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: after a long delay I was finally inspired to write a companion piece to Wild Horses, this time from Delenn's angle. The title is courtesy of The Art of Noise
Moments in Love
By Laurie
1. Saved
It is only much later – long after she has returned to her quarters and the deep aches in her body have begun to subside – that she realises that the universe did, indeed, save her. Not, as Sebastian had suggested, with brilliant lights, a flurry of trumpets and divine intervention, but it did save her. It sent her Sheridan.
An army of people at that moment could not have meant as much to her as the sound of his voice.
He had once told her that there is nothing worse than being all alone in the night and she had countered with her own belief. Today, now, she thinks he may have been right after all. All of her doubts, all of the things she has questioned about herself and what she has become and what she is doing, all of the things that haunt her before sleep claims her and she can never admit to anyone, all of those things had been laid out before her. Every fear and inadequacy confirmed. The worst things she has ever thought of herself shown to be true. And she had been so isolated, so alone. All alone in the night.
She smiles a little and draws the brush through her hair. When Susan had first given it to her she had thought it some strange instrument of torture. For one insane moment had thought that the Human woman she had thought of as her friend was about to extract revenge for the horrors of the war. It has become a pleasant, comforting ritual.
But not as pleasant or as comforting as his voice.
Somehow, she had not really been surprised that he had come. Not really. Yes, he is the sort of man who would do that for anyone who was helpless and in danger and needed him. An honourable man. A good man. But he had done it for her.
She had been willing to make the sacrifice, she had been willing to die; and even though what she had seen in Sebastian's eyes had frozen her heart she had not feared death.
She had been willing, but she had not thought that John Sheridan would be so willing to give himself for her. And yet, she had not truly been surprised.
There was nothing worse than being all alone in the night, yet he had been willing to endure it, to succumb to it, for her sake.
From the start he has been an extraordinary man: of all the Humans she has encountered and befriended he is the most remarkable. And the most unexpected. They have become friends. From the first he has, it seems, gone out of his way to accommodate her but since then it has developed into something more. They are allies. At least, that is the public face of it. What they are in private is something that she is not certain that she can name but she knows what it can become and there is an inevitability about it. From the moment she walked into the council chamber and he looked at her as though he had been waiting for her she has not seemed to have much choice in her own feelings.
He has talked to her, confided in her, and she has found herself confiding in him.
Of all her race, only Lennier has remained loyal and unquestioningly so. She has relied on him because of that, treated him as a confidante though he is still so young. True, he displays wisdom far beyond his age but she still thinks of him as little more than a child. She wishes only to teach him as well as Dukhat and Draal had taught her and she can see his potential. But recently she has found that she no longer speaks to Lennier of things the way she used to. There is another in whom she wishes to confide and with whom there is an easiness, a familiarity with which she is wholly unaccustomed and yet which feels entirely natural. As though it were simply meant to be.
The universe at work again. The right people in the right place...
Her limbs are aching again - joints and muscles complaining with even the simplest movement. She has cleansed the stench of the place from her skin, washed her hair and brushed it even though every stroke through the dark locks has been agony.
When she finally lies down and pulls the covers up to her chin she has never been so grateful of her bed and of rest. After such a day, after the terror of her ordeal and the even worse horror of looking into Sebastian's eyes, her dreams could be terrible.
But she does not dream of darkness and fear and pain. As she curls up she dreams of warmth and light. She dreams of John.
2. Watching
His fingers relax around hers but he still holds her hand. Even in sleep, he still holds onto her.
She shifts awkwardly, propping herself up on one elbow; but any discomfort is worth it, just for the luxury of being able to watch him. She has been told that people often look younger, more vulnerable, when they are asleep. He does look vulnerable, but he does not look younger. If anything, he looks older. Without the disciplined mask of order and authority the lines of care are more clearly visible in his face. Tension around his mouth that is not normally seen.
The sound of rain is soft, soothing, and she remembers nights on her own homeworld where the sound of rain on the roof had lulled her to sleep. She likes to think that, maybe, on the same night, sometime, with the galaxy between them, they both have lain in their beds and listened to rain overhead. She laughs at herself and dismisses the thought but she knows that the words that he has spoken to her are an act of intimacy that has brought her so much closer to him that the knowledge of it is dizzying.
His sleep will be an uneasy one, troubled at best, but it will be better than nothing. And she will watch him throughout; although, she tells herself that this ritual is not really necessary. She has already seen his true face. Sometimes, when he looks out at the stars, she can see in him the child he once was, seeing them for the first time. No matter what else has happened in between and will ever happen, that will always be who he is.
He moves slightly, murmurs, his fingers tightening around hers; she leans forward, trying to catch the incoherent words and she is certain that she hears her own name on his lips.
3. Triumph
The candles have burnt themselves out, pools of wax and blackened wicks. The air is heavy with incense and something else – something sweet and musky and it has been absorbed into her skin. The scent of him on her, the way that she will have been absorbed into him.
