There's spoilers to the season finale, Friend in Need II. 

General disclaimer: No, they're not mine. I take better care of 'm than the original owners though, so I don't think Xe and Gab mind me stealing 'm? 

Subtext: It's not really sub? Call it maintext if you like... I figured they deserved it...

Violence: This story is all about heads. Severed heads. It features Xena, but she's only a means to the goal, which is to slice of heads. It has enemy soldiers, but they're only there to have their heads sliced off. There will be blood splurging from headless frames, there will be bloodstained eyes rolling out of their sockets, there will be brains dripping from cracked skulls? So I think I have to go with yes, this story has violence? 

I thought long and hard about a correct title for this piece of Fan Fiction, and after much consideration I've decided to affectionately call this story? Heads.

"I'm gonna die!"
Gabrielle sighed, dipping a rag in a piece of water and then continuing to wipe some blood off a cut in the warrior's upper left arm. "Xena, don't get so overdramatic. It's just a scratch for crying out loud?"
"No, no? I'm really gonna die! Look!" Xena shoved the script she'd been reading into the bard's face. "Second line off the top?"
Gabrielle took the script from the warrior's hands and distanced it from her eyes a little so she could read. "Xena engages samurai warriors. She fights samurais ferociously, but in the end Xena?" Gabrielle blinked, staring in disbelief at the word that followed. "Oh my gods?"
"God?" Xena corrected. 
"Oh right, sorry?" Green eyes lifted and met blue. "You're gonna die?"
"That's what I said."
"I know, I just?" Gabrielle shook her head, staring ahead of her blankly. "I can't believe it?"
Xena exhaled gravely, leaning back against a rock. "Me neither?"
The bard glanced back at the pages before her, flipping a few and skimming through them. "Oh crap? Xena they're gonna cut your head off!"
"What?!" The warrior jumped to her feet, goggling at the bard. "They're doing what?!"
"Here?" The bard pointed to a line of text. "Xena's head is cut off as a trophy and her body is then?" Gabrielle stopped and swallowed, briefly closing her eyes. "This is horrible? How can they do a thing like this?"
"They're cutting off my head?" Xena muttered, pacing back and forth in front of the bard. "I'm quite attached to my head?"
"I'm quite attached to your head too?" Gabrielle muttered, then corrected herself. "Well, not in the literal sense of the word, but? well you know?"
"I know?" Xena nodded, turning and taking a few strides back to the left, then she stopped and looked at Gabrielle. "You think I'm coming back this time?"
The bard looked back up at her, then hastily leafed to the last page of the script, staring at the final lines. "Gabrielle: "A life of journeying has brought you to the farthest lands, to the very edges of the Earth." Ghost of Xena: "And to the place where I'll always remain: your heart" "

Gabrielle looked up at the warrior, who looked back down at her. Then they simultaneously rolled their eyes. "Ugh, that's so soggy?" Xena shook her head in disgust. "If they're so intent on writing a love story, why don't they just let us kiss, huh?"
Gabrielle shrugged. "Hades if I know?" 
"Hell." Xena corrected.
"Right?" A short pause. "But this ghost part sorta means you're gonna stay dead, doesn't it?"
"I guess so?" Xena's shoulders slumped. "But you can still see me?"
Gabrielle checked her papers. "Uhm.. Yeah? Hey, I can even touch you?"
A grin slowly crossed the warrior's features. "I'm liking this a lot better already?"
"But you can't touch anything else? You can't even hold your chakram, or your sword?"
Xena's eyes widened. "You saying I can't hold on to any more weapons?"
Gabrielle nodded. 
"Not even my chakram?"
A shake of the blond head. 
"You saying that when I'm dead, I can't kill nobody?"
"I don't think you can?" Gabrielle confirmed.
"Holy mother of Eli?" The warrior muttered, in complete shock. "That's? That's horrible?" 
"I know?" Gabrielle balled her hand into a fist and pounded it on the rock beside her. "This makes me so mad? How can they just do this to you? They get you back from the dead like, what? Three times already? And now they're just gonna leave you dead? Worse even, they're gonna make ME leave you dead?" The bard's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "This is really pissing me off, Xena?"
"Me too?" The warrior princess crossed her arms. There was a moment of silence. "You know what I feel like doing?"
Gabrielle cocked her head at the warrior. "Cutting of some heads?"
"Yeah."
"Me too." Gabrielle agreed, pushing herself to her feet. "Come on. Let's find some army and trash it."


