," Joxer said fretfully. "What about your family? Can't they talk to Nebula? What about Nyosa?"

Khalil laughed. "Nyosa? She has all the loyalty of a snake. I am no longer in favor and so I no longer exist to her."

"I'm sorry," Joxer said numbly, not sure what else to say.

"Oh, don't be. I love Nyosa, but I know what she is," Khalil said frankly. "No doubt she is already angling up to the next best candidate for the throne--and arranging for his name to go to the top of the list."

"You don't think Nyosa..."

"Not directly, no. Though I would not be surprised were she to have encouraged one of her other projects to make the move for her, but which one I do not know. If you came here hoping to hear me confess to a grand conspiracy, and name everyone involved, you were sadly deluded, softskin. If I did know I would not speak in any case."

"You don't have any idea who might want Nebula dead?"

"Besides everybody?" Khalil shrugged. "A woman ruling--there isn't a House who isn't upset with that. The people seem to like it, but then who cares for the people?"

"Nebula does."

Khalil stared at Joxer for a long moment. "You're a very sad, odd person."

"Maybe.

"Why do you care?" Khalil searched Joxer's face, as if studying some particularly interesting kind of bug. "What difference does it make to you whether I did it or not?"

"Because if you didn't do it, and you get punished for it--that's not right."

"An interesting concept. Where did you get it from?"

"Xena." Joxer had led two lives, the one before he met Xena and the one after, and it was this afterlife that actually bore meaning. "Xena taught me that."

Khalil smiled, an unsettlingly bright flash in the dim gloom. "She did you no favors, softskin."

-----

Gabrielle returned late from her session, dirty, bruised, and disappointed. All the new moves had failed as well. Joxer coaxed her into the tub, washed her back and her hair for her, and carried her, yawning, to her bed where he massaged her back and arms and made cheerfully inane remarks about how she'd do better next time. She fell asleep, or looked like she had, but when he cautiously got up she hooked her ankle around his knee and he toppled over onto the bed, which as it turned out was right where she wanted him. Not that he had any objection.

He didn't sleep after. He didn't feel sleepy, he didn't feel much of anything. What he needed to do was see Xena as soon as she came in, get to her right away before she went for her rest. Xena knew stuff. Especially stuff about fighting, and people trying to kill people, and stuff like that. She would be able to tell him where he was wrong, point out where he'd made the mistake in his thinking. Because despite what he'd sensed from Khalil, despite what his reason told him, despite what his heart told him, it all had to be wrong. There was just no other way. So Xena would tell him he was wrong, and then he could relax.

He dozed lightly, on and off, listening to the comforting sound of Gabrielle's breathing, enjoying the warmth and the weight of her body against his, and not thinking. It was not until he heard the front door opening that he gently eased out from under her, slid the pillows under her head--she got to sleep for another hour or so before going to her shift, and she needed her rest--and sneaking as silently as possible out into the main room. "Xena?" he said softly.

She turned, not startled--Xena always knew what was going on around her--but for some reason she gave him a funny look. Pants, Joxer thought after a long moment. Oh, shit. "Um, Xena," he said, maneuvering around behind a chair, "I--"

"You're up early," Xena said dryly, and maybe a little disapprovingly. The expectation was pretty much that Jox and Gab were supposed to pretend they weren't doing anything, and Joxer had just broken this unspoken rule. And this was not a morning when he needed to be breaking rules. Shit and shit again. "Xena." His mouth was dry, almost too dry to speak. "Xena," he said, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth, "I have to talk to you." He took a deep breath. "I, um, I need to tell you about something that happened, and I...it's really important."

Xena looked at him for a moment and something odd passed across her face; and then she looked away. "Not now, Joxer."

"No, I really need to..."

"Joxer, I just got back, I have to take care of Eve, I'm tired." She was not looking at him, and her tone was hurried. Almost as if she knew what he was going to say, and didn't want to hear it.

"It's really important. Please," he begged. Openly begged, because he needed to know. Please tell me I'm being stupid. Please tell me I'm wrong. Please tell me so I can not have to worry any more, so I can put it in the dark place and not have to think about it.

Please just look at me, he thought. Please.

Xena remained hesitating for another long moment; then she turned away. "I can't right now, Joxer," she said. "I'll talk to you later, okay?" and she disappeared into her chamber.