"Well, you
couldn't be rude, right?" Herc supplied an explanation for
him.

"That and
– well, they…" Iolaus laughed at what he was about to say,
"they actually look great!"

"What
about the house itself?" Hercules asked, carefully trying to
steer the subject away from Gabrielle. "Did you get the roof
fixed?"

"Uh,
yeah," Iolaus said looking up. "I fortified the – say,
how did you know about the roof?"

Hercules
panicked. "Oh – I – uh – um – I saw as we rode up. I told Xena
it looked as though you'd done some work up
there."

"Oh."
Iolaus shrugged his shoulders and accepted Herc's explanation.
He went inside. Hercules breathed a huge sigh of relief before
following him.

“storytext”> 

Very careful
not to overstep their bounderies, Hercules and Xena tried to keep
the foursome together as much as possible. They figured as long as
they were all in one room, there would be a limit to what could be
said in front of everyone.

The first two
nights went perfectly. After a reasonably good dinner (not
Gabrielle's best, but you'd never guess it to hear Iolaus)
Xena and Hercules sat quietly side-by-side as they watched their
friends giggling in front of the fire. They couldn't hear what
was being said, but didn't need to. Things were definately
going well.

But Gabrielle
and Iolaus noticed more than their friends gave them credit
for.

"I
don't know what's going on with Xena and Herc,"
Gabrielle whispered to Iolaus. He looked back to the two heroes
sitting silently at the back of the room. Iolaus smiled and
nodded.

"I know,
why are they always trying to stay together? Do you think they
might…?" he grinned and raised his eyebrows. Gabrielle
giggled and tried to cover it with her hand.

"No! I
didn't mean that! But something's definately bugging them.
I can't seem to get it out of her."

"Yeah,
Herc's been the same way. He's worried about something. I
wonder why they won't tell us."

"I'm
gonna have to find a time tomorrow to worm this out of
her."

"Okay,
tomorrow I'll take Herc out for a hike or something. I'll
work on him, you work on her."

“storytext”>"Alright," she smiled.
"Deal."

Their
conversation was just ending when Hercules yawned loudly. "You
two planning on staying up all night?"

Iolaus and
Gabrielle smiled. "No," Iolaus answered. "We'll
be right up."

"I'm
gonna hit the hay too," Xena announced. "I'll see you
guys in the morning." She followed Hercules out and the two
were left alone. Gabrielle turned back to Iolaus and smiled, glad
to finally have him all to herself again.

"Iolaus,
what happens when Hercules is called off on another
mission?"

"I
don't know. But I'll tell you this. I'm not going to be
leaving here anytime soon." Gabrielle smiled widely at his
answer.

"If
it's alright with you, I'd kind of like to hang around here
for awhile too."

Iolaus nodded
knowingly and leaned toward her. He kissed her softly. Gabrielle
felt her heart jump as she pulled him closer and returned the
kiss.

“storytext”> 

“storytext”>"Cha-ching!" Aphrodite pulled her hands back
in exclamation. "Thata girl, Gabby!"

"Thank
Granddaddy, I thought it was never gonna happen," Cupid sighed
with relief. "I gotta tell Psyche."

"Are those
two finally getting somewhere?" Hepheastus asked as he looked
into the pool. "That only took them two lifetimes to get
around to," he chuckled.

"Hey now,
don't get too excited, boys, it's only a kiss. There's
still plenty of work to do," Aphrodite reminded
them.