Heaven Must be Missing an Angel Part Ten Pythia

A day and a half later found Hercules sitting on the narrow beach that lay on the far side of Agiori, staring thoughtfully out to sea. It was a quiet place, sheltered from the off shore winds by the rising bulk of the cliffs and overlooked only by the stern façade of the palace outer walls, far overhead. There was a single path which lead down to it on the city side, and that was a tortuously steep climb, its narrow steps hacked into the cliff face and well weathered by time and salt sea air.

He felt safe there; safe from grateful eyes and solicitous citizens. The palace and the city were buzzing with recent events and he could scarcely take a step before someone stopped him to offer thanks, express bemused opinion, or ask for explanations which he couldn't give. The beach was a welcome refuge from all of that, even if - in seeking solitude - he'd finally given himself space to think.

He had too much to think about - and too much of that was a series of questions for which he had no answers. No answers at all.

"I don't even know where to start asking," he admitted to a passing seagull. The bird had perched itself on a nearby rock to preen, and it responded to his words with a lazy stretch of its wings and an energetic shake. "Like you'd know," Hercules noted wryly and went back to studying the horizon without much enthusiasm. The image of lifted wings stayed in his mind. Gold ones, not white; the sweep of them had filled his dreams during the night.

"I wonder what Iolaus is dreaming of," he remarked, still addressing the gull, who ignored him completely. "Do angels dream?"

Dare I ask him?

He'd woken late in the night, needing to stretch bruised muscles and to relieve himself, undoubtedly due to all the celebratory wine which the King and the council had insisted on plying him with. On his way back to his bed, he'd paused to stare down at the occupant of the other cot, needing a little more reassurance than the soft sound of his sleeping partner's breathing could give him. Iolaus had been in a deep and exhausted sleep ever since he'd hauled him out of that howling vortex; Didyus had been of the opinion that the hunter might not wake up for days. There hadn't seemed to be anything else wrong with him, so they'd bedded him down and left him to sleep, a state Hercules had only been too happy to share once he was allowed to retire for the night.

But the need had awoken him and, once he was awake, he'd been drawn to stand beside his still slumbering partner, looking down at those familiar features with an odd sense of wonder and concern. The hunter had always been a restless sleeper, as energetic in his dreams as he was in his waking hours yet - that night - he'd lain almost as still as he once had on his burial bier. Almost, but not quite. Two things assured his observer of his life, the first a muttered grunt and a momentary shift of the head that had lifted an affectionate smile to Hercules' lips - only for the second thing to freeze that smile in place, held by the shiver which had touched his soul.

Iolaus had been weeping.

A deep, rolling tear had escaped the corner of his eye to fall, slowly and silently down the curve of his cheek and onto the soft linen of his pillow. It was followed by a second, just as fat and glistening, even in the semi-dark. Somewhere, deep in his dreams, the man - no, the angel - had been wrestling with a grief and loss so great that it had stirred him to tears.

"He gave up so much," the son of Zeus sighed, stirring the soft sand with the toe of his boot. "So much." The stir became a distracted kick; sand scattered out across the beach and the seagull briefly fluttered up from its rock with a squawk of alarm. "Sorry," Hercules threw over his shoulder, and then sighed a second time, a sound straight from the heart.

It was hard to know where to begin with all of this; his mind was filled with a jumble of images and memories, each of which deserved thoughtful contemplation. The elemental on the beach; the desperate fight in the atrium; Carnivean's shadowed form within the mirror; Brennus being sucked dry in a matter of moments - and the angel, lifted on wings of light, striking at the very heart of darkness with a sword of flame …

"Just gotta face it," Hercules announced with world weary resignation. "I was way outta my depth back there." He glanced back at the seagull, which was busy preening its breast feathers. "He saved my life, you know? Three times in one day. And I practically bit his head off, just because …"

Because I was afraid, he completed silently, considering the admission with a little embarrassment and whole load of guilt. Afraid of change - of things I didn't understand and what they might mean.

