Okay, Okay, I know. The wait was way too long for this little chapter. So sorry. I had trouble nutting out just how our heroine was going to react to last chapter's big reveal. It was either going to be funny or really heartbreaking, and given how the story has been going so far... I just decided to skip it. So yeah. Apologies abound. I'm going to try my very best not to take months before the next chapter.
Love to the lovers.
"Xena where have you been?" Gabrielle asked from the bed. Her eyes were closed and Xena had assumed she was asleep as the warrior stumbled into the room and fell onto the free bed.
"I went out." She slurred.
"You've been drinking, haven't you?" Gabrielle turned so that she could see Xena more clearly.
Xena sighed. "Yes. I've been drinking." She brought a palm to her forehead in an attempt to stop the spinning. The moment she did this, she regretted it.
"Xena, did you get in a fight?"
"Yes."
"Who? What happened? Are we going to --"
"No, we're fine, Gabrielle. It was just a bar fight." She took a breath and then looked at her bloody knuckles. "I started it."
Gabrielle wasn't sure how to respond to that. Xena regretted she'd told her. Gabrielle had been worried about Xena, she had been so overly caring towards Gabrielle. She was touching her more, watching her more, as if she was so afraid that she was going to break. Finally, Gabrielle said, "Xena, you can talk to me."
Xena had wanted her to be angry, she could have dealt with that. She had hoped for some biting insult, or an I'm-so-disappointed remark. It was much easier to be on the nurturing end, than to see her injured and tormented friend nurturing her. It reminded her of the time Gabrielle had taken a poison arrow and almost died. One of too many incidents where Xena's world had nearly come to pieces. She flicked a sneaky tear off her eyelashes and said. "I know." But she wouldn't say any more.
Gabrielle stopped studying Xena when her stomach suddenly lurched. She grabbed the chamber pot from the floor and vomited into it. Xena shot up and started at Gabrielle, losing her balance and nearly falling into the bed with her. She managed somehow to end up perched beside her friend holding her hair with one hand and rubbing her arm with the other in a very maternal gesture. "I'm alright," Gabrielle said. "I'm Okay. I'm telling you that is the last time I eat anything Joxer has even breathed on. The man is trying to poison me."
She was joking, but Xena couldn't bring herself to smile. She foolishly dodged Gabrielle's gaze when she looked over, and took the chamber pot and put it back on the floor. Gabrielle was trying to read her, trying to understand her new strange behavior, and finally gave up.
"Xena I wish you'd tell me what was bothering you." She was still trying very hard to get the warrior's eye contact.
"I don't know if I want to." Xena said. She was speaking more freely than she would otherwise like, and thought to herself that she should have slept it off somewhere before coming back to the room.
Again there was a pause as Gabrielle tried to figure out how to respond to that. "Xena, I realize you're hurting, and that's okay, I understand. But you're really starting to frighten me."
"Frighten you?" Xena said, surprised. She finally looked the bard in the eye, but only until the bard replied.
"Yes. You haven't been this cryptic with me in years. Xena, what is going on?"
Xena came out of her darkness for a moment and smiled a sad, sweet smile to the woman beside her. "I'll tell you," she said, kissing her on the side of the head. "I promise. I just don't want to have this conversation when I'm drunk."
Gabrielle frowned again but put her hand over Xena's and assured her. "Okay."
"Okay." Xena got up carefully and grabbed the chamber pot. "I'm going to go empty this." Gabrielle nodded and Xena shuffled out, slightly teetering. She paused at the door, "Can I get you anything?"
"No," she said quietly. "Just hurry back."
"Promise."
When she returned, Gabrielle was asleep again. She silently put the chamber pot back on the floor, slipped out of her boots and then climbed into bed with Gabrielle. The disturbance in the mattress woke the bard, and she looked over at Xena for a moment in question. But Xena didn't explain as she settled in beside her and closed her eyes, and Gabrielle didn't ask.