A Prison Compound in Ancient Rome, Thursday Fandom Time
It was a long journey by ship, and once they disembarked an even longer one by foot. The prison they were being taken to, Brutus informed them, was on Mount Amara, and he was adamant that they wouldn't be harmed.
Gabrielle became less and less convinced of that as they approached the compound, past lines of crucified prisoners along the side of the road and up the mountainside where the temperature dropped and snow began to fall.
It had been snowing in that vision. She remembered how cold the wind had been against her skin when Alti had shown it to her.
The look on his face when they entered the compound, raucous with the noise of saws and hammers, would have broken Gabrielle's heart if she wasn't already furious with him for his blind trust in Caesar. She turned her head toward him and for a moment he met her eyes, then flinched away.
"Jailer, these prisoners are to be held here," he said, deliberately avoiding looking in her direction.
"Yes, we've been waiting for them," the man replied, and raised an eyebrow at Brutus's curious expression.
"Those crosses -- who are they for?"
The jailer half smiled and said, "We're expecting a boatload of pirates any day." Brutus might have believed it -- he certainly seemed to -- but Gabrielle detected the note of insincerity in his voice.
There was a yell just as they entered the building, then the whumpf of a sharp exhalation and the sound of blows being exchanged; Amarice had finally tried to make a move to escape. She was good, but not that good, and two of the soldiers knocked her to the ground and raised their swords.
Gabrielle reacted in a flash and threw herself over Amarice, glaring defiantly up at the soldiers.
"No!" Brutus darted toward them. "Don't harm Gabrielle!"
"Of course not!" she yelled, tears stinging her eyes; she knew it had nothing to do with friendship. "I'm still useful to you, Brutus!"
The shot told, because he looked briefly guilty before he composed himself and growled, "Get up."
Gabrielle stayed where she was and glared at him. "Not until you pardon her for what she just did."
"She attacked one of my men!"
"And I remember a time when mercy was shown to you!"
He didn't respond to that; he just stared at her, angry and yet somehow vulnerable, until finally he inhaled slowly and turned to his men. "Put down your swords. Chain her to the prophet."
"Ugh. Please," Amarice grumbled as they hauled her over to bind her to a post beside Eli. "Can't you just break my legs?"
Gabrielle was the last one to be led into the cell, and Brutus personally closed the door behind her.
"You don't really think those crosses are for a boatload of pirates, do you?" she hissed at him through the bars.
He looked at her stonily -- like flint, Gabrielle thought. Hard, but brittle, and if you applied just enough pressure . . .
"Caesar's never lied to me."
"There's a first time for everything," she replied as he stalked away.
Gabrielle watched until he was out of sight, then finally let her shoulders slump. She had to trust that Xena would come for them; she always had before.
***
Elsewhere, a day's ride later, Brutus and his soldiers had set up camp for the night before striking out for Rome in the morning. Brutus was just stepping away to relieve himself beside the bushes, alert as always for the sound of approaching footsteps, when a voice spoke up just beside his left ear.
"Ave, Brutus." He couldn't keep from jumping at the sound, which did nothing to preserve what little dignity he had left after turning around without even fastening his trousers. Xena glanced down, smirked once condescendingly, and went on. "I have a deal for you: you tell me where Gabrielle is, and I'll give you some information that'll save your stinking life."
He said nothing, kept his face impassive.
"Tell you what," Xena continued. "You promise to tell me, and I'll go first. Now, do I have your word?"
"And you trust me?" It came out with the same disbelief that had been in Gabrielle's voice when she asked him the same of Caesar.
"Everyone says that Brutus is an honorable man," Xena replied.
He nodded . . . and it struck him that no one said the same about Caesar.
It seemed to be good enough for her. "Beware the Ides of March, Brutus."
That was in two days. Why did she have to be so cryptic? "Why the Ides of March?"
Xena looked at him with something akin to pity, as if she honestly couldn't believe he would never have thought of something like what she was about to say. "Because on that day, Caesar will declare himself emperor."
No. No, he couldn't believe that. "Why would he do that?"
"Greed. Lust for power. An ego the size of the Aegean." She sounded like she was spelling it out for a very small child. "Of course, he plans to rid himself of anyone who would stand in his way."
