Day 550 (after 'A Family Affair')
Lila didn't know what to think. The past few days had been wonderful; her sister had been home, Xena had been far away and everything had been back to normal. And then it turned out that her sister wasn't her sister and Xena was definitely not far away.
Now the real Gabrielle was back, but the strange thing was that, to Lila, the demon who'd taken her place had seemed more familiar. The Gabrielle sitting across from her at the dinner table was far more different from the sister she's grown up with. She even looked different; her face was leaner, all traces of puppy fat long gone and her new Amazon clothes were unfamiliar. Her eyes were harder somehow, older. Not that that was surprising. Lila couldn't even begin to imagine all the things her sister had been through. Gabrielle had been raped, given birth to a child who was really a demon and had watched her die. She'd seen gods and ridden with Hercules and she'd lost her blood innocence. No one was really explaining what that meant because some things were easier when left unspoken, but Lila had a fairly good idea. There were rumours that her sister had killed a man. The same sweet Gabrielle who used to cry at the idea of drowning a kitten had taken a knife and stabbed it deep into warm flesh.
Lila glanced up at this new sister and quickly glanced away again. She wanted things to go back to the way they were and she didn't know how to even begin to get there. Gabrielle was older now and far away. The sister she had loved so dearly was almost a stranger.
And then there was Xena. Tall, dark, brooding Xena. Lila hadn't dared to talk to her yet and she couldn't fathom why her sister would be friends with such a woman. Lila's gaze darted quickly to her father, wanting to see what he made of the situation, but his face, as always, was unreadable.
Sweet Gabrielle. Sweet, sweet Gabrielle. Herodotus found it hard to look at her now. The pain of an innocence lost hurt his heart. She had always been his favourite, he had always loved her beyond all reason, and he had always known that her path would not be an easy one.
'I'm not like other girls.' He'd heard her say it to Lila the night she left, long after she thought everyone else was asleep, but he had lain awake and listened to his darling, to his heart leaving perhaps forever with the beautiful warrior princess and it was out of love that he's let her go. She wasn't like the other girls. She never had been.
He remembered when she was small and she would race around the village with the boys. Lila had been happy to stay at home and learn weaving and cooking with the women, but not his impetuous, beautiful, lightning-quick Gabrielle. She was faster than the boys, stronger too, and she could talk her way out of anything because she was clever, cleverer than him. She loved to watch him write, so he taught her even though it was forbidden for girls to learn. He took her into the woods and together they traced out letters with a stick in the sand, her pudgy baby fingers clasped over his calloused old ones. She would bite her lip in concentration and he loved her all anew. Soon she was writing whole words, then sentences, then stories.
And what stories. The girl was a dreamer. The women of the village saw it as a weakness and spoke to her sharply, but not Herodotus. He loved to hear her stories, her wild tales of dragons and unicorns, of kings and monsters and princesses. And she would ask him such questions. She wanted to know everything about the world and he wanted to show it to her, but he didn't know how He'd never even been to Athens, let alone anywhere outside of Greece. As she grew older, she wandered further and further afield even as Lila stuck closer and closer to home. Time and again he wished that Gabrielle had been a son. Not because he wanted a son – he loved his golden-haired girl more than words could say – but because she didn't behave the way that girls were meant to behave and the village was suspicious of her for it.
And then the other thing had started. The boys Gabrielle had raced through the fields with all those years ago had grown tall and strong and had started to see her for the beauty that she was and they made their intentions clear. Gabrielle gently turned them down, one by one and, as Herodotus watched, she began to gaze longingly at Arete, the red-headed innkeeper's daughter, at Corinna who lived next door, at Hermione who'd just moved to Potideia from Thrace. She would cast lingering looks in their direction, get flustered when they spoke to her. Gabrielle herself didn't know what she was feeling, not yet, but Herodotus did and he grieved deep within his soul. He would have given anything to see her happy, would have gladly let her marry laughing Corinna or pretty Arete, but the rest of the world didn't see things that way. He's pushed her into an engagement with Perdicus, the son of his own closest friend, and one of her more persistent suitors. He'd hated himself for it, but he knew that it was for the best. The village might forgive a girl who raced through the fields with the boys, but it wouldn't forgive a girl who acted like the boys in other ways too. And Perdicus was a good man. She would grow to care for him, would find solace in children.
