All Souls Night.

General Disclaimer: Xena, Gabrielle, and any other characters you recognize from the show belong to Renaissance Pictures, not me. Don't bother suing, IÜm too deep in debt from college. The various supporting cast are my own creations, but if you want to use them please do. This story has incidental violence, sex, demons, sex, half-demons, sex, angst, sex, mayhem, sex, committed love between two women well over the age of consent, sex, a bit of kink, sex, fire, sex, and earthly language. Oh, there will be plenty of scenes of love-making. So if you find any of this offensive, or its illegal in your area of residence, go read something more wholesome.

Episode Disclaimer: I'll think of something at the end.

Author's Notes: This is a serial piece, the chapters of which I'll release as soon as they get finished. The story and characters belong in the "Blood and Roses" altaverse created by Katrina. You'll want to be familiar with the stories already archived at her site for this to make much sense. Thirty-second version: Gabrielle is a demigod-offspring of Bacchus, who has survived to the present day. Xena, demigod-offspring of Ares, was killed by Callisto a century ago. Gabrielle recently found Xena's double (also named "Xena") living as a prostitute and they now live together.

Archive: Can be archived anywhere, so long as the disclaimers and text are left intact.

All comments, critiques, and praise (flames will be tossed into the virtual trash bin) can be directed to the author at the e-address below.

It was only after they'd ordered dinner that Xena became *certain* that they were being followed.

The feeling had been nagging her since early that morning, strong enough that she noticed it even in the afterglow their morning lovemaking, though it proved subtle enough not to instantly alert her. Their breakfast went uninterrupted, as did their shower(always lasting far longer than it might normally, the sight of each other's nude bodies simply proving too much), dressing, and the morning business.

The last, normally consisting of meeting over the phone and new orders to the brokers Gabrielle retained, interested Xena only a little, and even then only as far as her concern for her love's financial well-being. She trusted Marcous enough that she didn't worry about Gabrielle being robbed. Gabrielle herself was no slouch in negotiating with these corporate types, and so often handed them the worst possible deal (for them, never those on whose behalf she worked) which they happily swallowed, while Gabrielle walked away with the real profit.

During these brief moments in the late morning, Xena would practice a few of her better-hidden skills. A decade in the circus, followed by her time riding with the Outlaws had taught her quite a bit. Another ten years on the streets hadn't hurt either. She'd never told Gabrielle of the things she'd learned during those nightmarish years...and never would. Xena refused to endanger their companionship by revealing... Goddess...she knew, just knew Gabrielle would throw her out the instant she discovered...

Practice went quick that morning, more due to her state of mind than effort at improving already-honed skill. Though she did feel a bit guilty about taking out her anxiety on an otherwise-defenseless tree. Her aim with the thin throwing blades she kept with her seemed only to sharpen with her fear. Her reflexes likewise took on almost superhuman speed and precision. It didn't help that the feeling of being watched proved all the stronger outside. In fact, Xena was first aware of it there, on the forest's edge.

They'd become great friends, she and this clump of woods. It put her in mind of days long past, when she and her sister would run through whatever bit of woods or brush were nearby, one pretending to be old Artemis while the other would become great Ursula the bear. Or the they would hold imaginary conversations with the greatest of trees, and attend little tea parties held in rings of stone or green, the antics of the beetles and butterflies their entertainment.

But this clump, so wild and untamed, was almost as calming to her as the mellow tones of Gabrielle's voice. It was different with Gabrielle, who exercised so total a command of her heart it would have easily terrified the "her" of but a year ago. That Xena had long ago sworn never surrender herself to another. Her ten years on the streets-selling herself first for blow, only later for coin enough for food-not once had shown her another would care. She'd believed that with what little she believed remained of her heart, her soul long ago lost.

Strange, she would sometimes ponder, how everything one "knows" can be changed in but a single moment.

It hurt to think how desperately she'd fallen for this small, slight redhead. It hurt because the feelings ran so deeply, far deeper than Xena would have wished. Far deeper than she could ever let herself believe possible. That a woman like Gabrielle might feel the same shook her as nothing else might.

Xena didn't entirely believe she did. It was a cynical, unworthy thought...but there it was all the same. Why the hell should a beautiful, rich woman like Gabrielle, who (judging from the number of guests, both male and female, that came over for dinner, drinks, and the odd bit of conversation) had more suitors than the entire Kennedy line put together, suddenly take in a twenty-six year old streetwalker? Why offer her a new life (in Bermuda, for Goddess' sake!)? Why shower her with everything from custom-tailored suits, hand-crafted bits of jewelry, and five wardrobe's worth of Victoria's Secret lingerie...all within a day of meeting her?

To hell with that; what possessed *her* to offer herself to Gabrielle like she had? "I will wash your dishes..." She'd said it pressing two fingers to the small redhead's lips. "I'll do whatever you ask me to... just let me stay with you."

