It was near the end of their dinner once Hecuba announced what she had seen. It was something that had been quite obvious to Xena since entering back into the house, although Xena kept the thought to herself.
Steadily in her seat - both hands aimlessly opened - Hecuba sat with a disgruntled expression on her face: "I don't know how to say this ... but ... Herodotus is here."
"I told you that already, Mother," Gabrielle said simply, an old utensil picking at her food. "I warned you earlier he would be coming."
"No ... I mean ... HERE here. Don't look now, but ... he's just outside that front window."
Out of a natural curiosity, both Gabrielle and Lilla turned immediately in the appropriate direction - tugging a smothered laugh from Xena who chose to rearrange the scraps on her plate to avoid a mother's panic.
"Quit looking, the both of you!" Hecuba whispered, slapping the girls' arms with the towel that had been draped over her shoulder. "Shhh! Look how well they pay attention to me," she continued, presumably speaking to Xena who wouldn't have known from looking because she refused to do so.
"I'm just minding my plate," Xena muttered with a grin she couldn't seem to erase. Gabrielle and Lilla were still so alike in many ways - childish ways, it would seem. It was a moment of sisterly compatibility that had Xena falling even deeper for Gabrielle. With each new glance of Gabrielle she was afforded, the more she enjoyed the picture as a whole.
Hecuba's voice took the warrior from her thoughts: "No no - Gabrielle, don't!"
Xena lifted her head to watch Gabrielle take her swift exit out the front door only to stand paused, looking out from the house. The soft glowing light soaked through the dirty window, adding an evening warmth to what remained of the daylight. Gabrielle stood angrily there, thinking to a father that had promised change only to keep his distance. She stood with eyes searching nothing in particular until she heard the house door close audibly behind her - knowing who was there because of the way the intruder didn't even attempt approaching her. Instead, a voice comforted her from a distance.
"... Come back inside, Gabrielle," Xena asked confidently and cautiously all at once. Gabrielle was a very independent woman, and telling her what to do always ran the risk of a negative reaction. Xena had faced much strife in her lifetime, but the look Gabrielle sent her then scared her because she so hated to disappoint or anger her beautiful companion.
Gabrielle walked quickly up to Xena - forcing the dark warrior's back up against the wall. It was an act done not only to prove the power she held, but to remind that a little teasing never hurt a woman. And that low, confident voice of Xena's could be shaken so easily ...
"You're telling me what to do?" Gabrielle whispered - her hands pinning surrendered shoulders to the wall with very little effort. Eyes raked over Xena's upper body, finally settling on her lips.
"Gabrielle ..." Xena started, insinuating she ought not to start something with her father watching the house.
"If he doesn't have the courage to say something about this ... I don't give a dinar about the way this will make him feel," Gabrielle whispered back, tilting her chin up to close the gap between them and softly press her lips to Xena's.
What was initially a conversation about family quickly turned into a very explicit show of desire that Xena couldn't control. Despite all efforts, she melted against Gabrielle - shamefully pressing deeper onto the lips that ceaselessly tempted her.
"Mmm ..." Gabrielle started quietly enough only they could hear, excitedly riling Xena into a fit of lust. "... I know I owe you some alone time ..." In a more feminine voice than Gabrielle was likely to use, Gabrielle moaned and continued: "Maybe tonight ...?"
At first, Xena's composure was so stiff that Gabrielle worried she would be held at a distance, but with one kiss, their lips melted unapologetically into a private brand of passion.
As much as Xena would have liked to dissuade such actions, she found herself completely powerless within the heat of the moment. Even knowing Gabrielle was using their chemistry for a very separate goal, Xena's tense shoulders relaxed. Her arms relaxed around Gabrielle's hips.
Herodotus was on his knees with his head in his hands - anger and regret teeming through his thoughts with instincts he tried to push away. He knew what Gabrielle was doing - she hadn't been quaint about the effort - and yet he was enraged at the thought of anyone touching his daughter the way Xena touched her.
A technique Herodotus had used many other times of pressure over his brows was not helping to settle himself, and as he glanced cautiously back to the surrounding of the house, his nostrils flared. There Gabrielle was, kissing a warrior. Hands slipped over the hips of his daughter. Hands that were not so tenderly moving down, over those hips.
