Title: Reaching Out
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Xena/Gabrielle
Summary: Four times Xena let down a wall to bring her and Gabrielle closer together. Fluff.
"You're not going to just leave me here, are you? I came all this way to see you."
The moment started with an argument.
"That is your problem," Xena stated, looking down on Gabrielle from her horse.
The gall of this woman, after Gabrielle had practically thrown herself in front of stones for her! After following her all the way to Amphipolis from her home in Potidaea. After proving herself as an adventurer against a cyclops and at least one cranky man with a wagon who was cruelly unwilling to give an exhausted, lost woman a ride.
She blurted out, "Hey, I just saved your life." And then she saw the moment shift, there in Xena's brow as she glanced to the side. The aggravated capitulation, wordless.
And then the hand, reaching down to help Gabrielle pull herself up onto the horse. Kind of hauling her, actually, so maybe doing most of the work, but still. Gabrielle felt something warm in that touch, in the way Xena checked one extra time to make sure her passenger was secure before urging her horse forward.
They were kindred spirits, Gabrielle was sure. Brave, adventuring women casting off their roots to wander the world, destined to be friends. Xena definitely felt friendship toward her.
Or maybe more just companionship. Or… definitely at least tolerance!
"What are you doing over there?" Xena called from Argo's back, ahead of Gabrielle on the path. In the weeks since they had become traveling companions, Gabrielle was mostly relieved to find out she was not often welcome on the horse's back. She and Argo didn't get along anyway. But trotting along on aching feet all the time made for long, painful days and nights that always ended too soon.
So the vein of annoyance in Xena's tone didn't surprise Gabrielle. Not only was she lagging behind yet again, she was digging in the dirt a little ways off the path. But she just yelled, "Come here!" and refocused on her task.
No answer. Gabrielle figured Xena didn't appreciate receiving orders from her younger tag-along and resigned herself to dealing with those ruffled feathers later. At the moment, however, she just kept brushing forest detritus and dirt aside and shouted, "Aren't these the ones you showed me last moon?"
A hand landed on her shoulder, and dark hair brushed against her face as Xena leaned in to look over that shoulder.
The earthy, pleasant scent of her arrested Gabrielle's breath even before she turned rapt focus to Xena's face, now so close to her own. She saw an honest, soft smile spread over it.
"Yep, those are the right mushrooms. If we dry all these, we'll have decent soup for weeks." Xena turned those striking blue eyes toward Gabrielle's and actually squeezed her shoulder. "Good job. We'll make a traveler of you yet."
Gabrielle clawed a breath into her lungs in time to say, "Th- thank you."
The hand gave her a tiny shove before letting go. "Thank you; you found them. I'll get some bags; you start cutting them away like I showed you. We'll make camp early tonight so we have time to dry them all."
Gabrielle watched her amble back to Argo, silently rejoicing at the news of an early end to her day's walk but distracted from even that by thoughts of Xena's hand. The squeeze, the smile... it was more than thankfulness, she realized. The touch wasn't necessary, nor the lingering hand. Her heart sped up. She actually likes me! Maybe she would make it out of Greece at Xena's side after all.
The half-familiar sounds of the Amazon village twined with the susurrus of grass window coverings in the breeze. But Gabrielle hardly heard any of it. Her every sense was focused on Xena, really Xena, alive Xena in front of her in the hut. Between her illness and… death… had Gabrielle nearly forgotten how tall she was? What her eyes looked like when clear of fever?
This time they had barely been apart two hours, just since they and the others got back to the village after the fight for the Ambrosia. Xena had begged a bath to wash off the grave while Gabrielle squared away some Amazon matters, then Gabrielle had a wash with Ephiny as they talked business in the bath hut (a strangely productive place in this village). But now Xena stood in front of her in a simple toga, her armor set aside to dry, and they were alone.
"...Hey," Gabrielle managed. She considered herself a woman of words, but they had begun to fail her as soon as she walked in the door.
In return, Xena tendered a razor-sharp smile and an inclined head, both signals of a threat - confounded by a lightness in her eyes. She took a step forward, and the predatory regard made Gabrielle go still.
"Hey, yourself." Was that a husky note over the affection in her tone?
Gabrielle was aware - intermittently since the moment she saw Xena in Autolycus' eyes and almost constantly since the woman returned to life - of the fact that Xena had heard her thoughts while she was dead. They had all been for her, after all. A tortured, stream-of-consciousness journal written as correspondence. How could you; I love you; why didn't I tell you; why didn't I show you? Never thinking they would speak face-to-face again with that knowledge between them.
Xena took another step forward. "Gabrielle?" One more, and she looked down into enraptured green eyes not two handspans away.
"Yes?" When Xena's dark lashes fluttered with a glance down Gabrielle's body, Gabrielle swallowed hard. Her entire world narrowed to the woman in front of her and the air mingling between them.
Xena reached up… and cupped Gabrielle's cheek, soft but sure. Her thumb traced a cheekbone. "You know I could hear your thoughts."
"Uh-huh." Gabrielle wondered how her blush didn't scald Xena's hand right off her face.
"So I know you care about me, but I was wondering…" The wicked smile widened into a grin.
"Yes?" Since they were already touching, it only seemed natural to put a hand on Xena's side. She wanted to kiss the palm on her cheek, but that would entail turning away from that vibrant, hopeful expression.
"Do you want me, too?"
A flood of emotion propelled Gabrielle forward and up into an answering kiss.
