[Timeline note: The first section takes place near the beginning of season three. The penultimate section occurs about midway through "And the Rock Cried Out..."]
This is how it happens:
It is late at night. On their way back from Captain Sheridan's birthday celebration at Earhart's, she invites him into her quarters, intending to loan him a novel they talked about earlier in the evening. It is set in the St. Petersburg of her childhood, which is why she likes it, and it has an agreeably noirish air she thinks he'll appreciate.
Once she the book changes hands, she asks if he wants some tea. He does, and she heads for the small kitchen area, quickly setting water to boil, collecting mugs, spooning leaves into the teapot. Susan Ivanova disdains teabags. If you don't have to wash the pot out afterward, she feels, you're doing something wrong.
Michael is nearby, but out of the way, and she can feel him watching her. Her movements are precise, practiced; she's filled the pot with boiling water and covered it with a dishtowel a thousand times before, and she thinks making tea is probably the closest she will ever get to appreciating the innumerable ceremonies of the Minbari. While the tea steeps, she and Michael talk quietly, moving from the capabilities of the impressive new ship Delenn just gave them to gossip about what's going on between the ambassador and the captain. Michael thinks they've reached first base; Susan is pretty sure they're still in the holding hands and lingering looks stage. After a few minutes, she lifts the towel to peek at the tea and pronounces it done. She fills each mug partway with the concentrated brew, then tops them off with still-boiling water.
She makes fun of him for the amount of sugar he adds to his cup, and he claims she's a masochist for taking it black. They sit on the couch and drink their tea, and the hour grows small.
He makes a bad joke about two Drazi and a Pak'ma'ra in a bar, and, perhaps because she is tired and still a bit tipsy from the party, she finds it hilarious. Laughter is a delicious release of the tension she's felt ever since all this cloak and dagger business began, and she collapses against his shoulder while it erupts.
Her head is still on his shoulder when she finally stops laughing, and their faces are inches apart. There's something in his eyes she can't name, but it mirrors the shiver that is going through her blood. She doesn't blink. She doesn't look away. Somehow, they are kissing.
His fingers soon find their way to her hair, and his other hand to her hip. She is touching his cheek, her thumb brushing over the stubble on his jaw. They explore each other with the heretofore unused senses of touch and taste, and she smiles at the sweetness the tea has left on his lips. Their lives are so complicated, but this is so simple. She slides her hand under his shirt, splaying it against the warmth of his chest.
He pulls away, just enough so that they can see each other. His voice is low and gentle. "You sure about this?"
"Yes." An image of Talia flashes across her mind. "But this isn't--we're just..."
"Two friends helping each other de-stress," he finishes for her.
"*Yes*." He understands. Of course he does. This is Michael; he may not be Russian, but he's as much of a realist as she is. He knows as well as she that it would be impossible, right now, to build anything sturdy out of the broken pieces of their souls.
They bend their heads toward each other again, and this kiss knows what it's doing and where it's going. They let it take them along for the ride.
When they wake up beside each other the next morning, limbs touching but not entwined, they agree that there is no reason why they shouldn't do this again sometime. They are, after all, friends, and friends help each other. It doesn't have to be anything more than that.
A part of her that wears Talia's face tells her she's not much of a realist.
* * *
To say that the year is eventful would be an understatement roughly in line with claiming that Londo and G'Kar have had a bit of a tiff. After making contact with First Ones and declaring independence from Earth, things like forming a grudging alliance with Bester or helping Jeffrey Sinclair haul Babylon 4 a thousand years into the past seem almost trifling.
Their lives become chaos made concrete. Their schedules are erratic; she is often away from the station on the White Star, and he has his hands full with the usual run of station emergencies, so they have few moments alone together. She pretends she's not counting the exact number of them.
Nothing of importance changes between them. They lean their heads closer together over a piece of paperwork than they might have before. When they eat together, he sometimes steals food from her plate, and she responds by rapping her fork across his knuckles. They gravitate toward each other when choosing seats around the table in the war room.
The cynic in her doesn't believe in love. The pessimist knows that love chipping out a foothold is the first sign that things are about to go really, catastrophically wrong.
She should know by now that things, given a chance, will always go wrong.
* * *
Tt is late at night, and they are still working. When preparing for all-out war with an enemy older than can be contemplated, the phrase "off-duty" ceases to have meaning. They are camped out in Michael's quarters, just the two of them and about a hundred flimsies, coming up with strategies and contingency plans. They don't speak much, needing to concentrate on individual tasks. The hum of the air recycling system fills the silence.
He is a warm, solid presence beside her. Their hands brush when they pass reports or diagrams back and forth. Once, when she is trying to glare Alpha Wing's drill schedule into submission, he startles her by using his thumb to smooth out the wrinkles in her brow, saying that her face will freeze like that if she keeps it up. She sticks her tongue out at him, and they laugh before going back to scheduling and quiet companionship. It is not unpleasant, she thinks in between slotting Vree and Brakiri ships into patrol shifts.
He reaches across her knee to pluck a status report from her lap. She looks up, and they smile briefly at each other before returning to work.
She adds a Minbari cruiser to the rotation, and the part of her that still speaks to her heart on occasion notes that--assuming they both survive the war--if this were to continue, or even to flourish, she would not necessarily mind.
* * *
Eleven days later, John Sheridan goes to Z'ha'dum, Michael disappears among the Shadows, and Susan's world goes straight to hell.