Disclaimer: The characters of Xena, Gabrielle, Argo, Marcus, Terreis, Talus, Atyminius and Perdicas belong to those lovely folk at Renaissance Pictures. Gabrielle's feverish imaginings are purely my own invention. Okay, I'll come clean, these are just my *own* feverish imaginings which I have attributed to Gabrielle. The Renpic people really have to share a little of the blame, because if they hadn't dressed Xena in leather, I might never have fantasised about her like this.
Of course, if they had dressed her in anything other than leather, who the Hades would have kept watching????? ;-)

Sexual Content: If your definition of sex scene is at least two people making love, then there are no sex scenes for you here. However, this piece describes a young woman's sexual awakening - but it may not be to your taste, may offend your religious beliefs or may even be illegal where you live, as it a lesbian awakening. If so, read no further.

This story is set during the season one episode, "Mortal Beloved", and was written as an illustrated answer to the question. "I don't understand, what is this fascination with leather?"
So, Susan, this is for you!

The Vigil

©Cyclops MMI

Gabrielle watched Xena dive into the lake with a heavy heart. Their friendship was so new, and here was Xena rushing after an old friend. An old, dead friend no less, who was in the Underworld.
Gabrielle had no idea how far down under the Iconian lake the portal to the Underworld was, and though the few short months travelling with Xena had shown her what the older woman's amazing physical skills could accomplish, she wasn't sure if even the Warrior Princess had the lung power for this one.
She sat down on a rock and gazed out into the lake, her eyes fixed on the spot where Xena's graceful dive had cleaved its limpid waters. She put Xena's leathers and armour down on the ground beside her and tried to think about other things to distract herself from the nagging thought that Xena's dead friend was a man.
She had so much faith in Xena that it would not surprise her if she arrived back from the Underworld having either bargained with, or tricked Hades into giving Marcus back his life.
How close had Xena and Marcus been? She had never met him, but she had never heard Xena speak with such feeling about any other man, not even Hercules.
What would happen to Gabrielle if Xena came back with the man she was in love with?
With her stomach knotted, she forced herself to try to think of something else. It was a mixed blessing when she succeeded. She found herself trying to work out how long it might take Xena to drown.
Then how long after that it might take for her magnificent body to surface. That's if it didn't get caught on a rock, get tangled in some underwater vegetation, or get swept to the far side of the lake by some deep-lying current not apparent from the surface.
Gabrielle shivered convulsively at the idea of Xena's lifeless body washed up unnoticed on a deserted shore, her hypnotic blue eyes plucked out, rats gnawing at those long supple, fingers and the warmth of life seeping out of her.
It was too much for the bard, her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh stop it! Xena can take care of herself, you know that!" she told herself sternly.
She itched to do something, but what? At last she decided to wait another hour or so, and then take a walk round the edge of the lake.
It felt like the longest hour of her life. And every last second was filled with thoughts of Xena and how she had changed life so radically for the little country mouse from Poteideia.
Here she was mere months since she'd left her famliy and fiancé behind. In that short space of time she had helped Xena liberate Death, had freed the Titans and put them back into cold storage, had achieved her dream of studying at the Bards' Academy in Athens, had become an Amazon Princess by right of caste and her skill with the staff was growing by the day.
What would her fiancé, Perdicas, think of her now?
She thought he would hardly approve, and quite frankly it didn't bother her whether he did or not. In fact she was having difficulty even remembering what he looked like and was now wondering how she had ever felt the slightest attraction to him.
Her reverie was interrupted by some travellers who asked if she too was going to the festival. On any other day Gabrielle would have been bursting with curiosity about anyone's festival and would have wangled and invitation for herself and Xena to attend it in a hearbeat.
And therein was the root of her problem.
No Xena.
And without Xena to share the fun with her, festivals had lost their lustre completely.
After the revellers had gone on their way, she checked the position of the sun, and satisfied that she had spent enough time here, carefully scanned the landscape and took her bearings, just as Xena had taught her. In this way, she would be able to pick out the spot where Xena had disappeared under the water when she came back to resume her vigil.
She stowed Xena's leathers and armour away out of sight, and set off to make her circuit of the lakeshore.
It took her a couple of hours to complete it, and she poked and prodded clumps of rushes and reeds that might have concealed the warrior's body from sight with her staff. Each time, her heart was in her mouth in case she found what she was dreading.
