Nowhere

by lexxie r

Post-FIN. Xena’s in limbo. Gabrielle’s in Egypt. And Eve and Virgil are...where? Very boring. Just a bunch of talking and thinking.

Nowhere

by Lexxie

*****

DISCLAIMER: The Plotless Wonder does not own the characters and events of Xena: Warrior Princess.

RATING: PG

SUMMARY: Post-FIN. Xena's in limbo. Gabrielle's in Egypt. And Eve and Virgil are...where? Very boring. Just a bunch of talking and thinking.

A/N: I am beyond rusty. Consider yourself warned.

*****

She broke off in mid-sentence and stared at the empty air over my left shoulder. Reflexively, I looked behind me. There was nothing there but the scattered, faceless few in the tavern. I turned back to her, frowning slightly.

"What is it?" She didn't say anything. "Eve?"

Her eyes snapped back to me. "Sorry. Did you say something?"

"No. Just-- You seemed distracted there for a second."

A look of uncertainty flashed across her face, but it was gone in an instant. "Just tired, I guess." She stretched her legs underneath the table and her foot brushed against mine. Impulsively, I drew my legs away until only my toes rested on the floor and my heels touched the underside of my chair. She didn't seem to notice, occupied as she was with rolling the kinks out of her long, pale neck.

I cleared my throat.

"Yeah, I'll bet. You're a long way from home."

She gave me a small smile. "So are you."

I couldn't quite meet her eyes so I looked at the middle of her forehead while I talked. "My home's where I go these days."

"Mm."

"Yeah." I shrugged. She had freckles. I didn't know if they were a new development, or if I had just never paid such careful attention to her forehead before to notice. "Been going around, doing odd jobs. Helping people. Righting wrongs."

"Singing songs," she said quietly, almost to herself, but I still heard it. I let my eyes meet hers without realizing it. Something inside me twisted at her expression, and after a moment, I dropped my gaze. My fingers found a splinter on the edge of the table and started picking at it.

"Yeah," was all I could say.

Her hands rested near the edge of the table, one on top of the other. Her fingers were slender and unmarked, almost white, as if she'd never held a sword in her life. They were easier to look at than her eyes, which were strange and ageless and left little doubt about what she really had been, what she still is now. They were her mother's eyes. I could feel them picking me apart.

I turned in my seat, hoping that the barmaid would come over and distract her attention from me. I finally caught her eye from across the room and waved her over, but she turned away, giggling at the man who'd slapped an arm around her waist. I called out, but the sound was swallowed by the sudden boom of their laughter. Across the table, Eve was silent, staring into the back of my head. And before I knew it, my seat was clattering to the ground.

"How about some service around here?"

It came out in a yell. The barmaid stopped flirting and looked at me like I was a dead cockroach she'd just discovered in her bath water. The abrupt silence and wide-eyed stares would have made me laugh if I didn't want so badly to beat on them for a while. Then maybe burn the whole tavern to the ground, just to be poetic.

I was a startled by the feel of cool hands wrapping around my arm.

"Virgil," she said softly.

I whipped my head around, eyes narrowed, ready to shake her away. Then those unassuming, alabaster hands clamped around my arm like a python around its meal. Her expression hadn't changed, not really, but her eyes bored into mine in unmistakable warning.

Don't make me, they said.

And then, I did laugh.

I heard her say something brief and inconsequential to the rest of the room before she pulled me through the door. I stumbled behind her in the dark, nearly knocking her over as we rounded the corner. Her hands tightened around my arm to the point of bruising, as if she was trying squeeze the hilarity out of me. I kept chuckling until we reached the stables and she threw me down on the mud.

Her face was shadowed as she looked down at me. "Get it all out."

"What, no sermon?"

She didn't say anything, but just stood there waiting for me to settle down. It was only then that I noticed her clothes. The threadbare wrap I remembered from before was gone. In its place were a loose blouse and a pair of baggy trousers that covered a lot more, and no doubt left her a lot warmer.

"What happened to the recovering prostitute look?"

If she took offense, she didn't show it. "It got too windy one night so I traded it for this."

