Gabrielle spent most of the next few days either with Nebula or asleep. She was exhausted almost all of the time, and Nebula allowed her to nap in her private chambers as long as she wasn't holding any audiences. And she didn't hold any private audiences that Gab could tell; unusual for Nebula, who was continually politicking. When she asked Nebula about this sudden quietude, Nebula merely said she was waiting on something and would tell Gab about it later. Gabrielle was too tired to consider this perverse. Both Nebula and Xena insisted on stuffing her with food and various kinds of herbal teas, all of which tasted like straw, intended to help her get her strength back, and it was coming back bit by bit. She didn't know why she was so tired--she'd barely been hurt in the fight--but Joxer said maybe it was her mind that was tired, with all the stuff it had to deal with the last few days. This almost made sense. In any case, Gabrielle worked, and ate, and slept, and in a while got to the point where she started to feel like herself again.

And Joxer was getting stronger, and this helped her more than a bit. A little more than a week after the fight Xena allowed him to get out of bed, though not without threatening him with horrible consequences if he should tear the wound open again and wreck all her fine work, and Gabrielle would return to the apartments in the afternoon to find him out sitting out in the garden, watching the birds, sometimes holding Eve on his knee and talking nonsense to her. At such times Eve wore a very obviously tolerant expression that both Gabrielle and Xena recognized well. She learned quickly, Eve did--this is Joxer, and this is how we put up with him.

And late one afternoon when Gabrielle had joined him in the garden and the two of them sat shoulder to shoulder, companionably silent, and Eve crawling from one lap to another to gurgle with delight at a large scarlet bird with long curling golden tailfeathers and a voice like a squeaky hinge, Xena came outside and sat down across from them. Then she recounted the conversation she'd had with Nebula, and waited for a reaction. When no one spoke, not even Eve, she said, "I've made a lot of mistakes over the past year or so. I keep acting like I have only myself to think about, and it's not true. Gods know, Gabrielle, I've been cruel to you in the past because of it."

Gabrielle shook her head. "No need to apologize, Xena. That...we've been through that, we came out the other side fine. Let it go."

"I thought I had." Xena looked at both of them, not just Gabrielle, as she spoke. "But I'm still trying to make all the decisions, deciding on my own what's best for everybody, even when it isn't the best thing at all." This was aimed at Joxer, and he ducked his head shyly down and away, uncomfortable with this unusual situation of Xena upset but not yelling, and neither at him. "And my reaction to Nebula's offer was instinctively no. I wanted to go back to Greece. I wanted to face my enemies, and I wanted...I wanted to soothe my own sense of honor at the expense of the people I loved. Because it would endanger not only you and me, Gabrielle, but our family." She looked at Eve, sitting on Joxer's lap with her small face set in a solemn, thoughtful look. "So I told Nebula that I would discuss it with you all, and that we would decide together. Because if it affects all of us, we should all have a say in the matter. So...what do you want to do?"

Gabrielle glanced at Joxer, who met her eyes and then looked away once more, increasingly nervous. Eve mumbled and remained still. Gabrielle warred with herself. She'd had an instinctive reaction to Nebula's offer too--and it had been exactly the opposite of Xena's. But how could she, if indeed she could at all--

"Xena." Joxer raised his head and faced her, and his voice was level. "Xena, if you go back to Greece, it's stupid."

There was silence at this. Gabrielle felt Joxer shiver, physically, and almost reached out a hand to stop him but held back. "It's stupid, Xena. Just like what you did with Caesar was stupid. And that time I didn't know, because you kept it from me, but if I had known I would never have let you do it. What good does it do to go back there, to fight the gods and lose, to have poor Eve grow up without her mother? I know you and Gabrielle want to go down together, but--"

"No, we don't." Gabrielle found her voice. "Xena, I love you, and if you ask me to go back with you and fight and die at your side I'll gladly do it, but I'd much rather live at your side instead." She searched her soulmate's blue eyes, as inscrutable and deep as always, and wished she could somehow reach into there, in the place where Xena lived, and make her understand. "What about you, Xena?" she asked softly. "Would you rather die than live with me?"

"Never," Xena said. It was a statement of fact. "Never." She looked from one to the other, then got up and took Eve from Joxer. Eve made a contented sound and curled in her mother's arms. "Maybe it's time to change," she said softly. "Maybe."

"It doesn't all change," Gabrielle said. "I will always love you no matter what."

"So will I," Joxer said, almost too softly to hear. He slipped his arm around Gabrielle's waist and squeezed her briefly, in a hug that was as much for his own reassurance as hers.

"So. It's agreed? We stay here, at least for the time being, and serve the Queen of Sumeria?" Xena looked at all three faces in turn, and smiled for the first time in days. "Well--it looks like I'm a commander again. Maybe Nebula will let me take over a few of the neighboring countries. Just for old times' sake."

Gabrielle groaned theatrically, and threw herself against Joxer's shoulder, laying a hand to her forehead like a Thracian dancer. "Spare me."

Eve laughed, and so did Joxer, and after a moment Xena did too. The red bird gaped at this for a long second, then took wing and flew away from the mad two-leggeds in the garden below.