Chapter 5
Hope rolled onto her side and groaned as she slowly returned to consciousness. Every muscle in her body burned.
Groggily, she sat up and rubbed her eyes with one hand. Beyond the window of her room, she could see stars twinkling in the evening sky. The moon rose, deep orange, from behind the distant hills.
She gasped as pain shot up her leg the moment she put her foot on the floor.
"What the mind believes, the body feels," she groaned. Until that moment, she had been skeptical of David and his motives in the dreamscape. The pain in her ankle was all the proof she required.
Gently, she rose and hobbled out into the main room of the cabin.
The fire was crackling in the hearth as she emerged. She saw Xena and her mother deep in conversation. Both of them stopped talking at the creak of the board beneath Hope's feet.
Xena looked back and her eyes went wide for only a moment, as if she were surprised at something.
Hope looked down at her foot and saw, for the first time, the myriad of scratches on her arms.
Gabrielle had a similar expression, though hers showed more concern than Xena.
"What the hell happened to you?" Xena asked more out of curiosity than any genuine concern.
"Long story," Hope replied thickly. She took a few more hobbling steps into the living room and practically allowed herself to fall into the old armchair.
Gabrielle frowned in concern. "Have you been outside? I thought you were asleep?"
Hope said nothing. Her mind and heart were in turmoil and the words wouldn't form as she looked at Gabrielle.
Something in her heart told her that David wasn't lying when he said that she was nearing the end of her life. She looked weary, beaten down by years of struggle and grief.
Hope instantly realized that a large portion of that burden was her doing.
"I," she began, looking at the two of them. "It's a long story." She finally managed to say.
"I'll bet," Xena scoffed and marched off towards the old kitchen.
Gabrielle smiled. "But I bet it's an interesting one?" She finished, trying to smooth over Xena's icy comment.
Hope reached down and massaged her sore ankle.
As Gabrielle watched her, she could almost feel the struggle within Hope as she was trying to cope with everything in her mind. As much as she had put on the front for Xena, a part of her desperately wanted to believe that Hope's conversion was genuine.
She watched a little longer, seeing the struggle in her daughters face. Finally she couldn't take any more.
"What is it, Hope?" she asked.
Hope sat back up, but did not meet Gabrielle's gaze. "I know the two of you don't believe me, and I can understand if you never do." She started. Then her voice caught and she looked up at Gabrielle and after a visible internal struggle. "I don't know where to start." She admitted finally. "There are so many things I want to say, and I can't, they just, the words aren't there!"
Gabrielle leaned forward and suddenly placed her hand over Hope's.
"Try."
The emotion built again, still so unfamiliar and uncontrollable.
"I fell like my heart is about to explode!" she burst out. "You'll never believe anything I say, never trust me! I'll never know what it's like to." She stopped suddenly. Sniffing, she looked down.
"The only good memory I have in my life," she said slowly. "The only thing I remember is your voice." She smiled a bitter smile.
"You were singing me to sleep, when I was a baby."
Gabrielle's eyes went wide with surprise, but she kept herself steady.
"After that," Hope continued. "All I remember is Dahok's voice, in my mind, driving me toward…you know."
"I know," Gabrielle said reassuringly. "Go on."
Hope took a few deep breaths, trying to maintain some semblance of composure.
"Once his voice was gone," she continued. "There wasn't anything left. Nothing at all. And I started to realize…I began to understand…I knew everything I had done in my life was wrong! But it was too late! I couldn't go back and change it! I couldn't make it right!"
"No you can't, Hope," Gabrielle said. There was a sudden touch of ice in her voice, as much as she tried to hide it.
"Of all the people I've harmed," Hope admitted. "I've hurt you the most. All I can say is that I'm sorry, but I know that will never be enough. I'm sorry for what I did to you, sorry for what happened to Solan, all those years ago, sorry about all the things I did, all the people, this place, your husband," she was breaking down even as she spoke.
Hope looked up and saw Xena moving toward her, her leather shining in the light of the fire.
Xena stepped before her and knelt down, looking into Hope's eyes.