She pulls the robe on and she feels boneless, automatically reaches up to smooth down her hair and feels him imprinted on every part of her. If she were to look into a mirror now she is certain that she would see him looking back at her from behind her eyes.
A moment, she draws herself up and rolls back the doors. Here, too, the candles have burnt down. Her chaperones are wilting, their eyes already closing but she feels strangely guiltless.
'The ritual is concluded. Thank you.'
They look grateful. One of the females meets her eyes and smiles slightly. Lennier avoids her gaze but she does not quite notice. She does not notice anything much – her mind is still with the form that is tangled in her sheets and she can still fell him around her.
They file out and when they have all gone she makes certain that the door is securely locked, then turns down the lights. She is normally tidy, and conscientiously so, but tonight she leaves the remnants of candles and the bowls of tea and herbs where they are. She slips off the robe and leaves it on the floor.
She slides against his warmth and his eyes open and watch her. 'Where have you been?'
'I have been saying goodnight to the others.'
For a moment he looks horrified. 'Oh God. I'd forgotten they were there.'
She allows herself a smile and it is an entirely self-satisfied one. 'Good. If you had not we would have done it wrong.'
'And if we had?'
Her smile broadens in spite of herself. 'We would have to do it again from the beginning.'
'You know, now that I come to think of it, I do think I was a bit distracted-'
She laughs and he pulls her to him, holds her, and the colour of his eyes seems to change. A colour she has only seen once before, right here, when he was in her arms.
'So, what happens now?'
She smiles.
'Everything.'
4. Sorrow
She has known grief before. She mourned the loss of her own people and the Humans in that pointless war; she was numbed by the death of her father and still feels guilt for his passing; she wept for all the nameless Markabs, their faces now blurred into each other but always that one small child whose features she will never forget. Yes, there has been grief that has bruised her and filled her with the colour of grief until she cannot breathe with it.
But none of it came close to her grief for John. She had felt her soul fracture and only when he was restored to her - that miracle of a gift - was she healed.
If she loses him this time there will be no healing, no recovery. She will have a half-life, be a half-person, until her soul follows his.
There have been times, in the depths of her meditations, when she has seen him, just for a moment. A bare cell and his face is bruised, haggard, but his eyes still glitter. They may break his body, the way that Susan's has been broken, but they will never break him. There was a moment when his eyes met hers and he seemed to smile and she was certain that he saw her. Just for a moment and then nothing.
The fleet is relentless in its approach. Once she had come with a fleet to Earth to destroy it. Now, she comes to liberate it. If that is all that she can do for him now, she will do this much. She and this unexpected group of beings who have pledged their alliance out of something as simple as friendship.
If she were capable of feeling anything else at this moment, she would feel joy at the knowledge but she cannot. She feels only the cold and the rawness of loss.
When the message comes through from Stephen there is so much distortion she can barely understand it. His face and voice vanish in bursts of static and white noise but some words come through.
'John ... alive ... safe...'
It is almost more than she can bear.
She goes through the motions, performs her duties because it is what she must do but her mind is elsewhere - it is out in the stars, searching for that small craft that will bring him back. His face is everywhere she looks but he is nowhere, not yet. Until she turns and he is standing there. Waiting for her. For a moment she thinks it another vision but then she feels it, knows it, and she runs to him. And her soul sings.
5. Beginning
He used to joke that, as far as the Minbari were concerned, his life was divided into two distinct parts: Before the Shadow War and After the Shadow War. Before, he was the enemy – a dishonourable figure, despised and almost feared. After, he was almost canonised – a revered, dignified leader.
Delenn knew he was right but she sometimes wondered just how reverent and dignified the Minbari would think the glorious President of the ISA if they could have seen him, down on all fours in the middle of the presidential office, cheerfully being used as a horse by his infant son.
The memory of that – and thousands of other tiny things which are meaningless to everyone but her – still have the power to make her smile.
She still speaks to him, all of the time, everyday. She greets him every morning as the sun comes up and sometimes she thinks that if she turns her head quickly enough she will see him. Because she is certain that he is there, with her, even if she has lost the ability to see him; and she wonders if he answers her, if she might be able to hear him if she listens hard enough.
The sun does not feel as warm as it used to.
Their grandson has John's eyes and each time she sees him she feels a melancholy pleasure. He is a beautiful, courageous man and she takes pride in all that he is but she can never forget that John was not there to see into the word the continuation of what they had created, of their love, all those years before.
She has become weary. So many years of struggle – and there are always struggles – and she no longer has the strength for another. She looks forward to rest and an end to the cold that lives permanently in her bones. There cannot be much longer to wait, surely. Surely, he must come soon. If she watches, if she listens for him. She has called to him so many times before and his name rises to her lips once more.
'I'm here, beloved.'
Warmth and light. Not the light of the sun, it is brighter than that; and the warmth is his warmth, filling her, burning her and she craves it. His eyes are the colour that she remembers.
'What happens now?'
He touches her face as though re-remembering every line.
'Everything.'
Fin