Legal Disclaimer: All characters and backstory belong to the people over at MCA/Universal, bless their brilliant hearts. I am very jealous. I wish I could think up those kinds of stories. :-)

Author's Note: This story takes place in between the Hercules episodes The Gauntlet and Unchained Heart. If you haven't seen The Gauntlet, you will probably be pretty confused, and will get some spoilers.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my newfound friend Karey (Blind Faith) for her support and feedback, and to my beta reader P. D. Wonder. Couldn't have done it without ya!

E-mail: JulianaDO@aol.com

     After the endless night, light had finally begun to spill over the horizon and brighten the small village of Parthus. The sun rose higher and higher into the sky, until it was at the peak of its journey.

     An elderly woman, bathed in sunlight, was struggling to carry her bags loaded with all her most valued possessions back into her home, when she felt strong hands take away her burden, accompanied by a warm voice behind her saying, "Here, let me help you with that." She turned around, and smiled delightedly.

     "Why, Hercules! What a gentleman you are." She beamed up at him. "I can't tell you how grateful we are to you for saving us from that dreadful woman's army." Her voice took on a more serious note. "Parthus is in your debt."

     Hercules winced at the reference towards Xena. "Ah, I believe you mean that dreadful man's army? Darphus was in command at the time," the large man corrected, uncomfortably. "And it was nothing, really."

     He was aware that the woman had resumed the rather one-sided conversation, and was chattering away at him cheerfully, but he only half- listened, having been suddenly reminded of something. Reminded of someone, actually. Someone whom he hadn't seen since she helped him remove the carnage of the battle with Darphus from the little village so that the people could begin to move back into their homes just after dawn, a process which was just now in its final stages. Of course, judging by the way the people felt about her, it would have been quite surprising if she had stayed in the village once its occupants returned Still, the more the hero thought about it, the guiltier he felt for not having even checked in on her for the entire morning.

     The entire morning? He laughed at himself inwardly. How had he gone so suddenly from hating this woman with a passion to being reluctant to be away from her for such a short period of time? But the last time he saw her, there had just been something so... vulnerable... about her that he had been reluctant to have her too far out of his sight. It was an impression which he had no real grounds for, though, so he was trying to push it to the farthest corner of his mind.

     He forced himself back into reality; back to the woman's prattling. "Well, Hercules, it was a pleasure, it really was, and the next time you're in the area, you know where to come," she concluded, smiling up at the tall man. Since she didn't really seem to expect an answer, he just smiled and nodded at her, mumbled something unintelligible, and went on his way.

     Hercules left the town and entered the woods on its northern border. His trail would seem haphazard, but he was really following the small, subtle trail markers left for him, so that he would know where to find his new companion once he had finished with the villagers.

     When he found her, she was standing casually, leaning against a tree. Her tanned face had a nonchalant expression, but he suspected that she had heard his approach minutes earlier, and was expecting him. She seemed quite tense, but that was no surprise. The two looked at each other for an uncomfortable minute, until Hercules broke the silence. "Have you seen Salmoneus, by any chance?"

     Startlingly blue eyes looked away, relieved to have something to talk about. "Yeah. He, um, sort of blundered through the vicinity just at dawn. He's going to meet us at the next village, the one due east of here." The silence settled once again, making the atmosphere possibly even tenser than it had been initially.

     Hercules finally had an idea for a conversation opener. "Hey, did you hear what that guy came up with as an idea for his new get-rich-quick scheme?"

     He had her partial attention, now. A raised eyebrow in the man's direction indicated that the warrior had not yet heard what Salmoneus's new idea was.

     "He calls it 'Celebrity Souvenirs,' " the amused demigod informed her.

     Startled blue eyes looked up suddenly. "What?!"

     The man's eyes danced. " 'Celebrity Souvenirs.' He plans on going around to famous people and getting something from them, like a lock of hair, or piece of fabric from their clothing, and selling the stuff." Feeling a need to keep talking, the man continued. "He's just trying to come up with a better name for them. He doesn't think this one is 'catchy' enough."

     The eyebrow went up again. "And he thinks people would pay for these things?"

     He shook his head incredulously. "Apparently so."

     Now the warrior's voice held a note of amusement, much to the hero's relief. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but how, exactly, did you find this out?"

     Hercules grinned, looking a bit embarrassed. "Um, I wanted to know why he was so persistent in wanting to give me a haircut. I never knew him to be so concerned over someone's neck getting too hot..." His voiced trailed off, as his ears were greeted by an unfamiliar sound. It took him a moment to realize what it was. Xena was laughing, her eyes softening and dancing, in a way that Hercules found surprisingly pleasant.