Hope sniffed and wiped at her cheeks.
"I don't know how this will all work out," Xena said quietly. Hope frowned, confused.
Xena held a hand out to her.
Gabrielle looked between her two daughters with a mixture of relief and amazement. This was the last thing she was expecting from Xena.
Tentatively, Hope reached out and let her hand slip into her sisters, looking between Xena and Gabrielle as if she were afraid all this might be some twisted dream.
"Come here," Xena said, pulling her into an embrace. "We got a lot to work out, you and me." Xena said in her ear, even as she felt Hope begin to tremble. "And I'm not promising we won't be at each other's throats. But I'm willing to try, if you are?"
She felt Hope nod as her cheek rested on her shoulder.
Gabrielle's own eyes welled up and she reached out, putting a hand on each of her children.
Nothing was said for a very long time. Nothing more needed to be said. The words wouldn't have been enough.
The night was old by the time they had all regained their composure enough to have something to drink and speak of matters other than those of the heart.
"How did you twist your ankle?" Xena asked as she refilled a small cup with water from a nearby pail.
"You wouldn't believe me," Hope shook her head. "In some ways, I still don't believe it."
"Your nightmare again?" Gabrielle asked.
"Not exactly," Hope answered uneasily. There was a chance that this subject might reopen the emotional dam again, but for Xena and Gabrielle more so than her.
"Well?" Xena asked. "Let's hear it?"
"I was dreaming," Hope replied. "In a place called Daobah, or something like that."
Xena froze and Gabrielle straightened in her seat.
Hope looked between them nervously. "David took me there. He took me out of the nightmare and put me somewhere else."
Xena smiled suddenly. "My dad did that?"
Hope nodded, feeling that palpable regret forming again.
"Hey," Gabrielle said, seeing the change in expression on Hope's face. "It's alright."
"He," Hope went on. "He pulled me out of the nightmare I've been having, and put me in his, um, dreamscape. That was the word he used."
"Yeah," Xena nodded. "He did that with me and Alexander all the time."
"And where did he take you?" Gabrielle asked, smiling.
"All kinds of places that he remembered," Xena answered. "Real places and imagined ones."
"He said that he could show me things," Hope continued. "Help me learn how to survive."
Gabrielle nodded. "It's strange, but he is right. It does work."
"How is he doing that?" Hope asked.
Gabrielle sat back and thought for a moment. "David was a powerful priest. He could do things that no one else her ever could. A lot of the things he did were unique to him and him alone."
"He knew how to manipulate the energy that surrounds people," Xena added. "That was how he beat you, remember?"
Hope shuddered at the memory. David leaping towards her, his katana flashing in the sunlight. She could feel the waves of energy emanating from him, in spite of his advanced age. He moved like a man much younger than he was. Each attack sapped a bit more of her strength, weakening the control her unholy father exerted over her. She could feel his influence slipping, the sound of his voice fading each time she was forced to defend herself.
It hadn't been the results of his attacks that had alarmed her the most. It hadn't even been the fact that he was more skilled in combat than any man his age should have been.
It had been the fire in his eyes, the sheer ferocity of his relentless assault that had given her the first taste of fear that she had ever experienced.
In her entire life, she had confronted countless victims, seen the fear in their eyes, even felt it, like a tonic that she had relished. If the fear of her victims had been sweet and intoxicating, then his complete lack of it had left a bitter tang in her mouth.
It wasn't until her final, desperate counterattack that she realized he had been sapping her dark energy and storing it in himself. He had allowed her power to feed him, increasing his strength until the final moment when she had run her weapon through his chest.
She felt a sudden pain in her left side as she recalled his deliberate attack, even as he saw the point of her weapon lashing out towards his chest. His quick steps had carried him towards her, impaling himself upon her outstretched weapon.
He ran himself upon her blade!
She looked at Xena and Gabrielle, staring at her curiously as she had drifted back into the memory.
Her eyes went wide with the realization. Dare she present this revelation to the two people seated before her.