Xena paused from the fluttering in her heart and the pounding between her legs when her senses stilled everything surrounding her - including the excited hands of her lover. Xena closed her eyes with a pressure that happened quite naturally in such moments to hear and feel what was coming: a weapon hurdled. But within the slowed moment she was experiencing, she knew Herodotus would not be throwing weaponry at his daughter; beside her, perhaps, but not in a truly violent gesture. Realizing this, Xena did nothing to catch or avoid the object - simply drawing herself away from the kiss along with Gabrielle's gasp when a small dagger stung the window sill a foot from their shoulders.
Stealing a glance up at Xena, Gabrielle squinted at her, and then moved to pry the dagger from the rotting wood only to glance in the direction it was thrown. Into the darkness of shade behind some other houses, she cast a scowl, and stormed past Xena: back into her childhood home.
Xena stared more blankly out into the covering, transmitting one single thought through her stance and expression: tread carefully.
By the time Xena followed Gabrielle into the house, Herodotus was sighing into the cool, darkening air. He had his back leaned up against a tree stump that had mossed itself over, his head hanging back as if to suggest he had no desire to keep it safe any longer. He couldn't keep Gabrielle safe, he figured, so what was the point of it all? Hadn't his revenge killing been in the name of justice for his daughter? To keep her safe even in memory? And yet he was failing to be the father he needed to in person. In the flesh. He couldn't even muster the gall to be THERE at all.
Gabrielle was thinking angrily on just that as she thundered her way into her old room and just stood silently with fists clenched.
"Should I ... not be here for this?" came the awkward question from a younger sister laid under the covers of the bed aside the door.
"What're you doing in here?" Gabrielle muttered, having stormed in too quickly to note if everyone still sat at the table. Fuming still from her non-existent confrontation with her father.
"I ... came in here when mother suggested it."
"Isn't it a little early for bed?!" Gabrielle snapped.
"Gods, what happened out there?" Lilla asked, sitting up in her bed when a slight rapping at the door turned both of their attentions to their mother's voice.
"Gabrielle? ... I know it's not my place ... but ... Xena's left."
It was then that Gabrielle realized she had just used Xena to make her father angry, and then run off like a petulant teenager. Gabrielle sighed and dropped her shoulders - forcing herself to mature back to her normal state for Xena's sake.
Once Gabrielle had gathered herself, she went to ask her mother which way Xena had gone, to which her mother did not have a useful answer.
"Let's just say she wasn't pleased, Dear."
"I'm sure she wasn't, but I didn't ask that."
Hecuba's eyes showed a true concern as her hands wrung together: "Gabrielle, I'm just concerned because that woman has been very understanding and supportive through all of this ... Exactly what happened out there?"
It was the sincerity in Hecuba's eyes that had Gabrielle sharing that Herodotus and the town were overwhelming her with soft but expressive language. It was a moment that had Hecuba wondering if Gabrielle had ever been paid for her talents as a bard. The wording was poetic.
Just as Hecuba was admiring Gabrielle's use of language, her daughter reverted to a more child-like vocabulary.
"I know I'm letting you down, Mother ... but I ... I'm scared."
When Gabrielle hung her head, Hecuba approached with great concern. "Gabrielle ... what scares you here? ... Not your father ...?"
"No ... that I'm letting you and Lilla down, too ..."
"... Too?" Hecuba asked back, on the verge of tears at the very idea of being disappointed in such a strong and independent girl.
"I know Xena is finding this all very difficult ... me acting this way ... but ... I ... I don't like sharing, okay? ... It's hard for me."
"Okay," Hecuba said, her hand finding Gabrielle's shoulder to ease her back into their conversation. "I know, Child ... you are living with many challenges, but don't you ever ... ever believe you can disappoint me."
Gabrielle lifted only her eyes with the tears still held back, deep inside: "Ever, huh?"
