Oh, wow. Wow, okay. That hits closer to home than... well, anything else that she can think of, really. She shoots him a spooked look, and a small sliver of real empathy blooms in her chest - because yes, that's exactly it; that's exactly how it feels.

"Why do you care who you'll be without him?" she wonders. "Is who you are now really worth preserving?"

And despite the fact that she's ostensibly talking about Malcolm, she isn't really. Callisto has built so much of her life around Xena that she knows she'll be an empty shell without her to fight and torture and hate. She's just not at all convinced that being a shell wouldn't be preferable to what she is now.