In that moment, it all clicked into place. The reason why she was disconnected from her dark father was completely clear now. It had been the energy released by David in that final moment. Not just the energy he had taken from her, but his life energy in concert with everything else. That powerful jolt had changed her in some way, cutting her off from Dahok and his control. She was the same person, with a portion of David intermingled with her soul.
That was why she couldn't hear Dahok any more. That was the reason why David was able to pull her into his own dream worlds. That was why all these emotions, repressed during her incarceration, had surfaced with such fire in these few weeks.
Her mouth dropped open in shock, even as Gabrielle began nodding, a knowing expression on her face.
Xena looked back and forth between them, frowning in confusion.
"Uh, what's going on?" she asked.
"I think Hope is beginning to understand things," Gabrielle said with uncharacteristic calm. "She might be ready."
Hope stood up.
"What's going on here?" She asked.
The confusion melted from Xena's face, replaced by a knowing look of her own.
"You think so?"
Hope looked from one impassive expression to the other, a knot of cold dread beginning to coalesce in her belly. Something about this entire situation was wrong, somehow. There was a touch of non reality to it beyond the strange look and unspoken understanding between Gabrielle and Xena.
The two other women remained motionless, staring up at her curiously.
"What's the matter?" Xena asked.
"That was too easy. The whoel thing was too simple, too much of what I really want to be real. Who are you?" Hope asked, stepping backward towards the door. "Where's my mother?"
One of Gabrielle's eyebrows rose slightly in amusement.
"You're not her," Hope said as the certainty knotted in a cold clot in the middle of her chest.
The two figures shimmered and faded, vanishing like mist, even as the surroundings began to fade away and she found herself standing, once again, on that desolate, barren plain, looking at the ominous temple that housed her torment.
"No!" she cried.
Hope sat up, once again in the bed, the early morning sunlight streaming in through the open window. Her body was covered in a layer of cold sweat.
Somewhere n the distance, she heard deep, ominous laughter echoing around her. Dread formed in her belly as she recognized it.
Dahok.
The door burst open, and Xena came in, sword in hand.
"What happened?" she demanded.
She relaxed when she saw Hope's disheveled appearance.
"Nightmare again?" she asked coldly.
Hope nodded.
Xena sheathed her sword and sighed.
"We're getting ready to head back to Amphipolis," Xena continued. "You can come along, if you want."
There was nothing inviting in the invitation. It was simply a statement.
"That's definitely her," Hope thought, groaning as she got to her feet, and once again felt the pain in her ankle.
She gathered her things and packed up the blankets, the feeling of dread building in her heart.
When she emerged from the house, she found Gabrielle already seated in the saddle and Xena tying down the last of her belongings on her own horse.
In the distance, at the edge of the sky, she could see the dark ominous billowing of storm clouds.
She stepped past the two of them, gazing at the building storm with trepidation.
The others followed her and turned their eyes towards the sky.
Thunder rolled from the distance.
"Looks like we might get wet," Xena noted.
As Hope turned back to face them, her gaze swept across the cold ruins of Poditea. In a flash, she saw it as she had left it, smoke billowing from countless fires. Bodies lay strewn on the road leading towards the house. The bodies of her fallen priests lay around her feet in the yard. Then, in a flash again, the image was gone.
The air burst from her lungs expelling some of the terror she was feeling.
"You coming?" a voice asked her.
She started, turning to face Xena, looking down at her from astride her mount.
"What?" Hope asked.
"Are you coming, or not?" Xena asked again.
The horse stamped impatiently.
Hope nodded, trying to control the fear knotting her gut. She took a step towards them.
"Kill them!"
She stopped in her tracks and caught her breath.
Looking back up at Gabrielle and Xena, she saw them both frown. Her mother with concern, Xena with outright suspicion.
"What?" Xena asked.
Hope didn't know what to say. Her mind was reeling from her vision of a few moments before.
Xena rolled her eyes and kicked her horse, moving past her towards the gate.
Hope could almost feel the wave of cold as she passed her.
"You can ride with me," Gabrielle offered.
