Wow-- it's been forever since I've written a B5 fic! Since 1999, actually. Boy, don't I feel OLD. ^_~ First of all, thank you so much for bothering to take a look at my story. I am in your debt!

This is an alternate universe after Endgame. (Yes, I'm one of those scary I/M people. -wink-) However, in this universe, Marcus was stopped before he could save Susan. It occurred to me that Marcus was never asked that all-important question. -devilish grin-

I do hope you enjoy! I would absolutely adore you if you'd take pity on me and send me some feedback. ^_^

Ja matta, ne.

-Meredith

Legal Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't hurt me. *shoos the big scary lawyers away*

[to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Rein Deer"]

Meredith the little fic writer,

Loved to get feedback for her posts,

If you could see her face when she received it,

You might even say she glowed.

Like most other writers,

She was a little feedback greedy,

But maybe we can keep that,

just between you and me!

===========================

The Next Voice You Hear 1/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

===========================

He knew, the instant Susan's heartbeat stopped.

In his own veins, his blood seemed to rush then still. Sinking down against the small cot in his cell, Marcus held onto his scarred wrist as though it was a weapon with which he might reap retribution for her death. Two small circles on the inside of his wrist, deep and brown red with cloting blood; he though they looked like manicles, like the mark of someone owned by someone else. That much was true.

To come so close and then be stopped! Connected to her through the machine, he'd felt that mysterious *something* that was his life fleeing his body. He had been glad to give it to Susan, had watched intently as her breathing deepened and some of her color returned. His fingers tingled-- the sensory memory of touching her cheek, her hair, as if human contact might draw her soul back into her body. He had laughed a little then, a broken gasping sound, because he had turned death's gaze from her. Victorious, and then---

Hands, ripping him away, restraining him. Under Stephen's orders, they had unhooked first his link to her (he'd howled, feeling something suddenly missing that he hadn't even known was there), and then disconnecting her from the machine. The change in her body had been instant-- it was sacreliege that they could just *stand* there and *watch*-- she had seemed to wither, her healing body suddenly deprived. She *was* death incarnant then, her soul grasping for nurshiment like a crazy black hole; he would only have been too happy to let himself be devoured in that wake. For him, there came the night but no forgetfullness-- trapped under the weight of sedation, he'd been painfully aware but unable to move. He dreamt of Susan, pale and phantasmic, reaching to take fruit from a tree that bore red, red berries in the shape of skulls.

"Damn you!" he raged, seeking someone to blame. In several quick strides, he crossed the room, reached the wall of the secuirty cell and turned back. With harsh hands, he over turned the small metal table, sending it reeling towards the door. "It was my decision," he murmured, suddenly spent, "she..." But there were no words to finish that sentence. Susan was his last tie to the world of flesh; he'd watched so closely for the glimpses of that strange, iradescent mystery behind her usual icy battlements. While reaching for that, he had come to love the very barriers she'd made to keep the world from her; frigid, painful but honest. Tipping his head back, Marcus felt his body relax in the extreme, as if ready to come apart; he wept without making any noise, tasting the heat of his own tears.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

"Marcus."

He ignored the sound, keeping his eyes closed and his face buried in the material of his Ranger uniform. Without sight, the world was simply a dark place wih voices; no different from his nightmares.

"Marcus." Again, more insistant. Vaguely, he sensed someone reaching out towards him.

"I suggest you leave, Stephen," his voice seemed raw, and he dimly remembered screaming. Eyes open, he saw Stephen sitting nearby, hand paused in the air. Marcus eyed his friend, watching as the doctor withdrew the offer of comfort, thinking wildly that even if Stephen had tried to touch him, it wouldn't have worked. He was utterly lost someplace beyond that, now.

Stephen's dark eyes held the gaze for a moment, before looking away, "Marcus, I..."

"If you've come tell me she's dead--" Marcus spat the word, "I already know."

"How?" Stephen's face was expressionless-- slack. Somethng flickered behind there, though.

"So she is gone," slowly, Marcus uncurled his body from the crouching position and laid down to face the wall. His arms held each other-- the circle of his embrace was empty as always, but now there was no possibility to fill it.

// Her eyes, candid, as she repeated his secret confession from memory-- perfect Minbari. "Thank you," a smile he'd never seen before, careful and hesitantly happy. He'd been sure he'd forgotten how to breathe.//

"Go away, Stephen," he said, somehow keeping his anger in check, "Just leave."

