Chapter Five: Unforgiven Vows.

If ever asked, Simon Elias Ferreau would maintain he was sufficiently well-rounded enough that nothing short of Armageddon would faze him…and even then, only if done in grand Cecil B. DeMile fashion: cast of thousands, extravagant scenery, biblical overtones, et cetera. He had good reason to hold such an opinion of himself, though truth be told it had nothing to do with his claims of being fifty-two and four times married.

Right then, at 2:42 am, on November second, Simon Elias Ferreau learned one cannot be prepared for everything. . .

Certainly not an old acquaintance holding the tip of very large sword to his throat in the dead of night.

Bad enough she practically kicked him through a wall upon arriving, but then she added indignity to embarrassment by saying "Remember me, Malachai?" She drawled his old name, as though it were a caress and still managed to make it an insult.

"My name," he managed archly, "is Simon. . ."

"Spare me," the dark-tressed woman spat. "Your name is Malachai, fourth and youngest son of Ephron the sheep-herder and his third wife Mary and were born in the valley of Galilee on the day David slew the giant Goliath." The sword, which appeared literally out of nowhere, drifted ever closer to his throat. "And I don't have time for your contrived innocence."

Simon. . .Malachai. . .looked into eyes older than his own. "You never had time for anything important, did you?" He drew the name out, a veiled sneer of irony. "Hope?"

Those eyes narrowed tightly, almost to fine slits of nameless color. It took Morgan...Hope...long seconds to remember why it was so important she keep this fool alive just then. The tip of Caliburn, her sword and only reliable companion for longer than she cared to remember, came close to leaping forward of its own accord. Hope wondered if the old creature before her realized how close he came to his final death.

Instead, she reigned in her anger and lowered Caliburn, though its tip now hovered at his heart rather than throat. The gesture, and its meaning, were not lost on the man. He relaxed as best he could, propping himself up on elbows and managing to get into a more comfortable position.

"Now, what brings you to my neighborhood?" Despite a tone of disinterest, both knew his full attention was her's.

Caliburn didn't waver from its post. "I need to know why a couple pieces of meat have been watching Gabrielle Artemes and her companion for the past month. An ex-Olympiad and a flapper. I spoke to the Olympiad before coming here." Hope paused to let him digest this. "Not a complete cell of brain in his entire body," she added with scorn.

"Ah," Malachai drawled. "That would be Dante, better known as 'The Moron'."

Hope merely grunted in acknowledgment. "So he claimed. Except for 'The Moron' bit."

Malachai continued. "He's one of the Circle's less...talented... creatures."

"You mean 'was'."

"Indeed." Malachai nodded, then caught himself. "You didn't ?" Those eyes again. "You did."

"I'm sure a three-story dive into the sidewalk will keep him out of trouble for the time being."

Malachai groaned as though in agony. "You did."

"As I said, not a complete brain. Which means he didn't know as much as I need to know right now." Hope settled down on her haunches, Caliburn's point staying stationary and emphasizing her fast-expiring patience. "Since his partner isn't available, I come here to see what my old friend can tell me about these goings-on." There was nothing friendly about her smile, or her tone, and certainly nothing at all endearing about the way she waved her sword about.

The silence stretched between them for perhaps a full minute.

"Need I remind you of the debts between us, old man? I need to know what the hell is going on here." She paused for effect, letting her words and his memory dredge up all the business yet unfinished between the two of them. It was several centuries' worth. "So. . .enlighten me." A nearly infinitesimal jab with sword point emphasized the request.

Malachai had no doubts as to her sincerity, nor to her obvious determination to see this through. He'd survived this long thanks in no small measure to being able to immediately divine such details from those he'd come into contact with, not unlike a dousing rod finding water.

Insanely, he found himself debating for some seconds on how badly he wanted to live another three thousand years. Hardy as he might be, this bitch could certainly kill him, potentially through sheer terror. He'd had a decent enough time, both before and after tasting of the Dark Wine, and could pass on with few regrets.

The again, how badly did he want to explore the world beyond?

"The elders must have decided that they have had enough of her, so they've planned to kill her. That can be the only reason I can think they'd assign the likes of Dante to watch her and her's." Best start with the obvious, Malachai concluded. Give him time to tease what he could from his...old friend.

"This is news?" Hope's voice was sarcasm incarnate. "They've been trying to do that since the fourth Crusade." She was engaged in her own silent debate as to how much it was worth restraining herself much longer.

"True," he granted, recognizing his danger. Time for some wild guesses. "But how often do they try with a plan already laid out?" Daring greatly, he locked eyes with her's, and only by sheer willpower kept this contact. It was like staring into the sun. Two suns, in fact, neither of which blinked for an eternity of heartbeats.

"And what makes you think the Circle actually has a plan? The only 'plans' those monsters ever manage to concoct are ways to backstab and murder one another!" The disbelief in Hope's voice was sharp, almost accusatory. It sounded strange to Malachai's ears, such things coming from one who had seen so much more of the world, and beyond, than he.

The swordpoint wavered slightly. Malachai took this as a cue to wrestle himself into a position which didn't involve such contortions of his spine. Finding one that afforded at least a bit more comfort than simply being laid out prone, the old Bacchae regarded his interrogator more closely. There was something almost desperate (not a word or state of mind he'd ever before seen in this one) to her manner. Beyond her seeming disbelief of what should have been blatantly obvious, this sudden propensity for direct, even violent confrontation (the damage to the wall was going to be a joy to try explaining) flew in the face of past encounters. Hope had mastered the art of winning through threat, of conquering by sheer presence, and getting what she wanted simply by raising one eyebrow. Gods knew he'd rather face the Circle's collective wrath than risk her ire, never mind having her in his face like this.

He could only assumed she was running scared, hence her lashing out. Which meant she knew more than she'd already revealed. Time to see how good his instincts were.

"True enough," he granted again. "You've said that the Ancient and her companion have been followed for the past month, yes? The Circle has known where she has lived for the past seventy years and more. I repeat, why have her watched by as disposable an asset as Dante if they already know such things, eh? Smacks of a plan."

Hope did nothing as he stood, save match his ascent and keep Caliburn's point within striking distance. Her eyes wandered over his shoulder for just an instant, as if weighing his words and having to force herself to accept their truth. This was as surprising to Malachai as her violence. Since when did Hope, who's experience circled this globe and all its shadows twice over, have to be convinced of anything?

She pinned him with those eyes of his again, ones which glowed white hot within the abyss of the pupil. "What do you know?"

"What do you?" His greatest dare yet, throwing her words back at her, particularly given her already-demonstrated impatience. At least it got her eyes off him, if only for a moment.

"The Feast of All Souls." Those eyes, no longer dangerous, but actually pleading now. It nearly drew a shudder from him, his mistaking one sort of desperation for another. Gods.

"I've heard nothing of this." Malachai spoke with open arms and empty hands, demonstrating his ignorance clearly as possible. "The Vanir have been silent, their courtiers silent...which is actually rather unusual for them."

"But. . .nothing more?" She went utterly still for no longer than the blink of an eye, during which time she thought of nothing save plunging Caliburn through his chest, tearing across and up and down and clefting him into so many pieces that the floor might become littered with tiny tiny pieces of. . .

"Nothing."

All strength deserted her right then. She'd done entirely too much in too short a space, all of it coming to absolutely no gain, leaving her drained. Damn it all!

Hope swung away from the old one, her knuckles turning white for the strength of her grip on Caliburn's pommel. There was no time for this...and yet here she was all the same. The force with which she was clenching her teeth was equally wasted, giving her nothing except a distracting ache in her jaw.

Ironically, this might well have been the most positive thing she'd done since breaking her covert watch on the mansion two nights earlier, insofar as it focused her thoughts enough to actually think about her next step rather than simply react. She'd been lashing out all that night, from the instant she'd cornered the meat in his hotel room to racing out here, thousands of miles distant, simply to ask what could have been as easily asked over the phone.

If whatever the circle had planned come nightfall was to be averted, Hope recognized she needed to recognize them as something more than a collection of decayed and treacherous asses. Malachai was right, in that this all smacked of at least an underlying plan. Not something she'd actually had much experience with when it came to her distant kin. But then, most of the one's she'd encountered were little more than animals. While the Circle had a long history of regicide and simply backstabbing one's ally, most of the current membership had actually lasted longer than its predecessors. This lot seemed capable of fending off their natural instincts and working together at this.

Gabrielle's death would send off shockwaves throughout their dark world. She was the single most powerful of Bacchus' direct offspring, both for followers and her own 'attributes'. Were they to assassinate her, how many enclaves and holdouts would simply cease their resistance altogether, never mind actually run to their banner?

Their dark world balanced upon the thinnest of wire. That wire was Gabrielle, whether she realized this or not. Gods alone knew what would happen if it were cut.

Malachai was staring at her now. Hope recognized that look, and felt something akin divine revelation.

"Why are they waiting?" she wondered aloud. "She was actually out hunting on All Hallow's. And surely their powers are better charged while the veil is lowest. . ."

Malachai adopted the air of a lecturer. "The night of All Hallow's Eve, I grant, the best moment to capture and control the energies of the other side. The seepage has become especially acute in the past century, with the revival of spiritualism and whatnot, so I suppose there is some residual seepage they could use."

"Still...to wait so long…?"

"These are powerful days in and of themselves. The ceremonies of both All Souls and All Saints involve stir powerful emotions in its participants. . ." Malachai's self-righteous tone lit a momentary fire in her eyes. She extinguished it by ruthless effort of will. The man might be arrogant and irritating as all hell, but experience had taught her the value of listening...even to the arrogant ones.

"By saying 'goodbye' to the deceased?" Hope put as much petulance and disbelief as she could manage into the question, knowing she already knew the answer.

"The day is as sacred to the Japanese and the Moslem as it is to the Catholic and the Celt." Hope nodded her acceptance of this, having seen the celebrations of each culture and more. "And remember: it's the level of belief involved that determines how the real the actual level of power is."

"This isn't stage magic we're talking about," Hope reminded him, ready to clench her teeth again with frustration. "These forces are. . ."

"Potentially strong enough to physically tear this planet apart, to say nothing of what it would do to the collective unconscious."

"To say nothing of a single immortal?"

"Exactly, provided it can be focused properly." His thin lips curled up in a semi-smug grin, pleased to have led her well enough along to the obvious.

Hope wiped it away, her fist suddenly dislodging several teeth and adding several hairline fractures to his jaw. The force of the punch was so controlled, quite unlike the first one, that this time he went through the wall. It was only the strength of his Bacchae blood-gifts and his natural physical girth, itself significant, which let him live through the experience of essentially demolishing a plaster wall with cement-reinforcement.

Dazed as he was, he heard Hope's voice spit out "I'll be back later."

