Disclaimers: The characters of Xena: Warrior Princess and all other associated with the television series of the same name are owned by MCA/ Universal Pictures. This is a work of fan fiction and no copyright infringement is intended.

Subtext: I guess with my writing so far we'll just quit calling it subtext and call it maintext. Yes they are in love with each other.

Sex: None.

Violence: None

Language: Mild

Other: This takes up right after TTANBTT Part II

By T.Novan

Xena sat at the dining room table with her head resting firmly in her hands watching the bard set up the game board. "Tell me again exactly why we’re doing this Gabrielle."

"Because it’ll be fun."

"Uh-huh. You know it never works out like that."

"It’ll be different this time…"

"Un-huh. You always say that too."

This garnered the warrior a playful slap on the shoulder. "So we’ll do something different this time."

"Lose on purpose maybe?"

"We just won’t be partners this time. Look after that little spectacle earlier in the rec room you OWE me." Gabrielle said as she straddled the warrior’s lap, facing her and slinging her arms over her shoulders and moving in for a kiss. Xena’s hands came to rest on the bard’s back as she pulled her into the kiss and deepened it.

"Oh would you two get a room!" Renee’s voice cut into the kiss as Lucy laughter cut through the air. "Can’t leave you two alone for a minute. I swear."

"Yeah well if you don’t watch it I’ll leak it that you two went to the bathroom together." Xena said as she sipped her beer and the bard departed her lap.

"Oh yeah?" Renee teased as she moved in and leaned in face to face with Xena.

"Yeah." Xena teased back before grabbing Renee’s head and planting a kiss on the actress’ forehead. "You’re just jealous. You’d love to have a sex life like we do. How many people can say they still make love three or four times a week after three thousand years?"

"Two that I know of." Lucy said with a smirk as she took a seat to the left of the warrior and sipped from her wineglass.

"Touché Flawless ya’ got me." She said with a grin as she took another sip of her beer. Renee sat down to her right. "You can’t sit there." She said with a wide grin her tongue planted firmly in her cheek as she watched Ren’s reaction.

"And why not?"

"Cause you and I are going to be partners in this idiotic trivia game my wife insists on playing." This garnered a soft slap to the back of the head from said wife. She ducked and turned around grinning at the bard. "Well you’re the one who said we wouldn’t play as a team this time."

"Yeah that’s right. Lucy and I are going kick your cocky butt." She said as she passed a bowl of munchies over to the warrior and then walked around the table and took the seat vacated by Renee.

Renee settled in across from Xena and just looked around the table. It still overwhelmed her as she realized exactly who she was sitting at the table with. She just shook her head and took a deep breath.

"Hey don’t worry about it Ren…I’ve never lost." The warrior chuckled as she tipped back in her chair. "There are one or two advantages to living as long as we have." She said as she wiggled her eyebrows.

"You have too lost." The bard corrected. "The last time you and I split up you lost."

"Yeah only because your final question was something to the effect of what color is grass?" Xena laughed as she tried to take a drink of her beer.

"That’s not true." Gabrielle defended. "It was something about the humuhumunukunukuapuaa."

"The what?!" Luc and Ren chimed together.

"It’s the official state fish of Hawaii." Xena replied dryly.

"And she knew that?" Ren asked Xena she jerked her thumb at Gabrielle.

"Yeah it pays to have a Ph.D. in Oceanography." The bard grinned.

"Grrrreat." Renee growled as she dropped her head.

"Hey I happen to have a few Ph.D’s of my own you know." Xena said trying not to sound wounded at her new partner’s apparent distrust of her abilities.

"Yes dear," The bard, said as she patted the warrior’s hand. "I’m sure the one in Medieval Weapons and Tactics will come in very handy."

Renee groaned. Lucy chuckled.

"Hey you never know when a mace question might pop up." The warrior defended.

"Or maybe you’ll get that one about the zebra again." The bard teased.

Xena groaned and dropped her head. Lucy couldn’t pass this up. She looked to Gabrielle. "Oh do tell."

"I have all of eternity to get even if you do." The warrior reminded the bard.

"Yeah like that scares me." Gabrielle laughed as she turned her attention back to Lucy and Renee. "It was a question about what animal ancient Greek’s" She stressed as she looked to her partner who cocked her eyebrow and just nodded her head in an ‘I’ll get you for this’ manner. "Thought was a cross between a tiger and a horse. The answer was a zebra. She missed it."

Xena turned to Gabrielle, leaned in, resting her arms on the table and said something in ancient Greek. The duo could only wonder what it was, but from the reflection in Gabrielle’s face it was not nice.