He was still afraid - just a little - but it was beginning to be the good kind of fear. The one that made life a challenge and filled each day with anticipation. Iolaus had been right. The things that mattered hadn't changed - just the trappings which sat round them. And, truth be told, he'd known that all along; ever since the day that he'd faced the four horsemen and earned the mortal world a reprieve, his world had held a rightness about it that had been missing for far too long.
He anchored that realisation in his heart and used it as a platform on which to stand while he studied the other concerns which disturbed his thoughts and troubled his soul. There was another line in the rulebook now, one which needed serious exploration.

It costs him …

No-one - especially Iolaus - sleeps for eighteen hours straight without good reason; the force he'd expended to shatter the mirror might have had something to do with it, but Hercules suspected the explanation was a lot more complicated than that. What price did an exiled angel have to pay every time he unfurled his wings?

It was one more question among a slew of questions, none of which he knew how to answer, and some of which he didn't know how he was going to ask - only that he was going to have to, somehow. He should have asked a long time ago. Should have started by questioning his partner's thoughtful silences instead of shying away from what they might imply.

"You look like your best friend died."

He glanced round, briefly startled by the sound of the voice; the speaker was less than six paces away, the soft wind off the sea ruffling his hair and tugging at the corners of his ragged waistcoat. Day old bruises mottled his skin, but apart from that Iolaus looked much as he always had. He was standing with his arms folded and his head tipped slightly to one side; a typically defensive posture, the kind he adopted when they needed to discuss something and he wasn't quite sure how it was going to be received.

Hercules wasn't entirely sure either. He turned back towards the ocean and fixed his eyes on the far horizon, wishing his thoughts and emotions could be as calm as the sea appeared to be.
"He did," he pointed out softly. It was a discomforting admission, but, somehow, making it made him feel a whole lot better. It was like starting with a clean slate, the way they should have done, the day after they'd faced the horsemen together.

"Oh." Iolaus clearly didn't know how to respond to that. "Yeah, well …"

"But it's okay." Hercules found a haunted smile, only to find it slowly curving into a genuine grin. "The Light gave him back to me. Seemed to think I needed him. No idea why."

"Hah." The sound was a startled gulp of reaction, half laugh and half whimper. "You know, I've been kinda wondering that myself." Boots crunched on the soft sand; their owner halted at the seated man's side and joined him in staring out to sea. "Is it?" he asked after a long and slightly awkward silence. "Okay, I mean."

The son of Zeus turned, looking up at the figure beside him with a decided sense of warmth and affection. The wind that was tugging at unruly locks made little difference to their tousled tumble; they framed familiar features - ones currently roughened with a ragamuffin spattering of stubble. No doubt he'd woken up, found himself alone and immediately set out to search for his missing partner without bothering with niceties like breakfast or a shave. Iolaus was still - well, Iolaus, no matter what else he might have become.

Although the fact that, even after spending a day and a half flat out in bed, he still smelt vaguely of frankincense, cinnamon and honey was a little unexpected to say the least.

My guardian angel …

Nothing new in that, either; the son of Skouros had spent most of his life defending his best friend's life, his honour and his reputation. He'd always been the light - the life and soul of their partnership. Was it so strange that - after everything they'd gone through together - he'd end up spending his afterlife that way too?

Hercules smiled to himself, knowing that there was a long road ahead of them yet; for a start the entries in that new rule book were still desperately few, and then this business about running into dark forces he didn't know anything about, let alone how to fight them … well, that was a probably worth a couple of volumes all on its own. It didn't matter. It didn't even matter where that road was headed. Whatever happened, they would be walking it together.

"Yeah," he breathed with confidence. "It's - okay."

"Okay?" Iolaus echoed, then shrugged, accepting the assessment and everything which lay behind it with typical open-heartedness. "Okay," he confirmed happily, dropping down to perch himself companionably on the edge of his partner's chosen seat.. There was a beat of silence and then he asked, almost in tease: "Really okay?"