"If anyone has let anyone down here ... it's been me," Hecuba said with tears freely flowing at the very memory of their past. "Don't you think it replays every day for me? ... Catching that glimpse of you running into that forest with all those boys chasing you? ... Being told you were ... were dead? That you fell into that steep river - drowned," Hecuba answered with tears "... And that I would never even be able to mourn over your body?"
Gabrielle was affected by the tears in her mother's eyes, and by the pieces of her mother's history she had never known.
"Don't you think I have lived with that pain all these years?"
"I ... always thought you were ... glad I was gone."
"Gabrielle!" Hecuba cried, wrapping her arms around Gabrielle's shoulders. "Gabrielle - how could you imagine such a thing?"
Gabrielle held her mother and tried to blink away her tears. "I've been acting like a child ... I can't seem to act myself."
"Maybe you're still looking for yourself," her mother said after some lengthy sobbing, pulling back to dry Gabrielle's few tears. "Oh, Gabrielle ... if only you knew how much I love you ... how much Lilla loves you. How much she looks up to you."
"I wish she wouldn't. I'm not exactly worthy of admiration. Not ... yet, at least."
Then Hecuba's lips tightened into an affectionate smile. "And here I heard you were a queen of the Amazons ...?"
"I was," Gabrielle sighed with a smile of her own, casting her eyes down to the wooden boards that made up the warped flooring. Her eyes traced over the detail of the panels, imagining that she would have found a much more comfortable place for her family to live if she had been around to do so. Or would she have grown up a more quiet, obedient child without her time away? Would she have lost so many of the things she had grown to love about herself?
"Gabrielle ... I will reassure you any time you need it ... but right now, I think there's an apology you have to make to that warrior woman out there."
Gabrielle's smirk tamed itself when she thought to her mother's kindness toward Xena. "I can't believe you approve of her ... how welcoming you are to her."
"She has been only good to you, my child. Why wouldn't I accept her with open arms?"
Just when Gabrielle was about to insinuate that some people weren't as accepting when they learned of Xena's sordid past, she looked into Hecuba's eyes to see something that surprised her. Hecuba DID know. It was there behind those intelligent eyes, speaking back to Gabrielle. Telling her that Hecuba knew more than she let on.
Lilla's head poked out from her room, interrupting the long mother-daughter silence.
"Yes, well," Hecuba said, taking Gabrielle's hands in her softer hands. "I think you need to speak with someone before they get too far."
Gabrielle nodded, and sent an apologetic smile over to Lilla, just as she did for her mother. "I'll be back when I can."
"Bring her back in here for the night, will you, Dear? She can sleep on the couch."
"In here? ... Why?"
The look of discomfort and an awkward embarrassment had Hecuba clarifying.
"There have been sightings of wolves around these parts. No one should be sleeping out there."
Something told Gabrielle Xena would rather face the wolves than sleep in the living room of her mother's house, but Gabrielle nodded just the same.
"I ... umm ... Thank you for your concern, Mother."
Hecuba watched with a quaint smile as her daughter walked out the front door, admiring the sensation of welcoming a daughter's partner. In the many years Gabrielle had been gone, Hecuba had dreamed of what it might be like to have her very independent daughter bring somebody home. She had imagined the kind of girl Gabrielle might bring around had she the chance, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined Gabrielle might bring a woman like Xena home - much less that Gabrielle might be a warrior herself.
Hecuba sighed, but the breath expelled was a sentiment of her pride in Gabrielle. She had a quiet and graceful pride in her daughter.
Gabrielle walked somewhat unsteadily on the balls of her feet until she sifted her way into the long grass that led into the trees. There she felt comfortable more evenly distributing her weight - keeping conscious of all sounds and sights around her. It had always been within the cover of trees that she felt most at home - memories of the Amazons providing a warmth that four walls had never given.
Drifting into the trees a little further, Gabrielle thought less of how she would find Xena, and aimlessly drifted to the nearest shallow stream. There Gabrielle crouched as low as gravity would allow, dropping her head.
Interrupting a memory, there was a certain sensation she suddenly had that warned of an intruder lurking closely. There was no evidence of the feeling, but a distinctive sensation that had her hanging wrist tighten to drift fingers across one of the sais tucked into her boot from her tucked position. She felt the familiar metal that cooled her fingertips - stilling to the voice from just ten paces behind her.