"You wouldn’t dare!" She responded in good old plain English.

Xena’s response was to give a smug little grin and open her hand palm up and give it a little heft in the bard’s direction.

"I thought we were past that…waaaaaaay past that."

"You thought wrong." The warrior grinned. "Then again you know you just might…you always did…"

"OKAY you win I give. No more embarrassing Xena stories. I promise."

"Coward!" The pair chimed.

"Oh like I’m going to do anything for you guys anyhow. You were such a big help to me in the rec room today."

"Oh and what were we suppose to do wrestle you out of her arms?" Renee asked.

"You could have tried a rescue."

"Ri, love, the studio doesn’t give us danger money to rescue you from places you really don’t want to be rescued from in the first place."

"Oh har, har." The bard replied dryly.

"Okay, okay..." The warrior cut in. "Are we going to do this silly thing or not?"

"Make you a deal warrior." The bard offered.

"Oh I don’t like the sound of this. What?"

"We each get to find a question to ask you, if you get them all right then we don’t have to do this."

Xena looked at the bard out of the corner of her eye. "Okay, but you have to choose separately. You can’t help them pick their questions."

"Okay that’s fair." Gabrielle pulled out a box, took a portion of the cards and began sorting through them.

Xena sat back and watched as the trio sorted and looked, and sorted some more. They spent more than twenty minutes looking for their questions Xena began to wonder if it just wouldn’t have been easier to play the damn game after all. Finally they settled on the questions.

Lucy flicked her card at the end of her wrist and presented her question. "What Egyptian queen’s mummified remains were inadvertently dumped in the sewers by workers who were cleaning a Paris museum?"

"Oh please…" Renee groaned.

"Do you know the answer?" Luc asked.

"It’s pretty obvious."

They both looked to Xena who refused to look up or make eye contact with the bard "Cleopatra." She said very quietly.

"Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person." The bard growled.

"Un-oh Luc I think you may have hit a nerve." Renee said quickly as she glanced between her two friends.

"No it’s okay." Gabrielle said. "It’s not your fault that a certain warrior princess didn’t have the will power to keep her hands off that slut."

"Gabrielle…sweetheart…"

"Don’t sweetheart me. Next!" The bard called as she glanced over to Renee.

"Umm yeah…" Renee stammered as she looked at her card.

"We weren’t even dating at the time." The warrior felt the need to throw that fact out there to anyone who cared to listen.

"Doesn’t matter." All three of them chimed at the same time.

"NEXT!" The warrior yelled before things got out of hand.

Renee giggled as she focused on her card. "Okay here goes. What color are a zebra’s black stripes during the first six months of life?"

"I hate you!" Xena growled directly at Ren, who giggled as she ducked the hand that came across the table to cuff her on the ear.

"Do you know or not?" Lucy asked as she slid her card discretely back into the box.

"BROWN…THEY’RE FRICKEN BROWN!"

All three of her companions lost all sense of composure and it took several minutes for the tears to stop rolling down their cheeks.

"I’m glad you find it amusing." She said as she took the final drink of here beer. "Okay dear," She said as she turned to the bard. "Your turn. I’m two for two."

"Yeah but I GOT you."

"Bring it on."

"What Greek…" A loud groan from the entire table.

"Hey give it a chance. What Greek math whiz noticed that the morning star and the evening star were one and the same, in 530B.C.?"

"Oh what was that geeky little bastard’s name?" Xena said as she slapped the table.

The bard crossed her arms in victory. "Yeah?" Gabrielle raised her eyebrow.

"Oh I can see his damn face…if there had been pocket protectors back then he would have bought them by the dozen."

"Xena!" The bard defended someone they had obviously known.

"Oh you know it’s true." She looked over at the bard, "Oh yeah that’s right I forgot you had a thing for him."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Do you know his name or not?"

Let’s see. Ummm." She gave her fingers several little snaps before giving them on final strong snap and placing her extended index finger near bard’s face "Pthyagoras!"

"Congratulations darling. Well done." The bard leaned over and gave the warrior a kiss. "Well fought."

"Thank you very much." She replied as she stroked a loving hand down the bard’s cheek.

"Would you two stop it?" Ren groused in a playful manner. "Geeze, two minutes ago you were nearly ready to kill each other over things that happened three thousand years ago and now you look like you could take each other right here on top of the table."

"We could." The warrior chuckled. "But we haven’t made love on top of the dining room table in what…?"

Gabrielle knew Xena was playing with them now. "Oh I don’t know two, threes days now…"

"More information that we needed!" Lucy and Renee agreed in unison.

The End….

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