© Copyright 1998 by Rebekah

© Copyright 1998 "The Legend of the Lady in the Moon" by F.S.

Xena: Warrior Princess and the names, titles, and backstory used in "No Doubt" are the sole property of Universal. The author intends no copyright infringement through the writing of this fan fiction.

This story may not be sold and may be archived at public sites only with direct permission from the author. Any archive must carry this entire copyright statement.

"I know that now, but nobody could convince me of it then. I was so sure that I understood everything going on around me." Xena's voice got even softer as she lost herself in memory. "I was so SURE that my reactions were the only ones that made sense." Xena swallowed hard to rid herself of the burning in her throat. "Gabrielle, do we have a waterskin around here?"

"Gods, I forgot!" Gabrielle grabbed the waterskin she'd found and hurried over to the pallet. "Here ..." She held up the waterskin and Xena drank deeply. "So what you're saying is that this is all some youthful indiscretion on my part?"

Xena smiled. "Not unless you're saying everything *I* did back then was some ... what did you call it ... youthful indiscretion." She took a breath. "But Gabrielle, it's a part of it ... part of what I did and part of what you've done. I didn't think things through, I got convinced by my own arguments, and ... I had no one who could help me think about things differently."

"But I do, huh?"

"Well, usually ... another mistake on my part." Xena held up her hand to stop the protest she could see coming on the troubled young face before her. "I just ... left you there on that dock. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing, so distressed that I was hurting YOU, maybe losing your respect, your friendship and... losing YOU, Gabrielle ... that I didn't even think to finish explaining to you why I felt I had to GO to Chin and ..." The warrior took another breath. "... do what I was going to do." She looked closely at the friend kneeling before her. "Would ... would it have made any difference?"

"Maybe," Gabrielle said as she rose slowly from her knees and turned back to the supplies. "At least, I would have understood more fully that Ming Tien wasn't someone I should deal with." She stopped and turned back to Xena. "I wouldn't have let you go alone, though. Maybe we could have figured out something together."

"Yes, maybe so," sighed Xena, bending her head forward and letting it hang down loosely. "We seem to do a lot better together than apart, don't we?"

"That was my first mistake in this whole thing," Gabrielle said ruefully as she dipped a delicate finger into a small jar and tasted the results. "Mmmm ... this is honey ... my mistake was in leaving you. Every time I leave you something bad happens."

"I've noticed," Xena said dryly. "My second mistake was not taking into account your stubbornness ... not even CONSIDERING how resourceful, independent, and ... grown up ... I know you really are." She paused as Gabrielle looked at her in surprise. "I knew all along you objected to my actions -- I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, it never occurred to me that you'd given up ... something you never actually do." She smiled as Gabrielle squirmed in embarrassment. "You're ... very determined when you decide you want something, Gabrielle."

"You can be very subtle with words when YOU want to be." Gabrielle couldn't help the smile that came to her lips at Xena's low chuckle. "I always KNEW that all-action-no-talk warrior routine was an sham," she muttered.

Raising her voice again, she commented, "Well, we don't have a lot of healing supplies here, or at least ones that I recognize. We have some cooking oil, a pretty large one of those wine pots, a tiny jar of honey, some milk, some rice, some vegetables ... but what I REALLY need is something to treat that raw skin on your neck and shoulders." She stopped suddenly and shivered.

"Make a thin paste of the honey and milk," Xena instructed suddenly. "Spread that directly on the skin. Then soak a bandage in more of the milk and wrap the wounds." Her voice was sounding raspy again and her energy was fading. "That should take the sting out and keep the wounds from festering."

"Sting? Is that what you call it? It must hurt like Tartarus itself," Gabrielle replied as she hurried to do as Xena told her. When all she got in return was silence, she looked up from the bowl she was using to see that Xena was falling asleep where she sat. "You just relax. I'll be there in a jiffy."

"Yeah, I hear you ... I was just waitin' around for you." Xena opened the other eye and winked. "Nothin' better to do."

"Uh-huh," Gabrielle replied absently as she pulled the blanket away and folded the shift down from Xena's shoulders. "Just spread it on, right?"

Xena nodded, preparing herself for the shock of the cold mixture. The gentle warmth that she felt instead surprised her greatly. "You warmed it!"

"Was that bad?" Gabrielle asked in concern. "I ... I just thought that the cold would ..."

"It's wonderful, Gabrielle," Xena assured her. "It feels wonderful ... thank you for thinking of it. Oh ... that's doing its work ... the pain is fading already."

Gabrielle started at the word "pain" coming from Xena's mouth. "You don't very often admit that something hurts, you know."

