Disclaimer:. This is not a tribute to a certain author. Living, active writers don't need 'em. I wrote this for myself, anyone who thinks otherwise is challenged to come up with a better ending.

As well, I do not hate the fifth season, but as a Bard I have this magical keyboard that allows me to play whatever tunes I prefer.

Violence Warning: Definitely. Unusual in my stories, but many readers might wish to avoid the three italicized paragraphs in the first section. (Atropos)

Sex: PG13, Consenting adults who love each other and happen to be of the same sex. If this is a problem due to age or local law, please move, or move on. Though I still personally think you need to get out more.

Spoilers Alert: Quite a few. There are references to Been There, Done That, and from Family Affair right up to Chakrum

Multiple thanks to each of the Exchange Bards who made this story more than it would have been. From suggestions, to line by line corrections, (many of which I ignored claiming 'technique'), thank you, guys. Your support is what makes the Xenaverse special. This includes in no particular order Kelly Noble, Mary Morgan, Cath, Ruth, Georgia, thenorm, extra, (geez, who's left to read this?) and another fanfic author who will not remain anonymous, Archaeobard.

Threads by Kamouraskan

Part I Atropos

'Implacable'

In Greek mythology, the eldest of the Fates, who cuts the thread of human life.

I was first aware of the sea; the tang of salt and mud flats nearby, the cries of the sea birds, the crash of waves. I was standing on an abutment, staring out over water. The scent was familiar, the Aegean I knew from a dozen different clues. No drifting snow flakes. No crosses. No Roman soldiers. I flexed my back muscles and closed my eyes with relief, still anticipating the other boot dropping. I turned, and there she was. Almost unrecognizable. Her pleasure in her drills clear even from this distance. My only thoughts: she is alive, we are alive, and my journeys might finally be over.

I watched her with her weapons, her intensity almost frightening, until she glanced my way, and flashed me her full smile, melting my heart and easing this haggard soul. She was a vision; her now short-cropped straw-coloured hair damp from sweat. I recognized her weapons as being primarily defensive, but in her skilled use, I saw some of the more deadly positions being performed. My uneasiness was quickly subdued when she laughed and slowed her movements, signaling the end of the practice. She adroitly tossed and caught a sai, then turned and ran towards me, her health and strength apparent in each lithe move. Her eyes glowed as she approached and my check list seemed complete.

What mattered was that this time she was alive, she was with me, and she loved me. This could be the path we were promised; though I would never assume anything. Gabrielle says I believe that the cup is usually half empty.

Gabrielle, this Gabrielle trotted up and collapsed on the grass beside me, still sweat damp. I reached over to her, still remembering the terrible blankness in those now dazzling green orbs, and my body needed to confirm that she was ...here. My hand cupped her chin, lightly caressing her cheek with my thumb, but she pulled away, confusion written all over her face, and my heart lurched. I withdrew as though I had been singed, which in a way I was. She stood, staring, and said "Why..." and I knew. That this was the trade off. This is what was sacrificed this time so that we could live. And I told myself; her life is worth it. It may hurt more than the nails piercing my wrists, but we have done that already for each other; I can survive this.

I could tell she wasn't sure what was going through my mind, and what question to ask. Finally there was a soft inquiry. "Xena? What is it?"

I knew I could not, should not, play a God with her destiny anymore; this time it would be hers to decide. So I answered her with the truth for once.

"It's sorta that recurring day thing again, but this time, the Fates are involved."

All of her focus was now on me. There was no quick babble, typical of the girl I once knew. This was a warrior, waiting for more information.

"You see, the Fates came to me, when we were dying on the cross... the first time..."

Her mind was no less quick, and comprehension changed to apprehension.

"The FIRST time! By the Gods, Xena, what... how many times?" But then, a familiar mask replaced her empathetic anguish. Startled, I recognized it — my mask. Recovering, she simply said, "Go on."

"They told me that our deaths, like that, were the result of some influence, that we had another destiny. That Clotho owed both of us a chance to find it. But only if I was willing to search all the possibilities, to find the diversion of the threads, only if I was willing to risk ending up on those crosses again..."

"You have been journeying again and again..., with... THAT, as the likely outcome? Xena!" and there was no restraint when she knelt and held me, my head resting on that familiar shoulder, knowing that there was only comfort being offered, and that, in its way, was no comfort.

I pulled back and said, "So, I take it, we survived this time?" trying to smile at her.

"You don't remember?"

"Each time I go back to make a change, it takes a while before the memories catch up to whenever I am, when I'm at the.... outcome. Of what I altered. They'll come. But I gotta tell ya, so far it's got a lot of advantages over where I've been."

She knew that haunted look in my eye, and understood that there were experiences I would not share with her unless she asked.

"So," I said as casually as I could, "Is this our proper destiny? 'Cause if it is, I could use a rest."

