Wanderlustlover: wanderlustlover@satx.rr.com
Phoenix Ascendant – Arc Two, Part One
~*~
"The Herald of Power"
( About an Hour to Mid Day )Hate and Love.
*SNAP*
They were such very small four-letter words for the overwhelming feeling they could give a person. Each existed right at the edge of the other and at the opposites of true extremes. They were sly devils, those two, who could turn your head and your world inside out and upside down with the only the faintest of a notion. The greatest thing about the two was that they never liked to play alone it seemed, for they had a tendency to miss each other if they couldn’t be dragging you in two directions at once.
Which was exactly where Lyta found herself.
On board later that day would be one very confused pilot and a dozen or so people who just wouldn’t shut up. It wasn’t even specifically that they wouldn’t leave her alone. No, they did that just fine. They could sense the fumes coming off of her for miles. They had the first time she’d returned to down below. Now they simply stayed out of her way, but none of them were quiet. Not that it was even vaguely their fault. They just thought and she just picked up everything, every thought, image, whisper and neuron of memory.
*SNAP-SNAP*
It didn’t so much bother her that they were thinking so much or so loud. They were just causing another reaction to the actual problem. They were salting a wound that they hadn’t the vaguest idea was even there. And then, of course, there was the jubilation. She understood it and yet it still grated on her. For some of them this would be their first trip to Haven, the land of fulfilled dreams even after having heard the planet months and years ago, for others the final trip that would mean they would never leave it again. It could be surprising how long it could take someone to pack up their lives and say goodbye even after they’d been on the run without a home for so long.
That came down to being the difference, didn’t it?
They were happy to be going.
She wasn’t.
{Hello!?!?! Earth to Lyta?}
“You don’t have to shout,” the red head said moving her lips and opening her eyes. Sometimes it felt more jarring to come back to her body than it did to leave it.
“Sure and there are bears doing the hula outside the space dock.” Susan said impertinently. Except when Lyta’s expression didn’t change except to get more severe when she raised her eyebrows as if to ask what this interruption was about, she only shrugged, half rolled her eyes and kept talking.
“I’ve been talking to you for the last ten minutes and you’ve sat there still as a stone.”
“Just because I heard it doesn’t mean I can improve upon the silence by responding to it,” the red head replied with a peeved frown.
“Wow, and that’s not a Vorlon answer if I’d ever heard one,” Susan said watching Lyta get up, suffering another momentary glare from her.
“Well, thank you, I did think that was their point originally. I have to be going soon. Was there point you were making?”
“You mean you’re actually going to leave the room finally?” Susan said putting her hands on her hips and looking overly flabbergasted.
She’d grown rather annoyed by the fact Lyta had seemed pensive, annoyed and had with drawn for the last two days since receiving her letter. The computer had only recorded her leaving the room once before now and that was on the same night she received the package. That outside trip had only been for about two hours. For the rest of the duration she’d pretty much, for what Susan could tell, sat on the couch unmoving.
“Lunch,” Lyta said. “With the ambassador of Centauri Prime and the liaison for Minbar.”
“Really?” Susan asked, actually starting to sound like she might be regretting her earlier tone, and was curious about her friends’ momentary plans. “Are you going to change?”
“Hmm?” Lyta emitted, sounding distracted and then looked down to her body. She was still wearing a pair of nightclothes. She pressed her lips thoughtfully and the colors and clothes began to shift suddenly. A flurry of color and movement seemed to surround her body and then it all settled down. Suddenly she was dressed with power, presence, and the ability to make anyone a little breathless looking at her, which amazed Susan, at least for the first half a dozen seconds.
She was wearing what appeared to be black completely form fitting tights, that were accented by the fact she now wore a loose fitting brilliant emerald colored sweater that hung to about one third down her thigh. It accented the fact she was overtly female with a low dropping cut in the front. The outfit seemed to show more than it really did, making those who would see her wonder and gasp.
All of it though quite obviously just normal clothing, seemed to somehow give the appearance of power and complete ease, as thought is was just asking someone to notice her and yet also know that they couldn’t in a million years dream of touching her.
“H-how?” Susan stuttered, flooded with shock.
