By D.C. Parker
Please send Feedback to: d.c.parker@web.de
Disclaimer: Xena Warrior Princess, it’s characters and all related materials are the property of MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures.
Those lucky dudes.
Character uses are for entertainment only, not to hurt any rights. As always.
Warning: We are talking about Xena here guys…so there is always the chance of something dangerous happening, in one way or the other ☺.
Anyway, this scene is about two women finally getting a clue about what the rest of the world has known long before them. So if you are under 18 years old, or this kind of story is forbidden where you live, please do not read it.
Or move… ;)
Gabrielle’s POV: After her reunion with the Warrior Princess, the Bard ponders what they have just been through. Pent up emotions reveal themselves…quite effectively.
***
Rain. Normally, I would be depressed by that. I don’t like it. I really don’t.
But today is different.
Today…I stand here, in the middle of the yard, my head back, my eyes closed, and enjoy the feeling of the warm summer rain on my face as if it were for the first time.
I can hear the sounds of the village from far away, for Xena’s mother has moved us up here to their home the moment we stepped into the Inn.
I am really relieved we are here. I couldn’t have handled the more than hostile situation we were in at Potaideia one moment longer. Not after everything that happened. With my father still looking at Xena as if she were the real monster, and my mother constantly begging me to stay, and my sister and Joxer flirting…it was too much.
I am beyond glad Xena knows me as well as she does. When she came back from whatever business she had wanted to take care of, she took one good look at my face, and nodded, and the next instant she was outside, gathering our things, not needing one word to understand that I needed desperately to get out of there. Not only because of my family…
Family…I don’t think that word has a meaning for me any longer. Not after what I did to my own child. No matter how evil, no matter how deserved…she still was my baby. And she will be that in my heart, for eternity.
We just started walking, Xena and I, and until we were about an hour out of Amphipolis, I had no idea where we were going. She stopped short of the outer fields, turning to me, and I nodded my agreement.
This was home. Not just for her. It has become that for me too. Because there lives a mother that understands. Understands that we need to do what we do, no matter the cost. A mother that understands that we need to be together, now more than ever. That just…understands.
The moment we entered the Inn, the moment Cyrene saw us, she rushed to us, ushered us outside again. With a stern look at my face, then at her daughter’s, she gave both of us brief hugs and Xena a soft kiss on the check before telling her to go to the house, that she would be joining us as soon as she could.
How did she know? How could she possibly know that all we both needed, wanted in that moment, was silence, and quiet, and being alone with each other?
I open my eyes, turning slightly and stop as I see Xena leaning against the open barn door. Her face pale, her eyes sad, her posture tired. And from the constant ache I can feel in my body, I can guess pretty well that I surely don’t look any better.
So maybe…Cyrene sending us here wasn’t anything magical at all…
She looks so lonely. So lost…I feel the pain I can see in her eyes as if it would be my own. She has abandoned her heavy armor, standing there in just her leather dress, and like that she looks so fragile I fear for her not being able to stand up straight any longer.
We haven’t talked about what happened yet. I know we will, we have to. But not right now, not when the pain of my death, and our reunion, and of Hope and her evil child is still so fresh in both our minds. I know how I feel about all of this. It hurts, yes, but above all that I am so glad I am back, and with her, that I am willing to push the misery away, only concentrating on the pure joy of being together again.
One look into her clouded blue eyes and I know that it isn’t like that for Xena. At all.
She watches me in silence, and I can feel her gaze on my skin like fire. It has felt like that to me for a long time now, and it took me even longer to figure out why. I know now that I am in love with her, have been for so many moons I lost count. Maybe even from the very first moment. And for some moons now, I silently got the feeling that maybe, just maybe, she could feel something for me in return.
I remember a very brief moment when the Persians were after us, had us surrounded, and me yet again too close to death. When she held my hand, held my gaze, held my body in her arms and told me she loved me. Her voice so full of tears, so close to breaking it made these words that I have heard her say more than once suddenly sound different. Something had been in the way she held me, almost refused to let me go again, that made me aware of the fact that something…indeed had changed.
I chance a smile, but instead of answering it, she just turns, going back into the barn, closing the door behind her. I sigh, shaking my head slowly.
From that day on I had started to pay better attention to how she was reacting to me, noticing so many things that had become naturally for me in our daily routine like something new now. Recognizing the little signs of her actually being nervous every now and then when I was close. Of her gazing at me with a strange look, one I never saw before. Of her giving me that sort of smiles that wasn’t only meant for a friend. I have seen the ones for our friends. And I know at least a good dozen of them would have swooned on the spot had it been one like she had started to give me.
