Rating: I'd guess it's about a PG-13, but I'll give it an R just in case my idea of what is acceptable content is less than others. This is aimed for adult readers. There is light subtext, so if alternative content isn't your thing, well who are we kidding everyone is interested in lesbians in some form or another. We're very interesting. If it gets your panties in a wad, too bad, freedom means you can choose not to read it. Exercise your freedom quietly.

Timeline: Starts from the day they met, but focuses on the time between episode 2 (Chariots of War) and 3 (Dreamworker). This story assumes there had to have been several weeks in between the episodes for them to develop a relationship so that Xena would feel strong enough about Gabrielle to enter a dreamscape to save her soul. I felt this sudden deep friendship needed some explanation, so of course I let the muse have full creative license. Whether my first attempt at writing fan fiction works for you or not, feel free to let me know at chil785@aol.com

Prologue - She Arrives

She came into my life as an avenging angel, just like in my dreams. She saved my sister and I and the other townspeople from death or at least slavery. How my father treated her was shameful, but probably understandable. Xena was after all the most feared Warlord in Greece. However, it was a mystery to me as to why. Couldn't they see that she was obviously just a lost soul needing a friend? It was so obviously written right there in those incredibly pretty blue eyes.

Of course I guess I shouldn't get so angry with my father, it's not like he had dreams of this woman coming into his life and changing it forever into an adventure like I had been having. For months before Xena arrived I had been having these strange dreams of myself with a dark haired woman in a place that looked foreign in my mind. I could never see the woman's face, just her back, but she was tall and carried a sword on her back. She was wearing blue silk and the place we were at looked like a desert. In the dream my hands seemed to have drawings on them. The dream changed on occasion with different images, like the dark haired woman, who is wearing Greek warrior garb, building a fire or walking alongside a yellow horse. I guess I just felt from these dreams that I was traveling with this dark haired warrior woman.

So when Xena showed up and saved us, it was perfectly obvious to me that I was destined to travel with her and be her friend. Getting her to accept that though was an entirely different matter. How exactly do you convince a warlord that they need a puny traveling bard with no survival skills at all following them around on their path to redemption? Ha - I have no idea how. But I must try before she leaves and I never see her again?.

Part 1 - A Plan

Father sent Xena away this afternoon. She had barely gotten dressed before the whole town made their fear of Xena known. While she was dressing I managed to get enough of her story out of her to understand that she was no longer a warlord, was going to try to redeem herself, and was just on her way home to Amphipolis when she saved us. I tried to get her to take me with her to no avail. Apparently the idea of traveling with a chatty 17 year old wasn't very appealing.

I followed her to Amphipolis and helped divert the townspeople from stoning her. Then she went back and kicked that warlord Draco's butt. She is magnificent, I think I am supposed to follow her and write the stories of the good deeds she does. What great stories they are going to make! This amazing woman seems so totally ruthless when she is fighting, yet she has a deep core of caring as well as pain inside as I witnessed at her brothers tomb. I know we are destined to be friends.

She left Amphipolis without me this afternoon saying I wasn't to follow her and get on the next merchant wagon back to Poteidaia. To Xena's retreating form Gabrielle grumbled under her breath "not on your life warrior, I had dreams, I'm SUPPOSED to be with you, even if you don't know it yet." So Gabrielle took off following the tracks left by Xena's horse Argo.

Part 2 - The First Night

"I can't believe she just left me." Gabrielle goes around some horse dung.

"Just how far is she going to go before she stops?" Gabrielle looks at the setting sun.

"Why didn't I think to bring more food with me." Gabrielle's stomach cries.

Up ahead Gabrielle sees the flickering of a small fire against the dark blue and gray sky. She stops about 20 horse lengths away, figuring Xena won't notice her there. Gabrielle still hasn't figured out how to tell Xena that she needs to let her be part of her traveling team.

"Well, I guess I'll try to get some rest and figure out what to say to Xena." Gabrielle lays out her extra skirt as a blanket. "Wish I knew how to start a fire. Wish I had brought some food. Wish I had a blanket." Gabrielle keeps muttering to herself.