'There's a pleasant thought' was Malachai's final though before drifting off into unconsciousness.

It had begun to snow when Hope reached the street. Caliburn was secreted from both sight and mind, as much from herself as from the rest of the world at large. This was a long-practiced habit, securing the blade against those who would steal it by simply removing it from memory until it was once again needed, a fortunately rare occurrence.

She wandered the early morning streets for a time. Her car had been left outside that hotel, some distance from there, where she'd "spoken" to that piece of meat Dante. And look where that little escapade had led her.

Another flurry of silent curses-ones against the Circle, Bacchus himself, her own good person, the Titans, the universe in general-erupted across her thoughts.

It was so damn obvious, all of it...she should have seen it the instant Dante told her the day chosen. Of course All Souls Night held as much significance as Samhain itself, perhaps more so for raw symbolic value. Bacchae, particularly their elders, fancied themselves the 'lords of the undead' and so tended to let their imaginations run riot as to how far their influence ranged. The small fact the transformation did not involve the actual death of the participants was often lost on them. Such was the consequence of an era of mass media, where the most obvious truths can be lost, and the price of hubris.

Her teeth clenched as though against the unfelt cold. The weather nothing compared to the ice clenching her from within.

The Circle couldn't have picked a better night to work their plans. She'd felt the wildness of the energies and Powers two nights earlier, as no doubt had every priest and priestess with the merest gift of Sight the world over. Much had crossed over that night, most doing no harm and quickly returning from where it came. Still, there was enough left swirling about the ether to cause calamity undreamed of. All that was needed, as Malachai pointed out, was a focus to it.

And there was the rub. Gabrielle herself was simply too damn strong to be the focus itself. Hades, she'd likely know of any attack against her before the attackers did! And now she'd be even more careful, what with Xena in the house. . .

She stopped dead, the gray of her suit standing out starkly in the snow-reflected light. Now there, Hope mused, was the real enigma in all this. This "Xena". Ever since being informed of her presence in Gabrielle's life, Hope had spent literally every waking moment digging for the material facts of the woman's past. She'd learned more in that evening's misadventures than she had for all the effort she'd put in over the past several months. Yet, Hope strangely felt no anxiety where this woman was concerned, and seeing the two of them together only reinforced her acceptance of this newcomer's place in Gabrielle's life. An enigma to be sure, a bloody walking question mark, but not one she could see any threat in.

At least, until now.

Her pace picked up unconsciously, a terrible possibility suddenly coming to mind. Terribly plausible that is, and all the more horrifying for it. Hope didn't try and divine the fine details out of this sudden epiphany, her entire mind and energy centered on one goal: to get back to the mansion and keep those two safe. She'd bloody stand guard literally on top of the pair of them if that's what it took!

Her footsteps echoed down the sidewalk, their stucco rhythm increasing with each step. Had there been anyone listening, they would have heard those steps veer off into an alleyway after taking several blocks in stride. Veer off...and fade to silence.

That morning's snowfall didn't amount to much, and what little it did allowed only the vaguest of footprints.

Her's entered the alley, where the shadows proved especially thick, and simply ended four paces beyond the turn, well before where the snows turned to damp concrete.

Chapter Six: The Oldest Dance, Second Movement.

She would always be up with the dawn. It had been a ritual as constant as the sunrise and sunset, instilled in her by a childhood working hard amongst the Pandemonium Rings Travelling Circus. She could work a full day of shucking straw, cooking meals, cleaning cages, and whatnot on but an hour of sleep. Millie, her sister, would contest her at every turn. They made a sport of everything: who could cook the fastest, who could clean the most cages, who could run the fastest from one chore to the next, who could learn this trick or that the quickest.

Millie wasn't even a month older than herself, and had always held her own...until death came nipping at their heels one autumn morning.

That morning gave her new reason to awake with the dawn, nightmares attacking her nightly, giving her no peace and no reason to keep sleeping. She'd come to dread sleep, more than the old patron's temper or his switch. Even those years on the back of Scooter's Harley, and later being passed from one pimp to another hadn't freed her of the fear, but left it buried instead. Bruises fade with time, cuts and breaks heal, scars remain as trophies to survival.

But how do you run from ghosts calling for you, ghosts which surround you on all sides. Or outrun flames that will never be extinguished? How do you escape these things which live only in your dreams?

Even Gabrielle couldn't free her from this. Like Scooter and the pimps, she simply added another layer of metaphorical dirt atop the fear's equally-metaphorical coffin. A thick layer, granted, but the fear remained there, lurking until unearthed by her dreams.

Xena opened her eyes to the morning's light, its brilliance slowly spilling into their bedroom. Her back was to Gabrielle, which immediately snapped her into full awareness and lucidity. This was wrong. Pretty much the wrongest (was there even such a word?) thing there ever could be, particularly in light of the decidedly erotic aches which permeated her throughout. It positively hurt to so much as breath, never mind break into as wide a smile as she did right then, memories of their orgasmic "duel" (as they'd come to think of their bedroom contests) filling her mind and flooding her loins.

Normally Xena would make yet another contest of stretching and enfolding her 'Queen', determined to bring her once more to the brink before the smaller woman even had a chance to open her eyes. Right then, it was terribly important that she have Gabrielle, in her arms and otherwise.

She rolled quickly from one shoulder to the other, and was rewarded by a very sincere "Oww!" accompanying the sharp impact of her right elbow against an object at once soft and hard. Xena flinched with Gabrielle's cry, and was careful to finish moving without contact on either side. Two pairs of eyes met, one quite sheepish.

The other pair, a pair of shinning emeralds belonging to the wounded party, flashed through expressions of surprise, outrage, confusion, still more outrage, and ultimately settling upon something between amusement and annoyance. The pain of a small knock on the head was little compared to the urge to laugh and curse in the same breath. It was a bubble welling up in her throat, making it difficult to simply breathe. And harder still to resist knocking her attacker across the room...and utterly ravish this beautiful creature against every available surface.

Gods, Xena was never as beautiful as in moments of shy vulnerability like that moment. Provocatively posed on one hip, balancing herself on one arm, eyes and chin cast downwards, causing her raven locks to fall across those massive shoulders and brush her breasts, half-hiding them from view. The dawn's first light streamed in behind Xena, casting a sensual glow that outlined her entire form. Innocence and temptation intermixed.

Gabrielle moistened both lips, her mouth now utterly dry from the sight. All her body's moisture was pooled in her molten core. Her skin screamed for contact, her core for release.

But Gabrielle had far stronger control than that, and so simply propped herself up on one elbow and gave Xena a stare between slitted eyelids in what she intended to be a copy of the same Xena had afixed her after throwing her unto the bed last night. Her lips remained straight line only through a determined effort of will. "Bad dream?" was her only question, which elicited a flinch from Xena as though backhanded across the cheek...with brass knuckles. Seeing this, Gabrielle felt a solid blow in the chest, her heart contracting as though squeezed between stone fists. Gods, when would she learn?!

Before any (needless) words of apology could escape her lover, Gabrielle quickly closed the distance between them and pressed against every inch of bare, bronzed skin she could manage. Her own complexion, despite centuries of sun and weather, remained cream and untouched in comparison. With the smallest 'flick' of thought she swept the hand Xena supported herself on and sent the tall woman tumbling unto her back, quickly crawling over her and hovering there. A silent dare to her lover to endure the same as she'd given.

The raw thrill which gripped Gabrielle in seeing Xena's response, her wetting both lips with a shaky tongue and leaving them parted, their trembling accompanied by poorly disguised panic seeping into those brilliant eyes, went without sign past her sly smile. This was a special thrill of Gabrielle's, the ability to provoke a sweat of anxiety from this otherwise-fearless beauty of her's.

So intent was she on continuing this scene, Gabrielle nearly missed the many silent pleas Xena's body fairly screamed. Xena's fists clenched at either side, knuckles white and arms trembling with effort not to lash out; she'd taken her bottom lip between her teeth and clenched the tender skin hard between them; the tension gripping her was a palpable entity between them, radiating from her every inch as though it were her very sweat. Gabrielle felt all of this, as well as the silent screams echoing within her love's mind, screams she interpreted as cries of need and want.

It never occurred to her that all this meant Xena might, in fact, be fighting outright terror rather than desire.

Xena floated within a sensual haze of emotion and sensation so intense it bordered on torture...but it was no longer loving passion that consumed her.

Oh, she craved Gabrielle's touch as she once had the coke she'd numbed herself on before walking her bit of street. More, truth be told, though not simply because she feared the price it might extract from her. For the merest brush of their hands or most chaste of kisses, Xena would gladly ransom her soul and more.

But the same passion as that in Gabrielle's eyes, so prominent in her only moments before, was now gone. In its place Xena felt only a mindless panic. The sight of her lover hovering over her reminded her of seeing a Black Widow hovering over its prey. The year she'd now spent in Gabrielle's house had given her back some small bit of self-respect, which now reared its tiny head and reacted to being laid prone and at the mercy of this woman she loved more than anything.

Xena was suddenly no longer in their bed. Her early days on the streets suddenly played themselves out in all their Technicolor horror in her eyes, consuming all thought and sensation.

One moment singled itself out among all the degradations.

Suddenly it wasn't Gabrielle crouching over her, teasing and loving her...it was the Wildcat who touched her now...who aroused her and made her feel like cockroaches crawled beneath her skin...

And she couldn't move, because the Wildcat would hurt her even worse if she tried. So Xena lay there, body still but sweating, eyes closing of their own accord, lungs working too hard, limbs frozen from the same cold which froze all thought.

Xena's sudden hyperventilating was the first clue, though this was clear to Gabrielle only in hindsight. Xena, who to this point had watched everything with wide, almost panicky eyes, sudden closed them and went completely still. Gabrielle's practiced eyes caught her jaw working beneath the skin, clenching and unclenching. The skin about those closed eyes bunched tight, the brow above them furrowed into a strata of wrinkles.

Had she been even a hair more drunk on her desire for Xena just then, Gabrielle was certain she would missed the true meaning of all these tiny signals, perhaps even to the point of *forcing* another tumble between them. Instead, she yielded to the small voice of caution and, in a whisper softer than a breath, called "Xena?"

In response, Xena flinched from crown to toes as though struck with a cattle prod.

Gabrielle wanted to do several things all at once: to tear apart every bastard and bitch who'd ever laid a hand on her love; to seek out the Fates and tear Xena's cord from their capricious weave; scream and cry until her lungs bled for the pain her love now endured; somehow take all that pain into herself and never ever let her feel it again...