And then the warrior woman had come riding by and stolen Gabrielle's heart with a glance. All of a sudden, Herodotus had seen a way out for her; a way to love as she had been born to love, a way to travel the world and have adventures and tell stories and do and be all the things she wanted to do and be. And so, when she had slipped out of the house in the middle of the night, three long years ago, he had lain still and quiet and he had learned that loving someone sometimes means letting them go.
And now, here she was. His golden-haired girl sitting opposite him, her innocence gone, her demon child destroyed, and she was looking at him with eyes which desperately sought his approval. And next to her, dark and still and beautiful, was Xena who was clearly so much more than Gabrielle's best friend. And Herodotus longed to tell them how he felt, but he wasn't brave enough and he couldn't find the words.
The warrior woman stifled a yawn. Lila wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it. Tiredness was a weakness and surely Xena didn't have any of those.
'Sorry,' Xena muttered in that rich, deep voice of hers.
'It's ok, it's been a long day. I'm exhausted too.' As she spoke, Gabrielle laid a reassuring hand on Xena's arm, below the elbow and above the leather greaves, skin on skin. Gabrielle's thumb moved back and forth, gently caressing Xena's forearm. The action was familiar and practiced, as if Gabrielle was used to touching and being touched, as if such closeness was usual.
Xena, for her part, flinched a little at the contact and a deep blush dyed her cheeks red as she looked across the table at Lila and Gabrielle's parents, Herodotus and Hecuba. Gabrielle was watching them too, her hand still on Xena's arm, an expression of defiance on her face. Their mother was looking away, blushing just as deeply crimson, while their father matched Gabrielle stare for stare. Lila looked back and forth between them, knowing that something was happening which she didn't understand.
'Maybe we should go to bed, Gabby?' Lila wanted desperately to get her sister alone in their bedroom, wanted the chance to talk to her properly, to try to comprehend this stranger who had once been as familiar to her as her own reflection.
At Lila's suggestion, all the others around the table became visibly flustered. Gabrielle was the first to speak. 'Maybe we should leave tonight, Xena? Beat all the traffic for the market in the morning?' Herodotus seemed pleased by this suggestion, but Hecuba and Xena both wouldn't hear of it. Gabrielle had been through a lot, they said, she was tired, she needed to sleep in a bed.
Hecuba took a deep breath and then, without looking at either of her daughters or her husband, said 'Maybe Lila should sleep in our room, Herodotus. Then we can put Xena in Gabrielle's room.'
Lila wanted to protest, but couldn't think of a reason why she should share with Gabrielle which wouldn't sound selfish. Xena though wasn't too keen on that plan either. 'I'll sleep in the barn with Argo,' she said. 'Then Lila doesn't have to move.'
'You don't need to do that.' There was a tone in Gabrielle's voice which Lila had never heard before. It was adult, intimate even, and she wasn't sure she liked it.
'Yes she does.' This was from Herodotus. 'Gabrielle will share with Lila like she always has and Xena,' he seemed to choke out the name 'will sleep outside. We'll give her some blankets and the straw is soft.'
'Father...' Gabrielle was half-standing, eyes angry and flashing.
'Don't, Sweetheart...' Xena's voice was so soft, Lila could barely hear her. 'I really don't mind sleeping in the barn.' Sweetheart? Who called their friend 'sweetheart'?
In one swift movement, Xena had stood and made her way outside. Gabrielle stayed where she was for just long enough to glare at her father and then she stormed off in the direction of their bedroom. Lila looked from one parent to the other and recognised all the signs of an impending argument. Hastily, she followed her sister into the bedroom.
Once inside, Gabrielle wouldn't speak to her or at least, not properly. She answered Lila's questions in monosyllables and lay down on her bed feigning sleep. Eventually, Lila gave up and lay down on her own bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the rhythm of Gabrielle's breathing. Their beds were so close that, if Lila reached out, she would be able to touch her sister's hand, but Lila didn't reach out. Gabrielle had never felt further away.
'I love you,' Gabrielle's words were almost inaudible in the darkness.
'Love you too,' Lila whispered back and meant it.
'I didn't want you to think I didn't because I left. That had nothing to do with you. I had to leave.'
'I know,' Lila paused and then added. 'You've never been like me, have you?'
