Home is Where the Heart Is (Hercules: The Legendary Journey story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Home is Where the Heart Is
Author(s):	Kimberley Rector and Martha Wilson
Date(s):	1998 (?)
Length:
Genre(s):	gen
Fandom(s):	Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Relationship(s):	Hercules & Iolaus
External Links:	online here
Cover art by an unspecified artist, but possibly either Ahary, hnix or Mary Crawford (approx. 1998)
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Home is Where the Heart Is is a gen Hercules: The Legendary Journeys story by Kimberley Rector and Martha Wilson. The story takes place after Iolaus' canonical death at the beginning of season five.

Reactions and Reviews

What Stuck With Me and Why: ... no retrograde, no this one, no retrograde, no idk! It was difficult. Since Retrograde by Wilson deals with the same crossover feelings as Lovely though, let's go with Home Is Where the Heart Is. Is it's not like I didn't know "Presumed Dead" was a huge narrative kink of mine. I read Star Trek tie in novels The Entropy Effect and Ishmael like five hundred times each because of it. And, you know, Christianity. Anyway, I think while reading this fic I was really impressed how hard it was to pull off really solid emotional ups and downs, and how small things can be a huge emotional pay off if they're set up well. It is also one of my first examples of picking canon apart at the seems and replacing it with something else that I liked more. I don't often like fixit fic because it can come off as author on board telling me what I should or should not like about the canon, and even when I don't like the canon that's being changed, I also don't like being lectured about my taste, and it can be too pat. But this story isn't neat or pat, and it runs with how the changes would ripple out, and sorts through the implications. And it's full of hugs and is funny as hell, and I love it.

Okay. So. You don't know Hercules? I don't care. You can read this as original fiction - it's that good, and that original, and that much fun. Here's what you need to know: there's this guy named Hercules, who you may already have heard of in other contexts. He's a demigod, in case you didn't know. His friend and long-time companion Iolaus died, and he tried to find another one, but it didn't work out. There. Now you're ready to read this.

And read it you should, because - oh my god, this is so good. The Egyptian elements made my heart leap with joy. (People with heart conditions that preclude leaping should consult their doctors before reading this story.) I can't even talk about how wonderful this is, and partly that's because I don't want to spoil it, but also because I get incoherent and babble-ish, and this soon after my re-reading of Jane Narf, that could be dangerous.

And if you do know Hercules? Well, you may remember a spot of unpleasantness that those in the know call "the fifth season." This fixes that. It's an AU that doesn't just erase the whole whatever-it-was that ended up with Iolaus dead and replaced by WTF-that's-not-Iolaus (because, seriously, I don't know for sure what happened there - Best Beloved stopped watching Hercules after season four, thanks to some advice I got from marycrawford, who is my Hercules consultant). It takes those events, accepts them, and then somehow makes them all better, in a way that is both brilliant and perfectly in line with the canon. And is also full of Egyptian mythology. Did I mention that?

Inspired Fanworks

• Whose Death is it Anyway? fic by fyre, a prequel story