Five Minutes TimebackTitle: With Five Minutes Time
Author: Manda wanderlustlover@satx.rr.com
Rating: PG
Fandom: Babylon 5
A/N: Season 5, set in the evening of "Secrets of the Soul". And mostly because he was begging for some love.Zack wasn't a drinker. In fact, Zack wasn't much of anything aside from a constantly clean-shaven, straight shooter.
He did his job the way he was supposed to. He didn't make deals, but he looked for compromises. He took vacation rarely, but when he did it was something exotic, memorable and usually quiet. He caught, locked up and charged the bad guy. He protected the rest of the station from all manner of emergencies and threats.
His private time was spent with the few people he truly saw as friends and not half-hearted co-workers. He went along with them to bars before, but he was there for fun and conversation, rarely for the show or the drinks. Maybe it was the badge or his need to make sure he was in control of his body in case something went wrong, but Zack wasn't very fond of drinking either.
It had, in his opinion, a tendency to make people very stupid.
So that fact that he was sitting in his quarters on the floor with a half empty bottle of scotch in his hand and an untouched pizza box about three feet away from him didn't bode well.
It'd been a hard day, but no harder than yesterday, or even the day before yesterday. At least not in ways he could write down on paper.
Having Garibaldi in the brig was not something he specifically longed to see so he didn't spend a whole lot of his day down there. He didn't want the accusations of a captain he didn't quite know or understand thrust back at him. There were more telepaths coming and though he couldn't lay his finger on what his sense of balance said something was about to go massively wrong with them all here. There were the normal squabbles between races, thieves, and then the problem in down below. Which really wouldn't have been a big problem except that it was telepaths beating up and killing people and that made it a huge problem.
But none of that was on his mind right now, was it?
No. Of course not. No. It didn't matter next to what was really wrong.
And what was the wrong thing? That his heart was starting to get mangled into his job and that wasn't acceptable. It wasn't so much that he hated Byron. He wasn't even sure he knew him enough to like or dislike him. He came off slippery, demanding and insane at points when he spoke in the jail cell and none of it sat well with Zack, but those were not things you could truly hate someone for.
No, he wasn't sure he didn't hate Byron for a completely different reason. A reason Zack had no right to hate him for but hated him for all the more each time he saw the man.
Lyta.
Lyta Alexander.
Telepath, once Vorlon attaché, and now and then member of Psi-Corps.
And, of course, the girl Zack was hopelessly and curelessly head over heels for. And who wanted nothing from him. Hadn't she made that clear before? And again today? Her voice was stern and steely when they'd spoken before he'd come home. Before he'd bought the bottle of Scotch walking home.
He could still picture it, too.
....
"Byron is putting his life on the line to create something for his people- and I'm one of them. He's giving us back a sense of dignity and community. And I'm proud of that and I'm proud of him. If you can't handle that I'm sorry, but there nothing I can do about it."
Her green eyes flashed, bright and beautiful, even in her anger. He wasn't even quiet sure why she was angry, just sure that she was. Her spine straight as she talked at him and acidic accusations under her tone. It made him feel helpless, like all the sands of chance were sliding through his fingers, or maybe they were already completely gone.
"Look, if you could just give me five minutes-" Zack started, but she cut him off.
"Zack, if Byron asked me to follow him into to hell, I'd do it gladly with a smile on my face," she replied in rebuttal, staring at him with fire and pain in her eyes. Things he'd wanted to help her with, but couldn't. But that didn't change anything inside of him still. "Because I believe in him. What could you possibly say in five minutes that could change that?
And then she'd turned around and walked away.
...
So here he sat, gulping Scotch and staring morosely at his pizza box. Not because it wasn't good pizza mind you, that was an amazing pizza, but because going to open it had reminded him of the night he showed up with pizza at Lyta's place and now he couldn't even touch the box to eat the pizza or move it away from him. It just sat there about four feet from him now.
Mocking him. Taunting him. Whispering his stupidity.
Because the one person he wasn’t so fond of already had what he wanted so bad it burned. And maybe they weren’t together yet, but it was very obvious that it was coming to him. She showed up every time something had to him and she was there anytime they found him doing anything. They were becoming attached at the hip.
And the box taunted that it wasn’t just their hips they’d be attaching.
So he sat there trying to forget that not so far away the girl of his dreams was doing something, whatever it might be, with the a person that wasn’t him. Not for lack of trying, mind you. He’d asked her out once, a few months back.
And she’d been so angry, so disgusted with him, she hadn’t even answered him to say no, the box whispered.
He took a long drink of Scotch, endearing himself to the bottle and the burning feeling in his throat. Even if it had nothing on the burn in his heart. He leaned back against the arm of his couch staring at the box on his floor thinking about the words they’d said earlier and his silence. What could he have done with five minutes?
He could have told her she was the only girl for him. That he’d tried dating other people but he kept trying to find her in them, or measure them against her. He could have asked her out again. He could have pulled her close and kissed without even saying anything. He could have told her he wanted to make all her problems vanish. Date her, marry her, be the person she needed, whatever she needed.
And she would have rejected him all over again, but while she was looking him in the eye this time, the box spurted at him.
It happened almost faster than he could see it and much faster than his fuzzy brain could stop himself from doing it. The bottle fell from his hand, sloshing Scotch on the carpet, as his other hand had found his PPG and fired it twice into the pizza box.
And if it had truly been a threat it was a very dead threat now. But then so was his carpet; now soaked with scotch and baring a very obvious scorch mark.
Beep-Beep.
Beep-Beep.
Zack looked around confused for about a minute before he realized it was his comm. link. He glared at the ceiling as he moved toward his living room foot table and tapped the comm. link laying on it malicious in its innocence.
“Yeah?”
“Everything okay, chief? We registered fire in your quarters.”
“Everything’s-“ he started staring at the scorch mark and the tufts of cardboard left. He tried to make his mind clear a bit and to steady his voice even as the room swum around his vision. “Everything’s fine, Tental. I’ll file a report about it in the morning.”
“Yes, sir. Tental out.”
Zack threw his comm. link back at the table and sagged down against his couch, burying his head in the cushions as he groped around for the bottle. He didn’t pay attention to the tears that clouded his vision, because his sight was shot from the alcohol already. When he found the bottle, he didn’t pay attention to the fact only an inch was left because he tipped it and drank it all.
And he just let his body be overcome in feeling the horrible burn.
Even if he couldn’t tell whether it was the alcohol or his tears doing it now.
.
.
.