If anyone were to ask Gabrielle about it, she would lie.
     One way or another - astonishment, ignorance, amusement, anger - in truth, all these were methods of denial, used to mask the one important truth.
     The thing was, love wasn't an option for her. She'd tried it, and it hadn't worked; love had left her with blood on her hands, the sole bearer of the memories of the men she'd taken into her heart. She'd seen too many funerals, and felt too many heartbreaks, and finally decided: never again.
     And then Joxer, damn him, had fallen in love with her.
     She'd tried so hard to convince herself that he hadn't; that it was in her imagination. When that failed, she set her efforts to pushing him away - through abuse, through neglect, through the tried-but-true "can we always be friends" routine. But the damned idiot kept coming back.
     She didn't know which had happened first: his feelings for her, or hers for him. Knowing, however, wouldn't make it easier; wouldn't change her mind. It didn't matter who had loved who longer - would that change the facts now? That she loved him, that it put him in danger, that he could never even know of her feelings?
     None of it changed; none of it could. So she hid, set her feelings behind a mask of hostility, hoped that she could spare his life by not sparing his feelings. At least, she told herself - when she allowed herself to think about it, on those rare occasions late at night - she could keep him this way, and love him in her own way, on her own terms. Not have to fear for him, stay awake nights afraid that he'd fall in battle the next day, or catch an arrow meant for her, or - with his luck - fall on his sword and gut himself.
     Now, she could rest.
     And then, it started to go wrong. The idyllic existence she'd captured for the briefest of months was shattered - he told her his feelings, forcing her to openly reject him. He flirted with other women, succeeding in making her jealous despite her attempts at staying detached. And he nearly destroyed her by asking - on the brink of death, no less - why she couldn't love him. So close to losing him, she'd been desperate to confess, to say it once before they were separated - "I do love you..."
     But the words died on her lips, as it occurred to her that admitting it would be sealing his fate - but, by the same token, denying it might still save him. Hastily, she pushed out an addendum, "Just... not the way you want it, I guess."
     He recovered. They never spoke of it again.
     She hated herself.
     And then the kiss. The kiss on the pier - waking, finding him so close, not sure of what reality was; she'd realized too late what she was doing, and in the end pushed him away too harshly, too quickly. She was weakening, her resolve was cracking a bit at a time, even though she knew from terrible experience that a short happiness was barely worth the pain of loss.
     But... she was losing him. She felt it. She couldn't blame him, but still, she didn't know if she could bear to have him move on... She could live without having him, without a consummated relationship, but not without him. Her behaviour became extreme, in attempts to keep his attention, to pry admissions of love from him. At the Amazon village she went so far as to make him swear alliegance to her, which he did without a touch of romance in his manner at all.
     She broke down on the way back from Egypt, and confessed to Xena. "Tell him," her friend instructed - no nonsense, no room for argument, you've been stupid for waiting this long. "It's not that simple," Gabrielle tried to explain, but Xena couldn't see. And coming out of her mouth, at long last spoken aloud, Gabrielle's certainty of an unbreakable curse on her suitors faltered for the first time. It did sound strange, she found, as she told Xena... Maybe there was no more danger for Joxer than there was in his daily life. Maybe, between herself and Xena, they could protect him.
     Maybe the time together was worth the pain of the loss; better that, than to never love at all.
     "I'll tell him tomorrow," she said.
     Interminable years passed at a frozen pace, and she lost him to the irreversability of time. Aged, bent, white-haired and weakened, he was still Joxer. And he died for her.
     She dealt with it the only way she could: to forget. At Xena's urging she forgave Eve. "Then you can heal," Xena told her gently. But she didn't heal. She shut it out. It was easy; twenty-five years had passed, and so few things were the same now. All she had to remember Joxer by were a few scrolls, easily destroyed in a fire; his farm and restaurant were foreign to her, and his son could have been any young man whose father died at the end of a warlord's sword. Joxer who?
     Gabrielle's past was long gone, and the Gabrielle who lived in it was gone with it. She lived, from then on, for the present and the future. She thought of few things from the time before, and spoke of them even less.
     Sometimes, at night, she dreamed of a lanky young man with spiky, dark hair, foolish armour, and an infectious grin. But if anyone were to ask her about it, she would lie.

© 2002 by Xebbie