"Where were you?"

"I don't know."

My face must have asked a question because she shrugged. "If the place had a name, I generally stayed away."

I nodded slowly; she'd made herself well-known back in her glory days, and no amount of preaching would have been enough to convince the common people of her newfound goodwill. I knew from experience. I guess she did, now, too.

Suddenly, I couldn't remember what I'd found so funny. I sighed and leaned back until my weight was resting on an elbow, feeling tired for no real reason other than the fact that I didn't know how else to feel. I stared up at her, oversized clothing and dark hair fluttering in the breeze.

She stretched out a hand and I took it after a moment, pulling away as soon as I had steadied myself. I brushed off the dirt from the seat of my pants, then rubbed the sore spot on my arm where her hands had gripped me. She didn't look apologetic. She didn't look anything.

"Greece has a name," I pointed out.

"That's different."

I guess it is.

*****

She didn't have a horse, and I lost mine two days ago while I was drunk and playing cards, so we had to walk back to the brothel where she was staying. I joked, not at all pleasantly, about the "recovering prostitute" apparently having had a relapse, but she told me that it was the only place in town that didn't ask who she was, and left it at that.

Me, I had nowhere to stay, so I guess I should have been grateful. But I didn't bother to correct the impressions of the men who lurked outside the entrance and made rude gestures at her as we walked in.

Wordlessly, she led me up the stairs, past dim hallways and muffled sounds, and into her room. There was one window, and no chairs.

"It's small, but the mattress is nice," she said, closing the door behind us. She caught my look and added, a little hastily, "And I could throw some blankets and pillows on the floor."

"What's wrong with sharing the bed?"

She blinked, and I couldn't help feeling a spark of petty triumph at catching her off guard, if only briefly.

"Well, I didn't think you'd be comfrotable--"

I smirked. "Look, I think all the beds here are meant to fit two or more people."

Not waiting for a response, I sat on the bed and began unlacing my boots. She remained standing, as if trying to decide whether it was safe to come closer. As if she couldn't just snap my neck if I tried anything. It was interesting, but not surprising, how she could look so wary without looking weak.

"How long are you in town for?" she asked.

I switched boots. "I don't know yet."

"How long have you been here, then?"

"Two days, I think." I stretched out on the bed, arms crossed behind my head. She still hadn't moved from her spot. "You?"

"This morning. I didn't pay much for the room, but the owner told me I have to leave by tomorrow night unless I wanted to start earning my keep."

"Right. Wouldn't want to hold up business, would you?" She didn't answer; of course, I didn't expect her to. "Something wrong with your feet?"

Her clothes made a faint rustle as she moved to the other side of the bed and sat at the foot of it, facing me. The room was too dark for me to see her face, but I saw the tense way her fingers were locked together on her lap.

"When did you find out?" she finally asked.

"A few months ago. The ship I was on docked near Eire. It was the only thing the locals could talk about."

She looked down at her lap. "It would be."

I crossed my legs in a pointless attempt to be comfortable. The moonlight slanted through her window and made pale blue patterns on the ceiling. They were the only light spot in the entire room.

"It ticked me off, listening to them."

She looked up. "Why?"

"They weren't exactly complimentary about her. Most of them, anyway. Apparently, your mom made a pit stop there when she was...you know."

"Yeah."

"It surprised me. I thought everyone knew she was a hero now."

"She wasn't always a hero." It sounded strained, the way she said it, like it was an old thought stumbling into words for the first time. "You just never knew that person. Neither of us did."

"Might've been better if we had. Then maybe this would be easier."

She was silent for a long moment, her head bowed and turned toward some dark corner beside the bedpost. I could just make out her profile, the dark, remote contours surrounded by the unkempt cloud of her hair. I knew without seeing that there wouldn't be a trace of sorrow was on that face, not a frown or furrow on that smooth marble that would show me her grief.

I knew that she felt it, just the same.

"My mother is dead, Virgil." Her voice was quiet steel. "It doesn't get easier."

"Don't remind me," I said, with more bitterness that I'd intended.