I could see that the question had struck deeply, and she took a moment, her forehead wrinkling as she pondered the answer. I waited for the Yes.

She stumbled a bit as she began, "I, I can see that you've suffered, I can't ask you..."

My surprise lasted a moment, before I stopped her with a gesture. "Gabrielle. Everything I've been through means nothing if I quit too soon. I choose a life without you and me knowing all the facts — the truth. Is this the right Destiny?" I paused and said quietly, "Are you happy?"

She chuckled without humour. "Happy. Yes, I'm happy. I feel stronger, more confident. I'm proud of my skills, I'm proud to know that you can trust me to watch your back as well or better than anyone else. And it's not like I want to go back to being helpless, to needing your help every time I'm...we're… in trouble. But if you're asking me if this is right, if you're asking if this feels right to me? Then the answer is no." She held her sais and pondered them for a moment.

"Xena. I've known for some time, that this wasn't... right. That I was living someone else's life, but I was willing to..."

She stopped again to compose herself.

"First you have to tell me everything, because whether you remember it or not we're partners now. I have a right to know what you might have to go through."

"Gabrielle, I can't..." But I was held by those eyes, as always. "You only need to know, that there are many worse places, worse alternatives than this."

"Then tell me. Tell me the worst. I can see the fear in your eyes. And I know you, Warrior. If you're afraid, I know that it's at least partly about me. Right?" I nodded. "So I have to know. What do we risk if you try again."

I still hesitated, and her voice changed, becoming softer.

"You once told me to tell one of my stories as though they were happening to someone else."

I cleared my throat and closed my eyes. I have become such a coward. I couldn't look at her while I tried to describe where I had been last.

She found herself back in Alti's vision come true. The snow drifting down without a breeze to direct it, last cold kisses as she was dragged towards the cross. And there was only onecross this time. And even in the agony of her broken back she felt the victory — her Bard had been saved somehow. That she had accomplished that much. But this time the nails were held against her wrists, and no ropes would be used to suspend her. She was trying to focus on Gabrielle alive as the first blow drove the spike through her skin. The second slipping through the gap in the bone and piercing the outer skin. Again . Feeling the spike expanding the fissure in the bone, and entering the wood. At the fourth blow she was screaming her agony, without shame. And it was done again to her right arm. She wondered why she had not fainted; instead the pain seemed to heighten everything, though it left her confused about the passage of time. Now she was being lifted up. Her body sliding down the cross; her weight straining at the spikes in her wrists. Then jerking upright, and her body's momentum causing her to lurch forward, the nails again holding her in place. By sheer force of will, opening her eyes to see Pompey, Pompey alive, smiling while the bundle of rags that lay at his feet was pulled up by the hair to reveal a woman.

"You see I kept my promise. She's alive. And now she can say good-bye to you. Well, perhaps not say it. And writing might be a problem, I guess. In fact, I'm afraid you really couldn't call her a bard anymore, could you? Perhaps after I let her go, she'll find some other sort of occupation?"

And knowing what he had done. Knowing that her thumbs had been removed. Her tongue, oh Gods, please, no, her tongue torn out, and the bastard, laughing, raising her head to make her look, and even at that distance knowing that there was nothing but madness in those lost green eyes. And then the anger, losing her own mind to it, losing it entirely. Determined to climb off that cross, some part of her managing still to see the fear in Pompey's eyes, that this devil woman might somehow succeed, and delighting in his terror, until there was only complete blackness and her own voice screaming...

A long silence filled the clearing. There were no bird cries, only the sea wind and the surf crashing below. She extricated herself from my arms and walked to the cliffs and stared out to sea. I knew what she would say before she turned.

"No Gabrielle. I won't quit now, only because it could be... painful. Would you?"

There is no sound from her, but I saw a movement, a short shake of her head.

Feeling almost a strange pride, I said, "The Fates said we have a common destiny, and if this isn't it, I have to keep on. I'm missing something, some clue..."

She broke in. "You said you go back to one particular day where all our destinies are formed. One day to find where our path diverted? What day? What day do you keep returning to?"

When would these explanations get easier? I hesitated, and then forged forward. "I find myself back in your parents' barn, with the Destroyer, and Hope—dead."

She turned away from me, so that I wouldn't see her reaction. I continued, speaking to her back. "If it could have been earlier than that day, I would..." But she doesn't need my excuses. With a sigh I went on. "I've tried every variation of that day I can think of. I leave you there, I send you to the Amazons, I make you promise to hide... last time we stayed together. We meet no one else other than your parents when you tell them who Hope was. Twice we've left without even doing that. It only seems to make things worse. It has to be something I do, but I can't figure out what it is."

"You did nothing, Xena, nothing."

The bitterness, coming from such an unexpected source, struck me like the sharpest weapon.