"You can keep your weapon sheathed," Xena smirked affectionately, watching Gabrielle stand to her full height to twist around.
"You're going to get one of these right in the chest one of these days if you keep sneaking up on me like that."
Xena wanted to laugh, but settled for the smile that drew itself in Gabrielle's presence. "... Something tells me your instincts wouldn't allow you to make that slip."
Gabrielle watched the woman she loved cast her glance down to the ground, and she felt the sudden urge to disclose her feelings.
"Xena ...? I ... I ..."
It took Gabrielle a long while to continue, but Xena had no desire to interrupt. She waited dutifully with both arms tense at the desire to wrap them around a particular blond.
"I ... I would never want to use you like I did ... I just wanted my father to behave like a father. For once."
Xena didn't bother to insist that he WAS her father, and how he acted was beside the point. She just watched Gabrielle's mannerisms, and pushed aside her frustration for the sake of her partner - for her companion.
"I ... wanted him to show himself. I guess ... Xena ... this place is making me crazy. And ... I think it was stupid of me to come back here ... I don't know why you've put up with me so long."
"Oh, just waiting for that promise of the flesh ..." Xena insinuated menacingly - a suggestion that earned an accidental smile pinching Gabrielle's sun-kissed cheeks.
"Yeah, well I hope I'm worth it."
"I can assure you," Xena said in a lower tone than she was accustomed to, leaning in to tilt Gabrielle's chin upward. "You most certainly are."
The kiss Gabrielle gave her then was so simplistic and raw that Xena felt she had sunken to the ground, but once those tender lips withdrew, she was still balanced on two shaky legs.
"While that may be ..." Gabrielle rasped, having felt a certain jolt herself. "I ... will never use you like that again. And ... I'm sorry."
Xena couldn't help but tease: "Well ... maybe just once more ... anyone could need revealing out here, you know ..."
Gabrielle pushed her shoulders back and allowed her eyes to travel down to excitable lips. Lips that tempted her to tease back, although her mood wouldn't allow for such a thing.
"Privacy would allow ... for many things," Gabrielle finished, clearing her throat.
"Many things, hmm?" Xena grinned openly, rushing her hand up Gabrielle's neck, into her hair to settle against her ear. "Don't make promises you won't keep, Gabrielle ..."
"There is nothing ... I wouldn't give right now ... for some time, just you and me ... and some privacy."
"I want to kiss you, Gabrielle ... but I'm scared I won't be able to stop myself ..."
"Let me kiss YOU then ..."
As much as Xena might have liked to show greater willpower over her lust, she couldn't help but accept the invitation with a breathy reply of her own: "Kiss me ..."
The way Xena's hands laced around Gabrielle melted them both all over again, pulling so closely that they wished for a bed on which to greater enjoy their pleasures.
"Quit kissing ... me ... like that ..." Xena moaned onto Gabrielle's lips, given every vulnerability Gabrielle was feeling. "Please ..."
"No ..." Gabrielle whispered with a smile, her lips enveloped all over again by the thicker and more experienced lips of her lover.
Through the small sounds of their enjoyment toward one another, neither warrior heard the small intruder. Having snuck out of the house against her mother's wishes, Lilla had come to help Gabrielle find Xena when she stumbled upon a most surprising sight.
Standing just fifty feet away were two women enraptured with one another - strong hands pulling at hair and tugging at shoulders.
Many times before, Lilla had enjoyed kisses with her own admirer - Kylo - but it was never quite like that. Xena and Gabrielle's embrace was too rough, Lilla decided - shocked when Gabrielle looked to pull herself up against Xena only to be lifted by her bottom - squirming against the taller, stronger warrior. And when the squirming became too much, Xena turned to the tree at her back, and pressed Gabrielle against it - the surprisingly feminine gasp ragged and explicitly sexual. It was a gasp that raked through the foliage and grass with its power and energy.
Lilla swallowed hard at the way Xena's fingers pressed against her sister's legs - tripping over her feet on her hurried exit back to the house. With her breathing altogether irregular, Lilla jogged her way back to the light and paths around the houses with the last image unfortunately burned into her mind: Gabrielle and Xena open-mouthed kissing with hands freely roaming - an unashamed sexuality ignited between them.