Hercules just gave him a look - one that wrapped up all the emotions of the past couple of days and delivered them back with indulgent absolution. Along with huge dose of fond exasperation. He'd missed this; missed the banter and the frivolous bickering. Missed the assurance of the man's company and his ability to lighten the mood just when the moment needed it most. Iolaus returned the look with a knowing grin and a decided twinkle in his eye - then casually folded his arms, lifted his boots onto a nearby rock and leant his weight back against his partner's shoulder with proprietary confidence.

It was, Hercules decided after a moment's astonished indignation at being commandeered as a chair back, right where he belonged.

It feels good.
It feels right.
This is how we're meant to be …

They sat in companionable silence for a while, content just to share the moment. Neither of them were entirely ready to start addressing the questions which they knew they still had to discuss. The surf surged softly across the strand, creeping closer with the approaching tide, and the sun slowly rose towards its zenith, painting the narrow band of sand with glimmers of gold. Eventually the seagull, its preening complete, took off with a raucous squawk, its powerful pinions lifting it into the air with enviable ease. They watched as it launched itself over their heads, soared out across the surf and then turned, gliding down to land at the water's edge with a feather light touchdown and a self satisfied shake of its feathers. It looked so simple watching the bird, but then, it had been flying for its entire adult life.

"Think I need a little practice," Iolaus commented wryly. His partner couldn't help but chuckle at the admission.

"I noticed," he said, his grin widening at the indignant bristle this elicited.

"Hey," came the immediate protest, albeit backed with a decided twinkle in the sky blue eyes which swung in his direction. "You think all this angel stuff is easy, big guy? I'd like to see you try it."

"No thanks," Hercules shot back. "Looks a little too much like hard work to me. I'll keep my feet on the ground, if you don't mind."

"Mind?" Iolaus snorted at the idea. "As a matter of fact I do mind. I'm gonna have enough difficulty keeping you out of trouble as it is. The last thing this world needs is a winged Hercules."

"Yeah," Hercules laughed, then turned and frowned at him good-naturedly. "What do you mean? You keeping me out of trouble? Since when?"

"Well," the hunter considered, "it's kind of implied in the job description. You know - guardian angel? Sword of heaven, one, defender of mankind for the use of …" He tailed off at the look he was getting and shrugged a little embaressedly. "I guess it could be - negotiable."

"Really?" The question was amused. "And just how does a son of Zeus negotiate with an angel who comes armed with a flaming sword?"

The angel concerned made a show of thinking about it, pantomiming the weighing of alternatives and rejecting options and playing the moment for all it was worth. Then he grinned. "I guess you could start by buying him breakfast."

"Good idea," Hercules agreed, returning the grin with a companionable one of his own. He stood up, preparatory to leading the way back to the palace, then paused, looking down at his company with thoughtful realisation. There was one thing he hadn't said yet, and he needed to say it - before he lost the chance completely. "I'm sorry - I got so mad at you yesterday," he said. "I had no right to treat you that way."

"You had every right," Iolaus shot back, sounding a little bemused at being offered an apology. "Herc - I'm the one that's sorry. I really screwed this up. I should have told you right from the start and - well, the only reason I didn't was because … I thought I needed the right moment, and the moment never came, and then it got harder because I hadn't said anything and Michael had told me not to tell anyone in the first place and - what?" He interrupted his headlong babble to frown up at his friend with wary suspicion. Hercules was trying hard not to laugh and only just succeeding. "What?"

"Iolaus," the son of Zeus considered with a great deal of affection, "you're the only person I know who can deliver an explanation that doesn't explain anything and yet still manage to explain everything doing it. It's okay. I understand. I think we've both been trying very hard to pretend everything was back the way it was. When the way it is - " He paused, thinking of the events of the previous day and how they might have played out had Iolaus been the mortal man he seemed to be. "You and I - we've been through things - things that most people couldn't even begin to imagine. It may not have changed who we are, but - what we are? That's another thing entirely.
"The world is changing, and we either fight that or we go with it, learn from it. It's never easy to grow; there are things I've found in myself these past couple of years that - well, they frighten me a little." His smile was coloured with honest regrets; there'd been a time when he'd naively believed in everything he did and had known exactly why he did it. That time was long past. Now he lived from day to day, doing the best he could, trying to make sense of his little piece of the picture. "I never told you this, but - after you died? I lost it. I just - I went completely to pieces. I gave up, Iolaus. All that time you were Dahok's prisoner? I was moping around, pretending I didn't care anymore."

