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When In Rome

by Kamouraskan

Disclaimers: Characters from the television show Xena: Warrior Princess are not owned by me, to my regret. This is written purely for enjoyment with no thought to monetary gain.
Post FIN, I guess, though I have kept specific references to a minimum.
Thanks to the members of the Bardic Circle, especially Extra, Jaden, Jess, JFalconer, and as always, Claudia and the great Mary Morgan.

Chapter 12

Xena snorted and turned back to the task. "Didn't you hear her? She doesn't want people looking after her."

The Goddess crowded her. "Not now. Not after all she's been through. The sweetest, gentlest of all mortals! And how much of her change was because of love for you? Love I encouraged."

Xena continued to clear away the larger debris, checking to see that nothing she removed was supporting the roof. "Then it's a little late for this talk, isn't it?" she finally growled.

"Just tell me you won't hurt her again." Then with a note in her voice Xena had never heard before, the Goddess asked, "please?"

The ‘please' lingered in the air. Xena finally stopped her work, but kept her back to the Goddess. When she spoke, her voice was muted. "Aphrodite. I wish to Hades I had a guarantee for her. I've had a lot of time to think about what I was, and what I did to her. Yes, I loved her, but I always came first. MY missions, MY destiny. And finally, MY redemption." She barked a laugh. " And there was a joke, my final redemption. Proof you can't con an honest woman."

Xena began lifting sections of tiles and tossing them recklessly behind her. She continued her confession as she dug deeper into the pile. As if digging deeper into her own rot. "I screwed her, I definitely screwed me, and there's only one thing I know that might make any of it better. So we'll do your job. We'll fight our fate and yeah, still end up dead. But if nothing else, I'm gonna show her that I have learned something."

Xena stopped, brushing the caked-on dust from around her eyes. In the silence there was only her slight gasping pants until Aphrodite asked, "What was it? That you learned?"

Xena was still facing away from the Goddess, but her voice was clear. "It took a lot before I learned anything. About a dozen ass-kickings and more by your brother. And it changed me. Even I had to learn, whether I wanted to or not. You can't keep thinking you're what's important, when you keep losing. That's all I've done for a dozen and more lifetimes. Had my ass-kicked."

She finally turned to face Aphrodite. "You can't believe that you don't need anyone's help, when you keep screwing up alone. No ego could take that. Not even mine." She laughed. "The only time I ever had a chance against … against Him, was when I was with her. So that's our hope, I guess. And the worst thing of all too. That she's here now, and not safe anymore. I wanted her safe, but the irony is she's always been my only chance to get out. Maybe she can't believe in us anymore, maybe the future doesn't see it, but I still do. AND, now that she's here, now that that bastard can take her, we can't afford to screw up. We have to…".

To her chagrin, it seemed that the Goddess was no longer listening to the longest speech Xena had ever made to her.

"What's wrong?"

Aphrodite swallowed and caressed her stomach. "Maybe it's just a bad batch of wine, or…"

"What?" Xena's expression hardened as she caught on. "No."

Now certain, the Goddess nodded. "Oh yes. Your reality just shifted. And that means somebody's playing with the Loom. Any guesses who?" She raised her arms and vanished in a sparkle. Xena returned to clearing the rubble, only the clenching of her mouth indicating any of her frustration.

After what seemed like hours, Aphrodite reappeared, fear shining in her beautiful face. "The Loom, the girls, Gabrielle, they've gone!"

Xena made an attempt at a calming gesture. "She was supposed to let them go. Maybe that's all you're feeling?" Xena said uncertainly.

"Uh uh. Somebody changed reality. I know what that feels like. Trust me."

There was a flash that blinded Xena for a second, and as her eyes cleared she found Gabrielle standing in front of them. The girl's eyes were red and it was clear she'd been crying.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" Xena asked.

"Never mind that. What did you do?" Aphrodite demanded.

Gabrielle gave a cruel smile. "To quote the Goddess, nothing, really."