Gabrielle's chest was still heaving with enthusiasm when she pushed at Xena's shoulder - laughing when the excited woman lunged still.
"Xena ... Xena ... I hear something."
"No, he's long gone ... he was sulking a while, and then he left off in the other direction ... come here ..."
"No," Gabrielle moaned, tilting her head back when Xena's lips graced her neck from her collar bone to her ear. "Xena ... Xena."
At last, Xena let Gabrielle back to her feet, staring lustfully at her with a greater frustration than she had felt before. "I need some time with you, Gabrielle ... please ... just SOME time alone ..."
"I can't help but tease you sometimes," Gabrielle whispered, putting her finger to Xena's lips. "I'm sorry ... I'll ... try not to think so much about you ... that way."
Suddenly Xena was distracted all over again, leaning against the tree and over her dear Gabrielle. "And ... how often have you been thinking of me, then?"
"Too often," Gabrielle blushed, despite her greater efforts. She put one hand gently over Xena's breastplate, and put just a slight pressure from her palm to keep the temptation physically at bay. "Xena ... I'll ... tell my mother I have to go and-"
"No ... no, Gabrielle. You just returned, and you need this place. You need your family. I don't want you removing yourself on my behalf."
"My mother invited you in, to sleep on the couch. If you refuse, she'll just try to convince you. She told me there're wolves out here."
"Well ... I ... just ... need a room for the night then. You can stay with your mother," Xena sighed with some weakness behind her voice. "I just ... need to take care of a few things ... So I can still be there for you."
"But it hasn't even been a week, has it?" Gabrielle teased, somewhat enthused that Xena found her so unforgivably enticing. "Don't tell me you'll take care of it on your own ...?"
Then Xena grinned at the thought of just how jealous Gabrielle might become if she teased about another woman doing the job. It was such an awful tease, Xena thought better than to announce it - laughing instead. "Yes. I do."
"What are you laughing about?"
Again, the image of Gabrielle's aggressive protection toward any wanton women flashed through her mind, and Xena smirked: "Nothing Gabrielle. It's nothing. I just ... I love how strong you are ... and how jealous you can become."
"Well, I like to be the one doing the pleasing," Gabrielle confessed quite openly, playing with the strap of Xena's leathers. Fingering the fabric in a way that had Xena unmistakeably weak in the knees.
"Uh ... I ... like that too."
"But you're right, Xena ... I need to stay for a while. Even if it's a very short while."
"Mmm ... mind repeating that part about me being right?"
"You're right," Gabrielle gladly ceded, crossing her arms with a smile of her own. "You know ... I'm sure you've been ... taking care of things on your own long before me ... but I can't seem to imagine it."
"Maybe I can help with that-" Xena started, interrupting herself with complete silence as her head turned to the left and everything slowed for her to listen.
For Gabrielle it was a moment in time, admiring Xena's skill in sensing people from afar. It was a moment after which Xena locked eyes with her again, and rested both hands on Gabrielle's slighter shoulders.
"There's a visitor coming - probably for water ... we'd better go."
Gabrielle stared up at Xena with honest trust. "You know ... maybe soon, we'll be able to have that privacy, for more than our desires. Maybe ... we'll be able to talk without being interrupted or needing to whisper our conversation."
"I think I already have something in mind."
Gabrielle laughed and Xena pulled a very humorous face before they parted ways. Xena walked to one of only two inns in the town, and Gabrielle walked back to the house.
On her way back, Gabrielle stopped at a patch of flowers and crouched down to inspect them more closely. The gentle pink color had her smiling because she could imagine them in Xena's hair - tucked behind the dainty ear. Gabrielle smiled and picked just one flower to twirl it between her fingers. Looking at the small souvenir of nature, Gabrielle let pieces of her old self in - imagining back to that young girl she once was. The girl that enjoyed twirling flowers. The young girl who didn't have to be brave and strong all the time, and with no one looking to her for their answers. She smiled at the freedom she had in such youthful moments - something she didn't have as queen. Something she struggled to understand even without her royal responsibilities. She realized that she was still that queen at heart, holding everything inside for the better of her people. Gabrielle still felt cold, distancing herself strategically from everyone else. And once Gabrielle realized the pain it was causing her and those around her, she wondered to herself what it might be like to let that girl back in. How would it feel and how deeply might it affect her?
