He rode his horse hard putting a sizable distance between himself and his ambush targets. His eyes saw the clearing where his plan would be realized, and his heart started to pound with excitement. He knew this area very well and chose this spot specifically for its thick cover around the edges of the clearing, and its common rest point for weary travelers. He dismounted his sweat-slicked steed, pulled off the saddle and bridle and smacked the beast on the rear to shoo him off, which he did gladly trotting towards the much-desired stream.
The man started a small fire and proceeded to mix together the ingredients he acquired from the healer's tent. Once the concoction was bubbling, he added the crooked dry root that was going to make his dreams come true. The thick black syrupy liquid steaming away took on a greenish tint from the root when it was ready. A wicked smile crossed his scarred face. "Perfect," he said aloud to no one.
He proceeded to prepare the darts he laid out, coating each one, allowing them to dry then coated them again. Three ought to do it, if he missed three times, Xena would be sure to detect the direction and find him. "So don't miss," he said aloud to himself.
This is too important not to be cautious. He knew that she would hear the first dart if he missed, the second one would give her trajectory, if he missed with the third, there was no need for a fourth. He coated each dart an extra two times, rationalizing that she wasn't a typical woman remembering how she could drink every man in her army under the table and still be able to fight with skilled ease.
He wanted to be with her, she was magnificent, but she had toyed with him like a cat with a mouse, then tossed him aside when he no longer amused her. His anger getting the better of him for just an unbridled moment as memories of his departure from her army rushed into his mind. She will pay. This plan was foolproof, and he was no fool. He would take her toy and break it, and she would know the pain he felt.
The bard will understand his pain, intimately. She will never be able to love again and perhaps if he is lucky she'll break the way he's broken others. He gathered up the darts gently and cleaned up his work area making sure to leave it as if it were untouched. Untouched like the bard he goaded himself, then prepared his perch high in the canopy and waited for his prey.
They finally got on the road, Xena walked ahead of them leading Argo, Regina now outfitted with sensible shoes, walked behind her quietly. Gabrielle and Emma took up the rear chatting in hushed tones amongst themselves. Xena took a deep breath, this was much better. She hated wasting time, and moving always felt like she was accomplishing something, even if it was at a painfully slow saunter, she'd take it, it was better than waiting.
They've been on the road for several candle marks, and the familiar path told Xena they were really only a candle mark or so, of her normal pace, outside of the town they had just left. Still, she stiffened in her resolve, they were moving. It was really all she could hope for on the sweltering hot day.
It was humid, unusually so for the time of year, the summer had long ago wound down, the leaves started to change but hadn't started falling off the trees just yet, she took a drink from her leather skin and passed it back to Regina who took it eagerly.
"Thank you." The gratitude was quiet and polite. Her conversation with the mayor had been enlightening. She felt like she really understood Regina, as she herself once stood silent with uncertainty. Xena rolled her eyes and felt a little sorry for pushing the couple. If only for Regina's sake, the look on Emma's face while atop Argo yesterday was truly priceless. However, feelings of remorse surfaced for the sadness in the Mayor her meddling had caused, and she regretted her role in that sadness.
Regina retrieved the water skin from the girls she passed it to and took another sip herself. They were walking out into a clearing, and Xena slowed and called back, "This would be a good spot for a late lunch. Emma, could you gather some wood? Regina, help Gabrielle with setting up a makeshift camp, I'll go get something to eat." When everyone had their assignments, the women went to work. Xena saw the cohesion of their group and thought how good it felt to lead a charge, even if it were just food preparation. So, fish or rabbit? She thought to herself.
She started to go down towards the river but stopped when she remembered Regina purchased a bow that morning. "Regina?" she called as she turned and came back up into the camp. The call caught the brunette's attention, and the woman came over to her. She asked for the bow, and it was promptly removed from around her shoulders and handed over.
When the woman went to take off the quiver, Xena heard a faint whirr, and Regina exclaimed, "Ow!"
Another whirr when Regina stepped closer to Xena as she pulled a small thin dart from the back of her arm she questioned, "What the hell? OW!" Regina was hit again this time in the neck. The second dart blurred her vision, and she collapsed into Xena's arms.
Xena yelled for Gabrielle and Emma to get down, "We are under attack!" She crouched down with her eyes wide, searching, listening for more whirs that never came. The forest was dead silent, just the sound of leaves in the breeze.