And each time she drew a blank, relief flooded through her, and she pictured Xena alive and vibrant and travelling with her faithful bard to the ends of the earth. Together for the rest of their lives.
Gabrielle chided herself for such a nonsensical notion. After all what would happen if either she or Xena met a man they wanted to settle down with? As soon as this occured to her, the young woman snorted out loud with laughter. She was beginning to realise that Xena had no interest in Hercules that way, and that they had yet to meet a man who could handle the Warrior Princess' independence and strength.
As for herself, she could never go back to Poteideia now. How could she? It would mean leaving Xena. Gods, it was almost as if she wanted to marry Xena!
She felt herself flush so deeply at that thought, that the heat of it coursed through her body and she felt it concentrate between her legs. Thoughts of Xena as she had first seen her, fighting like a Fury dressed only in her shift popped in to her head and only seemed to add to the warmth in her groin. And then she recalled the night they had started sharing their bedrolls.
She had flung herself into Xena's arms for comfort after she had watched Talus walk away with Celesta, and much to her surprise, the warrior hadn't brushed her off awkwardly as she had before. That night, Gabrielle was crying herself to sleep - quietly, as she thought, after Xena had dropped off.
She was startled at first when, without a sound or word, Xena appeared at her side, spread her bedroll out and lay down beside her. Stunned, Gabrielle stopped sobbing for a moment.
"I'm not Talus, but I'm here," said Xena quietly.
The bard wriggled as close to the older woman as it was possible to be without getting inside her leathers, and cried herself to sleep in the warm circle of Xena's arms.
As she neared the spot where she had started from, Gabrielle realised that she might well be sleeping alone tonight. She picked her campsite not too far from the lake and set it up in stages, keeping watch for Xena's return as she did.
As dusk fell, she started the fire and dug around in her bag for provisions to make her evening meal. Enough for one or two?
She dithered and at last made enough in case Xena came back. She would be chilled from the lakewater, and hot food would do her good.
Gabrielle sat by the fire after she had eaten her solitary collation, and tried to work on her scrolls. She couldn't concentrate for thinking how she would get to sleep without the comforting presence of Xena sleeping beside her.
What dreams would she have?
Ones like she had when she was a prisoner of Morpheus? Though they hadn't all been bad. Xena had looked like vision in that purple outfit she had been wearing.
She wasn't sure if it was the memory of her brush with one of the gods of Sleep which did it but she found her eyes heavy and gritty, and decided that she should at least lie down and rest, even if the balm of Morpheus eluded her.
And then inspiration struck.
Gabrielle went and got the leathers and armour from their hiding place.
She tidied the remains of her meal away, banked down the fire stacked the armour behind her pillow, and settled down on her bedroll, clutching the leather battledress to her body.
The thick hide of the garment was stiff and unyielding at first, and irritated by this, Gabrielle's sleepy feeling began to slip away. Whatever made her think this would be like having a little piece of Xena with her?
It felt nothing like it did when the warrior woman was inside it - soft, supple, warm, and that wonderful leather scent that she remembered from the clothes she herself had worn when she assumed Terreis's right of caste as an Amazon Princess. Gods! The look in Xena's eyes when she had seen the little girl from Poteideia decked out in suede and leather Amazon finery.
The memory of that look would stay with her for the rest of her life, and again she felt herself begin to glow, felt the heat build in her mound.
Heat...of course, the heat of Xena's body was what made the leather come alive. The thick hide offered her body some protection from wounding weapons and blows - it was the warrior's second skin.
Skin - the thought of the warrior's first, very own skin made Gabrielle's whole body shudder.
Where it was exposed to the elements Xena's skin had a deep honeyed tan, but Gabrielle knew from bathing together that the protected parts were a milky white. As that sight formed in her mind's eye, the young woman whimpered miserably. She slipped a hand between her legs, but the dampness she felt was sticky, and the folds of her private parts were slick, swollen and sensitive.
What was happening to her?
She buried her face in the battledress to blot out her confusion, and her senses were assailed with the aroma of leather. The garment was softer and more pliant in her hands now that it had warmed up.
She heaved a huge sigh, content that her idea of snuggling up to it for comfort had not been in vain, and tried to ignore the tightness and throbbing between her legs. Relax, breathe deeply....
The scent was complex.
