© 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.

"Yes ... I meant it then, and I mean it now."

"I don't think I understand ..."

"Gabrielle, I never stayed with anyone beyond the first time something went wrong between us," Xena said sadly. "I never understood that the work that went on in a long-term relationship was the very thing that forged the bond. Until you came into my life, I never knew the absolute joy I could find in the accomplishment of someone dear to me ... never understood the devotion that grew from the simple act of taking care of someone who needed me ... me, as a person ... never knew the wonder of someone else taking care of ME ... or the happiness of just being with someone who wanted to be with me." The warrior took a deep breath. "I never knew any of that, Gabrielle, until you taught it to me." Xena looked across the pallet to find Gabrielle lying quite still, an arm flung over her eyes.

"Gabrielle?"

"I'm here ... I just, um ... thank you for telling me that, Xena."

"My pleasure."

"I'm getting an idea of how you got all those people to follow you blindly to the ends of the ..." Gabrielle stopped suddenly, aware of the newly painful silence beside her. "Gods, Xena ... I didn't mean that the way it ..."

"I know, Gabrielle," Xena finally said. "You were right earlier today when you said you thought my silent warrior routine was just that ... a routine."

"You heard that?" Gabrielle said incredulously. "What am I saying? You hear everything!"

"Yeah, I heard," Xena managed to laugh a little. "Look, I found out early that I could talk just about anybody into just about anything. When I decided to try to take a different path, I stopped talking because I had been so wild and uncaring and had used my skill to manipulate and betray. I couldn't figure out any other way to control it besides stopping it."

"All or nothing, huh?" Gabrielle quipped.

"Something like that," Xena said dryly. "I didn't realize that I was just edging along the extreme of what everybody else has done at one time or another. I just ... never knew ... sometimes still don't know ... where to draw the line." She shuddered, thinking of all the damage her lack of boundaries had caused over the years.

"We're not getting a whole lot of resting done here, are we?" Gabrielle's voice surprised Xena out of her own thoughts.

"Uh, no, guess not ... but we're getting some other important stuff done, huh?"

"Yeah ... yeah, I guess so," Gabrielle said doubtfully. "Only ..."

"It doesn't make all the things that have happened recently any better?" Xena ventured.

"Uh, no ... no, not really," Gabrielle admitted slowly. "I still feel terrible about Chin ... about Britannia ..."

"No, probably not entirely," Xena agreed, somewhat to Gabrielle's surprise. "Hey, I have a little experience with guilt, y'know." Gabrielle nodded uncertainly. "You're never going to quite get over this, Gabrielle ... but you're strong and you can get THROUGH it ... I know you can." She paused. "And there's something else."

"What's that?"

"Always remember that in the midst of all this misery, you gave me an incredible gift, Gabrielle." The warrior lifted her hand in a familiar gesture to ward off the storm of protest that was clearly gathering in Gabrielle's head. "No, listen ... you gave me something that nobody else has ever been able to give me, and you did it right here, in Chin, despite everything."

"How can you say that?!" Gabrielle cried out in real anguish. "Look at yourself ... just look! You're ..."

"Gabrielle, why haven't you asked me about what happened in the throne room during what SHOULD have been my rather messy execution?"

Gabrielle stopped cold. "I ... honestly, Xena ... I can't even begin to know what to ask!" the girl admitted. "You ... you were incredible, like a ..."

"A god?" the warrior said sardonically. "Do you know why that happened?"

"N-no, not really ... not any more than I know why you say you can't do it again."

"I was able to do it because of the gift you gave me, Gabrielle ... standing there in that stinking dungeon."

"Xena, I truly don't know what you're talking about."

"Gabrielle, remember when I said I let my anger go for you?"

"Ye-e-es."

"I have never done that for anyone before in my entire, mostly miserable life. I couldn't do it for my family, or my village, or M'Lila, or Lao Ma ... or even Hercules, though I came very close for him," Xena reminisced. "But for you, I finally did what all those wonderful people wanted me to do all these years."

Despite the pain of her leg, Gabrielle sat straight up at this revelation. "Xena?!"

"And when I did that, Gabrielle, I learned something so wonderful I couldn't even think about it for a while," Xena continued. "Gabrielle, I learned that forgiveness is real. It exists. And I learned that not only could I really, truly forgive other people ... I learned that other people could really, truly forgive ME."

"That was ... a ... a ... SITUATIONAL forgiveness, Gabrielle."

"Uh-oh ... now I REALLY don't understand what ..."

"Look, I never really believed that anyone could forgive me because I never truly forgave anyone else. I didn't believe it was really possible. I 'forgave' other people the kind of stuff you were talking about because ... because in my heart I believed ... still believe, I guess, that I deserve whatever trouble comes my way. Since I always felt I deserved the treatment, I always felt that those treating me badly had every reason to be forgiven ... so my 'forgiveness' was based on my guilt." She looked over at the young woman next to her. "Follow me so far?"

"I ... I think so," Gabrielle said, still a bit uncertain.

"But with you, Gabrielle ... with you ... today I found out that forgiveness ... true, complete, unbridled forgiveness ... is real. Only you could prove that to me."

"That ... that's wonderful to hear, Xena, but somehow it doesn't make me feel very good to think that my fate is that I betrayed you so you could learn to forgive."

"Don't knock it, Gabrielle ... I know you're in terrible pain about this, and always will be to some extent. I will be, too," Xena admitted. "But today I felt something I've never felt before, sitting in that cold, wet, dirty dungeon with you holding that damned yoke off my neck."

