The story picks up very near to the end of A Friend In Need II.

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"No Gabrielle." Xena's hand reached forward to grasp Gabrielle's holding the urn.

"The souls are free," Gabrielle replied, puzzled.

"Free from Yodoshi's grasp," Xena said sadly, "but for those souls to be released into a state of grace, they must be avenged. I must stay dead."

"Xena, that is not right. I don't care. You are all that matters to me." Gabrielle blurted out in desperation.

"Don't you know how much I want to let you do this," Xena replied, her voice heavy.

Gabrielle hesitated a long moment, her eyes searching the warrior's face. "I'm not sure that I do know anymore, Xena. How much do you want it?"

"Gabrielle, you are everything to me... but if there is a reason for our travels together it was because I had to learn from you enough to know the final, the good, the right thing to do. I can't come back."

"Can't or won't, Xena?" Gabrielle's eyes, brimming with unshed tears, burned fiercely into Xena's.

"What is that supposed to mean, Gabrielle? You know that I love you."

"I am not questioning that. Why can't you let me resurrect you?"

"I told you... the forty thousand. It is the greater good."

"Says who, Xena? You already freed those souls and, from what you told me, it wasn't your fault they perished. They were the ones that attacked you. You didn't mean for the torch you held to set light to the village. So who says you have to stay dead?"

Xena hesitated a moment or two before saying very quietly, "Akemi"

"AKEMI! Not the same Akemi who befriended you, manipulated you, betrayed you and then broke your heart, by giving you no choice but to kill her by your own sword? Xena, are you telling me that the only reason... the ONLY reason you want to stay dead and leave me forever is based on what SHE said?"

"Why would she lie to me, Gabrielle?"

"I don't know. Who knows what goes through the brain of someone like that. But it's a bit thin to give up everything for." Gabrielle's voice tailed off with a plea. "Isn't it?"

"I can't take the chance... forty thousand souls, Gabrielle... the good doesn't get much greater than that."

Gabrielle's shoulders slumped and her head dropped forward as she spoke in a resigned voice. "You were my greater good, Xena. I thought..." her voice caught. "I hoped that I was yours."

"Gabrielle, I will always love you. I will never leave you." Xena's voice cracked.

Gabrielle snorted. "What are you going to do, Xena, haunt me? Why don't you just go and let me get on with the rest of my life. It's obviously what you've decided you're going to do." She turned away from Xena and the Fountain of Strength, the urn still held tightly in her grasp.

Xena watched Gabrielle walk slowly away, her heart breaking with every step that her friend took, bringing back, afresh, memories of times when she had thought she had lost Gabrielle; the time that Gabrielle almost died in the temple at Thessaly, the fall into the lava pit with Hope and the moment when Gabrielle had almost turned to stone in Aiden's paradise. She relived the feelings of loss and emptiness that they evoked and suddenly transposed those feelings onto Gabrielle. The sound of the penny dropping was deafening as she realised what she was condemning her soulmate to with her decision. This wasn't only about her any more.

"Gabrielle, stop. I won't do this to you. You ARE my greater good. Please!"

Gabrielle's heart leapt in her chest. 'Thank the gods!' she thought with relief as she glanced up at the Western horizon, seeing barely a sliver of sun still visible over its darkened edge. She turned, drew back her arm and threw the urn with every ounce of strength at the wall behind the Fountain. It shattered, scattering Xena's ashes into the pool below. Xena disappeared!

"Xena? XENA?" Gabrielle hesitantly took a step back towards the Fountain, her eyes wide in a mixture of panic and expectation. She looked back over her shoulder to the horizon where nothing of the setting sun remained visible, only the fading glow in the sky betraying its passage. "Oh no!" she whispered.

The sound of splashing and spluttering snapped her head back around to face the Fountain once again. "XENA!" She ran back to help her tall, wet and naked soulmate step out of the pool. She crashed into her and wrapped her arms tightly around her feeling the embrace firmly returned. "Oh, Gods!" she mumbled into the damp skin.