Xena knew the kid was following her. She couldn't figure out for the life of her why, but she decided to just watch and see how long it took before the kid got scared and ran home. She was finding it amusing to listen to the girl muttering to herself. She was obviously ill prepared to rough it outside. Sure enough, about a candlemark later the girl crept into Xena's camp, actually startling Xena who had been thinking rather hard about why the girl had defended her in Amphipolis. Xena put her sword down and sat back down as the girl came into camp.

"You know I'm going to send you back home in the morning." Xena said.

"I won't stay there. I don't belong there Xena, they don't understand me, I've never belonged there. You won't understand." Gabrielle said defeated.

"I know it's hard to get people to accept that you've changed." Xena smiled in understanding.

Xena looked at the hopeful face of this young village girl, thinking she should have stopped hours ago and sent her back to her mother's tavern for the night. The very pretty green eyes of Gabrielle cut into her soul, and Xena caved in with a roll of her eyes and grabbed the ground fur she usually slept on and tossed it to Gabrielle.

"We can lay this blanket over there." Xena pointed at the other side of the fire and continued to poke at the fire.

"What will you sleep on then?" Gabrielle inquired as she laid the fur out.

Xena looked up with a smirk "On my fur you are laying out of course. If you are lucky there might be a piece left for you to lay on too."

"Oh" Gabrielle blushed at her misunderstanding, realizing she needed to keep firmly in mind that this woman, while seeming pretty nice most of the time was still only a few days out from being probably the most feared warlord in Greece.

"Don't worry, I won't take advantage of you." Xena paused, then added for good scare measure "Tonight anyway."

Gabrielle gulped, not having considered that Xena might consider her as perhaps a slave or bed warmer instead of Gabrielle's little fantasy of being Xena's partner and friend.

"I'll jjust ggo get my pack." Gabrielle stammered.

"No, we'll pick it up tomorrow on our way back to town." Xena tossed Gabrielle one of Argo's old wipe down blankets to use to cover up.

They lay down on the fur for the night. Gabrielle wrapped herself up in the old threadbare blanket tightly and laid on the very edge of the fur near the fireside, thankful that tonight was fairly warm.

Xena lay down, placing her sword and chakram next to her for easy grabbing.

"Listen kid, I often have nightmares as you can imagine. So if I do, don't for any reason touch me ok? You might lose an arm or have your neck broken before I realize who you are." Xena explained.

"Ok" Gabrielle gulped, thinking 'sheep dung, how am I supposed to sleep now?' But she fell asleep very quickly because she had walked quite a few miles that day and had not even slept the night before when she left home late at night. She also had not had much to eat, having eaten all the food she brought from home the first day, and today her second day away from home she was trying to make her meager supplies last awhile.

Xena slept through the night for once without any nightmares and was up before the sun came up as usual for her. She looked over at the kid that insisted she needed to travel with Xena. 'Gods she's young. She must be daft to want to travel with me. What am I supposed to do with a kid traveling around after me? Nope, she has to go home. I'll drop her off at the next town. No point in going back half a day to Amphipolis.'

That decided, Xena took care of her morning needs, washed up a bit at the stream, put water on for her morning tea and did a few exercises to get limbered up for the day. The kid still slept on.

"Hey kid, come on, get up." Xena poked her with her toe.

Nothing.

"HEY!" Xena gave her a pretty good nudge in the ribs.

"Agh, what Lila, I'm getting up, just a few more minutes" Gabrielle croaked out.

"Now kid, I'm leaving when that sun rises, with or without you." Xena threatened.

Gabrielle, getting her bearings and realizing where she was, leaped up. "I'm up, I'm ready to go." She wiped the sleep out of her eyes. "Is there any water?"

Xena pointed to the north "just through there is a small stream."

"Ok, I'll be ready to go in just a few moments ok? You won't leave without me right?"

"No I'll wait if you hurry." Xena began rolling up the blankets and furs and the rest of the camp, not offering Gabrielle any tea or food, figuring the kid had her own supplies that they were going to pick up.

