"Madness," Gabrielle heard as she opened her eyes. A blinding light filled her sight and she raised her arm protectively over her face.
"Oh, she's awake," she heard a woman's voice say.
"Yes, I let her rest a bit. She looked a bit tired," a familiar voice answered.
Gabrielle blinked furiously and slowly raised herself up on one arm, but her head began to swim and the world turned upside-down.
"Ah-ah, there there, now, not too quickly. That was quite a hit you took. Not quite a concussion, but close. Drink this," the familiar voice said, and a cup was pushed into her hand. She felt an arm behind her head as she was lifted up to drink. It tasted awful.
"No, drink it up. It'll help with everything."
With a grimace, she quickly downed the contents of the cup and held it out beside her where it was taken from her grasp to places unknown.
"Try again- can you open your eyes?"
Slowly, Gabrielle cautiously took a peek, and this time blurs of green meshed with the light and soon she realized she was in the garden of the healer's place. She looked to her side to see the secretary beaming back at her and the doctor icing the back of his head in front of her.
"There. All better?" he said.
"I…I think so," she said quietly, and slowly tried to prop herself up again in order to sit up. The secretary left, leaving the two of them alone.
Gabrielle held a hand above her brow in an attempt to shade her eyes from the sun.
"Um, where is Xena?" she asked, trying to reorient herself.
"Oh, that woman who put us in these states? At Lyssanium by now, I imagine," the healer said, setting the ice pack aside. Gabrielle gave him a quizzical look.
"I have the displeasure of informing you, my dear child, that my diagnosis for your friend is simply this- madness. There is no other explanation for her actions," he said, trying his best to show her some sympathy.
"Madness?" she echoed, sitting up straighter. "But that's…." Gabrielle shook her head gently. "Sir, I've seen madness, and what Xena has is not madness. Madness is…" she mused, thinking back to when the Furies really had driven Xena insane. Ares, too, for that matter. Callisto probably qualified as crazy as well. "Madness is random. Unstructured. Wonton action that has no rhyme or reason."
The healer nodded along with her as he swapped out the rag around his ice pack for a new one.
"Xena….Xena's got purpose with this. It isn't madness, it's memory. As if she experiences the moments she's about to lose before she loses them…" She trailed off and her eyes wandered, deep in thought, to a raven perched in a nearby tree as it preened its feathers. She looked back at him. "So it can't be madness."
The healer gave a low laugh. "Mhmhm, can't it?" he replied, rising to his feet. "Who is the doctor, dear?" he asked, and patted her shoulder as he passed by her towards the entrance of his work room. "Never mind, though. It's over now. Best go home," he said with a sigh. "No more to be done for her, I'm afraid."
Gabrielle held her hands to her face and let out an exasperated sigh as she jumped to her feet. The garden spun slightly, but nothing like it did before. She would be ok. "I can't just do that. Please. You have to tell me- where is Lyssanium?"
"But it's no use, dear."
"I have to go see my friend!" she shouted.
Silence spread over the garden as bard stared at healer and the healer stared back. He seemed to be weighing his options- try and save the girl from the trouble of witnessing her friend's further degradation or get her and her anger issues off his property?
Slowly, he nodded. "Alright, then," he acquiesced. "I'll tell you how to get there."
—
Gabrielle clutched the piece of parchment in her hand and looked at the imposing building looming before her. Behind her, just across a small field, were the outskirts of Athens.
"This isn't a hospital…..this is an insane asylum."
Her face morphed into pain as she marched through the front doors. A pair of guards stopped her from going further inside.
"No civilians past this point without permission from the head keeper," one of them bellowed. They were both tall, beefy men, but this one sported a rather neatly formed black eye that seemed to glare at her as she looked up at him. She held the parchment tighter in her hands.
"I'm here to see Xena!" she confidently shouted. The two guards looked at each other in silence before breaking off into peals of hearty laughter.
"Xena? This little thing's here to see The Harpy!" he said once he caught his breath, brushing a way a tear of amusement as he did so.
"I'm sorry, the what?" she said, arching a feral brow.
The guard laughed again. "Don't get upset. See Philomenas here? She gave him that beaut of a shiner. Didn't she, Philo? Ehhhheheheheheh!" he guffawed, jabbing a pointed thumb into his companion's chest before patting him heavily on the back.