Emma noticed Regina was slack in Xena's arms. She screamed the brunette's name and ran toward her. "Regina! NO!" She dropped to her knees and lifted Regina's limp body into her arms, "Gina wake up! Please! Wake up!" Xena put her hand over Emma's mouth as she tried to listen to the area, but it was no use, there was nothing. Xena dragged the unconscious body of the Queen over to some bushes, and Emma followed, green eyes wide with fear, but stayed silent.
Gabrielle met them in a low crouch and took the dart from Xena and sniffed it. It wasn't poison, not to kill anyway. She touched the side of the dart to her tongue and shook her head at the sour taste. Emma pulled the second dart from Regina's neck, her hands shaking visibly.
Xena stood, still listening, scanning the area. She slowly lifted her chakram from its home at her hip, heard the scraping noise again, soles against tree bark, she pinpointed the source and let her chakram fly. The familiar high pitched whirring sound filled the area and then broken bark as it quickly bounced off trunks and branches repositioning its trajectory toward its intended target, then a wet thud ended the whirl, a male's cry cut short then a heavy thud to the forest floor. Xena walked off in the direction of the final noise to retrieve her weapon.
Gabrielle turned Regina onto her back lifting her eyelids, checking her painfully faint pulse and holding her cheek to the woman's nose to verify she was still breathing. She looked up at Emma, whose eyes were wild with concern, and reassured, "She's alive." She started with the good news, "The dart had something on it, it doesn't seem deadly," Not that it couldn't end that way.
Emma pulled at the unconscious body, "Please, please, Gina wake up. WAKE UP! Please!" The pleas went unanswered from a cold, silent sleep.
The cries of the Sheriff echoed into the afternoon as Xena carefully strode towards her prey. She didn't hear any rustling, limping or even groaning, so she assumed whomever it was caught the business side of her chakram and was dead. She saw the motionless dark form and ran over to it turning it over. "MALIK?!" she spat as the dead eyes looked up at her, chakram firmly planted in the side of his skull. She pulled it out with a sickening slurp then wiped his clumpy gore from the blade against his black tunic. She searched him and found one last dart, she knew she was the target, and she closed her eyes when thoughts of yet another innocent cut down for her evil past.
How many more would there be?
"You stupid son of a bitch!" She punched his corpse in anger. His actions that now caused her feelings of regret. Regret that Regina was hurt and probably dead, judging by the wails echoing in the woods, regret that she didn't kill this bottom feeder when she had the chance ten cycles ago.
She knew he was bad news. She found out just how bad he was and finally ran him out of her army. He had a real evil streak, lust of pain and power. He raped women and children and sometimes the men. She had known he relished in the torment of others but never knew the details. However she knew he had been the lowest of the low, but he was devoted to her cause, so she kept him around. Until she heard from the other men what he was doing to the villager's they conquered. Her anger reached a fevered pitch, and she regretted he was dead; she would have enjoyed making him suffer. Again.
She spat on his corpse then left him to rot in the summer sun.
Gabrielle grabbed Emma by the shoulders and looked her dead in the eye and stated clearly, "Regina has one chance Em, and this is it. She has two puncture wounds," pointing them out to the bleary-eyed blonde. "I need you to suck out as much of whatever was on these," holding up the darts, "If she has any chance we need to get that venom out of her as soon as possible," Gabrielle directed quickly. Emma looked dumbstruck but sniffed up her runny nose, and nodded in understanding.
"I need to make the wound larger so you can get as much out as possible."
Emma stood still and watched as Gabrielle sliced through Regina's skin, opening the wounds to about an inch long. Emma then proceeded to bend down to the first wound. "Don't swallow, suck and spit Emma. Alternate between the two, stop when you can't taste the venom or no more blood flows."
Gabrielle stood and ran over to Argo, she grabbed the bedroll, the healer bag, a fresh waterskin, and Emma's red leather jacket. She rolled out the bed next to the fire pit, and put down the supplies. She folded up the jacket and put it at one end of the bed then went back to Emma who was carrying out her assigned task on the woman's neck, drawing deeply then spitting through her worried tears.
Gabrielle knelt next to her and proceeded to assist by attending to the other puncture wound. She slowed her efforts as the bitter taste was no longer present, and the blood stopped. She then said to Emma, "We need to get her over to the…"
Xena suddenly appeared and bent down to pick up the limp woman and carried her over to the bedroll her lover set out. She looked down and saw all the things she would need to help the mayor, then looked up at Gabrielle and nodded, acknowledging the bard's expertise setup. Xena took over the healer duties, and Gabrielle pulled Emma away, asking her to help her set up the camp. They would be staying until Regina could be moved to a proper healer back in town. "Let Xena work. There is nothing we can do, other than start a fire to help warm her."