Yes, the keynote of it was leather - cherished, well-tended, well worn leather - but as it got warmer, other scents came to the fore and demanded that she identify them.
Mixed in with the keynote of leather was....well, the only word for it was Xena. Or rather the scent of Xena's body.
As this registered, Gabrielle shot up in her bedroll, holding the dress as if was going to explode, her heart pounding.
Ridiculous, she told herself sternly, you are just so jumpy and afraid of having to defend yourself without Xena's help, you're imagining you can smell her presence.
Her heart steadied, and just to prove she was right, she lifted the dress, and opening the top of it, pressed her face into it and inhaled deeply.
It was Xena all right - or rather the milky tang of the sweat from one of her breasts as Gabrielle had her nose buried in a cup. She almost flung the treasured piece of clothing away from her as her physical reaction registered.
As it was, she dropped it as if she had been stung by it, and then slowly her hand crept back to what now felt like a pool of moisture between her legs. She probed, and the tingling got stronger. What in Tartarus was wrong with her?
She threw herself back on the bedding and took her hand away. She started counting sheep. Then she counted all the boring people she had ever known in Poteideia, which meant almost the entire population of the village.
She fingered herself tentatively again.
Still soaking, still swollen, still sending jolts.
What was more stultifying to her than her home town?
Perdicas.
Her betrothed.
She concentrated on him.
On his voice.
On how he always kept telling her how it would be when they were married and she had at least half a dozen kids. What they would be when they grew up - Perdicas' imagination didn't seem to stretch beyond the boys doing what he'd done.
And the girls?
What girls?
Perdicas' imagination didn't rise to the possibility of daughters either.
Gabrielle felt the heat in her crotch subsiding, and her exhaustion rising. It had been a harrowing day watching Xena diappear into the deeps of the lake, then searching for her possibly drowned body.
The thought of this reduced the bard to tears, and giving way to them at last, Gabrielle cried herself to sleep with the leather dress clasped to her heart.

Two very eventful days later, she resumed her vigil at the same spot. She was supposed to be taking care of "things" in the village, but "things" were being taken care of very nicely by the villagers. Atyminius' body was burning merrily away on the pyre.
Disregarding Xena's instructions was not something she did lightly, but beginning to feel like a fifth wheel in the village was just the last straw. She'd already had enough of feeling like that around Xena and Marcus, so now, if they were going to get back together, she wanted to know as soon as possible.
As she headed back to the lakeshore, she tried to plan what to do with herself - and the rest of her life - if she had to leave Xena. To her exasperation, all of these plans centered on being a bard - and the only stories she could imagine herself telling were all about Xena.
Once back at the lake, she had plenty of time to ponder some more possibilities. Unfortunately all she was able to do was dwell on what had happened to make her feel that she was the crowd around her best friend.
She had woken up the previous night to hear sounds that she had only heard from her parents' room before. She knew it meant that Xena and Marcus were making love. What she couldn't understand was why her heart hurt so much more now, just thinking of them making love, than it had when she'd overheard them.
She should be glad that her friend had found a really good man to love, shouldn't she?
But try as she might she couldn't manage a glimmer of gladness.
The sun was beginning to drop from its noonday pinnacle in the sky, and she'd picked aimlessly for more than an hour at the fresh bread and cheese that she'd been given when she left the village. Still, she was no nearer to solving the puzzle of why she wanted to burst into tears at the prospect of leaving Xena. She shifted to consideration of another conundrum.
The dark warrior had tricked Ares into revealing his plot against her. After the wily God of War, gloomy old Hades would be a pushover. Xena would win Marcus' life back and they would be re-united - this was the man Xena loved, right? She'd said so, and Xena rarely said anything she didn't mean.
The sun glinted off the breastplate on the ground beside her, and the leather of the battledress looked soft and supple. Gabrielle choked on her tears for a while, and found herself growing uneasy as she recalled the way she had felt the night she'd slept with the tunic in her arms. She let herself cry for a bit and felt the better of it.
She went to the lakeside and washed her face in its cool, crystal waters until she felt her face was back to normal.
"Can't have Xena thinking I go to pieces when she's not around. I have to convince her I'll be all right travelling on my own!" she exhorted herself. She had no intention of hanging around the couple like a gooseberry.
She sat down and composed herself, and a few minutes later, the mirror-smooth surface of the lake shattered.