They took off and picked up Gabrielle's small pack of which contained her journal, a change of clothes, a couple pieces of fruit, a scroll, inkwell, feather and a few dinars. They traveled the rest of the day in mostly silence.

In the early part of the day Gabrielle had tried to get Xena to talk, but it quickly became obvious the former warlord liked solitude. So Gabrielle spent most of the day trying to figure out how this traveling together would work. Since she didn't want to be Xena's slave, and she didn't know the first thing about being a bed warmer, she figured it would have to be something she knew how to do like cooking and cleaning. She also hoped she could get Xena to stop at the towns they came across so she could tell stories in the taverns for tips like she did in Poteidaia on special occasions.

In the late afternoon of their first day together Xena asked her why she wanted to travel with an ex-warlord who was most likely going into many dangerous situations. Xena had already tried and failed to dump the kid in the last two towns they passed near. She was coming to the conclusion she was simply going to have to either knock the kid out, sneak away in the dark or just accept she had a traveling companion for a bit. Xena was surprised to realize that the idea of the kid along for a bit wasn't so bad. Of course some of her thoughts were rather lecherous since the kid was pretty darned cute, but too damn chatty.

Gabrielle said "because that's what friends do, they stick by each other in tough times."

"Ok, friend" Xena said the word "friend" in a way that was altogether not reassuring to Gabrielle.

Gabrielle was thinking to herself 'The way she says friend sure gives me the idea that she thinks of me as a slave or nuisance more than a friend. It must be because she can't see my value in this partnership.'

"Xena, I was figuring that in our friendship and traveling arrangement I should have tasks too. I'm not much of a fighter yet, and you obviously offer the security portion of this arrangement, and well you start the fires and such. Well I figured I could cook and clean and do your laundry for you. Maybe collect firewood and water and things like that?" Gabrielle turned to look at the tall woman walking beside her.

"Yeah that would be fine kid." Xena acknowledged, but thinking 'I can do all that just fine by myself. So why the hell are you agreeing?' Xena had no answer to herself.

Gabrielle stewed for a few minutes and worked her courage up.."Umm Xena? My name is Gabrielle, and I'd be really pleased if my new friend could use that instead of kid. I'm almost 18 you know, hardly a kid."

Xena smirked 'About time the kid got up a little courage.' "We'll see." Was all Xena said.

'Well I guess that's better than no or get lost kid' Gabrielle thought.

"This afternoon we'll be coming to the only town we'll be seeing for about 2 weeks. Once we start across to the next kingdom. So I want you to get a few things. You can't be traveling around with me without the right equipment." Xena told Gabrielle.

"Ok, what do you suggest I get?" Gabrielle asked, hoping it wasn't too much or too costly since she only had a few dinars to last her until Xena stopped long enough in a town to tell her stories for more tips and dinars.

"Well I'll try to catch a rabbit now and again for our evening meals, but you'll need trail rations for most of the two weeks since there won't be much in the way of grains, greens or fruit along the way. Also obviously a blanket, a water bag, warm socks and under things for the mountain areas, and a warm cape would be helpful." Xena listed the basics of traveling. She didn't go into medical supplies figuring she had enough to deal with that.

Gabrielle thought about the list compared to her dinars which obviously weren't anywhere near enough. She had been saving, but hadn't had time to save enough. It had seemed that every time she had planned to spend the evening at the tavern telling stories the last few moons that her father or mother had other plans for her. So she was basically short funds without any way to replenish them yet. She would have to whittle the list down to the basics.

'Ok, she plans to catch a rabbit in the evening, so I can cut down on the trail rations. I'll need my own water skin though. She hasn't noticed I've just kept that blanket, so I'll just keep using it, although it isn't very warm. Well I'll just wear both my shirts at night. I have a pair of socks and an extra set of underwear already with me. What a really need is a pair of boots like Xena wears instead of these light shoes I have on. That hole in the side is really giving me blisters and is cold. I wish Xena would quit going through every stream and creek we find. Ok, so I need to buy a couple trail rations and a water skin. That should be less than 10 dinars out of my 45 I have. Great!' Gabrielle was really pleased with herself for her conservative manner of travel.