Was she insinuating . . . ? "What are you saying?" he demanded.
"He's too smart to kill you in Rome, you have too much support there," Xena said, so urgently that he understood she was desperate. "But I have firsthand knowledge that he's been talking to assassins in Gaul. So. Your turn."
He had no way of knowing how she knew this: he didn't know that whatever divine power had brought Xena's old nemesis Callisto back from death had done so for the purpose of using her to set all of this into motion. Goading Caesar into following through on his ambitions, making sure Xena got word of his plans, all of it. When he hesitated she pressed, "Come on, Brutus! Gabrielle saved your life once. Give me the chance to save hers."
That was true, as was what Xena said about his sense of honor. At the very least, he owed Gabrielle that much.
"I put her in a prison compound at the foot of Mount Amara," he answered, quick to add, "But I don't believe what you said about Caesar."
"It's your funeral," Xena snapped, and turned to go, but she stopped for a moment to look back. "Brutus. Was it snowing on Mount Amara?"
What? "Yes," he replied. "It was snowing when I left."
Her eyes went wide with horror, but even if he had dared to ask why there was no time; she'd already leapt onto her horse and taken off at a gallop.
***
There was nothing to do in the prison cell, of course, and panic served no purpose even now that they knew for sure they would die in the morning, so Gabrielle and Eli fell back on the most calming thing they could.
They meditated.
Here, on the cold stone floor of a Roman prison, in a cell packed with people, while the sound of workmen building their crosses carried from the courtyard, Gabrielle let herself sink deeper into a trance than she'd ever managed before. Maybe it was the inevitability of tomorrow, of knowing that there was no reason to struggle any more. Maybe our was that beneath it all, she still had faith that Xena would come for her. Whatever it was, she drifted further and further until she found a place of absolute peace and stayed there until it was too much to bear.
"I did it," she breathed when she surfaced again.
"Did what? You've been sitting there like bumps on a log. What could you possibly have done?" Where Amarice's petulant tone had always grated before, all Gabrielle felt now was love -- for the girl's fierce spirit and youth, for Eli, for everyone in this cell, her friends in Fandom . . .
"She did nothing," Eli filled in.
"Oh, good. We're gonna be nailed to crosses in the morning, and you two are bragging about doing nothing?"
"You don't understand, Amarice. In order to become a perfect vessel for love, one has to cease all activity," Eli explained. "Not only physical, but mental as well. It's only when you reach that state of perfect emptiness that you're ready, at last, to be filled with love."
Amarice huffed. "Great. Just in time, too. You'll be able to love the people that crucify us."
At the moment, Gabrielle felt like she could do that, too.
***
That sense of peace didn't leave her. She'd expected it to fade away when the guards burst into the prison yelling for them to wake up the next morning, taking every opportunity to remind them that today they were going to die.
It didn't fade away when they heard the jailer shout orders to his men to cut down the dead victims on the crosses outside, because there'd be new bodies to replace them today.
It was still there beneath the surge of hope when she heard Xena's battle cry in the courtyard and then the prison door crashing open.
Gabrielle ran to the door and gripped the bars, beaming. "I'm so glad to see you."
"That vision is not going to happen," Xena told her as she smashed the lock on the cell door and handed the manacle keys to Gabrielle; Gabrielle wasted no time freeing the prisoners and herding them out to the courtyard while Xena worked on Eli's chains.
"Go on, run, hurry!" she yelled to Eli's followers, herding them toward the gates while Xena and Amarice held off the soldiers, just like they always did. She'd just gotten Eli out the gates and sent Amarice to guard him when she turned back to watch Xena.
The guard captain was yelling for reinforcements, and that wasn't a surprise; a courtyard of soldiers was no problem for Xena.
It was taking longer than usual, she realized; Xena was fighting off the soldiers with her sword, but --
Where was her chakram?
Gabrielle got her answer a moment later when she heard a furious shriek from up on the parapets and looked up just in time to --
Callisto? But how was that possible?
The familiar whistle of Xena's chakram hurtling through the air distracted her from the question. She saw the chakram rebound off a torch sconce on the courtyard wall . . .