"Xena!?" she called, her heart lurching wildly in her chest, her face lighting with a relieved smile that faded as fast as it had formed.
Xena was close to staggering, her expression closed and grim, her chest heaving as if she hadn't bothered to fill her lungs adequately before leaving Tartarus - without Marcus.
Gabrielle jumped up and ran to the water's edge to give the exhausted warrior some support.
They sat together, Gabrielle's arm around Xena, for what seemed like an age. Minutes were turning into hours as Gabrielle felt her heart contract at the memory of how Xena had struck her breast with her fist.
"Never be apart. He's in here. Forever," the dark woman had said, her voice thick with tears for her lost lover.
The words repeated endlessly in the young bard's head, and her misery mounted each time they sounded in her mind's ear. At last, Xena started to shiver violently and Gabrielle was sufficiently shaken from her mudbath of misery to take charge.
"Let's get you dried off and dressed before you catch your end," she said briskly, hauling the warrior to her feet.
Xena wasn't just chilled, she was in shock, and it meant that most of the work of getting her out of her wet clothing, drying her and dressing her fell to her travelling companion.
The whole process was fraught with torture for the girl. She wasn't sure which part of it was the hardest to bear.
Once the sodden swimming costume was stripped, she was sure seeing Xena naked was much worse than touching her had been.
She stood there on the shore, her hair dripping, her teeth chattering, a mass of gooseflesh from top to toe, her dark nipples erect, contrasting with the milky white of the skin of her breasts, which, in turn, contrasted with the line of tan across her chest that marked where the leather bodice ended.
Oh goddess! Those breasts....that really was worse, thought Gabrielle as she handed Xena a cloth to towel her hair with while she herself started on the the clammy, well-muscled back. She had opted for this as the lesser of two evils.
Bad call, she thought, as she reached the firm buttocks. Now she was certain that this was so bad, nothing could be worse until the fact that Xena's cloth was now a bit lower than her own registered. An image of the triangular tangle of dark, dripping curls formed in her mind, and as she suppressed a whimper, Xena splayed her legs to dry her private parts.
Now the bard was choking on tears of frustration, her face aglow, not with the exertion of drying her friend, but in embarassment at the growing wet, sticky warmth between her own legs, as imagined taking the cloth from the warrior's large hand and tenderly drying her with her own small inkstained ones. Then, somehow the cloth slipped......
Naked?
Breasts?
That tight butt?
That Sable Fleece?
Pieces of cake.
"G-g-g-et mmmy d-d-d-dry c-c-clothes, G-g-gabrielle. I ca-ca-can do the r-r-r-est," stuttered Xena, bending to scrub vigorously at her thighs.
Taking deep breaths, the younger woman collected the briefs, the shift, the leathers, and the boots. Sword, armour, gauntlets and chakram could wait, she had resolved to ask the question that had been eating her up. One that would come between then forever, and would put their friendship on its most awkward footing yet if it went unspoken another minute.
She turned back to the taller woman, opened her mouth and snapped it shut immediately. Xena had just straightened up and was wrapping the cloth round her hair. Mutely, Gabrielle held out the light cloth garments to her first.
"T-thanks, Gabrielle."
Noooo, thank you, thought the bard as the shift was swiftly slipped over the taut nipples, and the dark curls disappeared from sight shortly after.
"Xena...can I ask you something?"
The warrior didn't look up as she stepped into her briefs. "S-sure, anything, anytime. You kn-know that," she reassured as she wriggled into them.
Gabrielle nodded as the warrior snatched her beloved leathers from the redhead's hand.
"Sh-shoot" she urged, as she emerged from the dress, and with an impatient gesture, indicated to her young friend that she needed help lacing the dress.
Somehow it was easier to speak when she wasn't facing Xena, risking the intense scrutiny of those piercing blue eyes. Her hands moved deftly to help settle the dress on the taller woman's body guided by the shape, the folds that had been moulded into it as it had grown to be Xena's second skin.
"Xena, I've seen you fool Ares, and while I've never really met him or Hades, I think that Ares would be way harder to put one over on than Hades. Would that be right?"
"Yeah, and...?" Xena could tell by the hesitant tone that this was the first in a sequence of queries and by now she knew that answering each one was the bard's way of processing information or solving some puzzle that was bothering her. She smiled as she felt the warmth of life begin to creep back into her chilled frame, and a little joy surge into her heart. The kid was launching into one of her twenty question sessions - all was right in Xena's world.