Instead all she could do was call again, even softer. "Xena?" No flinch this time, but her jaw clenched even tighter (if that were even physically possible), and Gabrielle caught sight of the tears welling in those beautiful, if hidden eyes. This emboldened her, as cold fear always does. "Xena, please look at me." Steady as Gabrielle's tone was, the plea there might as well have been shouted from the mountaintops and echoed through a thousand valleys.

Xena opened her eyes, beholding her through a film of tears, and as quickly shut them again. She rolled to her side, her back once more to Gabrielle, and curled into a tight fetal ball. All this happening so quickly Gabrielle could do nothing save sit back, her curled legs under her and eyes wide and watching.

Xena was shaking now, and no longer hyperventilating. Rather Gabrielle heard soft breaths in tempo with the tremors that gripped Xena's huddled form. Soft breaths, and the sobs they fed.

Every nerve in Gabrielle sung out in pain right then, while tears slowly tracked down her own cheeks. She took several heartbeats to collect herself before trying to speak again, knowing calm and clarity of voice was needed now, and not the hysteria which threatened to grip her. "Xena?" Gabrielle again whispered, again with uncloaked plea. She boldly reached a hand out to her love's shoulder, but stopped short of actually touching its smooth surface. "Please..." She gulped for air. "Please...look at me. Please."

She whispered it over and over again, praying with ever-escalating desperation to Artemis that the words would be heard. Her own tears increased with every repetition, as did her fears for her love.

Eventually the tight play in Xena's shoulders and back loosened, though slowly, and the sobs subsided. She still shook, though not as violently. Whether it was minutes or hours later didn't matter in the least to Gabrielle, who breathed silent prayers to the Gods as she watched Xena uncurl. When finally Xena was fully in repose, not unlike she'd been only minutes earlier, did Gabrielle risk gently brushing her fingertips across the bronzed and flushed flesh at her shoulder. She fully expected Xena to curl back up and go completely catatonic.

Xena lay there on her side, unresponsive to her lover's touch.

Gabrielle felt the hysteria ready to break loose from her every pore. She collected herself only with great effort, managing to speak as calmly as before. "Please," was her final plea, knowing she could keep herself calm no longer, that the next sound she would utter would be banshee screams. Already her own shoulders were tensed and fists balled, ready to pound everything in sight into so much scrap.

But Xena turned, facing Gabrielle fully, and the sight bringing new tears to the latter. Xena's were simply too puffed and bloodshot to allow more to come, her bronzed cheeks discolored by the countless tracks there. Her full lips were pressed into an uneven line, something hovering between utter despair and simple blankness.

It was nearly enough to undo Gabrielle, not knowing which was worse. She didn't dare trust her voice, lest it crack and she herself be thrown again into tears. Nor did she have the least idea what to say. What could she say right then? Hades, Gabrielle didn't even have a clue as to what brought all this on in the first place.

All she could do was hold those treasured eyes for as long as the other would allow, trying to communicate words she could not form with voice-words of comfort, of understanding, of love-through her eyes. Eyes which were quickly going blind for the tears there.

Xena met Gabrielle's eyes with all the resignation of the condemned and soon-to-be executed, expecting anything from disgust to plain indifference there. Instead there were only tears...and something else. Fear, confusion, raw pain, and desperation were all there, side-by-side with acceptance, comfort...and unconditional love. How she could read such things, she who had been an emotionless whore and plaything, was beyond Xena just then. She saw and understood it all, especially the question behind it all, as easily as if Gabrielle spoke it.

Xena read the question. Not the "What did I do?" or "Are you alright?" or "What can I do?" which covered the real question. Xena brushed those aside, suddenly bold and unwilling hide within herself as she had after rolling away from Gabrielle. Only Gabrielle's voice, strained and desperate as it had sounded, had called her back from that numbness so quickly.

She'd caused Gabrielle pain, the sin of sins, and all because she couldn't handle a few bad memories. If Gabrielle threw her out for it, Xena wouldn't be the least surprised. This newfound resolve didn't stop the tears from flowing again when she managed to get her voice working. It didn't stop her from shaking from the memories and phantom-wounds which ached once again. It didn't stop her reaching blindly out for Gabrielle, even knowing she'd pull away in disgust.

"She...hurt...me." That was all she could manage, and then lost herself to the pain and fear again.

Only distantly did Xena realize Gabrielle's arms were around her the instant the words had come out, wrapping her tight and cradling her.

The way Gabrielle held her...it wasn't the way one would with a despairing child, gently if distantly. Gabrielle was clinging to her, as if for dear life, as if she were trying to absorb Xena into herself. Gabrielle was shaking as well, even harder, and her sharp ears caught sobs intermixed with her own. And were those fresh tears that dripped down unto her hair?

When the distance between feeling and realization was closed, when Xena understood, her own arms snaked about the smaller woman of their own accord. She buried herself into Gabrielle's breast, not caring how pathetic she knew she must look, and now gave herself fully to the tears rather than simply be consumed by them.

She'd nearly calmed when she heard the words Gabrielle had been muttering into her hair. "I love you. Please don't leave me." Over and over and over again.

It brought more tears. Xena welcomed them this time, letting them cleanse her now as they should have long ago.

 Chapter Seven: Morning Business

They ran out of tears almost at the same time, a small mercy Gabrielle was thankful for. Her ribs were starting to sing out for the pressure Xena was putting on them, while her own instinct was to tighten her own hold. Given that she cradled Xena's head, such would not have been a good idea. The thought gave her a small, inaudible giggle.

Xena heard it all the same, and the laughter left her relieved instead of offended as it might have others. She this led her press herself even closer to Gabrielle, as though she might absorb the humor through touch of skin.

She felt Gabrielle take a breath and say "Xena?"

"Hmm?" Xena was too engaged in being soothed by the steady beat of Gabrielle's heart to offer more.

"You...you're crushing me."

Xena quickly looked up, panicked, only to meet the mirthy eyes and sly grin of an amused Gabrielle. They grinned in unison, laughter quickly following, though it was more in the attempt than the execution. Neither really had the breath for more than a few puffs.

This didn't stop them from kissing, quite hard.

Amazingly, it was Xena who broke away first. This led to another bout of semi-laughs from both, which quickly descended into a spell of pained-sounding gasps for breath.

Xena loosened her arms and moved to sit on the bed's edge, suddenly very self-conscious. Her head bowed once again, shoulders squaring as if tensing for the blow of the patron's switch.

All she received was the gentle, undemanding touch of first Gabrielle's fingers, then the smooth warmth as the smaller woman pressed herself against her tall, strong back. Gabrielle's nipples hardened on contact with her, generating the most sensual of pressure there. Xena let her head roll back to rest on Gabrielle's shoulder as her love's arms encircled her tummy, the fingertips tracing nonsense patterns against its firm surface. Gabrielle kissed along her neck, her tongue seeking out pulse there with practiced ease. Finding it, she rendered Xena nearly insensate as she kissed and nipped at the veins. Gabrielle never left a single mark there, and not for lack of passion or pressure.

Xena tried to reach upwards, to hold Gabrielle there forever, only to be defeated by her weak body's inability to defy the laws of gravity. When Gabrielle did pull away, Xena found herself near to tears for the loss.

"Have I told you this morning," Gabrielle whispered into her ear, "how much I love you?"

Xena's eyes crept open at this, and turned slowly within the arms encircling her until she was face-to-face with her love and savior. Sapphire met emerald, both now polished to radiant shine rather than dulled by the tears there. Too many tears already this morning, and still Xena couldn't resist them. Nor would she even try with these.

Their lips met in a kiss unhurried and undemanding. A simple meeting of lips, its meaning deeper and more connecting than all the sonnets and poems written for lovers in all history.

Where Gabrielle had worn a sly grin of teasing sensuality and promise before, she now was gripped by something akin to divine rapture. When Xena broke away, though not surrendering contact completely, she breathed in her deepest, most probing tones "Have I told you the same?"

The effort it had taken Gabrielle to fight off her earlier hysteria was nothing, nothing compared to the strength it took to open her eyes just then, to focus once more on the woman she loved so dearly and desperately. Breathing alone was nearly beyond her, and Xena's eyes demanded an answer. Pity she couldn't think what the question was.

Xena breathed a short laugh, a real laugh, at the sight of perplexity which crinkled Gabrielle's brow. She leaned forward again, intent on still another kiss.

Immortal though she might be, Gabrielle knew her limits. Another kiss of any sort and she'd be catatonic for the rest of the day. After a year together, she'd grown somewhat used to Xena's occasional mood swings; yet another mirror between the child and her lost warrior. The strongest passions coming after these dark moments. Both tested her mettle harder than any of her dark kin or the immortal and clever enemies they'd managed to attract over the millennia.

Knowing she could not withstand even a brush, Gabrielle summoned her reserves and could only move back a single hair and raise arms of leaded iron, hands up in surrender and a plea of mercy.

"Shhh..." Gabrielle shook her head at the sound of her slurred and weakened voice. She tried again. "Shh...shower...first." It took all her breath to force it out, and still more to let the laugh that had bubbled up from how patently absurd she realized it sounded. It came out as a wheezed cough.

Gabrielle looked up when she realized Xena had not joined in, and found herself being studied with all the intensity a scientist might give some new and previously unknown species of insect. The tall woman slid forward, carefully avoiding contact, and lowered her head to sniff all around Gabrielle's shoulders, neck and about her face, lingering quite deliberately near her mouth. Gabrielle froze, letting their breath intermingle. She couldn't help but blink when Xena abruptly pulled away and regarded her with those piercing, precious eyes.

"You're right," Xena said, as if too a petulant child. "You stink."

Gabrielle had only just opened her mouth, ready to object in the strongest possible terms, when she was abruptly gathered up in two strong arms and carried to the door. Quick as Xena's pace was, Gabrielle felt herself cradled as though she were the most delicate of crystal, not the least sway to either side or feel of pressure was to be felt.

Xena stopped at the door and tried to stoop to reach the doorknob. Both hands were, however, fully occupied keeping her precious burden aloft, and Xena spent a few moments as though attempting bypass this simple fact. It was a fascinating display of intensity, as though she might twist the ornate knob by sheer force of her gaze. Her brows furrowed again, this time in anger, and her lips puckered with enraged disgust. Gabrielle feared she'd kick the door off the hinges, a feat she knew was fully within Xena's capacity...

...only to see all anger suddenly drain from her expression, a serene sort of acceptance taking its place. A one-shoulder shrug later, and Gabrielle found herself all but tossed over that same shoulder and carried across the threshold and down the hall with all the dignity one affords a sag of potatoes!

Gabrielle's shriek, first of shock, then utter embarrassment, was matched by Xena's delighted laughter. Her squeals of "Xeeeennnnnaaaaa!", as well as her ineffectual pounding and slapping of her tormentor's back and butt, went completely ignored.