Her eyes snapped to me so quickly that I briefly thought she'd done some permanent damage to them. The immediate way she went rigid, as if it was taking all her willpower to keep from springing on top of me, almost made me inch away from her. Almost. Instead, I uncrossed and re-crossed my legs.

"Is that what this is?" she said, her voice taking an angry edge. "You think I deserve this? Payback for your father?"

I looked at her in silent incredulity. "Don't you think that if I could pick a way to get back at you for killing my dad, it wouldn't be something that would make me as miserable as I am right now? Because it may surprise you to know that I'm not too thrilled that Xena's dead. In fact, I hate that she's dead, and I hate that Gabrielle's gone." I paused, belatedly realizing that I'd raised my voice. "Do you see me doing a victory dance?"

Her posture slackened slightly. "Then what did you mean by--"

I sighed and cut her off with a dismissive wave of my hand. "Look, I haven't exactly been in my right mind lately, so I wouldn't take what I say very seriously, if I were you."

It wasn't completely true; I knew what I'd said, and why. But she nodded a little as if she understood.

Neither of us spoke for several long minutes. I watched as the tension ebbed away from her, loosening her muscles until I thought the only thing keeping her upright was her reluctance to lie down beside me. Her chin had drifted down to her chest, and I couldn't tell if she was still awake.

"Eve."

I jostled her knee with my foot and her head sprang up. "Hm."

"Get some sleep."

She murmured something unintelligible, but still didn't move from the foot of the bed.

After a moment of deliberation, I rolled off the bed, gathered the top sheet and my pillow together, and dropped them all on a pile on the floor. I sat down and began arranging them into a makeshift bed, trying not think about why I'd just sacrificed a perfectly good mattress.

My movements must have roused her from her half-sleep. Frowning, she leaned over the side of the bed and watched as I wrapped the sheet around my body.

"What are you doing?"

I punched the pillow once before dropping my head onto it. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Sleeping on the floor."

"Well?"

Her mouth opened once, then closed, then opened again. "I thought you wanted to share the bed."

I rolled onto my side so my back was facing her. "I changed my mind."

I drew my knees up a little to my chest, a boyhood habit that I'd never been able to shed. The floor was hard, but not as cold as I'd expected. I tucked my knees in closer and closed my eyes, burrowing my cheek into the pillow. I could feel her staring at my back.

"That can't be comfortable for you," she said.

"It's fine. Let me sleep."

The room was silent for a few seconds. Then the bed creaked a little, followed by the soft whisper of the sheets being drawn. She didn't say anything else, but I knew from the sound of her breathing -- too long and too deep, as if she could never get enough air in her lungs -- that she was still awake and thinking hard.

I endured it for a while. When I spoke, I kept my face turned away from her.

"I loved her, too, Eve. I loved them both."

She didn't say anything -- not then, and not for the rest of the night.

*****

Waking up was strange. My left arm was numb, my entire back was stiff, my pillow stank of cheap perfume and gods knew what else, and I felt a line of saliva running from the corner of my mouth. I was blinking away the remaining sleep from my eyes when I realized that I might wake up like this for the rest of my life. I might begin all of my mornings on the floor of some strange room, covered in a stranger's bed sheets and my own drool. I would sleep without dreaming, wake up feeling dead, and I wouldn't care.

Did my dad ever feel this way? He must have. When he was older, when his body finally began to fail him, and the yesterdays became the only good thing about the todays...surely he must have felt the resignation, welcomed it.

And yet, I'd never seen him more alive than when he rejoined Xena and Gabrielle to save the same person who would later kill him, regardless of what she calls herself now. The same person who, last night, dragged me out of a tavern and into a brothel so I wouldn't have to sleep in a barn again.

Now, that same person was crying.

I could hear her, even though it was painfully obvious that she was trying hard to keep quiet. I don't imagine that she cries often enough to know how to disguise it.

In complete defiance of my aching back, I sat up. I peeked over the edge of the bed, squinting at the blades of sunlight coming from the window.