Hope looked up at her mother and their eyes met for a long moment.
Gabrielle could see the sudden fear in her eyes.
"Are you alright?"
Hope nodded quickly.
"Come on," Gabrielle extended a hand to her to help her up.
Tentatively, Hope reached up and took the proffered hand.
With surprising ease, Gabrielle helped Hope up.
She settled onto the horse behind her mother. The horse nickered a little in protest at the extra weight before trotting off after Xena.
The three of them moved up through the ruins of the town. Hope gazed about her, the images of the present and the past, flashing before her eyes with maddening intensity.
She felt something like panic beginning to writhe inside her.
She tried to fix her eyes forward, to no avail, or close them, trying to will the memories away. But nothing worked.
The churning in her belly grew and grew with nauseating deliberation.
Finally, she could bare it no more. She dropped from the back of the horse, stumbled a few steps away behind the broken corner of a building and bent double as the gorge rose.
Xena reined her horse as she heard the choking noises from behind her.
She brought her horse back next to her mothers and looked at the bent figure a few paces away.
"Still think this is an act?" Xena asked.
Gabrielle shook her head slowly. "The more I watch her. The more I believe it isn't."
Xena winced sympathetically when she heard another series of chokes and the splatter as the vomit ejected from Hope's belly.
Hope wiped her mouth off and tried to stand back up. When she looked back at the others, she saw the tail end of Xena's sympathetic expression.
"You okay?" Xena asked.
In spite of the pain in her gut, Hope nodded.
"Good," Xena replied. "Let's go."
"Xena," Gabrielle chided.
Xena turned her horse and resumed her march through the ruins.
Gabrielle waited and helped Hope back up onto the horse.
They left the ruins of Poditea behind and traveled for a good three hours before the first thick drops of rain began to fall.
Lightning arced across the sky with brilliant pale green flashes, and the thunder rolled above them.
Hope tried to ignore the incessant water dripping into her eyes, instead focusing on the terrain. As she turned her head, her gaze moved past the back of Gabrielle's neck.
Instantly, her father's voice boomed again in her ear.
"Kill her!"
She jerked in fright, and nearly fell off the back of the horse.
Gabrielle turned her head back to look over her shoulder.
"Hope?"
"Nothing," Hope lied quickly. "Nothing."
She could almost hear Dahok's laughter with each boom of thunder above.
"You are mine! You have always been mine! Your will is my will! You are mine! You will always be mine! Kill them! Destroy any who oppose my will! Show no mercy! No compassion! Be the master of destiny that you were born to be!"
Again that laughter thundered between her ears, gaining strength with each passing moment. Dark fingers began to wrap around her soul.
In panic, Hope dropped again from the back of the horse and fled, even as the urge to kill her mother began to assert itself with its old icy inevitability.
"No!" she cried.
"Hope!" Gabrielle shouted.
Xena turned around and saw Hope vanish into the foliage.
Gabrielle dropped to the ground and followed as fast as she could.
"Hope!" she called again. Her voice was drowned out by another roll of thunder. "Hope!"
The rain fell in blinding sheets as the heavens were wreathed in fire and thunder.
Hope fled deeper into the woods, her arm held before her, shielding her face from the clawing branches.
"Destroy them!" Dahok's voice bellowed louder in her ears. "Destroy them now!"
Suddenly, the trees vanished and she found herself in the middle of a small clearing. Rain fell in a torrent around her. The heavens blazed.
"Leave me alone!" Hope cried out.
"Hear me!" the voice boomed in her mind. "Take your strength from me as you have always done!"
Hope clapped her hands over her ears and dropped to the ground. "Stop!"
Xena caught up with Gabrielle and the two of them jogged through the forest, following the sound of Hope's cries between the booms of thunder.
The both came to a halt when they saw her, on her knees, her hands squeezing her head desperately.
"Leave me alone!"
Xena's hand drifted to her sword hilt as the two of them moved toward her.
Hope's eyes locked on Gabrielle and widened in fear.
"Get away!" She begged. "I can hear him! I can hear him again!"
