GABRIELLE AWOKE with a jerk.

She pushed herself up groggily, her body slow to respond, her mind slower and still half-caught in upsetting unremembered dreams. Joxer backed off quickly, pulling his hand away from her shoulder as if he had burned it. "Sorry," he said quickly. "Sorry, I..."

"No, 'sokay. I must have dozed off." The end of the sentence dissolved in a huge yawn, and she sat up on the chaise in the main apartment where she'd fallen asleep. The only light in the room came from the moonlight-flooded courtyard. Gods, what time was it? She tried to speak and yawned again.

"Are you all right?" Joxer asked. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

"No problem." Gabrielle tried to shake the muzziness out of her head. "I must have been really zonked."

"Hard day?"

"Kind of." Okay, he'd handed her the perfect opening. It was now or never. She took a deep breath and said, "I was waiting up for you. I wanted to apologize. For what I said this morning, I..."

"It was nothing. Forget it."

"No, I.. I wasn't thinking. I know how much that scabbard meant to you, and I'm sorry."

Joxer looked at the floor. "It's not just the scabbard. It's the whole thing, it's the sword itself, I--Forget about it, there's nothing anyone can do."

"Joxer, talk to me."

"I saw you fighting today," he said obliquely. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

He sighed. "Gabrielle, I told you my father gave me the scabbard. It's the only thing he gave me. Everything else I had to earn myself. And I earned that sword. It took me years, years to become good enough, but in the end I did it. I know it wasn't a good sword, but it was mine. It meant something. It meant that just once, I accomplished something. And now..."

"You still accomplished it. That's what's important. Not the sword itself."

He looked away. "I was watching you today. You were so beautiful. The way you move, the way you block, the way you strike. I could never achieve that if I had a dozen lifetimes to work on it. See, now somebody like you, you can go up to Xena or somebody and say, 'I need a new sword' and there's no question. But me--"

"You can go to Xena. You don't have to prove anything to her. She knows who you are."

"Yeah. The guy who couldn't even hang on to what little he had."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous. I'm being realistic. I mean, look at me, Gabrielle." He spread his arms wide. "Look at me. I'm no real warrior. I never have been. No matter how hard I've tried..."

"Joxer..." Gabrielle got up, and as she rose he backed away.

"Nobody like Xena is going to stand for somebody like me following her around. I lost my sword, Gabrielle. Even worse, I gave it up. No real warrior would do something like that--and no real warrior like Xena would ever respect anybody who did."

"Joxer, Xena's your friend."

"She's my leader," he said, "and I shamed her." He turned and walked to the main door.

"Gods, Joxer," Gabrielle said, "nobody is ashamed of you."

Joxer paused, his hand on the door. "I am," he said softly, "and I guess that's enough." He slipped silently out into the hall before Gabrielle could protest further, and was gone.

-----

Joxer was running. He was walking, but he knew he was running. Running from Xena, running from Gabrielle, running from his own mind and heart and soul that wouldn't listen to him but kept going their own way, and dragging him along behind, and laughing. He was running, and he couldn't even be ashamed that he was running. There was far too much shame in him already.

He went, not for the garden, but straight back to Nebula's apartments. He didn't know why. He needed the lights and pleasantries and easygoing laughter, but Nebula had said she was going to turn in and he shouldn't go back and disturb her, but he headed back anyway. The Guard did not even bother to acknowledge him walking up to her door. He was so beneath their notice he could come and go to the Queen's apartments as he pleased, even when she was probably sleeping and he shouldn't knock on her door, but he did. He waited, not expecting anything to happen, wondering where he would run to next.

And the door opened.

Nebula took one look at his face, stepped aside, and allowed him to enter. She shut the door and latched it behind him, while Joxer tried to think of something to say and realized he didn't have the faintest idea. What was he gonna tell her? He was running away like a coward and came to hide here? What would she--Nebula turned to him, her expression odd. "Nebula--" he started to say.

"It's about fucking time," she said, and grabbed him and kissed him, hard. Before he had fully realized what was happening her body was pressed against his, her tongue sliding deep into his mouth, and he was instinctively pulling her closer against him, into him. Nebula broke off the kiss but continued to cling to him, and her eyes were drawing him in. "I thought you'd never come around."

Joxer started to speak again. This wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't--

No. He felt the surge of power in his hips and cock, sheer desire unadulterated by thought or shame or fear. He returned Nebula's kiss, aggressively invading her mouth, and she groaned deep in her throat. "Yesss," she sighed as he released her. "Yes, that's it. You come to ol' Nebula, and she'll make you feel good. Believe it." Her hands were already sliding down his belly, her mouth following. "You just forget about everything else for a while, you hear?"

Joxer tangled his hands in her hair, allowing himself to moan, not to hold back, not to have second thoughts. He'd been wrong. This was what he wanted.

Not to have to think.

-----

When Gabrielle awoke the next morning, Joxer still hadn't returned.

She knew because she pulled back the curtain and checked his bed, and not only was he not in it but it hadn't been slept in at all. Joxer tended to sprawl all over the place when he slept, leading to half-asleep late-night arguments over fur possession and personal space when they camped outside, but the multi-colored blankets on the bed were still carefully layered in a neat pile. She still held out some hope that perhaps he had for some strange Joxer-reason gotten up early and decided to make the bed before he left, but this was grasping at straws and she knew it. She let the curtain fall and heard Xena enter the room behind her.

"Joxer, uh, left early," she said, not quite turning around.

"I see," Xena said and that was all. She walked to the sideboard, carrying Eve on her hip. "The servants have been here. Shall we eat in the garden this morning?"

"I'm not hungry."

"I see," Xena said again. Holding Eve in one arm, she lifted a platter in the other. "Come and sit outside a while in any case. It's a nice morning."

It was. Xena placed the platter on a stone table and sat at one of the stone benches beside it, the whole expertly crafted to look as if it was a natural outcropping of the rock and sand. The fountain was large and clear, and even had a small pool formed at its base where colorful fish could occasionally be seen to dart near the surface and away again. Gabrielle privately thought that their garden was the finest in the palace, save only for the huge maze-like hanging garden at the very center of the complex, and Nebula's private garden, which had a genuine waterfall and a pool big enough to swim in. She meditated in the garden, and often just being in it was enough to put her mind at ease. Not this morning, though.

Xena checked the contents of a bowl. "Farmers' cheese," she said, surprised. "Fresh. You sure you're not hungry?"

"No, I'm fine." Gabrielle turned away from the garden view so that she could see into the cool dim recesses of the apartments, and think. Once she was ready to allow herself to think.

"Mwahh," said Eve. "Mwahh," she said again, more demanding, and Gabrielle looked around to see the baby holding a fig at arms' length, waving it at her. "Mwaah."

"She wants you to eat," Xena said.

Gabrielle forced a smile, and took the fig from Eve's hand. "Okay. I'll eat this one because you gave it to me, all right?"

"Mwah." Eve looked satisfied, and watched until Gabrielle actually put the fig in her mouth and started chewing. She loved Sumerian figs. They had an odd, rich flavor no others seemed to have. This one was like parchment in her mouth.

Xena looked out over the garden, cuddled Eve and cooed baby-talk to her, exclaimed with her daughter over the bright bird-sized butterflies flitting around the flowering vines. "Do you want to talk about it?" she said without looking at Gabrielle.

"Not right now."

"Let me know." She reached over and squeezed Gabrielle's hand. Gabrielle smiled in gratitude, and forced down another fig. A warrior had to keep her strength up, Xena always said.

A warrior. Yeah.