After a few moments Gabrielle pushed herself away from the embrace and thumped the side of her fist, hard into the centre of Xena's chest. "DON'T... you... ever... do...that...again." She took a shuddering breath, her anger momentarily appeased, before she continued quietly. "Please!" Her voice cracked as tears trailed over her cheeks.

Xena drew her back into the embrace and was heartened to feel the bard's arms wrap warmly around her again. "I am so sorry, Gabrielle. You are everything to me. I love you." She whispered.

Xena felt Gabrielle stiffen in her arms and the bard pushed herself away from the warrior once again. "I hope you don't think that sorry fixes this, Xena." She said, freeing herself from the embrace and turning away. "Come on, let's get off this damn mountain." She began walking briskly towards her horse.

"Gabrielle?" Xena started and stopped, struggling for what to say. "Um, it's cold out here, in the dark." She winced at how pathetic that sounded.

Gabrielle stopped and without turning said. "You know what, Xena? Welcome to my world." She resumed her walk.

Xena shook her head and hobbled across the rocks after her soulmate wondering how many backrubs would be needed to clean up the mess, but thankful nonetheless that she would at least have the chance.

This next piece is a short story, set shortly after the events in The Quest.

This is a departure from my usual scribings in that it gets down and dirty, but in a nice way - well I think so anyway. It started life as a bit of an experiment to see whether or not I could write something of this nature and then the idea to work it into something with a bit of story around it sprang from the depths of my depravity. And so, Playthings was born.

As usual, constructive comments, postive or negative, very welcome. Flames will be ignored - if it's not your cup of tea, don't say you weren't warned.

Content Warning: This story contains descriptions of explicit sexual activity, If you are under 18, may be offended by it, or it is illegal where you are, then please don't go any further.

Because of its nature, I am not posting the actual text here - tv.com's filter would probably chuck out half of it anyway - hence the story is at the following link:

www.the-summit.co.uk/writing/playthings.htm

Hope you enjoy it - as much as they did

Gabrielle was concerned. Xena hadn't spoken more than half a dozen words or grunts in the two candlemarks since she had emerged from the waters of the lake. Now, Xena wasn't the most chatty of people at the best of times, but even for her, this was a bit extreme. Gabrielle had tried small talk, told a couple of short stories and had even asked a few technical questions about armour and weapons; a normally sure-fire way of getting Xena to string a few sentences together. But, nothing.

Gabrielle knew what was bothering the warrior. Well, in truth, she had some idea what it was, but Marcus had ended up in the Elysian Fields, hadn't he, so how bad could that be. But without any dialogue, she didn't know for sure. However, sensitive chats with Xena were a somewhat touchy area, not unlike crossing a river by stepping on the heads of a line of crocodiles. One slip or a foot badly placed would result in some serious retribution. But the silence from her friend and the air of tension surrounding her was wearing Gabrielle down. Eventually, she took a deep breath and looked carefully for the first crocodile's head to stand on. She slowed her pace and let Argo draw alongside her. Reaching up she took hold of the stirrup strap and looked up at Xena's face.

Xena gazed abstractedly at the road in front of her. Even her usual alertness in scanning the surroundings for possible threats was apparently absent. She did notice Gabrielle coming alongside and felt an unexpected comfort from her friend's closeness when a hand brushed across the back of her boot. She knew that, if she looked down, she would see dark green eyes looking back at her, full of compassion and concern. She wasn't sure that she would be able to maintain her stoic mask under those circumstances so she kept her own eyes firmly on the road ahead.

Gabrielle took another deep breath and asked gently. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Xena's gaze didn't flicker. "Talk about what?"

Gabrielle sighed silently and rolled her eyes. She tried again. "You've had a tough time recently, what with Petracles and now Marcus." She looked back up at Xena trying to gauge a reaction.

"What do you mean, tough?" This time she did look down to Gabrielle and wrestled a puzzled frown onto her face.

Gabrielle captured Xena's eyes with her own and spoke gently. "Oh Xena! You loved them and had to watch them both die."

Xena tore her eyes away and stared back at the road, her voice firm but with a hint of hoarseness. "I didn't love Petracles. I was infatuated with him a long time ago, when I was a lot younger, but he betrayed me. I hated him for that."

