Disclaimer: All of the usual stuff - all the characters in this piece are owned by J Michael Straczynski, Babylonian Productions™ and Warners™.

Author's Note: I know, I know, the ruminations on Z'ha'dum have probably been done to death but that's no reason to stop me from adding my own two pence worth.

Reviews or comments are always welcome.

Love and Death

By Laurie

He is aware, at all times, of the holster in its unfamiliar position; the weight of the PPG snug against his ankle a constant reminder – as though he needed another – of what he is going to do. He will use it on her, on anyone else as needed, even on himself if necessary. But when she looks at him he forces himself to smile and wonders how she cannot see the effort it costs him. The muscles in his face ache with the strain and in his head the expression he wears is the rigid grin carved into a mask.

She has to see it. She has to know. Surely, she cannot believe that he would be so complicit; but perhaps she only sees what she wants to. John almost wishes for that simplicity – for himself, not for her. It would be so simple to believe in her, to see in her now what she was then. There have been flashes of it: the rise and fall of her voice, the tilt of her head, moments when it is Anna. Yes, it would be simpler to believe but from the very first suspicion has not allowed that. And suspicion has overridden everything else – shock, anger, fear, joy.

Not joy, perhaps. There has been no joy, no hope, not even one second of happiness that she had been returned to him. Even in that period of waiting before Franklin's final report came in, when he had listened to her, when she had told him all the things that he wanted to hear, or that she thought he wanted to hear, there was no joy.

He had looked into her eyes and seen death – hers and his own.

She really is dead. She may walk, talk, draw breath, have memories of her life, of their life together, but Anna is gone. It's like watching an actress reciting lines, word perfect, but not quite capturing the essence of her role. It would have been far kinder if she had simply been killed outright; but kindness is not something that he associates with the Shadows. Or whatever it is that they call themselves.

John had never before realised how much noise there was, normally, on the White Star. He has always thought of it as unusually subdued, attributing that restraint to the Minbari influence, but now he knows he had confused quiet with silence. There are no voices, no low conversations, no light rush of robes. No rain. He pulls away from that thought.

Theirs is a ghost ship: silent, empty except for the two of them and one of them is already dead.

He is not a martyr; he has no wish to die. But if salvation for all those who have followed him this far is possible only through this, then he is prepared for that. There is a strange sort of peace in the knowledge of it.

When Anna stands beside him, leaning slightly against the arm of the chair it is all he can do to stop himself from recoiling. And all he can do not to ask her to move. It is not her place, not there, not that spot where she always stands.

Once, each thought of Delenn had been followed by an echo of Anna, coming from that part of him that had still been in love with her. The part that had always loved her, that loved her still. Or the memory, the idea of her. He had reconciled himself to that fact. But now the reversal has come: each time he looks at Anna he sees Delenn's face. She is there, before his eyes, her words in his ear, always. The anger that had overtaken him had passed quickly enough and understanding, of a sort, had followed.

Her face, in all its moods. That night at dinner, unexpected laughter transforming her features; tenderness and sympathy when he told stories of home, of his family; strong, decisive in battle; soft with heavy-lidded eyes when she had watched him fall asleep... Frozen, brittle when she had held the bundle of her clothes to her chest, staring at him. She had looked as though she could shatter as easily as the glass globe had done.

It was a moment he had replayed so many times over the past hours. The breaking glass had roused him but it was Delenn's sudden entry, closing the doors behind her like a barricade that had truly woken him. Still in that haze of sleep he had reached for her, automatically, his fingers closing on empty air as she had pulled away, flinched. She had seemed afraid and he still isn't sure if it was Anna she feared or him. He hopes it was not him, although after that ugly little scene in the office he had given her cause.

He cannot take back the words that he said then. The desire to protect someone you love is not the ideal basis for a decision; concealment had not been Delenn's wisest choice but he can, finally, understand it. He can even accept it. If he can accept the fact of her love, then everything else follows from that.

And he thinks of the future he is trying to avoid and feels a loss for something that has not happened yet. Now, perhaps it never will. If he is right, there will be no fall of an entire world, no ruined city in flames. And no desperate kiss in a prison cell and all the things that led to that - a life in love, a child.

But perhaps, just perhaps, if he survives this, if he makes his way back to her, perhaps they can have part of it. The best part. But he has little hope that he will see her again.

