Chapter 6
It just didn't seem the same, Xena thought to herself. The
change of time periods could be a large part of that, she had to
admit, but somehow she didn't think that was all there was to it.
It was more than the change of time. More even than the presence
of her grown daughter. No, it was more a feeling that something
that should be there, had to be there, simply wasn't.
She also suspected she knew what it was.
It had been vaguely unsettling to see Joxer as an old man. So
much so that she had spent much of the time avoiding him.
Something she now regretted. Deeply. It had just been too...
too strange to see him like that. To see her 'little brother'
all grown up and with a wife, children, and all that. To not
have been a part of that, to not have seen it... "I don't know,"
she thought to herself, "but I just couldn't connect with it,
with him." It was almost as if it weren't real. As if this man
hadn't been their Joxer.
She still had problems absorbing it. But nothing, she suspected,
compared to what Gabrielle was going through.
She'd tried to hide it, but Xena knew that she'd been having dry
heaves ever since that day. She ate little, and slept less. Her
eyes were starting to get bags under them, and she seemed to be
aging right before Xena's eyes. But there was nothing she could
do or say. She couldn't even bring up Joxer's name for the pain
that would light in Gabrielle's eyes.
To the untrained observer it might even look like they hadn't
cared about his death. No words, no tears. But they grieved.
The silent, most hurting kind of mourning.
Gabrielle had always been their strength, but these last few
years had tried her sorely, and Xena feared that Joxer's death
had been the final straw. For it was now Gabrielle who was the
stoic, silent one. She who had once been so full of joy that it
burst forth affectionately, was now as emotionless as the walking
dead. And this worried Xena deeply.
But what worried her even more was that there was nothing she
could do, nothing she could say, to make things right. And so
she was forced to do nothing, while at the same time forced to
witness the slow, lingering death of her beloved companion and
friend.
"Joxer," she thought, "I miss you."
It just didn't seem the same, Xena thought to herself. The
change of time periods could be a large part of that, she had to
admit, but somehow she didn't think that was all there was to it.
It was more than the change of time. More even than the presence
of her grown daughter. No, it was more a feeling that something
that should be there, had to be there, simply wasn't.
She also suspected she knew what it was.
It had been vaguely unsettling to see Joxer as an old man. So
much so that she had spent much of the time avoiding him.
Something she now regretted. Deeply. It had just been too...
too strange to see him like that. To see her 'little brother'
all grown up and with a wife, children, and all that. To not
have been a part of that, to not have seen it... "I don't know,"
she thought to herself, "but I just couldn't connect with it,
with him." It was almost as if it weren't real. As if this man
hadn't been their Joxer.
She still had problems absorbing it. But nothing, she suspected,
compared to what Gabrielle was going through.
She'd tried to hide it, but Xena knew that she'd been having dry
heaves ever since that day. She ate little, and slept less. Her
eyes were starting to get bags under them, and she seemed to be
aging right before Xena's eyes. But there was nothing she could
do or say. She couldn't even bring up Joxer's name for the pain
that would light in Gabrielle's eyes.
To the untrained observer it might even look like they hadn't
cared about his death. No words, no tears. But they grieved.
The silent, most hurting kind of mourning.
Gabrielle had always been their strength, but these last few
years had tried her sorely, and Xena feared that Joxer's death
had been the final straw. For it was now Gabrielle who was the
stoic, silent one. She who had once been so full of joy that it
burst forth affectionately, was now as emotionless as the walking
dead. And this worried Xena deeply.
But what worried her even more was that there was nothing she
could do, nothing she could say, to make things right. And so
she was forced to do nothing, while at the same time forced to
witness the slow, lingering death of her beloved companion and
friend.
"Joxer," she thought, "I miss you."