Reconstructing Harry

Spoiler Warning : This work is based upon key characters, ideas, and concepts from the Xena : Warrior Princess episode "Deja Vu All Over Again."

Content Warning : While not exactly alt, there is a naked Ted Raimi character, cross- dressing, and ritualistic tranformative behavior, so use your best judgement if you decide to proceed. However, there is no sex, no drugs, no detailed violence, and no bad language - and, oddly, no Joxer. Why, it's almost Gen!

Non-ownership Disclaimer : I don't own 'em, wish I did; I just borrowed them to play with a little. I promise to give them back when I'm done - I'll even wash 'em first.

Xenite Disclaimer : Although Harry got into Annie's panties during the production of this work, Rob didn't mind in the least. In fact, had this been an actual production, he and Sam would have gladly filmed the entire process for posterity.

Harry awoke with a jerk, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, sweat streaming off his body to soak into his pajamas despite the night-chilled air. "Not again," he moaned to himself, clutching his arms about his body convulsively as he struggled to regain control.

Beside him, Annie, his live-in girlfriend, muttered under her breath "...Mighty..." before rolling over and falling into to a deeper sleep. As always, she was completely oblivious to this latest instance of her lover's nocturnal distress.

Harry shivered, the worst of the fit fading as he snuggled the blankets tightly under his chin, like a child hiding from his nightmares. When that failed to help him regain his equanimity, he carefully slipped from beneath the blankets, rose unsteadily to his feet, then padded softly down the hall to the bathroom.

He moved with an unconscious grace, not even noticing the almost catlike glide that his body used to prevent the creaky floorboards from disturbing Annie's slumber. Were he closer to full awareness, he would have been amazed at the dexterity and stealth he showed, but in his half-awake, distressed condition, it passed unremarked.

Closing the bathroom door before turning on the light, Harry blinked in the sudden glare of fluorescence on linoleum and porcelain. From the mirror above the sink, the reflection of his face stared at him.

Was that really him? he wondered suddenly in bleary startlement. That narrow face with those so- prominent bones and the lines and circles around the eyes, framing that beak-like nose, couldn't possibly be me, he thought. I look so haunted... so hag-ridden.

He shivered unconsciously as something in the recesses of his mind began screaming that this was not how he should look. A different face - one that was smoother, rounder... different - briefly superimposed itself over his reflection, staring back into his eyes with one eyebrow arched in imperious amusement...

Shuddering, Harry quickly turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. His heart thudded in his chest as his hands clenched convulsively on the cool porcelain of the sink. It was happening again - even though it had only been a week since the last time. It was usually months between... between... Maybe I can get more hours at the hospital, he thought plaintively. I never have these episodes on the nights I work late.

Slowly straightening, Harry turned off the water and looked in the mirror once more. Only his own pale face was visible in its polished depths.

Tiny droplets of water slowly traced their way down his cheeks to bead briefly on his chin before continuing down the arch of his throat to soak into the collar of his pajamas. His eyes were sunken, but they were entirely his own. No phantom blue orbs hovered there to bedevil him with their icy gaze.

Harry shivered. He knew what he had to do. He had no choice, even had he wanted one. When the need had first come upon him, he had resisted, and even now he feared what he was driven to do - but he'd learned the futility of attempting to avoid it. It was his curse, and his joy, and he knew there would be no other way to find respite in the night.

Turning out the light, he slowly made his way back to the bedroom, his steps neither as light nor as sure as they had been bare moments before, yet still soft enough to minimize the sound of his footfalls. Annie slept on, wholly unaware of his wandering, sleeping the sleep of the just and the innocent while Harry was tormented by dreams.

Standing in the middle of his bedroom, Harry looked down on Annie's sleeping form. Her tousled, sleep disordered hair framed her lovely face beautifully in a vision of perfection as gentle snores emanated from her sculpted nose. She was so beautiful...

And so achingly close to the spectral vision that kept returning to wander through his dreams. Had that been what drew him to her? Harry asked himself in a shock born of sudden realization. To his surprise, he found that he didn't know; he couldn't answer the question - and that thought worried him, even distracted as he was by the churning call of his need.

He had no time for such things, he reminded himself firmly, dismissing the uncertainty that muddled his thoughts with an effort of will. The night was passing, and he needed surcease.

Slowly, he began to remove his nightclothes piece by piece, letting the midnight blue garments fall unheeded to the floor as each was removed. Stretching languidly in the moonlight, he shivered as a draft of cold air blew across his dampened cheeks. "And so it begins again," Harry whispered to himself.

Kicking his boxers beneath the bed, he stood naked in the moonlight, absorbing the night sounds. He listened for the slightest incongruity, the faintest hint of disturbance that would prevent him from continuing... but there was none; all was silent.

