| PROLOGUE |

"Xena…?"

I can always tell when she's about to appear. A heightened stillness fills the air for a moment, and a small wave clenches my chest—even now. Even after all these years.

She comes at night, mostly. Right when dusk falls to blackness. I'm more likely to be alone then, and I caught on quickly: It takes energy for her to appear. Even more if it's around other people. So we made an unspoken understanding: We meet like this in the quiet. We meet briefly, and wordlessly. It's a time for me to just take in the wonder, the comfort of her form. The familiar bronze glint of armor, the smooth black leather, the calloused hands, the broad shoulders. The bottomless eyes.

Xena, vaporous, and I, solid, stare and stare across the short distance of the fire-pit. I sit as still as a statue, almost as if moving toward her—which I long to do—would scare her away, dissolve her back into the gloom as if she'd never been there.

It feels a lifetime ago that she was able to appear by my side, to place an arm about my shoulders and kiss the top of my head, to smile her smile and to murmur encouragements. As the weeks and months passed, it'd taken more and more for her to materialize; our moments together became briefer and briefer, until I could only just feel the hint of her touch before she blinked out of the material realm once more.

At least this way, no effort exerted to conjure the feel of a warm embrace, to evoke the low tones of that voice, Xena can appear to me for as long as she's able. The strain of holding her body together shows only in taut, tiny movements of her hand muscles, a nearly imperceptible ripple that I first thought was merely imagined. Hundreds of evenings just like tonight, though, spent memorizing her form, have convinced me of everything and nothing.

"Xena?" I call out again softly into the stillness, beckoning her to appear. Long ago, I told myself that the anchor of my voice helps her spirit to focus its diffusion towards my mortal senses. I hold onto that thought. To any semblance of certainty, control. I find my hand reaching down involuntarily, coming to lightly rest on the chakram hanging from my belt. My own anchor.

I close my eyes against the evening's chill until I can sense the air become even heavier in a sudden shift. I angle my head down to the ground and let out a long breath; my ritual. Inhale, swallow against the aching fear that tonight might be the night our visits end…and…open.

She's here. Relief floods me from head to toe. One more shaky breath. Thank the Gods.

"Xena." As always, I'm unable to keep the release of tension from seeping into my tone. I feel my heart unclench and start beating again. My throat releases its knot. My own spirit, still tied to my flesh—for better or worse, each night I decide differently—feels as if it's uncoiling, stretching out toward the presence across the flickering flames.

Cautiously, I let my eyes follow. Once my gaze meets Xena's, I know I'll be stuck there, entranced until her eyelids fall abruptly, signaling her oncoming fade. So I start from the tips of her boots and slowly work my way up her frame. Same black leather up to the knees, same thighs, same thick hide and soft glow of armor, same strong neck and jaw, same mysterious hint of a smile, and those same blue orbs above it all, steady and nearly unblinking. Not a day older than she was the first time she appeared on a boat headed away from Japa—the day I was sure both of ours lives ended, but neither quite did.

Xena eternally young, eternally at her peak. I wouldn't have her spirit appear to me any other way, were I given any choice in this.

As for me, Time has settled its hand on my own features more than I care to know. I cannot recall the last time I paused before my reflection in a lake's water or shopkeeper's looking glass. The hollows about my eyes, the lines that tug at the edges of my lips—I soon stopped caring to see them mirrored back at me. Now I only catch the hint of my transformation in the jump of a villager's eyes when we meet: I look haunted.

I want to be haunted.

Gods, keep me haunted.

| CHAPTER 1 |

She looks more peaceful in her sleep than she truly is, Xena mused, not for the first time. Grimacing didn't seem to fit a spirit, but grimace she did. Her long-ago choice to remain half-attached to her body, holding her tall dark-haired form in spirit limbo, allowed the warrior to still feel such expressions work their way onto her ever-young face.

Gazing down on Gabrielle's still body, the warrior could feel a pulse of concern seize her being, followed by a wash of warmth as she was once more struck by the smaller woman's quiet grace. The years had done nothing to dim her beauty to Xena's eyes—even though she could mentally read that the bard felt far differently—and sleep eased the furrows from her soft features, reminding the warrior of the pair's more carefree years wandering the woods of Greece together.