"She… she's so cold, is she gonna…" not being able to say the word, Emma stopped. Gabrielle grabbed both of her hands up and looked her straight in the eye and reassured, "Not if we can help it. You did a great job getting the poison out of her. She is still with us, so there is a good chance she will survive."
Survive. Emma thought to herself, that isn't the same as living. She could be in a coma, and we are a universe away from a hospital. She needs a doctor. She needs… to wake the fuck up. Emma felt her emotion overwhelm her again as she stacked the wood in the pre-dug fire pit and struggled to hold it at bay. She watched as Xena worked on the limp body, she touched the woman, then bent down and listened to her heart and checked her breath.
Xena called out with urgency to Gabrielle, "COME!" The bard dropped her pile of wood and ran over to Xena. She dropped down to the side of Regina and started to count; Xena straddled the brunette across the hips and started pushing on her chest then paused when Gabrielle blew into her mouth.
Oh my god, she is dying! She has stopped breathing, her heart has stopped, and she is leaving me! Emma ran over, staying clear of the women working on her friend, and bent down and pleaded into Regina's ear, "Don't you dare leave me! Do you hear me Madam Mayor!? YOU STAY! Henry needs his mom! Henry needs you, Regina. I… need you… please please stay Gina," her fingers stroked jet black hair and allowed words to tumble from her lips, "I… I love you, you hear me? I NEED you, you are my world, and I can't live this life without you. I didn't fall into the portal, you did, but I couldn't let you go! I didn't want to be without you, not for a single moment, so I jumped in after you!" She sniffled back her upset and pleaded, "Please I love you, don't leave me." Xena stopped Gabrielle, and Emma screamed, "NO!"
Xena shushed her and bent down to listen again. She felt below the Queen's nose and smiled. "We got her back." The warrior let out a satisfied sigh.
Emma clasped her mouth with her hands trying to hold in her hope, fearing if she let herself feel it, Regina would be ripped away from her again. Xena rested her hand on the thin blonde, and said, "I need you to breathe too." Emma let out her held breath and sobbed. She jumped into Xena's arms in a very grateful embrace. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Xena!"
Xena pulled away from her, and guilt darkened her face, "Don't thank me."
Gabrielle knew that look and asked the question, "Who did this?"
"He's dead," she answered as she got up off of the unconscious queen then explained, "An ex-soldier of mine, Malik. He was a cruel little man and this," she held up the darts, "was payback for banning him from my army so many cycles ago."
Gabrielle took in a breath when she realized she could be standing over Xena's limp body right now, ...and he wouldn't be dead, he would be… She didn't let herself finish the thought. "I didn't just banish him." Xena continued, "I tortured him." A grimace covered her face as she remembered the man's screams. "I let my men rape him and torture him for weeks before I left him for dead."
Gabrielle stiffened at the brutal admission. "Why… would you do that? Even as the Warlord," she always talked of Xena's dark side as if it were a different person from the woman she loved. It was how she quantified what the woman had done from who the woman was now. "You were never… I mean you could be…"
"Cruel," Xena finished. "I could be cruel, and I made an example out of him. He raped villagers under my banner. He forced himself onto little girls, disfiguring them for life simply because he could. I thought it would be a fitting punishment."
Emma was kneeling next to her queen, staring up at the warrior then simply said, "It sounds like it was."
"But..." Xena winced.
"But nothing." Emma finished. "This could have easily been you. Or me," she barked motioning to Gabrielle, "or her. THIS," she waved her arms about the campsite, "doesn't get filed under Xena's repayable debt, get it? Got it? Good," she said with more confidence than either woman had ever seen in her.
"The Savior has spoken," Gabrielle said with shocked eyes.
"Damn right I have, now you," she said looking down at the stillness of her friend, "Get your ass up because I'm not explaining this to your son."
Xena felt for her pulse once more, "Much better," she said with a satisfied pat on the woman's leg. "I'll go grab some fish…"
Her mind teased her...
That is why she was hit because you wanted to catch a rabbit with the bow because it was harder than your chakram. He was after you, and they are paying the price.
He is dead, she reasoned as she made her way down to the stream, and Regina would live. Knowing the dead man's sadistic side, she assumed he wasn't trying to kill her, and so she felt confident the darts weren't lethal. It almost killed Regina because it was a dose for Xena.
He probably figured with me out of the way, the Amazon escort would be easy pickings, he probably would have tried to sell them, or… She closed her eyes at the memory of the horrors that were relayed by her men so long ago. "worse," she said aloud, then pulled a large trout out from under the surface of the water with her bare hands and trudged back to camp.
