ForevaXena's FanFic . . .

Bad Memories, Sad Memories

by Daniel Stevens

DISCLAIMER: The more familiar characters in this story are the property of Renaissance Pictures, Universal/MCA, and Studios USA.  No copyright infringement is intended.

Xena is sitting at a table in the tavern in Amphipolis, which she had inherited from her mother Cyrene some years back.  In front of her is a goblet of wine, which she has just poured herself.  The place had closed some time earlier that evening, and the place had been cleaned up by herself and her people, leaving her plenty of time to try - again - to drown her memories in the wine.

Her memories.  Especially the ones beginning with the most horrific week of her life.  The death of her son, at the hands of that demon-spawn monster Hope - Gabrielle's daughter, by the demonic rapist Dahak!  That evening, at the funeral of both Solan and Hope, when she said those terrible things to a Gabrielle whose apparent betrayal had been, as usual in her case, entirely unintentional and unwitting.

("Don't you even speak his name!  No, I mean it! You lied to me!  I trusted you, and you lied to me!  And now my son is dead, because of you!)

How many times she had wished she could take back those words, since that night!  The last night she ever saw Gabrielle, except in her memories, and her heart.

Later that night, she had gone to a spot high in the Caucasus Mountains where she could be alone with her sorrow.  To mourn.  To try to work through her pain.  Unfortunately, Ares had ignored her desire to be alone, and had talked her into seeking vengeance on Gabrielle, for her son.

Xena had gone to Themiscyra, assuming that the Bard would be there.  It was only after breaking Queen-Regent Ephiny's arm that she found that Gabrielle wasn't there.  That she had disappeared from the Purification Hut, under quite mysterious circumstances, the day before.  Ephiny had allowed her to leave in one piece, though with a warning to never return to Amazon territory, under pain of death.

The Warrior had been on her way to Potidaea, thinking (and hoping) that Gabrielle might be there, when the Persians invaded Greece.  In what would be the first of many distractions, Xena had to help fight the invaders, single-handedly wiping out half a regiment of Imperial Guards Cavalry in the process.  That, among other things, had helped convince the Persians to withdraw.

Before she could get back to her intended pursuit of her former 'other half', the One-Woman Army had gotten word that the Gallic Chieftain Vercinnix had been captured by her old enemy, the Roman Dictator Gaius Julius Caesar.  Xena had recruited her recently widowed cousin Flora, the one-time Black Wolf, to help in her plan to capture Caesar's ally Marcus Licinius Crassus, and to trade Crassus for Vercinnix - one way or the other.  Unfortunately for Crassus, Caesar had chosen 'the other way', which had meant Crassus' death, but Xena and Flora had pulled it off nonetheless.

Flora had also been there, for the next major occurrence - another run-in with her old nemesis Callisto, and the demon-spawn Hope.  Their deaths at Xena's hands had satiated the former Warlord's desire to avenge Solan's death to a degree which had surprised her.  A degree sufficient to permanently snuff out any desire on her part to kill Gabrielle, though her anger against the Bard remained considerable.

Next had come an invasion by a mixed horde of Huns and Scythians, led by an evil Shamaness from Xena's past.  During the course of the campaign, Alti had made the fatal mistake of revealing to Xena in a dream that the tragic dimensions of Solan's all too short life had been the result of a curse. A curse that the Shamaness had placed on the boy before he had even been born, that had ensured that he would never know the love of either of his parents - no matter who had to die to make it so.  The horde had broken up and withdrawn back to the Scythian steppes after Xena had ridden into their midst, to abduct Alti.  She had then dragged the Shamaness to death behind Argo, and thrown the body off a cliff, onto some jagged rocks below.  That had further drained Xena's wrath against Gabrielle.

This had been followed by Xena and Flora teaming up with Hercules and his new girlfriend, the reformed one-time Celtic War Goddess Morrigan.  First, the new team had cramped Caesar's style when he and Pompey had brought their civil war from Rome to Greece.  Then, the five (for the Egyptian-born Pirate Queen Nebula had now joined them) had gone directly after Dahak, to avenge not only Solan, but Iolaus and the Druids, as well.  By the time they were done, Dahak's attempts to enter this world had been most emphatically rebuffed.