Gabrielle tucked that small, fragile flower into the top leather loop that held her small sais and kept on toward the house she once had wanted to escape. The very small journey took her quite a while to traverse, delving into the mind of the girl that had been pushed away from conscious thought.
That night, Gabrielle dreamt of the many memories that had linked her journey from the chase to her amazon family, and everything since. She tossed and turned, and even jolted up from her dreams a handful of times - never conscious that she had woken Lilla, too, with her unsettled breathing.
The fourth time Gabrielle jolted up, sweating, Lilla hurried from her bed over to her sister's, hugging her so tightly that Gabrielle didn't fight the comfort. Gabrielle even smiled once she had caught her breath, remembering the small child Lilla had been the last time she had slept in that room. Lilla had always been the comforting type, even when Gabrielle used to squirm away from the favored child. But there in the midst of her many nightmares, Gabrielle hugged her sister back and breathed a little steadier with the familial help.
"Do you often have bad dreams, Gabrielle?"
"No ... I don't."
"What's wrong?" Lilla asked, filled with concern as she pulled back to the frazzled appearance of a woman who clearly prided herself on her own personal sense of order.
"I don't know ... I'll be okay, Lilla ... You can go back to sleep."
When Lilla obeyed and padded back to the other side of the room, Gabrielle slipped back into her bed and whispered across the room: "Thanks, though."
"Think of something that makes you feel comfortable," Lilla whispered back, turning to the wall to give Gabrielle's struggles some privacy. "Goodnight."
"Night," Gabrielle sighed, dropping her head heavily onto the pillow to close her eyes and immediately imagine Xena. She imagined Xena having been there to protect her all that time ago. The rush of adrenaline she felt from her harrowing memories evaporated with great relaxation as Gabrielle imagined what Xena's reaction might have been toward a group of older boys chasing her through the forest. She turned onto her side, and allowed herself to imagine being saved by someone other than herself. For once, it wasn't her own adult self helping the child from within, but Gabrielle relaxed her shoulders and imagined someone else doing the saving. The small details - like the feel of the grass that fated day - were gladly accompanied with the thought of the small details Gabrielle knew of Xena.
Gabrielle could picture the scene halting at the tree line, where Xena stepped out from a tree and caught a screaming, young Gabrielle at her side - the chakram in her other hand with a menacing glare cast to the boys.
"I think it's time you pick on someone your own size."
Or something equally cocky would do, too.
Gabrielle actually smiled at the very thought of Xena up against those horrible boys who had intended to do her such harm. She curled up with her head resting on the lumpy mattress and lulled herself to sleep with the image of those boys trying and failing to reach her - that familiar arm protectively draped over her back.
In the darkened middle of the night, Xena lifted from her own rest at the inn and sat up along the edge of the bed to slip on her boots. Thankfully her inner alarm was everything it used to be, with the darkness blanketing the sky just visible out the small window.
Xena walked out of the inn and in the direction she had spotted earlier in the light. Pleased with things turning out as she'd hoped, Xena walked right into Herodotus's camp as the older man awoke - his senses still sharp.
"Xena ...?" he asked in a voice low and coarse.
"Do you know anyone who could take Gabrielle's place beside Ares for all eternity?" she asked, blurting out the problem as quickly as possible so as not to pull out the issue for any longer than was necessary. As much as she respected the bond of family, she was still deciding how she felt about Herodotus being a part of Gabrielle's life.
"Wh ... what? Excuse me?" Herodotus asked, still somewhat groggy from his sleep. "Is this ... a joke?"
"I don't surprise warriors in the middle of the night with old jokes. No."
At that, Herodotus pulled himself up to stand and roughly rubbed his eyes to focus on what details of Xena's expression he COULD see. "Say again."