She continued to stare out to sea. "You know why I was always in a hurry to write down our adventures as soon as they happened? Why I'm one of the few Bards that actually wrote down their stories at all? It's because I had to be able to replay all of the emotions ...I never tried to make people see the story, I made them feel what happened. It's what made me..."

"The best I've ever heard." I finished for her.

She tossed a sad smile over her shoulder. "To do that meant that I had to be so open, so sensitive... I had to be the spirit of each of those emotions... and I can't do that anymore. Not and be with you. And I have to... be with you. That day, that awful day, you didn't...touch me, the way I needed, and I thought..." She stopped and turned to face me, her cheeks streaked with tears. "I put up my first wall that day, Xena. For my own protection."

"But I told you, how I needed you, what you meant to me..."

"Xena, I had just walked across Greece, alone, to find you. We had a moment when you found me in the forest, and that ended when you told me Hope was alive. Afterwards, waiting by myself while you buried them... nothing, not Chin, not even Dahak made me feel as empty as not having you hold me and love me right then... Then I made us start that stupid journey for my Truth, trying desperately to find something to fill that space, and being fooled again and again, until, just to survive, I found all I had to do was just close off that part of my soul...." she ended in a whisper."So I lost so much. My writing, my sense of who I was… and you. I lost you."

I don't think I had truly known heartbreak until that moment. "I thought...that day... you were in shock. Love? How could I know?" I dumbly repeated. "You were in shock..."

"I was in need, Xena...."

"It can't be that. It can't be that simple?" I spoke out loud.

She gave me a wan smile. "You should have listened. The only way to break the cycle,"

"Is through Love. It was always right in front of me." I stood and moved beside her, both of us now a few feet from the edge. She didn't look at my face when she spoke.

"You have to go back again. And don't do this for me. I'll always be the second best fighter in this team. And maybe in the short run that would be enough. But Xena, you don't need another Iolaus, I don't want to be Iolaus. If it was only about fighting, there's always Amarice." She saw that I didn't recognize the name. "Tara? Tara might have been a real contender for my job. But I think what I've lost is your loss, maybe more. Because there will come a time, when I'll make a decision as warrior, not Bard, and we'll both be lost...because it wasn't the right choice.

"So you have to go back." I looked at her profile. She was biting her lips, concentrating, "It isn't fair, but I want my stories back, Xena, I want the dreams and the pictures again, and... that's not the most important dream I lost..." She turned, reaching out to touch my hand. "...I would continue, like this, for you..."she paused. "But if there's a choice, No, I don't choose to live like this anymore."

There it was. A mutual decision. I tried to lighten the moment. "I should be going then..."

But I saw fear in her eyes for the first time. "Xena when you go back, ...I ... won't be left... here?"

I gathered her in my arms and said. "One destiny, Gabrielle. This will not have happened."

I was seized by a vision, a memory, a memory of this timeline…

She was rescuing me and I stood and watched as a soldier's sword was thrust into his belly, and she didn't pause for a heartbeat... We were being brought back from the dead, from our own battle, and we sat close and yet apart from one another... We had been crucified again, but we had passed beyond, to hell and back. .I lay on the ground and watched as she killed a half dozen or more Roman soldiers, single-handed, to protect me....

My eyes filled with tears, which she noticed as she turned. "Xena?" She drew me to her and I knew for that moment her only thought was for me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just...the memories... This Gabrielle…you… is such a noble woman. I would be killing you…"

"I know, Xena. So you owe this Gabrielle a promise, two promises. That you will tell me, tell that younger Gabrielle everything in the barn. Everything. Do you understand?"

"You're joking! You can't remember what that day was like..."

"Xena. I know. And everything depends on you telling her. About what will happen. About the Fates. The crucifixions, about Ephiny and the Amazons. She.., I… have to know. Promise me."

"What's the second promise?"

"You make sure, that whatever future we have, she will be able to defend herself and you. She doesn't want to be that child anymore. And if she asks for a sword, give it to her—because blood innocence is nothing. It's hollow without… without our souls, our souls joined."

"Then I promise." That was all. It was done.

She tightened her hold on me, and wiped her tears with back of her hand.

"Just now, you regained the memories, you remember it all now, don't you?"

I nodded soberly.

"Then you tell me. Are you happy as we are now?" she asked.

"Happy? What's that?" I tried to laugh. "What about you?"

"No. I need to know how you are. You aren't happy, are you?"

She saw the answer in my eyes. She shook her head.

I picked her up and said, "So I'll try again."

She grew worried again, and asked, "To go back, to start it again, you have to…?"

I nodded, and she teared up, but didn't make a move to stop me.

I kissed her hand with all the tenderness I had, and then released her. And moved to the cliff.

I heard her say softly, "You are the love of my life, that will never change..."

And with that, I jumped of the cliff and down, far down into crashing sea.

Her cry, "Xena!" followed me down towards the rocks.