In the town, she excused herself from Xena telling her she would meet her at the blacksmith in 1 candlemark with her new supplies. Xena had said she needed to get an extra couple of shoes for Argo just in case.

Part 3 - Traveling

The next week went along pretty well to Xena. She got to know and really started to like the smiling happy friend she was getting to know. Not that Gabrielle could tell Xena liked her from the face on the very stoic warrior. But on occasion Gabrielle would see a friendly smile, and it made all hardships she was suffering through seem ok for a while.

Gabrielle's wish list was getting pretty long. At the top was food of course, once she realized that Xena meant to get a rabbit about every two or three days, not every day. So Gabrielle was having to really string out her trail rations which were already three quarters gone. She was hungry, and on occasion getting a little shaky. She just kept drinking more and more water to help stop her stomach from rumbling.

Second on her wish list was that she had better clothes to wear like Xena's. It seemed like every single tree root and rock was tripping her up. It was hard to hold her skirts up all day. Which brought her to her number three wish, that Xena would take a break once in a while. She didn't stop for breakfast or lunch but just ate one of her trail bars in the saddle, not really noticing if Gabrielle was keeping up or not.

Gabrielle tried really hard to think of her new adventure as a great way to lose some of her baby fat and get good exercise. But sometimes their traveling regime even overcame her overabundance of good cheer. Her feet hurt. The bleeding blisters had long since become beyond just another mindless ache. They were really becoming the only thing besides her hunger she could focus on. The one near the hole in her shoe was starting to ooze a yellow puss. Gabrielle was starting to become fond of the icy rivers Xena insisted on crossing; it felt good on that foot. The other good thing was that she seemed to have gotten used to the cold the last night or so and was in general pretty warm all the time now. She must be getting used to this weather.

Gabrielle was also constantly worried that Xena would make her go home very soon, so Gabrielle tried to project a sunny face whenever Xena looked her way. Xena was a total mystery to Gabrielle. She was full of contradictions, one minute she was very cool towards her, the next she was giving her a rabbit with a friendly smile. Xena often totally ignored Gabrielle for hours and even days at a time with only a few words here and there, mostly commands.

But Gabrielle is very sure that she is supposed to be with this hard woman. She feels it in her heart and soul, and she has had future visions in her dreams of times when she will be needed and be a friend with this former warlord. So she doesn't question why she is tagging along forcefully behind Xena, but she does question at times if she is going to make it. Times like now, when she is so tired she can't see straight, and her blisters are surely bleeding again and making her a bit nauseous. But she doesn't dare say anything, since the first time she did complain, the warrior told her rather bluntly "then go home Gabrielle, I didn't ask to babysit you." Gabrielle realized then just how much Xena thought of her and her survival skills. Gabrielle made a firm pact with herself to do better and never let Xena think she was a burden to her. So Gabrielle kept things like her oozing infected feet and hunger carefully to herself.

Gabrielle had been thinking for several days now on how she could make herself a more valuable part of this team. Just tagging along writing stories to hopefully sell and share, cooking and cleaning if Xena allowed it, and telling stories to Xena obviously wasn't cutting it if the warrior's bad mood was any indicator. She had been trying, unsuccessfully, for days to convince Xena that if she would teach Gabrielle how to defend herself and fight, at least Xena would then not have to worry about protecting Gabrielle. Xena's answer never changed?"no".

Xena had no way of knowing that Gabrielle had only a few dinar with her. Gabrielle had been planning on being a traveling bard that summer, starting with her trip to Athens, which was where she had planned on going and making some money telling stories and selling a few scrolls she had written. Unfortunately the trip was cancelled after their group was attacked by the raiders in which Gabrielle had first met Xena. Gabrielle knew she would never get another chance to follow a walking talking story like Xena. She was both a hero and a villain, what a story! Gabrielle also recognized Xena from her dreams as the one who would need her and she knew she had to go, even though she wasn't quite ready.