There she was, curled up at the far edge of the bed, in a near-perfect imitation of my own sleeping position last night: knees tucked in as far as they would go, hands pinned between the pillow and her face, back turned defensively to the rest of the room. The only difference was the quaver in her shoulders as she tried to choke down her tears.

I stilled for a moment and tried to imagine how she would look with tears in her eyes.

I let out a sigh and sat down beside her, careful to not make contact. She stiffened completely when she felt the bed sag. Her back was so rigid that it almost hurt to look at her. When I spoke, I was surprised by how soft my voice was.

"I know...that it hurts. And I know that that sounds completely lame, and no, this is not me trying to remind you of the fact that my father's dead, even though I'm still hurting from that, too. My point is that we're both hurting here. And, well," I shrugged awkwardly, even though I knew she couldn't see it, "it's okay to let yourself feel it. It's not a...a daughter-of-Xena thing, or a preacher-of-Eli thing. Everyone feels like this when they're mourning. You can still be...you...and still be miserable."

I bit my lip and gave her a sideways glance. That hadn't come out right at all.

"What I meant was...." What did I mean, anyway? I looked down at her, and if a back could look expectant, hers did.

I sighed again, scratching my head out of frustration more than anything else. "Listen to me," I muttered. "I'm not a therapist, I'm a poet. And not even a very good one." Then louder, "You know what I was going to say?"

She didn't answer.

"I was going to say that it'll make you feel better if you let it out." I allowed myself a humorless grin. "As if you haven't heard that all your life, right? In fact, you've probably said that to people a couple of times yourself. 'You want some spiritual healing? Go be one with your inner child. Get in touch with your emotions, let them all out.'" I shook my head. "That's basically what it's all about, isn't it? Not to take anything away from Eli, I'm sure he's a great guy, but when you get right down to it, all it is is just telling people to help themselves. And that's probably the last thing you want to hear right now."

After a moment, I added, "Gods know it's the last thing I want to hear."

I fell silent, sagging my shoulders and staring down at my hands. Dimly, I wished that I'd stayed quiet in the first place. My words or my silence -- they were both the same. Neither helped anything. But the silence was easier to maintain, and she seemed to agree. I let my thoughts wander past us, unspoken and unfinished, the way most of them do when I'm with her.

Then Eve spoke.

"I was at a funeral when I found out."

Startled, I raised my head and looked over at her. She hadn't moved at all.

"It was just outside Ch'in," she continued quietly. "He and his family were in exile. He'd been sick for a long time, but it got a lot worse. His wife and I, we prayed over him by his bedside, but he died a few days after I got there. His widow wanted me to give a blessing over his body at the funeral. She wouldn't have understood all the words, but there was no one else to do it.

"We'd just lit the pyre when this rider came up, covered in fur from head to toe. It took me a second to see that it was a woman. An amazon. She handed me a scroll, saluted, then rode off. I recognized Gabrielle's handwriting."

She paused then, and I thought she wouldn't say any more. But she went on, her voice wavering just enough for me to notice.

"And then-- and then I still had to say the blessing. Because there was no one else, and his family was waiting for me. I had to say it and act like I meant it, and the whole time I just wanted to fall on my knees and scream and then die eventually. I was wondering why I was there when I should've been with her. What was I doing, praying over the body of some man I didn't even know while his widow watched my cry, thinking that I'm crying for him...."

I saw the way her shoulders trembled, the way one hand fisted around a lumpy corner of the pillow.

"'Healer, heal thyself,'" she said, bitterness lacing the words. "I left her before I even got to know her. Went off and tried to save the world by preaching about love because no one else would do it, and I couldn't even be there to save my own mother."

After a moment of hesitation, I said, "Do you really think you could've saved her?"

She didn't answer immediately, and for a second I worried that I'd said the wrong thing. Then, she whispered, "No." I heard her take a shaky breath. "But I should have been with her. I should have stayed."

"You couldn't have known."

She didn't argue; she knew it was true. She was silent for a long moment.

"I see her sometimes." Her voice was even quieter than before. "I don't know if I'm going crazy, or if it's because she's my mother and she really can do it."

"You see her," I repeated slowly.