     He gave her a mock stern look, while she quickly recomposed herself. Everything in her manner became carefully unreadable again, except for her eyes, which still showed signs of mirth.

     Silence fell again, but this time it was a much more pleasant sort, broken by assorted birdcalls coming from the trees, and the noises made by a squirrel, which ran boldly across the tiny clearing.

     Honestly, though, the warrior was just relieved that she had someone to talk to now, and it didn't really matter what he said. It helped to distract her from her thoughts. She had done as little thinking as possible since her passage through the gauntlet, knowing that, if she stopped long enough to allow the full weight of what she had done over the past ten years catch up with her, she might not be able to stand it.

     Well, she could stand it. She had discovered that much, when she was left on her own for hours on end. At first, she had tried to keep herself busy, cleaning her armor, tending her horse, to try to hold her emotions at bay. But it was pointless, and she knew it, and hated it.

     So she had stopped, and just sat. And then, for agonizing hours that seemed like centuries, all that she had known was pain. Her mind was screaming at her, and, true to her years as a warlord, her thoughts were merciless and demoralizing. Why was she alive? She certainly didn't deserve to be; that was the one thing she was certain of. How was it that, in battle, she had never bothered to notice the faces of the men she ran through with her sword, but now their faces and screams seemed to be burned into her mind forever? The only memories worse than those of the killings and rage were those of the sobs of women and children after a raid. She had listened to that heartbreak, and smiled, satisfied. How could she have smiled?

     She wanted to scream, to sob, but she wouldn't ever do that. She refused. She had to have some pride. She knew she was a hideous, evil creature, but pride was still important. Why? She didn't know why, only knew that, if she let her feelings out, she could just get hurt more, and that might kill her.

     Somewhere, inside the emotional turmoil, something inside her told her that she had to calm down, had to be strong. But why should she be strong? Her, the Destroyer of Nations! What was the point of her even living? Just be strong, a voice inside her said. Just do it. Do it, or you'll just get hurt more. She heard the voice, and struggled to obey it. It was a voice that she knew well. The one that had told her that she would survive the gauntlet, she was not going to let herself be defeated. The one that had guided her when Lyceus died. The one that had told her not to cry, not to ever, ever cry, no matter how much life hurt. The incredible force inside her where she drew all her strength from. All her strength, for good and evil.

     So she had reached down inside herself one more time, and told her emotions to stop. Just stop. She refused to suffer more. It only made her weak.

     And where would you be without weakness? taunted her mind. Where would Hercules be? If it weren't for your weakness in that fight, you might have actually been able to kill him! You know it!

     It was true. She was an excellent warrior, and would have been able hold her own indefinitely, if it weren't for the fact that, when the time for the fight came, she hadn't been in top physical condition. Specifically, several of her ribs were broken, and more were fractured. She had tried to fight back in the gauntlet, but one blow had snapped her ribs, and she had gone down, feeling each new blow crack the bone a bit more. Strange. She hadn't realized that there was a man in her army who could--or would--strike her so hard as to inflict that sort of damage. Had never realized that many soldiers in her army would even strike her at all. Not that she was a stranger to pain, of course. She was used to ignoring it. It was just that this injury had inflicted worse damage on her body than any other had in a long time. She knew that the countless bruises were the least of her problems, and that, untended, the internal damage could still be more dangerous to her than any wound she had ever known.

     Still, she could ignore the physical suffering, just as she had been doing for years. The excruciating pain that she felt with every breath was ignored, her ribs were hastily wrapped under her armor, and she went off to battle. She needed a purpose to fill her suddenly empty and painful existence, and throwing herself into the task of winning back her army had fit her purposes perfectly. The only problem had been that, just when the battle against the famed hero was getting really interesting, Hercules had thrown in an unexpected blow and slammed his elbow back into her. Using all his super-human strength, he had hit her exactly in the ribs. Sending such an intense, excruciating wave of pain through her body that she, who had survived so much, hadn't been able to move, or even breathe, as he grabbed her arm and flipped her over his shoulder onto the ground.

     That had pretty much been the end of things.

     But that was irrelevant. She had pulled herself together then, and she could do the same thing now. Using all the will she could muster, she pushed the dark, self-decrepitating thoughts to the very farthest corner of her mind, where they lurked like a dark shadow, threatening to engulf her at the slightest sign of weakness.