"Don't worry, though," Philomenas said, glaring at his fellow guard. "She ain't getting out of here any time soon."
"Or ever!" the other guard exclaimed, falling into another fit of laughter. Even Philomenas managed a chuckle.
Gabrielle was exasperated. "Look, is there anybody I can talk to about visiting someone in here?"
The guards quieted down enough to focus back on the small woman before them. "Yeah, Teracles over there," he said, pointing to a mousy looking man writing hurriedly in a scroll. Gabrielle gave a tight smile to the guards as she approached the man. He was so involved in his work, he never registered her presence.
"Ahh, excuse me?" she asked politely. The man jumped in his chair, nearly spilling ink everywhere.
"By the gods, don't do that, young lady! Do you know what this place is? Are you trying to kill me?" he cried, trying and failing to screw the cap back on his ink.
Gabrielle looked around herself. "How else was I supposed to get your attention?"
The man, having successfully sealed off his ink from further spillage, looked up at the woman standing before him and adjusted his spectacles. "Indeed. Right you are. My apologies," he said, rising to his feet. "I am Teracles, administrator of Lyssanium."
Gabrielle nodded with a small smile. "Gabrielle. I'm here to see Xena, who…" Teracles began nodding rapidly. "…I think," she continued with a frown, "was brought in here a little while ago."
Teracles continued to nod as he steadied his glasses on his nose. "Yes she was. But I'm afraid she's still probably sleeping, which was the last state I personally saw her in," he said rapidly.
Gabrielle tried her best to smile. "That's perfectly alright. I'd still like to see her, though."
Teracles looked over the young woman carefully. Leather. Less leather than The Harpy, as the whole place had since dubbed her. Armed. He arched a brow. "Normally I would insist you leave your weapons here, but considering who you want to see, I will make an exception."
Gabrielle forced her best smile.
"Just this once," Teracles added, with a lift of his finger.
He fumbled within the folds of his cloak and pulled out a batch of keys, beckoning for Gabrielle to follow. He unlocked a heavily fortified door ribbed in thick iron and motioned for her to step inside. He followed quickly after her and nervously locked up behind them. Teracles led the way.
"N-now these are our less dangerous residents," he commented as they made their way through the complex. Arms hung through the holes allowed by the flat iron fenced over their cells and some of them made eye contact with her. She tried to give them encouraging smiles but their faces were blank.
As they continued along the corridor, the occupants seemed less and less calm. Teracles narrated their journey as if he were a tour guide at the Parthenon. The people she passed were now calling out to her- calling her by names that were not her own. Some were rocking to and fro in their cells. Others tapping lightly on the bars. The deeper and deeper they went, the less openings in the doors there were for the people inside to look out. "Purely for protection's sake," he commented, until they hit a hall containing doors with no openings but one- a narrow slit opened and closed by a strip of iron- and in front of one of these doors, Teracles had stopped.
He turned towards his guest. "Now, I understand if you've changed your mind."
Gabrielle's heart was in tatters after witnessing so much suffering. This place wasn't here to help the sick, but to lock them up and forget about them. "This place is monstrous," she whispered, staring with pain at the man in charge of it all. Teracles did his best to draw himself up to his full height.
"Well, until they come up with a better way to care for the mad and criminally insane, this will have to do," he said, lifting his chin and making sure to look down his nose at her as he did so.
Gabrielle could do nothing more but shake her head, and as she placed her hand on the door, she gave it a push. It didn't budge.
"Oh, apologies. You want to go inside?"
She nodded.
"Oh no, I'm afraid that's not possible. You see, this is our high security ward. No one goes in, no one comes out," he said with a small laugh.
Gabrielle didn't think it was very clever and her eyes began burning into his. He swallowed hard.
"But you may look through the opening if you like," he added quickly, and pushed the tab aside.
Gabrielle pushed up on her toes and strained to look through the slit. Xena sat bound in a chair, leather straps holding her in place. She went back down on her feet and covered her mouth in shock. After a moment to recover herself, she pushed herself back up to look through the opening.
"Xena!" she whispered, unsure why she was whispering instead of speaking normally but continued to do so. "Xena! Xena, it's me!"
