Argo made good time over the open countryside; Philemon had cleared the surrounding area of bandits, and warlords, and so Gabrielle rode most of the day a little more relaxed than usual. Her mind was scarcely on what she was doing; Argo kept a northern heading, always toward Corinth, but Gabrielle barely noticed. Seeing Joxer again after all this time had brought back the memories, so painful...
I loved you, Xena, she told herself. I should have told you how much you meant to me... I thought we’d have time... I thought we would have so many years together... She nodded her head and blinked, the tears starting to well up in her eyes. And then you were taken from me... I was so alone, so lost.... thank the gods Joxer was there.
Gabrielle smiled faintly. Who ever would have thought Joxer would amount to anything? She had to chuckle to herself; he had been so loud, so clumsy, so oafish... but he had been constant, and she had grown less irritated with him as the years had gone by. And gods know how he stood by me when Xena died, how he was there every day and every night, no matter how bad I was, or how long I cried... everything I asked of him, he did... everything, no matter how small...
Gabrielle closed her eyes as Argo raced down the road. He loved me well. He still does. I did try... The memories came now, faster than she could sort them... Xena falling, her body devoid of life...Gabrielle fighting with Joxer, pleading, threatening, her tears running down her face, her throat...the days spent in Treus afterward, disconsolate, not wanting to sleep, or eat, or even breathe. I never thought I would survive that pain. I wanted to die. I prayed that I would die... She inhaled deeply as more images came... that first summer afterwards, staying in Thebes with Joxer... Hercules in tears, when he found out... Iolaus’s wedding, catching his wife’s bouquet... visiting Xena’s grave every year...
She wiped her eyes. Hardest of all was Solen... I had to tell him... gods, how he cried... Gabrielle lifted her head, looking up into the early morning sky. "Enough," she said, "enough. This isn’t helping anyone. The sooner I can get this to Hercules..."
Argo strode on, the miles vanishing beneath his steady pace...
* * *
Gabrielle sat huddled near the fire; it was getting cooler out again, and the warmth from the fire was comforting. I hate campfires now, she said, stirring up the kindling and listening to the slightly damp wood hiss and crack as the fire consumed it.
At the end of that summer, she had decided she would live with the Amazons. Life didn’t seem to make much sense without Xena, and maybe she could try to start over there. Joxer’s heart would break, she knew; and he had been so good to her, caring, compassionate, tender. She had always come first with him. Always.
He had taken it well. She knew he was hurt, but he had let her go without a fight, without any tears, just a simple, mournful, "If that’s what you want." She closed her eyes. "That such a man could grow from such an ass," she said, smiling sadly, tossing a few more sticks on the fire and pulling the blanket around her shoulders.
Queen Ephiny had welcomed her... all of the Amazons had taken her in. It helped to dull the pain for a little while, but eventually there were the long evenings at the river, by herself, just staring at the sunset... the longer strolls through the nearby woods, just wandering... Ephiny would come for her, or her son, romping around in the grass... he was such a free spirit, the little centaur-man, as his mother called him...
"You need to leave," Ephiny said to her one winter’s evening over dinner. "You’re welcome to stay here, of course," she had added, "but whatever peace you’re looking for isn’t with the Amazons." Ephiny had jutted her chin. "It’s out there in the world, somewhere, waiting for you."
Gabrielle stared into the firelight, remembering that evening four years ago as if it were last night. "We’ve given you all we have, Gabrielle, and you have no peace in your soul. I don’t have any more answers..." Ephiny had gripped her hand. "And I don’t know where those answers are... but I do know that you have to find them." Gabrielle had nodded, quietly, and had packed her things, and left at first light, her boots crunching in the snow as she headed north... and east.
She shifted her weight, rearranging the blanket. Home. What a great idea that had been. Lila was married, her mother had gone blind, and her father was old now, so old. Perdicas’ family would no longer talk to her. Potedaia treated her the way it had treated Xena when she had first come through; she’d stayed the night in her old room, thinking how the last seven years had changed her so much... she wasn’t even the same person now... and another silent farewell on a winter’s morning, still looking for that peace...
Gabrielle sighed and lay down, facing the fire. She felt old tonight, far beyond her thirty years. Her bones ached from the constant hard riding, and the chill, and she still didn’t know what the damned thing she was carrying was. She’d let Hercules worry about it. She closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep.
Amphipolis. It had taken her two days to get up the courage to go there. She had paced, and thought, and fought with herself..."It will hurt too much," she told herself. But Cyrene had to know, and Toris... and so, with an even heavier heart than usual, she had ridden to Amphipolis, Argo familiar with the way...
Gabrielle shifted her body, moving closer to the fire.
Nothing was left. Nothing. The tavern had been burnt to the ground, the entire village destroyed. Corpses still lay strewn about, townsfolk, farmers, simple people... She never had found Cyrene. Toris had met her, his arm badly broken. She had set it, and he had told her... it was Draco, taking his revenge on Xena. She couldn’t defend her home now-- and Toris had tried. But Draco had wounded him and made him watch as he burned Amphipolis and slaughtered her people. Then he had set Toris free, to starve to death. Gabrielle had given him the rest of her money after setting his arm, and had sent him to Potedaia. The life of a warrior was not for him. He had scarcely been able to believe that Xena hadn’t come to save the village...
Gabrielle shut her eyes fast, knowing what memory came next and trying not to think of it.
Draco had smiled at her, his dark eyes glittering. "My love, at last, we can be free," he said, holding his arms out to her. "We were meant to be together, Gabrielle, you and I..."
She had nodded, smiling, drawn closer to him...