Part 4 - Warrior Be Aware

The few times that various ruffians had tried to get the drop on the Warrior Princess in their travels so far, Xena had ordered Gabrielle into the woods or behind Argo while she dealt with the heathens. Gabrielle didn't particularly like this situation, but until she could convince Xena to teach her, she knew she had to stay out of sight and quit distracting the Warrior. She had learned she was a distraction when they were helping defend that village from that warlord and had to ride on the chariots. She was also afraid that if she tried to help and got hurt Xena would send her home, just like Xena had threatened on more than one occasion already.

So, three weeks into their new traveling relationship, when the ruffians came out of the woods at them this time and Xena ordered Gabrielle into the woods to hide; Gabrielle's mind was a whirlpool of thoughts on how she could convince Xena to teach her more without pissing her off so bad she sent her home. Gabrielle was thinking so hard on this and watching Xena fight she didn't notice that one of the bandits was hiding in the woods. He came right up behind Gabrielle and grabbed her around the waist and covered her mouth so she couldn't alert the Warrior who was working on deflecting 5 armed men at that moment.

The bandit pulled Gabrielle further into the woods and pushed the wildly squirming bard to the ground, still covering her mouth firmly with his right hand. Face down Gabrielle wasn't able to see what he was doing and couldn't reach him to hit at him. She felt him try to lift her skirt as he was straddling her upper legs. Realizing what he was going to do, she renewed her struggles even wilder than before, kicking her feet back into his buttocks and legs. The man got his knife out and was going to cut Gabrielle's skirt when a particularly vicious kick backwards caught him up between his legs. The kick pushed him forward and off balance, he fell forward, with only his left arm free, the other still covering Gabrielle's mouth, the hand holding the knife slid down Gabrielle's side along her ribcage cutting her pretty deeply along her ribs and toward her left breast. As the man swore and regained his balance, he noticed his comrades yelling a lot more and decided he had better go help out first. So he took the handle of his knife and whacked Gabrielle in the back of the head and then dropped the limp form and took off to help.

Gabrielle came to very quickly after only a few moments, apparently he hadn't hit her very hard although it still hurt. She could still hear fighting going on. She rolled over, quickly grabbing her painful left ribs. She pulled her hands away and realized she was bleeding. Although trembling terribly from her ordeal, her first thought wasn't about how bad she was hurt it was 'Oh no! Xena is going to send me home now, I'm injured.' Gabrielle couldn't see the wound due to the location under her left arm and breast, but saw it was bleeding pretty badly. She got up dizzily and went back to her tree she had been hiding behind and got her bag. She ripped off her blouse and tore it into shreds and wrapped it around her chest to cover the wound. She stuffed another wad of the blouse inside over the wound to stanch the flow. She then wiped the blood off her hands and donned her only other top, hoping Xena wouldn't notice the change. She covered the wound, that was already starting to leak through, with her scroll bag after replacing the bloody pad with another strip from her old top. She had to rip up her nightshirt for rags as well. Putting her backpack on she started forward out of hiding since there were no more sounds of fighting now.

She came out of the woods in time to see Xena wipe her blade on the final victim. It was the would-be rapist. Xena turned, assuming all was ok with Gabrielle and said "Come on, let's get out of here, these guys stink."

Gabrielle, feeling dizzy and nauseous, followed along on Argo's left side, trying to keep the wound a secret. Soon she could feel the blood starting to seep through again and excused herself to a nature call. Stepping into the woods behind some trees, Gabrielle again replaces the bloody pad, adding them to her growing pile in her scroll bag. She noticed that at least the blood seemed to be slowing down a little. She feels sick though. Drinking some water helped for a bit.

Thankfully Xena decided to camp a bit early that evening, saying there was a relatively nice camping spot up ahead, and that the stretch tomorrow would be quite a ways before another good camping spot would be available. Gabrielle worked real hard to hide her wound from Xena, and not let her nausea show. She was hoping they would make it to a small town in the next day or two and she could quietly see the healer, with Xena not knowing about it. Xena didn't seem to notice that Gabrielle, who was always starving, hardly ate any of the rabbit she had caught and that she went to bed rather early.