At one point, Xena had found herself having a long heart-to-heart talk with Hercules about Gabrielle.  By the time they were done talking, Xena had come to realize that far from being angry with the Bard any more, she now missed her sorely.  All the more so for having been the one to drive her away in the first place.  That Gabrielle's absence had opened a hole in Xena's heart at least as big as the one put there by Solan's death.  A hole that Flora could never completely fill, no matte how hard they tried to have her do so.  Flora, too, had realized this.  As a result, Xena had sent Flora home after Dahak had been defeated, with her gratitude for helping out when the Warrior had most needed the help.

Almost as a postscript to the whole business, Xena had stopped her self-proclaimed protégé, the warlord Satrina.  In the process, she had learned that Satrina had helped her one-time lieutenant turned warlord, Dagnine, to murder her ex-boyfriend, the Hunnish Khan Borias - Solan's father.  Despite that, the one-time Destroyer of Nations had ended up exercising enough self-control to decide that Satrina wasn't worth the bother of killing  Instead, she has hamstrung Satrina in one ankle, leaving the other woman incapable of doing any further damage as a warlord, ever again. Xena's desire to avenge Solan had, at last, been fully satiated. 

That night, Solan had appeared to the Warrior in a dream.  He had told his mother to resume her search for Gabrielle, to let the Bard know that all had been forgiven, and to take her back.  Xena had quite joyously agreed to do so.  There was one small problem though. After a year and more, Gabrielle's trail would have become as cold as a Scythian winter - at best!  Thus, the only thing for Xena to do at that point was to continue wandering the length and breadth of the Mediterranean Basin, in the hope of stumbling upon a chance lead.

'If only it had been that easy!', Xena thinks to herself, as she downs a fair sized gulp of wine.

The next few weeks are etched into her memory particularly well, since those had been the most hopeful and the happiest she had experienced since Solan's death and Gabrielle's disappearance.  First, she had returned to Amphipolis, to bring her mother up to speed on the whole Gabrielle situation.  She still remembers what her mother had told her about the matter like it had been yesterday.

("Little One, you're doing the right thing, trying to restore your relationship with Gabrielle.  I can't believe that she would have *ever* truly betrayed you.  Not with any sort of malicious intent, at any rate.  And from what little I heard her say about Solan, I have to believe that she loved my grandson as much as you did.  As much as I would have.  It almost certainly broke her heart when that demon-spawn she had thought of as a daughter killed him."

"I know, Mom.  I wasn't thinking straight a year ago, and now I'm paying for it."

"Well, good luck with not only finding her, but also with straightening things out with her."

"Thanks.  I may need it.")

She also remembers the following morning, when she stopped at the Temple of Ares on her way out of town - to demolish it.  And remembers Ares' immediate reaction to said action.

("Xena, was that really necessary?! (Gesturing towards the ruins of his temple.) I'm already well aware that you still haven't forgiven me for my dalliance with Hope!"

"Oh, that? (With a similar gesture.)  That was just an attention getter.  It worked for Gabrielle when she wanted to get Aphrodite's attention, so I thought…"

"So, Xena.  What is it you wish of me?", drawing himself up to look more dignified.  That had only elicited a smirk from the Warrior.

"I want you to leave me and Gabrielle alone from now on.  Also, to put you on notice that, since it was you who talked me into trying to kill the woman I love in the first place, you would be well advised to hope and pray that I do succeed in not only finding Gabrielle, but in straightening out this whole mess.  Otherwise, should I fail, I'll become a Warlord with an army again, all right!  An army made up entirely of warriors who have never heard of you, and will thus not be the least bit averse to sacking your temples, and slaughtering your priests and acolytes.  And my war against your cult will continue until I have purged your worship from the Greek and Roman world in a manner that even *you* will understand - no matter what obstacles you put in my way!  You got that?!"

"Well then, Xena, we have a problem.  You see, I have absolutely no idea where Gabrielle is, or even where to suggest that you start looking."

"What do you mean?!"

"The last I knew, she was in Themiscyra, right before I came to talk to you about avenging your son.  When I checked again, she was gone.  So, I searched the entire area within the range she could have covered in the time available to her - even when she was 100%.  You know what I came up with? Zip! Zilch! Nada!  I also checked Potidaea, while you were fighting Persians.  The last anyone had seen of her there was the last time the two of you had dropped by together."