Filled with a confusing maelstrom of commingled relief and disappointment, he waited until he was once more in control of himself to continue. The ritual was important, and he didn't want to chance disrupting it. Once committed to it, there would be no going back.

Harry slowly turned and opened the top drawer of his girlfriend's dresser. It was filled with her underwear, a tangled welter of fabrics and colors in the dim light. After glancing over his shoulder to check on Annie once more, he leaned closer in order to see better.

His breath danced over the silken garments, and his prominent nose filled with the mingled aromas of fabric softener and detergent, combined with an underlying musk that was uniquely Annie. Her scent lingered on her clothing, despite washing.

Blushing slightly, Harry reached into the drawer and chose a pair. He slowly pushed the drawer closed once more, the slick fabric cool against his fingertips.

Harry paused, watching for movement from Annie. The last thing he wanted was for her to awaken and find him parading around in her underwear...

When he was sure that she remained safely in Morpheus' arms, he stepped into the pink panties, drawing them up his legs, the coarse hairs catching briefly on the elastic before they glided smoothly across his skin. He was a slight man, and Annie was a large-framed woman, and they fit him perfectly - as he knew they would from past experience. Shivering once more, Harry stood motionless as he absorbed the feeling.

It wasn't a sexual feeling. Indeed, the panties were quite snug against him, uncomfortably, though not painfully, so. The fabric tingled against his skin, and felt good, but didn't lift him in arousal - the feelings they generated were more profound than any mere carnal urge.

Indefinably, he felt more alive. Power surged through his limbs as he gladly surrendered to his compulsion - which rewarded him in a truly visceral way for his compliance. A warm glow burned in his heart, filling him with strength and energy. The uncertainty, confusion, and fear that had racked him with nightmares perceptibly faded as his body came to life, something deep in his soul acknowledging the fundamental rightness of the action.

A sudden thought froze him in place, and his hands twitched uncertainly as two powerfully undeniable urges - to continue or to halt - warred for mastery of his actions.

He had abruptly realized that he'd never seen Annie wear the panties that he now wore. More, they fit him perfectly - despite the fact that the first time he'd worn her underwear, they were much tighter - especially in the leg holes. Did Annie know what he did? he asked himself in shock. Had she bought these... for him?

No, he reassured himself after a moment's panicked thought. She couldn't possibly know. She was always asleep when he performed the ritual. Besides... surely she would surely have said something.

It was just his imagination playing tricks on him, he told himself; just the last effort of his conscience, of his logical, medically-trained mind struggling to assert itself against the clarion allure of his illogical nocturnal activities.

His heart rate began to slow as he grew calmer, and after a moment, he breathed easier as well. He watched Annie sleep, reassuring himself that she remained ignorant of his habits.

Relaxing once more, he let the comforting weight of the ritual reassert itself. Harry walked to his girlfriend's closet, feeling the fabric of the panties sliding slickly against his skin as he walked.

His personal ritual, the one that he used to fulfill his urges, was odd, he admitted to himself, yet fundamentally no stranger than the superstitious little rituals that surrounded activities as mundane as league bowling, or the arcane rituals required for preparing for an opening day's early morning fishing excursions. His ritual just happened to involve wearing his girlfriend's clothes.

Really, he was perfectly ordinary. The only thing even remotely odd that had ever happened to him was getting drunk after a midterm while he was in college, and waking up naked in the library with a tattoo on his foot. Why, compared to most of his friends, even with his little idiosyncracy, he was downright pedestrian. Mundane. Average. Ordinary. The thought was greatly comforting.

He sometimes wondered if Annie's obsession with that TV show was what compelled him to do this, and that thought raced through his mind again as he brought forth the box where she kept her most sacred possessions. After all, he'd never done anything like this before he'd met her. He personally found the show to be uninspired and boring (even if the scanty leather outfits sometimes appealed to his hormones); more often than not he fell asleep while trying to watch it with her, no matter how much he wanted to share in her obsessive hobby. Well, share it in a way other than simply having the life-size cardboard figure of the main character staring at him from the corner of his bedroom.

Yet something about that show resonated with his very being, awakening desires and urges in him that demanded satisfaction. Was it the show, rather than Annie, that compels me? he wondered.

Dismissing the thought as irrelevant, Harry opened the box, and let the sharp scent of aged leather wash over him. The earthy smell was warm and welcoming, evoking both a sense of homecoming and of nostalgia in his mind, though with no definable originating source. Who knew why the scent had such resonance for him? The only things leather he or his family had ever owned had been belts, shoes, and wallets - hardly evocative items. And yet... the feeling indisputably existed.

Letting his doubts and uncertainty fade, his thoughts immersed themselves in the comforting minutiae of preparation. He reverently shook out the leather battle dress, pausing the process to simply hold it against his naked skin.