Her tone was gently encouraging, not that Gabrielle registered this, she was far too keyed up with anticipating the reception her next question might get.
"So, how come you weren't able to dupe Hades into giving Marcus back his life? I mean, I've never heard you talk about any other guy the way you have about him, he really is the love of your life, right? You've done so many amazing things to save my life so often, and I'm just your friend. I hope you didn't throw away a chance of happiness with him because of some cock-eyed notion that you gotta look after me, I mean I've got pretty good at taking care of myself....."
Xena had frozen at "just your friend" part, and her stomach felt as if she'd just dropped over the edge of a cliff. *Just* a friend? Xena had suspected for some time now that there might be more to her "friendship" with Gabrielle than she had thought possible.
Most of the women she had been lovers with in the course of her stormy life had been her around own age or much older. And she knew that Gabrielle had no idea that women could be lovers as well as friends - that much was clear from their stay with the Amazons.
It took a few seconds for the warrior's stillness to register with the bard. As soon as it did, her courage started to fail her. Had she poured salt in this very new wound of Xena's? This silent stillness had always presaged an eruption of Warrior Princess temper before.
Xena shuddered convulsively and turned to her companion. The stricken look on the girl's face took her breath away, and all she could think of doing by way of response was to put her arms round her and hold her tight and close.
Now, how was she to explain that somewhere, somehow, in the short space of time they had travelled together, this country kid had grown to mean more to her than anyone, man or woman, she had ever known? And do this without having to tell the girl she had fallen in love with her?
"Gabrielle, you know how bad I've been. Destroyer of Nations and all that stuff? Well, killing and stealing and all of that are pretty obviously wrong things. But I've learned recently that there are other things that aren't so obvious but they're just as wrong and I have to try to put things right about those too. Marcus was one of those things."
"How d'you mean?" came the muffled query. Gabrielle's head was resting on Xena's chest, and the warrior's hand was now pressing it close, stroking her golden red hair comfortingly. She slid her arms round Xena's waist, and although the leather felt stiff and cold as yet, it was so much better to feel it encase the warrior's body than having it lie limply in her arms.
"I treated him real bad when we were together all those years ago. Oh we had fun, we had good times, but I never told him what he really meant to me. I just wanted to keep him guessing, jerk him around, make sure he wouldn't take advantage of me, thinking he was like so many other guys I'd known. And back in Trakis, he got killed before I got a chance to tell him that I knew he wasn't like the others, that I had been in love with him way back when."
Gabrielle started to shiver. She was right. Xena had thrown her chance away for her newly fledged sense of duty to her young friend.
"So, when he got a few days grace from Hades, I....well, you know how good I am at talking?"
In spite of herself, Gabielle giggled, and Xena bent and planted a quick kiss on the crown of her head.
"I wanted to make it up to him. I owed him for it, so...I...showed him. I guess you heard us, huh?"
Not trusting herself to speak, the bard nodded.
"I knew he'd have to go back to the Underworld, and I knew I'd never manage to tell him in that short time. I'm sorry we disturbed you - you really didn't need to know about it."
"But Xena, how could you let him go without a fight? Your soulmate?"
Soulmates. She knew the young bard's favourite story well, she had heard her tell it often enough. While she'd seen couples who were soulmates, she didn't believe that anyone like her, Xena, Warrior Princess could ever find one, let alone that she deserved to have one, if she could find one.
Xena's brows furrowed as she made the connection, and then she laughed softly.
"Gabrielle, people make love for lots of reasons other than being in love. For me, it was a personal apology to Marcus for selling him short all those years ago. And as for not letting my soulmate go without a fight - if I ever find my soulmate, nothing in the Underworld, or even on Mount Olympus would part ...us."
"You're not in love with...."
"Was. We both know that we're both different people and it wouldn't work now. I tricked Hades into judging Marcus again and letting me speak for him. So now he's in the Elysian fields. It's not much, but it was the best I could do for an aplogy."
Xena had loosened her hold on the bard and now she was looking up into the warrior's face.
"You fooled another god! That's quite an apology!" she said, her eyes glowing with pride in her best friend's intelligence, her body feeling lighter by the second with relief that Marcus was nothing more than an old flame.