She hadn't thought as she said this. She simply spoke what came to mind. Where the words came from... she could never tell.

And so here she was, living in a mansion, eating good food three or four times a day (damn if that cook wasn't persuasive about her taste-testing), wearing clothes she'd only seen in store windows...making love with more passion and intensity than she ever had, for even her highest paying john, in the past.

Not that she hadn't been tempted by Gabrielle's many offers of salary, gifts, and 'compensation'. She'd heard it all, each word ringing like a hundred church bells in her head. And still she offered herself as a maid, or bedwarmer, or whatever... simply so she could stay close to this small, beautiful woman. Some vestige of pride, something she'd have sworn had been driven out of her decades ago, demanded she not simply take her up on the offer of riches and luxury. She *just couldn't* and that was that.

And so Xena Alexandran dusted off skills of organization and persuasion instilled in her by her grandmother (may the ancient bitch rot in every hell there ever was!) and took over management of her *their* home. It was actually easier than she'd expected. The staff proved receptive to her ideas and suggestions, as shocked as Xena herself was at the breadth of her knowledge. From cooking (who would have thought just two pinches of pepper and a slice of garlic could add such taste to a soup?) to carpentry (despite the fact she hadn't picked up a hammer since she was only hip-high and had an almost pathological fear of sharp edges!) to the organization of a surprise function (how in the name of the Almighty did she know which utensil went where?), there seemed little Xena was incapable of doing. Only Gabrielle seemed unfazed by this.

Not that the both of them didn't take exception to her accountant/financial advisor's thinly veiled insinuations about her *"motives"* at least where GabrielleÜs money was concerned. Xena concluded Gabrielle herself had spent time outside of the confines of finer society, given the language she used when Marcous aired such ideas. It was as colorful as anything she'd heard riding on the back of a hog or fighting for her patch of sidewalk.

So, to demonstrate her sincerity where the money was concerned, Xena would remove herself from the house every morning. She would jog out to the woods, practice her throwing knives, a bit of improvised acrobatics, and she'd be back in time to see Gabrielle's coffee go cold. She made no mention of it, nor did she allow Gabrielle to flaunt it as much she might. No doubt many a store clerk were badly confused as to why she put up such a fight over prices and style. The scene she'd all but staged outside of Victoria's Secret had probably turned more heads than if the pair of them were stark naked.

Hell, she'd have done it just so they could 'make up' afterwards.

"You look distracted," Gabrielle said, venturing for the first time that day. She'd been quite patient with Xena, waiting for her to speak whatever it was that had obviously been bothering her. After nearly three millennia as a public storyteller, to say nothing of living with one who was more closed-mouthed than a rock, Gabrielle had developed a fine sense of other's moods. This one was an open book.

"Ehh?" Xena looked up, bravely meeting her eyes. Bravely, because Gabrielle knew she'd not part with a single detail. Xena would lie through her beautifully straight teeth to protect her.

"You. You've been distracted all day."

"How. . .what do you mean?" Or, if not actually lie, at least dismiss or distract the question. What was rather idiotic, given Gabrielle had evidence this time to press the issue.

"I *mean,* my love, that you aren't one to bruise your poor thumb and fingers simply because she's a closet masochist." She let her eyes flicker onto right hand, whose thumb and first two fingers were bandaged by a few stands of white gauze. Xena had been hanging hooks for some recently acquired artwork, the nagging feeling of eyes on her sufficient to cause her to pound her hand rather than the wall. Embarrassing, to say the least.

Xena, to Gabrielle's consternation, chose to concentrate on her steak, sawing into the poor side of beef with all the delicacy of lumberjack. Gabrielle wet her throat with a sip of wine and reconsidered her options. If this wasn't her Xena, the one she'd lived and loved for three millennia, she was the closest thing to genuine dopplegangger she'd ever come across. It was irritating and heartbreaking all in the same breath, not that she'd change a thing. If nothing else, this was familiar ground to her, and so the strategies she'd likely have to employ were already set. It was just a question of which to use.

Xena, being Xena, easily blew all her carefully laid plans out of the water.

"We're being followed."

Gabrielle wasn't sure which was more shocking: Xena's sudden declaration, its content, or the fact she'd come to such a conclusion in the first place. She didn't doubt Xena's suspicion for an instant, herself suspecting the same for some time. It was more the fact Xena even voiced it in the first place, and with a conviction normally absent from anything she spoke. Normally Xena would suggest a second-opinion on any project she'd completed, from cooking to carpentry, which led Gabrielle to the amusing conclusion that she might be trying to bankrupt her, given the only ones who could possibly have done better were the sort serving royalty and commanding six-figure hourly fees.

