"Nice day," Nebula said.

This was the first thing she had said in the last fifteen minutes. Gabrielle waited another three or four before responding. "Yeah."

There went all the topics of conversation. Gabrielle suppressed a sigh. It was going to be a long day. A long day, and she didn't want to spend it here. Nebula was attending neither Court nor audience today, remaining in her chambers and preparing for the morrow. Which preparation mostly consisted of waiting for it to show up.

So Nebula sat and idly read through some scrolls, and every now and then made a comment about the weather. Gabrielle was getting so wound up she thought she might explode, and on top of all that she was really worried about how Joxer was taking this whole thing. He'd been very upset this morning when she got up, more so than the afternoon before. He'd finally stopped grasping at the feeble straw of Khalil's "innocence", apparently, but the finality of the whole thing was sinking in. And Joxer still wasn't quite his old self, and the pressure was making him quiet and withdrawn rather than otherwise. She wanted to be with him, offering support where it was needed--and appreciated, darn it--rather than sit here and watch Nebula stare into space.

Nebula rolled up the scroll. "Have you ever heard about the Hebrews?"

"Uh..." This required her to actually think for a minute. "Yeah, I think so. There's a lot of them out towards Jerusalem."

"They have this weird god." Nebula tapped the scroll. "He lives in a box, and he won't talk to any other gods. He won't even acknowledge that any other gods exist. He just stays in this box, and their high priests carry it around. Anyway. The only thing this god does is tell people to write down stories about him, and one of the stories he told was this. He claims he made the first man and woman in the world, and the man and woman had two children. The first two children there ever were, and one of them killed the other one. And after that, the one that survived was cursed, and nothing went right ever again."

Gabrielle thought for a minute before replying. "It's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?"

"Well...well, for one thing, don't forget the story came from a god in a box."

"This is true." Nebula smiled, a pale imitation of the normal wolf grin, but still a smile. "It's just that...You know, I just can't bring myself to believe Khalil tried to kill me. He's always been so...lazy."

"Oh, not you too," Gabrielle said without thinking.

"Not me too what?"

"Joxer was trying to convince himself Khalil didn't do it." Gabrielle sighed, looking at the floor. "He doesn't like the idea of the execution."

"He wouldn't, would he?" Nebula said softly. She fingered the edge of the scroll. "Our Joxer is a very unique person, isn't he?"

Gabrielle instinctively flared at the pronoun, but remembered duty and remembered the situation and mostly clamped her jaw so tightly it ached. "A lot of people don't understand him," she said rather pointedly.

"He has a genuine ability to understand other people's points of view," Nebula said diffidently. "He makes a good Vizier, don't you think? Or a good King."

Fuck duty. "I beg your pardon?"

"Just thinking out loud, Blondie," Nebula said. She toyed idly with the scroll. "A woman's gotta think about consorts sooner or later. And it'd be a great opportunity for him."

"I beg your--"

"Of course, there's the royal prerogative thing. I wouldn't mind if he had--" For the first time she looked at Gabrielle, a sideways glance which did not calm the warrior bard at all. "--hobbies on the side."

Gabrielle found her voice. "Hey. You stay the hell away from him. He doesn't need--"

"He doesn't need an opportunity like this? He doesn't need to stop following Xena around and getting stomped repeatedly body and soul for it? He doesn't need to stop debasing himself at the feet of a woman who'll never love him?" Nebula said all this calmly, but she leaned back in her chair and watched Gabrielle the whole time she was speaking.

Gabrielle took a deep breath, trying hard to remember she was supposed to keep Nebula from getting her ass kicked from here to the docks and back, instead of doing the kicking herself. "Nebula. I know you're upset about tomorrow, and I'm going to let you slide because of that. But if you think for one minute--"

Nebula stood up. "You think yourself, Blondie. If you care about him, would you stand in the way of an opportunity like this for him? And if you don't care--then why should you stand in the way at all?" She looked down at Gabrielle, an arrogant, confident, Queenly stare. "Give it some thought, Blondie. See what kind of rationalizations you can come up with. I'm told you're good at that." With that she turned and disappeared behind the curtain into her private chamber, leaving Gabrielle ready to explode--but at who or what, she was no longer quite sure.