"But you didn't at the end." Gabrielle replied softly, still watching Xena's face, noting the omission of Marcus in the denial.

Xena sighed quietly, her voice relaxing a little. "No, I didn't. It was a long time ago and he was only young too. We all do things that we're not proud of sometimes." Xena paused for a few heartbeats. "He wasn't all bad." Xena had put a slight emphasis on the word 'He'.

Gabrielle caught the inflection. "And neither are you." She said firmly.

"Hmmph!" The simple sound carried a surprising amount of disgust.

Gabrielle spun round and put her free hand onto Xena's thigh. "Xena, come on, you're not. How many people have you helped in the last few moons? How many villages have you protected from warlords? You are not a bad person."

Xena hauled Argo to a stop and turned to glare down at Gabrielle. She raised her voice in anger. "Gabrielle, for god's sake, I killed Marcus."

Gabrielle recoiled slightly from the strong emotion radiating from her friend. She opened her mouth and immediately closed it again, at a loss for what to say. She continued to look into Xena's eyes seeing only disgust and anger reflected back to her, realising that it wasn't directed at her, but it still made her flinch. Eventually, she frowned. "But I thought Marcus was given life back for only two days. Wh... what do you mean you killed him?"

Xena replied in a cold, emotionless voice. "I took a knife and stuck it in his heart. That's pretty unambiguous don't you think?"

Gabrielle's face wore a perplexed expression. "But why? I don't understand."

Xena took a deep breath and looked back to the road. "I struck a deal with Hades. I got Hades to re-judge Marcus but, in order to do that, Marcus had to die again. I had to kill him."

Gabrielle took her hand from Xena's leg and put it over her open mouth. "By the gods," she mumbled past her hand. "Oh Xena, I'm so sorry."

Under the onslaught of Gabrielle's sincere compassion, Xena found that she didn't want to fight it anymore and all of a sudden her resolve crumbled and she visibly slumped in the saddle, a few tears, at last, squeezing from her tightly clenched eyes. With a shaking breath, she whispered. "I did love him, Gabrielle. I did."

Gabrielle reached up and took hold of Xena's arm with both hands, tears welling in her own eyes for her friend's distress. "I know." She said gently. "Come on, get down from there for a while." She tugged gently on the arm.

Xena didn't hesitate. She swung her leg over Argo's neck and slid off the horse's back straight into a hug. Gabrielle wrapped her arms as far around Xena as she could reach and squeezed as tightly as she could, ignoring the edges of Xena's armour pressing uncomfortably into her. Xena didn't resist, she wrapped her own arms around Gabrielle's shoulders and just held them there gently, allowing herself the luxury of feeling her friend's warmth, care and acceptance soak into her. She rested her cheek against the blonde head and was surprised to feel the anger inside her evaporate and the pain in her heart start to ease.

After a short while, Gabrielle felt the tension in the muscular body embraced in her arms relax a little and, with some reluctance, which she fleetingly wondered about, she released Xena and moved away slightly. She kept one arm around Xena's waist and led them both over to a fallen tree to sit side by side in silence.

Xena sat on the tree, placed her elbows on her knees and pressed her face into her open hands, not making a sound.

Gabrielle sat watching Xena carefully for several moments until eventually she said in a quiet, upbeat voice. "But he is in the Elysian Fields, isn't he?" She tried to make it sound like a confident statement rather than an uncertain question.

Xena sucked in a stuttering deep breath. "Yes. But..." She fell silent except for a small catch in her breath.

Gabrielle finished the sentence for her. "But it doesn't hurt any less." She paused watching Xena nod slowly into her hands before deciding that she wanted to try to ease Xena away from the immediate pain she was feeling. "Was Marcus your first love?"

Xena sat unmoving for several heartbeats longer. Eventually she sat up, rubbing her face with her hands and filling her lungs with air. She dropped her hands, crossing her arms loosely, and looked with gentle, slightly reddened eyes at her friend beside her, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth. "No, but he was the last."

Gabrielle felt an odd ache in her chest and before she even had a chance to think about it, she found herself asking. "How many other men have you loved?" She immediately lowered her eyes, blushing slightly, and almost wincing at the bluntness of her question, wondering what in Tartarus she was thinking and preparing herself for a rebuke.