Strike Xena directly in the back . . .
And fall to the ground, broken in two.
The impossible horror of that didn't even have time to sink in before she saw Xena's legs give way beneath her, just collapsing like jelly.
A soldier rushed toward her, his sword held up in both hands to strike. But Xena would get up, wouldn't she? She always did. She'd flip up off the ground with that battle cry of hers and --
She wasn't moving.
There was a spear propped up against the wall near the gates, and Gabrielle reached out to grab it. She had been in this situation once before, with the chance to save Phlanagus's life, and she'd faltered at the last moment.
If you had the chance to save someone, but you had to kill to do it, would you? She could almost hear Master Skywalker asking the question now, and hear herself replying in the negative, completely convinced of the truth in her words.
She was still filled with that perfect, pure love Eli had talked about, and all of it was focused on Xena. She knew, with absolute clarity, that love wouldn't let her stand by and do nothing while the woman who'd risked everything to save her life time and again lay helpless.
Her hands tightened on the shaft of the spear. Her muscles tensed.
She didn't miss this time, and the attacking soldier fell to the ground with a wet gurgle and a wicked barbed spearhead wedged deep in his gut.
"Xena, get up, let's go!" Gabrielle yelled desperately as the rest of the soldiers began to charge. "Come on!"
"Gabrielle, I can't," she barely heard Xena protest, weakly, as if she'd had the breath knocked out of her. "It's my spine . . ."
Time. She had to buy Xena time. Gabrielle scooped up Xena's sword from the courtyard's dirt floor and slashed hard across one soldier's abdomen, felt it catch between the ribs of a third's when she drove it into his chest.
"Get up!"
She wasn't even thinking any more, just fighting. There was no time for anything but instinct, reaction, and sensation: the shock of impact when she smashed the sword's pommel into a helmeted skull. The ring of steel and surprisingly tough action of cutting a soldier's throat. The yells of pain, the smell of blood, the rush of air when she spun to meet her next attacker.
She was doing everything she could to draw their attention to her and buy Xena those few precious seconds to get up, because she had to get up, she always did.
When a soldier finally knocked the sword out of her hands, Gabrielle tackled him to the ground, headbutted him viciously, and began to stab him repeatedly with his own dagger.
Every successive blow was more vicious, as if she could will Xena into standing again by driving that knife harder into --
The wet red sheen on the blade caught her eye, and what she'd just done finally sank in. Gabrielle froze, still kneeling astride the dead man's chest, looking at the blood that stained the dagger and her hands. Swept her gaze around the courtyard to see all the fallen soldiers.
By the gods, had she done all that?
Xena was still lying on the ground, staring at her in complete shock.
She didn't resist when weapons-roughened hands seized her and hauled her away, any more than Xena could.
***
On the morning of the ides of March, Gabrielle awoke in the same prison cell that she'd escaped the day before, once again awaiting her own execution. Only this time, there wouldn't be a timely rescue, not when Xena lay asleep on the floor of the cell, her head cradled in Gabrielle's lap.
"Word has it Caesar plans to make a big announcement today," one of the guardsmen outside was saying. "Shame we can't listen in on the Senate from here."
Another guard guffawed loudly, and the sound was raucous enough to wake Xena.
Gabrielle smiled weakly down at her and brushed hair away from her forehead.
"You're crying," Xena murmured faintly. "Don't cry."
She sniffled, but insisted, "Shh. Rest."
The guard who'd been laughing a moment ago paused outside the cell door and sent a malicious smile their way. "Won't be long now."
They ignored him. "I made you leave the way of love. 's my fault," Xena told her, still in that weak little whisper.
"Xena, don't. I had a choice: to do nothing, or save you. If that's not love . . ." She understood now why all those answers in Ethics class had rung a little hollow no matter how much she'd told herself she believed them. "My way may not be Eli's, but it's still the one I chose. I chose you."
Xena looked like she wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come; Gabrielle thought the look in her eyes was gratitude enough, but finally Xena managed to rasp out, "I'm sorry . . . I didn't read your scrolls."
