In the skies of Greece, the hero and demigod Hercules was riding on the back of his winged horse and best friend Pegasus, with his girlfriend Meg in tow as well. Hercules was taking Meg out on a date outside of Thebes and needed Pegasus as a speedy transport to and from his planned location. During the flight, Meg was sitting in front of Hercules and was now facing him.

"So where are we going today, Wonder Boy?" Meg asked, looking at Hercules with love in her eyes.

"Oh, it's a...surprise," Hercules replied as casually as he could.

"Oooh! A surprise?" Meg asked coyly.

"Yes. In fact…" Hercules then reached into the belt of his armor and pulled out a cloth. "Here, let me put this over your eyes."

"What for?" Meg asked.

"Because it's something new that we haven't done before, so it's a surprise. Plus, we're almost there, so I don't want you to see what it is we're doing until we get there."

Meg remained stone-faced for a few seconds before her expression softened and she let out a small chuckle. "Oh, Wonder Boy, you are ever the optimist." Then she pulled him close to her and kissed his cheek before she let him put the blindfold on her.

Once he finished putting the blindfold on Meg, Hercules looked in the direction of his horse's head. "Pegasus?" Hercules called, and Pegasus looked back at his friend. Once their eyes met, Hercules said, "You know what to do." Then he nodded and winked, and Pegasus did the same.

Almost immediately after Hercules put the blindfold over her eyes, Meg began to feel nervous. She wasn't too confident about being up in the air and not being able to see at the same time since it reminded her of why she was afraid of heights in the first place. "Uh, Hercules," she started, "are we really almost there, because I don't really like the idea of not being able to see while we're still up so high, since my fear of heights hasn't totally disappeared…"

Suddenly, Meg stopped talking as she felt Hercules's arms gently embrace her completely around her waist and pull her close to him. "Don't be afraid, Meg," she heard Hercules tell her softly, "I'm here, and I promise I won't let you fall, or let anything else happen to you."

Hearing the man she loved hold her and say those words of comfort made Meg melt, and she didn't want to miss looking at his face as he held her. So she lifted the blindfold slightly above her eyes to uncover them and looked straight at the smiling face of Hercules.

Smiling back, Meg put her hand on his cheek. "I love you, Wonder Boy," she admitted softly. As she kept her hand in place, she leaned forward and kissed his lips tenderly.

Hercules melted and returned Meg's, keeping his arms around her. "I love you, too, Meg," he said.


"We're here," Hercules said, dismounting Pegasus.

"We are?" Meg asked, feeling Hercules take her hand as she dismounted Pegasus, too. "So where is 'here'? Can I take off the blindfold now?"

"No, no. Not yet," Hercules responded. "And we are in Asopos."

"Asopos? Why are we all the way out here? I mean, what's here that you wanted to do?"

"Hold on. We just need to take a few more steps to our destination." Hercules said, keeping Meg steady in his embrace as he helped her walk towards where they were going.

"Okay, here we are. Ta da!" Hercules announced.

Hearing him, Meg removed the blindfold from her eyes to see where they had come: a dock in Asopos where rowboats were kept.

"See, Meg? I brought us here so we could go rowing. I'll row the boat down the river while you sit and enjoy the view before us. What do you think?"

Although Meg was flattered at Hercules's idea to take her out in a boat on the river, she had some worries about it. "Hercules...are you sure you wanna do this?" she asked, with a telltale hint of uneasiness in her voice. "Do you even know how to row a boat?"

"Well...no," Hercules admitted and laughed a bit sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. "But I'm sure I can learn. How hard can it be?"

"Uhhh," Meg said, the uncertainty still clear in her voice. "Well, maybe I should help you row it. Or better yet, maybe we should do something else. Something on dry land."

"But Meg," Hercules protested, taking her hands in his own, "I thought we'd do something different, but something still romantic. I wanted to treat you to something where you would sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery before us, and I take care of everything. So I thought, rowing would be just perfect."

Meg raised her eyebrows quizzically, then let out a small chuckle and smile. "Oh, Wonder Boy, you are so sweet," she said right before she gave Hercules a quick peck on his lips.


Unfortunately, the boating trip was turning out to be anything but romantic. After only ten minutes of being on the water, the couple had barely moved away from the docks and the man who was in charge of the boats. And Hercules hadn't gotten too far from the docks because he turned out to be very poor at rowing, no matter how much he tried to be coordinated in doing so.

"Do you want me to try it?"

"No, I said I would take care of this. You just sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery before us."

"Well, then let's just float about a bit."

"I'm determined to get out of sight of that stupid man and that stupid hut," Hercules said, gazing in the direction of said man.

Meg looked behind her in the direction where Hercules was looking. Sure enough, the man in charge of the boats was still standing at the docks next to the hut a short distance away from the couple and their boat. "I thought we'd come further than that," she said as she turned back towards Hercules.

"Well, we haven't."

"Why is he stupid? I thought he was being very helpful."

"I didn't like the way he said 'Let me give you a hand'. As if I can't do something like this by myself."

"Oh, you're being silly, Wonder Boy!"

"Am I? I thought you would have been able to detect a distrustful man a mile away."

"But he's the person in charge here. He knows how to work with boats. I mean, one foot in the boat, one foot on shore, another minute, you'd have fallen into the river," Meg stated, and she started to giggle after saying the last few words.

Hercules scowled as he held the oars and attempted to row the boat with all his might...and he continued to fail in attempting to move the boat away from their current spot. At one point, by using too much strength, he pulled one of the oar's handles up too high that he nearly lost his grip on it and stumbled in his seat in the boat.

