Mnemosyne

by Taliatoennien

Possible continuation to A Friend in Need. Written for a Xena Online Community challenge; this is not necessarily the way that I think that the show ended.

SUMMARY: Possible continuation to A Friend in Need. Written for a Xena Online Community challenge; this is not necessarily the way that I think that the show ended.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything; I'm borrowing Xena, Gabrielle, and the entire setup for A Friend in Need. Bonsai Tree Guy is mine, however.

Gabrielle couldn't feel her hands or her feet, but she could still feel her back. It alternately shot ice and fire through her body. She wished she could draw breath enough to speak, to at least say "I love you, Xena," again, but it didn't matter. Xena could no longer hear her. That didn't hurt like she'd thought it was going to, because they'd be together in a few minutes anyway.

Now, now that the moment was there and the afterlife was just around the corner, just across one small bridge, Gabrielle was scared. Xena had walked this road before. She hadn't.

Then she felt a hand grasp her own. Not her own...her own was frozen to the wood. But it was her hand reaching out, and her body soaring through the clouds, and Xena's hand in hers. And it was all more real than real life.

"Gabrielle!"

"Huh? It's not morning, go away!" Then the bright sunlight lanced through her eyelids. "Okay, it's morning. Did I miss the warlord trying to kill me again?"

"You're lucky I managed to make enough noise in the branches that he thought I was a chipmunk," said a familiar voice. "That one didn't believe in ghosts."

"Okay, so I'm awake. What's the threat?"

"No threat, Gabrielle. You were having a nightmare." Xena had appeared sitting on the log across from Gabrielle's bedroll, staring into the remains of the campfire.

"It wasn't a nightmare," Gabrielle said, getting out of her bedroll and running her fingers through her hair. That was futile, of course. She'd have bedhead until noon now.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Gabrielle signed and built the campfire up again. She wasn't going to make it to Athens that day after all, not with such a late start. She'd had late starts three times that week. Xena just couldn't seem to yell loudly enough to wake her up. "I was dreaming about the time we both died together."

Xena didn't say anything. She just gave one of those open, encouraging looks.

"It wasn't a bad dream. I could feel your hand taking me off that cross."

"I should never have let you be put on it at all."

"Is that really what you think, even after all this time?" Gabrielle didn't need to look for Xena's nod. "It was where I was supposed to be. You brought out the best in me, and you did it even then. From this life to the next."

Xena looked striken.

Gabrielle walked over and sat on the log beside her. For one moment, it was exactly the way it had always been between them, and then Gabrielle's head and shoulders went right through her friend, and she fell off the log and into the bushes. "Damn it!!!"

Xena giggled.

Gabrielle burst into tears.

Xena half-walked, half floated over, trying to put her arms around her friend. They passed through Gabrielle, and Xena almost tied herself in a knot. A piece of her insubstantial armor fell off, and bounced noiselessly into the campfire.

Gabrielle giggled through her tears.

"I think I can only touch you in Jappa," Xena muttered. She dove into the fire, trying to retrieve the armor. "Ouch!"

"If you can't touch it, it shouldn't be able to hurt you."

"Yeah, whatever." Xena re-fastened her armor.

"I hate this, you know. Haven't you suffered enough for that last crime?"

Xena looked pained again. "This is what I have to do, Gabrielle. I have to be dead. I'm just so sorry you have to go through this, for something that was never your fault."

"I'm not sorry to be your soulmate. I'm just sorry I can't touch you." Gabrielle sighed a little inside. Was Xena ever going to believe her? Then something different struck her. "Hang on. You never told me you had to be dead. You told me that the souls had to be avenged."

"In Jappa, that's the same thing."

"Well, where are they now?"

"What?"

"The souls? Where are they now?"

Xena abruptly vanished. Gabrielle sighed, banked the fire, and started putting together her things. She hadn't been able to find a horse of her own, and without Xena, Argo II had gone back to Meg's family. Gabrielle had always said she liked walking. She'd have a horse when one loved her as much as both Argos had loved Xena, not before.