This continued even after they arrived at the floor's massive bathroom. Along the way, They passed the open door of Marcous's office (the advisor kept both eyes firmly fixed on the sheet stock quotes before him) and their maid Madrigail, who continued dusting the frames of the wall's portraits before her as though deaf and blind to the scene; she'd long since become used to the antics of these two, and loved them dearly for it. They were quickly joined by the sounds of running water and the sounds of first one body being tossed into a full bathtub, then another jumping in. A good amount of splashing could be heard, each followed by shrieks of delight and abandon.

Madrigail, whose cleaning took her near the door, simply shook her head at the sight of a small wave of sudsy bathwater flowed out from beneath the closed door. "Now I 'ave to get de mop again," was her only observation to be heard, her Slavic accent thickening and eyes shinning bright with affection.

A very long, very active soak later, and a content (not to mention criminally smug) Xena Alexandran stretched out in the massive tub. The tingling of her skin she knew had nothing to do with the bath salts and numbing heat of the water she relaxed in.

Gabrielle had withdrawn a short time before, determined to deal with Marcous and all her other daily business before yielding to Xena's charms yet again. Xena's token protestations had the desired effect of hardening Gabrielle's resolve to see to her affairs, while the provocative pose she'd 'unintentionally' struck as Gabrielle struggled with her bath robe was certain to give the redhead all the motivation needed to complete everything in record time. Xena knew her love well, and would not see her forgo her other commitments; Gabrielle was simply too responsible a creature to let herself ignore such things, and would make herself miserable were she to even try.

"This love thing," Xena mused softly to the steam curling around her, "is such a pain." Her smug grin belayed any regret implied by her words.

Rather, she relaxed completely into the warm water and let both eyes drift shut. The tub was a long one, easily accommodating her long frame and allowed her to fairly drift away, both physically as well as consciously.

Experience had taught Xena the dangers of Gabrielle's bathtub, particularly with Gabrielle in the tub with her, and hence her personal decree that they would only shower in the morning. Gabrielle had rolled her eyes and done an elaborate curtsy saying "Yes, your royal highness.", but went along with it all the same, privately conceding Xena had a point. Accidentally drowning because of orgasm-induced fatigue would have been such an undignified way to go.

In this case, Xena herself was simply too lazy to bother pulling herself out, and so was careful to drape both arms over the sides sufficiently that she wouldn't slip under the water's surface before drifting completely away.

In moments, she was snoring away, purring for all the world like a much-satisfied cat.

Xena dreamed.

"...Na?" The voice, ringing out close to her ear, and the hand which fell onto her shoulder so startled her, Xena thrashed about for a moment, catching the hand and applying a vise grip to it.

"Hey!" was Gabrielle's indignant exclamation, more to Xena's grabbing her than the amount of (now cold) bath water that was slopping her suit, skirt, and blouse. She caught sight of the momentary panic in Xena's eyes, the concern in her own reaching out to the startled woman and snapping her out of her shock.

Xena realized how tightly she was gripping Gabrielle's wrist and quickly released it, taking and letting out a ragged breath. "Ohhhh, God," she groaned, feeling cramps and complaints throughout her muscles and bones.

"C'mon, o wrinkled one," Gabrielle said, helping Xena to her unsteady feet and out of the tub. "Time to get out before you catch cold."

Xena only gave a noncommittal grunt, then caught sight of Gabrielle's professional attire. "You certainly dressed quick," she commented as the redhead took to vigorously toweling her dry.

"Excuse me?" Gabrielle looked up from her labors, herself presently on her knees and busy rubbing down a muscular thigh and firm hip, stoically ignoring the ebony thatch of curls she was eye-level with. "You mean you've been in here the past two hours?"

"Two...hours?" Xena was incredulous.

"Two hours," Gabrielle confirmed. "I didn't find you back in the bedroom, so I'd assumed you'd gone out running or something."

"No, I was...dreaming." Xena frowned, as though deep in thought. So deep she missed the clear look of concern Gabrielle gave her.

"Well, I hope I was in there somewhere." The redhead's teasing words were lost on their target, whose brows furrowed even tighter as she padded naked to the door. Gabrielle stared after her, calling sharply "Xena?"

This made the taller woman turn, eyes once more focused on her. "What?" Gabrielle smirked and tossed her a terrycloth robe, deliberately aiming for her head and quite please to see it impact on target.

"You forgot something," the redhead smirked, stepping past her mildly embarrassed and confused significant other and quickly making her way back to their bedroom. She made it to the doors when Xena, her poorly tied robe rapidly flapping fully open, fairly sprinted into her. Rather than impacting with the smaller woman, a laughing Xena again gathered her into her arms and carried her past the threshold, kicking the door closed behind her.

Muffled giggles and the occasional "thud" filtered out. Madrigail, who was busy hauling a mop and bucket up the stairs and towards the bathroom, shook her head to these sounds. "Ach," she muttered, looking skyward. "Now eye 'ave to put new sheets on de' bed, too." She frowned hard, lest she begin laughing herself sick. How she loved those two!

A short while later found Xena going through her morning routine, as much to work the kinks out of her joints as out of habit.

She needed this routine actually, though not quite in the way she needed air or Gabrielle's touch. Those she needed for simple survival, whereas the routine was more for her own sense of security.

She'd jogged the length of the wood twice before even sweating, and twice more for good measure. The light snow from the previous evening crunched beneath her thick-soled sneakers, and the air still held a crisp bite to it. The woods were silent again this morning, though without the sense of dread or fear Xena had sensed in previous mornings.

Still, she was cautious as she entered the wood for throwing practice, going so far as to bring out two blades and hold them at the ready in either hand. The wood might be at peace, but Xena was anything but.

It was less than a dozen paces in before she sensed movement. The thin blade, more resembling a hairpin than anything, was lancing the air before she'd even fully turned. It buried itself not even a millimeter from the foreclaw a very startled gray squirrel, who scampered upwards to the safety of higher branches. The other blade was suddenly sailing towards another tree trunk, this time in the direct path of a similarly- frightened squirrel, this one in the process of scampering to the opposite side of the trunk and out of view of this newcomer. It froze for only a tenth of a second before resuming its flight.

New blades slipped into both hands and Xena turned herself in a slow circle, eyes taking in a thousand and one details around her. Closing her eyes, she let fly first one, then the other blade. The first severed a single leaf from its stem on a low-hanging branch twelve paces from her. The other buried itself deep into a naturally darkened patch of bark on a trunk more than twenty paces away. Taking a cleansing breath, Xena silently thanked the trees and squirrels for this time and apologized for the distress she knew she caused. If only that old harpy of a grandmother could hear her now. The thought brought a bitter smirk to Xena's face as she collected her blades and stowed them away. That Bible-thumping bitch would have happily slaughtered everything on four legs and cut down every tree in sight, all because of some shallow reading of Genesis. And she'd have apoplexy if she knew just how she and Gabrielle 'entertained' each other at night.

Xena took a last, measuring look at the wood as she made her way to its edge. Something wasn't right, or so the suddenly-taunt hairs on the back of her neck informed her. Not wrong necessarily, just...

True, there were no birds singing that morning, the majority having the good sense to fly to warmer climates for the season. And the few squirrels and chipmunks she'd seen were too involved gathering their winter stores to spare her more than a moment's glance. Nature was quietly preparing for the passage of seasons.

So why did it feel as though she was under singular scrutiny?

Xena was suddenly anxious to be back with Gabrielle. Very anxious. And so wasted no time sprinting back to the house, long legs carrying her far. Though not far enough to escape the feeling of eyes on her.

To an outside observer, it would have looked as though one of the tallest trees suddenly had a woman's face appear out of its trunk. A face whose glowing eyes opened and followed the departure of dark-haired runner, a small smile forming and tugging at the hard bark of its lips.

Hope, who had taken refuge within this ancient tree, had watched the dark-haired one's activities from the moment she'd left the house with ever-growing fascination, closing her eyes only when she entered the woods directly lest they be seen.

This was the fragile, moody patron who all-but fled a restaurant and needed to be comforted like a child the previous night? This sleek creature, who acted with grace and precision which was nothing short of god-like? This was Gabrielle's companion for over a year now? Who could aim on instinct alone and who act upon those instincts without hesitation or error?

For an instant, Hope considered leaving the two of them to their peace, almost convinced her protective presence was unneeded. Then she took another look at this Xena's retreating back, this time with eyes for more than simply the physical.

She saw the dark wisps of nightmare and malevolent charms that trailed and surrounded her. This angered Hope as nothing else might, the stink of the Circle suddenly overpowering. She looked down, at the ground near her refuge's base. A single hand could be seen there, though only just, buried to the wrist.

Cruel as the thought was, Hope wished the little spy had put up more of a struggle against the assault she had directed, if only so her final demise could have proven more...protracted. It was a cruel thought, unworthy of the daughter of the gentle Gabrielle. Hope really didn't care, her own naturally gentle nature taking a hard edge where it came to the Ancient and her companion.

This last thought aside, Hope turned her attention back to the house. She was content this would be close enough for now, and so settled into her own intense surveillance, patiently awaiting the moment she knew would come.

Chapter Eight: Blood Games and Sport

The Circle never slept, even in full daylight. They had less to fear from the cleansing light of Sol than did the degenerates and monsters who served them. In their veins alone coursed the seed and strength of all their forebears, let and drunk from those same bacchae. A show of cunning and ferocity proving each worthy to sit at this table.

Because these Elders never slept, they reveled as though entertaining their collective Father personally.

The African woman, Nassada by name, so reserved when it came the business of seizing influence from others, was always the first to shed her restraint. She threw off her dyed robes and spread herself out unto the table, her entire length fully in provocative motion.

The giant in toga, Augustus, citizen of Rome, leaned down and kissed Nassada's full lips. Her right hand snaked upwards, long fingers curling about the back of his bald head, pressing him even closer. Her left sought the body of Caliphon, the castewoman of old Dehli, and was not long denied contact.

Caliphon had let her own robes fall to her waist, exposing her swollen breasts and dark skin. She leaned forward, allowing her African sister free access. The very feel of the smaller one's skin elicited a moan of want from the dark-skinned Elder, who broke the kiss she had been so intent upon and gazed with heady breaths upon the now-reclining castewoman. Augustus too turned and looked upon the smaller woman, his eyes turning predatory, his hands abandoning their work upon the breasts of the African.

Caliphon simply narrowed her eyes at the pair and reclined back into her chair, removing herself from the African's reach. An invitation wrapped in a challenge too succulent to ignore.

Augustus was the first to move, striding away from the prone Elder to stand fully before the small one. She appeared to be no more than a slip of a child in comparison to his massive bulk. The toga did nothing to hide his massive erection, and his eyes stabbed as daggers into hers', the command as clear as though spoken.

