Part 4
Chapter 4
"Gran-Mel! Granma Jan! The door!" Enki raced down the stairs of his great-grandmother’s house, sliding across the polished foyer to land at the door with a heavy thud. The bell continued to chime as he turned the knob and threw open the door. "It’s Uncle Lyall!" he cried over his shoulder before he threw himself into the tall man’s outstretched arms.
Lyall laughed at his nephew’s exuberance; Xe might be the epitome of austere reservation but her son was the embodiment of gleeful abandon. He lifted the little boy to his shoulders and ducked into the house.
"We're in the kitchen, Lyall dear." Mel's voice drifted through the foyer as the pair crossed to the adjoining room. Flooded with afternoon sunlight, the kitchen was crowded with stacks of wooden crates. Passing the framed picture of Merrick Hughes, Mel's late husband, Lyall signaled a cocky salute, "Hiya, Gramps!"
The grandmothers might have been hidden among the boxes somewhere, but Lyall couldn't see either one of them. "So I heard you had a visitor and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see him." He set Enki back on his feet and at last spied the pair of grey heads behind a teetering stack of crates.
"More likely Xe called and told you to check on us." Jan's muttered response was muffled by the packing materials she lifted from an open crate.
Ignoring the comment, Lyall winked at Enki and edged around the stack of crates. "Wouldn't it have been simpler to have shipped all this directly to the museum?"
"Janice never does things the easy way, Dear. How was Xe's flight?"
"She didn't say. Is this the new Xena exhibit?"
Janice's grey head bobbed as she continued to unpack the crate. "I've been trying to figure a way to get that sister of yours to come to the opening."
"Just don't tell her what the exhibit's about. If you tell her it's Xena, you won't see her for a year." Lyall knew that his sister had difficulty being taken seriously. Growing up with an unusual name had been bad enough, but after a grandson of one of the grandmothers' old acquaintances had sold some of the scroll translations to a production company… He shook his head, poor Xe. "What's she doing in Turkey? I know the semester isn't over yet."
"Janice spoke to her professors and they've agreed to let her marks stand as they are, there are only two more weeks of classes anyway."
"What'd she get?"
"I don't…"
Lyall cut her off, "her grades," he explained.
"Oh, why A's of course. Anyway, as I was saying," Mel rested her arms on the kitchen table, smoothing the wrinkles from a crumpled inventory list. If the truth were to be known, at least two of her professors had been pleased to have Xe out of their lecturers, almost giddily agreeing to allow her to forego their final exams. "We both asked her to go to Turkey to check on Gabrielle."
"Okay, so what's up with little Brie? I know ya'll shipped her off across the ocean last spring." Lyall grabbed Enki and swung him up into the air as the little boy tried to dart past.
Before either Mel or Janice could respond, the phone rang. "Just a moment, Dear." Mel reached for the tiny cell phone Janice had buried beneath the packing materials. Jan had been avoiding phone calls all day but refused to turn the contraption off; out of sheer desperation Mel had adopted the role of secretary. "Dr. Covington's phone." Mel's gentle smile melted into anxiety as she listened quietly, at last setting the phone back down on the table, eyes blank and brow furrowed.
"What's wrong, Gran-Mel?"
"Mel?" Janice's head popped up in response to the concern in the young man's voice. "Melinda, who was on the phone?"
Icy blue eyes searched the room, at last coming to rest on Enki's tousled head. "It was Dr. Eban from the University of Antalya."
Lyall shot Janice a questioning look. "Turkey," she replied solemnly.
Mel looked across the table to her best friend of the last several decades. "We've lost them both."
"We've got to get outta here!" Gabrielle paced the confines of their cell.
Xena remained seated on the floor, Gabrielle's roiling anxiety had repeatedly foiled her attempted yoga routine; meditation had proven impossible as well. At last admitting defeat, she simply watched as the younger woman careened along an emotional roller coaster ride. It seemed that Gabrielle was as sure of their eminent death as she was of their salvation, not to mention the thousand other possibilities that had passed her lips since they had been reunited.
"Xena!" The small blond threw up her hands in despair for the hundredth time.