He has tried to avoid conversation with Anna and is almost grateful to her that she has not tried to press it. There is, possibly, the awareness that if she pushes too hard she risks losing what she has achieved so far. They are both balancing on a knife edge and both of them must know that they will probably both fall. The silence affords him plenty of opportunity to think and John finds his thoughts keep returning to the recent past.

What had Delenn seen when she watched over him? How different would his face be to what he showed the world, her included, each day? She had seemed so calm, so sure of herself - and of him. And he had been ... nervous. Willing to respect her beliefs when it was obviously so important to her but part of him still wishing to hide the vulnerability he thought she might see.

'You appear uneasy.' Delenn had looked slightly amused at this idea.

'You got that right.'

She had smiled. 'There is no need. It is quite simple. You will sleep, as you do each night; the only difference is that I will be here.'

'That's quite a difference.' Yes, she would be there but not where he wanted her to be; he didn't tell her that but somehow knew that she knew already. 'I guess I'm not really sure I want to face it if, well, if you've changed your mind come morning.'

She had smiled again, shaking her head slightly and looking at him as though she were indulging a foolishness on his part. 'I will not change my mind - I know already what I will see.'

'But I thought this was to find that out.'

'Yes; but this is not the first night.'

'But we haven't-' He should have realised it before, when she had first explained it to him. In this, as with so much else, she was one step ahead of him. 'That time on the White Star, huh?'

'Yes.'

'Minbari women are sneaky.'

They had laughed at that. It had seemed funny then.

And then come other memories, far older than that. Meeting Anna for the first time and a conversation that had begun over coffee in the afternoon and ended some time the following morning. Their first holiday together, in Japan, the brilliant lights of Tokyo reflected in Anna's eyes. The way she had sheltered in his arms against the wind, refusing to leave until they watched the sun set over the temple outside Kyoto. Those were memories he had guarded so carefully for so long; they had not been replaced but he had, finally, been able to add to them. A new face to dwell on; to love.

If the universe has a sense of humour, he thinks, it is a perverse one. He used to think of it as a certain symmetry, perhaps adopting in part Delenn's belief that the universe knew what it was doing - that the day he had been able to accept Anna's passing, to break with that past, had been the same day he had met Delenn.

A movement catches his attention, nerves jangling as the present asserts itself over his thoughts. Anna, prowling the deck. She holds herself, her face white, strained. She has been uneasy since they boarded the White Star, the ship unsettling her. She looks trapped, almost in pain. He watches her and is appalled by his own lack of sympathy. He seems to have none left to give; he has hardened himself against all of it. Against Anna and her lies; against Delenn and her despair.

Perhaps it was a cowardly act to leave that message. But he could not leave without telling her that one thing, that one final truth. He had to give her that. If he had been a stronger man, he thinks, he would have told her in person; but if he had, if he had looked into her eyes, he may never have left her side.

He used to think that in a perfect world - or perfect universe - love would be the strongest force; it is an idealistic thought but, even now, he cannot quite stop himself from being an idealist. But death is stronger than anything and against his will he is seeking it out, tracking it. Hunter and prey, both bound in the same fate.

'We're almost there.'

Her voice is so soft he barely hears it at first, lifts his head to look at her and for a moment he doesn't recognise her. There is calculation in every line of her face. He sits up straighter in his chair, enters the sequence that will take them into the planet's orbit. His hands grip the arms, tight ,and he glances at them for a moment. Delenn was not quite correct there; they may be opposite but except for very rare instances, one hand is always stronger than the other.

'We should go to the shuttle,' he tells her.

The PPG knocks against his ankle as he stands and other words come back to him: each man kills the thing he loves.

When they walk through the corridors they pass one room and for one second his mind betrays him and he hears it, for a second - rain falling impossibly in space. Only for an instant and then gone. He will leave it here; those memories of the past have no place where he is going. Delenn is still with the living and he will keep her and all thoughts of her there.

His only companion now is Anna's cold smile; her face is white stretched over bone, taut and nervy like an animal, and not a nice animal. But there is triumph behind her eyes now; the only emotion he has seen there.

'It's time,' she says.

He wears his traitor's smile again when he looks at her. 'Yes. It's time.'

Fin

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.

- Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol