I don't own anything, yadda yadda yadda.
Holy God protect us Lord. I've crossed over to the dark side.
A surprise downpour awakened Xena from a deep disorientating sleep about an hour before sunrise. She cursed under her breath and began gathering up her weapons and armor to get them out of the rain that was stinging her skin.
"Gabrielle, wake up, we need to build a tent." It seemed odd that her friend hadn't been awakened by the cold rain.
There was no answer. Xena stopped rolling up her bedclothes and looked around. It hadn't been a surprise downpour after all; what was dry, rock-hard ground beneath her sleeping mat was now pliant and pooling water and her bedclothes were sopping wet all the way through. It had been raining like that for hours, and Xena did not see Gabrielle anywhere. She sprang up to call for her and quickly crumpled back to the earth with a splash as her legs were apparently paralyzed. She'd been drugged.
---
Gabrielle came to awareness in the darkness under the cold downpour as she was dragging her uncooperative body through the forest. One of her legs was stiff and seemed to be defying her wishes to walk. It dragged behind her awkwardly as she fought with it. She didn't know where she was, where she had just come from, nor where she was going, but she was running from something. Her conscious mind slowly caught up with her movements and she screamed in sudden agony and fell to the mud beside a knotted tree. The stiff and defiant leg was dislocated at the hip and badly broken in the shin. She reached for it in pain and discovered her wrists were broken as well, and her clothes were in shreds. Shivering in the cold rain only hurt her battered muscles more and Gabrielle soon passed out in exhaustion.
---
Xena managed to muscle herself up onto Argo and began riding around in search of Gabrielle. It was useless to track her, the rain was distorting all of the impressions in the earth, and so Xena attempted to cover as much ground as possible in the hopes of being able to spot her friend's golden hair somewhere in the dark thicket. She rode for hours in increasing fear, and when the sun began to set, she knew she would never be able to find her in this forest. Not without help.
Argo brought Xena practically into the saloon where the jovial voice of Joxer cut through the rumbling murmur of bar patrons like nails on a chalkboard. She stormed in, the effects of the drug completely worn off by then, and grabbed Joxer firmly by the arm.
"Ow." He said, turning and swatting at her hand. "Xena--" he stopped when he looked up at her, his face falling cold at the sight of her. "By the gods, Xena, what happened?"
"Gabrielle is gone. I think she was kidnaped."
"Kidnaped?? By who?"
"I don't know, I was asleep. I'm not sure it matters. Joxer, I need your help to find her."
Joxer nodded, fear and concern in his eyes, and followed Xena out.
"I still don't understand how she could have been kidnaped." He was saying as they rode across the field towards the place where Xena had awakened. "Xena, I've seen you come out of a deep sleep and chakram the heads off of squirrels that hopped too close to your campsite."
They reached the place and Xena jumped down off of Argo. "I was drugged, Joxer. I don't even know how long I've been asleep. It may have been days."
Joxer dismounted as well. "Can't we just track her?"
"No, the flood is erasing all of the impressions in the ground."
"So what can we do?"
"In order to find her I'd have to comb this entire thicket, and I simply can't do that by myself fast enough. Gabrielle is probably badly hurt or dying somewhere. We'll call the campsite the middle of the forest. I need you to take the eastern side and I'll take the west and we'll meet up in three days at the other side, near the river." She turned to go her way.
"Maybe if we asked some of the villagers to help," Joxer began, but Xena turned and shook her head in disagreement.
"No," She said sadly, "Since I have no idea who would have done this, I can't trust anyone but you. It's up to us to find her before her time runs out." She mounted Argo and turned her to the west.
"Xena," Joxer called. "The villagers were saying if it keeps raining like this, the thicket could be the river by that time."
"Then pray for the drought to return." She said over her shoulder, and galloped Argo away.
Joxer searched hard and long through the freezing rain, until well after the sun had set, and would have continued through to dawn if he had been able to bear the cold any longer. He finally sat down beneath a sheltering tree and fell into a fitful sleep.
---
When Gabrielle awoke it was in the very first stages of dawn, and it had stopped raining. She managed to pull herself out of the mud she'd sunk into and began half crawling, half dragging herself in the direction she'd been heading the night before. She was still running from something, even though she didn't know what, she knew she couldn't stay in one place for too long.
The cold rain had done her no good; she now had a wet, racking cough and could not stop shivering even as the sun grew quickly hot and turned the thicket into an oven. Her body was simply losing her fight and Gabrielle passed out again only a few yards from her tree.
Suddenly there were soldiers all around her, jeering each other on. She woke and found herself cornered in a cell with no windows and three or four men were beating her and tearing at her clothes, threatening that they were going to rape her until she died. Gabrielle was screaming out for Xena but one of the soldiers had kicked her in the throat and she couldn't yell loud enough for anyone to hear above the chants of the men.
--
Joxer awoke to the quiet early morning sun, thanking the gods for stopping the rain. He stripped out of his wet armor and hung it on a branch to dry, leaving on a damp cotton shirt and wet pants, and picked up his sword to look for a quick meal before he continued his search for Gabrielle.
He had only gone about 20 yards from his campsite when he began to hear the sound of someone crying. "Xena?" He called. He didn't think of her as one who would cry, but he'd never seen her as panicked as he had the day before. As he climbed up a hill, though, Joxer spotted Gabrielle laying in the mud, in a feverish sleep, crying out in terror. "Oh, no," he said under his breath, and ran to her. "Gabrielle!!"
Joxer was on his knees beside her in a flash. He gently took a hold of her black and blue body and turned her over, cradling her up out of the mud as much as he could. She only half awoke from her nightmare and began crying out and hysterically trying to fight free from Joxer's arms.
"No! No!! Let me go!! Oh, please, let me go!!!"
She was thrashing and Joxer knew she was hurting herself worse. He grabbed a hold of her more firmly to try and still her movements. "Gabrielle, stop, I'm not going to hurt you. Gabrielle, wake up! It's me, Joxer. Gabrielle??"
The dream peeled away from her green eyes and she looked up at him in disbelief. "Joxer?" She whispered. She was pretty much naked in her tattered clothes and ice-cold to the touch. Joxer peeled out of his now-dry shirt and covered her with it as best he could. "Joxer??"
"It's me, Gabby. I've got you."
Her arms came out of their defensive position and wrapped around his neck and body with surprising strength. Gabrielle clung to him and shook as loud sobs wracked her body. He held her gently, trying not to press into any of the hundreds of bruises and cuts that covered her, and put his cheek to her head. "I've got you now." He whispered, rocking her gently.