matrixagent02@yahoo.com
Thank you.
Historical Note: This story takes place some years
after the series finale of "Sleeping In Light". Anyway I'll let you be
the judge of just how many years it's been since then. . . .
"Mom, it's almost sunrise."
David Sheridan moved quietly into the room that was once shared by both of his parents. The sight of an empty bed greeted him. Delenn had already left to watch the sunrise. . .
"That's funny, I don't remember seeing her this morning." he murmured. The baby stirred in his
arms and began to cry. "All right, son, I can see
that your visit with your grandmother will have to wait while I take you to get you fed and your diaper changed." he said. Taking one last look around for Delenn, David left the empty room. . . .
Delenn, for everyday as long as she had out lived John, had watched the sunrise of Minbar. It seemed as though she had watched a thousand such sunrises and yet she knew she would never stop until the day she died. Watching the sunrise actually gave her a sense of John's presence, that he was with her again. It was only for a few minutes each day, but somehow it helped. . . .
Delenn was ill. . . .
It was an illness that the Minbari physicians were unable to identify, but it was an 'illness' that humans could identify with.
Delenn's heart was broken. . . .
Up until this year, Delenn had found so many reasons to keep on going with her life but lately it seemed that her strength was waning and she knew that David saw it was well. . . .
Although he saw her strength draining when he looked into her eyes, David did not know that she was ill and Delenn had asked her doctors not to tell him. . . .
With a sigh she stood up and left. . . .
It seemed that David's fears about his mother were justified two days later when he was out on a Ranger training mission. . . .
David glanced over the communications control of his fighter and a light blinked indicating that he was receiving a transmission that was originating outside of the squadron.
"What the. . ." he muttered.
Normally when they went to this region of space no outside signals were permitted through to anyone in the squadron. No one. The only exceptions to the rule were life and death situations involving immediate family members. He touched the switch.
"Sheridan here." he said.
"Sir, there's an urgent message here for you from Minbar. It's from your wife." a voice replied from the other end.
Oh, God, not the baby, he thought but then. . .
"Is it my mother?" he asked. Fear passed through him even as he asked this.
"I don't know, sir. The message was encoded to you and as 'urgent'." the voice replied. David sighed, knowing that he should have known better than to even ask. The question was: Should he interrupt a training mission to return to homebase and view the message from Minbar? Which would his mother want? What would his father do?
"Delta Squadron, resume the exercise."
It was a day later when David returned home from the training mission. He had started for home as soon as he had viewed his wife's message.
Delenn was bed ridden and what was worse the doctors were not sure how to help her. David was worried because when he had called home to alert them to his return he had been told by Susan Ivanova that the doctors simply did not know how to help her because
"Her spirit is dying?" David repeated carefully and she nodded. Susan had learned to speak the Minbari tongue during her tenure on Minbar as Ranger One and it was in Minbari she had told David what the doctors had said. She dropped all formalities as she leaned forward to speak to him.
"David, the last time I saw her like this is when we all thought that John had been killed on Z'ha'dum. She fasted for 7 days praying, hoping and waiting…and John came back eventually." Susan said quietly. "But this time, he's not coming home."
"Aunt Susan, I'm not ready to lose her." David said quietly, tears in his eyes. She looked at him, concerned. He hadn't called her 'Aunt Susan' in a long, long time. . . . "I want my son to know his grandmother." David said, his voice a whisper.
If Susan could have touched his hand right then she would have.
"He will know her, David. You've got to believe that she is going to get better. Don't give up hope."
Moonlight bathed Delenn as she laid in bed. As tired as she felt sleep evaded her. David was on his way home. . . .
In many ways the thought of his returning home made her feel better but in some ways it did not. In all the ways that counted David looked so much like John. . . .
She heard soft footsteps. . . .
"Finally, she's asleep." she heard the Susan's voice.
"I'm going to sit with her for awhile, Aunt Susan. You go get some sleep." David said. He took a seat by the window, the moonlight bathing him too. When Susan was gone, David spoke.
"Mom, I know you're not asleep." he said quietly. Delenn kept her eyes closed. "It's all right if you don't want to talk but I need to say something." he paused.
"Mom, please don't give up on living in this life. I know you miss Dad. I miss him too but he wouldn't want you to give up. I can't imagine what it's like to lose your [soulmate] because I don't know what I would do if I ever lost Kristen. The only thing I know I would do is that I would go on living for my son's sake. He needs me. I need you, Mom. Please come back to us." David said. He got up and went over to kiss her.
"I've said my peace so I'll leave you alone now. I love you." With that David took his leave. Soon afterwards a sleep so deep overtake Delenn. . . .
A healing sleep in more ways than one. . . .
CRASH!!!
Delenn sat up in bed. There had been a loud noise somewhere within the apartments and it had been loud enough to awaken her. She grabbed her robe and went to investigate.
Everything was in order. . . .
Wearily she went back to her bedroom and someone was there standing in the shadows dressed as a Ranger. But not just as any Ranger but as Ranger One. She couldn't see their face because it was hidden by their hood.
"Susan, I'm all right I don't know. . . ."
The figure pulled the hood back and smiled.
"John? Is that you?" she said, overcome with sudden tears of joy.
