Gabrielle awoke with a jerk.

She lay panting, her heart thumping as if she'd been running, unable to remember the dream that had woke her, but it had to have been a doozy. She sat up awkwardly and realized Joxer was missing. Out behind the acacias, maybe?

No. Feeling uneasy for no apparent reason, Gabrielle slid out of bed and dressed quickly in her leather bra and skirt, topping it off with the linen shirt, not bothering with full Guard uniform. It was still dark, but the moon's position indicated dawn was approaching. Joxer had probably woken early, as she had, and decided it wasn't any use trying to get in a few more hours' sleep and gone down to join Xena and Nebula. And Nebula? Like hell, she thought grimly, slid her sai into their sheaths on her belt, and headed for Nebula's chambers.

And found chaos. The Guards outside the door tried to block her way, but she slipped around them and pushed her way inside. Xena was talking to or at Nebula, and Nebula was talking--ranting--more or less to herself, and Suleiman was trying to get a word in edgewise, and Eve, forgotten in her playpen, was wailing angrily. And Joxer was nowhere to be seen. "I'll kill him," Nebula was saying, "I'll have him flayed in Khalil's stead. How dare he undermine me like this, I'll--"

"Xena, what's going on? What happened?" Gabrielle asked, with a horrible fear that she knew the answer.

"Joxer," said Xena, looking disgusted.

"Where is he?" Gabrielle almost yelled, loud enough for everyone to stop talking and look at her. They were all quiet for a minute, and then Suleiman said, "In the dungeons."

"No."

Xena walked to her and took her by the shoulders. "Gabrielle, apparently Nebula and Suleiman think--"

"That Joxer freed Khalil." Gabrielle spoke slowly, like a woman in a dream. "He thinks Khalil is innocent. He told me yesterday. He tried to talk to me about it, but I blew it off."

For some reason Xena looked almost--ashamed?--at this, and turned her face away. Nebula hissed in a cold fury more frightening than her earlier ranting, "He turned on me and he'll pay for it."

"He didn't turn on you," Gabrielle snapped. "You know goddamn well what he thought, you knew it yesterday. Xena, you know how Joxer is, he..."

"He was in on it with Khalil the whole time," Nebula said flatly, and Xena said, "Oh, don't be ridiculous," and then the two of them were shouting at each other again, Gabrielle trying to calm Xena and Suleiman trying to calm Nebula and the both of them failing. Abruptly the Guard took Gabrielle's arm and pulled her aside. "Little one, you must go out with the rest of the Guard. We are combing the maze for Khalil, though I fear he may have had enough time to get out of the city. Go quickly and see what you can find."

"After I talk to Joxer."

Suleiman looked pained. "I do not know if he will be able to answer," he said softly. "I fear the Guard were carried away in their anger."

Part of the nightmare that woke her flashed into her mind, too quickly to see, and disappeared, leaving her shaken. "No," she said, backing away. "I have to see him."

"I would not advise it, little one." Suleiman shook his head gravely, and laid a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "It is probably best for you that you do not--"

She threw off his hand. "I have to see him," she said once more, a statement of fact, and left the room.

Xena wanted to hit something. She would have preferred it to be something breakable, something such as Joxer for getting them all into this mess. Why the hell didn't he come to her if he'd thought something was wrong? Why did he have to go off acting like--like Joxer, for gods' sakes? "Gabrielle," she snapped. "Gabrielle, what did he s--"

She turned to find Gabrielle was gone. Probably to the dungeons. Damn it! The woman just didn't think sometimes. Two peas in a pod, those two. And add to that Nebula--"Nebula," Xena snapped, frustrated beyond measure, "would you just shut the fuck up!"

"Don't you talk to me like that, you--"

"Don't you pull that Royal Highness bullshit with me," Xena shot back. "I knew you when you were rolling drunks on the docks in Corinth, so don't get on your damn high horse with me. Stop acting like a spoiled royal brat, and start thinking!"

"I am thinking, Xena! I am thinking about what this means to me, to the Court, to the country. I can't just get on my horse and gallop off to the next town and forget it, I have obligations now!"

"And I don't?"

"None that you seem to feel it necessary to follow."

Xena barely stopped the instinctive strike in time, but it was a hard-fought win. "Nebula," she said when she had herself under control, "if you've got obligations because you're a Queen, then start acting like a Queen and not like some stupid, vindictive spurned female. This whole thing, if you understood Joxer, you'd--"

Nebula stared at Xena for a moment, and laughed. "Ha!" She turned around and laughed again, a short sharp bark. "Ha! You? You are going to sit there and tell me about Joxer? You--" She turned back to face Xena. "At least I talk to him, okay? At least I'm willing to listen to what he has to say! You haven't spoken two words to him since he washed up here!"

"That's not true!"

"Good gods, Xena!" The laugh again, less sharp, more on the edge of hysterical. "Good gods! The man crawls through hell to follow you halfway around the known world, and you can't even be bothered to step around him when he collapses at your feet! How do you do it, Xena? How do you get that kind of devotion and that kind of loyalty from someone without giving a thing in return? You tell me, because I'd like to know. Because I could not only rule Sumeria with that kind of talent, I could rule the world." She walked away, shaking her head, and rubbed her throat. "My voice...good gods, and I need to make a speech this morning. About what, I don't know."

Xena didn't reply. She found herself idly studying her own reaction, blank and unfocused as it was, wondering why she wasn't saying anything, why she wasn't rebutting Nebula's accusations. And then Eve's wail cut through the sudden silence, and as if in a dream Xena went to the playpen and picked the baby up. Eve's hand went to her mother's face, almost as if she was trying to offer comfort. "I..." Xena started to say and then found herself unable to complete the sentence. She swallowed, tried again. "I... Nebula, you know Joxer wasn't in any kind of conspiracy with Khalil."

"I know." Nebula slumped into the chair. "I don't even think Khalil was in the conspiracy with Khalil."

"I thought you were, frankly."

"Oh, thank you." Nebula leaned back. "That's what makes you a good warrior, Xena--you always look at all the possibilities. A good warrior--but a lousy guest. I could have used a thank you some time over the past couple of months, y'know."

Xena bit back the automatic reply. Nebula was...right. "Okay. I deserved that."

"Damn right you did." Nebula rubbed her temple. "And now what? Apparently we still have an unknown assassin at large."

"And that means--" An instinctive fear flashed into Xena's mind. Gabrielle. She pushed it back; Gabrielle could take care of herself. But she needed to find her quickly, talk to her and see what if anything they could figure out about where the situation stood. "That means trouble," she finished, her mind working again now that it had a safe problem to gnaw on. "Does anyone know yet?"

"Only the Guard. But by dawn they'll start to gather in the plaza, and as the day goes on and there's no sign of the execution people are going to start talking. We don't have much time."

"Not at all." Xena walked over to a chair and sat down, facing Nebula. "So what are we going to do?"

"Call a truce," Nebula said, "and work together. Like the old days, except without the drinking."

Xena considered this for a long moment. "Okay."

"Okay. Friends, then?" Nebula studied Xena's expression. "Or at least not enemies."

"I can live with that." Xena half-smiled. "If you can."