by Becky Lutzke
deanlu@caller.infi.net

Gabrielle carefully picked her way down the darkened stairway to the dungeons. Her little surprise upstairs would take the bluster out of Xena's deadly intentions. But she had time to chat with her special little package. She had been lucky to find her after all the pandemonium in Dahak's Temple. The temple had started to crumble the minute Hope was dead and Dahak's plans were strewn into bits. She couldn't believe it when she had awoke in a clearing near the temple. She was sure she had been killed. Gabrielle still remembered turning back and seeing the swirls of dust rise and settle over the temple. Confusion had reigned, like there were two people in her mind all the time. So much Hate and anger, against a small fragment of good waged war within her. She had sought out Ares afterwards, some faint image of him within her mind saying she would be safe with him. The rest they say is history. Sighing deeply, she straightened her shoulders and strode down the hallway. The guards stood at attention immediately.

"So how's our little package?" The queen asked. A burly guard with an ugly scar across his eye responded confidently.

"She's quiet, that one. Seems to have receded into herself." Gabrielle clucked her tongue.

"That just won't do, I need her spritely for the game we play in the morning." The guards unlocked the door, and followed behind the queen down a darkened hallway where neither light nor noise emanated from. They stopped in front of a cell door. The iron bars firmly lockng the demon, as the queen called her, safely away. The queen motioned that they were to open the door. The guard immediately unlocked the door, and entered first with a torch to make sure all was right. As the light fell upon a woman and she covered her face from the intrusion of light. The guard set the torch in a wall sconce, and then a stool was set near the door. The queen motioned for the guards to leave. They shuffled at first, hesitant to leave their queen unprotected against this enemy. But Gabrielle's snarl made them retreat to their table down the hall. She chuckled softly.

"You enjoy causing others fear?" The words from the woman shackled across the room broke the silence.

"Yes, I rather do." Gabrielle sat on the stool and took in the appearance of the lady. Her face was smudged with dirt and her clothes were torn and ragged. Her hair was the color of the queens, reddish-blonde, though it hung limply around her face from her time spent here. "Your looking a little pale these days." The woman ignored Gabrielle’s comment and pressed on.

"But you're not evil, you have good in you too."

Shaking her head and chuckling, the queen said, "More evil than good. I feel torn now, unfocused when I do not follow the path hatred points." The demon woman moved, her shackles clinking heavily.

"We are alike you and I. There is a small part of the good you once were buried deep." Gabrielle rose and grabbed the woman by the hair, pulling hard.

"You are wrong. We are nothing alike."

"You can't hide it." She grimaced from the pain. "Why did you not kill Xena today? Why have you kept Joxer close to you? Joxer cares and Xena loves you, even now." The queen released the woman.

"Xena." She sneered. "Xena loves me. Gods, that's a laugh. Let me tell you about Xena's love. Xena loves anyone who doesn't get in her way of Vengeance." The woman on the cot shifted uncomfortably. "Xena loved me so much she let her anger and need for revenge against Caesar consume her. I hung on a cross, sentenced to die because I knew Xena."

"Yes, but she saved you. She was there for you."

"Saved me? Only momentarily. You know Xena, she can always see straight through a person, know their intentions. But did she see Krafstar, the evil he was planning?"

"She was being used, she.."

"She wasn't the only one used! I was used, my blood innocence destroyed, my life of peace destroyed. But it wasn't enough. Dahak had to violently rape me, and implant his evil seed within me."

"But Xena came to your rescue. She was worried and stood by you, protected you. The woman sat a little straighter, straining against the onslaught of images being thrown at her.

"Rescue? Rescue!" Gabrielle stood, her hands clenched in hate. "Do you know what it's like to be raped by a God? Do you? It's not just a violation of your body. No, that's not good enough. It's a penetration of your soul and mind with its essence. It is a sickly sweet tune that continually plays over and over in your head. Xena rescue? No she failed!"

"I know." The small voice of the woman on the cot responded.

"You know?" The queens wicked laugh rung through the cell. "Yes, you know. I'm sure of that. All of this might have been repairable, but The fates had other plans for me. Unlike Xena who was driven to evil over a span of time. It was heaped upon me at once." The woman seemed the sag some.

"I know." The queen whirled on her enemy.

"SHUT UP!" The woman retreated as far back as she could from the malevolent glare. "Xena loved me so much that when I was born, your precious child. Our Hope. All she could think of was killing me, destroying me." The woman rose, pushing the limits of her shackled prison.

"Your wrong! Xena loved the child at first. She did everything to make sure it arrived into the world safely. She played midwife and nursemaid to you and Hope. She was happy for us." Gabrielle pushed the woman down hard on the cot.