"Ya think?" asked Xena, her eyebrow rising sceptically.
"Yeah, I do. I know I'd have been impressed if it was me...." she babbled, then realising that the apology had also included lovemaking, she flushed bright red. "The fooling the god part, I mean the rest was kinda private, it was just chance I found out about it."
"Yeah. Sure. I knew that."
"Right. Just checking."
"Uh-huh."
Gabrielle squirmed. Xena's ice-blue eyes were boring into her, and it always seemed to the young bard that the warrior could see what was going on in her mind and even sometimes in her heart when she was subjected to that sapphire scrutiny. She felt she was getting redder, and she could think of nothing more to say to deflect attention from herself.
Xena obliged with a piercing whistle.
"Mind if we get outta here? I'm still kinda shivery and I'd rather make camp and finish drying off as far as I can get from here before sundown."
"Yeah, no...I mean...yeah, let's go," she blurted as she heard Argo's answering whinny and nearing hoofbeats.
"Great!" enthused Xena, and after planting another quick kiss on the girl's head, she bustled about, putting on her boots and collecting their things.
Gabrielle felt as if she had oars for hands, she was so flustered and clumsy, but it only took them minutes to load everything onto the mare's saddle. Xena mounted her with grace and ease, then turned and held her hand out to friend.
"Aw, c'mon, you'll be fine. Just hold on tight to me."
Gabrielle needed no further urging, using the stirrup Xena had freed for her, was swung up on to the palomino's back in a heartbeat.
Argo got moving at a brisk trot, and Gabrielle, snuggling up to Xena's broad back and wrapping both arms around her waist, clung like a limpet - a quivering, terrified limpet at that. It was probably the best thing she could have done, as essentially she and Xena now moved as one body with the rhythm of the mare's gait. And since Xena was completely at ease with her trusty steed, Gabrielle finally relaxed and began to notice the advantages of her position.
Arms round Xena's midriff, with no armour she was pressed close to the leather clad back, her face inches from the bare skin between the bodice's straps. The leather, now warm and supple and exuding its wonderful bouquet, felt like silk where she was touching it, and this close, all the little creaks it made as Xena's body movements made it flex were clearly audible.
The strain of the last few days caught up with her at last, and she started to drift into a doze. She turned her head and rested it on Xena's bare back.
Unseen, the warrior gave a rather smug, if lopsided grin, and sent subtle signals through hands and legs to Argo to slow her pace and smooth her gait.
Soothing sounds....personal perfume patently present because the leather was inhabited by its owner....sliding silkily supple under her fingers.....
The bard slid into sleep, her dreams into the realm of Aphrodite. Was it possible for her to love Xena as a lover, not a friend? If not she could dream it, and imagine the warrior's hands stroking her until her breath stopped in her body and her heart burst with joy.
Xena was lost in her own reverie, trying to pinpoint the moment that it had stopped being a friendship for her, and pitched over into being in love with the girl. Totally preoccupied with this task, the mumble from just under her left ear barely registered, but she responded to it automatically, with the part of her mind that dealt with little stuff that intruded but still needed to be dealt with, when she was considering life and death matters.
"Howjatellnutherwomnyer'nlovewither?"
"Dunno, trying to work that out myself," she muttered distractedly.
Then the answer hit her - the day Gabrielle checked out and went home after she'd frozen at that blocked pass and nearly got them both killed. Xena had moved about fifty yards in any direction from the spot in the whole time the bard was gone. They had been the most miserable days of her recent life.
She hadn't thought to wash. She had barely eaten because she was so burned up by the thought of never again seeing the little kid from Poteideia, that when she went hunting, a deaf turtle would have heard her and had time to clear off - if the smell hadn't warned it off first. What little tough, geriatric game she did catch was even more badly burned than usual when she sank into fits of depression while she tried to "cook".
The bard's clasped hands loosened, and one slid onto Xena's leather skirt. Taking Argo's reins into one hand, she picked up the inky little extremity and planted a kiss on its upturned palm.
"I'm in love with you Gabrielle," she whispered. "Sometimes I make love with whoever I can find because I can't even kiss, let alone make love to the one I truly love."
The bard's only reply was one of her less ladylike snores.
Xena lifted the hand to her breast and pressed it against her heart and held it there as long as she dared. In the fading light of day, the tears that coursed silently down her cheeks went unobserved.


*The End*
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