Then I died…at least it surely was meant to be my death. I gave all of it up, gave up being with her for saving her life. For me, it was the ultimate sacrifice out of love. For her…it must have been a nightmare come true.
I step inside the barn, carefully pulling the door shut behind me. Cyrene and Xena had a long argument about why she would want us to stay out here instead of the comfortable house. And after listening to those two bickering for long enough time, I just said that I had asked Xena for it. That, surprisingly enough, settled it, and we were allowed to sleep in here. It’s warm, and the hay is enough for a great, soft resting place, which Xena has already prepared for us, our stuff put up against a post, her weapons within reach, like always.
Xena is sitting on a bale of hay, her head down, her hands clasped in front of her. I watch her, and I can feel the dark energy radiating from her in tidal waves. I know I don’t have to be afraid. She is not angry with me, or with my family, or with anyone else but herself. I know her too well now not to notice, not to know. She hates herself for letting all of this happen, is about to load the fault of this part of our past on her shoulders.
But that’s wrong. Just wrong. And I won’t let her go through with this one more time.
“Xena…”
And this one word awakens a storm that neither of us expected.
She looks up at her name, and her eyes are so deep, her gaze so intent, screaming with all the pent up emotions I can’t stand it. I can’t turn away from it either. I kneel down in front of her, reach out a hand, and touch her face. I have to touch her. It’s as important to me as breathing, because suddenly my whole being hurts with the knowledge that, again, I almost lost her without letting her know how I truly feel. Without knowing how she truly feels for me.
And as I kneel there, our eyes locked, I know that today, of all days to pick, I will get an answer. For the energy that builds between us is like a bolt of thunder and lightning. For the look she is giving me tells more than words ever could. For I know that what happened to us, despite of the horror, has woken up things that never would have dared to emerge otherwise.
I love her…so much…so much…
Her kiss is hot and hungry, and I only need the split second of a moment to actually believe what is happening before I kiss her back, even more forceful than she is. In the back of my mind I can hear a voice calling me, telling me that this is not the time, nor the place for us to do that, no matter how much we both might yearn for it. But I am beyond listening, beyond caring. I have wanted her for too long to listen to reason now.
Our touches are relentless, and soon we are lying down on the hay, naked, Xena on top of me, and we both moan as our bodies touch for the first time. I bite my lip and close my eyes as my warrior kisses me everywhere, as her hands wander over my body, learning with amazing speed what I like, what makes me moan, writhe, what makes me crazy.
I am so overthrown with lust and passion, with the things and feelings Xena’s touch awakens in me, that I barely manage to touch her back. And she wouldn’t let me anyway. Every time I try to, she moves out of reach, or holds my hand, gently pushing it away. Every time I try to reverse our positions, she presses her body more against me, ever so softly forcing mine back down. And all the while she touches me, she makes not one single sound.
I open my eyes again as she reaches between my legs, look up into her face only inches from my own, and I freeze. She looks down into my eyes, her own clouded with such stark pain it almost makes me sick. Her face even paler now. Her cheeks wet with tears.
She is crying…
She is still touching me, her fingers stroking through the wetness between my legs, then stroking inside me, building a pressure that will ever so soon carry me over the edge. And she is crying, biting her lip so hard trying to hold the sobs inside that I can see blood on it.
My heart skips a beat.
What have I done…
There is no time for me to try and say or do anything, for in that moment she moves her body so that her own heat is pressing against my thigh now. Starts moving with the rhythm she has set inside me. It is the most erotic thing I could imagine. It is my dream finally coming true, for me and the woman I love more than life itself are here, together, in each other’s arms, not holding back any longer.
And looking into her face, I know that this is also the worst of my nightmares.
Because I hurt her so much, I don’t know if that wound will ever completely be healed…
It’s dark when I wake up again, my body still pleasantly tired from our lovemaking. I don’t need to open my eyes to know that she is laying next to me, watching me. I open them anyway, turn my head slightly to be able to see her face in the dim light of the moon shining through the small gaps in the roof above us.
She is so beautiful. So breathtakingly beautiful.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
Her voice breaks. I meet her gaze, and then it hits me. What happened to me, to us. What we did. What I almost lost.
That no matter how noble my thoughts of saving her life, I never once considered what it would do to her.
That it would break her in places that never can be whole again.
I can feel my own tears now, and I close my eyes as she ever so gently raises a hand to wipe them away. For now I know that she loves me just the same, that she needs me just like I need her, that she wants me with the same desire I want her.
And I gave it all up. Just like that.
Her.
Us.
How can I ever make that right again?…