Author's Note: Yep! Another chapter as promised! This one has a bit of a kick to it! Hopefully nobody hates me at the end of it!

Elaine couldn't stop the anger inside of her from building. It seemed incomprehensible to her that neither Xena nor Gabrielle had ever really stopped to think about Joxer at all.

God! How many times had the man suffered because of these two FORGETTING about his feelings!!

Elaine couldn't stop but feel herself losing her ability to control emotions for a man she only knew through a television series...but THAT was the weird thing! Joxer was soo much sweeter and warmer than she had ever seen on the show. In fact his attempt at 'bravado' had yet to be seen, and Elaine knew that in the show that aspect of Joxer had all but vanished.

Guilt had made him stop trying to show off to others that he was a big warrior - and now that he had literally tossed away his armor AND HAT...Elaine knew that the man that Joxer was and had been becoming was swallowed down by his need to be beside the two woman that had become more than just his family. They had been his heart.

As she opened the doors to find Gabrielle holding a fierce grip on Joxer's nose as the young man obviously had fallen to his knees in pain...something made her stop dead in her tracks.

This scene of Gabrielle hurting Joxer physically had been a staple of the show...that seeing it up close and personal...it wasn't funny at all. Up until yesterday she had understood that Joxer was needed for comic relief - that his existence was to 'lighten' the dark drama that the show had become.

Yet at that very moment...Elaine didn't see any humor of how little this man's heart had been treated.

Everything inside her screamed to hurt Gabrielle back...to physically hurt her like she was Joxer. Something though, something in her stopped her. Slowly, an epiphany of what none had ever seen to see in the woman before her made a crawling skittish ascent to the forefront of her mind. And suddenly she spoke the thought out loud.

"Eli never knew who you really were."

The shock of those words ringing through Gabrielle's ears caused her to let go of Joxer's nose and look startling up at Elaine as she stood at the barn door.

Joxer remained kneeling in front of her, trying to keep the tears that threatened to fall at bay.

Ever so slowly, keeping her eyes locked with Gabrielle's, Elaine moved towards her. Words coming from a hidden file of thoughts in her mind - as if they had been reserved for just this moment in time...like she was always destined to be here in this moment.

"He knew Gabrielle companion of Xena...he knew Gabrielle the woman finding herself...he even knew Gabrielle the woman who had lost her innocence..."

She was now just a few short feet away from Gabrielle, Xena now at the door and stopping as she heard the words Elaine was saying.

"But he never knew this Gabrielle."

Gabrielle just stared at Elaine with a furrowed brow, Xena almost seemed to be holding her breath, both not aware how the next few minutes would change a 'history' that had been destined to be - wiped clean as a clear glass window.

Elaine shook her head slowly.

"Who do you see when you look in the mirror?" The question was whispered...and the answer left unanswered as Elaine continued.

"Is it this Gabrielle? Gabrielle the cold? Is it Gabrielle the selfish? Or is it just Gabrielle the strong?"

Joxer couldn't seem to move as his head remained bowed as he let Elaine's words wash over him. Never had anyone ever said they saw that in Gabrielle...and the idea that someone did...made his heart break even more.

Gabrielle just couldn't stop staring into Elaine's, trying to understand what Elaine was trying to say. Trying to fight the contempt that this woman made her feel, and failing as the words leaving Elaine's mouth hit her sensitive underbelly.

"Your...WAY!" Elaine's words were whispered as she continued to speak on...but her disgust at the words soo strong that it was almost said like a curse.

Elaine's eyes were filled with tears.

"It's just...your...excuse!"

It was this that made Xena's mind understand what Elaine was trying to say...and by all the gods above...it was the one thing she had always feared.

"It's just how you can justify....seeing....what the mirror reflects."

Xena closed her eyes as the words severed her heart like a sword. Somehow knowing that these words held her own brutal truth.

"Love is what you preached. Love is what you told so many - that could conquer hate. And it is the one thing you will never understand."

Gabrielle's eyes filled with confusion. It was as though Elaine didn't know anything about her at all...but the next words...those made everything that Gabrielle had ever thought of herself...crumble...like the city of Troy. It undid all Gabrielle held to be true, and left her with a reality she did not know existed.

Elaine finally made it the small distance to Joxer's side - in front of Gabrielle. Slowly and with no indication of any sort of threat, Elaine kneeled down next to Joxer.

