A/N: Starts during S3E6 'Dust to Dust' but mostly occurs immediately after S2E19 'Divided Loyalties'.

Talia Lives

"You did that on purpose! You know we only performed a PSYCHIC dissection on the patient after her debriefing" the Psi cop said to Alfred Bester telepathically. "Her body was unharmed in the process." The two black-clad operatives were in their ship awaiting the anti-telepathic injection in Bester to take effect so he could return and start his mission.

"I know, call it a weakness. I wanted to see Mr. Garibaldi's reaction; he knows he can't do anything against us" Bester thought back. "He doesn't need to know that we still keep the body; no need to throw away a perfectly good container when we can just fill it up again with whatever created personality we want. He's just mad because we killed a personality he's been...rather fond of; he's not even sure exactly what we did..."

Talia Winters stood on a high cliff looking into storm clouds with a roiling sea below. The wind swirled around her and mist flung itself against her body until she felt completely soaked. Impossibly far below, miles it seemed, jagged rocks stretched out into the water at the base of the sheer granite face of the cliff that could be seen briefly before the mists clouded the view.

"What am I doing here?" she asked herself.

"I put you here" a voice said behind her. Talia turned and faced a familiar image, one she had seen in the mirror when looking at herself. The doppelganger was dressed exactly as she was, but completely dry.

"Who are you, are you using a neural net?" Talia asked. The net was a device that could make someone appear as someone else, and its use was never for good in her opinion.

"You can call me...Control. I don't need a neural net, you see, because I'm you! Well, at least you without all the feelings and relationships and baggage that come with those things."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't, you're not supposed to understand...not even supposed to know. I'm a synthetic personality that's been implanted in your brain, just waiting and watching and listening until the right time. Unfortunately your friend Lyta Alexander triggered me early with the telepathic code. Too bad, I was waiting for something important to happen; at least it's my chance to get out of that boring station and be with some real telepaths again" Control lamented. "Of course I'll take over your body now; you won't have any need of it after I kill off your personality." She started toward Talia.

"How did you get me here?" she asked, backing up carefully. The cliff face was very near.

"Here? We're still inside your head, silly. I know, it's all rather symbolic and theatrical, but I have to do this to get you out of my head for good. I'm afraid you haven't a thing to say in the matter!" Control grinned as she gave Talia a mighty shove. She teetered on the precipice, and then fell off backwards as she flailed wildly. Control looked over the edge just in time to see the mists swallow her up. "Ah, I feel better already. Nothing like a little spring cleaning" she thought as her image vanished while walking away.

As Talia fell, she fought to control her panic even as fear gripped her. The mist shielded her eyes from the cliff face rushing past, and it was some time before she became vaguely aware that her fall was slowing. She broke through the bottom layer of a particularly thick cloud and saw that she was barely descending, until she turned and landed on her feet on a small patch of sand between two large boulders. She tried to will herself to rise up into the air, but failed to move at all. Confused, she spotted a larger patch of beach nearby and carefully stepped along the top of several slippery rocks to the area.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" a voice spoke in her head. She knew the voice.

"Jason?" she said out loud, her stay on the space station having ingrained the habit of speaking aloud. An image of Jason Ironheart materialized on the beach with her. It occasionally wavered and refocused.

"Yes" the image answered. Ironheart was a former teacher and lover of Talia during her training at the Psi Corps. She last saw him over a year ago, when he was going through a metamorphosis that transformed him into...something else; an entity of pure energy and thought. Before he departed he had given her a 'gift' and left her to find out what it was on her own.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Psi Corps created a spy personality and implanted it in your mind sometime in the past during your training. They hid it away where you couldn't find it, and it was watching and remembering what was going on. They planned on activating it later to get all the intelligence they could from the station" he explained.

"Did you know that when you left?" Talia asked.

"I did. But I didn't want to compromise their plan and expose it too soon. So part of the gift I gave you was the ability to create a partition in your mind to hide important things inside."

"That's why Bester couldn't read what I knew about the underground railroad for telepaths. I must have put it behind the partition without knowing it." Talia suspected it at the time, but wasn't sure. She did know that part of the gift had been a telekinetic ability.

"That's right. When they went through Control's memories, there was nothing there of a sensitive nature. Well, almost nothing. They had to find something or they'd be suspicious, so I let them find out about your relationship with Ivanova. I made up a false memory of Captain Sheridan having a gambling problem too, and they'll think that Garibaldi is having an affair with one of the ambassadors."

Commander Susan Ivanova was one of Talia's greatest critics when the telepath first came aboard the station, but the two had grown…very close recently. Talia felt a pang of loneliness at the loss of her friend; the relationship had just started to blossom when Control took over. "What happened when I left?"

"Control basically threw out insults and threats on the station and left to return to the Psi Corps. There, she will be debriefed; as the first mole successfully recovered they want to learn as much as they can about how well the process worked and what she has learned up to this point. In the process they'll probably wipe out the Control character leaving your mind empty. Well, except for you, safely here behind the partition." Jason paused. "It wasn't your fault, Talia. You had no memory, no inkling of the presence of the other personality. There was nothing you could have done, and you can blame the Psi Corps for the whole thing. I wasn't the only experiment they've had in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if they try something else in the future."

"Okay, okay, but what do I do now? Can I just stay here with you?" Jason didn't have a body any longer, but the important part-his mind-was still as vibrant as ever, even more so now. Talia felt as though they were really standing side by side on the beach.

"I'm not really here either. We're still in your mind, hiding behind that partition. This is just a small part of me that is talking to you; the real me is out in the universe somewhere. Even Ambassador Kosh was aware of Control's existence, and made a copy of your personality just in case; his methods are somewhat primitive and might not have been entirely successful. But I'm going to help you grow stronger, develop your powers, and soon you'll be able to reclaim that body of yours like Control did to you. Behold..."

A large keyhole appeared a dozen feet up on the side of the mountain, a keyhole that must have been at least three feet tall. A small key appeared in front of it, no larger than an old-fashioned door key. "As you discover and strengthen your powers, the key will grow larger. When it is large enough to turn the lock, you will be strong enough to safely take ownership of your body and mind again. At that point you'll understand what you need to do with the rest of your life; I fully expect you to join me in the universe one day. Now let us begin the lessons slowly so we don't create any mind quakes and tip our hand..."

The End

A/N: I applaud the show's creator for devising trapdoors for all the major characters to account for possible departures during the five year plan, and I understand the real world reasons why the character of Talia Winters had to leave the show.

But it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Even if she didn't come back to the station, I felt that Talia needed to have a happier ending with some hope. This story gives her that chance. I haven't read any other Bab5 stories yet, but it wouldn't be surprising to find this has probably been covered several times already; it's just one of the ways I'd do it.