     She realized that her hands were shaking violently, and clenched them into fists to keep them still, utterly digusted at the way her body betrayed her weakness. It was the same disgust that she felt when she dimly acknowledged that, with the kind of pain she was in, she was very, very lucky to have made it through the day without just losing control and screaming. She had just kept reminding herself that it was only a matter of time before the pain went away. Since her body was damaged so often, she had, somehow, developed a skill for healing very quickly, which was extrememly useful in her line of work.

     Then, she leaned back against the tree, and forced herself to keep her mind occupied. In her mind, she desperately recited every folk tale she knew, worked out complex, pointless mathematical calculations until her head began to spin, reviewed the ways to win every strategy game ever invented, and, when all else failed, just counted to herself, forcing herself to keep a steady, even stream of numbers, just to occupy her mind.

     She stopped at eight hundred fifty-seven, when she heard Hercules approaching, and quickly made sure that her appearance was gathered and composed, determined not to show any signs of the physical and mental torture she had felt over the past few hours.

     The past few hours. That was all the time that had passed, but it had felt like an eternity in Tartarus. By the gods... Could she really spend an entire lifetime like this?

     The pair traveled for most of the daylight hours, Xena on her dark horse and Hercules on foot, both wanting to put as much distance as possible between them and the site of the battle against Darphus. They stopped just before sundown, when they found a small clearing near a stream that would make the ideal campsite. Hercules had assigned himself the role of hunting for dinner, so that he could also try to see what lay ahead, while Xena stayed behind and set up camp.

     The demigod was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a road nearby to the next village, and it was a fairly well traveled one, not nearly as treacherous as some he had been on. He decided that they would break camp in the morning and move to the road, as it would make for faster travel.

     After catching a pair of rabbits with a trick he had picked up from Iolaus, Hercules headed back to the camp only to be surprised by the sounds of voices from the campsite. His first impulse was to walk right in and sort out what was going on, but, when he recognized Xena's voice, she sounded as self-confident and fearless as ever, so he decided to stay hidden and let the strong warrior take care of herself, while he watched from a distance.

     "Xena," the leader of a group of nasty-looking men was saying, "what a surprise meeting you here."

     Her tone of voice when she replied did not indicate that she considered it a pleasant surprise. "What do you want?" Her eyes were pure ice.

     The thug leered at her, putting his very life at risk by doing so. "Well, seeing as we didn't get to finish you off earlier, we're back to finish the job."

     She gave them a feral grin that was completely without humor. "Oh, really?"

     If the men from her former army had any sense, they would have run. They didn't. "Get her!" the leader shouted. From his hiding place, Hercules calmly wondered whether heshould step in at some point to keep the men from getting themselves killed, even though they had been supporters of Darphus.

     Then, in growing concern, the demigod wondered if Xena could use his help. He knew that she had been awake all night, and it must have been days since she had slept. The strain seemed to be taking its toll, because she didn't seem to be disposing of the men as easily as he was used to seeing her do. There were six or seven of them, all going at her at once with swords or daggers, and her chakram was too far away, out of her reach. She parried blow after blow, but the more Hercules watched, the more he apparent it became that she was hardly going on the offensive at all.

     Then, the unthinkable happened. Just as the demigod was getting ready to go to the warrior's aid, one of the men finally broke through her defenses and slammed her chest with the hilt of his sword, and she fell. And didn't get up.

     "NO!" Hercules shouted, and raced forward, hitting the man standing over her so hard that he flew across the clearing, scrambled up, and ran for his life.

     Enraged, the demigod lashed out with his super-human strength, standing over the fallen form of his companion, who was, even now, struggling to get up, and struck at the attackers again and again, until they all turned and ran.

     Satisfied that this danger was gone, he turned to Xena, who had managed to scramble to her feet and was trying to pretend that the last few minutes had never happened, with little success. She had felt a rib that had already been fractured give way, and her chest was on fire even more than before.

     "What happened?! Are you all right?" the tall man persisted, somewhat frantically. "Xena, come on, tell me what happened!"

     She was used to hiding pain, and she wasn't planning to stop now. "It's all right, Hercules, really. I'm fine." She wasn't being very convincing, though, and they both knew it. Still, she would have just walked away then, and tried to ignore the man's persistent questioning, except for the incredible wave of pain that the simple movement sent through her body, making her let out a strangled gasp and fall involuntarily to her knees.

     He was at her side immediately. "Xena, please, I know you don't like telling me much, but you have to let me help you," he coaxed. "You don't have to do this." Anguished blue eyes looked up at him, then looked away. Suddenly, a thought hit him. "Xena," he said, more gently, "I know that Darphus tried to kill you. What did he do?"

     She glanced over at him, surprised. "So, Salmoneus didn't tell you?" she asked, as lightly as she could manage, which wasn't very light. She would have thought that the little man would have told Hercules everything, considering the way he never seemed to shut up.