Rather than let slip her own thoughts, Gabrielle tried to coax more from her lover, if only to confirm the feelings she herself held. "Oh?" was her response, a small grin suggesting amusement. Gabrielle prayed to Artemis it looked real. "More of your admirers probably. I wish they'd try hitting on your 'younger sister' every now and thenÓ"

"It isn't. . ." Xena tried to interject, only to be drowned out by Gabrielle's droning.

"Ónot like *you* don't ever get enough, do you? I'm not sure who Maggie is cooking for half the time, us or *just* you."

"It's. . ."

But Gabrielle, ancient bard that she was, was very much on a roll. "Well, I can certainly understand it. I mean you're nothing short of beautiful. Absolutely ravishing, even. . ."

"Gabrielle. . ."

"Ónever mind that I'm utterly in love with you, so I really don't mind *you* are the one who gets hit on all the time, while I'm fending off fundamentalist Christians who're trying to lynch the pair of us. . .did you want to say something?"

"Shut up."

It was delivered with such tone and intent that Gabrielle was immediately thrown back three thousand plus years. Even so, she was far from the naive farming girl from the countryside when she'd first heard that voice. Where once her throat might have closed up, Gabrielle now took only a moment to think up something witty and responsive to fill the resulting silence. "Was it something I said?"

Very very loudly.

Though she had no real idea why just then. She was irritated, yes. On edge, yes. But so enraged that she'd risk breaking every piece of crystal in sight again? The last time had been simply because she was trying to hit the high notes on some tune she'd had bouncing in her head for the past year or two.

This time she was just wanted to start screeching like a banshee. It wasn't Gabrielle's voice, either, which Xena knew as certain as she did her love for the woman that she'd never tire of hearing babble about the most inconsequential things. Which, while all good and well, left her with absolutely nothing to blame this sudden urge on.

Instead, knowing that she would be screaming any minute now, Xena quickly got up and headed for the exit.

Gabrielle took a final, measured sip of her wine and rose to follow. She hardly stopped long enough to pay the cashier, instead depositing a small pile of bills into the girls hands and collecting their coats, her eyes riveted on her love's back.

Still, the slower of their pairing, who by some joke of Fate was both a former athlete (an Olympiad from the time of Cyrus of Persia no less) and a blond to boot, felt the need to actually say it. "That went well."

His companion, a once-debutante who frequented Prohibition era nightclubs as a youth, kept her council and made to leave herself. To her eyes, things were *not* going well. The Ancient no doubt suspected she and her companion were in danger, and judging by the dark-haired one's behavior she was likewise on edge. Having watched the Ancient far longer than her own companion, who vastly preferred his nightly bloodsport to the duty of surveillance they'd been given, she knew this new companion to the normally-solitary Ancient to be level-headed and reserved. The occasion outside of the lingerie shop had been staged, she was sure, and whatever arguments these two played out in public were just that: play.

That this dark-haired beauty would come so close to losing composure in so public a setting suggested she'd underestimated the sensitivity of the mortal. This was one to watch, particularly as her sensitive ears had picked out everything that had been said across the room, both said and unsaid. The Ancient was not one to be quieted easily, while her companion was not one to speak in sentences of more than two or three words at a stretch.

They'd have to walk carefully from here on, lest the plans she and hers shared became dust. It was only with reluctance that she placed a hand on her companions arm and essentially pulled him from their table. Though the Olympiad towered over her and easily was double her width, she felt no fear in handling him so roughly. Her's was blood straight from the He-of-the-Dark-Vine, while his was of some simpleton wretch he'd fancied as a conquest in the woods outside of Olympia one night.

Obviously current research was truer than it realized, as nothing but genetics could explain wits as dense as those housed in this one.

The departure of the pair did not itself go unnoticed. The eyes which viewed them did so with all the interest of one who had seen the mating of flies upon a wall. . . which is to say: very little.

The same had watched the Ancient and her lover bicker and leave with far more interest. This was a new dynamic to them, interesting and not a little worrying. By all accounts bickering was hardly a new thing for these two, whether it be over clothes, money, or Gabrielle's choice of salad dressing. If ever there was a worthy pair, it was these two.

Ears equally keen had picked out the words and banter, causing a rare smile. She'd smiled so little in recent times, yet could never resist it seeing these two. But this night there was a bittersweet taste to it, suspicions being confirmed and curses immediately springing to mind.

"Bloody festivals!" was her only audible explanitive. Rather than sit there and ruminate, this third party (consisting of one) finished her own wine (wishing it was Guiness all the while) and made to follow. There was an urge to giggle at this, her head suddenly light from so many realizations coming to a head all at once.

"Bloody follow-the-immortal-leader," she snickered. "The dead-leading-the-undead." This was incredibly funny to her, though she managed to keep composure enough to make it out the door and to her car. Those she followed had already done likewise.

She watched for the second pair, but had eyes mainly Gabrielle and Xena as they conversed beside their limo. Now it was back to her most familiar role: waiting in the shadows.

She'd done it for millennia, and so could stand a few more hours.