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Part 7

Chapter 7

"I want Mama!"

Taran stared at his nephew, the child was adamant. He stood on his grandparent’s front steps, arms akimbo, his foot tapping impatiently.

"How about paying a visit to Grandma and Grandpa? Mama will be home soon," he reassured the little boy, silently praying he was right.

When Lyall had shown up at his apartment, trailing their sister’s child, Taran had known something must be wrong. His little sister, regardless of her wildness, wasn’t the sort to leave her son with anyone without several months warning. According to Lyall, Xe was out of the country and missing in action, so to speak, and the grandmothers had run off to bring her back home, unexpectedly leaving Enki with him.

Enki, although generally pleased to see his uncles and grandparents, had had enough and wanted…"Mama!"

The front door opened, revealing Mel's oldest child, Xe's mother. Her gaze traveled from her eldest son, to her grandchild, and back again to Taran, an unspoken question in her eyes.

"Mom…" Taran began.

"I want Mama!" Enki again bellowed, demanding their undivided attention.

Janice Cadmus raised an eyebrow at this child whose personality so mirrored his mother's. "And where is your mama, Possum?"

Xe stood in the hospital foyer, the doctor still sputtering his disbelief that the woman could possibly be in her right mind. She had been beaten nearly to death, shot, and had lost too much blood, she was still incredibly weak; she had no business checking herself out of the hospital. He was tempted to have her admitted to the psychiatric ward, just to keep her off her feet. He had even threatened to do so.

"Doesn't this hospital receive much of its funding from sources at the university?" Mel had questioned. She too was concerned about Xe but knew better than to try to stand in her way.

"Yes…"

"Then unless you wish to lose that funding," Janice had taken up the battle, "I suggest you let us deal with the patient."

Xe had ignored the entire exchange, discussing her plan with the young pickpocket.

"But, Miss…"

"No, I've already made up my mind," motioning toward the grandmothers she finished, "even they know better than to argue with me."

Still wary, Ravi hedged, "I'd need to talk to Altair. I won't if she says no."

"Of course not. And yes, Altair needs to be in on the decision; it will affect her as well as you. But I do want you to think about it, all right?"

The child slowly nodded.

Gabrielle stepped up behind Xe and peered over her shoulder at the little boy. "You learn a lot faster than I do. I still can't remember that arguing with her is useless, especially when she has a plan."

Xe grinned until she heard Brie's final statement.

"And it's taken her such a long time to finally come up with one."

"You let her escape?!" Smythe beat his fist against the hand rest, glaring pointedly at the pair of men who stood before him.

"No one let her escape, Uncle. They were both under close guard. How they got away is a mystery." The explanation sounded weak even to Byron as the words crossed his lips.

"What do you think happened, boy! The Olympian gods decided to cast lightening bolts and free her? Ares owed her a favour? You let her escape!"

Byron nudged his brother, urging him to speak in their defense.

"We'll get her back, Uncle. I'll get her back."

"That girl's our best option, boy. With her we can find the stone. And once I have the Ixion stone," Smythe paused briefly, "well, then you can do with her as you see fit. This is your quest as well as mine."

Byron, in an unexpected fit of bravery, grabbed his brother's arm, spinning him around to face him. "Why is this your quest? How?" Byron's faith in his brother began to wane as the possibilities tumbled through his thoughts. "Just how personal is this grudge?"

"Your brother," Smythe continued, "has his own reasons for wanting to capture Xena Cadmus, Byron. You'd do well to stay out of his way. He has his own score to settle."

Byron shuddered in disgust. His guilt in the entire ordeal weighed heavily on his conscious. He has disliked befriending Gabrielle at Catalhoyuk, knowing she was going to be live bait: the means of bringing Xena to Turkey. The girl had been extremely likable and he had only followed through with his directive because he had been promised she would remain unharmed. But he had also been assured of Xena's safety…

Although it would have been suicide to admit it, Byron was silently thrilled the women had escaped their neo-dungeon. Now, he hoped, they could lie long enough to return to their families.

"Granma Jan, why don't ya'll go back to Dr. Eban's office at the university?" Xe grabbed Ravi's shoulder to pause his journey; the sudden movement sent her head spinning and she shut her eyes, hoping her condition would go unnoticed.

It didn't.

"Because, Dear, we came to find you and now that we have, we're not letting you out of our sight." Mel wasn't about to lose the child again, not in her fragile condition. They could tramp all the way to Hades and back and it wouldn't make any difference to her.