"Like that ever happened," Iolaus snorted, climbing to his feet and studying his partner with a quizzical smile. "Herc - you didn't know Dahok had me. You were grieving. You got over it."

"No," Hercules denied softly. "I never did. Even now …" He turned and stared out to sea, feeling an echo of the pain which had torn his heart and the savage rage which had escaped through the wound. "Dahok was right," he confided, finding that he could finally admit to something which he'd been trying to deny for a long time. "There is a darkness inside me. It's angry and it's brutal - and it got out. I murdered Dumazi. You know that? I killed a god - just because he couldn't give me what I wanted. Oh," he went on, wrestling with the confession, feeling his words lance a festering wound which he hadn't even been aware of, "I know he was in the wrong, using the souls of the dead to sustain him - but that wasn't why I did what I did. See," he swung back to meet his friend's eyes, finding nothing in them but concern and sympathy, "I'd always been able to get you back before. I didn't want to believe what he was telling me. I wanted to silence his lies. So I did - and they weren't lies, and I couldn't find you … and I lost myself.

"I was lost for a long time. And the darkness is still there. Sometimes it gets a little close to the surface. Like yesterday. I was angry - and I just got angrier, when if I'd only stopped to think…" He tailed off with a sigh, finding himself staring down at the sand and wondering what he was asking for. Forgiveness? Absolution? Or just a simple confirmation of his sins?

"You done?" Iolaus asked warily. Hercules nodded. "Okay. Just tell me one thing."

"Anything."

"Just when did you start believing Dahok's lies?"

What? He glanced up. His friend was eyeing him with a mixture of affectionate warmth and wry exasperation - a look which, if not immediately soothing to the soul, somehow still managed to lift a great deal of the weight from his heart.

"Come on." The words were offered with perceptive certainty. "You know how he was. How much he loved to twist reality and play games with what you knew, what you believed. He'd take one itty bitty fact, one little kernel of truth - and wrap it up in so many lies and half-truths that you didn't know what to think. He was so damn persuasive. Listen to him long enough and black would become white, up down, and left right. He'd take good reasons and make them excuses - and lead you into a maze of words and logic that had just enough authenticity to convince you that there might be something in all the rest.

"There never was. It was all lies. A distorted, perverted picture of reality. The world the way he saw it." Iolaus paused to consider that point and shuddered, almost as if trying to shake off the memories that came with it. "You know the worst of it?" he asked and Hercules shook his head, a part of him desperately wishing he'd kept his fears to himself. Not because he was ashamed of them - although there was a little of that lurking behind his concerns - but because raising them had raised the spectre of the dark god. It was clear, from the sudden crack in his friend's voice, that those memories were not easy ones to face. "I think he believed that that was how it really was. He justified himself by lying to himself." Blue eyes lifted to meet his own - eyes which reflected a light that had nothing to do with the late morning sun. "Don't lie to yourself, Herc. Don't hide behind his perceptions. That way, he'll have won after all."

He had to look away; he was ashamed - and the more so because the spirit which stood beside him had endured so much, while he … he had done things which he could and would regret, for the rest of his life. "Dumazi is still dead," he pointed out, reluctant to surrender his sense of self reproach. Guilt was a lot easier to live with than emptiness.

"Yeah." Iolaus was having none of it. "So what? The guy was a creep. Okay, so his choice was between fading away gracefully and clinging to life by devouring mortal souls, but - hey - would you have done what he did?"

Hercules had to shake his head. "No. But I could given him a chance to explain that choice."

"Herc," came the amused admonition, "you really are something else and no mistake. Look - " A hand touched his arm, turning him back towards his friend's sympathetic smile. "I know what you did. This thing about the dead hearing your thoughts whenever you think of them? Works in the Reverie as well as it does in Elysium. You kept me awake some nights, you know? These past two years - I've been with you every step of the way. And you've done nothing to be ashamed of. So you've inherited your father's temper. So? Ares got it too - you think you turned out anything like he did?"

