By Dharma Bum (dharmasbox@earthlink.net)

I have no idea why I started getting depressed and enraged about this subject again when everybody else is actually happy for a change, so this story really should have stayed locked away in the "total lack of respect for reality" folder. But Rebecca urged me to post it, either because she actually thinks the entire list is interested in my personal psychological problems, or because this is the week of EVIL. I'm inclined to think the latter. Anyway, if you don't really understand what's going on frankly I'm not surprised.

PERSONAL DISCLAIMER: This story is not to be construed in any way, shape, or form as any sort of indication that I am willing to be reconciled to even the slightest degree with That Episode.

CONTINUITY WEENIE: Takes place some months after That Episode. Guess what year. Oh yeah, like that was tough. (Kawcrow's Note: For you Spoilerniks, I believe That Episode would refer to "Deja Vu All Over Again". Sorry to increase your pain by bringing it up again, Dharma, but the masses must be warned..)

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Characters in this story are owned by RenPics, but I doubt they would recognize them here so I'm not really all that worried. Halfway is apparently owned by me. I'm the one who keeps getting the tax bill, anyway.

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"Don't fret," Gabrielle said. "There's nothing to do for it, all we can do is wait." She took a book off the well-stocked shelves and sat down in a comfortably overstuffed chair. Gabrielle had never gotten over the Victorian era and still kept their rooms as claustrophobically cluttered as possible.

Xena, whose tastes ran to the postmodern, stood by a window where she could at least see open space if not be in it. "It'll be a long time," she said dourly. "It always is."

"He lives too long, that's his problem," Gabrielle said cheerfully. "It's no wonder he's grouchy sometimes by the time he finally gets here. He oughta learn to die early like we do, then he could kick back and relax with us until it's time again."

"Die early is one thing," Xena said, a little irritated. "Die stupidly..."

This was an argument still fresh enough not to have fully faded. Gabrielle put the book down. "Look, I'm not the only one who is capable of looking out for a bus, okay? I suppose your entire life you never heard about checking both ways before you cross the street?"

"Who's checking both ways?" Xena asked hetorically. "Who's checking anything? It's the millennium. It's the world's biggest outdoor party, why would anyone think someone would be driving a goddamn bus through the middle of it?"

"Well, you got to admit," Gabrielle said cheerfully, "it was pretty cool. It made all the papers. Flattened by a bus one minute after midnight on January first, two thousand. We were famous. Of course, we were dead, but famous."

"You talk like him sometimes."

Gabrielle's face fell a little. "Poor baby, having to hear about it from the media like that. Did you see that interview? This creep from channel 12 showed up right on his doorstep and got him out of bed, and there he is half-asleep and seven months pregnant and people sticking mikes in his face asking him if he knew you were dead, and if you were the father. You should have changed the emergency contact information in your wallet," she added as an afterthought.

Xena watched the perfectly formed clouds scudding across the perfectly blue sky. "Have you heard anything about the baby?"

"It's not doing well, the poor thing. Born early like that, and I guess he wasn't in such great shape either. The shock and everything." After the silence became oppressive, she said, "Xena. It wasn't your fault."

"I should have been there." She kept staring out the window.

"You couldn't have known."

"I could have goddamn asked. I could have...He was acting spacier than usual just before I left, I should have known something was wrong. But then I found out who he was, and I thought well, he's just being himself is all, and then..."

"Don't blame yourself."

"And then I walked out on him, goddamn it, I just turned and walked away because I was so happy to see you, and I didn't even think. I'm not blaming you," she said before Gabrielle could speak, "but I should have known better. I don't ever learn."

"It's hard to remember, on the other side," Gabrielle said sympathetically. She was not sure at what point that had become the other side and this the reality, but for hundreds of years now everything had been inverted that way. "We're lucky to remember anything at all, much less details."

"But I always take care of him. Always. Why not this time?"

"You would have. You would have, with the baby and everything, once you found out. If it just hadn't been for that darn bus." She ventured tentatively into dangerous waters. "Besides, it was his idea, remember?"

"He just got carried away in the heat of the moment. Him and his theatrics! And you know he has rotten judgement. I should, anyway. Even on the other side, I knew that."

"No sense of proportion." An affectionate smile tugged at the corner of Gabrielle's mouth. "That's him, all right."

Xena sighed and leaned on the windowsill. "Still..." Her voice trailed off, and after a few seconds Gabrielle said, "All right, go ahead."

"Go ahead what?"

"This is the part where you blame me, so go ahead."

Xena looked at her in some surprise. "I'm not blaming you."

"Well, you should." Gabrielle became very interested all of a sudden in the book in her lap and picked at the frayed edges of its binding. "I mean, I wasn't very helpful. I didn't even talk to him hardly."

"You didn't talk to him at all."

"I didn't recognize him... well, I recognized him but I didn't recognize him, do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Possibly."

"And I got all confused because of the bodies and everything, I think. You have to admit that was a little whacked. But still, I should have..."

"You didn't," said Xena, "because you didn't get a chance, because I sent him away before you two could get over the shock. It's not your fault."

"It's yours, then?"

"This time, yes."

"It's always all about you, isn't it?"

Xena gave her a look. "You're not taking this seriously."