“Telekinetic manipulation on a molecular level. Can you tell I’ve been practicing?” Lyta asked with a coy smile as she played with something black in her hand. It shifted in her hand, elongating, and then became thinner at one end and thicker at the other, till it was a long black lacquer hairpin.
Humming slightly she went about pulling half her hair up with the pin. In the end, she had a hairstyle that only added to the allure of her appearance. It was halfway pulled up and fell like a waterfall from her head down across her shoulders and past her shoulder bones anyway. At the edges near her ears it even appeared to have formed small downward spiral curls.
~*~*~
( About Half an Hour Later )
“And you are?”
“I-um-Ember?” the girl answered, questionably and obviously startled. She had long dark brown hair to about her waist and bright blue, very nervous eyes. She had a way of standing that seemed to imply if you looked at her just a little harder she might be able to make herself completely invisible right before your eyes.
“And you are in my med. lab for what reason?”
“I came to-uh-see her,” the girl pointed shakily toward the room nearest to the back left corner, starting to get much too flummoxed standing so close to the man who towered over her mostly. He seemed to be regarding her most seriously, as was everyone else in the room now.
“Patient’s name?”
“Melissa.” Ember said, almost stuttering but catching herself before it happened.
She wasn’t rather fond of figures of authority and she had many ways around them. Highest and most used was the shy, nervous child approach. She was nineteen, world hardened, and hadn’t been shy or nervous since she’d been about eight, but she had the eyes to pull it off and it worked wonderfully.
“Okay,” The doctor said, glancing from her to the door where the young telepath girl was. “But don’t make it too long. She still needs her rest.”
“I promise,” the girl said, giving him a shaky smile and walking beyond. She put a little hurry in her step, a tiny dash, that might look she feared that if she didn’t get there fast he might just change his mind on her. Her eyes were bright blue, wide and convincing if she acted nervous and scared.
Everyone bought it.
Why was it so many adults fell for everything so easily?
{I’m not sure, but I’m all sorts of curious to who the hell you are.}
Ember stopped about three feet inside the door since she’d expected the girl to be asleep. Getting in here had been half the fun and she’d surmised she might not even be able to get that far really. She hadn’t honestly expected her to be awake and aware already.
{So who are you? And why are you here?} She shifted on the bed, taking in her newest visitor someone she had never seen before. The girl had a mischievous air about her that just drew Melissa’s curiosity like a moth to a flame. {Oh, yes, and where are you from?}
“Ember. And Earth, then Minbar,” She said with a laugh, that sounded rusty and forced, like it hadn’t been used in a long while. She walked in more and let the girl on the bed get a better look at her. Her style of clothes was rather odd, colors only at the moment in silver and blues. The main part of her outfit was blue except for the bottom section of her pants and long jacket which had a slash downward and then it was all silver from there down. “I came see how you were doing. I arrived yesterday on a transport to meet up with the others.”
“They say you saved something very important of ours. That you risked your life,” the new girl said curiously, edging on the foot of her bed. She hadn't really a clue what the girl on the bed had saved though people talked about it reverently like it was something important and holy, and that was enough for her. She’d never had to test her resolve to whether she’d step into gunfire for someone yet and she hoped that test was coming later rather than sooner.
Melissa flopped back on the bed, with a small frown. “It wasn’t the big of a deal. I mean, if you look at in comparison to what the others have been doing for our freedom for years, it’s really small by comparison.”
“No,” the girl with the blue eyes whispered, with a small, true smile. “I think it was awfully brave of you.”
~*~*~
( Same Time )
**You Have Two Messages. Message One.**
“Lyta, its Susan.”
“What do you think you’re doing? Babylon 5 is probably the last place you should be taking part of your extended vacation on. Last you said you were going to see if you could stop by Earth around summer while I was on leave in Russia. If you were there I missed you and since I doubt you could miss me, my bet is that you weren’t there.”
“Hopefully, you didn’t get yourself into any trouble and you’ve found some peace. Not that I think you can find that at all on Babylon 5. I must confess I haven’t even the vaguest idea why you’d go back there.”
Beep-Beep.
“I guess they’ve broken something new now. Send me a message back before four months passes this time. Ivanova out.”
**Message End. Displaying next message.**
“Well, well, well, this is the last place I thought I’d be dropping off an update to you. Tell me you are at least giving Lockley a run for her money. The woman needs someone to get under her skin that she can’t boss around. What I wouldn’t give to see her face when she realizes you’re on the station.”