He couldn't argue with that one. "No," he admitted reluctantly.

"And all this 'inner darkness' stuff - you trying to compete with Xena here?"

"Well - " Put that way, his concerns did seem a little - well, excessive.

"Son of a Thunder god," Iolaus muttered with a roll of his eyes, "and he worries about getting a little miffed from time to time …" He shook his head, chuckling softly to himself as he did so. "No wonder Michael sent me back. Look - " The hunter adopted a determined stance, fixing his friend with a frown of brotherly affection that threatened to be the last word on the matter. It wasn't often that Iolaus reminded Hercules that he was the older member in their partnership - but when he did, it was because he had a point to make. One that he intended to be heard and taken to heart.

"Hercules," he said. "When you went a little crazy back in Sumaria it was because you were beside yourself with grief. It's not the first time you've done it, and I doubt it'll be the last. Remember when you lost Deineira and the kids? You trashed the house and then charged off to trash every one of Hera's temples that got in your way. And that time when the Enforcer punched my lights out? You scared Hades half to death - and that's hard to do to the Lord of Underworld. As for Dumazi - well, he did lie. He lied to you - and condemned me doing it. Besides, the death of the Sumarian gods is on Dahok's hands, not yours. Dumazi was dead before you got there. You just put an end to his pain."

"I wish I could believe that."

"You can and you will - because it's the truth and you know it is."

"But - yesterday …"

"Yesterday," Iolaus interrupted grimly, "you and I were up against something that we just weren't ready for. Something way out of our usual league. Herc - the Fallen are masters of treachery. They ought to be; they invented the concept. Okay, so you got a little angry. That's just what Carnivean wanted you to do. He was counting on it."

This was old news. Hercules threw a sullen look at the horizon. "I nearly got us both killed. If I'd just stopped to think - "

"Next time you will."

The words were firm and their content indisputable. It was a truth he couldn't deny - but he felt his blood run cold.

"Next time?"

"Uhuh. We just kicked his butt, remember? He's not going to forget that in a hurry."

"I thought - " He didn't know what he'd thought; he'd just assumed the menace was over. But then, that's what he'd thought about Dahok, too …

"Herc, he's one of the Fallen. They were princes of heaven once. That little firework display might have hurt him a little, but hardly enough to scare him away. And we dented his pride. Word of that gets out - well, our lives are gonna be hell on earth. His revenge is probably going to make Hera's vendetta look like nursery games."

Nursery games?

Hercules turned to stare at his companion; Iolaus didn't sound as if he were exaggerating the situation - but then he didn't sound particularly worried at the prospect either. "Is this supposed to be making me feel better?" he questioned suspiciously. His guardian angel grinned at him.

"Isn't it?" he asked.

Well …

Oddly enough, the conversation had made him feel better. A whole lot better in fact; his old wounds had been hauled out for inspection and they'd been liberally salved with good honest common sense. The empty space - the one which he had filled with regrets and guilt - was no longer empty. It was filled with light. Celestial light. If there were any darkness lurking in his soul, it was going to have a hard time competing with that.

"Business as usual, huh?"

"You bet." Iolaus jerked his head hopefully towards the cliff path, a warm invitation to end the discussion and find him that breakfast they'd been talking about. Hercules grinned, throwing a companionable arm around his friend's shoulders and frog marching him back up the beach.

Business as usual.

For the first time in a long time, that was something he could look forward to …

Disclaimer:

No princes of Hell managed to escape to the Prime Material plane during this story, although one came very close to establishing a Hellmouth under Agiori.
Iolaus' jerkin appears to undergo a miraculous mending process whenever he folds his wings away. The Light moves in mysterious ways.

 

---

'Heaven Must be Missing an Angel'- Chapter Ten. Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Universal, Pacific Rennaisance, or any other holders of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys trademarks or copyrights.
© 2001. Written by Pythia. Reproduced by Penelope Hill