That was the hardest part. Xena was with her, always would be. They were going to be together forever. The friendship they had now was very real. But Gabrielle missed the little things, like drinking from booby-trapped wine glasses, or being pulled up on the back of Xena's horse behind her. And the things that she'd had to do as a warrior...well...Gabrielle shuddered. It had seemed like every warlord in Greece with a grudge against Xena or a thirst to prove himself against Xena's legend had sought her out once she'd returned home. Home. Not really. Her "home" was off in some other realm talking to some higher power about the souls in Jappa.

It was late afternoon before Xena showed up beside Gabrielle again. They were walking together towards the sunset, and for once, things felt entirely normal.

"A few...well, a few below a hundred, are angels," Xena said. "The Amazons--yeah, Japanese Amazons, but just two--are in eternity, and all the rest have been reborn. And you have to hear this. There's this one guy, and in life he had an obsession with his banzai tree, and he's been reborn as a..."

"So they've all moved on?" Gabrielle interrupted.

"Yeah."

Her mouth had, as always, moved faster than her mind. "Sorry, what's he been reborn as?"

Xena had sobered. "I'll tell you later," she said. "Does that help?"

"Does it help you? Knowing they're happy now?"

Xena had been grinning from ear to ear all along. "Yeah, actually, it does," she said. She took another moment, and then said slowly, "It doesn't take away my responsibility, my guilt. But there are things that are supposed to happen. People choose their own destinies. You taught me that. It helps to know that their destinies are still moving forward, just as they were supposed to."

Gabrielle grinned. "Does that mean you can come back, then?"

"Gabrielle..."

"Don't you want to come back?" [i]That[/i] came out much more plaintative than Gabrielle had intended. "Sorry. I mean..."

"I know what you mean," Xena said. "Yes. I want to come back. There was a time in my life when I didn't. Everything was darkness, and I just wanted to finish the task, and be done, even if I went to Tartarus then."

"What changed?" Gabrielle said. She knew the answer, of course, but this was a story she needed to hear every few months or so.

Xena smiled, and Gabrielle could tell she'd understood every bit of that. "You did. You showed me what a good person with a good heart could do in this world, and you made me understand my own tasks."

"And we came full circle," Gabrielle finished the story. "I knew that one of us would die, from the beginning. It was still worth it for me to be with you. It still is worth it."

"Thank you," Xena said.

Maybe it was just the giddiness of finding out she actually had helped those people, but Xena seemed more open than usual.

"So what now? Is there still something troubling you?"

"Why can't you come back, then?"

"Now? The souls have to be avenged."

"But they're all right now. They have been avenged. You died for them, and it was a real death. That was what it took. They've been fine for over a year."

"I cut off their lives."

"They have new lives, thanks to you."

Xena looked as if she was going to say something, but then she stopped. "You're right."

"Do my ears deceive me?" Gabrielle teased.

Xena laughed. "The problem is, that we've already defeated death our fair share of times. The ashes and the river were our last hope, and we missed our chance."

"Ambrosia?"

"All gone. That was one of the first things I had to do to kill the gods."

"Not Athena," Gabrielle said softly, and then wished she hadn't when she saw Xena wince. "Ares? He'd do anything for you."

"I can't ask him to give up his immortality again...and no, wait, that wouldn't work anyway. You were still alive; Eve had been gone less than a minute, so he could still count it as 'healing,' not 'resurrecting.' Eli might have the power..."

"Can you go find out?"

Xena vanished again without saying a word. Gabrielle took a couple more steps toward Athens, then thought better of it and walked the opposite way, toward a cave that would make a good campsite. She was much more tired than she should have been after only walking a few hours. The memory of the last battle she'd led in Egypt was torturing her for some reason. Xena knew the people she'd sent to their deaths were safe now. Gabrielle had no such knowledge of the fates of her own soldiers. Maybe she'd ask Xena to go find out, the next day or so. There were advantages to having a friend with access to all the afterlives.