Slowly, the prisoner in the chair began to stir. "Xena!" she said again, this time in her normal voice, and the warrior's eyes flew open. Gabrielle pushed herself back slightly from the door. Xena's face was feral. She began tugging at her restraints, pulling so hard at her arms Gabrielle was sure something was going to start bleeding, become dislocated, or both.
"Xena, it's me!" she tried again.
Xena hung her head forward, seemingly in defeat. "Gabrielle…?" she murmured.
Gabrielle grinned. "Yes! Yes it's me, Xena, I'm here!"
Xena didn't move, her hair falling over her face like a shroud. Gabrielle watched as something wet seemed to fall onto the woman's leather restraints.
"Why did you do it, Gabrielle?" a faltering voice called from the cell. Gabrielle frowned.
"Do what, Xena?" she asked cautiously. She could hear whispers from her friend but could make out none of it. "I can't hear you…"
Slowly, Xena lifted her head and her eyes locked with Gabrielle's. "Why did you kill my son?!" she screamed. "Why did you kill my son!"
Over and over again Xena screamed out the same question, rattling her restraints to the point where she swore she heard wood cracking.
"Guards!" Teracles cried. "Guards, get in here quickly! And bring the drink!"
Gabrielle backed away from the door and flinched repeatedly, tears streaming from her eyes at every agonizing wail as six guards came out of nowhere carrying a deerskin sack. Teracles opened the door and the men poured in and held the woman down. Gabrielle moved into the doorway just in time to see the sack lifted to Xena's lips and its contents poured forcefully down the womans's throat. Gabrielle backed away as Xena gargled and choked on the mixture, until finally her spasms stopped, and one by one, the guards let go.
"Did you kill her?!" Gabrielle cried, taking a step forward but terrified of seeing more than she already had.
One of the guards placed two fingers on the woman's jugular. "No, she's fine."
Gabrielle slumped against the doorway, trying and failing to suppress a sob.
"You see," Teracles said, stepping into the room now that its occupant was safely incapacitated. "this mixture merely sedates them. It cannot kill them, even if they drink it all. The more they drink, the longer they sleep." He paused. "I suppose if they drank enough to keep them asleep for days, starvation might eventually kill them, but that has yet to happen," he concluded, waving a hand dismissively.
Gabrielle just stared at Xena, stared until she saw her breathing herself.
She can't stay here. I won't let her stay here…
Teracles came up beside her and patted her on the shoulder. "Trying to kill you, huh?"
Gabrielle shook her head slowly. "No, I….I didn't do…"
Teracles patted her again. "No worries- madness often drives people here to say the most outrageous things. It's a shame, though, isn't it? That we can't save them?"
He backed away from the door and motioned to the guards who quickly cleared out and returned back to wherever they originally came from.
Gabrielle turned back to look at him. "Can I…can't I go in to her? Now that she's…."
Teracles frowned, and seemed to think about the request for the moment. He sighed. "Just this once, since she is newly sedated. She's a strong one, though. Will probably take awhile until the drink has any prolonged effect on her."
Gabrielle forced a smile, and as she turned to face Xena, her lip curled in disgust. She approached the bound warrior, head hanging forlornly over her restraints, and gently brushed her hair through her fingers.
"Oh, Xena," she sighed. Carefully leaning over her friend, she kissed her softly on the head before kneeling down in front of her.
"Listen to me carefully," she whispered, pushing the tears from her cheeks. "I'm going to get you out of here! I'm not sure how yet, but just wait. I promise. I promise I won't leave you here…" Gabrielle raised a hand to her face as the tears threatened to fall again.
"Time to go," Teracles informed her, and with one final brush of her hand over the top of her friend's head, she departed.
A/N: Hello there! Last weekend I was away on a camping trip of sorts, so I apologize for lack of an update, but we're back again! I have something to ask everyone, though- what do you guys think of the summary for this story? Does it seem compelling? Something worth clicking on to find out more about? I'm wondering if the summary for this story just sucks and that's why not as many people are coming in, haha. Honestly, this is the lowest reviewed story I've written so far and I dunno if it's my crappy summary or what. Weird.
Anyway, THANK YOU to HeatherJS for your kind words and support as always, and to the two weird spam reviews I got- hah! Also thanks to all of you who are keeping up with this story and reading it every week- it really does mean a lot. Until next time...