A puzzled look crept onto Xena's face as she watched Gabrielle's reaction, wondering at its cause. She waited a few heartbeats considering how to reply. "A few," she said carefully. "Caesar, Borias...Lao Mah."

"Oh!" Gabrielle muttered quietly, then raised her eyes to look directly at Xena, her voice increasing in energy as the names sunk in. "Caesar? As in Julius Caesar, of Rome?"

Xena smiled back, amused and charmed as her friend's natural curiosity overrode the embarrassment that had been so evident just moments before. "The same." She replied, not even realising that all thoughts of Marcus has disappeared.

"Wow!" Gabrielle thought about that for a moment, wondering if she dare ask for more details at the present time. She decided against it but her curiosity was still peaked. "Lao Mah? That sounds like a name from the East. Was he from there?" Her eyes opened widely and looked directly into Xena's, expectantly.

Xena had the sudden impression that she was falling. She blinked to bring herself back to the present and shifted her eyes slightly to think about how she could answer Gabrielle's question, weighing the risk of telling the absolute truth. After only a heartbeat or two she looked back into the searching green eyes in front of her. "Yes," she said quietly, and after a short pause. "She was." Xena swallowed, holding her breath and Gabrielle's gaze in her own.

Gabrielle wasn't sure how long she had simply sat returning the open gaze but eventually she realised that Xena had answered her question and its meaning registered. A small furrow appeared between her eyes. "Lao Mah was a woman?" she blurted out.

"Oh yes," said Xena with a small smile and a chuckle. She waited patiently for a reaction.

Gabrielle seemed to be confused. "Oh!" Her gaze drifted away from Xena, not focussing on anything else in particular.

Xena felt a sudden surge of panic, wondering if she had completely misread the situation and had freaked out her friend completely. Desperately she tried to recover. "You have to realise, Gabrielle, in my warlording days I would use any means to achieve my objectives, including sex, and not all of my adversaries were men."

For a few moments, Gabrielle went still, then looked back into Xena's face. "But you said you loved her."

Xena found herself trapped by her own words. "Yes, I did." She said quietly, accepting the statement.

Gabrielle wasn't satisfied. "So, what does that mean, Xena?" There was no accusation in her voice, simply inquisitiveness.

Feeling a little awkward, a hint of exasperation crept into Xena's voice. "What do you mean, 'what does that mean'?"

Gabrielle blushed again, realising that she had gone charging down a line of enquiry without realising where it was heading. "Um... well... you were both women." She mumbled, averting her eyes.

Xena was taken aback. "Are you serious?"

Gabrielle realised that her naivety was showing badly and spoke up, defensively. "Xena, I come from a small farming village. Boys and girls are born, they grow up, get married and have more boys and girls. It doesn't work any other way... does it?" she blushed again as she looked up once more into Xena's eyes, noticing the small crinkles appear at their corners as Xena smiled. "Now you're making fun of me." She said indignantly.

Xena's face softened as she saw the hurt in her friend's eyes. "No, I'm not making fun of you, Gabrielle. I just sometimes forget that your experience is a lot less than mine, in some areas." She sighed quietly, composing herself before continuing. "It's actually not that uncommon, in some circles, for women, or men for that matter, to love each other."

"Oh, I see." Said Gabrielle uncertainly, not at all sure she did see. "But I thought you loved men."

"I do." Said Xena. "But I discovered that I can also love another woman, if she is special enough."

Gabrielle paused before speaking quietly. "And Lao Mah was special?"

"Oh yes, in many ways." Xena replied a little wistfully, unshared memories playing behind her eyes.

Gabrielle watched the expression drift across Xena's face. "Oh." She said, dejectedly. She turned away from Xena and sat silently with her own thoughts, an unhappy expression settling on her face.

Xena saw Gabrielle turn away and opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again. She watched her friend for a few moments and then her shoulders slumped a little. She took a resigned sigh, stood and trudged slowly over to Argo, who stood patiently munching on a tasty clump of grass, oblivious to the interplay of confusion, doubts, fears and misunderstandings that had just taken place.