Gabrielle looked up in mute inquiry.

"Freedom, Gabrielle ... I was free, for the first time ... free of guilt, free of desire, free of need ... right there, right then ... I had everything and wanted nothing." Xena suddenly became quite pensive. "I'd never felt anything like it, Gabrielle, and you helped me get there. Right there, right then ... I knew the way."

"So ... so when the guards came to take you to ... to the throne room," Gabrielle said with some difficulty, "... you knew you could ...???"

"I wasn't sure, but I thought so."

"Is ... is that why you made me promise not to try to rescue you ... to stay by Ming Tien no matter what?" Gabrielle asked, a little desperately. "I ... I almost forgot when I saw the executioner take that ... thing ... and ... and that guard held that spear in front of me ... as if that could stop me!" she said savagely. "Pok Gai Zeih!"

"Yes, that's why ... easy now," Xena soothed. "I needed to know where you were ... didn't really know if I could control what ... what I THOUGHT was going to happen."

"Then ... then, why, Xena?" Gabrielle finally ventured after some thought. "Why can't you do it again? Wait! You said, when we were climbing out through the wall of the throne room, you said ..."

"It's back." Xena finished flatly.

"All of it, you said," Gabrielle continued, almost to herself. "W-why? What ... Ming Tien ... it must have been when he wanted to talk with you. Damn!" Gabrielle exclaimed fiercely. "I KNEW ... KNEW I shouldn't have left you there alone with him," she seethed. "Damn him to Tartarus!"

"That's what I thought, too, at first," said an amazingly calm Xena. "But Gabrielle, it was me ... I allowed myself to lose your gift."

"You allowed yourself to ... wait, Xena ... did he or did he not do or say something to ..."

"Yes, he said some ... really terrible things, things that made me realize the even MORE terrible things that he'd actually done ... but Gabrielle, I'm the one who opened the door and let my anger back in," Xena said with more than a trace of self-recrimination. "I had Elysia in my grasp and lost it ... no, threw it AWAY, Gabrielle! All by myself." The warrior closed her eyes in fatigue and bitterness.

"Xena?" Gabrielle finally asked, despite her very real fear. "You ... you've got to tell me what happened in there."

Xena's eyes popped open, but she said nothing.

"Xena?" More silence. "OK ... I can take a hint ... you're not going to tell me, are you?" Gabrielle sighed. "Well ... we all have our secrets, I suppose ..."

Xena lifted her head at the sound of that familiar thought. "Gabrielle? No ... no matter what, I still have one part of your gift left," she said finally. Gabrielle lifted an eyebrow.

"I know now that I have the capacity to win this thing, Gabrielle," Xena said with a kind of cool passion. "I know I can change ... and be free."

"I'm afraid, Xena," Gabrielle finally whispered.

"Afraid? You!? Of what!?" Xena demanded, somewhat roughly.

"Of exactly what we've been talking about ... how we're always changing," She stopped, uncertain of how to continue. The silence in the hut stretched uncomfortably.

Xena's sixth sense exploded at this question, but she didn't know why. She took a deep breath. "Nothing that happens in the future will make our past stories less true, Gabrielle. I don't know what else to tell you."

In the silence that followed, she felt the terrible tremors flowing through the small body next to hers. "Can you ... let's try to get some sleep, OK? You're worn out, Gabrielle ... just sleep."

And for a short while, in the dark of a small hut in Chin, the two women found reprieve.

"Tik Li!" Gabrielle called when she saw him. "The ginseng ... it's amazing! Look at my leg!"

The nobleman looked where the young woman was pointing and felt great surprise, though he was quite aware of the power of the root. The swelling and angry redness were much improved from the previous day.

"That is good, Gah Bei Yal," he agreed. "And Tsi Na?"

"That's the best part ... she's SO much better, stronger this morning!" the girl enthused. "She's ..." Gabrielle straightened and looked the courtier in the eye. "I can't even begin to thank you." Before the nobleman could reply, she put the newly cooked rice in two bowls and started toward the hut entrance. "Please, join us ... there's plenty here and I know Xena wants to see you. Xena? Tik Li is here."

"In four days, Tsi Na," confirmed Tik Li. "I took the liberty of booking passage for you. You will both be rested and healed by the time your journey home begins."

"Thank you, Tik Li ... we're very grateful." Xena stopped speaking for a minute, listening. "All the villagers have left?"

Tik Li nodded. "Yes ... they know it's just a matter of time before another faction or a warlord comes in to take over what's left here."

"Huh! I WONDERED where everyone had gone," Gabrielle remarked.

"We are all leaving for the hill country in a few days ... until we find which way the wind blows in this matter, anyway." The nobleman sighed. "At least we know it won't be Lao Tsu."

Xena raised her head quickly. "Why do you say that, Tik Li?"

"Why, he was found dead in his bed soon after ... after the execution of Lao Ma," Tik Li said quickly. "No sign of violence. We figure he must have died in great mourning for his lovely wife."

Xena fell back to the pallet. "No doubt, Tik Li ... no doubt."

• To Anon. for sensitive, thoughtful reviews as well as legendary words and music. You're a one-person fan club!
• To Bejay, a terrific Web Master and better friend, for quick reaction to incoming fire. I don't think that hand-holding a nervous author was in the contract, but I'm truly grateful!