"I know," Xe tried to make her voice as soothing as possible, quelching her irritation, "really I do. I'm trying to work on a plan to get us back home. But Gabrielle, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to concentrate. I need you to at least try to calm down for a while, just long enough for me to think of something."
Xena's voice had been calm but Gabrielle was able to pick up on the faint edge of desperation in her tone. It had never occurred to her that she could be hindering their escape. Immediately filled with shame and self-reproach, she perched on the foot of the bed and hung her head, silent tears of fear and embarrassment hidden behind the glossy curtain of golden hair.
"Don't cry," Xena's voice was whisper-soft and achingly sincere.
Gabrielle sniffed. "How did you…"
"After reducing you to tears for so many summers, how could I not know?" Xena watched Gabrielle, waiting for her head to rise, to see sparkling eyes again. "I'm sorry. I just don't feel comfortable around people, I never have. At least not until after Ea was born."
"You liked being with the grandmothers," Gabrielle countered with lonely resentment.
"You're right, in a way. I preferred their company but only as the lesser of several available evils. They didn't try to change me into something I wasn't. But I never felt comfortable confiding in them, and then when Ea came along…" Xe's voice caught as she remembered those first few months and what might have happened. "Ea was only a week old when I met with Gran-Mel. By the time I returned, her was rolling over and trying to crawl, I barely recognized him."
Gabrielle's brow furrowed. "I don't understand."
Shaking her head, Xe tried to explain, "Yes you do. I was terrified of the effect I would have on a child. I didn't want that responsibility. In the end, I realized that I couldn't just walk away from him."
"I didn't know you…"
Xe cut her off, "No one does, just the grandmothers, and now you." She combed long fingers through her hair, untwisting the tangled strands with little care. The wooden pick that she had used to hold the lank locks in place, she slipped into the cot's thin, lumpy mattress.
The door swung open, startling Gabrielle and drawing a mildly curious look from Xe's black eyes. The guard entered with the usual fare, setting the tray on the table, and reached for Xe's arm.
Reading the fear in Gabrielle's eyes, Xe grinned. "Don't worry, Brie. Save me some food!"
The international flight was cramped; even the supposedly roomier business class seats were terribly snug, allowing little space for movement but much opportunity to become better acquainted with those sitting nearby. Attendants paced the aisles, pots of tea and pitchers of lemon water at the ready.
Mel slipped the headphones from her ears, patting her hair back into place and leaning further back into the padded seat.
"When do you think Lyall will figure out what we've done?" Janice, who had given up on the in-flight movie early on, looked over at her loyal traveling companion.
"I would imagine," Mel drawled, "he'll know as soon as he wakes from his nap and Enki tells him we took suitcases with us when we went to the A&P." She smiled at the thought of Xe's son, the sweet beacon of light in all of their lives. He was old enough, she imagined, to retain memories of his mother if something vile had happened to her. Mel knew that if that were the case, if something loathsome had befallen her favorite girl, she would never be able to forgive herself.
"She's all right, you know she is." Janet could read Mel's expressions as easily as a book. The worry that weighed so heavily on her friend's brow also affected her; memories of both of their granddaughters flooded her thoughts. She was not as worried about Xe as she was Gabrielle; not that Xe's disappearance hadn't sent panic coursing through her old bones, she simply understood Xe's abilities and trusted her to be able to take care of herself. She trusted her to take care of Gabrielle too, if only Xe had been able to find the younger woman, Janice felt she would be able to rest easy.
"I only wish I did know that she was safe." Mel turned in her seat to look fully at Janice. "But what if she isn't? What would we tell Enki?"
"Don't even think about it. They can't be gone forever, who would carry on our traditions? Besides, Gabrielle would say that we need to remain positive; negative thoughts only damage the psyche."
"And since when do you take you grandchild's advice?"
"Since it started to make sense."
Gabrielle spent the rest of the day fretting and pacing, pacing and fretting. Worry gnawed at her gut, sending tentacles of fear to curl around her heart. Every sound sent the young woman racing to the door, pressing her ear against the wood in a vain attempt to determine the origin of the noise. She was still alone when the light clicked off; she crawled onto the cot, heart-wrenching sobs wracking her body.