Xena stepped protectively in front of Gabrielle.
Hope saw her hand on her weapon.
"Kill me!" she begged. "Just kill me!"
Xena looked down at her in disbelief.
Hope could feel the unholy power reawakening in her, rising like a cold tide, in spite of her desperate attempt to stem it.
Dahok was filling her soul again. The icy detachment was asserting itself, and her newly found conscience was being strangled away.
Xena drew her sword and stepped forward.
"Just do it!" Hope begged. "I can't stop him! I can't! I can't!"
She squeezed her eyes shut as if in pain and shrieked as she battled to keep her mind from fragmenting into madness.
Xena felt her heart pounding in her chest. Before her was the creature that had ruined two lives, killed her father, tortured her best friend, and wrought untold havoc on the world she knew. The vengeful side of her wanted to kill her. She wanted to settle the debt. But as she looked down at this tortured being, she realized that the Hope she wanted to kill was not before her. At least, not yet.
"Do it!" Hope screamed. "Do it! Do it! Do it!" she was sobbing in desperation.
Dahok's rage blocked out everything in her mind. It was a deafening cacophony of roaring madness, ripping away her very soul and converting her back into the heartless automaton that she had been before.
She shrieked in terror.
Suddenly, something warm and gentle touched her arms and a single word broke through the maelstrom.
"Hope."
"Just kill me!" Hope begged. "Just kill me!"
"Hope, look at me."
She felt the icy grip of Dahok slip a little, and opened her eyes.
When she looked up, her gaze locked on the deep green eyes of her mother.
Somewhere in that intense gaze, Hope suddenly felt a new reservoir of strength build.
"You don't have to listen to him any more," Gabrielle continued slowly.
"He's still there," Hope sobbed. "He still wants me to –"
"You don't have to listen to him anymore," Gabrielle repeated a little more forcefully. "You are your own person. You've always been your own person. He can't make you do anything you don't want to do."
The bellowing voice faded away and the icy fear that had been clawing up through her soul seemed to wash off in the warm summer rain.
"How did you do that?" Hope croaked.
Gabrielle smiled. "I'm your mother."
She helped the trembling girl to her feet and wrapped her arm about Hope protectively.
Xena watched them go, oblivious to the rain.
"Well," she said to herself as she slid her weapon back into its sheath. "That was different."
They took shelter from the storm beneath a small outcropping of stone that jutted out over part of the road.
Hope shivered in spite of the warm air as the moisture cooled in the wind. Her eyes scanned the woods across the road from them, watching as the mists writhed and drifted along the ground. Instantly, she was reminded of that strange dream world David had shown her.
She hadn't even realized that she had dropped off until she heard the familiar alien clucking call of the strange winged lizards echo over her head. Her eyes snapped open and she looked about. The rain was falling in the same torrential downpour as her waking world.
Violet lightning arced across the sky and the thunder rolled.
Standing beneath a nearby tree, a cigar smoldering between his clenched teeth, stood David with a wry grin on his face.
"You!" Hope's anger blazed suddenly. "What are you doing to me?"
David pointed at himself and gave her an innocent look. "What are you talking about?"
"You said I would wake up!" Hope shouted at him angrily. "And when I finally did, my father's voice was back in my head!"
"What do you mean, finally did?" David asked.
"I," Hope stammered. Some of her anger melting into confusion. "I woke up twice."
"Twice?" David repeated, and then a smile began to spread on his face. "Ah, you mean you were still dreaming, and you dreamt that you woke up."
"You manipulated me!" Hope's anger reasserted itself. "You put me there, in a situation where my mother and sister would accept what I said!"
"Slow down there," David held up a hand to forestall further protest.
"You put me in the middle of another lie!"
"That's enough!" David bellowed suddenly with such ferocity that his voice boomed through the trees and caused Hope to jump in fright.
"You want to come at me with attitude, little girl," David growled, his eyes dark with fury. "You better have the balls to back it up!"