“Daddy!”
“Mary, Daddy’s on the com right now with someone important.”
“Who?”
“Oh, come here you little devil.” Shrieks of laughter. “Say hello to your Aunt Lyta.”
“Hello Aunt Lyta!”
“And what do you say to her?”
“Thank you for my pretty dresses and the dolly! They’re really, really pretty!”
“Say, sweet heart, why don’t you go find Mommy and I'll catch up you both in a minute.”
“Okay!”
“Kids these days. Who would have ever thought of me as a father figure? Oh, and thanks for the Duck Dodgers helmet. I’m pretty sure I know, but I won’t ask how you came by it. It’s got an honorary place on that enormous desk of mine.”
“So, right, update.”
“ The latest house we bought is a fold, there’s a new warehouse open on five that’s showing great signs of progress and I’ve found a few more of your missing attaché and sent them off in the right direction. Bet your doing better than I last saw you, make sure you keep it that way. Need to go give a menacing speech to my board, so toodle-loo.”
**Message End. There are no more messages.**
Sitting there quietly she thought about the message and what it meant. Michael was great at stating the obvious in a code that only certain people would understand. In this message, there was only one person who would actually understand the code for the sentences he’d just used. It was a code they’d worked up very long ago in the beginning so anyone intercepting their messages wouldn’t find anything funny about them.
Lyta pulled out the necklace chain and held the anchor at the bottom for a few minutes thinking over his words. Her fingers played on it without triggering it all. It wouldn’t trigger without Susan there either and she’d left about half an hour ago now. Shaking her head she stood up and walked over to the com system standing in front of it again. She dropped the necklace back inside her sweater and stood there staring at the blue screen for a few seconds.
“Reestablish contact to Entil’Zha Delenn’s personal channel.”
**Connecting. Stand By.**
“Yes, who-“
The screen cleared a man appeared, both preoccupied and unexpecting, he was talking before he even looked up to see who it was. The man on the screen had aged since she’d last seen him. She’d seen pictures of course, but she’d done a good job of actually not running into him. His eyes darkened and widened all at once after focusing on his face. Rage and shock were running hand in hand across his face.
“Hello, Mr. President,” she said with a large reserve of politeness, even if she wasn’t feeling up to it.
“You’re- you’re alive?!?” He seemed to have lost his grasp, anger taking control faster. “What the hell are you doing on Babylon 5?“
“Yes. It’s nice to see you, too, Mr. President.” Lyta said, bristling, feeling the irritation just starting to roll off her in waves around the room. “Do you mind if I ask where your wife is?”
“Delenn?” Sheridan sputtered. “Yes, I mind. What business do you have with her?”
“I believe that’s between her and I,” the red head replied calmly, as she purposely looked over her shoulder and floated her glass of juice to her hand. She missed seeing it directly, but he both paled and seemed to become just that much more livid.
“Does Captain Lockley know you’re on station?”
“I should hope so. I was after all doing some work for her just the other day,” Lyta said calmly, before taking a sip of her drink through the straw sitting in the cup. “When will Delenn be in?”
It was all she could do to annoy him while looking both calm and stately there. Part of her, a very large part of her, wanted to reach out as far as she could and tear the man in two. After all he’d put her through hell and brought her and put her through hell and kicked her in the teeth for it. Kept her back and put a gun to her head when he didn’t like what she was doing.
“She’s busy at the moment. She’s away from Minbar right now,” he said warily, looking like he was the wrath of god ready to strike her down. He was formulating this behind his eyes she was sure, but what she couldn’t really tell. “I don’t think it’s best for you to try and contact her anymore.”
“That’s not your decision, Mr. President,” Lyta said, making the title pronounce and emphasized. “That’s hers. What we discuss and what happens with what we discuss is, as always, none of your business. You need to realized that.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Of course not,” she said with a perfect lift to her tone, as her lips curled in a slight, but strained, smile. She could tell this being nice thing was already not working on her end. So one more shot. What could it hurt? “How is David doing? I heard he was just about to have another birthday a few weeks after the last time I talked to Delenn.”