A strangled laugh escaped Gabrielle before she realized it was even there. "You would've liked them."
Outside, the hammering had stopped, and the guard reappeared at the door. "It's time."
***
The snow was falling heavily outside when the guards came to take them, clothed only in scant rags wrapped around their bodies, out to the mountainside.
Like the vision. Just like the vision.
Gabrielle was led to her cross, while two guards dragged Xena bodily over to hers. The freezing wind had numbed her somewhat already, but not enough that she couldn't feel the rough-hewn wood digging into her flesh or the chafing of the ropes the soldiers carelessly cinched around her wrists and ankles. A piece of wood was laid across the palm of her hand and an iron spike placed atop that, held in place by one soldier while his cohort raised the hammer to strike.
She'd been tensing in anticipation of the agony she remembered from Alti inflicting the vision on her, but that was the moment she looked over, caught Xena's eyes, and felt the same peace she'd experienced through that last meditation session with Eli.
Over the wind's howling she could barely make out the words, but she could read Xena's lips well enough: "Gabrielle, you're the best thing in my life."
She smiled back, wanting to reach out and hold onto this moment for as long as she could. "I love you, Xena."
The act that had brought them to this sentence might not have been the kind of selfless love Eli talked about, but Gabrielle couldn't accept that it was any less pure. No less so than Xena doing everything she could to keep this vision from coming true had been, either.
They did their best to look each other in the eye and just stay that way, but when the first hammer blow fell it was, just like in the vision, too much to bear. Worse, even: in the vision she hadn't been able to hear Xena's pained cries.
There was nothing left but white-hot pain and sharp, numbing cold by the time their crosses were raised and roughly dropped upright. There definitely wasn't space to hope that Brutus had heeded Xena's warning, or to wonder if he had taken action against Caesar.
And finally, mercifully, there wasn't anything left at all.
[OOC: NFI/NFB, OOC-okay. Adapted from X:WP 4x21, "The Ides of March." Contains severe mangling of classical history and Shakespeare, and canonical extremely sappy dialogue.
And now for the serious warnings: this post contains violence and fairly gruesome character death, and I do not mean NPC character death. It's temporary, I promise, but as for how this shakes out, well, stay tuned this weekend. Promise.]
Gabrielle became less and less convinced of that as they approached the compound, past lines of crucified prisoners along the side of the road and up the mountainside where the temperature dropped and snow began to fall.
It had been snowing in that vision. She remembered how cold the wind had been against her skin when Alti had shown it to her.
The look on his face when they entered the compound, raucous with the noise of saws and hammers, would have broken Gabrielle's heart if she wasn't already furious with him for his blind trust in Caesar. She turned her head toward him and for a moment he met her eyes, then flinched away.
"Jailer, these prisoners are to be held here," he said, deliberately avoiding looking in her direction.
"Yes, we've been waiting for them," the man replied, and raised an eyebrow at Brutus's curious expression.
"Those crosses -- who are they for?"
The jailer half smiled and said, "We're expecting a boatload of pirates any day." Brutus might have believed it -- he certainly seemed to -- but Gabrielle detected the note of insincerity in his voice.
There was a yell just as they entered the building, then the whumpf of a sharp exhalation and the sound of blows being exchanged; Amarice had finally tried to make a move to escape. She was good, but not that good, and two of the soldiers knocked her to the ground and raised their swords.
Gabrielle reacted in a flash and threw herself over Amarice, glaring defiantly up at the soldiers.
"No!" Brutus darted toward them. "Don't harm Gabrielle!"
"Of course not!" she yelled, tears stinging her eyes; she knew it had nothing to do with friendship. "I'm still useful to you, Brutus!"
The shot told, because he looked briefly guilty before he composed himself and growled, "Get up."
Gabrielle stayed where she was and glared at him. "Not until you pardon her for what she just did."
"She attacked one of my men!"
"And I remember a time when mercy was shown to you!"
He didn't respond to that; he just stared at her, angry and yet somehow vulnerable, until finally he inhaled slowly and turned to his men. "Put down your swords. Chain her to the prophet."
"Ugh. Please," Amarice grumbled as they hauled her over to bind her to a post beside Eli. "Can't you just break my legs?"