"I know what my g… what my insides tell me. Something's changed."

For some reason, Gabrielle couldn't look Xena in the eyes. "It's funny, because I could have done anything. Even after I took off their chains, the Fates offered to let me…"

She cleared her throat, still in some kind of shock. "I was tempted, but there have to be rules, right? I didn't corrupt the past, or the future. I just gave us some…hope. I'm not as strong as I thought. I needed, I needed some sort of chance that we could win…something. So I got it for us. Not much. They said we still… we'll still have to die, but maybe…"

Aphrodite stomped her foot. "What did you do?"

Gabrielle's eyes cleared and her voice became stronger. "Why don't you go up and look?" she said, clearly indicating that the Goddess should leave.

Aphrodite looked confused for a moment. "But… yeah, okay. And when I find out what you did…I'll…I'll be back."

With that uncertain threat, she vanished. Xena stood, and tentatively opened her arms to take Gabrielle into them. Gabrielle shook her head, but gently pushed Xena back onto the marble bench before sitting beside her. She stared straight ahead, but allowed Xena to cover her hand with hers.

"I just remembered another thing about what it was like when we were together."

Xena waited, a part of her shrinking in fear of what was going to be said.

"We never got the chance to absorb each new shock. We never…" and Gabrielle began to cry.

This time Xena did not hesitate and drew Gabrielle into her strong arms. There was no resistance and she waited for the storm inside her partner to subside. "That's why you needed to leave. You wanted that time, and I'm guessing you didn't get it?"

Gabrielle disengaged after a moment, and drew her hands across her face to wipe the tears away. "Yeah. My own fault. I needed to know what had happened to you all these years. I needed to see." There was a shamefaced smile. "It wasn't what I expected. I kept thinking, I guess, I wanted to think, even after Aphrodite told me you'd had a rough time…"

"Gabrielle…"

"I thought, ‘oh, she's probably been offered the world over and over, tempted like usual, maybe some mind games, the usual stuff, you know. But then they let me see…"

Xena tried to think of some response, but Gabrielle continued.

"At first," and there was a choked laugh at this point, "I thought I was just seeing the same death repeated again and again."

"Gabrielle. It wasn't important," Xena said, gently.

Gabrielle shoved the gently caressing hand away violently, and turned to stare directly into her partner's eyes. "Don't you dare soften this for me! No one alive knows as well as I do, what that…." She stopped to push the pain from her mind, before starting again.

"I had a long and exciting life. So it's not surprising that sometimes I forget names or faces or how it felt at some important moment. I remember when we hurt each other, when you left… the victories and defeats get blurry sometimes. But I just have to close my eyes for a moment. And I'm right there, on that cross again. Feeling that eternity of agony." This time she reached over and took Xena's hand in hers. "At least I'd had you with me."

Near tears herself, Xena choked out, "Gabrielle, You were there. Always."

Again there was that broken laugh. "I know. I saw your lips move. Each time you… your lips." Gabrielle closed her eyes and tears ran from them. "They said my name." She took a deep breath. "But that only makes it worse. I don't want to hear you did it for… for that girl, the girl that isn't."

"What do you mean?"

"What you said before. You meant it for her. That young Gabrielle, the ideal you carried around. This debt you think you owed." The choking voice grew stronger. "I will not be another guilt you carried. Another of the mistakes you need to redeem."

Fighting the desire to hold the woman in her arms, but needing some intimacy, Xena took Gabrielle's hands and cupped them under her own chin and tried again to think of the right words.

"I never loved that girl, don't you see? I loved you. Always you. And I know you've changed… How can I put it?" She stared up into the tunnel ceiling and thought. "You know, soon the moon will be rising. Right?"

Gabrielle swallowed and nodded.

"You know it and I know it. The moon will rise. Even though we can't see it from here. We can't see it, but we know it's up there. Somewhere." She stopped and focussed again. "Some nights there are clouds, but we still know there's a moon in the sky." She turned her pale eyes onto Gabrielle's.