"Not as much now, but before, right after I found out...every day, almost. It was torture. Sometimes she tells me she's sorry, and I can't figure out why she's apologizing. I was the one who deserted her."

She stopped as if waiting for an answer. I fumbled for a reply. "What else does she, uh...say?"

"I don't know. Most of it, I don't understand."

"Oh."

"Maybe I'm imagining it," she said softly. "I must be. Maybe I just want to think that she's at peace so I can be, too."

"Maybe not." I was surprised at how hopeful I sounded. I haven't been hopeful about anything for a long time. "The dead can hear our thoughts, right? Maybe we can hear theirs, too."

She didn't reply, probably lost in another regret. I guess I should have left her to it, but suddenly I dreaded the prospect of silence, of letting my thoughts rip me apart from the inside while I pretended at indifference. Maybe I was being selfish, but I was also growing desperate.

"I dreamed about my dad, too, for a while," I said haltingly. "I don't know if it was really him, but it helped. I guess it kept him alive in my head until I could let him go."

I expected her to sound defensive, or stung, but not tentative.

"How long was it until you could let him go?"

I didn't answer right away. I still haven't, I wanted to say, but for some reason the words wouldn't come. My dad told me once that the most important things to say are the things that go unspoken. I've never believed him so completely until now.

"Virgil?"

She rolled onto her back, and now was staring up at me. The dark curls feathered across her pillow like rumpled velvet. Her blue eyes were wide and glimmering. I'd always had trouble meeting them; now I had trouble looking away.

I was right. With tears in her eyes, she looked beautiful.

"A long time," I said. I offered up a silent apology.

Her gaze was steady on mine, and surprisingly, I held it. This was not understanding, or even acceptance. But I knew the things that separated us and the things that bound us, and for once, I wasn't scared by them.

"I thought she could live forever," I said, not caring how small my voice sounded. "She's really gone, isn't she?"

Her face crumpled just a little.

"Yeah."

*****

She was going back to Greece, she'd said. Going back to the land of her mother, the land of her birth. It needed her almost as much as she needed it, now that Xena was gone.

Soon after our conversation, she'd handed me a pouch of money. She was feeling hungry, she'd said, would I go grab us some food? She wouldn't ask, normally, but she had to get her belongings in order before she left that afternoon. She didn't have a lot of belongings to begin with, but we both knew what she was getting at. The coins had clinked against each other as I tossed the pouch from one hand to the other. What did she want for breakfast? Oh, anything. She wasn't picky.

I didn't believe her for a second.

When I came back, my surprise wasn't at finding her gone, but at how big the room suddenly seemed with just me in it.

I restricted my thoughts to the practical and mundane while I ate the fruit I'd bought. I briefly considered squandering the money I had remaining at a gambling table and, later, in some harlot's bed. I was in the right place for it, after all, and the redhead I encountered in the stairs had made it perfectly clear that she wouldn't mind my company, as long as I could afford hers.

It was an interesting offer, but after I thought about it some more, I realized I wouldn't take it.

After all the fruit was gone, I stretched out on the bed and studied the ceiling. Morning faded into midday, and then into evening. When I finally lifted my head from the pillow, I noticed a long, dark strand of hair sitting across the indentation I'd made. I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and held it in front of my face, noting how it all but disappeared against the waning light in the room.

When he was younger, my dad's hair had been almost as black as my mother's. I was only about ten when the first strands of gray started appearing on his head, and even then I'd known that age alone hadn't put them there. At the same time, my mother's hair had still been as black as ever. I asked him why that was, and he'd explained that it was because women grew old from the inside out.

I blew at the strand of hair between my fingers, letting it drift invisibly to the floor.

He'd walked through life backwards, my dad, especially toward the end. There had been moments when his eyes would grow distant with his remembering, when his lips would curve upward just a little in memory. He never shared those memories with me, and I never asked, but sometimes I got the feeling that they were all that sustained him during his later years.

My mother thought he was foolish. He remembered too much, that was his problem. That was what she used to say, right up until he died, and even afterwards.

I've thought about that a lot, and I think that if you can remember without regretting, then you'll be just fine.

