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Intermission: ~*~ "Don't Play With Matches"
( Evening )"There you are. Planning to stay with us this time?"
Her eyes swiveled around. To the upside bright lights, harsh smell. Turning head slightly to the one side pretty red headed telepath who looks like she's waiting for you to either croak or speak. Turning head again, to other side, cute doctor guy. Really cute doctor. Lips cracked and swollen move too slowly.
"You mean, I was awake before and didn't take the time to see if I had even the slightest chance at a date before leaving again?"
Nurse Stewart blushed, then mumbled something about checking her stats and vanished, while Lyta struggled not to laugh, reaching out to stroke a tendril of the younger girls red hair back.
"You woke up the first night here," she said, tracing her finger down the string of hair to along her cheek. She had been here most of the days, during the entire time, waiting for her open her eyes, watching and waiting. After the past, after what this girl had once done for her, what wouldn't she do for her? "Just long enough to ask Jeffery whether TEEP was safe."
"Feel tired," Melissa whispered through a yawn, as she titled her cheek against Lyta's cool touch. {Jeffery?}
"You're supposed to, you've been through a lot." Lyta said, looking over her shoulder and out the room, toward the two doctors talking. There'd been so much talk about Melissa already. Her 'strange' circumstances. She watched as the person she was speaking about met her eyes and started walking toward them. {Jeffery is the nurse who's been watching over her.}
{I'll fall asleep a dozen more time if I can wake up to that face each time.} Lyta smiled slightly, shaking her head, and so did her young charge, who then began to giggle slightly even though it hurt.
"Did I miss something?" Jeffery said coming in with a smile, and a slightly wary look behind his eyes, trying to convince himself he was positive he hadn't heard either of them say anything before they started giggling.
"I have found, with these two," A voice said from the door and everyone turned to look. Standing the doorway was the liaison to Minbar holding tulips in his hands. "It is a common fact."
"Lennier!" Melissa exclaimed smiling and trying to rise, under the offending, yet not cruel, hand of Lyta's that pushed her back to the bed. She compromised to staying lying down, only slightly propped up an inch or so craning her head toward the figure walking to the end of her bed. "Blue tulips; my favorite! But how did you know?"
"It was something, as you humans say," Lennier started with a slightly smile creasing the corners of his lips and calming his eyes. "That a little bird told me."
~*~*~
( Much Later That Night )
"You just get in?" Lyta asked though her fingers as she yawned. Days without sleep troubled her, even if she didn't even need much or that during them she was focused on more important things. She always put off something for the more important things. Well, the more important things were better now. She needed to get a little rest at least.
Susan nodded as she unbuttoned her jacket, "Long night. You be surprised what a restless crew can bring about in just one day."
"When are you supposed to be leaving, again?"
"Couple of days," she said as she moved rooms, still talking as she changed clothes. "I have them cleaning parts of that ship that haven't been cleaned since it got put together. Give a girl some general bars and just looking at someone in low rank is bad enough to make them jump. My ship is going to shine like god himself spit polished it now."
Susan came back to the room, minus a jacket and her hair loose from its band, uncoiling across her back and shoulders, "You're sure you don't mind me staying here with you? I can always get another room, especially in light of circumstances."
"The place is huge," Lyta replied, from the kitchen where she rinsed out her glass and turned it upside down on the counter, amusement infused her tone. "I could get lost in here alone. You'll have to stay and make sure I don-"
*Beep-Beep*
"Who is it?" Lyta called out to the door.
"Jaden," the voice replied. "I have a delivery for Mrs. Anything."
~*~*~
( About the Same Time )
She watched the stars silently, petting the animal in her lap languidly. She had watched the stars as a child back home, they had been her window of dreams, but this sky was nothing like home. Every night she found a new star, told herself a new story to her made up constellations, and went to bed fulfilled with the knowledge that this sky would never be barred from her, this home never taken, and this life never ripped from her finger tips.
That though did not make all the other parts better. Their government like any other had it's up and downs and a very rocky ledge to scale up before it was perfectly ready. They had their decrees for living set down in stone long before most of them had arrived, appointed, written and recorded for all of posterity, by someone their main beneficiary had chosen.
No one really talked about their main beneficiary either. They talked about all the leaders of the Psi-Corps revolt except for that one and usually it acquired to the fact of having no name or sex even. It seemed to almost be taboo. The public gossiped about who the person was and those who knew stayed respectfully quiet on the subject, almost to the point of annoyance. Especially when council members declined to give a full opinion without consulting "their beneficiary".
Council meetings. She'd spent the better half, no two thirds of the day, in council meetings. People were already batting around the idea of whether they should approach the Interstellar Alliance for membership. Whether they wanted their home to be that revealed at all, whether they needed to start talking about taking on large ally, but so much specifically large allies, but public ones.
It had taken years to get to where they were already and that still wasn't far enough from where they'd started.
"It's growing late. Coming in for the night or are you going to stay out and contemplate the stars some more?" The man in the doorway asked, traces of humor in his voice. He was silhouetted with yellow light from inside the house, so that it carved him out like a shadow. Tall and sinewy with long hair and a voice made for council rooms, for battle plans, for negotiations and taking action.
He was probably smiling in that shadow, she thought with a laugh. "In a bit. Thank you for asking."
~*~*~
( Back to the Babylon 5 )
"I saw Kalee, too, on my last stop." He said, quirking half a smile across his rugged features. "You should see her now, it's like someone completely different. All smiles, no worries, and not one headache since moving her. It's more than I could have ever hoped for."