"Marcus," the metal chair moved-- he could hear Stephen standing, pacing. "For God's Sake!" the doctor's voice rose, "Don't sit there and blame me-- I'm a healer, do you think I can just sit there and watch a friend die?"

"You didn't seem to have any trouble watching Susan die," Marcus sneered, "Did you *see* what happened after you disconnected the machine? It was working-- I just needed a little more time! Unhooking her made her worse off than before. Did you even *try* to help her, or did she just die in Isolab, flatline?" Turning to face his friend, Marcus mimicked the sound of 'no pulse'. "Opps! So much for being a healer." Then, much more quitely, "I could have saved her."

"At the cost of your own life!" Stephen pressed his fingers to his temples, glaring at the other man.

Marcus shrugged, "Doesn't matter. She would have lived."

"Can't you get this through your thick skull? You. Would. Be. Dead."

"And you think I'm not now?"

Stephen moved his hands, as if he could take hold of the situation and make it smaller, "She wouldn't have wanted you to do that."

"She deserved a miracle!" Marcus raged, "Sheridan comes back from the dead, Sinclair cheats time, death and Valen only knows what else. Mr. Garabaldi gets shot in the back, and lives; you're stabbed in the back-- you live. For all we know, Lyta is immortal, and Delenn has hundreds willing to die for her-- the only thing she needs to worry about is protecting herself from herself! What did Susan have?"

Silence. The brief hum of some near-by computer terminal coming on line.

"Well?"

"Marcus," Stephen's voice wavered; the words were uncertain, holding up only because the doctor so vehemently needed to believe in them. "The injuries were fatal, there was nothing I could do..."

"There was something *I* could do! And," Marcus covered his mouth with his hand briefly, a frail gesture; he really did not want to hold his anger in. "I seem to remeber that you didn't really have a problem interfering when there was a chance she might live. My life for hers-- an easy trade off. You worked so hard to stop me!Did you *want* her to die?"

A flicker of horror in Stephen's face, "Of course not, I never--"

Marcus shook his head, watching as the world became a mad abstract painting that blurred with his tears, "What was it that killed her?"

A heavy sigh, "When we unhooked her, the pierce marks from the machine wouldn't clot. She just... kept on bleeding. Loss of blood and-- her heart colapsed in on itself."

"Get out of here, Stephen," this time the words were iron, the flash of the guillotine blade before it comes down, "Or Valen help me, I'll..." To his own surprise, Marcus found himself aproaching the doctor, unsure of the intentin of his clenched hands. The cell door pulled away at Stephen's command, and Marcus stood still, waiting until the rest of the world was closed off. He had a hard time believing the universe existed beyond his cell.

"God, why?" He perched on the edge of the cot, head in his hands. "After Hasiana and Willy... people where just faces." He had no idea who he was speaking to, but his tone took on a bargaining plea, "*She* was real. I can't... isn't there anything..."

Time seemed to steady and halt-- stagnant blood. ("Her heart collapsed...") Marcu held onto the word "anything" with surprising desperation.

Then, the sound of the door opening and a shaft of light from the hallway that was somehow the crimson of blood.

"Stephen," Marcus growled, "I told you..." He looked up, and the words died in his throat.

Said the shadowy sillohette in the doorway, "I believe you've at least heard of me, Mr. Cole."

He asked the question without thinking, "What do you want?"

"Now, now, Mr. Cole," the visitor repostioned the metal chair Stephen had perviously occupied, resting his elbows on his knees, "That's rather unfair of you. It's my job to ask that question, as you well know." The young man smiled, smooth and insincere.

"You're dead," Marcus stated firmly, as if belief was strong enough to banish. It wasn't strong enough to bring Susan back.

"A minor distinction, I assure you," the visitor moved his hands, a false gesture of being smilingly helpless. "What do you know of death? Maybe it's being born-- maybe it's waking up and you keep waking up, layers of an onion. Maybe your Susan," it was strange, the way he said that, "has woken up to be someone else. Maybe she's stretching in her bed right now, thinking of her awful dream, even if it had some... *nice* aspects."

"Bastard---"

"The circumstances of my birth are not under scurtiny here, Mr. Cole," another smile, he seemed made of Cheshire grins. "You did say 'anything', didn't you?"

Marcus swallowed hard, suddenly remembering his mother's voice, saying that we can never guess if God recieves our prayers, but if the Devil hears, he lets us know.

Mr. Morden rested his chin on the bridge of his hands, charmingly interested, "Anything?"

The door was still open, with bloodlight pouring in. Blood that fled her body, blood that...

"What do you want, Marcus Cole?"