"Yeah ... guess I should do that more often, huh?"

Gabrielle just bit her lip and concentrated on covering all the sores and welts she found on the warrior's neck and shoulders. The visible relief Xena was getting from her ministrations only made her feel worse about causing them in the first place.

"You have so many bruises ... are you sure you don't have any other wounds someplace I can't see?" Gabrielle turned to get the milk-soaked bandage.

"Yeah, there's nothing bad, Gabrielle," Xena assured her. "The one advantage to that damned yoke is that the guards had a hard time doing TOO much casual damage." She started to shiver as the cool air in the hut penetrated her bare skin.

"Xena, now this bandage WILL be cold," Gabrielle commented as she started to wrap the warrior's tender neck. "You're shivering ... I'll get you wrapped back up in the blanket soon, OK?"

"Gabrielle ... I want you to ... Gabrielle, you WERE right."

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope."

The young woman nodded. "Yeah, OK ... I was right. Everything seemed so ... clear. But everything came out so ... wrong. " She sighed heavily. "I've learned something that really, REALLY bothers me."

"What's that?"

She looked directly into the warrior's weary eyes as she pulled the thin shift up over battered shoulders. "Even morality can't protect you from making mistakes."

Surprised, Xena only blinked in response.

"I thought ... I ... don't know WHAT I thought," Gabrielle stammered as she pulled the blanket up around her friend. "Maybe that if I did everything for the right reasons and my intentions were good, that I couldn't possible be wrong ... that I couldn't MAKE mistakes." She shook her head. "But I made them anyway. Big ones.

"Like I've said before, Gabrielle, everybody ..."

"... makes mistakes. Don't I know it. And ... and I'm so sorry ... so very, very sorry ..." She looked guiltily into the sympathetic blue that seemed to wrap her in love and concern. "... but sorry doesn't make the results go away."

Xena couldn't think of anything to say but the truth. "No ... no, it doesn't. No amount of regret ever erases the things we do."

"I understand ... so much MORE about you now than I ever did before," Gabrielle said suddenly.

The warrior hung her head in sorrow. "I wish ... I never ... I didn't want you to ever understand this, Gabrielle ..." She felt a tear welling up. "... because the only way you can understand something like this is the HARD way." She saw that Gabrielle was becoming quite agitated. "Hey ... hey, there ... I've decided that EVERYBODY learns the hard way, in the end, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise. That doesn't make you anything more ... or LESS ... than human, Gabrielle."

Slowly, she reached to brush an errant lock of hair from the girl's eyes, but stopped at the fearful expression she saw in them. "What? Tell me ..."

"It's just that ... I'm beginning to wonder about other decisions that seemed so right, so obvious, so unquestionably clear at the time," Gabrielle said in a voice no louder than a whisper.

A cold, hard fear shot through the warrior. "What ... what are you saying, Gabrielle?"

"N...nothing," Gabrielle stammered again. "I ... it's nothing."

"It's more than nothing, Gabrielle," Xena stated flatly. "Is there something you should tell me?"

"I ... n-no. Nothing."

As Gabrielle's now-fearful eyes snapped toward her reflexively, Xena's voice gentled. "I'm sorry ... it's just ... I'm not used to you not making eye contact. I ... I was so ... so proud of you when you came to me in the dungeon ..." The incongruity of her last remark finally moved the younger woman to speak.

"Xena? The ... dungeon?" Seeing the warrior nod slightly, she tried again. "Xena, I think you're too tired for this now ... you're not ... you're not making sense."

Xena smiled up at her. "You're right again ... I should be sleeping, but I'm making perfect sense. I was so angry with you when you came to the dungeon ... so hurt ... I could still feel the sting of your hand ..."

Shamefaced, Gabrielle knelt down once more, guilty at the feeling of relief that came from the apparent change in subject. "Xena, I don't have any excuse for that ... I was desperate, I guess, or maybe just not thinking clearly anymore ... if I ever have ..." She stopped and closed her eyes briefly as Xena reached to clutch her hand. "I knew by then that Ming Tien wasn't going to let you go as he'd promised. I kept thinking if I could just get you to understand, to say what he wanted to hear ..."

"You ... YOU ..." Xena's incredulous tone cut through the bard. "... wanted me to LIE?"

"No ... " Gabrielle took a deep breath. "No ... I knew if you promised, you would be telling the truth."

Through her pain and weariness, Xena smiled at her friend's simple statement of faith. She found herself feeling a little stronger. "Gabrielle ..."

"No, let me finish before you go to sleep." Gabrielle closed her eyes. "Xena ... when you were kneeling there and that ... that tear ran down your cheek ... I wanted to die ..." She stopped briefly at the look on her friend's face, then continued. "I ... I ... for a few seconds, I wanted you to kill me."