"... I know this is sudden and unbelievable, but ... I am on speaking terms with Ares himself, and he had a deal with me in which I would be at his side for eternity. It's a long story, but the part you'll be interested in is ... your very protective daughter ... has taken my place. AGAINST my wishes, of course. And now I can't exchange the deal."
Herodotus's expression dropped completely.
"And I need to find someone who will exchange with her ... or the moment she's gone from this earth, she won't be in Elysia. She'll be with Ares."
With eyes as wide as ever, Herodotus felt the shock of Gabrielle feeling so strongly for Xena as to make such a deal. "My Gabrielle ..."
"Do you know anyone who would trade their soul for hers?"
"Yes ... M-me," he stuttered, eyes still tracing over the grass before reaching up to Xena.
"I think we can make this all go away ... I just ... I need someone to be willing to make the trade first ... Would you keep this answer by morning?"
"I would."
Xena felt a great weight taken off her shoulders at the confession and the heartfelt response from a father who hadn't been there all of Gabrielle's childhood and adolescence. It was a positive note toward a man tangled with much abandonment and regrettable selfishness. It was a lighted, hopeful moment between them in which Xena instructed the man on what needed to be done in order to make the trade. In which Herodotus thanked her for coming to him first, insisting Hecuba would have done so all-too-quickly.
"This is the one thing I can do for her," he said in a way so defeated, Xena couldn't help but sighing and responding in kind.
"Not the only thing, Herodotus."
"I can't be there ... not like I should have been all those years ago."
Xena looked up toward the moon, imagining why he would think a thing like that, and decided it must have come down to some very powerful guilt. "Well ... I wouldn't underestimate the bond of a family if I were you."
"A family without my presence ..."
"Don't feel sorry for yourself," Xena whispered out of frustration, "Your love for Hecuba shouldn't stop you from a conversation with the both of them."
"My love for Hecuba ...?"
"I'm no fool - why do you think you haven't spoken to her in all this time? Why you've come to see but not be seen? I'm sure you've seen your share of battles, Herodotus, and that you're no stranger to strategy on the battlefield. And I'm not a person to tell others what to do anymore ... but ... the women of that house deserve to have a talk with you. Sooner rather than later."
In answer, Herodotus dropped his head only to pick it up all over again, and adjust his hands on his hips. Xena wanted to smile because she knew what that pose meant when Gabrielle had used it: she was indignant about something.
"I will decide what's best, Xena," Herodotus said tilting his head and convincing Xena that a small piece of his confident self had returned.
"Sleep well then," Xena said over her shoulder, already headed back to the inn before twisting around just once more: "And Herodotus ...?"
The older man turned and lifted his tired eyes - tired when imagining an eternity with the God of War. An eternity he had chosen in place of his daughter. "... Yes?"
"I couldn't do this for her alone ... thank you. Really." She meant every word, although she knew she wouldn't let it come to that.
Herodotus just nodded and went back to his rest once Xena had headed off again, back through the tall grass surrounding another spattering of houses. Xena walked until she reached the inn again, thinking to Gabrielle's warning of the wolves, and sensing somehow that Herodotus's experience in the wild would allow him to handle a wolf or two. She imagined the same for herself, but an inn was a definite comfort when in need of privacy.
It was only then, in the middle of the night in the bed of her room, that Xena allowed herself to truly enjoy her own touch. Slow, steady breathing with eyes closed gave way to images of Gabrielle that stirred her lust into an unbreakable need only satisfied with the touch underneath her skirt. Xena dug her heels into the bed and touched herself silently, desperately imagining Gabrielle draped over her, doing the touching.
"Fuck me ..." Xena whispered to herself so quietly only the consonants of her words gathered any sound at all. When she was on the verge of a mild but satisfying climax, one word fell from her lips with all the energy and lust that had been burning from within: "Gabrielle ..."
It was obvious that Gabrielle had some things to clear up before leaving, but suddenly Xena's thoughts drifted to the plan she had for herself and Gabrielle after they were done in Potidaea. Xena arched, stretched her arm, and rolled onto her side with a big smile: she had a feeling she and Gabrielle would be very happy indeed with a place of their own. She just hoped that Gabrielle wouldn't be upset by the invitation on its way.