“Leave my son out of this, you-you”
“Monster?” Lyta offered casually, her voice hard as ice at the end of the word. Her eyes narrowed on him, the air around her crackling. “Since you apparently can’t even make civil conversation for a single minute, I’m going to offer you this. You pass along this message to your wife and I'll just leave you be.”
“Don’t you dare-“
“Do you ever just shut up?” Lyta asked rudely suddenly, her minor hold on her temper snapping.
“This conversation has nothing to do with whatever the hell you’ve done or are still holding on to from the past. If you can’t move on, that’s your problem. One of only about a million I could name. Get over yourself, Mister-I-John-Sheridan-Am-God-of-the-Known-Universe. I am tired of your petty games, wild life and race preserving schemes that step on anyone who is not important to you in that moment. Do not involve me, or my people, in your self-delusions.”
“Tell Delenn she can contact me, and Lennier, via Antari whenever she returns.”
Abruptly the com turned off when she slammed the button with telekinesis.
It took a few minutes to realize it and it caused her to frown when she did turn around finally. She realized she’d broken all the glass around her again, except for the cup in her hand. The room looked like someone had thrown a tornado into it and she shook her head slightly. Looking down to make sure her clothes were still neat she headed for the door and the lunch she’d just make on time.
~*~*~
( An Hour Later )
Time and space are infinite when you stare at them as clearly as you could out of this window.
“General Ivanova?”
There was nothing so different as this window from many others on the ship. It was one most of the people on the station never saw though and it was so hard to pick out from the outside. It was just a window. It would never be just a window. How many times had she stared out this window? How many times had she seen the coming storm through it? How many times the radiant break of the light through the dark clouds?
How many old moments, passed so fast no one could hold on to them, were attached to this window?
“Yes?” She said, letting one more moment pass before she looked at the person beside her. He looked gun shy and slightly life worn, but both confused and concerned to why she was standing there.
“Is there something we can help you with?”
“No,” Susan replied, shaking her head, an odd smile at her lips. She could remember the very first time she’d step foot in this room. Nervous as hell, and ready for any reason to look annoyed at someone not doing their job right because of it. “It’s nothing.”
“Do you need Captain Lockley or maybe-”
“No,” she said again, a bit harder and she turned back to the window. She glanced at him once and then asked calmly, rationally, and with too much pressure on her words. “What do you see out there?”
“Stars?” The man next to her asked with an edge of timidness. He’d never known quite how to approach her years ago and she still made him uneasy now when she was off the subject of work. “A Centauri cargo ship and two Drazi passenger ships?”
“No, beyond that.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, ma’am.”
Susan bristled at the comment of ma’am but it slid away as she shook her head and but her hands behind her back looking at it stately. “It’s the future and the past. It’s all right here and right now, standing where we’re standing, looking out this very window. The entire world was ours for the taking and we did. We took it and we remade and shaped it. Right here.”
Ah. Nostalgia, he thought, figuring out partially what she meant. He struggled to see it though. He’d been in this room most every day of the last dozen or so years. He worked and lived in this room it seemed and he needed little more than that. Of course he had his dreams of bigger and better, especially after watching people who changed destiny come in and out of those door-- but out this window?
“That’s the power of this place,” he heard her say quietly after a second. “Don’t ever let anyone take that away for you. Don’t let them send you away or convince you a break would be best for you somewhere quieter. Don’t let them cart you off or promote you away. Don’t let them talk you into somewhere bigger and better. Because for just a second, just a blink of an eye, you were here and they couldn’t stop you from taking the future by storm.”
He fumbled for words and ended up nodding repetitively before saying quickly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Susan turned and looked at him for a second, regarding the man who met her gaze. Her eyes were darker than normal and something like doubt seemed to shadow her expression, as she thinned her lips, pressing them together. She let out a breath that he only heard because he was standing so close. He didn’t understand. No one did until they had gotten away from here and then they spent every moment looking back wondering why they’d ever left.
“That’ll be all,” she said with a resigned tone. She made it to the door before turning around to look back at him again. She found it funny that this would come to mind now, after telling him she didn’t want to know that information.
“Do you know where Captain Lockley is at the moment?”
“Yes, ma’am. In her office.”