Although clearly modeled after the TV character's garb, even to his eyes the leathers were greatly simplified. The armor the heroine wore over it was stitched on in fabric, rather than crafted from unwieldy metal. Created by an inexperienced, if loving, craftswoman - Annie herself - it was sturdy and well made, yet had many shortcuts taken both in its construction and its design to ease its creation.

Still, realistic or not, the garb sang to him, calling in a wordless voice of love and compulsion that resonated with his very soul, drawing him to the gear and compelling him to embrace it. He gladly slipped the dress over his head, enjoying the rough caress of the well-tanned leather on his skin.

For a moment Harry paused, his eyes closing as he savored the sweet surge of energy racing through his body as the leather fringes of the skirt brushed against his thighs. It got better and better each time I do it, he mused. His body reveled in the sensations and the incredible power that was unleashed within him whenever he girded himself for battle in the clothes of the fantastic warrior woman.

Once, as an experiment, he'd bought a costume based on the hero of another TV series. The tight leather pants and loose-fitting tunic had much the same smell as Annie's homemade leathers, yet did nothing for him. Truthfully, he'd felt rather silly wearing the thing, and had eventually given it away. For better or worse, he was inextricably tied to Annie's obsession.

Fingers fumbling, he slipped on the bracers and wrapped the armbands around his slim biceps, feeling an answering surge of power with each article he added to his ensemble, and a commensurate fading of lingering uncertainty. Each additional snap and clasp that closed brought him closer and closer to the fulfillment he craved, and to the mental state that he yearned for.

He felt... good. Powerful. All but omnipotent. In the grip of the leather armor, he was capable, fired with a pride and self-confidence so absolute that it transcended arrogance - and it was so satisfying...

He was almost ready, he realized, smiling in gratified satisfaction. The ritual was nearing completion, and he could feel the subtle awakening occurring within himself.

Opening his own closet, he removed an old attaché case before closing the door again. Unlocking the case with a key he kept taped to the side of his dresser, he opened it with one hand while returning the key to its hiding place with the other.

The wig the case contained was tangled and matted, the long black artificial strands that were supposed to be hair puddled in the bottom of the case like a collection of clippings from beneath a barber's chair. Despite this, the wig still managed to draw him with an irresistible force.

Drawing the wig from the case, he hurriedly slipped it on, fingers nimbly clipping tiny catches to his own short locks to bind it in position. Tossing the lank, tangled artificial hair behind his shoulders, he stretched liquidly, feeling barely restrained power burning in every fiber of his being.

Intellectually, when he thought about his nocturnal activities in the cold light of day, he knew he must look an absolute fright. His body was lanky and slim under the ill-fitting leathers, the wig probably looked as natural as astroturf, and his face was thin and unfeminine. Frankly, if someone looking like he came to the hospital where he worked, wearing leather and waving a sword, he'd likely simply shake his head and watch as burly nurses dragged the hapless creature off for intense therapy. But because it was him...

He realized that a vital step towards overcoming his compulsions was to simply view himself and his actions with the clarity of rationality, ignoring the emotions and the often confusing surges of his feelings. To see himself as he truly was, and not as his mind convinced himself he was. He often told himself this... but only during the day. Never at night, when the need was upon him.

Somehow he had never quite mustered the courage to look at himself in a mirror while garbed in Annie's costume - what he'd come to think of as his second skin. He avoided it for a simple reason : the cold reality of the vision he might see in its silvered depths might provide sufficient fodder to strengthen his rationality to the point that he could throw off the siren allure of his closet obsession.

For, regardless of his uncertainty and the confusion, regardless of the nightmares that woke him in the night, in his heart of hearts, he loved this feeling.

Besides, wrapped in the sheath of leather and steel he and Annie had constructed, his mind already knew how he looked and how he felt...he didn't need to see it to believe it to be true. His faith in the ritual had become absolute, and reality was less important to him than the subjective thrill of it; it was like a drug, and Harry felt all but helpless in the thrall of it, but at the same time had no desire to escape it.

He recognized very little of himself in the gestalt that he created through his ritualistic arming and dressing, yet frankly didn't care. By day he was a well-respected healer and scholar, learned and wise, yet each time he awoke in the night with the need burning in his soul, he gladly surrendered himself to the fast rising flood of absolute confidence and poise that arose in him with each step of his ritual.

Wrapped in the products of Annie's obsession, he was the warrior woman - and he absolutely loved it. A few nightmares were a small price to pay, he reassured himself.

At first he'd remained in his house after transforming himself into the blue-eyed woman who haunted his dreams. Fear of exposure and lingering embarrassment over wearing the archaic female garb had kept him safely sequestered in its blanketing shelter.

