All Souls Night.

Disclaimers in Chapter One. Warning: Angst dead ahead! Pull out your hankies!

Gabrielle paced back and forth before her most trusted confidant.

"I'm worried about her. I mean, *really* worried about her," she said, knowing her confidant would keep silent and allow her to gather her thoughts however she might.

"The mood swings were hard enough. It was like looking back over time and seeing the same damned cycle play out. Half the time she's all over me, the other half she won't let me near her. Its like...well, just after Ares showed up and spilled the beans. Now..." Gabrielle's voice trailed off, other thoughts intruding and demanding attention.

She stared into the darkness of her private room, a single high window providing the only illumination to the place. She came here often in the past few months, to talk, to vent, sometimes simply to find a temporary refuge from the pressures that had built to an almost crushing weight lately. Xena, nor any of the staff come to it, knew of it. It was her refuge alone, though she added incentive to keep Xena from knowing about it.

Dry-washing her face, Gabrielle sighed and said "I should have told...should have let it all come out when I first learned, shouldn't I? Oh, sure, Ephiny and the rest understood and accepted it. Artemis forgave it. How in Hades was I supposed to know they would? *I* didn't understand. How could anyone?" She shook her head and gathered herself. Her eyes were bleak as they turned back to the one she addressed.

"I know she wouldn't understand. She *couldn't*." Gabrielle paused as though awaiting the question she knew was coming. When none came, she nearly spat "Well, what could I say to her? 'Xena, I realize this will come as a bit of a shock, but you see...I'm actually a two thousand-year-old demigoddess, who has to occasionally hunt live prey and drink its blood because my biological father happens to be the basis for many of the vampire myths of the world. He was the Greek god of Wine, you see, and enslaved his followers by forcing them to drink his blood. Disgusting, huh? And yes, I *do* occasionally drink human blood as well, but only for special occasions.

'Oh, but you don't have to worry. You see, you happen to be the spitting image of my old lover, who also happened to be a demigoddess, so I wouldn't *dream* of hurting you. Her name was Xena, too. What happened to her, you ask? Oh, this insane goddess we knew a century or so back incinerated her to ashes.

'Why, yes, I have been alone a long time, but that isn't the reason I asked you to come live with me. You see, not only are...are you Xena's twin...but you also happen to be such a dynamite lover I fell in love with you that first night we were together. So it isn't just...just the sex...I love you..." Her voice fell to a desperate whisper. "I love you."

Tears, which had formed since she began her 'confession', finally began streaming down her cheeks, her voice finally giving out to the strain of attempting to keep so calm when her emotions allowed her no such peace or control. Gabrielle completely broke down, dropping to her knees, as her confidant looked on without expression.

"Gods," she finally managed to choke. "*All* I seem to do..." she hiccuped "these days...is cry. Whether we're in a store or out to dinner or just walking...all she has to do is look at me and I want to sit down and bawl my eyes out. I can't help it. Its like looking into a baby's eyes every time...every single damn time." Her gaze drifted back to the floor. "She's so innocent," she whispered.

Gabrielle angrily wiped away the tears, her mouth pressed into an angry line. "No! I can't tell her...can't let her find out...she'll leave me, I *know* it." She looked up, meeting the eyes of her listener and engaging in a staring battle. "I *know* she will," Gabrielle insisted, not breaking eye contact. The listener won, as always, as the redhead abruptly turned away, eyes downcast and directed now at the floor.

"I *know* it," she insisted one last time, a fresh wave of tears and sobs threatening, but not breaking.

Still, it took Gabrielle some minutes to collect herself enough to trust her voice. "I will *not* give her up!" she declared defiantly. "I won't risk losing her to anything. Not the truth, not my fears... and not to any nightmare, either."

Gabrielle stared at her confidant, and would have sworn she saw two brows tighten in disapproval. She put up both hands, forestalling objections sure to come. "I know, I know. I swore I wouldn't enter another's dreams. But...Gods...she hasn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. It was bad enough when it was just me, dreaming of Hope every night...oh, I never told you about that, did I? It started up just after Solstice, but didn't last long. Just after Beltane." A moment of melancholy overtook her, a single tear escaping the corner of her eye.

"I should have protected her better, shouldn't I? It should have been me..." Gabrielle caught the listener's eyes again. "So many 'shoulds'. It seems that's all I have anymore. You never had patience for that, did you?"

The listener kept its stony silence, letting the thinly veiled accusation linger.

"No," Gabrielle concluded. "No, you were always the one for action. Which is why I can't understand why you're so opposed to me needing to do this." Her own eyes hardened as she approached her confidant, coming to stand literally nose-to-nose with her.

"She is *suffering*, damn you. You would never turn away from anyone who needed help, whether it was Gregor or Meg or, Gods forgive us, Joxer! What is so different about her?" Gabrielle backed up a step and took a breath. "Hunting down and killing the ones who hurt her won't solve anything," she stated practically, but still had to turn away, lest an even more practical argument could be communicated. "The only way I can give her peace is to stop it once and for all. And *that* means going into those dreams and..."

Her confidant's silence spoke volumes.

"Yes," Gabrielle conceded. "I could loose her because of that. If that happens, I'll just...die." She turned back, eyes bleak.

"I should have died a long time ago...with you."

The bust of Xena of Amphipolis was beauty incarnate. So precise in detail, so perfectly formed and carved, one could be forgiven thinking it alive at times. Her eyes, formed of cold marble, kept the fire and expression of the lost warrior, while her mouth with set in its eternal crook of an almost-grin. It stood atop a marble pillar, leaving it eye-level with Gabrielle. It had taken her months of literally nonstop work to carve it properly, and was rendered with such breathtaking perfection that she was often painful to look at. The memories were forever close to the surface, all nineteen hundred winters worth.

Many had been the ill-conceived act or idea that had been nixed by discussions such as these, so well had they known each other that Gabrielle could almost *hear* the warrior's objections. But now...

"So be it," Gabrielle declared. "If she leaves, she leaves. But I won't have her hurt ever again, nor want for a thing." She took another deep breath, steeling herself for what came next. "And after I see to that...we'll be together again. I promise."

She took one step forward, and brushed her lips against her lost love's. "I miss you, Xena. But I can't let this go on."

Tears formed again, but she hadn't the strength to let them fall just yet. She turned and, with a calm so stiff it could only be false, strode out of the room.

Not one minute passed after the door shut before Hope moved from her sanctuary of the deepest shadow. She'd heard all, seen all, and felt unfamiliar tears sting her own eyes.

She had never loved her mother as she did at that moment. Her course was never clearer than right then. No more pain, for either of them. No more, ever.

Hope returned to the shadows, content to wait for the moment when she would do what was needed. She had patience enough for that.