“Thank you,” she said after a moment and she nodded to herself. Then she left with one confused Lt. Commander David Corwin in her wake, who glanced silently out the window trying to see what he’d just been told about.
~*~*~
( Same Time, Far Away Place )
“She’s coming!”
“So you’ve said,” she replied. “For the last two hours.”
“Oh, you couldn’t possibly understand, Heather,” he replied, with a laugh and a skip to his steps as he moved a curtain and looked out the window.
“Of course not,” she said, trying not to let her lips even touch smiling. It wasn’t so much the subject as the idea of him being happy that made it a harder aspect to not smile. Because of it sarcasm dripped from her voice. “Because it’s not like she hasn’t saved my whole race from war, pestilence, Teep Town and extermination or anything like that.”
“Oh, well, yes, there’s that,” he said, and then laughed slightly and threw open the curtains, letting the light stream into the room, over him, lighting it all up. “But it’s her and she’ll be here.”
“Settle down, Byron,” she said with a laugh. She couldn’t help it. It was rather infectious to see, hear and feel him in this state. Especially after having heard so much about this being who was supposed to be coming soon. “Or someone’s bound to think your having a seizure with all this bouncing around.”
“Settle down? Settle Down!” Byron came upon her in swoop. Picked her up, and swung her around in a hug. His eyes were like stars and his smile was real, something she hadn’t seen on him in so long. Which made both happy for him and wary for the object he claimed did this to him. “Settle down? I could no more make the suns set at this very moment from their dance in heavens. There’s so much to do, to plan, to make ready. We have to-”
“Abide by her wishes to be incognito,” Heather stated. “Let her be herself. As Lyta Alexander she’ll attract enough attention as is, and from what you’ve told me that should be enough to startle her into place already. I don’t know what this ‘delicate, sweet, and innocent’ person would do if even half of the city tried to get down on their knees and bow to her for all she’s done. She might faint or have a stroke.”
Okay, so she admitted, she was being a little hard on this mystery woman.
Not that she was much of mystery. Byron had shared much of his recollection of their times with her. She knew how she moved and talked, but it wasn’t the same as actually knowing the woman. It was very much still his interpretation from inside his head and Byron had a tendency to paint everything a bit prettier than it actually was.
Actually, a lot better than it was. Especially when it came to people he claimed to be in love with. He tended to make them a lot better than they really were and she was sure this person wasn’t going to be that much different. He had gotten into the dreadful habit about the time they were both 5 years old, and she had been tolerating it ever since – friends did that.
“A party still. A revolutionary leader and-“
“Throw a party for something else, Byron,” Heather said shaking her head in amusement. “You have a million reasons at your finger tips. Use one of them. Use the upcoming Winter. Use the unveiling of the monument. Use Asylums Children’s Home Celebration. Add a Ball or a party if you need one, I’m sure no one will notice a little more rejoicing in that much.”
“Ah, Heather,” he said, calming down slightly. Well, his heart and rampant enthusiasm, at least, though not his head, and that wide smile seemed to be screwed on tighter than a Drahk keeper was, so it wasn’t going anywhere either. “What would I do without you?”
“Loose the election, of course,” she said with a smirk. “Now back to your speech, Mister Council Member Elect.”
“Where were we?” He asked going back to looking out the window, his right hand playing with the edge of the cloth to his side. There were children running through the streets playing a game of hide and seek. Their laughter echoed in their thoughts as such a musical tone. Children laughing and playing who would grow up without fear. It was all that he could have hoped for.
“The school system,” she said after a moment, shuffling through a stack of papers in her lap once she’d taken her seat back.
“No, we covered that,” he said curiously looking at her over his shoulder. She had a habit of being on top of everything. She seemed to keep everything that could be of any use up to the moment on what was happening. She was so good to him, especially on days like this when he lacked the focus she so naturally had. “Didn’t we?”
“I still think it needs revision. The children will need more. Especially with how many are due and how many are still arriving.”
~*~*~
( An Hour Past Midday )
“I have to agree,” Vir nodded rapidly. “It does seem quieter here now. Not like it was back in the beginning. Oh, sure, there’s the Interstellar Alliance still, but everything’s just kind of winding down.”
“I seem to have forgotten an appointment,” Lennier said standing up suddenly. “If you’ll both excuse me.”