Hope remembered the first time that gaze had settled upon her, in front of her mother's home. There, David had been an old man, in his sixties, and still the dark fire in his eyes had been unsettling, even with Dahok's power to control. Now, without such tools to avail her, and seeing the same man, in his prime, the gaze was truly frightening.
He removed the cigar from between his teeth, smoke issuing from his nostrils, and spat out a small intrusive piece of leaf. Then he looked back and held her in that gaze for a few seconds longer before turning away and stepping off to one side.
"You said you dreamed that you woke up?" he asked after several deep breaths.
"Yes," Hope answered, forcing her own anger back down.
"And your mother and sister were there?" David continued.
"Yes," Hope replied.
"And everything went perfectly," David concluded. "You got to say everything on your mind, and they accepted it unquestioningly."
Hope nodded, remembering the illusion.
David turned back. "Until you recognized something different about them, right?"
Again, Hope nodded. "They were too forgiving. They didn't even seem to feel sorrow when I mentioned you. Every time mother even refers to you, I can see the pain in her eyes. This time, it wasn't there."
"Really?" David mused.
"Then mother said she thought I was beginning to understand things." Hope finished. "What did she mean? It was like they were both up to something?"
David shrugged. "Well, if you see them again, you should ask them."
He stepped forward. "Dreamed that you woke up, huh?" he repeated as if to himself. He chuckled. "That's pretty good. You're picking up on things faster than I expected."
Hope frowned. "Things? What things?"
"You created your first dreamscape, kiddo," David grinned. "You took something familiar and wrapped your mind around it, molding it into what you wanted. Pretty impressive for a rookie."
"I did?" Hope asked. "I made that?"
"Yup," David answered. Then he stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. "But you also left a window open for the others to come in and communicate with you. That can be dangerous at times, still, we can work on that. If I had to venture a guess, and seeing that expectant look in your eyes, I assume you want me too, I would have to say that you also received your first visit from your spirit guides as well."
"Spirit Guides?" Hope frowned
"We all have spirit guides, kiddo," David explained. "But it's kind of hard to hear them when you have someone shouting 'Kill them!' in your ears."
Hope nodded. "I felt like I was going mad," she said. "I could hear him shouting in my head when I woke up, and it was like everything I had been before was coming back to," she stopped suddenly when she realized David was referring to her waking episode.
"Wait a second," she said, her gaze darkening. "How do you know about that?"
David put the cigar back in his mouth and grinned. Then he stretched his arms out and let loose with a bellowing laugh that reverberated through the trees and set the ground to trembling. Then he looked at her with a strange light in his eyes.
When he spoke, the voice of Dahok thundered around them.
"Kill them! Kill them both and let's go have a beer!" He roared in the voice of her unholy father. Then he smiled again and gave her a wink.
"It was you?" Hope hissed in outrage. "You did that to me?"
"The funny thing is," David shrugged. "I should have been able to completely overwhelm you, considering how much your powers have atrophied. But I couldn't. You fought me harder than I had expected. I'm not saying you would have beaten me in the end but you were bound and determined. When you started telling your sister to kill you, I realized that you don't want to go back into Dahok's service at any cost. And now, I think your mother and sister understand that too. Congratulations on passing your first exam."
Hope's eyes went dark as a stormy sea. "You put me through that?" she asked, her voice tight with fury.
"Just chill," David began, but suddenly, he was flying back through the trees. He broke through the foliage, arced smoothly over the large stagnant pool, and landed in the mucky water with a tremendous splash.
David bobbed to the surface, his ruined cigar disintegrating in between his fingers and he struggled back to the drier land.
Hope's eyes were wide with amazement. Since the loss of her abilities and her disconnection from Dahok, she had not been able to accomplish anything like that.
As she saw the waterlogged figure stumble out of the mire, his eyes fixed on her with unholy fury and her amazement began to transform into something more akin to dread.
"Oh boy," she breathed.
David was chuckling, but there was no humor in it.
"Okay," he growled. He tossed the ruined cigar to the ground. "Okay. That's how you want it? It's all on now!"