Gabrielle peeked through some bushes, watching as soldiers bustled through their small camp, walked in and out of their tents or stood chatting by the fire. 
"You know, that's what I like about this world?" Xena commented behind her, drawing her sword and judging the edges of the metal. "There's always an enemy army around when you need one?"
Gabrielle chuckled ruefully. "Yeah, I noticed that too? I guess armies are like hydras? Ya sack one and two more pop up?"
"Don't you just love it?" Xena grinned as she twirled her sword around for a bit. "You ready?"
Gabrielle pulled her sais from her boots, then nodded. 
"Great." 
"Are we gonna sneak?" Gabrielle fell silent as Xena jumped up, pulling herself into a flip and hopping over the bushes they were hiding behind, letting out her battlecry. "Guess not?" She muttered, then broke through the leaves herself, running after the warrior. "Hey, leave some for me!"

Xena chuckled wickedly as she spotted the soldiers nearest to her, looking up at the sudden roar of battle. Their eyes widened as they spotted her racing closer, then they hastily started fumbling for swords and other weaponry. But they were too late. Xena simply lifted her sword and raced past them without even looking, tightening her grip as the metal passed through flesh and spines. Several thuds sounded as heads fell to the ground one by one. Xena glanced back for a moment as the first of the now headless frames finally lost its balance and dropped sideways, hitting another body, which hit another, the corpses caving in like a row of domino stones. Xena grinned widely. "Gosh, I love being alive? C'mon Gabrielle!!" 
"Don't run so fast!" Gabrielle called back, trying to catch up to the warrior. "If you decapitate 'm all before I get there I'm going to be very, very mad. You hear that, warrior princess?!"
"Yeah yeah? I'll save you some?" Was the casual reply, before Xena reached the edge of the camp, where soldiers that had managed to arm themselves now stood facing her, gripping on to the hilts of their swords tightly. "Hello boys." Xena greeted them cheerfully, then chuckled as they charged at her with a roar. "So willing to die? Wonderful?" She flexed her grip on her sword, then lunged out, neatly severing the head of the first man that got near her, elbowing the next in the neck and gutting the third one. 

Meanwhile Gabrielle had caught up to the warrior, taking up her spot beside Xena. "Had to rush off again, didn't you?" She muttered, easily disarming the first soldier and smacking the hilts of her sais against his head, one against each temple. 
"Hey, I have three days or so left to live? no time for loitering?" Xena explained to her, swatting at a loose head with her sword, hitting the skull at full speed and sending it flying with a wide arch into the centre of the camp, landing on top of one of the largest tent in the camp. It hit the supporting beam in the centre and the pole fell over with the sound of tearing fabric, the tent caving in. 
"Nice shot?" Gabrielle complimented her.
"Thank you." Xena gave her a smile, then closed in on her next victim, lifting her sword overhead and then bringing it down with as much force as she could muster, splitting her next attacker neatly into two equal halves. She spared a glance for the remains at her feet. "Hey, he had nutbread for lunch."
"Oeh?" Gabrielle's eyes glinted as she parried a blow to her side. "Do you think they still have some left?"
"We'll go look when they're all dead, OK?"
"Sure." Gabrielle agreed enthusiastically. She blocked another strike by the soldier, twisting her sais and taking his sword from him. The metal balanced on the bard's sais, then she tossed it at her attacker, the weapon flying forward and forcing its way into his neck, passing straight through his neck vertebrae. The soldier, gasped for air, blinking in startlement as blood starting spraying out of his neck liberally. He looked up in disbelief, just in time to see Gabrielle jump up and aim a roundhouse kick towards the protruding swordhilt. The bard hit the hilt with deafening force, the metal twisting around and neatly severing the soldier's head from his body. 
"Xena!" Gabrielle called out, then ducked as the warrior slammed her sword against the skull of her victim, smashing it against another tent in the camp's centre. Gabrielle chuckled. "This is better than that exploding stuff we had in Chin." 
"I know? that stuff was boring, wasn't it?"
"Yeah." Gabrielle confirmed, ducking and pulling a dagger out of her boot, then launching it at an attacker that was sneaking in on Xena's right. "Dead one on your right."
"Thanks." Xena nodded, swinging her sword around and severing the guys head before he could fall. Then she pulled herself into a flip, hopping over the soldiers and landing in the middle. She lashed out her sword, keeping it at neck height and then started spinning around with incredible speed. Heads flew left and right, blood spraying around the warrior like water out of a fountain. Xena took a deep breath of the gorestained air. "Ahhh, this is better than those little anti-stressballs with the sand in 'm, you know?"