The blood loss and knot on Gabrielle's head were making her sick, so she went to bed early. She noticed that she felt even warmer than usual and hoped her wound wasn't getting infected. But she was just too tired to go clean it, so she lay down with all her clothes on and just wrapped up in her thin blanket and went to sleep.

The next morning Xena was up early as usual and really wanted to get on the road early. She went over to Gabrielle and told her to get up. Xena then went and did her morning drills and got Argo all ready for the days travel. When she got back to camp and noticed Gabrielle was still sleeping she started to get mad. "Damn it Gabrielle, if you want to travel with me you have to learn to get moving in the morning" Xena pushes Gabrielle with the toe of her boot. Getting no response Xena peers down at Gabrielle's face, which is mostly covered in the blanket. She notices Gabrielle looks rather flushed and sweaty.

A little worried Gabrielle is sick, Xena kneels down and shakes her "Gabrielle, hey, wake up, are you all right?"

Getting no answer, Xena pulls the blanket down completely off Gabrielle's face. Feeling her hot cheek, Xena shakes Gabrielle again "hey, wake up" and notices Gabrielle's head just rolls back and forth. Lifting her eyelid, she sees her eyes rolled back in her head. Xena, now totally worried, unwinds Gabrielle's blanket thinking maybe she had been bitten by a snake or something since she is obviously unconscious.

Xena sees the blood on Gabrielle's left side. Using her boot knife she cuts the blouse off and then the bandage wrapped around under her ribs and immediately smells the infection. Looking at the obviously bad and infected cut, Xena's eyes mist up, realizing Gabrielle didn't trust her enough to tell her she was hurt. Xena wonders when she got hurt. "Well, no time to worry about that, first we need to get this cleaned up before you get any sicker."

Xena heats some water and cleans the cut out carefully and stitches it up. She puts some healing powder on it and covers it with a clean bandage from her supplies. She also makes up a fever tea and forces it down Gabrielle's throat with difficulty.

Xena realizes Gabrielle was sleeping in her clothes and decides she better check her over for any other injuries. Being a trained healer, she starts at Gabrielle's head and quickly finds the lump back there from the knife handle. It is not bad, so she continues on down, removing the rest of Gabrielle's clothing as she goes and washing her up a little. Finding Gabrielle's hands and knees scraped up too, Xena concludes that the last bandit that came out of nowhere must have been accosting Gabrielle in the woods since that is the only time Gabrielle had been alone for any length of time.

"Oh, Gods, did he rape her?" Xena suddenly wonders in terror. She quickly decides that she will have to check Gabrielle out very thoroughly. She is very thankful the woman is still unconscious for this particular activity.

Xena checks Gabrielle, seeing no signs of trauma. She finds her anus also not traumatized. Satisfied and grateful that Gabrielle had been spared the horror of losing her innocence that way, Xena starts rummaging in Gabrielle's back pack looking for her sleeping shift to dress her in. Finding very little in the pack except a spare set of threadbare under clothes, a journal and a small bag of coins Xena looks around confused. "Where are all her supplies?" Xena asks out loud. She spies the scroll bag and opens that. Inside all she finds are the bloody remnants of Gabrielle's sleep shift and blue blouse. There are no other supplies or outfits.

Xena sits back on the edge of Gabrielle's blanket just looking at everything. She starts to really let it sink in what she is seeing. She sees very little. No extra warm clothes, no food, no heavy socks, no cape, none of the things she had told Gabrielle she had to buy to travel with her. She notices the small money bag and opens it and sees there are only about 30 dinars in there. She looks at Gabrielle's naked form in front of her and sees the ribs starting to stick out from a kid that was covered in baby fat only a couple weeks ago. She realizes that the blisters, one that looks infected, on Gabrielle's feet are because her boots have holes in them and she doesn't appear to have any thick socks, just the thin ones she removed off her feet with the holes in them while she was cleaning her up.

