Disclaimers
This story is written with the utmost respect to the cast and crew of Xena: Warrior Princess. It is written to express true love and commitment, not for profit.
If the concept of two women in love upsets you, please, don't trash the story, but if you must, there are other great stories out there.
(All characters portrayed are the property of Renaissance/MCA/Universal. No copyright infringement is intended. This story, however, is copyrighted to Darkone.)
Midnight Confession
By Darkone
[Dedicated to a very special lady. You know who you are….]
Xena awoke to find Joxer sitting by the campfire, looking into the night.
She looked around, and noticed Gabrielle was gone.
"She's out there, by the river. Xena? I think something she learned at the Temple of Mnemosyne is really bothering her. She--she's crying again." He gave her a forlorn look. Xena stood to walk toward the river, and felt his hand touch her wrist.
She looked down at him, and he saw the disdain there, he looked at the fire.
"I know I was wrong, Xena. I shouldn't have done that to her. I tried to apologize to her just now. It set her off and she started running. I followed her to the river; she just sits there, crying. Tell her I'm sorry?"
Xena shook her head. "You've really messed up this time. She was your friend, and you took advantage of that friendship. You tried to make her think she was in love with you..."
Joxer could see her temper flaring, almost as if she doubted his love for the bard. Lacking common sense, he unleashed his minimal temper at her.
"At least I loved her enough to try and protect her from…." He stopped suddenly; Xena glared at him.
"Go ahead...Say it." Ground out through clenched teeth.
"You. I loved her enough to try and protect her from you!" he whispered.
Xena looked down at him. He was staring into the fire now, tossing blades of grass into it. Xena looked down at him, and felt the truth in his words. "Thank you."
"For what?" He asked grudgingly.
"For trying to protect her...from me." She patted his shoulder then walked to the lake.
Gabrielle was perched on a small rock, tossing stones into the moonlit waters. She continued to look over the river's surface. "Take a seat." She offered.
Xena's cadence when she walked was all too familiar to the bard now.
She walked up and sat down next to the little amazon.
Gabrielle had by now, tossed three stones into the water.
"What'cha doin'?" Xena asked with a smile.
"Remember that lake? Where you tossed the stone in it?" She looked at the warrior then.
Xena's heart sank; the youth in those features was drained away with exhaustion. "Yes."
"Well, I feel like this lake now." She proceeded to toss several stones into the waters. Transfixed by the number of shimmering ripples.
Xena was unable to find the words that would comfort the young woman. 'The woman I love', she thought.
"I remember it all now. It hurts so bad, but I remember it all."
"What?" She asked, unsure what the bard was referring to.
"Dahok. How he took me. How he broke me. How he then channeled that into fear and hate." She looked over the waters again, smiling ruefully. "I thought it would shield me, but he used even that to his advantage."
Xena knelt in front of her then, and took the bard's hands into her own. "What? Gabrielle? What did he use, tell me, please?"
"The love of my life." She whispered.
"What? How?"
"When...when I was in the column of fire, he used...images. Images of the people I have loved to try and break my will. To make me give in to him."
Xena thought of them all, for the bard had relayed every puppy love and childlike crush that she had ever had to the warrior. She looked down at the young woman, sadness in her blue eyes.
"Homer, Talas, Meleager…" she trailed off.
"Perdicus?" Xena offered. Seeing pain in the bard's face.
"Yes." She looked down at the water again. "But none of those images broke me," she whispered.
"Then who?" Xena looked toward their camp, she actually thought it might have been….
Gabrielle leaned forward, searching the warrior's eyes, her lips a hair's breadth away. She gently stroked her left hand against Xena's bronzed right cheek. A single tear made its way down her own fair one, to splash softly against the leather gauntlet on Xena's right forearm.
"You."
Whispered so softly, Xena thought it was the wind. She looked up at the bard and saw tear glossed sea-green eyes searching her own sky blue ones. Xena's heart stopped, she looked around the clearing in confusion. And when she had no choice, back into those emerald depths. Her heart broke then.
"Me? Oh gods, Gabrielle…you know I…."
"Yes, I know, you don't feel that way for me, and that's what's driven me insane. Being near you, oh so near, and unable to feel your touch, your love…. I can't take it anymore…I'll die without you, but I'm dying with you, and you don't need that. I'll be leaving tomorrow. You and Joxer will go on to Athens…." She stood to leave, and made her way back to the edge of the woods when she heard the words she had only dreamt of.
"I do."
Gabrielle turned to see tears streaking Xena's face as she walked back to the warrior. She reached her hand down to touch the warrior's cheek, and felt the warrior's warm right hand cover her own, rubbing her cheek against the bard's palm. "What did you say?" She asked, her voice so low and pleading.
"I said 'I do.' I do love you Gabrielle, in that way. In every way imaginable…as a friend, my family, as a..." She started to say 'lover,' but stopped, not wanting to make the situation more tense. "Oh Gods! No wonder he thanked me for bringing you to the temple! He knew! That evil bastard of darkness knew! And he used me to...Oh, Gabrielle! How could you have stayed? After everything with Hope? He wore my face…."
"Because, I can't live anywhere without you, Xena. And I knew, I knew that although Dahok broke me, that you couldn't possibly want me, and…. He may have worn your face, your body, but not your heart."
She threw her arms around the bard's body, and she felt her strong arms hold the shaking woman.
"That's why I wanted Hope to be innocent. Since it was your face? I hoped maybe, just maybe, she could be our child. OURS. But then, it all…Dahok, Solan, my poisoning her…." Gabrielle began to cry, her tears soaking the warrior's leathers as she held on tight.
She honestly feared if she let the bard go? She would shatter like a porcelain doll, and there would be no saving the bard.
"Please, Xena, hold me…I can't…."
"Shhh. I have you now, and Gabrielle? We'll get through this. I swear." She leaned down to kiss the bard's cheek, but thought better of it. The bard then lightly kissed her on the lips; she started to kiss her again, but rested her head on a smoothly muscled shoulder instead.
"Xena, I love you…and…just give me some time?" The bard begged.
"All the time in the world, my love." Strong arms wrapped more tightly around the bard as she fell asleep.
Xena looked into the night, crying for what Dahok had done to them both, had taken from them, wanting more than anything to show her bard that she would never hurt her…again.
A beginning