Lyta gave him a glance that showed both amusement and faint annoyance. Lennier did not simply forget anything. He was, if anything, meticulous about everything he did from polishing his head to taking care of matters that Delenn handed down herself. It was very hard to believe he’d suddenly just ‘forgot’ something. Especially since seeming to have ‘forgotten’ also coincided with the meal having been over ten minutes ago. He nodded to both of them with his fingers in the shape of a triangle and walked away.
She looked at Vir, raised a delicately shaped eye brow, and asked very directly, “What shall we discuss now, Ambassador Cotto?”
“There is a serious matter I had been hoping to discuss with you,” he said, with a slightly nervous air. “But perhaps here is not the best place to be discussing it.”
“You are sitting with the most powerful telepath on the station, in known space, and possibly alive,” she said, as she made a wave with her hand delicately and all sound stopped. It wasn’t as if it had simply been stopped. People were still talking and walking and bustling, there was just no sound. Absolutely none, like someone had made it go mute. She watched him swallow and with a wave it was all back again. “Here is as good as anywhere, no one will be able to hear anything you say.”
“There are some problems – back home,” he said, taking a big gulp of wine from his cup. “The kind that can’t be taken care of from the front. I was wondering if-”
{You want me to help you plan or run your rebellion?} Lyta said, tilting her head slightly, and though she gave him a start by touching his mind, she felt his relief when he realized she had not said the words aloud.
Staring at him for a moment longer, she said, “I never pictured you for a hero, Vir. G’Kar perhaps, Sheridan of course would die for his spotlight, Lennier – well, he has a habit of stumbling on to those things – but you?”
“As I was telling one of my colleagues most recently, Miss Alexander, I don’t have any visions of grandeur. I’m just a coward who’s too tired to be scared any longer.”
“Would that all hero’s could claim as worthy a reason as you just did for what you’re asking,” she said, fingering the necklace chain that hung through the low cut in her sweater. She stared passed him at the area they were sitting in as she did half a dozen things.
She listened to Melissa’s heartbeat and breathing, the lulls of her present dream. Her people in down below chatting. The ships docking and undocking. The entire populace good and bad with it’s thoughts in both extremes. But mostly she checked to see who was listening or trying to. Not many people were listening so much as paying attention to the fact the Centauri Ambassador was not alone with a gorgeous and dangerous looking woman.
It gave him center stage and apparently due to a few other things, she wasn’t the first to appear as such with him.
“Who was the other one?”
Vir looked startled and looked around, trying to make sure it was him she was addressing. “What?”
“Whom was the other woman, both dangerous and beautiful, who held your arm?”
He paled before her eyes and looked away. She didn’t pry though the guilt that radiated off of him but she was sure she would have been able to feel on the other end of the station. It was guilt so massive that she rarely felt in those aside from those who’d taken innocent lives, and unless, he’d changed, it only furthered a type of curiosity in her. How much had he changed since the last time he’d been here?
“Mariel.” He said in such a soft whisper it was only that it matched the loudest thoughts and pictures he was forcing upon the direct area that she nodded in vague understanding. “We parted ways. She’s back home – on Centauri Prime. Married now.”
“One of Londo’s castaway’s? And now yours, too?” Lyta placed carefully, as she watched his eyes darken and round with her words. There was definitely more at play here than ‘just a woman’. Vir had always been the child under their wing it had seemed so long ago and it was almost a sort of harsh blow to see him devastated to numb and guilty looking. But wasn’t that how Babylon 5 had left them all?
After all he’d gotten off with much less than she had.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
Lyta nodded after a moment. “Yes, I will help you. But there will be conditions.”
“Oh. I see. Uh, Mrs. Alex-”
“Lyta.”
“Lyta,” he said part nervously. This woman had come very far from the person he’d once talked to when he was completely drunk. He still wondered what it all was he’d said to her but that was so long ago and so unimportant now by comparison. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
~*~*~
( One Day Later )
“You’re sure? You have to?”
“Yes,” Susan said with a laugh, tossing her bag on the chair and looking around to see if she’d forgotten anything. “Unless I’m really trying for a court martial.”
The red haired woman on the couch just frowned a tiny bit more obviously. She tilted her head to catch her friend’s eye and said with a tinge of some emotion that couldn’t be placed. “I could always kidnap you.”
