The Lock and the Key

To decipher you, to understand the madness and the anger, the joy and the laughter... I know the best of you and the worst of you, all of it held fast in your eyes and the line of your lips. I know you as well as I know myself, as if we wear the same skin and share the same memories.

When you fall, I feel it.

Gabrielle tries to stay awake and catch that brief moment, the one where Xena lets her guard down and hidden emotions break free, tripping over themselves to be noticed by anyone. And Gabrielle imagines her own hands reaching out, cupping each one and whispering to them, speaking words of encouragement and of love.

But sleep always comes. And that fantasy vision never comes true.
With the morning, it is as if the mask never slipped.

*

Gabrielle keeps certain stories to herself.
Like the one about Xena's tears, silent and reluctant, eagerly brushed away before gentle hands could caress them off a frozen cheek.
Like the one about Xena's kisses, rushed and anxious, waiting for the fingers of death to grip tightly before they are allowed to bloom.

Those are scrolls never to be written, kept instead in a fine box, all gold and bright.
It rests, warmly tended by a bard's hands, next to Gabrielle's heart... sharing room with unrealized dreams and other lives. And just before dusk, Gabrielle reaches in.
She takes out one and it becomes the lullaby of her slumber, all soft and revealing, all contours and glances, everything Xena and nothing else.

*

You are my finest tale. Strong and proud, wrapping me up in your trembling arms. And I feel your heart beating, fast as hooves upon the dirt. You don't let me go. And I never want to lose you like you have lost me.

Then, Gabrielle sees it, clear and cold, reflected in Xena's gaze.
A haunted edge, a sadness like no other. A wisp of that fear and ache. The look of disconnect, trying hard to believe in miracles when all seems forfeit.
And Gabrielle knows this particular story will go under lock and key, kept in that box inside her body, loved and cried over... like so many of the others.