Gabrielle was the last one to be led into the cell, and Brutus personally closed the door behind her.
"You don't really think those crosses are for a boatload of pirates, do you?" she hissed at him through the bars.
He looked at her stonily -- like flint, Gabrielle thought. Hard, but brittle, and if you applied just enough pressure . . .
"Caesar's never lied to me."
"There's a first time for everything," she replied as he stalked away.
Gabrielle watched until he was out of sight, then finally let her shoulders slump. She had to trust that Xena would come for them; she always had before.
***
Elsewhere, a day's ride later, Brutus and his soldiers had set up camp for the night before striking out for Rome in the morning. Brutus was just stepping away to relieve himself beside the bushes, alert as always for the sound of approaching footsteps, when a voice spoke up just beside his left ear.
"Ave, Brutus." He couldn't keep from jumping at the sound, which did nothing to preserve what little dignity he had left after turning around without even fastening his trousers. Xena glanced down, smirked once condescendingly, and went on. "I have a deal for you: you tell me where Gabrielle is, and I'll give you some information that'll save your stinking life."
He said nothing, kept his face impassive.
"Tell you what," Xena continued. "You promise to tell me, and I'll go first. Now, do I have your word?"
"And you trust me?" It came out with the same disbelief that had been in Gabrielle's voice when she asked him the same of Caesar.
"Everyone says that Brutus is an honorable man," Xena replied.
He nodded . . . and it struck him that no one said the same about Caesar.
It seemed to be good enough for her. "Beware the Ides of March, Brutus."
That was in two days. Why did she have to be so cryptic? "Why the Ides of March?"
Xena looked at him with something akin to pity, as if she honestly couldn't believe he would never have thought of something like what she was about to say. "Because on that day, Caesar will declare himself emperor."
No. No, he couldn't believe that. "Why would he do that?"
"Greed. Lust for power. An ego the size of the Aegean." She sounded like she was spelling it out for a very small child. "Of course, he plans to rid himself of anyone who would stand in his way."
Was she insinuating . . . ? "What are you saying?" he demanded.
"He's too smart to kill you in Rome, you have too much support there," Xena said, so urgently that he understood she was desperate. "But I have firsthand knowledge that he's been talking to assassins in Gaul. So. Your turn."
He had no way of knowing how she knew this: he didn't know that whatever divine power had brought Xena's old nemesis Callisto back from death had done so for the purpose of using her to set all of this into motion. Goading Caesar into following through on his ambitions, making sure Xena got word of his plans, all of it. When he hesitated she pressed, "Come on, Brutus! Gabrielle saved your life once. Give me the chance to save hers."
That was true, as was what Xena said about his sense of honor. At the very least, he owed Gabrielle that much.
"I put her in a prison compound at the foot of Mount Amara," he answered, quick to add, "But I don't believe what you said about Caesar."
"It's your funeral," Xena snapped, and turned to go, but she stopped for a moment to look back. "Brutus. Was it snowing on Mount Amara?"
What? "Yes," he replied. "It was snowing when I left."
Her eyes went wide with horror, but even if he had dared to ask why there was no time; she'd already leapt onto her horse and taken off at a gallop.
***
There was nothing to do in the prison cell, of course, and panic served no purpose even now that they knew for sure they would die in the morning, so Gabrielle and Eli fell back on the most calming thing they could.
They meditated.
Here, on the cold stone floor of a Roman prison, in a cell packed with people, while the sound of workmen building their crosses carried from the courtyard, Gabrielle let herself sink deeper into a trance than she'd ever managed before. Maybe it was the inevitability of tomorrow, of knowing that there was no reason to struggle any more. Maybe our was that beneath it all, she still had faith that Xena would come for her. Whatever it was, she drifted further and further until she found a place of absolute peace and stayed there until it was too much to bear.
"I did it," she breathed when she surfaced again.
"Did what? You've been sitting there like bumps on a log. What could you possibly have done?" Where Amarice's petulant tone had always grated before, all Gabrielle felt now was love -- for the girl's fierce spirit and youth, for Eli, for everyone in this cell, her friends in Fandom . . .