It sinks in now why Gabrielle had been continuously asking her if they could stop at a tavern so she could tell some stories. It wasn't so she could get "experience" like Gabrielle had said, it was to earn dinars and buy some clothing and food to keep traveling with Xena.

Xena goes to Argo's saddlebags and gets out her sleep shift and carefully dresses this small woman who Xena finally admits is becoming very precious to her. This woman who Xena is realizing never complains, always has a smile on her face and takes all the negative crap coming from her without judging her or turning her back on her. Gabrielle keeps following Xena because she wants to, because for some reason this little spit of a woman feels Xena needs a friend. Xena can't help but realize how terrible of a friend she has been and how she hasn't even noticed that her only friend in this world was suffering needlessly just because she had been so self involved in her personal recriminations about her past that she couldn't notice that Gabrielle wasn't dressed warm enough, didn't have enough money and was sleeping with a blanket that wasn't warm enough for Argo in the summer. "Hell this is Argo's blanket." Xena notices. "It's that old wipe down blanket I gave her that first night when I was trying to be mean to her so she would go home."

Xena just sat there rubbing her fingers along Gabrielle's cheek, with tears running down her own cheeks for a long time. Eventually she shook herself out of self-recriminations and realized her self-pity and condemnation wasn't getting Gabrielle healthier or warmer. Xena quickly got up and unloaded Argo, realizing they would have to stay here for a while. She rolled her heavy bearskin ground blanket out and restarted the fire. She then picked Gabrielle up carefully and placed her on the bearskin and covered her up with a couple of her heavier blankets.

Part V - Becoming Friends

Xena had quite a few more crying jags alone in the woods while Gabrielle was getting better for several days. Gabrielle had gotten quite sick with a fever from her infected ribs, although the infected foot cleaned up pretty quick luckily.

Xena was filled with self-disgust at the way she had been treating the young woman. She knew she really liked Gabrielle, hell if she was honest she was really attracted to the feisty young red head. Perhaps that was why she was so cool towards her? Because Xena knew she would never be worthy of the love of such an untainted soul, and it really hurt to know that. So perhaps she was being cool out of a desire to block her feelings? It gave her a lot to think about while she was tending to Gabrielle's wounds and sickness.

When Gabrielle finally was healthy enough to talk, the two women had their first real conversation as friends.

"I'm sorry Xena, I didn't mean to be such a bother." Gabrielle's voice drifted over to Xena who was sitting on a log several nights later staring into the fire.

Xena quickly looked up. "You feeling better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Why didn't you tell me one of the bad guys had gotten to you?" Xena asked sadly.

"I didn't want you to send me home because I couldn't defend myself." Gabrielle answered honestly, confirming Xena's suspicion.

"Gabrielle, I promise I won't send you home. I lo?I like having you around. You are a great cook and you make up really good stories." Xena smiled at Gabrielle.

Gabrielle started to sit up. Xena jumped up and went and helped her sit up. She also gave her some water and a leg of rabbit.

"Gabrielle, we need to talk." Xena sat on the edge of the bear fur Gabrielle was sitting on.

"Ok" Gabrielle agreed tentatively, munching on the burnt rabbit.

"I looked through your packs while you've been sick." Xena admitted.

Gabrielle quit eating suddenly feeling sick, she cast her head down and her shoulders slumped. 'She's going to send me home now, no matter what she said, because she knows I'm not able to take care of myself properly.'

"Why didn't you tell me you needed to stop at taverns to earn money, instead of telling me it was just for experience? I wasn't stopping because?well because I hate crowds and because I'm still so hated that I was afraid you might be a target, so I've been deliberately avoiding most towns." Xena admitted.

"You don't have any of the supplies I told you to get because you only have a few dinars right?" Xena probed.

"Well I got as much as I felt was absolutely essential." Gabrielle defended herself weakly. "I mean I didn't realize we were going into colder mountain areas or I would have bought at least a heavier blanket. You said you would get a rabbit each night so I thought I could afford to cut back on the trail rations which I wasn't really sure what they were anyway until after we had left town and I saw you eating those bar things. I couldn't afford new boots yet until I sell a few stories. I couldn't sell any stories until I told a few at taverns for tips enough to buy enough parchment and ink to put them on." Gabrielle trailed off and looked up at Xena, her light green eyes hitting Xena's soul.