He nodded. He too was overcome with emotions. He held his arms open to her and Delenn could not seem to get to him fast enough. For what seemed an eternity they just stood there clinging tightly to one another. Finally she looked up at his face.
"I've died, haven't I?" she asked.
"Does that really matter now, my love?" he asked in gentle reply.
"I suppose not."
"Let's walk. I have so much to tell you." John replied. He took off his cloak and gave it to protect her against the night air of Minbar. They walked with his arm around her in the gardens, passing several guards and none of them acknowledged the presence of the couple. Not one of them.
"John, I really don't understand what is happening to me. Ever since you…left, I have tried to go on with life, but it has been so difficult." Delenn said.
"What have you been living for, Delenn?" John asked, "What and who have you been living for?" he asked quietly.
"David mostly I suppose since you've been gone. I knew that he needed me after you left us. But things are different now. He has found his [soulmate] and they have a son now." she answered.
"David has a son now?" John asked, a smile on his face. Delenn nodded.
"Is he beautiful?"
"Very beautiful. And he has already proven himself to be a Sheridan." Delenn answered.
"Don't tell me that he's displaying that Sheridan stubbornness streak already?" John said looking down at her. Delenn was smiling as she nodded an answer to his question. John sighed.
"How I wish that I could hold him."
There was such a sadness in John's voice that Delenn could not but help feel it herself.
"Look at that. The sun is starting to come up." he said quietly. He stopped walking and faced her.
"I don't have much time left. I don't think that we'll see another again until you've come to join me in death." Tears were present again in the eyes of his [soulmate] and John just took her into his arms.
"We won't be apart much longer, my love. I promise you we won't. Time will go by so quickly and then we'll be together again. Don't give up and don't let your spirit die before it's your time to join me. Live, my love, live." he said, touching her tear stained face.
"Live for what, John? My soul is so tired. I have had a long life already." she replied.
"Live for our son. David still needs you and to be honest he needs you more that I need you. Live for our grandson. I haven't even asked you his name yet. What is it?" he asked.
"Jacob John Sheridan." she answered.
"Jacob John Sheridan. . ." John repeated carefully savoring the sound of his grandson's name. "Hmmmm. . . .that'll be a tongue twister if he ever has to say his name fast." he murmured with a smile before turning serious again. He took Delenn's face into his hands.
"Live for Jacob, Delenn. Hold and love him enough for the both of us. I would give anything to hold him in my arms but as it is Lorien only granted me this one visit to you. If only I had the time to visit David again. . . ." he said with much sadness in his voice.
The sun was almost filling the morning sky now. John looked at its position and kissed the lips of his wife gently. Before Delenn knew what was happening John had walked already some distance from her before he turned back to face her.
"Time for you to rest, my love." he said gently. . . . .
Delenn sat up in bed, disoriented by the fact that she was actually in her bed. The dream she had had of John had seemed so real. . . .
She dressed and went out to watch the sunrise and discovered that it was just over the horizon. How had that happened? she wondered. It was the dream, she decided. It was so real that I did not want to rise out of my sleep. . . .
After she had watched the sun for sometime she returned to her apartments to find David and a sleeping Jacob waiting for her. David smiled.
"Are you better?" he asked.
"Yes I am. I have found strength to keep my soul alive." she said. She held her arms open to take her grandson. David handed her the baby carefully as to not jostle his son.
"May I ask where this strength came from?" he asked.
"Sit down." she said, sitting with the baby.
When David had complied to her wish, she began. "I had a dream last night in which your father came to visit me." she began.
"You saw Dad?" he asked.
"Yes, I did. David, it was so real. The dream seemed to last for hours as we held one another and talked."
"What did Dad say?" David asked.
Delenn told him everything that was said in her dream.
"You are my strength. Jacob is my strength." Delenn concluded. There were tears in David's eyes as he listened.
"Thank you for coming back to us." he said finally. "Thank you. I know how much you've missed Dad but I truly believe that you'll be together again whenever the time comes."
"That time will not come for a long time." she said. As she spoke this to David something caught her eye. It was brown and was from the shape of it, a cloak that belonged to the one that was known as Ranger One.
Delenn gave him the baby and went to pick the cloak up from where it laid on a nearby chair.
"Hmmm, Aunt Susan must have left it here yesterday." he said recognizing the cloak as belonging to the Entil'Zha.
"No, no, this isn't Susan's." Delenn answered turning the cloak over and over again in her hands.
"Then who's is it?" David asked.
"Your Father's." Delenn answered.
"What?!! How is that possible?" David asked. "I thought that you kept it in storage. He laid his sleeping son down and went to touch it. He smelled the cloak as did Delenn.
"It carries John's scent."
"And what it doesn't carry is the scent of having been in storage." David breathed.
"Maybe John really was here last night." Delenn breathed.
"How? He's been dead for. . ."
"David, he was here. Lorien took him when his time here with us had come to an end. He allowed John to come to me last night." Delenn said. She held the cloak close to he face. John was still with her even now. His love would always be with her.
That too would her strength.
"Good morning. . . ." Susan Ivanova called from the door. Delenn smiled at her.
"Is that John's cloak?" Susan asked.
Delenn nodded.
"Come in, Susan. I think that there is something I should tell you. . . ."
Fin