No one could say Snake didn't hurt still. He was good at covering it and got better with time. The people around him thought things were fine. They thought he was ok and healed after Xena left. No one saw what he did alone or the thoughts he had when he sat staring at the fire. Plissken had died inside. Like everyone else he'd lost over the years she'd taken a chunk of him with her. That was the problem with his love, the black spaces they left behind.
There were things he remembered too. Laughing on the beach when she caught a fish for hope and their time at the gun range. The gun range brought a huge smile to his face when he remembered not only all the trips but the first one that had lead to her coming home with him. Other memories were always there too. Seeing Xena walk down the aisle, the only time he ever saw her nervous enough to faint. Since the day they met there had been happy memories. Even their fights had a certain appeal to him. Snake had always been thankful that she never backed down from him. He really hoped she knew that where ever she was.
Where she was, that brought the pain back. It always started as worry for her safety but he knew too well that she could handle herself. The worry was how he thought of the loneliness. The worry was his way of saying he wanted her home without making it a demand to take back what he'd given. Maybe he regretted it sometimes when he cried over her still locked in the bathroom like a kid. When faced with the worst of the pain he'd never dream of taking his decision back. She deserved freedom. If she stayed and never returned to the modern world he'd make himself believe she was happy. There was too the glimmer of hope that she would come home. She could make him the happiest man in the world again. He wondered if she knew.
These days Plissken drowned the hurt in a sea of cocaine. Some days though the pain was too deep, the bad high would sneak in and make it worse. Euphoric pain seemed an oxymoron but it happened. Behind the high. Behind the huge smile and the dilated eye of drug induced ecstasy was not the soaring feeling people assumed but a crash when everything felt futile and lost without her. Snake trudged through those days the best he could. All that was left to do was sitting and waiting. One day the pain would fade to a dull hum or she'd return home. He prayed for the latter but in his mind the former was ruling out. Still the numb ache was better than having never seen her. She was his wife and no matter the pain he would never give up on his love for her or the belief that she was the best thing to ever happen to him. At least the pain was something to feel.