     "No, he only said that Darphus tried to kill you, but it didn't work," he admitted. "Come on, there's no reason for you not to tell me. That's what this is about, isn't it?" he asked, the realization growing in his mind. "You're hurt and you didn't want to tell me, isn't that it?"

     Her reply was barely audible. "Yeah," she mumbled, seeming almost ashamed of this weakness. Not seeing any way she was going to avoid the confession, she continued. "It was the gauntlet," she admitted, not meeting his eyes, but hearing him gasp in horror.

     "Gods, Xena, why didn't you tell me?" Hercules asked, shocked. Now that he knew, it seemed that it should have been obvious. He had noticed the assorted bruises on her body, but had been distracted, and not realized their significance. "Here, let me look at--"

     "No!" she cut him off, sharply. "I'll be fine, really. It's nothing."

     Hercules refused to be deterred. "No, I saw you then, and that did not look like nothing. Please, just let me look at you?"

     She would have argued more, but was just too tired. "Fine," she said, shortly.

     As carefully as possible, the demigod eased off her armor, pretending not to notice the way her body tensed at any sudden move on his part. He realized that she would naturally be a bit on edge, and tried to make his movements as smooth as possible. He eased off her leather tunic and then began to undo her white shift. By the firelight, he saw the bindings she had wrapped crudely around her torso, and froze. "Xena, what's this?" he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. She said nothing.

     Being as gentle as he could manage, he unwrapped the bindings, and then it was all he could do keep from crying out in horror, as he saw the angry bruises covering her torso and realized exactly what each mark meant. He had tended a broken rib once or twice, and he remembered what it looked like from the outside. The signs of broken ribs were scattered liberally on her entire chest. "Xena..."

     "I know!" she said, much more harshly than she had intended, then winced from the pain induced just by speaking.

     He stared at her, still completely shocked at the kind of pain she must have been hiding. He remembered, with a start, exactly how he had taken her down in their fight, and felt almost sick to think of the agony he must have put her in and the additional damage he might have done.

     He decided to try to issue an ultimatum. "You're not moving until this is healed," he said, in as firm a voice as he could muster. Hoping that these injuries weren't so bad that they were beyond healing on their own.

     She would hear none of that, as he had suspected. "What?! No, I'll be fine, really, I just--" She stopped abruptly, as another spasm of pain captured her body, and her face contorted in anguish. When she could speak again, she looked up at the man, a bit guiltily. "Well, just for a little while," she relented, weakly.

     Hastily, he went to set up a bedroll for her, spending so much time trying to make it as comfortable as possible that she would have been tempted to scream at him, except that she knew that such an action would just hurt, and she was so tired of hurting, she just wanted to rest. Besides, it was kind of sweet of him.

     When he deemed her bed as close to perfection as possible, he went back to her, and, despite her annoyed protests, lifted her up gently and placed her on the bedroll. By now, her face was beginning to clearly betray her exhaustion, and she wanted nothing more than to rest, and escape the pain.

     Forgetting, momentarily, that sleep would inevitably bring hideous nightmares, and be no escape at all, but a continuation of her torture.

     She stood before a long path, with its finish line drawn in the dirt. A path lined by soldiers with harsh clubs and angry faces. No, wait, not soldiers this time. Their faces shifted and changed to those of her victims. All the innocents killed by her hand stood lined up for the gauntlet. There were too many of them. She couldn't see the finish line anymore. No, now she saw it, far in the distance. A very young man, hardly more than a child, with a scar across his throat, rubbed out the line and laughed. She felt panic rise up in her throat, threatening to overwhelm her. She wanted to run, but she couldn't. She could only go forward.

     She did go forward, and felt each blow, not only on her weakened body, but in the depths of her soul. She felt raw wounds there, which, she knew, would leave angry scars, if they ever even healed.

     The path was consumed in fire, now. She didn't know when that had happened, but the flames were there. Such a hot fire, burning so fiercely. It wouldn't go out. She wanted so desperately to be able to put it out. She recognized the faces of the people near the fire. The people of Cirra. The sounds of children's scream filled the air. She wanted so badly to run, to scream, but the people wouldn't let her. The blows continued.

     Faces emerged in the fire, but not of her victims, this time. They were the faces of her family. Her mother, face dark with shame, cursing her daughter's name. Lyceus, asking why she always failed him when he needed her, begging her to save him this time. Sweet M'Lila, dying, once again, because of her.

     An innocent little fair-haired boy, screaming in terror for his mother, wherever she was, who never came.

