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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 8

"I'm sorry, I thought, you… I just…" Xena stuttered.

Feeling more than she wanted to, Gabrielle said, "I'm… I was brought here to do a job. Please don't ask for more, Xena. Not yet, at least. Please."

Xena swallowed, and nodded. But they had only walked a few more steps before she stopped and turned to Gabrielle. "No. I still have to say something. We don't know how much time we have and it has to be said. Too many times I've dodged the points, and then you never knew the most important things. I've done that before. I won't do that again. That's something you taught me." Appreciating what the effort was costing her once taciturn friend, Gabrielle waited.

Xena closed her eyes. Focussed on what she needed to say. "It's funny. I had this conversation with you a thousand times, and hundreds of years to prepare. It should be easier."

Gabrielle took her hand. "Xena, you don't…"

"Yes, I do." She stopped and tried to begin again. "Gabrielle. I was an idiot. I…"

Gabrielle tightened her grip on the hand until Xena was ready to start again. "I don't know how it happened, how I lost my appreciation for what you were, who you were." The warrior laughed derisively. "Everybody said that we were a balance for the other. Somehow in the end that became me being the taker while you were the giver. I need you to know…" She looked directly into Gabrielle's eyes with all the intensity she could draw from within, "…that I'm not that person anymore. I made a mockery of the love I said I had for you. That can't happen again, I swear. I lived these years learning, knowing everyday, what I missed and needed, and all of it was you. If all you want from me is friendship, that's okay. But I promise you, I'll try to take this moment, and every moment that I am lucky enough to be with you, whether it's our last time together or part of a century of moments, and I'll show you how much I appreciate you, completely and for all that you are."

Gabrielle was silent, tears forming again, but she slowly and deliberately released her grip to wipe them away before saying, "I can't handle this, Xena. Ares was partly right. I can't… As much as I might have needed to hear what you just said, needed it a lot, a couple of times…"

"It's a few centuries too late."

"No. not late. Just…"Gabrielle shrugged. "It's just too much right now." She began to turn her face away when Xena stopped her and took her hand again.

"Let me finish, and then, then we'll get to work. ‘Cause I have one more thing to say. I don't know if I ever said, ever really said this properly, but I loved you. And because I still do, I won't ask you to forgive me. I don't want you to. Not again."

Gabrielle lowered her head. "Damn. I knew you'd make this hard." Raising her face to reveal tear-filled eyes, she added, "I lost something when I died. I gave up on you too, and I don't know why. And now everything, it's come back so strong and it's too much all at once. Can you understand that? I have to work it out. But … for right now, I want… With the time we have, to be friends again?"

"I just thought, with the time we have, we could lay a few demons to rest."

Gabrielle nodded, and some of the shadows lifted from her face. "Then we need a few ground rules."

"You name them," Xena said seriously.

The girl took a deep breath. "No making plans…"

"Without consulting you first?"

"How'd you know?"

Xena returned her a lopsided grin. "Like I told you, I had a few years to think over things."

Gabrielle closed her eyes and didn't respond. When she opened them, she nodded and began tugging her partner towards the main exit. "Okay. So let's get to it. We have an all-powerful etcetera God. I think we both know we're not going to have these lives for too long." She stopped, puzzled by a thought which struck her. "Speaking of whom, has he really changed that much?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, changing time just to make a point. I think you're right, that keeping us apart is just a sideshow. So does that really sound like him? And even if he did, how come we're here together? If the Coliseum was closed…"

Xena's lips set. "Then we wouldn't have met here. This couldn't have happened. So this can't be real. He played us for some reason. Again." It was a statement, not a question.

As if a response, the now familiar sheet of time advanced towards them and again Gabrielle experienced the nausea and twisting of her guts. When it was over, they were standing on the edge of one of the lower circles in a once again packed thunderous Coliseum, where they had apparently dropped from the rope now dangling above them. The smell of the muddy water and bodies struck them along with the sounds of the mob. Xena cursed as they dashed and hid, crouching, behind a concrete barrier. "Bloody Tartarus. I should have realised that the break wasn't permanent. He made a temporary change like he froze the crowd, and now time has returned to normal. Where are my brains?"