'What do you mean?' Gabrielle had propped herself up on one elbow and was staring at Lila through the darkness.
'You've never been content to just stay here and settle down. Part of me wishes you had stayed here and married Perdicus, but that's the selfish part of me. You never would have been happy with that.'
'No, I never would.'
'And now? Are you happy now? Travelling around, I mean, and righting wrongs and things.'
'I'm beyond happy.'
'Even after the demon and Hope?'
'Even after that.'
'But why?'
Gabrielle lay back down and turned onto her back so she didn't have to look at Lila before she answered. 'Because Xena makes me happy.'
Lila turned away too and thought about this for a moment. There was so much now about her sister which she couldn't begin to understand. 'Why did she call you sweetheart earlier?'
Gabrielle didn't answer. Instead, she stood and walked towards the door. 'I'm sorry, Lila,' she said. 'I can't let her sleep in the barn all alone.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to join her.' And with that, Gabrielle stepped through the door and let it swing closed behind her.
Herodotus heard her leave. There was a creaky floorboard by the door which Gabrielle had clearly forgotten about since leaving home because she trod on it as she went outside. He heard her pause for a moment, listening to see if she'd woken anyone and then she was moving again, through the door and into the darkness outside. He heard her footsteps across the dark lawn and then the clang as the barn door slammed shut behind her.
Then he lay there for a long time, very still, just listening, although he didn't want to think about what he was listening for. He knew that he should just stay where he was. There was nothing to be gained by going after her. It would be better if he could just convince himself that she'd gone for a night time stroll. And yet, despite knowing this, he was swinging his legs out of bed before he quite realised what was happening. He wrapped a coat around himself and, taking care not to wake Hecuba, he too made his way outside and into the darkness.
He paused outside the barn, knowing that what he was doing was not wise. If Gabrielle saw him, he would never be able to explain, never be able to convince her that he approved, but the village did not. It was better, far better, if she thought he disapproved too, if she stayed away because of it. That way, the only pain would be his. He took two steps back in the direction he'd come from and then paused again. He had to know. With shaking hands and a thumping heart, he made his way back to the barn and peered in through a knot hole in the wall.
The warrior woman had made a fire in the corner and its slowly dying flames lit the inside with a faint orange glow like sunset on the last night of the world. In the opposite corner, the pale gold mare was lying on her side, snorting softly in her sleep. Around her, the warrior's armour was strewn haphazardly across the hay; a breastplate here, a pair of leather greaves there. Her saddlebags were open and, inside them, he could see a dagger and, pressed against it in a manner which seemed almost intimate, a quill and a scroll belonging to his daughter.
Xena herself slumbered near the horse, clad only in a shift and looking surprisingly young and innocent in sleep. She was on her back and, nestled into her shoulder, was Gabrielle.
He stood and stared. Gabrielle was smiling, her golden hair spilling across Xena's chest. Gabrielle's right hand was flat on Xena's stomach, while Xena's own hand gently caressed it. The warrior's other arm was around Gabrielle's waist, completely encircling her, and Xena's cheek rested on top of Gabrielle's head. For a moment, Herodotus' heart soared to see them. His daughter, the one he loved above all others, looked so impossibly happy and so impossibly in love. He wished with all his being that she could stay that way, that others would be able to accept her, even as he knew that they would not, and that knowledge broke his very soul in two.
He heard a sound beside him and saw Lila staring at the lovers in the barn, the strangest expression on her face.
Lila looked at the scene in wonder and disbelief. Her sister was curled up on the warrior woman's chest, their bodies intertwined. Lila looked at her father beside her and couldn't read his expression at all.
'Go back to bed, Lila,' he said.
'But Daddy...'
'Go back to bed.'
She didn't move. Instead, she stared into the barn once more. There was an expression on Gabrielle's face which she'd never seen before.
'She looks happy,' she said more to herself than to Herdotus.
'She is.' If she hadn't known better, she would have thought that she heard a hint of tears in her father's voice.
'I don't understand,' Lila whispered. Gabrielle and Xena were tangled together like lovers, but they couldn't be lovers. Two women couldn't be lovers. That was impossible.
Herodotus looked at his younger daughter properly now and this time she was almost certain that there were tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. 'Your sister has been given a difficult path to tread, Lila, far more difficult than my path or yours.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean that there are unwritten, unspoken laws about who you can love and how. Your sister has broken them through no fault of her own. This was her fate, the way she was born. She can no more change that than change who her parents are and I wouldn't want her to change it even if she could.'