She would always remember the look of shock on his face as she plunged the dagger into him, twisting it deep to make sure he died. "Xena was my friend," she had spat at him as he had fallen to the ground, "and you destroyed everything she used to care about." Draco hadn’t said a word-- maybe he couldn’t-- but he had stared at her in mute horror, surprise, as the life had ebbed out of his body, as his frame had sagged against the floor...
My first kill.
Gabrielle huddled deeper into the blanket, praying for sleep.
She came awake all at once in the morning, like she had most mornings in the past five years. She could see her breath rising in the chilly morning air, and she sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. The fire had gone out a few hours ago, leaving only ash in the small pit she’d dug.
When was it I stopped looking for you, in the morning, Xena? Even when I slept in a bed, even when I woke up in Joxer’s arms...for a long time I always looked for you, out of habit, out of reflex... out of need...
"Not any more," Gabrielle said as she rose, stiffly, and stretched, working the kinks out of her shoulder and neck. "Now I’ve accepted that I’ll never see you again." She turned to the east, squinting into the dawn, and moved to rub Argo down.
Corinth is about a week from here, if I stick to the road. Then I can give this to Hercules and be on my way... Gabrielle shook her head as she brushed the horse’s mane. "No sense being mad at him," she murmured to herself. "Wasn’t his fault either."
In a few moments, she was up on Argo again, riding to the north, heading toward Corinth once more, the horse’s breath billowing as they made their way up to the road.
She was still sleepy, however, and she half dozed as Argo’s footsteps formed a cadence, lulling her, relaxing her...
Salmoneus had found her, sitting with her feet in the stream... she couldn’t even remember how long she’d been there, tears of sorrow and shame coursing from her... she had never killed, never once, when Xena had been alive... even in the months since her death, Gabrielle had always refrained from taking a life. Draco’s blood would never be off her hands... she could never turn back, never be innocent again.
Salmoneus hadn’t heard about Xena. He had been north, trading with some strange tribes, far away from Greece. He had sat next to Gabrielle and cried himself, sobbing for the loss of Xena, of the good she had done, and how that light had been extinguished. Salmoneus had composed himself at last, and he had led Gabrielle away from the stream. He had taken her to Thebes with him; he’d been heading to see Hercules anyway...
"Hercules," Gabrielle grunted. "Huh."
The son of Zeus was still mourning himself.. Gabrielle grimaced with the memory. "I loved her too," he had told Gabrielle. She had rounded on him. "If you had loved her a little more, she’d be alive! If you had been there, like she had asked you..."
Hercules had been so angry with her, so hurt by her words, that not even Salmoneus could calm him down. "Gabrielle!" the merchant had said to her when Hercules had stormed out, tearing the door off of its hinges, "don’t you think you were a little hard on him? He did love Xena, after all..."
But she hadn’t wanted to hear it then. "Don’t take his side! If he had come when we’d sent word, instead of being away with Iolaus somewhere..."
Salmoneus had gripped her shoulders. "Hercules would have come if he could have, you know that, Gabrielle..." The older man had gazed out of the hole in the wall. "He blames himself more than you blame him. Don’t you think he’s hurting too?"
Well, Thebes had been a bad idea. She left Salmoneus there in the morning and rode off herself, to try to find some peace for her soul that just wouldn’t come...
The days had turned into weeks, and then months... Gabrielle found herself numb, uncaring, riding the countryside, seeking answers... and then, before she realized it, a whole year had almost passed. She took Argo back south, back toward Treus, where Xena’s grave was. The weather had gotten nicer, but the trip to her was shrouded in gray, and all she could remember were those nights by the fire, cuddled together for warmth... the warrior princess’ smile when she was happy... the way her eyes lit up when she fought.
Argo made a turn, following the road by instinct. Gabrielle shook her head, letting her reddish blonde mane wave in the breeze. "That’s where it started," she said to the wind.
It was such a small marker, really. A single stone, carved in a circle, set in a larger one, to mark her resting place. No name, no embellishment... just near a tree, by a river, where no one would know to look...
Gabrielle had hitched Argo and walked alone, slowly, trembling. "I can’t do this," she said. "I can’t..." But she was drawn, slowly, each step through the grass deliberate, until she rounded the trunk of the great tree and stared down.
Someone had put fresh flowers on the stone.
"Joxer," Gabrielle had whispered, starting to cry. The urge to go to him was so strong, so deep... she had knelt and ran her fingers over the stone, still moist with the dew of the morning, tracing the pattern of the circle as tenderly as she would have traced the line of a lover’s cheekbone...
And a year’s worth of pain, and misery, loneliness, frustration, anger... all of it had welled up and spilled out that day, hot, wet tears splashing the stone... she had sobbed for hours, not caring about anything else but the woman buried beneath her... "I never told you," Gabrielle muttered between racking sobs, "I never told you..."
It was well into the afternoon before her tears subsided, and she just sat there, touching the stone, playing her fingers over it, thinking about Xena, letting her mind and her heart wander where they would.
"I know what I have to do," she had told the stone as she had laid her palms on it, touching it with her whole hands, grabbing it. "I have to finish what you started," she told Xena. "I have to fight warlords, and protect the innocent. I have to help villagers, and put what you taught me to use making people’s lives better. It can’t die with you..." Gabrielle had finally sat up straight. "It has to continue." She had leaned over and very gently kissed the stone.
"I never told you," Gabrielle said, one last time, "but I loved you. You were everything to me." She stood there for a moment, but all of her tears had been cried, and she walked back to Argo, mounting her, and riding off...
She had never seen the hands that had come afterward, after she had gone, and straightened the flowers; never seen the tears of another that had fallen there... another who had loved her, in his own way, the one who had turned her from evil...