Clearing her throat Gabrielle dove back in "I'm sorry Xena, I wanted to be ready for when you came. I was on my way to Athens when we met actually and I was going to make some money there. But well you did come and I was afraid I'd never have another chance to follow you, so I had to just come with the few dinars I had saved."

"You know, it's funny in a way. Here you are starving and freezing over being short a few dozen dinars, when I have so many dinars available to me that we could never spend them all in a lifetime. I have stashes of millions of dinars, and gems, gold, silver all over Greece from my warlord times. I couldn't carry it all with me, so I buried it all over the damn place. I just never think about money, because I don't really need it. I just don't like to use that money because it is blood money in many cases. I was planning on using it to help the people we meet along the way though." Xena confessed.

Gabrielle's eyes were very large "Millions of dinars?" she squeaked.

"Yes, millions" Xena said with an embarrassed flush.

"Gabrielle, we are heading to the next town tomorrow. We are going to stay there until you are all better and fattened back up to where you were when we met." Xena held up here hand to stop Gabrielle's obvious concern.

"We will be doing this Gabrielle. You are my friend, even though I haven't said it to you. I'm very glad you are traveling with me, even though I don't know why, but I'm grateful to have a friend. I want you to have good clothes and boots and decent warm blankets to sleep on instead of Argo's wipe down blanket." Xena wiped her eyes that were filling with tears.

Gabrielle scooted closer and wrapped her arms around Xena's shoulders and laid her head on her chest. After a couple seconds, Xena wrapped one arm around Gabrielle and continued.

"So first thing when we get to the next town, you are going shopping, no complaints. On me and you will get yourself enough food to survive and you will get some new clothes since one outfit is pretty bloody and the other is in shreds. Gabrielle, if you ever need money again..wait, I know you want to earn your own way and I'll make sure we stop in enough towns so you can, but until then I want you to know that in the saddle horn of Argo's saddle I always keep 10 gold dinars for emergencies ok? You use them as you see fit to keep us going in supplies, that can be your job too ok, shopping." Xena smiled at Gabrielle as she pulled out of their embrace.

Gabrielle leaned back and looked into Xena's blue eyes "You have 10 gold dinars? Gold dinars are worth 10 silver dinars or 100 tin dinars! You have a thousand dinars in your saddle horn Xena?!" Gabrielle was totally amazed that anyone had so many dinars and yet lived as basically a homeless person.

Xena smiled one of her rare full smiles at Gabrielle. "Yeah, and I want you to use at least one of those gold dinars tomorrow ok?"

Epilogue

I had a great time spending a hundred dinars! I have two new outfits, new boots, blankets, parchment and ink, and all the food I can eat and carry. We even stayed in a nice tavern and had a nice meal, and I had my first port. I didn't like it very well, so Xena ordered me a cider instead and drank the port herself.

I'm really enjoying it when we sleep in taverns now. I get to sleep in the same bed with Xena. She makes me feel really safe. Although I am starting to feel something else every time we sleep so close which I'm trying to figure out what it is. It feels like butterflies in my stomach when Xena lies down by me every night. It would take many weeks for Gabrielle to figure out exactly what those butterflies were though. She made the first real connection about it when they met up with the Amazons several weeks later.

After several more days of Xena "fattening Gabrielle back up", we settled into a good traveling team and started to become really good friends. Xena even lets me babble on for hours working out my stories. My feet don't hurt anymore either. If I get tired, Xena notices now and lets me ride up on Argo with her, or she slows down or we even stop early for the night sometimes.

A couple weeks later we made it to a town in which there were no women visible, and I was kidnapped by a crazy priest of Morpheus and Xena had to find me in a dreamscape and rescue me. But that's a story for another day.

The End, by Gabrielle a Traveling Bard.