"What are you saying, Ares?!"

"What I'm saying is, that whatever happened, one of the other Olympians must have been involved.  Which of us it was, I don't know for sure, though I do have two prime suspects in mind - Artemis and Athena."

"Why them?"

"Artemis, as you well know, has had a soft spot for Gabrielle ever since she got involved with the Amazons.  As for Athena, she'd have been perfectly willing to do it for no other reason than just to thwart me."

"I see."  Then, after a moment, "Not that I believe a word of it.  Not coming from you."

"Somehow, I didn't expect that you would, Xena.  Still,…"

With that, Ares had done his usual disappearing act.)

The last of that cluster of relatively happy memories had come from, of all places, Potidaea.  There, she had made her peace with Lila, at least. 
It had happened when she had spotted some bandits attacking Herodotus' and Hecuba's  farmstead, and had driven them off, killing several of them.  Lila had then run out, against her parents' frantically shouted advice, to plead with Xena for their lives.

("Lila, listen to me!  I have no intention of harming you or your family, now or *ever*!"  A moment later, with a friendly smile, "Tell you what I *will* do, though.")

The One Woman Army had then walked over to the body of the biggest and meanest looking of the dead bandits, and had cut the purse from that corpse's belt.  She had done the same with two of the others, then after checking her take, she had given it *all* to a still-terrified Lila.

"You're a good kid, Lila.  Don't *ever* let anyone tell you differently."

She had then sent her Beloved's younger sister back inside, and had gone on.)

Her relatively happy mood had lasted some weeks after her departure from Potidaea, as her search for Gabrielle had recommenced in earnest.   However, as the months had dragged on, with one lead after another ending up going nowhere, and she had found absolutely no sign of her once-more Beloved Bard in Thessalonica, Athens, Alexandria, Memphis, Myos Hormos, Berenice, Jerusalem, Caesarea, Tyrus, Palmyra, Antioch, Rhodes, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Athens (again), Syracuse, Carthage, or Rome, or any of the many smaller towns and villages between those cities, she began to wonder if perhaps Ares had been telling the truth about having no idea where Gabrielle was.  Her happiness had slowly but surely begun to give way to renewed sorrow, as her hope had just as slowly but surely begun to give way to renewed despair.

She remembers having told Callisto, right after Solan's death, that she was going to live with her pain, instead of letting it kill her inside as Callisto had done.

'I sure did a wonderful job of that, didn't I?!  As if the loss of my son wasn't enough, I had to at least double my pain by driving Gabrielle away from me - for good!'

Still, she had continued looking for Gabrielle, even after all real hope of ever finding her had gone, simply because it wasn't in her to give up on what had become the most important quest of her life - ever.

Xena had now begun to try looking beyond the boundaries of the Roman world, in Napata, Meroe, Aksum, and Adulis, in Ethiopia and Abyssinia, and in Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana, Rhagae, Hecatompylos, Margiana, and Maracanda, in the Parthian Empire.  When she had turned up nothing in either region, she had moved on to the kingdoms of India, starting with the Surena and Saka Kingdoms, and moving on to the Andhra Empire, and points south.  When that had turned up nothing, the Warrior had even tried her luck in Chin and Han - again to no avail.  While in those lands, she had also pitched in, to help deal with local problems, taking on the demon lord Indrajit while in India, and helping Lao Ma's daughter Kao Hsin against the warlord Go Kan, and his ally (and Kao Hsin's twin sister) Pao Su, while in Chin and Han.  Only when those searches had turned up absolutely nothing had Xena returned home, after several years' absence, to touch base with her mother.

When she got back to Amphipolis, the warrior's first stop had been the inn run by her mother, Cyrene.  Unfortunately, she had found the place closed and boarded up.  She had asked a bypasser what had happened.

("Well Ma'am, Cyrene passed away some two months ago.  I remember that she had wanted you to take over running the place.  In fact, her last words were to call out for you."

"T-thank… you, Andreas.")

