Gabrielle awoke slowly in a bed that she found rather uncomfortable. She sat up, and winced as a pain bit her shoulder like dogs. She felt weak, and her back felt like fire.
"She's awake," announced a male voice from somewhere else in the room.
A man and a woman whose dispositions reminded her almost nauseatingly of her own parents, who though she loved them she felt had coddled her far too much, approached her bed. After all this , she thought with resentment, I am back to where I started .
"How are you feeling?" The woman asked her, reaching for Gabrielle's forehead.
With an uncharacteristic coldness, Gabrielle swatted her hand away, "Where's Xena?"
"Who?" The woman asked.
"Xena, my companion. She was with me."
"I was on my way to the next village to trade when I found you," explained the man, "I had thought you were dead until I heard you say that name, 'Xena.' You were alone. Except for the bodies of the men that you had killed." He grimaced, "Scoundrels, they were, robbing us farmers blind. We thank you for getting rid of them."
"No," Gabrielle stuttered, panic rising in her chest, "Xena would never abandon me. I have to... I must find her…" She began to get up.
"I'm here, Gabrielle." The familiar voice was music to the bard's ears, and she visibly relaxed. She did not notice the perplexed looks that painted the faces of her saviors.
"Thank you for rescuing me," Gabrielle said to the man and the woman, "I really would have been okay. Here," she reached into her pouch and pulled out a dinar, "for your troubles. I really must be going."
As she again moved to stand, the woman pushed her back onto the bed, "You need to rest," she insisted, "You are still so weak."
"It's just a wound," said Gabrielle, "I have survived worse."
"No," said the man, "You should certainly be dead."
"And there's something else," the woman said, "When I was dressing your wound. The mark on your back… where did it come from?"
"Doesn't matter," said Gabrielle hastily, "I'm fine. Let me go."
"You are ill," the man said, "You must regain your strength."
Gabrielle growled in frustration, "Why does everyone say that I'm ill? I am Greek, and light-skinned even for a Greek at that. I am simply not so sunkissed and tanned as your people. I am not sick!"
"I can see that your eyes are red from some grief and lack of rest, and your gaze is wild and unfocused," the woman said. She forced her cool hand onto Gabrielle's neck, "Your skin is hot and your heart is beating twice as fast as it should. Whatever your affliction, it runs much deeper than this wound."
As Gabrielle swung her feet over the side of the bed to leave, the woman pushed her back down. Frustrated, Gabrielle shoved her with all her strength into the arms of the man, whose horror matched his wife's. Standing finally, fighting a momentary dizziness and an angry pain in her shoulder, Gabrielle quickly located her bag that her saviors had surely recovered from the battle. She slung it over her shoulder and headed for the door, but not before locking eyes with a teenaged girl who was hanging clothes to dry. Gabrielle imagined the girl dropping her menial task and begging, 'Please take me with you! I love to study geography and maps. Oh, I want so much to be like you.'
But the girl only watched her, warily, and with that pity in her eyes that seemed to say, Poor girl, I wonder what happened to her?
Outside again, the bright sun assaulting Gabrielle's tired eyes, she asked, "Can you believe them? All these years and everyone still treats me like a helpless kid!"
"Where are you going?" Xena asked.
"I need to get out of this place. In Greece they know me, who I am - they know who we are… We will be respected there."
"Are you ready to return?" Xena asked.
"Yes…" said Gabrielle, "I have gotten what I came here for."
"Gabrielle…" Xena cautioned.
"No, Xena. I don't wanna hear it." She pulled a delicate scroll from her bag, "It really wasn't too hard to find, I am surprised. But now it is a matter of reading it." She squinted at the neat but unfamiliar characters, "I've asked around but no one can seem to translate this language. I don't know what to do, but I will go to the Amazons until I can think of something."
"Rest there for a while," said Xena, "You have a place there, a home. Clear your head."
Gabrielle nodded absently.
As the ship to Greece set sail, Gabrielle felt a sudden anxiety. She clutched the side of the boat in a panic. Xena is dead, she thought, as though she hadn't realized it before that moment, I am alone. I am lost.
She leaned over and vomited into the waves below, her seasickness getting the best of her. She groaned as the strain and movement upset her wound.
"Use the pressure points I showed you," Xena cooed in her ear, brushing her hair back.
Relaxation washed over Gabrielle like the waves below. What had she been thinking about a moment ago? It didn't matter, Xena was here.
Then seasickness overtook Gabrielle again. Xena noticed she was coughing up more bile and spit than undigested food.
"Gabrielle, are you eating?"
"Uh-huh," she replied vacantly, pressing the spot on her wrist that somehow calmed her nausea.
"No you aren't. Gabrielle, don't lie to me." Xena said, "I can see how thin you are."
"You too, now? Stop babying me, Xena. I know what I'm doing."
"You need to take care of yourself, Gabrielle. You need to eat, and make sure you are getting enough sleep. You haven't been thinking clearly."
Gabrielle felt hot and anxious again as she turned to face Xena, "How am I supposed to eat knowing you are gone? How can I sleep when every time I close my eyes I see you being dragged away from me?" Her voice had raised to a hysterical shout, "My own grief is eating me alive, Xena, and there is nothing I can do about it!" She peered at the scroll poking out of her bag. "Except one thing," she corrected, softer.
When she looked up, Xena was gone, and she became aware of the other people on the boat, who were eyeing her warily, pitying her but also fearing what she might do in her apparent insanity.
Exhausted and confused, she slid down to the creaky floor and hugged her knees, willing the spectators to look away.