Summary: After Sheridan's death, Delenn gets a visit from Lorien.
A/N: Sorry if this seems a little sketchy with details; I haven't watched Sleeping In Light for a while. And yes, I'm terrible at summaries.
Disclaimer: This is getting old. I don't own 'em and never will. Are you happy, JMS?
"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die".-
Edward Kennedy
Sleep hadn't come easily; not for the past few nights. She woke up feeling scattered and exhausted, as though she'd barely laid down before the soft bleep of the alarm woke her. It was almost a relief, to wake as early as possible and then slip outside to the balcony, to watch the soft rays of first sunlight climb over the horizon. It had become the highlight of her days.
Before, the evening was the best, the time she treasured. They would sit together eating dinner, occasionally going over the reports that piled up on both their desks. But for the most part, evening was the time they set aside for each other, simply to be together. Now she dreaded dusk, the time when shadows crept in and silence reigned over thier-her-rooms, loud enough to drown out every other noise. And the nights were almost unbearable. But tonight, one week after he'd left, was different.
Exhausted, though not sure why, she'd fallen onto the bed, closed her eyes, and there he was. It was a face she'd hadn't seen in twenty years, but the name came to her lips as though it were yesterday.
"Lorien." He smiled gently, his face eerie in the lights that seemed to pulse around them. Delenn found herself transfixed, an odd feeling of peace slowly settling across her body. The last time she'd seen Lorien had been twenty years ago, when her feelings towards him had ranged from anger to appreciation to distrust. She'd done her best to forget his face, done her best to forget everything about those days when so much was uncertain.
"Delenn. It has been a long time." His voice the same-unhurried and bland, no trace of emotion to hold against him.
"Twenty years, as you foretold." Her voice was stiff, she knew, but made no attempt to soften her tone.
"And what a twenty years it has been." Delenn had to grit her teeth to keep from retorting. One part of her knew this was a dream, that in body she laid alone in a great bed that she had once shared with a man now gone. But something told her, though she was loathe to listen, that her spirt drifted here, with Lorien and that this was much more than a dream. "You were the reason."
"What reason?" Delenn could not keep the hostilely out of her voice. It sounded like something Kosh would say, but Kosh was a memory even further back than the alien that stood before her, smiling pleasantly as though she were a child who did not understand.
"The reason he hung on. Twenty years ago, he knew he was lost. Lost in a space so small, few find their way out." Delenn nodded slowly. John had told her about that time, those two weeks where world had fallen apart. "Every time he tired to let go, he could not. Would not."
This should not surprise her, should not leave her stunned. Yet it did, despite her attempts to tell herself this was a dream, only a dream.
"If you know this, you know that I love him and he loves me." A pleading note had entered her voice, unbidden. Suddenly, a way out had appeared, so obvious it seemed ridiculous. "Why can you not bring him back? You kept him alive for twenty years; surely you can give us a little-" Lorien shook his head and smiled, sadly this time.
"I cannot. If I could, I would let you see him again, but he is gone." She could not even summon herself to ask why, or where, or a thousand other questions that would have interested her at any other place or time, such were the tears that built up behind her eyes and blurred her vision. "Gone beyond the Rim, where I will shortly be." He took a step closer to her, his eyes radiating gentle concern. "He would want you to live on, to continue what he-" The tears vanished and were replaced by anger that flared unexpectedly and consumed her without warning.
"I know this. His death was foretold; I knew my time with him was limited. Why do you come to me to tell me what I already knew?" Lorien's face didn't change as he smoothly replied.
"You say you know this. Yet you have not accepted it. You will flounder and drown in your grief if you do not accept that he is gone. You cannot change it or bring him back, but he may live on through your actions and deeds-and through David." At the mention of her son, Delenn felt the anger seep out of her. Lorien continued, "I will leave you now. Remember what I have said, and do not despair." He smiled, broadly and reached a long fingered hand towards her. Without thinking, Delenn reached to meet him. Their fingers touched, and something that she could not name passed through her.
On Mimbar, Delenn shifted slightly in the bed that did not seem so empty. She slept soundly that night and did not awaken until her alarm began just before dawn.