With a grunt, David flung his arm out in her direction. Instantly, the earth exploded in a long, running furrow, heading straight towards her. Hope dove clear, turned, and fled.
"You're gonna wish your daddy was here to bail your scrawny ass out now, you little shit!" David's voice thundered all around her.
Hope ran so fast, she doubted that her feet were even touching the ground. She ducked this way and that, leaping over fallen trees and rocks, or diving through twisted masses of brambles.
Her mind was filled with nothing but panic, all her instincts were in full flourish as she fled the thunderous booming of David's voice and the maelstrom of destruction that pursued her. Looking behind, she could hear him following, like a gale. Trees and masses of debris were sent skyward as he blasted a path through the swamp.
Violet lightning wreathed the sky in purple fire, and thunder deafened her.
She was only vaguely aware that she was running backwards along the section that David had dubbed 'the Obstacle Course'.
The infamous rise was approaching. Without even slackening her pace, she leapt, clearing the rise by a good five feet and landing squarely on her feet before resuming her mad dash.
She rounded a bend and skidded to a halt when she saw the familiar, little alien figure of the one called Yoda, seated on a rotting tree trunk, his cane absently scraping lines in the mud.
Her eyes were wide with panic, and her breath was heaving.
The small creature turned his gentle blue eyes in her direction and his long pointy ears rose in amusement as he smiled.
"Much power you have, youngling," he said appreciatively. "A taste of it, you have felt, now, yes?"
"What?" she gasped. "Look, you need to get out of here! Any second and David is going to come through here! I really made him angry!"
Yoda gave a hoarse little chuckle.
"Anger you perceived, yes," he said. "But not anger he felt."
The sound of slow clapping startled her and she wheeled around to see David leaning against a tree, perfectly dry, with his cigar once again clenched in his teeth.
He grinned and his eyebrows bounced once.
"See what you can do when you don't think?" he asked.
Looking past him at the rough path back down to the small pool, she saw no hint of the destruction that David had been creating with his outburst.
"What?" Hope gasped, not sure if she should be angry. "You mean?"
"You just tore through a half mile of swamp, with trees, thorn bushes, mud, and water," David continued. "And look at yourself. Not a mark on you."
Hope looked down, and despite a thin layer of sweat from her exertion, she was unmarred by her flight through the foliage.
"How did I?" she stammered, now completely amazed.
"Because you didn't think," David explained. He saw her expression and his amusement grew until he was laughing aloud.
"I needed to motivate you, so," he shrugged. "I did what I do best."
"What?" Hope asked. "Scare me half to death?"
"Pissed you off first, thought," David grinned
"I thought you were going to kill me," Hope said, some of her anger reasserting itself.
David shrugged. "Ah, fear," he said. "The ultimate motivator."
Suddenly, the three of them looked up towards the sky, as if listening. Hope felt a strange, elastic sensation in her body.
"Whoops," David sighed. "This is your wakeup call."
Hope blinked and tensed as she felt Xena's hand on her shoulder.
"Hey?" Xena asked. "You alright? You don't look so good."
Hope noticed, for the first time, that there wasn't so much ice in Xena's voice.
She nodded and struggled to her feet, feeling the burn of her ethereal exertions in her limbs. She groaned.
"What's wrong?" Gabrielle asked as she watched Hope rising stiffly.
"I'm just tired," Hope replied. "And I still don't feel very good."
A sudden sneeze burst violently from her. The convulsive move sent a small shower of water from her drenched clothing and hair.
Xena looked up at her mother and then to the sky, blinking away the raindrops.
"The storm is breaking," she said. "We can change into some dry clothes once it passes."
Hope shivered as she realized that the clothing on her back were the only garments she owned.
Gabrielle noticed her despairing look and smiled. "I have some stuff you can borrow. I'm pretty sure it will fit."
As the rain died to nothing more than a heavy drizzle, Gabrielle reached into her saddlebag and pulled one of her thick blankets free, handing it back to the girl seated behind her.
"Wrap this about you until we stop," she said sincerely. "Otherwise you'll catch your death of cold."
