Snake had been sitting on the porch swing for longer than he cared to admit. He was cold from the snow blowing around him but barely noticed. It was the ring under his fingers that had his attention. The one he spun around his finger when he was nervous and ran his thumb over when he was lonely. It was hard to think that it might not be there forever, that some day sooner rather than later he would take his dad's wedding band off his finger and break his vows.
Anymore he couldn't help but think that wearing it broke his vows more than taking it off. Who was he to insist she stay? What kind of man ripped his wife and her child away from everything they knew? Even with those thoughts in his mind he knew he could never follow her to Greece and never come back. She didn't belong here and he didn't belong there. They were caught in this rift of not belonging and dragging each other into an alien world.
Sitting there in the cold he knew it killed him, he could see it killing her. She was falling and it was his fault for asking her to stay. He loved her. Loved her like madness, more than his life and even his sanity. That was what he would lose if he took that ring off and gave her the freedom he knew she deserved. He wasn't from her world. He wasn't the Greek warrior that should be at her side and that thought alone killed what little warmth Snake still had. He felt colder on the inside then the outside.
Plissken glanced down at the band on his finger. The Air Force wings etched into the platinum caught the winter light and he felt dead. If you truly love then you let what you love free. He had to do it or at least give her the option. He liked to think he was a courageous man but now that strength and his hope failed him. Let her free. Freedom. Wasn't that what he fought for? How could he deny her the same?
The thoughts went over and over. Free her and kill what was left of him. Still there was no choice but the one he had before him. He had to give her the choice to go home even if it was good-bye. How long would it be; years, maybe it would be the last time he saw her? She'd go back to being the past, history, something long ago that held his heart. The choice hurt beyond anything he could imagine. All the torture of his past was nothing in this moment. To hurt at the hands of another was easy. Blame was elsewhere but to turn on yourself? His fingers left the band and flexed in a futile attempt to drive off the growing numbness.
"Xena, I… You should go home to your people if it's what makes you happy. I love you too much to keep you here with me. I can't hurt you like this anymore baby. I don't want you to go but you need to know you can. I want you to live your life and…. And…I can't go back. I belong here."
Snake spoke the words to himself under his breath and started to cry. Snake brushed them away from his good eye and felt the burn beneath the patch from the tears that couldn't form. She was his life and she needed to be free to choose. Plissken tried to reassure himself but it was no comfort for the pain. Being in love meant giving up and he hated to admit he'd knew this was coming for a long time.
He took a deep breath glancing at the band on his finger. He needed to talk to her now before his courage failed. It was time to let his Princess free. Standing he headed for the house with more fear than he'd felt walking into New York Max with a death sentence injected in his veins. No, this would be worse and no one, even he himself, would ever convince him otherwise.