Coming to a decision, I stood up, stretched my back, then left the room with the money in hand. I brushed past the redhead on the way down the stairs again, but I didn't stop to talk to her. She raised an eyebrow at me, then shrugged. Your loss.

The street was filthy. I didn't know why I never noticed that before. My boots made wet sounds against the pavement as I walked the familiar path to the tavern; it must have rained earlier. I didn't notice that, either.

Outside the tavern, underneath one of the windows and untouched by the warm glow coming from inside, was a small table. Sitting around it and playing cards were four men; three of them were grizzled and grinning, and the fourth was clean-shaven and losing.

I cleared my throat, drawing their attention.

"An' what's the bother now, eh?" demanded one of the grizzled men.

I stepped forward and he peered at me, flinty eyes nearly disappearing into the wrinkles of his face, until recognition relaxed them. "Oh, it's you!" Chortling, he elbowed the man to his left. "Remember this one, Agrinus?"

Agrinus grunted.

"Came to test your luck at spades again, boy?" the man continued. He smiled with all five teeth.

"Actually, I came to get my horse back."

"Well, then, pull up a chair an' we'll deal you in. I think this boy here's about done, anyway." He winked at the hapless man sitting across from him. The frustration was stamped all over his freckled face. "How about it, eh?"

I shook my head. "I'm not playing you for her."

"What?" A bushy eyebrow slowly crept upward. "Best not to waste my time, boy. Either play or get used to walking."

I tossed the pouch of money on the table. It landed heavily, causing all four to start.

"I'll give you fifty-five dinars for her."

The man's pale eyes went from the pouch, then to me, then back to the pouch. "What is this?"

"More money than you'll get from him tonight, for starters." I nodded toward the young man, ignoring his surprised stare. "Well?"

He nudged Agrinus, who grunted and emptied the pouch onto his hand. He counted the coins, and bit into several of them just to be sure. After several moments, he raised his head. "Fifty-five, just like he says."

The old man stared up at me with unabashed interest. "That horse ain't worth that much."

I shrugged.

"You runnin' out of town?" he pressed.

The man opposite Agrinus, silent until now, gave me a rakish grin. "It's a woman, I'll bet. Married, wasn't she? The husband chasing you out?"

Well, he was almost right.

"Not that it's any of your business," I said, "but I just have somewhere else I need to be."

The old man kept up his scrutiny of me for a few seconds longer before finally shaking his head in amusement. I could tell that he didn't believe me.

"Aw, go on, then, if that's how you want it." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Stables in the back. Ain't even moved her."

I left them and made my way to the back of the tavern. Behind me, I heard him chuckling to his two friends. "I'll bet it was that Sybil...."

The mud squelched beneath my feet as I walked to the stables. My hand drifted into my pocket where I'd placed some of the remaining money from the pouch earlier.

"...he'd better leave town now, if he's ever goin' to. That Caleb is a damn big brute. And faster'n you'd believe...."

I led the mare out of her stall. He was right -- she wasn't worth fifty-five dinars. I'd probably lose her halfway to Greece, old and gimpy as she was. But at least I'd kept enough of the money to buy a replacement that was just as old and gimpy.

Reins in hand, I walked her back out to the street. The three old men saluted me with their winning hands as I went past. Their young, unwitting victim was too busy cursing his luck to look up.

"Better hurry on outta here, boy," the one opposite Agrinus called. "Whatever it is you're runnin' from, it must be serious, to buy back that old wreck."

I almost told them that I was running from that damn big brute, Caleb.

Instead, I said, "It's where I'm running to that can't wait."

The flinty-eyed one set down his cards and looked me over curiously. "An' where's that, eh? Entertain me, boy."

For a small moment, I considered telling them, these ancient three whom I'll never see again. I wondered if they would understand.

Where was I going? Back to Greece. Back to my father, to Xena. Greece, where the memories were most alive, and the regrets drew prodigals home. This was a nice town to get lost in, sirs, don't get me wrong. But now I know where to go to be found.

I smiled slightly.

"Home."

Then I pulled myself onto the saddle and didn't look back.

FINIS