     They were burning, and she couldn't do anything, no matter how much she struggled and screamed. A figure on a horse kept the fire burning strong. The figure's hood was thrown back, and she had Xena's face.

     Xena realized she could scream, now, when she heard her own voice raising up in an agonized, animal cry.

     She woke up then, but it took her a moment to make the distinction between the real world and the realm of nightmares. For one long moment, she thought that the things she had seen were real, and if she opened her eyes, she would see the endless path of the gauntlet, and the fire. Her aching body only added to her confusion, because, by that point, she was in so much pain that she couldn't be sure that the blows had really stopped.

     She called up all her courage to open her eyes, and her heart stopped beating for a moment, clenching coldly in her chest, as she saw the flames of the campfire, then resumed its beating at the same speed as before, which was far too fast for comfort.

     Her body started shaking, then, completely out of control, and at that moment, she was so miserable that she didn't care about the weakness. Her breath was coming in short, ragged gasps, sending sharp bursts of pain through her chest. Still, she wouldn't cry.

     Any energy that she had managed to hold on to through her ordeal was spent by her body's violent shaking, and the effort it took to gain some control over her breathing. She had know exhaustion before, but her state was beyond exhausted, as she realized, in utter despair, that not even sleep could bring her relief or rest, the two things she wanted with such desperation.

     After the nightmare, sleep was out of the question, so she rolled painfully onto her side, arms wrapped tightly around her ribcage, and prayed for the light to come soon and chase away just a few of the shadows.

     Gods, she would give anything for just a little rest.

     She refused to sleep, though. She refused to submit herself to the raw pain of her own soul any more than she absolutely had to.

     You need to sleep sometime, said the nagging voice of her reason. She pushed it down.

     Before Hercules opened his eyes, he noticed a scraping sound, which he knew he had heard many times before, but couldn't quite place. Then, in that split second when he had made the decision to open his eyes, but hadn't quite acted on it yet, he recognized the noise as the sound of a sword being sharpened.

     He sat up, rather abruptly, startling the woman sitting at the other side of the campsite. "Xena, what do you think you're doing?!" he exclaimed, more concerned than annoyed. "I thought you were going to rest a bit! Your body needs the time to heal, and I know you know that," he chided, wondering what the woman could have possibly been thinking.

     She finally raised her eyes to his, and the look in those haunted blue eyes froze any other words he might have said. He realized, at that moment, that, although he might have the strength of Mount Olympus, he barely knew or understood anything about this woman, and there was hardly a thing he could do to help her. He hoped with all his heart that she would find someone who could understand her, and who could heal her soul, because all he could tell was that she had suffered more than anyone should ever have to.

     "I heal fast," she finally stated, and it took Hercules a minute to remember what she was responding to.

     "Oh, um, I'm sure," he mumbled, uncomfortably, and silence descended over the camp.

     Finally, the warrior stood and left the campsite, mumbling an excuse about finding some more food for breakfast, even though there was plenty. He knew that there was nothing he could do for her, so he sat and watched her go.

     Then, the man had an idea, which gave him a spark of hope, and that spark grew, as he dug through his belongings like one possessed, until he found the small pouch he had been looking for. Hope does indeed spring eternal. He knew what he could do to help the dark warrior.

     As the minutes dragged on into an hour and kept ticking by, Hercules began to worry. He knew that the woman had wanted to get away for a while, but she had been gone too long. Following her trail in the woods, he finally found her lying on the ground, passed out from exhaustion. Even then, her sleep was painfully fitful, and the man winced at the agonizingly open look on her face, feeling like he was intruding on something private, which she would not want him to see.

     He scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to camp, with sure, strong strides. Laying her down on the bedroll, he woke her just enough to slip her some tea he had made just for her, out of the herbs in the pouch he had found, before she drifted off again. Now, her sleep was deep and dreamless. The drugs did their work well. He would, under any other circumstances, have felt uncertain about drugging someone without their knowledge, but he couldn't stand watching her go on the way she had been, and would do whatever he could to let her rest.

     Her body healed quickly, he knew, and now maybe her mind could begin to heal, as well. She would endure. Hopefully.

     Somehow, it never occurred to him, until it was too late, that he couldn't shield her forever, and that, when she left his side, the dreams would return, and, with them, the despair.

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Thanks for reading! All feedback is VERY, VERY, VERY welcome, but don't be too harsh, since this is my first fan fic attempt EVER.

This story is a late Christmas/birthday present to my best friend, Angie. (Call it a New Years present.) Sorry that Gab wasn't in it. :-) Hope you enjoyed it!