'But why not? Surely, if it would make her life easier...'
'Just because a path is easy, it doesn't mean it's good. Changing this about Gabrielle would change who she is and I could never want that. I love her too much. She's everything I always wanted to be. She's bold, she's courageous, she's been places and done things you and I can only dream of and, above all, she's won the heart of the mighty warrior princess.' His voice cracked again. 'Now that's an achievement worthy of song.'
'Won Xena's heart?' Lila still didn't understand.
'That's right.'
'You mean...?' Lila let the question hang in the air, unfinished.
'Yes, Lila?'
'Like Sappho?'
'Exactly like Sappho.'
'But I thought that was just a story.'
'A true story.'
'But isn't that...wrong?'
'Does it look wrong to you?'
Lila followed her father's gaze back to the couple sleeping peacefully on the floor of the barn. 'No,' she said. 'It looks right.'
Herodotus placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. 'And so it is, Lila. I just wish the rest of the world would see it that way. I wish I could welcome Xena into my house as a daughter-in-law, not make her sleep in the barn like a stranger she that the world won't judge them for being who they are.'
Lila went back inside and back to bed, still a little off-kilter from her new found knowledge of her sister. Herodotus stayed where he was. He sat down on the wall surrounding the barn and settled in for the night, intending to keep watch over the sleeping pair in case any night-time wanderers should happen to glance in through the barn window. In Athens, such relationships were commonplace, even across the river in Amphipolis, they wouldn't cause comment, but here in Potideia, values were still very much of the traditional sort.
He must have drifted off into a dose because the next thing he was aware of was the faint light of dawn and a soft footfall on the grass nearby. He opened his eyes and saw Xena standing just in front of him.
'She's still asleep,' Xena said in response to his unspoken question.
'I should probably get back to the house.' The last thing he wanted was for Gabrielle or anyone else to find him here.
'I won't tell her I saw you.'
'Thanks,' he knew he should talk to Gabrielle the way he had talked to Lila, but he couldn't. He couldn't risk her coming back home too often, couldn't risk anyone finding out about her and Xena.
'And thank you,' Xena was saying. 'For keeping watch, I mean.'
'It was nothing.' There was a pause filled with words which they were both too afraid to speak aloud.
'Do you love her?' he asked then, all in a rush. It was really none of his business, but he had to know all the same.
'Beyond words,' Xena said, sincerity in her eyes. She came and sat beside him and he was struck by her sheer physicality. She radiated strength. 'We're not lovers though.'
'You're not? But I saw...'
'You saw everything. All of what we do. It doesn't go further than hugging.'
'But...?'
'Oh, Gabrielle wants it to go much further and so do I.'
'Then why don't you?'
'Because I don't want to hurt her. If we were lovers and something happened to me she wouldn't be able to stand it. And she'd be a target for my enemies...'
'I think she already is a target for your enemies.' He said it as gently as he could.
Xena looked down at the ground. 'I'd worry I was taking advantage of her. I'm not good for her. It would be better for everyone if she found some nice boy to settle down with.'
'No it wouldn't.' She looked at him in surprise and he was just as surprised as she was that he'd said it out loud. 'I've seen the way she looks at you and the way you look at her. That's true love.'
'She's my soulmate,' Xena said quietly.
'She is and I'm proud of her for winning the heart of the warrior princess.'
'But I thought you didn't approve of me...'
'I approve of you. I approve of you because I love Gabrielle more than anything in the world and you make her happy and I approve of you because I like you. It's this town which wouldn't approve of you.
'Hence the making me sleep in the barn and then keeping watch last night.'
'Exactly. This town has an ugly side which Gabrielle doesn't know about and which I don't want her to know about.'
'Then we should go.'
'Yes, you should, but know that you go with my blessing and my wholehearted approval.'
'Thank you.' Xena didn't say more but she clasped his hand in both of hers for a moment and that touch said more than a thousand words. Then she stood and returned to the barn to wake Gabrielle.
Herodotus watched her, a wistful smile on his face. The selfish part of him wanted to keep Gabrielle at home and close by, but the better part of him knew that that was not her destiny. Her destiny was by the side of the mighty warrior princess.