"I said Shut Up Mother!" She said menacingly. The woman fought back harder, with complete disregard for her life.

"Still fighting it aren't you. Still fighting at the truth of what you did, how we split. You know what should have happened." The demon fought harder, seeing a crack appear in the defenses of the one called Gabrielle. "She loved us Gabrielle and you know it."

"Loved us? That at the first call from Lao Ma, she followed like a puppy responding to its Master." The enemy blanched and for a moment wavered, and the queen pressed her assault. "It made me realize our friendship could never be repaired. So I betrayed her. I wanted her to suffer." The woman fought back again, insistent this time in her argument.

"We made the mistake, forgetting there were others who were her friends before us. Who tried to redeem her before we met her. We acted in jealousy. But she still loved us."

" Did she love us after she discovered Hope was alive, after the death of Solon, after she forced us to kill again and our child? Did she?"

"But we solved that in Illusia.." The woman continued trying to make the other understand. Attempting to clear the confusion from the others mind. " She helped us realize and come to grips with it."

"We never did you know. So much too fast, and no sympathetic ear. Not even the Amazons could understand the breadth and depth of evil we had encountered and suffered." Gabrielle leaned against the wall. "But Ares understood and The Fates. I repaid my debt to Xena. I saved her when her life thread would have been cut. The debt has been. Now as Ares soon to be bride, there will be peace."

"No. There will be no peace until we rejoin. You heard The Fates. You know what should have been. We have played right into Ares hands. We didn't change the future, we only altered whose evil would rule. We have to stop this!" The woman strained against her shackles, actually making it all the way to the door almost. The light from the torch in the hallway fell upon the woman on the cot, revealing an impossibility.

An Oxy-Moron.

A Puzzle.

There fighting back against Gabrielle, was Gabrielle.

"I'll have to remember to have them shorten those chains." The queen laughed. "No. I plan on seeing this to the end. Xena's end."

"What about me? If I die, you die. You just can't keep me hidden away down here. Never to be seen again. Hope please try and remember. " Gabrielle/Hope reached out a hand and gently caressed the women's face, her face. Confusion reigned for a moment on her face. "Hope we love Xena, we can't do this to her."

"Mother?" Then suddenly as the recognition came, it was gone. "NO! You are the abomination. All you know and love will be dead by the end of the day tomorrow. A guard will be here for you in just a short while." Gabrielle turned, dusted off her hands, and strode out the door. A guard rushed down the hall, firmly locking the door, and then returned to his mug of ale waiting at the table. The woman leaned her head against the bars of the door's window and sobbed bitterly. The last chance she had possibly had for changing the situation was now gone. A warm, muscular hand reached through the bars and gently caressed the reddish-blonde lock, startling the woman.

"Easy. It's not over yet. Have faith." The woman looked up to see Joxer standing in the hall, keeping careful watch for the guards.

"Joxer?" The sight of him was like a breath of fresh air in the stale air of the dungeon. But her joy at seeing him, immediately turned to concern.

"Joxer, you must go. If she finds you here, she will kill you."

"Shhh.. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm already dead." The woman stared back questioningly. "They know I left the castle to deliver a message to Xena. My time is limited. But I had to find out if the whispers were true." She snorted, and laughed.

"So now you see the ghost truly lives." A tear fell slowly down the women's face.

"Yes, I see Gabrielle. But why call yourself The Betrayer?"

"No!" She said through a forceful whisper. "Do not say my name, she has changed it's meaning into a word of terror, pain, and hate."

"I know. I haven't left your side since you parted ways with Xena, or who I thought was you. What happened?" Gabrielle clung to Joxer's hand like a life line.

"Do you remember when Hope and I went over the edge?" Joxer nodded, the pain of the images he had seen flitted over his face. "Hope and I fell toward the lava..apart. You know I can still hear Xena's scream of dispair and her face as I tumbled over, looking at me from the rim." Gabrielle shook herself. " At the last moment Hope grabbed me and wrapped herself around me. When we hit the lava, instead of dying we melded..were pulled apart somehow and rejoined."

"Rejoined?" Joxer glanced down the all again, they hadn't much time.

"How?"

"I don't know exactly how, all I do know is now she thinks she is me most of the time. She acts insane most of the time the confusion is so bad within her mind. Flitting between Hope and my persona. " Gabrielle rubbed her forhead, fatigue showing in her face. "All I know is that I remained mostly the same, except I know what she is thinking, doing? The fates said this would happened, warned me against this path."

" So how do we fix it?" Joxer turned at hearing the sound of boots scraping as men descended the steps.

"I don't know."

"I will try and stay near."He caressed her face one last time. "Don't give up." She nodded and then he was gone. The door opened as the guards came for her.

(End of chapter 2)