Magnolia
Atrophy

Disclaimer: All characters and settings are the property of Renaissance Pictures and Universal Studios. No profit is made or intended from the writing of this fiction.

Just a tame plot bunny. A tame, angsty plot bunny.

The Green Dragon must be made small.

Xena turned the words over in her head, a bitter taste in her mouth.

It was over. Ming Tien was dead; she had walked away from his staring corpse with Gabrielle's warm hand on her arm.

It had burned a bit, as if to remind her of her lie, but Xena walked on, head high, because Gabrielle did not need to know. Gabrielle had enough pain, and if there was anything she could do to protect those last glimmers of light, then she would swallow her guilt. Sometimes she wondered if she needed—craved—Gabrielle's light more than Gabrielle knew. She wondered if Gabrielle would recoil from the depth of that black, roiling need, and she felt sick to her stomach.

She watched Gabrielle now. It was that point in the night when the cicadas quieted and a dead silence blanketed the land. They had made camp at the edge of a forest overlooking rolling hills dotted with the odd tree, on which fragrant white flowers bloomed. Tomorrow, they would board a boat, and leave Chin.

Xena felt as if an invisible cord stretched out from her chest, tugging towards Gabrielle, clenching like a fist. The pressure did not give under her pulse, the walls of her heart battering at it and sending stabbing pains down her left arm.

Well, she told herself uneasily, Gabrielle hadn't had time to mourn. Not really. This wasn't... It was natural.

She watched Gabrielle, standing under the flowering tree, face tilted toward the big, waxy flower petals. Xena wondered if Gabrielle knew that her hand had strayed to her stomach, flat again, although a stretch mark on her side glowed like an angry scar in the moonlight.

She could hear snatches of a tuneless hum.

"Gabrielle?"

Gabrielle scraped quickly at her face before turning, a bright, brittle smile on her face.

"How are you feeling?" Gabrielle asked her. "Are the scrapes on your neck still bothering you?"

Xena shook her head. "I'm fine. Are you—?"

Gabrielle stretched with a jaw-cracking yawn. "Wow, I'm tired. Long walk today, huh? I'd better get to sleep so we set out for Greece bright and early tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Gabrielle's eyes met hers for a moment before darting away. "Don't stay up too late."

"Do you like these flowers?"

Gabrielle paused, half-turned away. She shrugged. "They're pretty."

Xena had reached up and closed her fingers over heavy petals before—

"Don't pick them!" Gabrielle's voice was sharp and whip-like.

Xena dropped her hand.

Gabrielle was shaking, she realized.

"Don't pick them. They look better when they're alive on the tree."

Xena watched helplessly as Gabrielle swung around and stalked back to her bedroll.

The fire had burned down, and her eyelids felt gritty like sandpaper, but Xena couldn't force herself to move. She sat on the ground under the tree, looking up at flowers that were ghostly white blurs to her tired eyes. She couldn't see what Gabrielle saw. She should have known that.

She felt him before he spoke, like chilly fingers flitting over the back of her neck.

"Had a fight?"

She hunched her shoulders. She wanted to ignore him, but the pleased, gloating edge to his voice drove her to her feet.

"What's it to you?"

She eyed Ares warily, the simmering anger in her belly spitting sparks at his lazy half-smile.

"Well, the sooner you ditch the blonde, the sooner you can come back to me."

"I will never—"

"Never come back, yeah yeah. I've heard it before." Ares rested a hand on the hilt of his sword casually. "I can wait."

Xena's eyes narrowed, and his face swam into sharper focus. He knew something he wasn't sharing, and the anger boiled over.

Ares parried her first strike with lazy ease, drawing his sword faster than she could see in the dark. She slashed down towards his right collarbone, pulled up short when his arm tensed to block, and tried to strike up under his guard. He switched hands smoothly and threw off her blade hard enough to make her teeth jar.

He was playing with her, she knew. Flaunting his strength, his impermeability. Shifting his sword back to his right hand, he went on the offensive, and Xena could only drop and roll away awkwardly.

"Where is your focus, Xena?"