"That's terrific," Lyta said, as she shifted the brown paper package in her hands just enough to judge weight and guess what was inside without too much peeking. "I'm glad I could be of an assistance to her."
"And me," Jaden replied, with a nod, understanding this still wasn't an informal visit. "If that's all, I'll be going now."
"The paperwork?"
"Doesn't exist. Never did."
"The flight log?"
"Erased the moment I hit normal space."
"This transaction?"
"Never took place," Jaden said looking a little wary, but still repeated the same words he exchanged at the end of each visit. And the same feeling of vertigo filled him. Like a warm surge of water coated his skin and then she nodded very slowly as the door behind him opened.
Watching the two, Susan stood in the bedroom doorway, unannounced, not introduced, brushing her hair across her shoulder and looking confused. She had a robe now, as she'd gone to change to leave "Mrs. Anything" to her guest. They seemed to be clearing it up, but what confused her was trying to figure out exactly what Lyta was doing to him. She could feel her using her powers, the air changed -almost seemed electrically charged -when she did, but what she was doing was always a long, twisted and frequently hard to understand question to ask her.
"Have a nice day," he said, smiling, and he strode out of the room, whistling.
Lyta sat down on the couch with her package and ran her fingers across it, a smile barely touching her lips, "Penny for your thoughts, Susan?"
"And Jaden is?"
"Someone who mistakenly said 'I would do anything for' and ended up with one of the best jobs you can never find," she replied, starting to open the package. She pulled at the stringer unwinding it and then pulling at one side of the paper. She liked these old fashioned packages. They made life seem simpler and nicer, it was something to touch and smell. "He's Haven's main cargo flyer."
The box opened outward, to give way to a dozen folders with actual writing on it, filled with letters, drafts, blue prints, mock charts, proposals, always like normal. Everything was normal save one thing. A letter that sat on top of the thick folder. That was entitled to Leetah, a script in nice writing, in perfect, practiced cursive.
"And Mrs. Anything?"
"Hateel," Lyta said, frowning slightly at the letter facing her, the name backwards, the joke staring at her, almost too obviously. Not Hateel. Not Mrs. Anything. Not dear our main beneficiary. Not even Hateel, but Leetah. It might as well say Lyta, for the buttons it pushed inside her skull in reaction. "Hateel Anything was a mock name, and different appearance, that made it easier for both of us. He still sees me as a short, squat, dark brown haired, blue eyed woman."
She pulled it out and her skin prickled, her blood running cold. Her fingers turned back the folded edge of the envelope, ignoring whatever it was Susan was saying now about her actions. Her decisions about Haven weren't really ever going to change and the harder it was to trace anything back to her or to Haven the better she saw the decision she was making. Pulling the letter out, her breath stilled in her chest. It was like watching the explosions in the war. You were horrified, but couldn't look away.
As she opened the folded paper and read the message, she raised her other hand to her lips, across her nose and cheeks.
"Lyta?" Susan asked coming back from the kitchen, realizing she wasn't listening once again. A bad habit of hers, when she wasn't interested or didn't want to discuss something, but it wasn't this that caused her sudden confusion. It was the stillness of the air, the way if there had been sound in the room, even the humming of the lights, the refrigerator, anything, it was deathly silent.
Her eyes landed on her as she went around the counter. Lyta was staring at the couch, not the letter resting on one of her legs clad in a soft cloth with an odd pattern. Her hair hung around her face, down to the letter even, and she seemed paler than normal.
"Lyta?" Susan asked again, setting down her drink and walking to her, everything starting to clash in her head, because she had known what the box contained. What could it be? A skirmish? A set of murders? Someone found out about Haven? When she placed her hand on the red heads shoulder, she didn't look up, but held up the letter to Susan.
It caused her to gasp and drop the letter like it might have burned her.
"It's not true," she said, starting strong, but faltering under Lyta's withering gaze, her entire face pale and eyes blank, at her and the brunt force of her thoughts.
{You can feel it. You know.}
It only took a minute to graze the letter, but it only took a second to catch the larger things. The smell of the strong winds that whispered winter and green grass that clung tenaciously to summer seemed to fill the area around her. The long fingers that held the pen for a moment were hers. The strong thoughts even held quiet were her thoughts. That being was she herself for a moment and she herself could have written that letter with all that there was.
Dear Beneficiary:
I'm pleased to announce there are no pitfalls to the review this period. Everything is looking up for Sanctuary, Home, Abode, and Asylum. Of course each one has it's minor foibles, problems, and victories each and every day.
The sewage system in Home needs to be remastered, but we have that covered already. Abode is applying to have its council chamber built to Earthen specifics, we could break ground with your approval. Inside of Asylum they've finally started making everything in the lost children's shelter work out and almost all of the children already have homes, with open doors. And Sanctuary is as it has always been a friendly town full of ideas and dreams that would make you proud.
In Sanctuary the leaves are turning the colors of the twin sunsets, while Abode already had its first snow as of a few days ago. I'm pleased to say we've mastered erecting and entrance to the newest ruins found near Home and that the excavation near Asylum is still pulling up new things even after three years.
There is a clamoring for denouncement of our beneficiary. Many wish to give their thanks and homage, though most of the council understands you need to be secretive and your want to not be worshiped by your own people for doing even the greatest deeds we have been able to imagine.
We do though long- No, I. I wish for you to see the wonder your actions. The simplistic joy of the perfect breezes through the leaves. To hear the laughter of the children of our race ringing out through the town at all hours of the day. To walk in the knowledge of the full peace that flows all around us now. Come and see what all your hard work has reaped.
Come home to us, my willow.
Council Member-Elect; Byron