It wasn’t anger or sarcasm so that was what made getting the remark a little harder to understand. It seemed bland and quietly pleading in a way that you only heard if you spent too much time with Lyta. Though in Susan’s opinion there really wasn’t a line where it was too much time with Lyta.
“You would risk yourself for it, but you wouldn’t risk Haven by doing that.” Dropping on the center cushion of the couch, she gave a half smile. “Everything will be fine. You’re going home. I can only hope I can get there sometime before I decide to pass from this life.”
“You could quit,” Lyta said after a second. She almost smiled when she watched Susan’s lips draw closer together to bring some kind of retort. Susan liked her job. For better or worse she liked it a lot. If she had wanted to quit, she would have done it. Turning her head, and resting her chin on the back of the couch she said, “I’m just…”
“Scared?” Susan ventured when almost a minute had passed and Lyta hadn’t completed her sentence. When Lyta didn’t look up, she reached out and took her friends hand. For a moment she almost frowned. Her friends’ hands were thin, pale and cold at the moment. “You’ll be fine. You always are. And if you aren’t, bang a few of their heads together or blow up a building and they’ll get the point pretty fast.”
“He lied to me, used me,” she said with a frown again as she looked beyond the couch. She hadn’t looked at Susan yet. It seemed to be as if Lyta were going out of her way not to meet Susan’s eyes. Shaking her head, her voice started to edge into angry finally. “I felt him let go of life. Held on to him as long as I could. He died in front of my eyes. Told me I wasn’t allowed to go with him when he pulled that trigger. Everything I ever did after that is-is-”
When Lyta finally looked up at her, Susan realized what it was that had been bothering her. The dark circles under her eyes and the hollow of dead space within them. Her friend hadn’t been sleeping, might not have at all since she’d found out. Lyta’s voice was calm, but it was like a knife cutting harshly through velvet, both on a physical level and a psychic suddenly. “He’s supposed to be dead.”
Anger and hurt; in large amounts. Two emotions that together didn’t bode well for anyone who had to face the red headed telepath, especially for the person who caused it.
“Which is why you’re going back now instead of in two weeks,” Susan said, moving closer, taking her hand and squeezing it, even though the moment she’d moved close, Lyta had suddenly looked away again. “Haven is fine, and you will be, too. I have faith in both of you.”
Lyta looked at her after a moment. She had long now captured the urge to destroy everything within her touch. It had over taken her for a while and she’d spent that while raging as loud as her quietest whisper could manage. It was a controlled urge now, but she still had the whim to crush something until it was a very small and very compact and no longer of use.
Letting out a controlled sigh, Lyta leaned in and hugged Susan, saying only quietly a minute later. “When do you leave?”
Susan hugged her close and then pulled back far enough to put her forehead to Lyta’s. “Tomorrow morning.”
Frowning slightly Lyta pulled away from the contact, and pulled one of her knees to her chest from where it was against the back of the couch. “You’ll still be here when I leave then. We decided to embark for Haven late tonight. Straight route to Sanctuary, other stops afterwards.”
~*~*~
( Midnight )
“Queer time to be going isn’t it? The middle of the night?” She came out, still dressed in her uniform, dark brown hair pulled back, eyes speculative. Everyone appeared to have boarded and there was just a small crowd waiting at the front that comprised of Zack, Susan, Lennier, Lyta and now herself. “A bit like you’re sneaking out.”
“I’m sure you’re sad to see us go,” Lyta replied to the captain, her hand resting on the shoulder strap to the bag over her shoulder. She was clothed in a close fitting dress at the moment, in a dark blue color, accented by a bright cyan color. Her tone was patronizing, but it wasn’t mean or cruel. She felt too stretched at the moment to be cruel. Especially with what she was going to be facing soon enough.
“I have to admit it’ll make breathing a little more easier,” Elizabeth replied, not even pausing to look at all the people staring at them having a conversation. It was too creepy to even try to think that half of them might be drilling into the nooks and crannies between their conversation for thoughts and such. Yes, she would be happy to see them go. “I wanted to stop by and-“
“Yes?” Lyta repeated after half a minute went by and Lockley was just looking at her.