"She did nothing," Eli filled in.
"Oh, good. We're gonna be nailed to crosses in the morning, and you two are bragging about doing nothing?"
"You don't understand, Amarice. In order to become a perfect vessel for love, one has to cease all activity," Eli explained. "Not only physical, but mental as well. It's only when you reach that state of perfect emptiness that you're ready, at last, to be filled with love."
Amarice huffed. "Great. Just in time, too. You'll be able to love the people that crucify us."
At the moment, Gabrielle felt like she could do that, too.
***
That sense of peace didn't leave her. She'd expected it to fade away when the guards burst into the prison yelling for them to wake up the next morning, taking every opportunity to remind them that today they were going to die.
It didn't fade away when they heard the jailer shout orders to his men to cut down the dead victims on the crosses outside, because there'd be new bodies to replace them today.
It was still there beneath the surge of hope when she heard Xena's battle cry in the courtyard and then the prison door crashing open.
Gabrielle ran to the door and gripped the bars, beaming. "I'm so glad to see you."
"That vision is not going to happen," Xena told her as she smashed the lock on the cell door and handed the manacle keys to Gabrielle; Gabrielle wasted no time freeing the prisoners and herding them out to the courtyard while Xena worked on Eli's chains.
"Go on, run, hurry!" she yelled to Eli's followers, herding them toward the gates while Xena and Amarice held off the soldiers, just like they always did. She'd just gotten Eli out the gates and sent Amarice to guard him when she turned back to watch Xena.
The guard captain was yelling for reinforcements, and that wasn't a surprise; a courtyard of soldiers was no problem for Xena.
It was taking longer than usual, she realized; Xena was fighting off the soldiers with her sword, but --
Where was her chakram?
Gabrielle got her answer a moment later when she heard a furious shriek from up on the parapets and looked up just in time to --
Callisto? But how was that possible?
The familiar whistle of Xena's chakram hurtling through the air distracted her from the question. She saw the chakram rebound off a torch sconce on the courtyard wall . . .
Strike Xena directly in the back . . .
And fall to the ground, broken in two.
The impossible horror of that didn't even have time to sink in before she saw Xena's legs give way beneath her, just collapsing like jelly.
A soldier rushed toward her, his sword held up in both hands to strike. But Xena would get up, wouldn't she? She always did. She'd flip up off the ground with that battle cry of hers and --
She wasn't moving.
There was a spear propped up against the wall near the gates, and Gabrielle reached out to grab it. She had been in this situation once before, with the chance to save Phlanagus's life, and she'd faltered at the last moment.
If you had the chance to save someone, but you had to kill to do it, would you? She could almost hear Master Skywalker asking the question now, and hear herself replying in the negative, completely convinced of the truth in her words.
She was still filled with that perfect, pure love Eli had talked about, and all of it was focused on Xena. She knew, with absolute clarity, that love wouldn't let her stand by and do nothing while the woman who'd risked everything to save her life time and again lay helpless.
Her hands tightened on the shaft of the spear. Her muscles tensed.
She didn't miss this time, and the attacking soldier fell to the ground with a wet gurgle and a wicked barbed spearhead wedged deep in his gut.
"Xena, get up, let's go!" Gabrielle yelled desperately as the rest of the soldiers began to charge. "Come on!"
"Gabrielle, I can't," she barely heard Xena protest, weakly, as if she'd had the breath knocked out of her. "It's my spine . . ."
Time. She had to buy Xena time. Gabrielle scooped up Xena's sword from the courtyard's dirt floor and slashed hard across one soldier's abdomen, felt it catch between the ribs of a third's when she drove it into his chest.
"Get up!"
She wasn't even thinking any more, just fighting. There was no time for anything but instinct, reaction, and sensation: the shock of impact when she smashed the sword's pommel into a helmeted skull. The ring of steel and surprisingly tough action of cutting a soldier's throat. The yells of pain, the smell of blood, the rush of air when she spun to meet her next attacker.
She was doing everything she could to draw their attention to her and buy Xena those few precious seconds to get up, because she had to get up, she always did.