"Sorry," Gabrielle said sincerely. "But you're not taking the long view. You have to admit that."

"I am taking the long view. That's why it's bothering me." Xena pulled a chair up by the window and sat down, looking at Gabrielle with a more than slightly sorrowful expression. "You know, looking back on it, ever since the first time, I feel as though I've been letting him down."

"You haven't," Gabrielle said automatically.

"Yes, I have. I keep treating him offhandedly when I'm alive, and then dying on him and leaving him to face everything alone when I should be there to help him..."

"We," Gabrielle said softly, but firmly. "You mean 'we'."

Xena snorted. "You don't..."

"I do too. Especially the first time, don't even remind me about that. Talk about not being there for him. After your baby was born, and..." Gabrielle shuddered, as if the perfect climate had suddenly gone chill.

"Come on, Gabrielle. You're not still blaming yourself for that, are you?"

Gabrielle didn't answer, and Xena leaned forward and sighed. "You couldn't have known, none of us could have known. Don't forget, it was the first time. For all of us. We had no idea what was coming."

"Well, you and I had some idea. I still should have, I don't know, done something more, said something more...You're right, we didn't look out for him enough."

"Now that is not what I said. All I said was..."

"And you're right about that dying stuff, too. I mean, once or twice, okay. But that many times in the same lifetime? And how many times since then? And come to think of it..."

"Gabrielle, calm down."

"I won't. Poor baby. Is he here yet?" She got up and started to pace, the book tucked forgotten under one arm.

"Gabrielle, he'll get here when it's time, there's no sense fretting."

"But it always takes too long. I miss him, darn it."

"So do I."

"We should be there for him like, like angels or something. But instead we're stuck here, halfway, just ...waiting. And he's the whole reason we are here instead of there, and it's just all so... frustrating."

Xena was thoughtful for a minute. "Do you regret it?"

Gabrielle stopped pacing and looked at her. "What?"

"Do you regret the decision we made? Giving up the chance to go all the way across, to be part of Michael's forces, so we could stay halfway and keep being reborn in order to stay together? All of us?"

All three of us, together, instead of the two of us there, and him shut out?" Gabrielle sighed. "Honestly, Xena? I've never regretted it. Not for a single minute. I remember I didn't even have to think about the decision." She swallowed slightly. "And you?"

"I've never regretted it either." Xena smiled. "And I'm glad you feel the same way."

"As if it ever were in doubt." Gabrielle blinked hard, then almost giggled. "Sorry. I'm just remembering the look on Michael's face when we turned him down. I don't think anyone had said 'no' to him in eons. He looked like he'd swallowed a goat."

Xena tried and failed to hide a smirk. "Served him right, I think. They become very pretentious over there. Forget what they're fighting for -- they need a little reality check once in a while."

"You know, I'm glad we didn't go, if for no other reason than we'd have turned into them. They all forget where they came from. Were you there, a couple of hundred years ago, when Iolaus was bringing me back across and he's giving me this lecture on how I'd been too much of a libertine in the life I'd just left? Can you imagine? Iolaus, of all people, calling me a libertine! I told him, 'Don't get smart with me, feather-boy, I knew you when'." Gabrielle shook her head and laughed, the momentary sadness gone. She flopped herself back down in the chair and opened the book again.

Xena settled back in the chair. "Still," she said, "I like these in-between parts best, I think. When we're ourselves, when we aren't wearing other bodies, other faces, other lives -- when we know who we are and what we mean to each other, instead of having it buried so deep sometimes it takes a lifetime just to remember. It's a shame we couldn't have just stayed as we were and gone to the Fields."

"We wouldn't have become so tied to each other, if we'd stayed as we were. That's why they always have such a hard time dealing with us. We're...unique."

"We are indeed." Xena smiled, and leaned back in her chair.

There was a muffled crash from somewhere downstairs, and Xena sat up, and Gabrielle closed her book, and said, "Speaking of unique," and smiled.

"I mean it, Iolaus!" a familiar voice shouted. "Every year until I go back again!" Footsteps clunked up the stairs, still heavy and graceless after all these centuries, and Joxer shouldered the door open and stumbled into the room. "Whoops. Oughta do something about that rug. Hi, guys. That was Iolaus," he said, gesturing back over his shoulder, "I struck a deal that if I died the baby would live, and I made him promise to be her guardian angel, and I told him I wanted to hear how she was doing every year, and he got all mad but I made him promise. You shoulda seen her, Xena. She looked just like you. Me. Whoever. Boy, that was really whacked with that body thing, wasn't it? I named her River, and Iolaus is going to get her adopted by these people who live up toward Big Sur...hello," he said in some surprise but not displeasure as the two women flung themselves on him, "what's up?"

"Nothing." Gabrielle planted a good, solid kiss on him. "We weren't expecting you, that's all."

"You got here early this time." Xena hugged him tightly and ruffled his hair. "I'm glad. We can spend a little time together before the next round."

"Suits me." He caught both of them around the waists and picked them up a few inches off the floor in a huge bear hug. "I really miss you guys when you're not around. Did I ever tell you that? Miss me?

"As a matter of fact," Xena said, "we were just talking about you."

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