The castewoman did as bade, easily moving the folds of his tunic aside and taking his entire length into her mouth. As naturally large as he was, doubly so now engorged by arousal, she easily slipped him into her. She was well practiced at this, and worked him with such skill the Roman felt his release build quickly...too quickly. He attempted to command her to stop, only to find his voice gone.

Nassada rose from the table, no longer able to stand simply watching this scene unfold without taking her own small bit of satisfaction from it. She took to kissing and raking her sharp nails across Augustus' back, carefully hitting key nerves she knew would send shockwaves of sensation throughout him.

He began to whimper eyes squeezed tight against the rushes of pleasure-agony that now boiled in his groin and exploded in his brain. The whimpers quickly became incoherent cries, more the mewling of a babe than a millennia-old demigod.

Unmoved, Caliphon continued her brutal ministrations on his cock, using her tongue now and sucking him for all he was worth. She felt the increasingly erratic pulse of his flow through the vein she now nursed, nearly grinning with pride and amusement. The Roman's discomfort was her meat and drink just now, and she intended to savor it to the fullest.

When finally his cries broke, so too did Caliphon's control. She bit down on the strangely soft flesh of his manhood, her fangs easily piercing the skin and releasing the red life gathered there. Caliphon drank it all with relish. Again Augustus took to whimpering, now in relief rather than in pain.

As the last of the thick vitae was swallowed, she let the Roman's shrunken organ slip from her lips. A small trickle of his blood escaped the corner of her mouth, trailing its way down her chin and dribbling upon her exposed breast. Her flat gray eyes met the deep purple of Nassada's own, which peaked over the Roman's shoulder. The passion to be seen there fairly igniting the air between them.

Nassada had been supporting Augustus throughout his ordeal by wrapping her long arms about his massive shoulders. She used this leverage now to all but toss him away; easily done, given his weakened state and the fact he could no longer support himself. He impacted face-first atop the table, then slid bonelessly to the floor, his breath coming in pants and gasps.

The women had eyes only for each other.

Nassada advanced a single step, Caliphon rising with smooth economy, the remainder of her bright robes and cloak falling to a puddle at her feet as she did. They gazed into each other's eyes, no tenderness nor affection to be seen there. Only hunger...and want...and each daring the other to satisfy themselves.

The African moved like a spider springing upon prey trapped in its web, though her actions were far less lethal, all the more surprising for it.

She knelt to eye-level with the castewoman's swollen breasts, taking a nipple into her mouth and nursing like a starved babe would. Caliphon's knees became weak at this, her eyes squeezing shut in time with each suck and swallow Nassada applied. Her mouth had dropped open from the instant lips made contact with nipple, and stayed open throughout. Even when Nassada began nipping and biting the sensitive nub, which brought tears to the castewoman's eyes.

Nassada suddenly pulled away from the breast, Caliphon almost sobbing (in relief? in despair?) as she did...only to nearly scream as the African took the other nipple into her mouth and repeat the process, using her fingers to continue to torment the first. Amazingly, she kept time with the yield her ministrations bore, not letting a drop slip past nor escape her swallows.

Caliphon groaned now, her sharp nails raking Nassada's scalp and shoulders, leaving thin rivulets of red with each stroke. She returned all that the African now took and inflicted upon her, measure for measure.

The pain was the sweetest pleasure to the African, driving her to suck even harder from the castewoman's teat, her own nails making rough play on her prey's bare back and soft buttocks.

Too soon, she had drained both breasts of their bounty, leaving her to only lick her lips, the bloody stains and streaks her well-soaked tongue left drawing Caliphon down to meet and lick those delicious droplets away.

Even Bacchae can feel pain, and Caliphon soon had to draw her lover-tormentor to stand once more, solely to relieve the pain in her back from standing in a hunched over position for so long. Nassada allowed herself to be led so, savoring their contact and pressing to deepen it.

So involved was she on the small castewoman, she failed to hear the movement behind her. Augustus had watched all that had occurred, the heat of it renewing his strength...and vigor. He'd sat there silently for a time, slowly teasing his growing erection to its full length, until the need had welled up in him and threatened to overflow there and then.

He'd stood and silently made his way to stand directly behind the African, the dripping scratches on her back every bit as tempting as the firmness of her ass-cheeks, which jiggled only slightly no matter how sudden her movements. He listened for her moans against the Indian's mouth, using these to judge how aware she was of the danger to her (literal) rear. He listened, and was not left disappointed long as they grew in crescendo.

Sensing her near her peak, Augustus roughly grabbed her gyrating hips and rudely thrust himself between her ass-cheeks, plunging hard and deep into that most private region.

As though acting on instruction, Caliphon in the same moment as the Roman's violation seized both of Nassada's wrists and twisted them behind her back, holding them tight with one hand and trapping them between her own spine and the Roman's massive chest. With her free hand, she took to alternately caressing and torturing either nipple, alternating whenever the mood struck her.

For Nassada, who had enjoyed the sport she'd made of her peers, this was a cruelty a thousand times worse than any indignity she might have inflicted. Oh, she denied these two the satisfaction of the cries and pleas that built in her throat, keeping silent, even moving in time with each of the Roman's thrusts into her. Still, she could feel the blood which leaked out beneath his assault flow slowly down the insides of her thighs. The sharp pain lancing her breasts would soon lead to excretions from there as well, all much to the castewoman's delight she was sure.

Still, none of them lasted as long has they had before. Caliphon was the first to collapse back into her chair. Augustus followed soon after, his last thrusts into the African the most brutal he could manage, drawing more than a fair share of blood from her. His withdrawl came with a slurping sound, the surface of his cock slick and shinning with red. Nassada outlasted the pair of them by a whole ten seconds, falling hard to her knees and having to support herself on her balled fists as well. Augustus simply leaned against the table's edge, panting hard and deep.

The sound hands clapping came from the far wall. An audience of two, but only one giving applause, the sound carrying easily through the otherwise empty chamber.

"Bravo," Cameron, whose powdered wig seemed a ludicrous accessory even to these ancients, boomed with overblown drama. "Simply beautiful. The best you've yet done. Bravo!" He stood in his breeches, white stockings, and brass-buckle shoes, his massive chest and stomach bare and displaying the scars of past intrigues.

All three communicated their reply with their eyes alone.

To which Cameron replied, stepping away from the wall as did, affording them all an unimpeded view, "Are you too tired for the gifts I have brought?"

Leaning against the stones of the wall were five youths, each no older than sixteen. Three boys and two girls. All beautiful and stripped bare. One of the girls, the elfin one with bleached blond hair and perky little breasts, and one of the boys, likewise a blond, were shorn of their pubic hair. The rest were otherwise intact and unmarked. Their eyes were vague and focused, indicating they had been drugged prior to being brought here.

Nassada felt her mouth water at the sight of an Arabic boy, his blue-black hair a thick mane reaching to his shoulders. Caliphon took an instant fancy to the pale lad beside him, his own dark hair standing in contrast to creamy shade of his skin. And Augustus felt himself harden yet again at the lean girl-child swaying at the end of the line-up, her dark russet hair and thick pubic thatch making his hands ache to run through them, and fondle her delicate little form.

Seeing his compatriots' reactions, Cameron smiled and said "Then by all means: enjoy." Cameron waited until each had selected their toy, choosing the shaved blond boy for himself and turned to address the silent one, who likewise had observed the earlier sport. "And what of you? Will you not enjoy my gift?"

The silent one, Gaunt by name, was known to be neither male nor female. Gaunt kept to itself, and hid itself from sight within those filthy robes it was always seen in. When Gaunt hunted, it did so alone and out of the view of all other. Gaunt sat within this Circle only because none dared to challenge its power, the bones of those fool enough to try were enough to fill a cemetery.

Gaunt answered with actions, not words, as was its habit. It turned from the scene and disappeared into a nearby alcove.

Cameron merely shrugged to this, saying "More for me then," as he took both blonds by one arm each and guided them to one of the ante-chambers, where he could enjoy his sport in peace.

The blood soon flowed in earnest, quickly accompanied by cries and screams which, all, ended too quickly.

Chapter Nine: Confessional

Gabrielle paced back and forth before her most trusted confidant.

"I'm worried about her. I mean, really worried about her," she said, knowing her confidant would keep silent and allow her to gather her thoughts however she might.

"The mood swings were hard enough. It was like looking back over time and seeing the same damned cycle play out. Half the time she's all over me, the other half she won't let me near her. Its like...well, just after Ares showed up and spilled the beans. Now..." Gabrielle's voice trailed off, other thoughts intruding and demanding attention.

She stared into the darkness of her private room, a single high window providing the only illumination to the place. She came here often in the past few months, to talk, to vent, sometimes simply to find a temporary refuge from the pressures that had built to an almost crushing weight lately. Xena, nor any of the staff come to it, knew of it. It was her refuge alone, though she added incentive to keep Xena from knowing about it.

Dry-washing her face, Gabrielle sighed and said "I should have told...should have let it all come out when I first learned, shouldn't I? Oh, sure, Ephiny and the rest understood and accepted it. Artemis forgave it. How in Hades was I supposed to know they would? I didn't understand. How could anyone?" She shook her head and gathered herself. Her eyes were bleak as they turned back to the one she addressed.

"I know she wouldn't understand. She couldn't." Gabrielle paused as though awaiting the question she knew was coming. When none came, she nearly spat "Well, what could I say to her? 'Xena, I realize this will come as a bit of a shock, but you see...I'm actually a two thousand-year-old demigoddess, who has to occasionally hunt live prey and drink its blood because my biological father happens to be the basis for many of the vampire myths of the world. He was the Greek god of Wine, you see, and enslaved his followers by forcing them to drink his blood. Disgusting, huh? And yes, I do occasionally drink human blood as well, but only for special occasions.

'Oh, but you don't have to worry. You see, you happen to be the spitting image of my old lover, who also happened to be a demigoddess, so I wouldn't dream of hurting you. Her name was Xena, too. What happened to her, you ask? Oh, this insane goddess we knew a century or so back incinerated her to ashes.

'Why, yes, I have been alone a long time, but that isn't the reason I asked you to come live with me. You see, not only are...are you Xena's twin...but you also happen to be such a dynamite lover I fell in love with you that first night we were together. So it isn't just...just the sex...I love you..." Her voice fell to a desperate whisper. "I love you."

Tears, which had formed since she began her 'confession', finally began streaming down her cheeks, her voice finally giving out to the strain of attempting to keep so calm when her emotions allowed her no such peace or control. Gabrielle completely broke down, dropping to her knees, as her confidant looked on without expression.

"Gods," she finally managed to choke. "All I seem to do..." she hiccuped "these days...is cry. Whether we're in a store or out to dinner or just walking...all she has to do is look at me and I want to sit down and bawl my eyes out. I can't help it. Its like looking into a baby's eyes every time...every single damn time." Her gaze drifted back to the floor. "She's so innocent," she whispered.

Gabrielle angrily wiped away the tears, her mouth pressed into an angry line. "No! I can't tell her...can't let her find out...she'll leave me, I know it." She looked up, meeting the eyes of her listener and engaging in a staring battle. "I know she will," Gabrielle insisted, not breaking eye contact. The listener won, as always, as the redhead abruptly turned away, eyes downcast and directed now at the floor.

"I know it," she insisted one last time, a fresh wave of tears and sobs threatening, but not breaking.

Still, it took Gabrielle some minutes to collect herself enough to trust her voice. "I will not give her up!" she declared defiantly. "I won't risk losing her to anything. Not the truth, not my fears... and not to any nightmare, either."

Gabrielle stared at her confidant, and would have sworn she saw two brows tighten in disapproval. She put up both hands, forestalling objections sure to come. "I know, I know. I swore I wouldn't enter another's dreams. But...Gods...she hasn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. It was bad enough when it was just me, dreaming of Hope every night...oh, I never told you about that, did I? It started up just after Solstice, but didn't last long. Just after Beltane." A moment of melancholy overtook her, a single tear escaping the corner of her eye.

"I should have protected her better, shouldn't I? It should have been me..." Gabrielle caught the listener's eyes again. "So many 'shoulds'. It seems that's all I have anymore. You never had patience for that, did you?"

The listener kept its stony silence, letting the thinly veiled accusation linger.

"No," Gabrielle concluded. "No, you were always the one for action. Which is why I can't understand why you're so opposed to me needing to do this." Her own eyes hardened as she approached her confidant, coming to stand literally nose-to-nose with her.

"She is suffering, damn you. You would never turn away from anyone who needed help, whether it was Gregor or Meg or, Gods forgive us, Joxer! What is so different about her?" Gabrielle backed up a step and took a breath. "Hunting down and killing the ones who hurt her won't solve anything," she stated practically, but still had to turn away, lest an even more practical argument could be communicated. "The only way I can give her peace is to stop it once and for all. And that means going into those dreams and..."

Her confidant's silence spoke volumes.

"Yes," Gabrielle conceded. "I could loose her because of that. If that happens, I'll just...die." She turned back, eyes bleak.

"I should have died a long time ago...with you."

The bust of Xena of Amphipolis was beauty incarnate. So precise in detail, so perfectly formed and carved, one could be forgiven thinking it alive at times. Her eyes, formed of cold marble, kept the fire and expression of the lost warrior, while her mouth with set in its eternal crook of an almost-grin. It stood atop a marble pillar, leaving it eye-level with Gabrielle. It had taken her months of literally nonstop work to carve it properly, and was rendered with such breathtaking perfection that she was often painful to look at. The memories were forever close to the surface, all nineteen hundred winters worth.

Many had been the ill-conceived act or idea that had been nixed by discussions such as these, so well had they known each other that Gabrielle could almost hear the warrior's objections. But now...

"So be it," Gabrielle declared. "If she leaves, she leaves. But I won't have her hurt ever again, nor want for a thing." She took another deep breath, steeling herself for what came next. "And after I see to that...we'll be together again. I promise."

She took one step forward, and brushed her lips against her lost love's. "I miss you, Xena. But I can't let this go on."

Tears formed again, but she hadn't the strength to let them fall just yet. She turned and, with a calm so stiff it could only be false, strode out of the room.

Not one minute passed after the door shut before Hope moved from her sanctuary of the deepest shadow. She'd heard all, seen all, and felt unfamiliar tears sting her own eyes.

She had never loved her mother as she did at that moment. Her course was never clearer than right then. No more pain, for either of them. No more, ever.

Hope returned to the shadows, content to wait for the moment when she would do what was needed. She had patience enough for that.

Chapter Ten: Parallel Thoughts, Never Meeting

Xena and Gabrielle spent much of the rest of the day alternately seeking and shunning one another's company.

Xena was in rather good spirits when she came in from her run, bouncing and rebounding as though an emotional racquet ball. The rest of her was simply along for the ride...a ride she intended to pull to a stop only once she had a certain small redhead in her arms once more.

The redhead in question was only just coming up from her errand to the basement, where she'd fled the minute Xena was out the door. None of the staff had seen her head down, and so were a tad confused at Xena's inquiry of her whereabouts. Even Madrigail, who saw all and whom nothing escaped, was momentarily stumped.

When Xena looked in their bedroom a second time (the first having yielded no luck), she was pleased to see her target busily going through one of their voluminous wardrobes. Approaching with all the grace of a jungle cat stalking its meal, her runners making no sound on the thick carpet underfoot, Xena was soon behind the redhead, intent on enjoying this moment.

It was short-lived.

Instead of melting back into the arms which suddenly encircled her waist, as she normally would, Gabrielle gave a panicked yell and drove a very strong elbow into her attacker's midsection. Xena could only roll with the blow, expelling a very pained breath as she tumbled back. It never ceased to amaze her just how strong her lover was, given her deceptively delicate build and gentle appearance. Right then, she wished Gabrielle was what she normally appeared as.

The redhead essentially screaming at her didn't help her recovery much. "What are you thinking?!? I could have..."

"And a good morning to you too," Xena managed to huff, wincing as much at the tone her badly-in-need-of-a-full-breath voice took as the discomfort of her abused abdomen.

"Damn it, Xena!" Gabrielle exploded, then calmed herself. "You scared me."

This brought Xena up short, causing her to look up sharply as she clamored to her feet. "Excuse me?"

"You..." Gabrielle began, only to be overrun by Xena's voice.

"I scared you? Since when are you the nervous type?" Between the pain, the surprise, and a sudden defensiveness she couldn't identify, Xena's voice took a tone somewhere between incredulous and outrightly sarcastic.

Gabrielle's mouth became a firm line, the sort normally reserved only for those who slighted Xena in some way. 'Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!' chanted in the latter's head. Hoping to forestall the coming explosion, Xena to a quick step forward, arms opening and as placating a grin as she could manage, intent upon kissing that dangerous frown away.

But Gabrielle would have none of it just then, a single hand coming up and silently (and imperiously) commanding "Halt." Xena obeyed, willing to endure whatever tirade Gabrielle's anger might prompt.

No such tirade was coming, however. Xena found herself becoming all the more nervous for the silence which started to stretch between them. She soon found herself biting her upper lip, the chill in Gabrielle's eyes sucking the heat from the room about them.

Obviously unable to look at her another second, Gabrielle marched around Xena and out of their bedroom. Xena watched her go with some relief, and something akin to anger slowly igniting in her own breast.

A fire that caught first spark when she realized Gabrielle had be removing suits and dresses from her wardrobe.

For her part, Gabrielle was in turmoil. Xena's sneaking up on her was an old game of theirs, this time no more shocking than the last. What was shocking here was her reaction this time, particularly stopping the kiss Xena had so clearly telegraphed. And the fact she had yet to reign in this uncharacteristic temper she was going through left her even more disturbed. Ironically, this in turn stoked her temper to the point she was very close to letting loose on Xena again.

The only solution, since she couldn't trust her voice with anything save grunts more worthy of primates than of demigoddesses, was to get as far away from Xena as possible before something was said. Something doing irreparable harm.

She blindly found her way into Marcous' office and grabbed the first thing she could. In this case, the market figures from the previous week. She quickly lost herself in the meaningless columns of numbers, willing the anger away and praying to Artemis (she seemed to be doing that a good deal this morning) this would pass soon.

They didn't see nor seek each other out until lunch, both yielding to their growling stomachs at the same time. They met in the kitchen, catching eyes and attempting to speak at the same time. Gabrielle had by this time calmed herself to where she felt it safe to talk with Xena again. Xena, by contrast, was an exposed nerve-ending.

Gabrielle had an orange in her hand. Xena's were clenched into white-knuckled balls of bone and tension.

"Xena, I'm..."

"Gabrielle, what..."

Gabrielle giggled, but sobered when she saw the unamused expression creasing Xena's face. Still, she couldn't help the grin which stayed. This only fueled Xena's already burning irritation, and her eyes communicated this very clearly.

"I'm sorry," Gabrielle blurted.

"You should be." The harshness of Xena's tone, something at once familiar and alien, caught Gabrielle short. Her grin faded, astonished shock taking its place, asking the question her deserted voice couldn't.

"If you don't trust me with the wardrobe, perhaps you should check your bank accounts...though I suppose that's what you and dear old Peter were doing all morning!"

Gabrielle needed a moment...several minutes actually...to digest and process this. Even when it did actually sink in, she needed a minute more to ensure she'd heard it correctly. It was her bardic talents and training operating in reverse: she twisted and turned the words every which way, desperately attempting to avoid the blatant and unavoidable meaning of them. Said meaning as much communicated by bitter scowl and wrinkled brow as by Xena's utterance.

Gabrielle could only blink once, once again, and once again before she found her voice again. Even then, all she could manage was a very weak "What?"

"I said," Xena basically hissed through clenched teeth, her tone like that to a slow child, "if you don't trust me with my wardrobe..."

"I heard you," Gabrielle interceded in a tiny voice.

"Then would you mind telling me what you were doing pouring over every print-out and ledger on your banker's desk? Or what you were looking for among my clothes?" Xena took a breath, though whether to continue her interrogation or to gather her strength Gabrielle couldn't tell. "Come to that, why you all of a sudden can't stand to look at me?" She took a step forward, this time too quick to be stopped on spoken (never mind silent, though either would have left her a deflated as punctured balloon) command, and essentially went nose-to-nose with her cherished love.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" she challenged. "Or don't I excite you anymore? Were you just seeing someone else when you looked at me?"

Gabrielle looked up, and Xena caught the horror there.

That had much the effect of the detonation of a nuclear device directly atop Ground Zero: it left structures (here, two very shocked and mortified women who loved each other dearly) intact if rather worse for wear, caused one devil of a noise (neither of them could hear anything now, save the thunder of their heart's each palpitating wildly), and resulted in a wonderful amount of collateral damage (though miraculously the only thing damaged was the orange which had been in Gabrielle's hand, which was suddenly reduced to citrus pulp).

The art of conversation was no longer dead between them; it was decapitated, mutilated, disemboweled, and its organs donated to a thousand recipients. In short, neither could form even the most basic word right then, capable only of staring at the other, though for slightly different reasons.

For Gabrielle, it was the shock at what she perceived to be the insight this Xena displayed which bordered on prescience. Yes, she saw her lost warrior in this child, more and more every day, and never more so than just then. It left her at once overjoyed and utterly terrified. The child's accusations were forgotten, save that they'd implied something about the trust between them.