"Be reasonable, Gran-Mel. Ravi said that Altair's near the airport, that's half way across the city. The two of you have no business walking that far, at least not so soon after all the worry you've been put through. The university would be a reasonable mid-point. I'll come back as soon as I find Altair." She watched Mel's eyes lose their warmth and turn icy, filling with familiar warning. She knew the woman was worried, angering her wouldn't help her case at all.

"We can't walk that far? Have you taken note of how tightly you're clutching young Ravi's shoulder? You can barely stand on your own," Mel insisted.

"I'll be fine. I'll take Brie with me," she offered. Mel's eyes thawed a bit and Xe breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"You can't even remember my name, Xe Xe! What makes you think I would want to go with you?" The old irritating Brie of Xe's youth emerged for a moment, pushing aside the concerned, mature woman Xe had spent the last few days with.

"Don't start with me, girl. This is neither the time, nor the place." Xe's patience with these people was wearing remarkably thin. Injured or not, she was going to act on one plan, regardless of whether her companions were in agreement with her. Changing the topic of conversation, she decided, would not be the worst idea.

"Have you called Lyall to let him know everything's all right?"

"Yes, Dear." Mel thought for a moment before continuing, "they're all very much relieved to know you're safe. I, of course, neglected to inform them of your medical condition. Janice would have been rather upset."

"Janice? You called my mother?!"

"I had to, Dear. Taran and Enki were visiting your parents when we found you."

Xe stared blankly at her. She must have been worse off than she thought; nothing was making any sense. "But you left Enki with Lyall, at the farmhouse, in Georgia. Right? Why would he be with Taran now?"

"You keep mentioning Georgia, Xena Xandria. You wouldn't still be angry with us for being here, rather than there, would you?" Janice commented, hoping to dispel some of the tension in the air.

Ignoring her friend's interjection, Mel answered Xe's query. "Lyall's students needed him. Don't worry, Dear, Enki's fine."

"Yeah, he fine all right. He's being passed around like some little foundling that no one wants!"

"Xena Alexandria!" Mel was taken aback by the vehemence in her granddaughter's voice. However, she did understand Xe's anger. The girl had to be in terrible pain and here she was running about a foreign city with more worries than anyone should be concerned with. And she and Janice had foisted it all on her: were responsible for the whole mess.

"Enki is not a foundling, nor is he unwanted, you know that. He'll be back with his own mother soon. And then the two of you can forget all about this little escapade and slip back into your normal, boring life." Hope, more than conviction, filled Mel's words. A prayer that Xe would be able to pull herself through this atrocity and go on with her plans.

Mel hadn't considered the vastness of the intrusion she had forced on the girl by sending her off on this rescue mission. Normalcy was something Xe had a tenuous grasp of at best. Only now, after all was said and done, did Mel regret her decision.

"So he's okay?" Gabrielle hadn't seen Ea in more than a year although she'd pawed through a sheaf of recent photos of him the last time she'd visited Janice's apartment.

"He's quite well," Mel responded, "I believe Janice said that he and the baby were immersed in a giant box of leggos."

"The baby," Xe drawled, "wouldn't appreciate the fact that you still call her that."

Mel smiled. Little Melinda, the youngest of her grandchildren, would soon be a teenager and was as different from her sister as night and day. But the child was most probably her sister's biggest fan, more so even than Gabrielle was. It was a constant worry that plagued her parents. One black sheep was more than enough for the conservative Cadmus household.

Is it agreed then?" Xe questioned. "Gabrielle and I will go with Ravi to locate Altair and we'll all meet back at the university?"

"All right, Dear."

Byron kicked at the stones in the side street as he slowly wandered toward the car his brother had acquired. He was to check the hospitals and clinics, searching for the escaped Xena. His heart wasn't in the quest though and he hoped he could drag his feet long enough for her trail to disappear. The amount of blood they'd discovered in the alley had been proof enough that she wouldn't get very far without medical assistance of some kind and his own guilt in the matter caused the bile to rise in his throat.

He didn't understand the hatred his uncle and brother harboured for the women. He knew his uncle's spite stemmed from decades earlier, when a much younger pair of adventurers had left him for dead in the ruins of Ares' temple. But they had, after all, assumed he was dead. Who could have imagined he would survive with five, or was it six, daggers embedded in his chest and buried beneath a mountain of stone?

His brother's hatred he couldn't understand. He seemed to want only to cause Xena Cadmus as much physical pain as possible. If only he could buy the women enough time to escape the country, he prayed the hunt would have to be called off. His uncle couldn't risk flying to the States due to his failing health and his brother couldn't secure a visitor's visa to save his soul.