Even when it had seemed that a band of grimy bandits was waiting around every corner, Xena recalled those days as full of laughter. Gabrielle's frequent memories, readable to Xena whenever they included the warrior's name, recalled the same, usually followed by a yearning to go back in time. Xena, I wish you were still here with me, would float up to the older woman's consciousness, before the bard could stop herself.

And then, like clockwork, came the next thought. Xena's gone, Gabrielle. She got the redemption she yearned for—and you'd never take that away from her, just because you miss her like Tartarus. Xena felt a pang every time she sensed her partner begin to mentally kick herself, trying to train out the self-pity as she imagined a disciplined fighter must.

I'm still with you, Gabrielle. Xena tried to beam her response directly to the bard's troubled mind. And I'll be here, waiting for you, for as long as it takes. A few times, she thought she had seen the blonde head lift up curiously in response to her silent vows, but then drop back down with a vigorous little shake. Back to work. Indulging fancies was the pastime of a younger self that the bard could hardly remember.

Throughout the cool of the evening, Xena kept drifting into fond reveries, passing time in her usual invisible vigil over Gabrielle's sleeping body—hours that felt as if they sometimes lasted for mere minutes, sometimes for entire lifespans, in the suspension of spirit time.

Gabrielle had always been a calm sleeper back in what the bard had once laughingly termed their "glory days," drifting off easily as soon as she rested her head upon their sleeping skin, and hardly stirring whenever Xena's hair-trigger instincts made the warrior leap up battle-ready two or three times each night. Gabrielle would only stir sleepily to pull Xena back down onto the soft fur, wrapping an arm around the warriors' middle and pulling herself into the warm crook of Xena's arm. And the younger woman would awaken each morning with a sunny grin, followed by a few good-natured grumbles about being cursed to share a bed with the earliest riser in the Known World.

Xena smiled ruefully as she remembered the exact sound of Gabrielle's voice and the precise wrinkle of her nose as she bustled about their campsite muttering. The warrior only let the memory pierce her for a few moments before she gathered her fighter's resolve and returned to gazing downward, rewarded to see green eyes slowly opening into gray dawn light.

Gabrielle had slept soundly this time, Xena noted. Good. But she'd been pushing herself to arise earlier and earlier of her own sense of duty, strapping on sais and chakram with grim efficiency and dousing the embers without her past fanfare of cheery humming and breakfast planning. She'd chew on some dried meat or berries later, without expression, as she steered Argo toward the nearby town, not pausing for rest or to take in a beautiful vista as she once would have.

Still, Xena felt gratitude that it'd been many moons since the nightmares chasing Gabrielle from Japa had ceased snapping the bard's small body upwards in sweaty panic each morning. Xena had watched with relief as the worst seemed to pass several years ago.

But lately the warrior had felt a familiar worry begin to rise up through her ethereal body more often, as she watched the younger woman fall into a stony torpor each evening after Xena begrudgingly drifted away from earth, forever losing the struggle to keep her spirit concentrated into dense matter for just one second more.

This morning, Xena felt her spirit-body vibrating with stronger concern than usual, much like that frightening night long ago when she'd first seen the bard experience this depth of despair, picking up a blade and beating a tree with it. Where has Gabrielle's light gone?

Only this time, with no Callisto to save Gabrielle from, and no other external demon to destroy in battle, Xena had watched her partner truly sink into the darkness that followed. The only dark that frightened the warrior more was the one that she'd sensed in the younger woman the few times that Gabrielle had let herself seriously consider what could happen if Xena's presence left her life permanently. It kept Xena returning evening after evening, year after year, helpless to do much but witness how strain etched itself into Gabrielle's features.

Last night, as she'd felt herself dissipate, Xena had sent out her usual hope that the bard could feel the intensity of her entire being radiating downwards, that it might act as some kind of balm. I've never left you, Gabrielle. Just like I promised. And trust me—I never will.

Then she'd watched her partner's compact form, still strapped into red leather half-armor, undo her sleeping skin and lay down with a long sigh that rolled through her bare torso. Her breathing quickly deepened as she sunk into a heavy sleep.