When a soldier finally knocked the sword out of her hands, Gabrielle tackled him to the ground, headbutted him viciously, and began to stab him repeatedly with his own dagger.
Every successive blow was more vicious, as if she could will Xena into standing again by driving that knife harder into --
The wet red sheen on the blade caught her eye, and what she'd just done finally sank in. Gabrielle froze, still kneeling astride the dead man's chest, looking at the blood that stained the dagger and her hands. Swept her gaze around the courtyard to see all the fallen soldiers.
By the gods, had she done all that?
Xena was still lying on the ground, staring at her in complete shock.
She didn't resist when weapons-roughened hands seized her and hauled her away, any more than Xena could.
***
On the morning of the ides of March, Gabrielle awoke in the same prison cell that she'd escaped the day before, once again awaiting her own execution. Only this time, there wouldn't be a timely rescue, not when Xena lay asleep on the floor of the cell, her head cradled in Gabrielle's lap.
"Word has it Caesar plans to make a big announcement today," one of the guardsmen outside was saying. "Shame we can't listen in on the Senate from here."
Another guard guffawed loudly, and the sound was raucous enough to wake Xena.
Gabrielle smiled weakly down at her and brushed hair away from her forehead.
"You're crying," Xena murmured faintly. "Don't cry."
She sniffled, but insisted, "Shh. Rest."
The guard who'd been laughing a moment ago paused outside the cell door and sent a malicious smile their way. "Won't be long now."
They ignored him. "I made you leave the way of love. 's my fault," Xena told her, still in that weak little whisper.
"Xena, don't. I had a choice: to do nothing, or save you. If that's not love . . ." She understood now why all those answers in Ethics class had rung a little hollow no matter how much she'd told herself she believed them. "My way may not be Eli's, but it's still the one I chose. I chose you."
Xena looked like she wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come; Gabrielle thought the look in her eyes was gratitude enough, but finally Xena managed to rasp out, "I'm sorry . . . I didn't read your scrolls."
A strangled laugh escaped Gabrielle before she realized it was even there. "You would've liked them."
Outside, the hammering had stopped, and the guard reappeared at the door. "It's time."
***
The snow was falling heavily outside when the guards came to take them, clothed only in scant rags wrapped around their bodies, out to the mountainside.
Like the vision. Just like the vision.
Gabrielle was led to her cross, while two guards dragged Xena bodily over to hers. The freezing wind had numbed her somewhat already, but not enough that she couldn't feel the rough-hewn wood digging into her flesh or the chafing of the ropes the soldiers carelessly cinched around her wrists and ankles. A piece of wood was laid across the palm of her hand and an iron spike placed atop that, held in place by one soldier while his cohort raised the hammer to strike.
She'd been tensing in anticipation of the agony she remembered from Alti inflicting the vision on her, but that was the moment she looked over, caught Xena's eyes, and felt the same peace she'd experienced through that last meditation session with Eli.
Over the wind's howling she could barely make out the words, but she could read Xena's lips well enough: "Gabrielle, you're the best thing in my life."
She smiled back, wanting to reach out and hold onto this moment for as long as she could. "I love you, Xena."
The act that had brought them to this sentence might not have been the kind of selfless love Eli talked about, but Gabrielle couldn't accept that it was any less pure. No less so than Xena doing everything she could to keep this vision from coming true had been, either.
They did their best to look each other in the eye and just stay that way, but when the first hammer blow fell it was, just like in the vision, too much to bear. Worse, even: in the vision she hadn't been able to hear Xena's pained cries.
There was nothing left but white-hot pain and sharp, numbing cold by the time their crosses were raised and roughly dropped upright. There definitely wasn't space to hope that Brutus had heeded Xena's warning, or to wonder if he had taken action against Caesar.
And finally, mercifully, there wasn't anything left at all.
[OOC: NFI/NFB, OOC-okay. Adapted from X:WP 4x21, "The Ides of March." Contains severe mangling of classical history and Shakespeare, and canonical extremely sappy dialogue.
And now for the serious warnings: this post contains violence and fairly gruesome character death, and I do not mean NPC character death. It's temporary, I promise, but as for how this shakes out, well, stay tuned this weekend. Promise.]