For Xena, it was the shock she saw so clearly communicated from her love's expressive eyes which struck her mute. The shock, and the realization it prompted her to face. She'd finally done it, hadn't she? She'd actually managed to completely screw up what was otherwise the first solid, trusting relationship she'd managed to build in over a dozen years, and all over the dumbest possible ideas.

Those clothes were bought with Gabrielle's money, not hers. If she wanted to take them back, or sew them into a quilt, or use them for rags, it wasn't as if Xena had any right to object. As for the accounts, she'd made it perfectly clear she had no interest in them. Why had she blurted out such obvious crap in the first place? Christ, she swore to herself, in a second I'm going to start bawling again!

She might have already killed her relationship, but damned if she was going to let Gabrielle have the satisfaction of seeing her hard-won pride destroyed as well.

This time it was Xena who turned on her heel and stalked out the room, leaving Gabrielle with only a gaping mouth and a crushed orange still in hand. Even the sound of squealing tires and an engine in overdrive didn't release Gabrielle from the hold her racing, tumbling thoughts had placed upon her. This isn't to say she was insensate to her surroundings or the events around her, and certainly not to Xena's abrupt departure. Everything simply seemed four rooms distant to her, beyond her reach and so beyond immediate care.

When finally she came back to herself, her mind still attempting to reconcile the child and the warrior as one, it was only because Madrigail had come into the kitchen and clicked her lips in disapproval.

"You want juice, use de juicer and no' yer hands," the aged Slav told her employer, leaving as she'd come to fetch mop and bucket.

Gabrielle became hyper-aware of herself and her surroundings with this. The slight sting as raw citrus juice found its way into a paper-cut somewhere on her hand. The bright sunlight streaming into the empty kitchen, its wooden counter- and tabletops and white tiled floor sudden barren and uninviting. The sick feeling which had taken residence in her gut, one not simply from lack of food. The words of accusation which rang in her ears.

It suddenly hurt to be in the sun. To be anywhere, in fact. Distantly, Gabrielle realized she was still in shock over this...whatever was happening between them. It made no sense, from her reaction in the wardrobe (what had she been looking for, anyway?) to the this madness. All she could think to do at that point was find somewhere quiet, sit down, and patiently await the earth to open up and swallow her whole. She deserved nothing less.

When Xena returned, some three hours later, she looked far worse than her jovial step should have allowed her. Her hair, while combed, was sleek and damp. Her cheeks were flushed as if from Herculean exertion, and her running clothes (which she hadn't changed out of all morning) showed heavy sweat patches and, quite frankly, stank to high heaven.

For all that, she was grinning like a fool and had the same bounce to her step as her morning run had given her. The grin, in fact, proved infectious. She breezed past Madrigail and their cook, Jenniver, who were sharing a cup of coffee in the kitchen, stopping only to bid them good afternoon and pour herself some juice from the refrigerator. Both, who had worried endlessly for their mistresses, were now left smiling as though all were suddenly right again.

Xena fairly bounded up the steps to the second floor and their bedroom, having gulped down the juice and feeling all the more invigorated. She all but exploded into the bedroom, stripping off her sweats and runners in quick succession. Humming as she might have been, both vocally and otherwise, Xena had eyes only for clues as to Gabrielle's whereabouts. Nothing leapt out, and Xena forced herself not to worry over this...yet.

First, she needed to clean up, as physically as she had mentally.

Her workout in town had drained her of the pointlessly aggressive energy which had been churning her guts since the incident at the wardrobe. This had left Xena first mortified by her stupidity and the insinuations she'd thrown about so easily. This had quickly given way to a wave of intense terror, the sort only accomplished when one is faced with death not in the next minute, but only hours away. When you know its coming, you have time to ruminate, compose long lists of regrets, and generally see how you've wasted your time. So it was with Xena Alexandran, who faced the very real possibility of such death (provided Gabrielle was merciful enough and would simply kill her) upon her return to the house.

Still, her partner in the dojo had practically brow-beaten her into facing both the possibility and the music. This led to a receding of the actual fear, in its place arising a gritty determination to see this through. This, unfortunately, had manifested itself in yet another round of mental tail-chasing, leading itself into an expectation of the worst and undertaking suitable preparations. Preparation in the form of rehearsing the preemptive statements of righteous and defensive pride she'd hammer into Gabrielle the instant she saw her.

Xena had just turned into the driveway when a sliver the conversation at the dojo worked its way past her ruminations and promptly disarmed literally every bomb she might have tossed.

"She treat you right?" "Yeah, sure. Doesn't trust me worth beans, but..." "Well, would you? The way you're going at that bag?" She'd practically kicked the heavy punch bag off its chains at the time, realizing with horror exactly who she'd visualized it to be. This in mind, her self-righteous (right then in the midst of composing an particularly brutal tirade about supposed transgressions) shrunk to the size of the common dust mote and blew away (as dust motes are wont to) into some distant corner of her subconscious.

By the time she'd parked in the garage and killed the engine, a sort of lightheaded giddiness had overtaken her. For an insane moment Xena thought she might be pregnant, remembering seeing Martia the Python Handler swing from happy to outrightly furious like that for nearly three months. She'd brushed her palm against her belly, as flat and firm as ever, and couldn't help but nearly laugh at the notion.

Hence her wide grin upon greeting the maid and cook. Hence her scampering all about like an excited schoolgirl.

Having disposed of her sweats, Xena rummaged through the wardrobe and drawers for towel or robe. She found only a heavy towel, one unfortunately not long nor wide enough to wrap herself in. This brought another smile to Xena. She couldn't remember the last time she'd not shed her clothes, at least twice, from dawn to dusk in the past year. It had gotten to the point where she almost felt uncomfortable in anything save the tightest lingerie and dresses...or better still nothing at all.

Draping the towel over one shoulder Xena casually strode to the bathroom, still humming to herself some nonsense tune, and hoped there was at least some hot water left. Then again, a cold shower might help her think clearly.

Without Gabrielle's presence (that thought essentially killed her tune) the shower went quick. Just as well, as the water soon turned cold. Xena stepped out and rubbed herself down. Her few efforts at whistling or humming fell flat, and so she decided to work on in silence. This was just as well, as she heard the approach and arrival of a certain redhead. Her courage suddenly faltering, Xena kept her head down and concentrated on her thighs and shins.

When finally she looked up Gabrielle was standing there, leaning against the threshold, arms crossed and eyes hovering between worry and anger. "And where have you been?" she asked, her tone frosty in the warm mist hanging about them.

"Out," Xena said tonelessly, unwilling to betray her thudding heart. Stepping around the smaller woman, she added "Problem with that?" It had slipped out before she could stop it.

"No," Gabrielle shook her head. "I'm glad, actually."

Xena stopped dead in her tracks at that. "Why?"

Gabrielle's only answer was a gaze of longing, loss, and decision. It left Xena chilled to the core. Before she could ask anything, even the obvious, Gabrielle turned away and made for the staircase. The set of her shoulders, the steadiness of her pace, all clearly communicated the message: "Don't ask me now. I am not ready to talk to you."

Xena watched her go, heart sinking with each step Gabrielle took down the staircase. Eventually, she roused herself enough to return to the bedroom, yielding to the sensible notion of getting some clothes on.

Sunset found them eating in the dining room, one at either end of the banquet table.

Like the rest of the house, it was simple and breathtakingly elegant in furnishing. The exterior wall was all towering windows, allowing the last light of day to filter throughout and highlight the simple table and chairs there. Gabrielle was not one for opulence, but certainly for style.

Xena wore jeans, a tank top, and had gone barefoot for the remainder of the day. She'd kept well out of Gabrielle's way, hiding out in her well-stocked library and reading bits and pieces from the few non-scholarly works there. On the street, her reading had been limited to the trash her pimps or johns had kept. Here, she rediscovered good writing, though that day she'd had to avoid her usual diet of sonnets. A single line from any of them would see her come apart at the seams, probably permanently.

Gabrielle had likewise kept to herself, though she'd been out walking the grounds and felt calmer for it. Her pumps and pants suit had been a loss when she'd come in, forcing her to risk entering their bedroom. The memories alone nearly undid her, their sweetness every bit as devastating as seeing the pained realization in Xena's eyes earlier.

How either managed to eat was a riddle neither the gods nor Fates might ever unravel. Yet here they were, drinking their wine and swallowing their food, neither tasting a damn thing. Neither comfortable in the others presence.

Xena, not surprisingly, was the first have her fill of the silence between them. She nearly threw her cutlery onto her plate and said "We need to talk." Her voice carried in the otherwise silent room, though Gabrielle refused to look up. One glance from those eyes across the table, and she was done for.

So, Gabrielle instead kept her eyes on her barely touched plate and said "So talk." Naturally, she didn't see Xena's flinch, though she couldn't help but feel those eyes harden.

"I want to know...what I did wrong." Xena had her hands clenched in her lap, an unsuccessful effort to keep them from shaking. "I...want to know what...what you want me to do." Her voice clearly betrayed the lump which had formed in her throat, nearly strangling her voice.

Gabrielle heard it clearly, her eyes wide. She was left drained, with no defense against her now. Only the truth remained. Please, Artemis, let it be enough! "I don't want anything from you, Xena." Gabrielle looked up, tears once more in her eyes.

"Except you."

Xena faltering courage suddenly rallied and gave her strength enough for the question she'd ached with since the afternoon. "Me? Or...her?"

Gabrielle shook her head. "She...her name was Xena, too." This caused another flinch, which Gabrielle was spared for the mist which obscured her vision. "She's dead...has been dead for a...long time." She paused, suddenly needing breath. "Long before I saw you." That was it. Gabrielle couldn't form another word, never mind see further than her nose.

And so she didn't see the parade of emotions playing across Xena's face. Anger first, then despair. The first prompted by the admission, the next from the same, but more for her belief in their love being lost. Hearing her namesake was dead gave her a moment's satisfaction (played out as a smug smirk which curled her lips), only to have it washed away by the pain of Gabrielle's tears. The despair gripped her again, this time for herself alone. How dare she take satisfaction from Gabrielle's pain! Gabrielle was worth a thousand of her, and here she was taking delight from the death of someone she loved.

Even in the haze of her own misery, Xena could see her choices clearly. She could flee this house, this life, and return to the streets she belonged on. With luck, she'd be dead in a month and Gabrielle would be spared further embarrassment by her. Or...she could stay and at least try and ease Gabrielle's grief, even a little. Worthless as she might be, Xena Alexandran had never been one to turn her back on anyone suffering.

She was moving before even realizing she'd made the decision, hardly even feeling the carpet scratching her bare feet.