Her teeth ground together at his mocking tone, and she sprang into the air, spinning to smash first her heel, and then her sword into the side of his head. He caught her kick against the plates of his gauntlet and ducked under her slash, bringing his sword around as he followed through. It bit into her own gauntlet at an angle, nicking her wrist under the armour, but the flat slapped her wrist with numbing force, and her sword spun from her suddenly limp hand.

Xena swore under her breath as she landed lightly, crouching to absorb the shock, and she glared up at him along the gleaming length of the blade pressed against her shoulder. She could feel the chill of it, grazing her throat.

He was watching her with an oddly intense look.

"Getting off on this, you bastard?"

She saw his skin ripple as he clenched his teeth. He didn't move.

"Well?" Xena tilted her head back, pressing forward toward the cold metal. "Can you do it tonight? Can you kill me this time?"

"I'm not here to indulge your self-destructive moods," he said sharply.

Xena smirked, parting her lips to press the tip of her tongue against a crack on the side of her top lip. She watched his eyes darken and focus on her mouth, and she threw herself backward, one knee coming up to smack into his forearm while the other foot kicked the sword away so that it arced like a silvery fish before disappearing into the gloom of the night.

She didn't count on him going limp, though, and collapsing like dead weight onto her, pinning her to the ground. Cursing, she tried to buck him off, but he was unmoveable, dark, shadowed eyes trained on hers.

She stopped moving and waited, watching him for an opening.

"Xena," he said, and there it was again, that strange seriousness in his voice.

"Why are you here, then?"

He smirked, and the seriousness was gone. It was as if a pressure had fallen off her. "Just looking for a good fight," he said, leering down at her. "Didn't count on you being too torn up over a tiff with Blondie to fight me properly. But I think I can settle for this instead."

He leaned down, and she snapped her forehead up until it crunched into his nose.

He swore loudly and rolled off, hand clasped over his face. When he looked up again, she had her chakram clenched in her hand, ready to fire at the slightest provocation.

Ares sniffed disdainfully, looking up at the flowering tree. "It's nothing special," he muttered, almost too quietly for her to hear.

Xena straightened in disbelief. "You were... worried?"

He sneered then, placed a hand on the tree's trunk, and shoved. It snapped with a harsh crack and crashed to the ground, scattering petals and leaves.

"I'll see you later, Xena," he said, almost snarling, "when you realize what Gabrielle has done to you and come crawling back to me."

He disappeared with the sound of ripping air.

Xena stared at the felled tree and swallowed at the lump in her throat. He's lying. She would not doubt Gabrielle.

In the morning, when Gabrielle touched the wilting, fallen petals tenderly, still barely meeting Xena's eyes, she said it to herself again. She would not doubt Gabrielle.

"Xena?"

Xena tensed, and then looked around into Gabrielle's worried eyes. She smiled. "Sorry, lost in thought."

Gabrielle looked at her doubtfully, but nodded in acceptance. "I'm going to water the horses, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Xena watched Gabrielle lead the horses away, sunlight reflecting off her short blonde hair and turning it almost blinding white. She huffed. Thinking about stuff that happened years ago. She must be going maudlin.

She knew exactly why she was thinking about that night from years ago, though, if she was honest with herself. Every year, around this time, Gabrielle got a little quieter, her smile a little dimmer. Sometimes, her hand would drift to her stomach, and Xena was sure she didn't realize it most of the time, because when she did notice, she would look around guiltily and pull her hand away. Sometimes she would sit on it afterwards.

And every year at this time, that old sense of helplessness would return.

"What's up with Gabrielle?"

Xena turned her head to look at Ares, who was sitting by the fire, swinging a stick absently through the pale flames. She felt a stab of resentment again at his manipulation of Varia, but then let it slip away. There was no changing the bastard.

Xena shrugged. "It's an old wound," she said.

Ares made a face at her, as if protesting her cryptic choice of words. Throwing the stick into the fire, he hopped to his feet. "Come on, let's spar. I think you're getting slow."

Xena snorted. "I'll show you slow, you ass."

This time, she pinned him, and he laughed up at her, open eyes crinkling at the corners. This time, when he leaned up to kiss her, she let him.

The next morning, there was a magnolia blossom sitting on the ground beside Gabrielle's bedroll.

Xena laughed.

Fin.