But eventually, as the ritual became more comfortable, the transformation more complete, even those worries faded under the weight of the Warrior Princess' magnificence. Until, now, he freely roamed the city, more comfortable in the night-darkened streets while cloaked in his alternate personality than he ever was when he was fully "himself."

At night he was a hero, with all that implied. He felt compelled to roam the streets, seeking wrongs to right and battles to wage for the greater good, becoming jittery and nervous until he escaped from the prison of his house and the meaningless trappings of his ordinary existence.

With every muscle pulsing with a subdued promise of strength and ability, Harry slung Annie's sheathed sword across his back and casually spun her chakram around his index finger before clipping it to his belt.

He was ready - and Harry as the world knew him was gone. He had become the warrior woman.

Gliding with the supple grace of a stalking panther, he abandoned his house and took to the night, leaving hushed peals of joyous laughter in his wake as he darted across his lawn.

Harry raced the wind, feeling the air blowing across his skin as he ran through the night. His body was alive in a way it never was otherwise, aware of everything that surrounded him. He could hear the sleeping birds, the near silent cries of the roaming predators and their prey, the small animals that fled his near soundless steps. He was undisputed master - or mistress, either term suited him at the moment - of the world around him and he gloried in that heady sensation as he bounded over the cement-laced plains.

Leaping into the sheltering boughs of a tree, Harry paused to check his bearings from his perch fifteen feet above the sidewalk. He was near the mall, he noted, with a quiet feeling of pride. He'd run for miles at full speed, yet wasn't winded in the slightest.

Give this up? he asked his logical part, sneering mentally at the very idea. Never.

Before he could move from his perch, the word "Listen" seemed to echo in his mind, the voice that uttered it alien to his body, yet as familiar to him as his own. Obediently he halted, head cocked to listen.

Faintly, in the distance, over the almost subliminal hum of streetlights and the muted rumble of cars passing on a freeway, he heard what the voice had prompted him to listen for. The cries of a woman in trouble echoed through the plaza in the center of the mall while the mocking laughter of the brutal men attacking her resounded loudly in his ears.

Flinging himself to the ground, Harry was running towards the disturbance at the mall before he even landed, a smug smirk beginning to grow on his face as he drew his sword. They had no idea what they were getting into.

The world needed the Warrior Princess... and so did he.

Let evil beware.

Shrilly ululating his warcry, he leapt into the fray, ready to fight for the greater good.

Author's Afterword : "Deja Vu All Over Again," was disappointing in some ways, even as it was quite satisfying in others.

But what struck me - among other things - was the implication that Harry, the Xena vigilante, dressed like Xena to fight evil, without even knowing that he was Xena : his startlement at the possibility that he was Xena reborn was clear after his first hypnotic regression. That set of facts, combined with the smoothness with which Ted Raimi slipped into the Xena personality - and I must admit, I was impressed by the way Ted was able to use Xena's mannerisms ("Areees") - which contrasted with Melinda Pappas' almost "possession" by Xena in "The Xena Scrolls" - left me with a sense that Harry was much closer to Xena than Melinda, despite the barriers of time and gender, and his ignorance of that relationship.

Which begged the questions : why and how was Harry able to do that? (Not to mention the bit at the end about Annie knowing he dug into her underwear drawer... I just had to incorporate that - and I made 'em pink in honor of Gabrielle's much-abused nightie.)

This was the result. It's not transvestism, per se, or even a fetish in the proper sense of the word, that drives him to be the Xena vigilante. Instead it's a compulsion stemming from somewhere in the uncharted depths of his (and Xena's) soul, the lingering influence of his ancestor that exalts him even as it confuses (and possibly even shames) him...

In a way, this view of Harry was undoubtedly influenced by some of the modern, darker reinterpretations of the character of Batman - though I somehow failed to recognize that until after I'd finished the story itself and was writing these author's notes. But, despite the similarity, the two ideas are really quite disparate - though I did find some obvious parallels that I played up in later drafts both for recognizability and simplicity.

Still, I doubt you'll see Ted Raimi any time soon wearing leather, panties, and a wig holding an evildoer by the throat : "Who are you?" "I'm Xena, man." even though it makes an interesting mental picture.

Perhaps if I have free time (not likely, I'll admit) I'll read up on the literature and write a sequel that explores what Harry does now that he knows he's Xena reborn - and has been reunited with Gabrielle.

Will he continue to dress as his soul's progenitor, or will he finally be able to transcend that need? Will he continue to be a vigilante, perhaps adding Gabrielle to his nightly excursions? Will he be as tormented by his drives, or find inner peace?

Tune in next time (maybe) for these and other answers : Same Ted time, same Ted channel!

Liked it or hated it, send any comments to : Chris M.