Gabrielle observed half a dozen soldiers scanning the amphitheatre not far from where they were crouched. "Please, get those brains going fast, because we need to get out of here before someone figures out we have to be somewhere underneath the rope."

Xena raised her head and scanned about before ducking back into their temporary shelter. "We can't make it back up to the balcony window dressed like this, and there are too many guards by the gate in front. We need a diversion. Then I could knock it down. The break out of the rest of the slaves could give us the cover to run for the Temple. If only I had my chakram."

Gabrielle withdrew an unforgettable object from her Vestal draperies. "What do you mean, YOUR chakram?"

Xena blinked. "But…." she began.

Using a reasonable tone, Gabrielle interrupted. "If we had the time, we could argue all day whose this is, I mean, just because I have it now, after you gave it to me, and the GODDESS Aphrodite has been keeping it for ME for hundreds of years and since I died at over eighty-three years of age, even including the time we were on ice, I've had it far longer than you did, don't we have more important things to worry about?" Gabrielle finished in a rush then smiled guilelessly.

"But…?" Xena began again.

"We'll talk. Maybe I'll let you borrow it sometimes."

Xena hesitated, then nodded. "Fine."

"Fine???"

"You're right. It's yours now."

Gabrielle blinked.

Despite the danger they were in, Xena seemed completely nonchalant. "The chakram is rightly yours and no one else's."

Sceptically, Gabrielle asked, "you're not going to grab it on the return first time I throw it?"

Xena was the face of virtue. "Never occurred to me."

"Hmmmmm." They suddenly both grinned for no reason until the moment was broken by the sound of orders being called from beyond their shelter. "Assuming I accept that, back to business? What's the plan?" Gabrielle asked hurriedly.

"Well, MY plan was that I would take the chakram and cut down the canopy supports along the roof, drag them to a torch, and scare the heck out of the audience."

"And kill everybody in a stampede?" Gabrielle objected.

Xena stood up again and quickly looked down the passage. "Not a big fire. And I promise to be polite about it, okay? But first…" Whatever she saw through the exit elicited another slumping of her shoulders. Gabrielle braced herself for more bad news as Xena returned to the crouch beside her. "FIRST, we immediately get someone a hell of a lot smarter than both of us. You were right, Ares doesn't do things just to make a point."

"What is it now?"

"Remember how the Temple of Venus didn't have any guards around it before the pause?"

Gabrielle nodded, then smacked her head. "There's a bunch of guards around the Temple of Venus now?" AT Xena's concurrence, she smacked her head again in disgust. "He put us all alone to get us to talk, and like an idiot, I spilled where we could head for shelter. Why didn't you feel him nearby listening?"

"Didn't I mention? Now he's the one with..."

"Many skills." Gabrielle finished. "Great. So not only are we trying to defeat a vengeful etcetera, God, but we can't talk about our plans because he could be overhearing us!"

"Not to depress you, but it's worse. If he doesn't hear us the first time, and we actually get away with whatever we do to get out of here, he can always go back in time and listen in when we made the plan."

"I'm getting a headache."

Xena stood up. "One problem at a time. We can't talk about what we're going to do, maybe we can take different parts. If I can figure out a place to go and how to get all of us out of here, can you figure out how to keep him from following us?"

Gabrielle got up beside her. "Funny. I was about to ask you that if I could keep Ares busy, could you find a place to hide."

"Suddenly I'm remembering why I've felt like half a person for so long."

"You keep saying the sweetest things. Stop it. 'Cause it's pissing me off."

"Is it permanent?"

"We'll see. Can you get the slaves out of here as well as stampede the crowd in a kind and gentle way?"

"I can do half of it."

Gabrielle smiled. It was a liberating smile and she thought about why that was for a second. Then it hit her. "You know, I'm having fun. I forgot, that we really did have fun. And old, revered Queens of the Amazon don't have much fun."

Seeing soldiers moving directly to their position, Xena bit off her first response for another. "Good, because here comes more fun."