Still shaking a little, Joxer made his rather wobbly way downstairs. The first thing he saw was nothing. Every table in the common-room was empty. The second thing he saw was the innkeeper, picking up empty tankards and muttering imprecations to himself under his breath. The third thing he saw was Gabrielle, stomping across the room toward him. "Gabrielle!" he said, delighted. "You're back."

"Get out of my way, Joxer."

A warm enough greeting under the circumstances. "How was the salon? I thought your recitation was going really well."

"If you want to know the truth..." She broke off and looked closer at him. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing."

"You're as white as a shroud. Not that you aren't always, of course. Did you know your neck is bleeding?"

"No," he lied.

"Do you want to know the truth?"

"No."

He didn't care about the truth. All he cared about was that it had worked. Gabby was back and all he needed now was to get her to talk to Xena and everything would be fine again. "Xena wants to see you."

"Oh? She wants to apologize?"

"She's upstairs," he said, carefully sliding past the question. "Come on, let's go talk to her."

"She's seen reason?" Gabrielle followed him, fortunately without protest, up the creaking stairwell. "If you want to know the truth, that's unusual for Xena. Are you sure..."

"Right here," said Joxer loudly, then remembered Xena was probably still annoyed or whatever it was she currently was with him, and dropped his voice again. "Xena," he called through the door, "Gabrielle's back."

There was a pause, and Xena's voice came back. "She wants to apologize?"

Not exactly. "She's, uh, back," he started to say, and Gabrielle said in a very loud, clear tone, "You're drunk."

"Don't get smart with me," Xena said.

"The truth is, you're drunk and you're impossible when you're drunk, and I don't want to have to deal with it."

"The truth is sometimes you're an uptight prissy little..."

"Okay," said Joxer a little quickly, "at least you're talking now. Why don't you just go inside and..."

"I am not sleeping in there tonight because I am not going to have to wake up tomorrow and listen to her moan about her stupid hangover."

"Fine," Xena called through the door, "fine by me, I can spend one night not listening to her damn snoring."

Something was missing. Joxer couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there seemed to have been a step left out, somehow. Xena was supposed to be happy now. He was supposed to be relieved, everything was supposed to be all right, and Gabrielle... Gabrielle was definitely not supposed to be stomping back down the hall, which was what she was doing. "Where are you going?" he protested.

"I'm going and find a room, somewhere else."

Oh, no, no, no, that wouldn't do at all. Joxer bounded down the hall after her. "It's too late for that. Here." He pulled open the door to his own room, which was small and cheap and rather nasty but at least it was close at hand. "In," he said when she didn't react, and gently pushed her across the threshold. "You sleep in here, and I'll go sleep... in the hall. Or something. Okay?"

He turned to go and she said, "No, stay here."

Joxer froze.

"I am so mad at her, I need to talk to somebody."

"...Oh."

"The nerve. Talking to me like that..." Gabrielle flung herself on the bed. That ruled it out. Joxer circled aimlessly for a few seconds looking for a non-existent chair, and finally sat on the floor.

"She has no tact. None at all. Especially when she's drinking. Before when we were downstairs she's looking at these guys over at the next table, and you can't imagine the kinds of disgusting things she was saying."

"Oh, I bet I can," he said under his breath. Gabrielle didn't hear and continued. "And then she has the nerve to question me, just because I'm telling her the truth."

"Well..." He ventured hesitantly into the conversation. "Maybe she doesn't want to hear it."

"Nonsense, everyone needs to hear the truth."

"But not 'wants' to. I mean, I've learned lots of truth about myself ever since I started hanging out with you guys."

"See, and aren't you better off for it?"

"Well, no, 'cause it all sucks."

"Well, a person who is not you would be better off for it." Having thus destroyed the argument with logic, Gabrielle went on. "Bards are supposed to tell the truth. It's a holy calling."

"Yeah," he said without thinking, "but only the true truth."

"'True truth'. Remind me to try and teach you a vocabulary some day. What is that supposed to mean, 'true truth'?"

"Like in the salon, when you were telling the story about the Argonauts? The true truth is that they were heroes and went out and did heroic stuff. The part about the smell and everything, that was the truth but not *true* truth."

"But it's still the truth."

"But it's not the point, I guess. Just like maybe Xena thinks some weird things when she drinks -- really, really weird things -- but that's not the true truth about Xena. The true truth is you love her and you shouldn't fight over stuff like that, 'cause it doesn't matter."