Stunned, Xena whispered, "You wanted ME to ... to ... KILL ..."

"Yes, it seemed like justice ... until I realized that even if I deserved ..."

"NO!"

Gabrielle persisted, overriding the warrior's heated interjection. ".. even if I deserved it, eventually it would kill you, too, and destroy your soul ... the very things I was trying to prevent."

"Did you ... think I might kill you when you came to me in the dungeon?"

"Ming Tien said that you would and I was ... really, really afraid to face you ... mostly I was afraid of how you felt about me ... but oh, yeah, I was afraid. "

"That's why I was so proud of you."

"Proud? PROUD?! How could you possibly be ..." Gabrielle broke off, unable to override her frustration and shame.

"Because you were so brave." Xena touched Gabrielle's cheek and smiled at the girl's look of disbelief. "Yes, you were. You of all people know what I'm capable of doing ... you knew I was angry ... and oh, I was holding on to that anger. But then," Xena paused as a wave of exhaustion nearly overtook her.

Sensing her tiredness, Gabrielle reached out to support the warrior's back.

"Thanks ... but then, I looked at you and ... you knew all that and you never flinched. You owned up to what you'd done and stood in that putrid water looking me straight in the eye ... ready for whatever consequences would come. You were as brave as I'd ever seen you ... and suddenly I saw all the hardship you must have gone through to get there ahead of me and find your way around a totally alien country with no friends, no language, no resources ... and you did it all for me."

"Xena ... no, I was stupid and ..."

"No, not stupid ... never stupid. You didn't think things through as well as I'd like to think you can, I'll admit," Xena gave a rueful laugh at the grimace on her friend's face. "... but at worst, you're guilty of having an overwhelmingly innocent view of life."

"Oh, yeah, I'm innocent all right!" Gabrielle exclaimed in an unfamiliarly caustic, flinty voice. "I've thought about that a lot ... speaking of convenience, it's kind of a CONVENIENT innocence, don't you think?"

"Convenient?" Xena looked confused. "I'm not sure I ..."

"Convenient! As in, great excuse, huh?" Gabrielle stood up abruptly, realizing too late that she had broken a hold she shouldn't have been able to break. "Every time I get into trouble or make trouble or fall into the lap of trouble, we lay it at the altar of my innocence!" She paused, gathering her chaotic thoughts. "It's just too damned convenient ... I didn't know or didn't think or didn't realize ... it's getting a little old as an excuse, don't you think?" she demanded, mumbling under her breath, "Not exactly innocent anymore, anyway ..."

"I've never known you to MAKE excuses, Gabrielle, or take refuge in them," Xena sighed. "I ... you need ... we need ... " Suddenly, she was simply too tired to continue.

Catching the break in conversation, Gabrielle whirled around and dropped once again to her knees. "Oh, gods, Xena ... what we NEED is for you to r-rest." Her voice began to tremble with emotion.

"Easy there ... easy," Xena mumbled soothingly. She smiled into the careworn, young face. Starting to reel once again from fatigue and pain, she persisted in finishing the conversation. "You know, when I saw you there in the dungeon ..."

"Xena, no ... we'll talk later," Gabrielle protested gently, touching the warrior's forehead and finding it overly warm to the touch. "I wish we had your bag of herbs ... you're a little feverish."

Xena appeared not to notice the interruption. "... so scared and ashamed and brave, suddenly I saw you back in Poteideia again ... such a brave girl ... so scared and so brave ..." Her voice trailed off and her eyes seemed to focus somewhere inside herself. "West of the moat."

"I ... don't know about the rest of it, but I KNOW I wasn't west of the moat when we were in that dungeon. Xena?"

Xena didn't seem to hear her. "I saw you standing in that filthy water, waiting for me to tell you that I hated you ... and all of a sudden, I needed to ... wanted to ... make all your hurt go away ... somehow ... and I couldn't do that and stay angry, so ... so ... I let it all go, Gabrielle ... it was gone ..."

Hearing the familiar phrase, Gabrielle stopped sorting through the supplies.

"IT was gone. IT -- your anger?!" she asked, openly surprised. "ALL of it?" she added in a wondering whisper.

"Yes, all of it. All my anger just ... just left me. It was gone." Xena's voice was drowsy, as if she were quietly slipping away to another place.

"That ... that's wonderful, Xena," Gabrielle murmured. Uncertain of how to continue, she decided to steer the conversation backward a little. "Xena, what did you mean by 'west of the moat'?"