Gabrielle was blind and deaf to everything, save her own self-loathing. She'd done it. She'd broken her own vow and managed with just a few words to condemn herself to an eternity of loneliness. Xena would leave her now, disgusted and rightly so. And now? Now she didn't even have the strength left to finish her own destruction.

She felt the presence which knelt beside her, and the hand which brushed away the rogue tendrils of strawberry hair which had fallen around her face. She felt, but refused to believe.

Even when arms as strong as a Titan's, as gentle as the morning's light encircled her, even then she refused to believe. She leaned to the side, into those arms, willing to entertain the illusion as long as it would last.

When the arms didn't fade, but tightened their grip on her, and remained far past her eyes drying of their tears, only then did Gabrielle dare open her eyes and risk loosing this phantom peace.

She saw a thick, bronzed arm around her chest and shoulders, solid and glorious in its gentle strength. Turning her head slowly to the side, she met Xena's gaze. It was one of resignation, acceptance, and expectant hope. She heard Xena's voice, barely believing the mercy she was being shown. "I will be whatever you want me to," Xena said, her words nearly lost. The next part she read in those expressive eyes, and it awoke her like a bucket of ice water to her face. "Please, don't..."

Gabrielle heard the remainder before it was even said, and placed two fingers on her lips as Xena had done to her a year ago, stopping those terrible, pointless words from coming. Don't send me away.

She tried to speak, but it came out as a croak. Gabrielle swallowed and tried again. "I want you."

"But..." Xena tried to say around her fingers, only to have them pressed harder against her lips, silencing her protest.

"Life is too short for me to live in the past." An ironic statement, she thought distantly, coming from someone who has lived two millennia. "I'm done with that. She's gone, and you're here. Now."

Xena let go of her love's shoulders and removed the lips from her mouth. "I...you see her in me, don't you?" she challenged, her eyes suspicious.

Gabrielle closed her eyes for a moment, giving Xena her answer. The tall woman tried to pull away, only to be gripped by the forearms with a tighter than she thought possible. The intensity in the eyes which now regarded her held her with still greater strength. "I see the woman I love," Gabrielle insisted. "I see the face of someone I knew a long time ago. I see the face of someone I saw die a long time ago." There was desperation in her voice and eyes now. "But I love you. Not your face, not your hair, or your eyes, or any of that. Don't you understand? Please...please understand..." Her voice had started to crack from this, the intensity in her eyes too much to allow her to see the understanding Xena tried to communicate. She was gripping those arms even tighter now, but Xena gladly endured the pain.

"I love you," Gabrielle was croaking now. "I love you...she's dead...not you... you're all I've got...left...she left me alone...don't leave...please don't leave..." On and on like that.

Xena wasn't silent either, cooing and whispering assurances and words of comfort into her love's ear, equally desperate to reassure her.

Eventually, both calmed, and Gabrielle realized with some chagrin how tightly she'd been holding onto Xena. She eased her grip, but stopped short of releasing it altogether. Xena herself made no move to pull fully away.

They stayed like that for awhile, simply staring at one another, neither wholly comfortable, neither willing to back away even a hair from the other.

"I believe you," Xena said out of the blue. Gabrielle looked deep into those brilliant eyes, and saw no deception or doubt there. She believed, and all she could do was lean forward once more, back into the waiting arms of the one who loved her.

Luna was beginning her ascent over the horizon when Xena disengaged herself from the embrace and said in her ever-practical voice "Its been a long day. Let's go to bed." Gabrielle could only laugh at this and tried to get to her suddenly shaky feet.

Without a word, Xena bent down and gathered her into both arms, carrying her away from the table. She knew (or thought she knew) there would be no more love-making tonight, only some much needed sleep.

Had she seen Gabrielle's wisp of a grin, she might have been better prepared.

Madrigail padded in a short while later. Her only observation on seeing the plates and empty room was a sigh of "At last." With a motherly grin of satisfaction, she set about cleaning away the leftovers.

Her grin widened a bit as her sharp ears picked out the sounds which drifted down from above. The sound of a distant shriek, first of surprise-turned-laughter, and the sound of something...no, someone impacting on the floor upstairs, quite hard from the sound of it. More giggling. Two voices, now. She shook her head. God, she loved those two.

Chapter Eleven: Coping Strategies.

When Xena had left the house after the confrontation in the kitchen, she didn't actually have any clear destination in mind. The universe might as well have contracted to the look she'd caught in Gabrielle's eye. The look which communicated volumes. The look which asked 'How did you find out about her?'.

The look which made Xena tear off at 55 mph in the Chevy convertible (one of Gabrielle's few extravagances), hoping to find a hairpin curve or (better still) a cliff she could jump off of.

She found neither. Gabrielle had chosen a depressingly flat region to live in.

The road into town wasn't nearly as winding or long as her preoccupied thoughts made it to be. She was down the main street in less than five minutes, reducing speed more on instinct than due to conscious decision, and absolutely no idea where she was heading. After a full year of going up and down these streets, Xena was confident she knew every one and every outlet here.

That mental map had somehow been tossed out the car window, and so she had to reduce her speed even further and actually watch where she was going. It was maddening. It was irritating. It made her want to punch something...very, very hard.

The Almighty Whatever chose to smile on her just then. She was just passing one of the small dojo she'd come to frequent. The one, Xena was please to see, that was more a boxing ring than anything else. They knew her well enough here that no-one would have thought her sudden appearance particularly odd. True, normally it would herself and Gabrielle coming in to practice quarterstaffs and the odd tumble-match.

The scowl that thought brought on would prove deterrence enough that anyone who noticed wouldn't say a thing. Fortunately, the dojo proved practically deserted, and so she was spared any odd looks right then. In the state of mind she was in, Xena suspected she might well...

Rather than let herself ruminate on that unpleasant possibility, Xena went straight to the hanging punch-bag and proceeded to give it whatfor, not even stopping for the briefest warm-up stretches. She simply started hitting the bag.

Xena had never had formal training in any fighting style. Oh, she'd been ringside at a few bare-knuckle matches back with the circus, and been party to a few run-ins with Scooter's enemies (the law included) which invariably ended in a knife-fight of one sort or another. Even so, Xena had never handled a gun, nor been shown even the most rudimentary forms or strikes.

All of which made the complicated series of punches and kicks she delivered to the hard column of canvas and stuffing before all the more exceptional. To have seen it, one would think her a competition champion in who knew how many disciplines and tournaments.

Xena kept pounding the bag for as long as her breath held out. A remarkable amount of time, given her lack of preparation. Even so, the only way she could maintain her stride was to start envisioning faces. The first was Granma', shattered by well-placed roundhouse kick. The next was the circus patron, his gap-tooth leer and crooked nose likewise dispatched. Scooter Cook tanned and not-unhandsome features she mangled with a very solid one-two punch to the nose and chin. A rapid-fire one-two-three (one punch delivered to the eye, one punch catching the nose and upper lip, and a solid roundhouse guaranteed to crack a few ribs) combination dispatched Gabrielle...

...and stopped her completely dead.

The bag was swinging with such force it was a wonder it didn't break its suspension and simply fall.

The pounding of her heart, the roar of her panting breathing, the mental image of Gabrielle lying at her feet, face bloodied and spine twisted...these were the only things Xena was aware of. She was sure recrimination and self-loathing weren't far away, though both had the good grace to allow her to wallowing in shock for awhile.

Unlike others, that is. "Hey?" someone practically shouted near her ear. Xena's slow, very slow turning towards the voice was a thousand times more unnerving than if she'd simply spun on her heel. The deep breaths she was taking didn't help the scene any.

"You okay?" It was a woman Xena neither knew nor recognized. A few inches shorter than herself, with russet brown hair cut to a bob, and a face belonging on magazine covers. She wore a skin tight tank-top and trunks but no shoes (this was a dojo, after all) and was regarding Xena with wary eyes. Her relaxed stance was warning enough for Xena to think twice before trying anything crazy.

"I know you?" Xena growled, slowly calming but all the more explosive for it.

"No, I'm new here." The woman glanced meaningfully at the bag. "Just blowing off steam?" Xena nodded slowly. "You have an argument or something?" Another nod, her skin cooling and suspicions rising with each second.

"I needed...needed to get away." Xena heard herself speak as though observing all this from afar. She had no idea why she was suddenly so willing to speak of her domestic disputes to a complete stranger, and seemed incapable of quieting herself.

She barely registered the worried, even confused tone to the woman's next question. "She treat you right, right?"

Xena could only throw her head back and give a bitter laugh to that. "Yeah, sure." It was either that or she break down and cry like a baby. "Doesn't trust me worth beans, but..."

The woman cut in, quite forcefully. "Well, would you? Given the way you were going at that bag?"

Xena snapped her head around and glared, ready to harangue this stranger who... who...

One look at those earnest, open eyes...eyes as green and perfect as Gabrielle's... and all Xena could do was stare at the floor, suddenly very ashamed to be alive.

The woman moved off to a shadowed corner, wiggling a little here and there so to loosen her joints and began a series of stretches. It might have been it attractive, even arousing, had anyone been paying attention. Xena certainly wasn't.

Xena was completely focused on the still-fresh image of a bloodied and broken Gabrielle lying at her feet. Unable to stand it an instant longer, Xena turned and all-but ran back to the car.

She sat in there for some minutes, gripping the steering wheel in a death-grip, her breathing erratic and strained. Catching sight of herself in the rear-view mirror, Xena's eyes hardened to flint. "Well?" she questioned the reflection, voice dripping with contempt. "You going to do right by her, or what?"

With that, she revved engine to life and swung the convertible around, mindless to the traffic honking at her impromptu Y-turn or the few uncooperative traffic she'd encountered. Only an abiding respect for pedestrians kept her running them all.

Xena's entire mind was focused on returning to the house, and (she prayed fervently if unconsciously) to Gabrielle.

Hope had watched her leave. Her stretches were more for show than out of need, and so could devote her attention to other, more critical matters.

She'd heard literally every word which had passed between those two since awaking, generally rolling her eyes at each exchange and shaking her head in disgust. This wasn't the Circle's doing, she knew that. It was a thousand times worse, and just as unsolvable: it was a lover's quarrel to the power of ten!

Following and dealing with Xena was, in Hope's estimation, the easiest course. Not to mention the safest. Gabrielle... that was a confrontation neither of them were ready for.

Her stretches done only minutes after Xena's departure, Hope stood and yawned. Nearly two days without sleep wouldn't have normally bothered her. Two days of pushing her more...innate abilities to their limits without a break...now that was exhausting. Hopefully, she reflected, it wouldn't be much longer.

None of the few of the patrons of the dojo noticed when she simply walked into the deepest shadow behind her.

Nor did anyone comment on how, when others went back there to go through their own warm-ups, the corner was completely empty.

`Continued...Part 3