The commander of the army, a tall, darkhaired, bulky man, stared at the spectacle in utter shock. "I can't believe this?" He managed breathlessly. "Those two women are?" He blinked, then fell to his knees, facing up to the sky. He hastily made the sign of the cross, tapping his fore head, heart and two shoulders in succession. "In the name of the father, son and the holy ghost?"
"You dare mention ghosts to me?!" Xena yelled furiously, unhooking her chakram and sending it flying towards the commander. The metal ring sliced through his neck, then bounced of a metal pole and slid two more throats on the way back, before Xena caught it again. "That'd teach him? Jerk?" 

"She's crazy!" The voice of one of the still living soldiers screamed. Agreeing yells echoed across the field as more and more soldiers turned and bolted.
"Hey, where's everybody going?" Gabrielle wondered out loud as she watched her former assailants take off. 
"You think we should go after 'm? They still have heads?" Xena stepped up beside the bard, resheathing her sword and gazing after the yelling soldiers. 
Gabrielle laid a hand against the warrior's back. "Lets give 'm a head start, OK?"
"Head start?" Xena laughed softly. "Great pun, Gab." 
Gabrielle grinned. "Well, I am a bard, you know?"
The warrior chuckled good naturedly, wrapping an arm around the bard's shoulders and pulling her closer. 
The bard shut her eyes, leaning her head against the warrior's shoulder. "You know, Xena, I'm gonna miss this quality time together."
"Yeah, me too?" Xena shook her head sadly. "I wish there was a way around this?"
"Me too?" Gabrielle sighed gravely, then she stilled, the blond head turning and glancing up at the warrior. "Hey Xena?"
"Yeah?"
"What if we just use your stuntdouble?"
"Stuntdouble?" The warrior glanced down at the bard
"Yeah, you know, that woman who doesn't look one bit like you but does the flips when you're tired?"
"Oh right?" Xena nodded in understanding. "You think we can pull that off?"
"Sure!" Gabrielle nodded enthusiastically. "We just don't won't tell her about the script. You can just ask her to take over for a moment while you rest from battling those samurai warriors and then you can slip away and meet me on the boat headed for Egypt and we can sail off into the sunset together? I mean, those souls that need salvation won't know the difference, right? They haven't seen you in years?"
"Right!" Xena nodded in complete understanding. "And we'll just do the soggy ending and I'll pretend I'm dead, but I won't be dead at all!"
"Exactly." Gabrielle beamed a bright smile at the warrior. 
"Sweetheart, you're brilliant." Xena informed the bard, wrapping both arms around her and pulling her into a tight embrace, kissing her soundly. 
Gabrielle grinned widely as she pulled back. "Hmm, I should save your life more often?"
Xena chuckled, squeezing the bard's shoulders, then letting out a high pitched whistle. Argo II soon exited their forresty surroundings and came trotting towards them. "C'mon. Let's go and set this plan into action."
"Great." The bard watched Xena pull herself up onto Argo's back, then waited for the warrior to extend a hand down to her. Xena did so and she was hauled up behind her friend. Xena clacked her tongue and nudged the mare forward with a soft tap of her heels. 
Gabrielle glanced about her as they moved off, taking in the rows and rows of mostly headless corpses lying about. "You know, now that you're not going to die, this whole slaughtering thing seems a bit pointless..."
Xena shrugged. "We had fun, right?"
Gabrielle drummed her fingers on the warrior's stumach in thought for a moment, then nodded against the leatherclad back. "Good point." She agreed as Argo sped up into a canter, heading east. 

The End