Hope took the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, her eyes looking ahead at her mother with wonder.
Even with all the crimes she had committed and the harm she had done to Gabrielle, there was never anything insincere in her words.
Her actions and concern were genuine, selfless and warm.
"How do you do that?" Hope asked suddenly, speaking her internal musing aloud.
"Do what?" Gabrielle asked, looking back at her.
It took a moment for Hope to frame her thoughts into a coherent question.
"You know everything that I've done," she finally said. "And in spite of that, you're still nice to me."
Gabrielle shrugged. "With everything I've seen since you appeared. I'm beginning to believe that you do want to change. What would be the point of keeping you down? Your stepfather wouldn't have wanted that."
"What was he like?" Hope asked suddenly. "Where did he come from?" Then she stopped suddenly. "Sorry."
Gabrielle looked back at her, her expression a mixture of pride and remembered pain.
"Do you really want to know?" Gabrielle asked her.
Hope nodded. "If you're willing to tell me?"
Gabrielle looked forward, an almost wistful smile on her face. Some of her fading radiance returned as she thought back. "Gods, where to begin."
As Xena's horse strode a few yards ahead, she looked back occasionally and saw her mother and Hope deep in conversation. The thing she found most disconcerting was the way that Hope seemed to be enraptured with whatever Gabrielle said. It was as if the young doppelganger was intent on absorbing any and all the information that Gabrielle was willing to impart.
At first, her suspicions screamed in her mind, urging her to take action. Separate the two of them, keep Hope closer to her instead of with her elderly mother. The darker thoughts came with visions of Hope lying asleep and never waking in the morning, a knife through her heart, or a broken neck while she slumbered. She forced those ideas away.
As the hours progressed, however, she began to notice something remarkable about the two people nearby.
First was the fact that her mother, her best friend in a previous life, had begun to come back to life in some ways.
Despite being nearly sixty years of age, and that she had been battling a fatigue that bordered on chronic for the previous six months, Gabrielle was more alive and animate than she had been for quite a while. She was remembering her life with David, and it was reawakening some of her old passion. She was smiling again, even laughing at times. She had the wistfulness of someone in love showing in her face once more. It was as if years of weight and burden were being shed.
At times, Xena would hear snatches of the conversation, and smile at the memories Gabrielle reawakened in her mind.
The second thing was how much Hope genuinely seemed to want to hear the tales. She hung on every word, every emotion that Gabrielle's remembrances conveyed, as if she were trying to somehow gain those feeling vicariously through the telling. Her eyes were filled with wonder and curiosity, just like Gabrielle had been back when Xena had first begun to travel with her. She asked countless questions, or requested numerous clarifications on various subtle points.
Even as she listened to her mother speak, and asked her questions, attempting to sate a ravenous curiosity, Xena also noticed that Hope became more animate as well, more emotionally committed, more open, and…dare she admit it…more normal?
The day's travel ended just before sundown, and the conversation much later in the evening.
They shared an evening meal, their conversation flowing like an unending river of memories and experiences.
Throughout all of this, Xena maintained a discreet distance, allowing them the privacy she felt they needed, while also maintaining her own, icy detachment.
Still, the more she observed, the more she realized that she wasn't going to find those subtle, telling signs of duplicitous ness that she expected. A small portion of her mind still clung to the possibility, looking for anything to exploit. Everything about Hope was genuine. Even the blossoming smiles that seemed so unfamiliar on her hauntingly familiar features. It was hauntingly like watching her old companion from a life past slowly returning to life. The more Hope stayed near Gabrielle. The more Hope listened to the stories and the life experiences of her mother, the more like her mother she became. The only times it ceased were those occasions when she looked over at Xena and saw the icy distrust in her expression that she sobered suddenly, but even in those 'caught in the act' expressions, Xena could see memories of her mother as the young, impressionable bard that she had taken under her wing all those years ago. The unease between them grew even as Hope's bond with her mother began to strengthen.
"Only a matter of time," Xena thought coldly. "Before we have our little confrontation."