"My stuff ... my leathers, my sword and chakram, my bag of herbs, everything," Xena said distractedly. "I hid it among some rocks about 50 paces from the moat on the west side of the palace grounds." She closed her eyes.

"What? Your ...? That great ... I'll have to go get them!"

Xena's eyes flew open. "No! Don't go there by yourself!" She looked genuinely frightened, which disturbed Gabrielle deeply. Still, her own temper, hanging on by a thread, got the best of her.

"Damn it, Xena! I got all the way here BY MYSELF, without your help! It's a little late to be trying to mother me, isn't it?"

"I ... I'm S..SORRY, Gabrielle," Xena stumbled. "I didn't mean ... I didn't mean what you think I meant." Her forlorn look and tone tore at Gabrielle. "I meant ... I meant that the freed prisoners and even some of the courtiers still hold a grudge against you because ..."

"Because I was hanging around with that monstrosity of an emperor and I betrayed their Great One," Gabrielle said flatly.

"Well, yes," Xena confirmed, not surprised at her friend's perception. "I just ... don't go without someone you can trust backing you up, OK? You can take care of yourself just fine, we both know that ... but why invite an ambush? P...Please, Gabrielle, I ..." Xena closed her eyes against the world.

"Xena, I'm sorry ... we seem to be saying that a lot, don't ..." Seeing Xena's closed eyes, Gabrielle stopped speaking and came to ease the exhausted woman down onto the pallet. "You lie back and go to sleep now, OK? Rest ... everything's OK for now. Just rest." Reminded of the warrior's fever, she got up to get the small bowl of water she'd seen on the other side of the hut, limping heavily as she went.

Xena opened her eyes, suddenly and widely.

"Now, what did you do that for?" Gabrielle scolded as she turned around. "Go to sleep, will you?" She walked haltingly back over to the pallet to put a cool, wet cloth on Xena's head. "Just sleep, OK?"

"Limping. Y'need to take care of that leg," Xena mumbled again. "What happened to it? Let ... let me just ..."

"No, Xena ... no." Gabrielle pressed her back into the pallet. "I ... hurt it a little when I first got here and the water in the dungeon must have ..."

"I knew it ... KNEW it!" Xena struggled to get up. "Gotta clean that right away."

"I'll clean it while you're sleeping, Xena. I rubbed the alcohol into it while we were cleaning up at the palace, anyway."

Xena looked skeptical. "You could lose your LEG, Gabrielle. You WILL take care of it?" she demanded. At Gabrielle's exasperated nod, she gave in. "Well ... OK." She sank back onto the blankets and Gabrielle started to rearrange the one covering her, carefully avoiding her wounds. "Gabrielle?"

"Mmm-hmm?"

"How did you hurt it?"

"Will you GO to SLEEP?!" Gabrielle growled testily. "Never knew you to like bedtime stories, Xena. I promise I'll tell you when you wake up, OK?" Suddenly seeing how vulnerable Xena looked, she relented and reached to stroke the warrior's cheek. "Just let go ... please? You're so tired and sick ..."

"Try ... try not to think about things too much," Xena mumbled, knowing she was losing the battle against her fatigue. "Keep ... keep busy and ... and don't ..."

Confused at first, Gabrielle finally realized what her friend was saying. "Xena, I can't hide from the things that have happened ... the things I've done." She turned the cloth over to cover the warrior's burning eyes. "But ... but thanks for trying to help." She suddenly went still as a sinewy hand covered hers.

"Gabrielle, don't forget that you're talking to the Queen of Bad Decisions, here."

"The Queen of ... that's a new one." Gabrielle couldn't help laughing a little.

"I'm not any prouder of it than I am of the others," Xena said quietly. "But Gabrielle, you need ... you need to talk things out and we ... we can't right now." The heavy sigh that came from the girl weighed on the warrior's mind. "Just ... I don't want you to drive yourself crazy thinking about stuff in the meantime. You can get things all turned around in your head when you ..."

"Brood?"

"Um, yeah ... well, just try to keep busy, but no writing ... physical activity ..."

"You mean, like sword drills and horseback riding and practicing insane leaps and ..."

"YES, Gabrielle ... or staff practice or picking up debris or carrying water or ..."

"OK, I get the picture ... now will you GO TO SLEEP?!" She stroked the wan cheek again and felt the long, lean body finally start to let go. "That's it ... relax. You'll feel so much better after you sleep." She heard Xena mumble something, but couldn't make it out.

"What did you say, Xena? Do you need something?"

Xena, nearly asleep, mumbled again. " ... so brave ... m...my brave girl ..."

Without a sound, Gabrielle stood up, turned away from the pallet, and blindly stumbled out the entrance of the hut.