Gabrielle followed the movement of the strange woman she barely knew. The sight that she saw making her heart tighten - as if seeing the sight for the first time.

Elaine lifted Joxer's tear streaked face, allowing the tears coming down from his eyes to slide down his face as he kept his eyes closed. His face contorted in such pain and sorrow as he kept his lips from voicing his sorrow.

Elaine turned his face slowly with just the tips of her fingers, and stared at a man few had ever given count to. A man that had lived behind the shadows of not just these two woman...but behind the shadows of two brothers...behind the impressive stature of a demi-god...behind a soul that had never known love that he had not bought - by money or degradation of himself. How could she let it happen? Why is it that God could let him suffer so?

"How could you ever show love to a stranger," the words were barely a whisper, "...if you can hurt a man who has walked down the path with you...and asked nothing for his love in return."

The words made Joxer's eyes slowly open and stare into Elaine's beautiful eyes, eyes that cried along with him for the second time that day.

Gabrielle saw the way Joxer's eyes looked into Elaine's...saw the love that this woman held for Joxer...even as the words finally filtered through her mind.

In that moment Gabrielle knew that she had just lost Joxer's love...in that moment she knew that Elaine was right.

She would never understand love...because she had just watched it slip away before her very eyes. Lost what he had given so freely to her...taken from her before she knew what was being offered.

Gabrielle wanted to die as she watched with a broken heart as Elaine slowly leaned over and kissed Joxer's lips with a love that made Gabrielle want to scream and hurt and crawl to the corner and cry. Her heart was beating so fast and so hard as Gabrielle tried to breathe and just couldn't seem to do so.

Elaine pulled away and leaned her forehead against Joxer's. For a second letting herself forget who exactly they were, and why exactly she was even there.

Just allowing herself to feel what she had not felt since oh so long ago.

"You're cursed...because you will never know what peace returning his love would have given you."

Xena's own heart was pounding furiously as she realized that she couldn't let that happen. Xena couldn't allow Elaine to take the love that she and Gabrielle felt for this man...felt for their friend...and take the parts of his heart that belonged to them...away.

It was this that pushed Xena into the barn, but stop dead as Elaine opened her eyes and turned them to Xena.

And it was the accusation in her eyes that froze Xena to the spot. The look that spoke of a truth Xena had not yet fathomed...until Elaine spoke them.

"How could you love a woman that destroyed so many lives for her own self worth...and not a man who spared your life...before he ever really knew you?"

Gabrielle's eyes followed Elaine's as she had turned to look at Xena. The words making their eyes lock on the others. Truth of the statement making Gabrielle turn away in almost shame.

Xena couldn't even reel back from the words as Elaine spoke a question directed to her...and not Gabrielle. It was a question that caused Joxer to turn and stare at the blue eyed warrior princess.

"You've never even thanked him for not killing her....have you? Not once... "

Joxer's soft brown eyes swam with hurt as they looked into Xena's.

Xena tried to speak...tried to even say those words...her lips moving almost desperately...but nothing would leave them.

Brown hurt soon turned to black anger as he realized that he didn't want to hear the words from her now. Because those words from her now....it would be like she was thanking him for giving Gabrielle to her. Joxer just couldn't hear those words ever come out of her mouth towards him from that day forward...it hurt to much to know the truth behind them.

Staggering up he realized he had been crying and tried to wipe the tears away, but Elaine stopped him as she too stood up next to him.

Gabrielle oddly noted for the first time that Elaine was taller than her...irony of her thoughts being that Elaine could literally and emotionally reach Joxer more than she ever had.

Elaine's hands stole up to the sides of Joxer's face and brought his forehead down to press down on hers. Words whispered to him so quietly that only he heard them.

"It's ok now Joxer. You don't have to love them anymore. It's your love. It's yours to give, and it's yours to take away."

And even as his strong love for Gabrielle began to dim as a candle burning itself out...another began to kindle for a woman he barely knew. One that held him in her arms. Kissed him...comforted him! A stranger who had barely known him for two days...and had managed to speak his deepest pain that he had hidden away from all's eyes - she was the one who gave him what he had never received freely.

Her love.

Author's Note: DON'T KILL ME!!!! I can't help how dramatic it's getting...I promise the next one is going to be less dramatic and more oomph! But I need to know what you think! Let me know! REVIEW!!!!!!!