Gabrielle apparently thought about this for a long moment. "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

He did so, but couldn't explain it properly. "No," he finally said, frustrated.

She snorted. "Go to sleep, Joxer."

"All right." He considered taking his armor off - for all its good qualities, it was not particularly comfortable to sleep in - but the thought of how Gabrielle might interpret his taking anything off stopped that thought before it had properly begun. Instead, he sighed and arranged himself as best he could on the floor, closed his eyes momentarily, opened them -- and saw Gabrielle leaning over the edge of the bed, staring at him. "What?" he asked.

"You know something?"

"No."

"You look really ridiculous when you do that."

"Oh, really?" Joxer asked in a very small voice.

"Lying there on the floor like a, a dog or something. Yes, that's it exactly. That's what you're like. You're like a dog."

"Oookay." He slowly rolled onto his side and curled into a ball. "Time to go to sleep now, Gabby, 'kay?"

"I mean, do you have any idea how stupid you look? Following us around like a dog. A big, sloppy dog..."

"Dog. Got it," he moaned. "Oh, I have to go to sleep now, Gabby, please."

"...and it just looks so pathetic and stupid. Do you want to know the truth?"

"Nooooooooo." He curled up even tighter and rocked back and forth slightly like a man anticipating the most agonizing, unbearable pain of his entire life, which at the moment was exactly what he was.

"People make fun of you for it, and I hate it when people make fun of you."

He uncurled just a tad. "Really?"

"They don't know you like I do. And they talk about you like that, it's so mean. I hate it, and Xena hates it. You should see what she does when she catches them at it. Not that she would want you to know."

"What she does, or that she catches them?"

"Both." Reminded of the subject, Gabrielle huffed, "Xena! Do you want to know what she said to me? Do you want to know the truth?"

"No." For some reason he was beginning to think saying this was not doing any good.

"She said I don't have good insight into people! Can you imagine? Me?"

"You have very good insight," he said loyally. Cautiously he finished uncurling and sat back up.

"She says I totally miss the obvious. I have no idea what she's talking about. No idea! I'm a very observant person. It's a bard thing. It's my training. Even if I didn't already have a superior ability to understand people's motivations. Which I do. For instance, I know all about you."

Joxer gasped. He wheezed, he gasped, he gasped some more, and finally he managed to choke out, "You do?"

"About you being like a dog and everything. That's insight. Insight and a strong grasp of metaphor. Xena wouldn't know a metaphor if it hit her with a chakram. Are you hyperventilating? Cut it out. Put your head between your knees and breathe. I swear, you're the only person I know who can injure himself sitting perfectly still on the floor. What is wrong with you?"

If she hadn't been Gabrielle, he might have said something along the lines of "You're the one with the insight, you tell me." On the other hand, if she hadn't been Gabrielle he wouldn't have panicked, so instead he hung his head between his knees and wished desperately for the night to be over.

By the time it finally was Joxer had heard the truth about, among other things, Callisto's real hair color, Iolaus' singing voice, and, in great and excruciating detail, exactly what both Gabrielle and Xena thought of Autolycus' butt. Gabrielle finally went to sleep some two or three hours before cock's-crow. Joxer had a feeling he would never sleep again.

When it became light enough to see he got up slowly and painfully from the floor, wincing each time something clanked or clunked, which was a lot of times. He headed as quietly as possible for the door, managed to ease it open without walking into it, managed to ease it shut behind him -- such miracles! -- without slamming it, walked down the hall and down the stairs, and tripped over the last step.

Well, two out of three. He picked himself up even more slowly this time, trying to ignore the baleful glare of the innkeeper, and slipped outside. Talking hadn't worked, and listening hadn't worked. But sometime during Gabby's soliloquy he had thought of one more thing that might, even though it was probably a really stupid idea, and even though he had been expressly forbidden from doing it. But it was the only thing left.

There was a nip in the air that did absolutely nothing for the stiffness in his back as he made his way to the agora. It was so early he'd even arrived before the fishmongers, so it was some time before the first pushcart arrived. He limped up to meet it when it did. "I want to buy some fish," he said.

"How many?"

"All of them." He fingered his money pouch ruefully; there would be many, many nights spent sleeping out in the open over this. On the other hand, compared to last night, sleeping out in the open displayed many fine and heretofore unsuspected virtues. "All of them, and I need to borrow your cart."

Conclusion >>>