Seeing the near-accident happen before her made Meg clap her hand over her mouth and start laughing quietly. Hercules knew she wasn't doing it as an act or jeering or mockery, but he was still set on proving Meg that he could row. He wanted to give her the outing he had been planning to give her.

So keeping his grip on the oars, Hercules again tried to move the oars backwards in order to move the boat backwards. And for a few seconds, it seemed that he finally was doing it...until he and Meg realized that they were just going around in a circle.

After making one circle around in the boat, Hercules started to do it again. And this time, he was doing it more roughly, making water splash in Meg's direction. As she attempted to dodge the water, Meg spoke up, "We're going around again."

"I rather happen to be enjoying it," Hercules said sarcastically. Meg smirked at him, recognizing the sarcastic tone he was using.

Smirking back at her, Hercules continued to row in circles, trying to go in one straight direction. Soon, he was not still going in circles, but he was going at a much faster speed than before, and he was causing more water to splash up and nearly hit him and Meg. Both actions started to make Meg panic. "Hercules, stop. Stop! Stop! Stop!" she cried out frantically until he finally stopped.

As Hercules sighed with exhaustion and frustration, Meg said, "Look, let's just go back to the docks, and...we can do something else together. Why don't we go out for lunch?"

"You really want to give up going boating with me?"

"Well...no, but...I don't want you to get all worked up over this."

Determined to prove to Meg that he would give her a wonderful outing in a boat on the river, Hercules mustered enough of his strength in order to keep himself coordinated in rowing straight. But as he pulled the oars upward, he lost his balance and fell over in his seat. Doing so resulted in him losing his grip on the oars, with one of them falling out of its oarlock and into the water. Again, Hercules's misfortune caused Meg to clap her hand over her mouth in surprise, but it wasn't long before she began laughing, especially when she saw the oar fall into the river.

When Hercules sat up, he noticed the oar floating on the water surface. "It's just a few feet from the boat. I can get it."

As he reached down to try and retrieve the oar, Meg said nervously, "Uh, Hercules, be careful, or you'll capsize the boat. In fact, why don't you just forget about it so we won't end up falling overboard?"

Keeping his gaze towards the oar, Hercules replied, "Meg, don't worry. I said I can get it. And when I do, I'm gonna row us around the river to our heart's content. I said I was gonna give you a romantic outing, and that's what I'm going to do." He continued to reach down for the oar, but unfortunately, it was starting to float further away from the boat. Hercules sat up on his knees and moved to the very edge of the side of the boat as he continued to try and reach for it.

As the oar continued to float away from the boat, Hercules continued to lean his body further to reach it. Straining while he did so, his knees touched the boat's side, and he said between his grunts, "Almost...got it…"

Meg, who was sitting in her place and clenching her hands tightly to the sides of the boat, saw that Hercules was finally going too far and shouted, "Hercules, stop!" before the inevitable happened. Hercules yelled as he fell face first into the water, and Meg followed suit as she fell in, too, causing the boat to turn over and upside down.


Ten minutes later, Hercules and Meg, still drenched from having fallen into the water, were back in their boat...which was being towed to shore by its attachment to another boat that was being rowed by the boatkeeper.

While in their boat, Hercules was hanging in his head down as low as he could, refusing to look at Meg. He was completely ashamed and humiliated by all that had happened: his poor rowing, dropping the oar, and then him and Meg both falling into the water and capsizing the boat when he tried to reach for the oar.

Hercules wanted to give Meg a beautiful, romantic outing, and it all ended in disaster. Nothing had gone the way he hoped it would. I have never been so humiliated in my life, he thought. Meg must think I'm such a fool.

Meg was still sitting across from Hercules in her part of the boat. Although she wasn't happy that she got wet, she hated seeing her Wonder Boy looking so unhappy about the turn of events. She smiled and looked down, trying to meet his gaze, but when he noticed what she was doing, he turned his head in the opposite direction. So Meg attempted to sit next to him, but Hercules still refused to look at her.

Determined to get her boyfriend's attention, Meg smiled slyly before she grabbed Hercules by his armor and gave him a big, wet, and long-lasting kiss on his left cheek. The amount of force she put into grabbing and kissing him stunned Hercules, though getting a kiss from her started to bring a smile to his face.

"I thought that would cheer you up," Meg said sassily.

Hercules laughed, then he looked down again. "I'm sorry, Meg. I'm sorry I couldn't row the boat. I'm sorry I capsized it and got you wet. I'm sorry I ruined our date."

"Oh, Wonder Boy, don't be so hard on yourself. It was actually kind of fun: watching your attempts at rowing, rowing in circles, falling in the water."

"But I wanted it to be a romantic outing and not have anything go wrong," Hercules said as he raised his head slightly upward.

Meg kneeled in front of Hercules's face, forcing him to look in her eyes. "Hercules, as long as we do anything together, it's romantic to me." Smiling warmly, she added, "I just wanna be with you. I love you."

Hercules smiled in return. "I love you, too, Meg-" he started before he was quickly cut by Meg abruptly kissing him on the lips. As he felt her arms surround him, Hercules wrapped his arms around Meg. She kissed him so forcefully that she pulled him closer to her, causing them to fall over in the boat. Falling over forced the couple to break their kiss, but they laughed as it happened.

Meg was right, Hercules thought in realization. As long as we're together, it doesn't have to be perfect. We should just be happy to be with each other.