They spent a moment just lingering in it. A real kiss, in their own bodies, no mustache, more curves. Which got more closely acquainted when they wrapped their arms around one another and shared another kiss, and another, little exploratory tastes belying the earthquake rattling inside Gabrielle. She hadn't expected the power in this simple lip-lock - the sureness, the sweetness, the sense of belonging in the embrace.
When they parted, Xena butted her forehead against Gabrielle's and wryly said, "I was about to ask if I could kiss you."
Charmed to pieces, Gabrielle almost squirmed against her. Then she grinned. "Just a kiss?"
Xena leaned back to laugh, clear and joyful.
Gabrielle should have known something was wrong when her idle remark about needing time and daylight to write earned an afternoon's rest in a peaceful field, at Xena's suggestion.
"It's pretty enough here, and we aren't on a schedule. Write away."
Gabrielle kissed her in thanks, laid out their bedroll in a space she cleared, and then got herself shooed away from helping with Argo before settling in to write. She placed her freshly-scraped scroll just so, alongside some parchment with notes from when the subject matter of her story had happened. Her ink pot went on a flat rock, close enough to be convenient but not so close she would knock it over by accident. She sharpened her quill. Finally, she laid on her stomach to really put some serious work in.
By then Xena had settled next to her on the furs with a knife that needed sharpening, and Gabrielle turned to give her one last smile before zoning into her task only to see the whetstone still in her lover's hand and her dark brow knit with tension. She put her quill down and sat back up.
Softly, she asked, "Hey. What's wrong?" before brushing Xena's hair aside to better take in her profile.
After a moment of hesitation, Xena leaned into the touch, prompting Gabrielle to further caress her cheek. "Just cramps and stuff. Nothing contagious."
A swift puff of air preceded Gabrielle's wry, "No point warning me if it was; I'd already have it."
Xena managed a small bite of laughter through her grimace.
Gabrielle scooted closer to Xena, pressed up against her back a little, and rested her chin on her shoulder to better hug her close - but gently, avoiding her belly. "Bad one, huh?"
"Not the best."
Taking in Xena's body tension and her restrained demeanor, Gabrielle surmised she didn't want to go very far from where she was already seated. But she took a moment to be thankful for the loving and expressive partner Xena had become and was still becoming. If Xena had felt like this during their first moon together, had Gabrielle figured it out at all, she would have been chased into the woods for offering so much as a hug.
Not that her lover, when ailing, would ask for anything she didn't expressly need to live. Especially not a hug. But she would accept it these days, which was a vast improvement.
"Tell you what. Let's get this armor off of you, and we'll scrounge some fuel. Then you start a fire and get out some cups. I'll fetch some water and a stone to heat, then make us tea. Okay?" After getting a nod, she went to work on buckles and straps. Tea on the inside and a linen-wrapped stone outside would heat Xena's belly throughout and relax things. Xena had done the same for her before, and even accepted it in return.
A bit later, she had Xena's fire flanked by a pot with water and a flat river stone of just the right size. "There. You'll be set when this is all warm."
"Thanks, Gabrielle." Xena looked worn out, but the small smile was genuine. Her poor warrior, felled by the moon!
Gabrielle smiled sympathetically. "Anytime." She kissed Xena's temple before laying on her stomach again. Her lover was taken care of, tea was on the way, and she finally, finally had the distance from this event and sufficient preparation to tackle its story. She started it, laying out the formalities of the setup and naming the characters. Tea appeared next to her ink pot.
And then Xena put an arm around her and leaned her head against the bard's. Gabrielle would bet a frying pan Xena wasn't actually looking over her shoulder to read a scroll about herself, but she said nothing and just let her heart melt. Through the cuddling, she managed to persist scribing.
'The bard trudged her weary way up the mountain alongside Xena's loyal steed, carrying' - No, not carrying. Dragging?
It went well until Xena shifted away, drank some of her tea, and then laid back down with her head on the small of Gabrielle's back. (Dragging is not heroi...ic...) And curled up on her side around the warm stone.
Uh. 'The steed took Xena's weight on her back.' No, on her- shoulders? Bore her weight. Yes. 'The bard trudged her weary way up the mountain alongside Xena's loyal steed, who bore her weight with enduring nobility.'
"I got a… bit of a headache, and you're helping. Mind if I stay here while you write?"
"No," Gabrielle nearly whispered, half afraid to scare her off.
Through a few more lines of script, Xena snuggled in closer, sighed… and dozed off. At which point Gabrielle's attempts to write scenes of pain and struggle started to fall apart.
'Even pale and fevered, the tragic beauty of the hero arrested the bard's heart. Brief glimpses of her eyes, the color of a winter morning's sky, bestowed new strength…'
She could apparently no longer write anything but love poetry.
'In health, the contrast of her dark hair on her skin was not so devastating but held a vibrant beauty that tripped the heart.'
So she gave up on tragedy and moved a few fingerspan down the scroll to start anew.
'My heart stumbles under my love's crown's rest
'Does such peace come with my head on her breast?
'Her regard makes me swim in eyes of blue.
'Do green eyes send waves to carry her, too?
'If she, as I, am weightless below her,
'All the better we each play an anchor'
Oof, this was corny. She'd probably scrape it off the skin later, but beforehand she was definitely going to read it to Xena to watch her squirm, grumble, and blush. Now, maybe something about warmth… What rhymes with brazier?
END