Waiting
A Xena Warrior Princess FanFic
Death was nothing new to her. She had seen it, skirted its edges, and even experienced it. Each encounter had been different with no cohesion or relation. Even as finality crept up on her, she realized all those experiences had been mere flirtations, like a strange courtship with an uneasy lover.
She had known she would die in battle so when the moment came, there was no shock or fear, just acceptance. The lack of pain, however, surprised her. She had thought it would be overwhelming, yet she felt nothing, heard nothing. She was neither hot nor cold nor aware of her surroundings. For that moment, she just was.
Scenes from her life played out before her eyes. That, too, was not as she had expected. Instead of brief flashes from beginning to end, they came slowly, almost as if she was reliving them, yet forced to be a silent participant as events unfolded. The starting point was not a childhood memory, but the day she met Xena. Her mouth moved in the parody of a laugh, the sound smothered by the blood bubbling up inside her throat. In a way that was the day her life truly began, the day her story started. She still remembered the heady excitement of leaving home, the drive to follow this stranger without even understanding why. It had taken years for her to fully grasp the enormity of her decision and accept that what she had thought was a young woman's impulse had in fact been the answer to a calling, a calling that had come as a whisper on the wind, a calling that she had not realized she had answered until Rome, a calling fulfilled as the battle lust took over and she stepped into the role for which she had been destined.
In that moment, the warrior awakened. Though she would always be a bard, she was so much more. At the time, she found the revelation ironic as the final chapter of the story seemed to be playing out. She accepted that fate as an inevitable part of her life with Xena. Wherever her soul mate went she gladly followed, happy to see through what she believed to be the end at Xena's side. Yet her life continued through unsought intervention and she had to learn how to reconcile the two parts of herself into a whole that made sense. Through trial and error she found a balance, discovering new things about herself with each passing day. Every new discovery brought an added surprise as she found the more she learned about her own make-up and motivations, the more she learned about Xena. She moved on through more tragedies and triumphs, growing even more wise in life and love until Japa. Until the day she lost everything that mattered. A light inside her went out with Xena's passing, the girl that was the bard ceased to exist and in her place the woman warrior fully emerged. Bards cannot exist without a soul and part of hers was lost that day.
A hardness had settled in, an edge she had lacked before as she realized with bitter irony that only through losing Xena did she truly understand her. After that she knew what it was to only live for the fight. Not that she loved fighting any more than before, she didn't. What she loved was how the fighting took her out of herself. It was automatic, something that she could do without thinking yet occupied her mind, something that kept the ghosts and demons at bay. So she fought on, letting the years roll by, never giving another thought to life or love but simply doing the only things she knew to do: fight and survive.
With the end drawing near, she looked back not with regret, but acceptance. She had become who she was meant to be and her story would close accordingly. The last of her memories faded and she rose, sparing only a brief thought at the strangeness of looking down at her own broken body. A light appeared before her, utterly startling in its brilliance. As she marveled at the sight, a familiar figure emerged.
"Come on Gabrielle, it's time to go."
Laughing happily, she threw herself into Xena's waiting arms. "I knew you'd come for me." She sighed in contentment as she held Xena close, "Just like you have so many times before."
Xena smiled and took her hand. "Care to take one last journey with me?"
Gabrielle smiled. "Yes, it's what I've been waiting for."