Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
Author: Bluestar
Disclaimer: Babylon 5 belongs to the great and wonderful JMS, Warner Bros. etc. I don't own anything, I'm just borrowing it for a while. The song/poem belongs to Anne MCCaffrey. Please don't sue, I can't afford it! If anyone removes this disclaimer, they will die a slow and painful death. (This is not a virus threat, just covering all bases.)
Author's Note: This is alternate universe, but I couldn't not write this. It's short, but also the first one I ever finished. Anyone who wants to archive this on their own sites go ahead, but E-MAIL ME first!
The tears I feel today
I'll wait to shed tomorrow.
Though I'll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
My eyes must keep their sight:
I dare not be tear-blinded.
I must be free to talk
Not choked with grief, clear-minded.
My mouth cannot betray
The anguish that I know.
Yes, I'll keep my tears till later:
But my grief will never go.
Anne MCCaffrey, Dragonsinger: Harper of Pern
Lyta Alexander stared down at the grave of the man who had died to save her life. Not Byron - though she had continued his work, she had reluctantly realized that their philosophies were too different, even though she had deluded herself otherwise for a while.
No, this was the man who had been her unknown benefactor when she'd nearly been caught back on Babylon 5 during the Telepath Wars.
Lyta sat in a high-security cell. Now why do I get a feeling of deja vu? she asked herself with grim humor. They hadn't bothered with restraints this time, though.
Suddenly, the door swished open. She reached out with her mind, finding nothing.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she took the chance and left. She almost didn't see the envelope on the floor. Inside was a handwritten note and a ticket for the first transport off the station.
The note read:
'The security cameras are on a loop to hide your escape. Stay low.' It wasn't signed.
She'd gotten safely off the station. It hadn't been until years later that she'd found out who it had been. She had been on Proxima, waiting to make contact with the telepath leader there.
Lyta shivered in the biting winds of Proxima's winter. She suddenly sensed the malignant presence - too late. She turned her head to face the would-be assassin. He was already firing.
"NO!" Her savior knocked her out of the path of the PPG burst. Instead, it hit him full in the chest.
She knelt beside him. "Call an ambulance!" she snapped to anyone on the gathering crowd who would listen to her. She grasped his hand.
"Lyta . . ."
"An ambulance is on its way. You'll be alright," she said, tears standing in the corners of her eyes.
"It's too late," he whispered. Rapidly clouding blue eyes locked onto hers. "Lyta . . . I . . ." I love you, he thought. Even though he was a mundane, with the eye contact and their hands touching it was enough for Lyta's enhanced powers to pick up. She sensed that he had been the one who had set her free from the cell.
She also felt his death only moments later as she whispered four words he may or may not have heard, but that she meant with all her heart.
"I love you, too."
Lyta gently touched the gravestone, marked with only his name. She turned away, glancing back only once.
Engraved upon it was the words, 'Zack Allan.'