“To thank you,” she said awkwardly. It was like her tongue was getting tied up with gum in her mouth. The words just wouldn’t come out. She was trying to be sincere without feeling too buffeted into what she was doing by all those around her. “For keeping your word and for helping.”
“You’re welcome,” Lyta said, oddly, regarding the jittery woman. It was very strange indeed. There was no under current of thought that this was leading up to. No motive. Nothing. She was just thanking her?
“And if that’s all I still have a very busy station to run,” Elizabeth said, taking a step back, rubbing her hands together. She made a hasty retreat, at least telling herself she had come and she had said thank you. That was the whole point wasn’t it? “Have a nice flight.”
“Thank you,” the red headed woman replied curiously as she watched the captain of Babylon 5 hurry off almost as fast as she could. She was surprised she hadn’t been warned from ever setting foot on the station again. But it didn’t hurt to have someone who hadn’t forsworn her out of place.
“Well, that was strange,” she said after a moment, moving toward Susan. She supposed weirder things had happened in her life. After all she was a telepath who’d been altered by Vorlon’s and seemed nearer to a First One than anyone wanted to really comment about.
“Not that strange,” Susan replied, trying not to smile. “She just needed a good talking to about things.”
“Did you?”
“Me? What would I have to with it?” The general remarked with a laugh, moving nearer to her friend. She held a hand out and was surprised when it was taken and she was pulled into a hug.
{Thank you. For everything.} Lyta ‘cast, then pulled out of the hug a moment later and said with a questioning tone, holding Susan’s hand. “Soon.”
“Soon.” Susan nodded as Lyta let go of her touch.
They hugged once more and pulled apart, each touching something at the end of a necklace chain unseen, before going different wars. Lyta stopped in front of Zack and smiled. There was something more radiant about him since the return of Teep. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was there sometimes when they’d had small conversations. They hadn’t spent any real time together except one breakfast since his schedule and hers seemed to pull in different directions.
“I wanted to thank you for all the help you gave me, too. Even if it was just to not throw me into jail everytime I threatened you,” she said with a smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “Susan and G’Kar say I have a problem with my temper.”
“I don’t have any idea what you mean.” Zack smiled, the boyish smile he kept tucked away somewhere. Perhaps it was just because she was so close or because she was trying to be cute and kidding around with him.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Lyta replied with a laugh, and reached up to place a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”
Turning around she smiled warily to Lennier, realizing this was the moment where she’d actually have to get on the ship and go face the bastard who’d haunted her dreams and her heart for so many years. Someone she wasn’t sure she knew how to love or hate, but wanted to break into a million pieces. Someone who still had that strange hold on her that time and memories always give.
“Ready?”
“Yes, Lyta,” he replied, calmly.
“Then we should go,” she said with a nod, thinking: ‘Before I loose my footing and try to stay here out of sheer will not to look into his eyes and find my years since then are the manipulated lie of a fool.’
Zack watched her walk around the corner toward her waiting ship. Watched the last shift of her walking, the last flap of her dress vanish, her hair lingering a second longer than that, until she was completely gone. And then he felt that sinking feeling inside his stomach, deeper even, at the deepest spot in him, sinking once more. She was once more gone.
Just gone and with someone who wasn’t him.
It echoed all those years ago. He’d let everything slip between his fingers then. And now, too. She was once more gone. Just gone and he’d done nothing to stop it. Again. But what could he do? Just like then, she didn’t need him, she’d barely noticed him upon leaving except this time instead of anger it actually had a goodbye. What could he do but watch her walk out of his life all over again?
“Which is more important?”
Zack wasn’t sure if he’d actually thought that or heard it out loud till he brushed his hands on the sides of his pants and turned to say his excused good byes to General Ivanova, who was standing there waiting, expectantly on him. It was only then that he realized she had said the words outloud and it hadn’t been him asking one of those questions to himself that he couldn’t answer, again.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Zack replied after a second, taking a chance to glance at where his officers were in the closest setting. Mostly it was to deny the fact he thought Susan had just asked him whether he found his job here or his urge to run after Lyta and explain everything more important.
“How long is it till you go back on duty, Zack?”
“A few hours. Why?”
“Good. Very good. Enough time for a very early breakfast,” Susan said, as a small smile began to creep over her lips. “I have a proposition for you.”