She was surrounded by ice. It was stabbing into her, and it was pain. It was Woe. There was a voice somewhere outside of her, calling, that she could stay in that pain for all eternity, or she could die.

Xena wasn't there, and she was alone in her pain.

Gabrielle woke, and this time it was before dawn. She was drenched in sweat, and shivering. She hadn't dreamed about the Temple of Mnemosyne for longer than she could remember. Sometimes her dreams made good stories, but not these, not the true to life ones.

Xena walked into the cave. "Easy," she said gently. She came close enough that, even if they'd both been corporeal, only Gabrielle would have been able to hear her, and she started to sing softly in Greek. Gabrielle closed her eyes. They'd worked this out in the first few weeks after Jappa. It was almost as good as a hug.

The song ended, and Gabrielle let her eyes drift open. "Can Eli help?"

Xena shook her head. "I'm sorry, Gabrielle. For both of us," she added softly, then continued in her normal voice. "Eli says that since I agreed to follow the Jappa rules when I died, it's like I'm from Jappa now. He doesn't have the right to affect me."

"We're back to the ashes and the river, then," Gabrielle said. She indicated the small pot at the bottom of her pack. Xena would know what she was pointing at.

"But the time's long past."

"Not necessarily," Gabrielle said. "This time I was dreaming about the time that Ares told me I couldn't go backward or forward, that if I didn't want to stay in the river of Woe, I had to die."

Xena gave a wry smile. "Do you think he'd say that now?"

Gabrielle chuckled. If Xena had been corporeal, she'd have elbowed her. "Never mind. I think I was thinking about you not being able to go backward or forward either, although it's a different thing that's trapped you, and that's why I dreamed it. But I dreamed about the Temple of Mnemosyne. Memories are bowls of water there."

Xena was silent.

Gabrielle elaborated. "The river in Jappa. That is water too. So what if we turn the river into a memory. Then it'll still be the same day, before sunset, and I can put in your ashes."

Xena was still silent, but this time Gabrielle was quiet. Sometimes, with Xena, she got the quietest when she was thinking at the speed of a galloping horse.

"Do you think it might work?"

"Yes," Xena said, simply and quietly. "Well, would you like to go to the temple, then?"

They didn't talk much on the road, but Xena never left Gabrielle either. They were just walking together, cherishing what they had. Sometimes Gabrielle felt content, sometimes even happy. This was the lifestyle she was used to. But now that she hoped, her hands ached to be able to touch her friend's shoulder again...

"If this doesn't work, I might not be with you in this form either," Xena said suddenly.

"The love we share, it's stronger than death," Gabrielle quoted softly. "It's not the ashes keeping you with me, Warrior Princess."

"Are you sure?"

"Once I put them beside your brother for two solid weeks. You still came to Corinth with me."

"I didn't even notice. Why did you pick them back up again?"

Gabrielle blushed. "I dunno...the same reason I write my best poetry with your old quill, I guess. Things connect me to you, since I can't touch you now."

Xena gave one of those eloquent looks that said more than words ever could.

The old Temple of Mnemosyne was deserted. The columns were broken, and the trees outside bore the unmistakable signs of a forest fire. Gabrielle walked in slowly, treading softly over the cracked foundation. This place reminded her so strongly of Joxer, and she fought back tears as she climbed the staircase where the priestess had once spoken to her.

Gabrielle picked up one of the pitchers. It was empty. She laid it aside carefully and tried another. All but two were empty. Those two had a trickle of water at their very bottoms.

"Here goes," Gabrielle said. She held out an empty wineskin and poised the first pitcher at its rim. Then she thought of that last day with Xena in Jappa. About learning the Pinch, about staring into Xena's eyes, wonder turning to pain turning to panic, and releasing the Pinch. Tears drifted unnoticed down her cheeks, and she poured. Then she thought of finding Xena's chakram in the woods, about hugging her dead friend for the last time, about what else she'd seen in the woods. She was sobbing so she could hardly hold the pitcher and wineskin, but slowly, she poured. Then she put a cork in the top, and miraculously, she could no longer remember the day. It was still there, but it was as if behind a cork. Muted.