She had then gone on onto the Inn, which was apparently now hers, and proceeded to do something she had not done for many years.  She had indulged herself in a fit of convulsive sobbing, continuing to cry until she had gone to bed, and cried herself to sleep.  There was no question now that she would *never* find Gabrielle. In fact, she would never even have the chance to even *try*, ever again.

The next day, steeling herself to face the obvious, and inevitable, truth of the situation, she had gone to work on getting the place back up and running, hanging up her weapons and armor once and for all.  With typical Xena energy and focus, she had gotten the place opened back up for business in just half the time anyone else would have thought it could be done. However, though she tried her best to put her best 'hospitable innkeeper face' on, everyone who knew her could tell that she was even moodier than ever now, and that her basic mood now was one of quiet despair.  One thing people quickly learned not to ask her about was her Warrior past, in general, and Gabrielle, in particular.  This was despite the fact that everyone had soon also learned that, when she was alone, quite often she would read and reread Gabrielle's scrolls of their three years together - her sole remaining lifeline to better, happier times, and all she had left of her Beloved Bard.

A few months later, Flora had arrived in town, and had been taken on, to assist Xena in the day-to-day operation of the Inn.  Also, after the Mauretanian pirate and warlord Gurkhan had abducted her daughter Sarah, and her parents and husband had died trying to get Sarah back, Lila had been hired on by Xena.  The Warrior had, in fact, put Lila in charge of the place, while she and Flora had donned weapons and armor one last time, for a go at rescuing the girl - Gabrielle's niece. 

After a sea voyage to Mauretania,  the two had infiltrated Gurkhan's harem, to find that Sarah had clawed her way to the position of top dog in the harem.  At first, Xena had considered leaving the girl there, in what she had made into her petty fiefdom.  However, she had remembered that she had promised Lila that they would bring her daughter back if at all possible.  The long and the short of it had ended up being that Gurkhan had been killed, while not only Sarah, but the rest of the harem, had been freed.  The other women had gone their separate ways, while Xena and Flora had taken Sarah back to Amphipolis.
When Sarah had finally seen her mother again, she had nearly died of shame over the things she had done to survive while in Gurkhan's harem.  Hearing Lila tell her the same thing that Xena and Flora had already told her while on the sea voyage back to Macedonia - that she had only done what she had had to do to stay alive in that horrible place, and that the only person who truly deserved the guilt and shame for the whole situation had been Gurkhan - had helped the young woman deal with the shame a little better.  Needless to say, Sarah had also found a job, and a home, in Amphipolis, working at the Inn.  In fact, mother and daughter had found, and still find, Xena to be not only fair, but indulgent, with them - no doubt for the sake of Gabrielle's memory.

Unfortunately, the lingering despair over Gabrielle's loss had driven Xena to drink.  As a result, Flora, Lila, and Sarah had found themselves having to take on more of the day-to-day operation of the Inn.  The other three women, hearing that Artemis or Athena may have had something to do with the Bard's disappearance so many years ago, had gone to the temples of both goddesses with rich offerings, hoping for mercy, or at least a sign.  They had received neither.  Xena had, in her cups, told them that they need not have wasted their time or the offerings - she had tried that many years earlier, after she had come to realize that Ares had been telling the truth about Gabrielle's disappearance.

Now, Xena has passed out at the table, still holding the now-empty bottle, while the equally empty goblet lying on its side on the table.  Ever so quietly and gently, Flora and Lila pick Xena up by her armpits, and carry her upstairs, while Sarah cleans up the table.

"Lila?"

"Yes?"

"I honestly don't know who is to be pitied more, Xena, or Gabrielle - assuming she's still alive wherever she is."

"Really!  Whichever of those two goddesses did put Gabrielle wherever she is now, and won't allow her and Xena to at least *try* to work out their differences, even after all these years, I will *never* forgive her, nor will I worship either of them ever again!" A moment later, "If what I have just said offends you, I apologize, to *you*."

"Lila, all you've done is to say what I've been thinking for some time.  Between Dahak, and certain of the Olympians, your sister and my cousin have both had their lives pretty much ruined.  And you're right.  That *is* unforgivable."

"Well, I guess we had best call it a night now."

"Yeah.  See you tomorrow,"

"You too, Flora."

Continue In "Joyous Reunion"

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