She woke with a start, realizing she must have cried herself to sleep. The room was lit and deathly quiet, except-- She leapt off the bed, crouching next to Xena Xandria who lay still and silent on the floor. Xe's back was to the wall, knees drawn up to her chest with one arm wrapped around them, her other arm pillowed her head. Gabrielle was relieved to she her apparently unscathed and resting peacefully. She could almost envision her napping beneath a shade tree at Gran-Mel's home in Georgia, not that she'd ever seen Xe take a nap, or admit weakness. Sighing, she decided to wait until her companion woke on her own.
Xena roused long after the guard came with their dinner that evening, sitting up stiffly and silently refusing Brie's offer of assistance.
"I never heard you come back. Are you okay?"
Xe raised an eyebrow. "You sleep like the dead, Brie. I didn't want to disturb you, and I'm fine, just stiff from sleeping on the floor." She was quite pleased with her fabrication. It had been a long time since she'd blatantly lied to anyone and she had been certain that Brie wouldn't buy it but the girl merely nodded, a flicker of a grin in her eyes.
"You want something to eat? I saved you some dinner." Gabrielle set the tray on the floor next to Xe but snatched it away again when the elder woman's complexion turned a vivid green. "You're not all right, are you?"
"I'm fine," Xe insisted. Knowing that Brie would be more likely to believe her if she were obviously ambulatory, Xe shifted slightly. Standing would be a very bad idea, she decided, not only was she now certain that any movement would betray her actual condition, she knew her lies wouldn't prevent Brie from seeing the blood that had soaked through the back of her clothes. Eventually Brie would discover her condition, but hopefully it wouldn't be until after she'd devised an escape plan.
"Did they say why they're holding us?" Gabrielle's voice quavered with a combination of worry, fear, and exhaustion, all of which were mirrored in the cloudy hazel of her eyes.
"They want the Ixion Stone."
"And they think you know where it is?" Brie's eyes betrayed her ignorance although Xe couldn't decide if the girl didn't know what the stone was or if she thought Xe was refusing to divulge its whereabouts.
"To be honest, I only read about it once and even then it was mentioned merely in passing. It was in one of Granma Jan's Xena Scrolls. The scroll didn't really say what happened to it. For all I know the fool thing was destroyed long ago." Xe crossed her legs with exaggerated care, trying to find a less painful sitting position.
Gabrielle stared at her, noticing the grimace Xe tried to hide. Rising, she placed the tray back on the table. When she turned back around, she caught a glimpse of the back of Xe's blouse: damp and sticky and darker than its original cranberry shade.
"You never did like admitting that you needed help, did you? I remember when I was a little girl and you fell down the side of a cliff, you hobbled around on that leg for three days before the grandmothers prevailed and carried you into town to have it reset. And then the next year you dislocated your arm and wouldn't let anyone near enough to help you, insisting you could take care of it yourself."
"If you'll remember, I did take care of my arm on my own," Xe fumed.
"But not easily, and it probably hurt a lot more than it would have if you had let someone else look at it. I've changed a lot from that intimidated little girl who wouldn't dream of trying to second-guess your decisions. I have finally come to realize that you don't know the first thing about taking care of yourself." Gabrielle paused for a breath and emptied one of their dinner bowls, filling it with cool water. Ripping away the hem of her tee shirt, she knelt again by Xe. "You're good at looking out for other people, especially Enki; that probably irks you terribly. I mean, as a mother you're supposed to take care of your son, but you can't stop there can you? You feel obligated to protect the world all the while you're pretending to hate it and everything associated with it. And you're good at being self-sacrificing."
She laid a gentle hand on Xe's shoulder, moving her away from the wall so that she would have an unobstructed view of her injury. Lifting the shirt as delicately as she could from Xe's back, she braced herself.
"Oh my…" Nothing could have prepared her for the sight. Welts and cuts played across her tanned skin in a criss-cross pattern of damaged flesh. The bleeding had abated somewhat, leaving the area awash with sticky blood. "What did they do?"
Steeling herself against the jolt of the cooling cloth Gabrielle placed to her skin, Xe tried to relax slightly, focusing on the girl's voice. "A whip."