Gabrielle turned to Xena and held out her hand, again forgetting that Xena couldn't help her up. It just felt right to do that.

"I'm so sorry," Xena said.

"I am too," Gabrielle said, and she felt the relief that came with finally talking about that day. "You did what you had to do."

"I didn't have to hurt you that way."

"I accepted that you would when I came with you. And I still came. When this is over, I won't remember that you hurt me."

"No, I'll just remember the way you found where there was no way," Xena said.

Gabrielle blushed. They left the temple side by side.

Only two warlords attacked Gabrielle on the way to the ship to Jappa this time. Gabrielle disarmed them both without killing them. She sent one to jail, and the other back to his men with firm instructions to go rebuild a dam rather than cutting it down.

"They're not actually going to build anything," Xena observed.

"They also haven't done anything evil yet," Gabrielle said stubbornly.

Xena laughed.

"What, do you believe me?"

"I don't know," Xena said. "But if they take up raiding and looting again, you'll be a match for them then."

"I'll have you with me."

Xena vanished once when they were on the ship. "We really are going to do this," she said, "so I have to say goodbye to Marcus, and Solan."

Gabrielle had only ever heard Xena talk about Joxer, from the other side, and only to say that he was now a little boy who stood a chance of being a great warrior. Marcus? Solan? "They weren't reborn?"

"Solan will be. Marcus chose the Elysian Fields."

"Can you say goodbye to Perdicus too?"

"Count on it."

Gabrielle spent those few hours imagining another few hours on another ship, those past hours spent with a hand on her shoulder she could not feel, and words in her ears that still rang in her heart. "It was all worth it to bring me to your heart." How much good had she done? Some, but not enough to live up to Xena's faith in her. [i]We can do so much more good together.[/i]

Xena was back before the boat landed. They came ashore--well, from the crew's perspective, Gabrielle came ashore, although she knew they knew better than to laugh at her for talking to herself. She bid them thanks, said she'd return in a few days' time, and slowly retraced the route she'd followed before.

It was nearing sunset when they approached the river. It was like walking in a dream. Only more vivid than any dream of the past. No one chased them, but Gabrielle found herself ducking invisible arrows. Xena's presence grew stronger and stronger the closer they came.

"I can touch you here," Xena said suddenly, and she pulled Gabrielle close.

Gabrielle threw her arms around Xena. She didn't have to remember a time when she'd had to resolve herself the hug would be the last. She didn't have to think about sacrificing her love. Not here and now, not this time.

"Ready?" Xena said.

"'We'll be together, untill the other side," Gabrielle said. She uncorked the wineskin, and poured its contents into the river. Then, before the running water could sweep the memory entirely away, she emptied Xena's ashes into it. All her hope and love, floating in those little charcoal bits, and for a moment Gabrielle wanted to take it all back and go back to hugging a ghost who was real and present and always would be.

Then there were two reflections in the water.

"Xena!" Gabrielle yelped.

Xena didn't reprimand her for screeching...this wasn't the time...but it was like Xena had never heard it. "Gabrielle, sweetheart," she said, and pulled Gabrielle close again.

This time it was entirely real. More real than anything could have been before. Gabrielle could smell Xena's armor, and feel the way they both wept without even sensing it in themselves. She was here. Alive.

Hours later, the sun drifted low in the sky in Jappa. Gabrielle sat beside the water, Xena beside her, just as it was meant to be. The sun set, and Xena was still there. It was as if the year had never happened. All things happen for a reason. Xena had seen Marcus, and Solan, and Perdicus again for a reason; she'd given her life for the souls in Jappa for a reason. But at that moment, there was only the two of them, and all the rest of the reasons faded to nothing. Gabrielle rested her head on Xena's shoulder, and stayed right there in the moment. It felt as if it would last forever. And it would.