"I never thought you were some perfect… ideal, you said? But even on our worst days I still counted on, knew that part, that soul, the things that are the best in you, were there. I always knew that. When you were just a kid, or when you were troubled and hurting, I knew it was there, behind the clouds. I know it's there now. That's you, Gabrielle. Unique, and so very special. And me, sometimes I did things, often, I did things, that I know weren't really the best in me. But you saw something in me that no one else did. Including me. It saved me. You saved me. And I needed that, more than I ever knew, I needed that." Xena's eyes were as filled with tears as Gabrielle's now. "So, of course I thought of you. Of course I thought of you when I was given the choice of being a toy for that bastard or dying on those dammed crosses. But it isn't your fault or responsibility, it was my choice and my salvation." She wiped the tears roughly away and asked; "now maybe you need that. Now it's my turn to show you that moon. Will you, can you, let me?"

Could she? Gabrielle thought. But she was unable, unwilling to deny the needs in the woman holding her hand, or deny her own no longer dormant wishes. If at first there was hesitation, it changed to understanding that somehow became a frisson of desire for both.

Despite Xena's inner promise to give Gabrielle space, she found herself enclosing the smaller woman in her arms. She was surprised to notice that she was also trembling slightly, and her lips became dry, even as they moved closer to Gabrielle's. Xena stopped, waiting for a sign from her partner, when Gabrielle finally spoke.

"I was so angry with you before I died. And then yesterday, it all came back so completely. So hard. I remembered being mad and tired of loving you and not being loved the same way, but right now,…" She paused, with a smile that broke through the tears and directly into Xena's now pounding heart. "… this moment, I want to love you again. Please don't make me regret loving you again. Please…"

If words alone could have been of reassurance, perhaps Xena might have found them. Instead, she struggled; motionless, speechless. But Gabrielle continued looking into her eyes, and she found what she needed to find, and began closing the gap….
…when Aphrodite suddenly appeared, looking somewhat winded. Startled, both mortals sprang apart like teenagers, and tried to appear nonchalant, unsuccessfully. The Goddess evaluated the situation with a smirk, and promptly ignored it for her own immediate interests.

"Okay. I give up. I can't see any changes. Still Rome up there, sky is still blue and talk about your missed opportunities, you didn't even change the fashions. But whatever you did do, there are still plans for You-know-who to become Boss God at noon tomorrow. So, unless this chance you made is real subtle, I think you should travel Air Goddess about now. Or at least, let me give you a running start?"

Both Xena and Gabrielle spoke at the same time. "Nope."

"Nope?" the Goddess questioned the unexpectedly smiling partners.

Gabrielle shook her head and with a sigh slipped her hand back into Xena's. "I still say we've changed, but one thing hasn't. We don't run away. Especially if it's going to leave what's his name as supreme power over the world."

The Goddess threw up her hands. "Hello? I know! I brought you back for this. But I could do something…"

Xena looked at the hand in hers and produced a grin. "As if taking the easy way ever worked for us anyway. But…" There was a glance to Gabrielle, "there's dying and then there's dying. We're not leaving that bastard in charge of the world."

Gabrielle was thinking. "But…we also might come up with a few arguments to stop it, that the Pontifical College didn't think of."

Aphrodite blinked. "Even though you know what'll happen after that anyway?"

Gabrielle nodded her head. "There is one way you could help. If we stop… your brother, all the Gods would owe us one, wouldn't they?"

Aphrodite considered. "If he's not boss God, combined, we could do something, nothing big, mind you. He'll still demand you die. And he'd still be bad enough that no one would face up to him directly. And…" she wagged her finger like a school teacher, "don't you guys get any ideas. You're can't kill Him. Or wall him up or something. Killing Gods never make you any friends among the Gods or get any favours."

"But if we stay, keep distracting him? If we did stop him from becoming head God, then…"

"But you'd still have to die!"

Gabrielle and Xena waited.

"Okay. What WOULD you want in exchange for this… favour?" the Goddess asked.