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Looking Death In the Eye
By: Illyandria
Rating: G
Spoilers: Through "Eve"
Violence/Sex/Profanity: Nope
Author's Note: This is basically just those last two scenes of Looking Death in the Eye with Ares trying to stop her, and then saying good bye.
~*~
"Each to his own. You to yours...and me to mine!" Xena screamed out, drawing her sword and raising it in the air.
The gods upon the cliff looked down at her. Athena, Hades, and Hephaestus. Gods that she'd once respected. But no more.
Devastated, she was ready to kill herself. Or at least that was what Ares thought.
As she moved to run herself through with her own sword, he appeared, grabbing it from her as it was ready to puncture her leathered abdomen. He tossed it to the ground behind him.
He stepped closer to her. "No, Xena. Don't..." he said, his hands going to rest at her waist, right below her breastplate.
"Ares...you can't stop me this time," she said, her hand inching it's way up his leather vest as she drew out a bottle of what he thought poison with her other hand and took off the top with her thumb.
"No..." he said, seeing the bottle.
"It's over..."
He breathed in a loud short breath.
"It's over..."
He looked into his eyes. Oh, how it hurt him to take that step away from her. Never had he gotten in her way with anything vital. He'd always let her make her own decisions, no matter how much he may disagree with them. And this was no different. Her best friend and her daughter were dead. She didn't really have a reason for living anymore. But as he looked into her eyes, he saw an unspoken 'trust me' hidden within their depths.
So he stepped back, breathing hard.
She brought the bottle to her lips and, looking back up at the gods on the cliff, drank it.
As soon as it was away from her lips he stepped up next to her once more, pain in his features as he held onto her.
She took her eyes from the gods on the hill and focused them on the one before her. "Join your family," she said after a moment. "Tell them it's a package deal... They get me, too..." Her body went limp as her eyes closed, Ares being the last thing that she saw.
She fell back onto the ground, and he stared down at her in disbelief. No...how could this be?
He just stood there for a minute, losing his grasp on reality. Finally, when he came to his senses, he transported Gabrielle to the place he thought fitting for them to be kept. He placed her in a beautifully carved ice coffin, and then went back to Xena.
He picked her up, holding back tears. He couldn't let them fall. They appeared on the mountain. Solemnly, he carried her down the path to her coffin next to Gabrielle. Placing her gently in it, his fingers carefully moved a stray strand of hair. He ran his hands along the edge of the coffin, leaning on them finally, looking her up and down. Finally, his eyes settled on her face. He regarded her with a fondness in his features.
"You're with her now. I handled you all wrong...I know that. She knew what you needed. Unconditional and unselfish love." His eyes lowered to his hands, resting on the coffin. "And I couldn't give that to you... But I appreciated you in ways she *never* could. Your rage...your violence...your beauty. When you sacrificed yourself for others you were hers...but when you kicked ass you were *mine*." He leaned over and lowered his head down to her, kissing her for what he thought the last time on her sweet lips. Raising himself back up, he said, "I love you, Xena."
Why couldn't he have ever said that when she was around?
He reached over and grabbed the lid to the coffin, and with one last look at the beautiful face of his warrior princess, Ares closed the coffin lid.
Placing her sword, chakram, and some flowers as their burial marker, he walked back out of the cave, freezing the entry way behind him. This finished, he disappeared.
So she was gone. The woman he'd known for so many years and loved so deeply was gone. Why couldn't he have told her how he felt in the first place? Why did he have to be so power hungry?
So many questions that brough him shame and no answers. But...why had she just given up like that? When she had looked into his eyes, he'd seen something in them. A spark of mystery. Of a plan. But he must have been imagining things. She was dead, and that was for sure...
Or was it?
He would have to wait twenty-five years to find out the answer...
~*~
THE END
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