Emma barely ate her dinner. She sat with her legs folded under her, Regina's wrist in her hand, nimble fingers on the woman's pulse point. Steady beat. Getting stronger. She didn't move. Her two companions long ago stopped trying to engage her in conversation and stopped prodding her to eat.
Xena was sitting atop a large boulder, sharpening her sword methodically, and Gabrielle was trying to write in her diary, with little luck. No one spoke, and when it was time to rest, Xena knelt next to Emma and said, "I'll stay up with her, you need to get some sleep." The Savior shook her head.
Xena knew better than to argue. She wouldn't have moved if it had been Gabrielle, she just patted the woman on the shoulder and checked Regina's vitals once more. The brunette's heart was strong but she was very cold and that concerned her. She whispered to Emma, "You can still get some rest and stay close to her, your body heat would do her some good."
Emma felt the Queen's face and nodded, she crawled under the blanket and covered as much of Regina as she could with her own body to warm her. Xena pulled the blanket over them, almost tucking them in, rested a hand on the back of Emma's head and got up and went to her own queen.
"You two must have gotten most of the poison out of her." She placed a hand on Gabrielle's arm, "Good job. You probably saved her life you know." The bard looked up, Xena saw the tear stains on the younger woman's cheeks and knew her fears. "Hey," she started, "it's okay. She's alive. We are okay."
Gabrielle's green eyes darkened to almost emerald, and the tears started fresh. "I know, this time, we are okay. How much more are you going to have to pay for your past? Until you lose your life? Or mine? When is enough? When is the debt paid? How long will you be afraid to live your life because just around the corner some idiot with a grudge has some stupid plan to hurt you for something you did over 15 cycles ago?! Gods Xena!" She hung her head and let out a soft sob.
"Gabrielle," Xena said softly, she didn't know what to say. She didn't have an answer. She, herself, has asked that exact question, hundreds of times, and never got an answer. "Do you feel unsafe? The Amazons…"
The Queen looked up with chilled eyes, "Don't you EVEN say it. Don't you EVEN THINK IT. NO. That is NOT what I'm talking about Xena, Gods!" She didn't want to be, but she was properly angry. The day has taken its toll on the bard, and she lashed out. "That is always your first thought, isn't it? Things getting hard? Dump off Gabrielle with the Amazons, or at home, or or or… Wherever you are not! I'm sick of it Xena! So just don't okay?"
She sat up facing her, and her voice raised a little more than she wanted it to, "I go where you go. If you go to Tartarus and face Hades himself, I will trudge through the shit with you! I am in love with you, you big dumb warrior and you are not ever, and I mean EVER, getting rid of me. Not in this life, not in the next. You are MINE." The Queen had spoken. End of discussion. She grabbed Xena and pulled her into an embrace. "Jerk," got whispered into the tall woman's ear.
Xena wiped a tear from her own cheek as they pull back from one another. "Ok, I get it. But…Gabrielle, sweetheart, I may never be done paying for my past." She looked over at Emma and Regina, "Innocent people always get caught up in my shit. I don't like it, I downright hate it, but what can I do? I can't go back and not be a warlord. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to, that path led me to you, and you are the sun that gives me life."
Gabrielle didn't want to broach the subject with her just yet, she wasn't even sure this was something she truly wanted, but here goes nothing...
"Well…" the blonde said, and the warrior looked at her, puzzled, "We could always follow them…" green eyes looking over at the two still bodies. Xena followed her gaze and looked doubtful, Gabrielle knew she was losing her already, she put her hands up to stop her warrior from sinking into that doubt. "Hear me out. They have plenty of excitement, good versus evil and all that to keep us busy for cycles to come…" she trailed off letting that sink into her warrior for just a moment. "The only difference would be, you wouldn't run into every two-bit lunatic with a score to settle every time you turned around. It would be a fresh start, for both of us."
She covered Xena's hand with her own to drive home her point. "We could have a home," she brought that hand to her lips and kissed it gently. "We could have…" her hand caressed Xena's cheek slowly, tracing down her jawline to her chin, "A family…" she smiled to herself.
Yeah okay, maybe I do want this a little more than I thought I did.
To drive it home, she added "We'd still be helping people. They could use a hero with your many… skills."
Xena grabbed Gabrielle and pulled her into a passionate kiss, pouring all the love she had for this woman into it, and when they broke apart, she said, "Yes."
"Okay," Gabrielle smiled and kissed her again. "I love you, Xena."
"I am in love with you my bard."
