Title: Love, Comfort and Truth
Author: Wanderlustlover
Email: NC-17
Category: Babylon 5
Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine, as usual. I do this purely out of love and respect for the series and the characters.
Archive: Ask first, though I will usually concede.
The universe stretched endless before her fleshless, formless fingertips. Expanse and endless, holding everything else but that which she sought for. That single light seemed lost and completely forgotten as though it's light had not so brightened the universe, the timeline and the chances of true existence.
The voices of the ship faded before voices of the stars and still she couldn't find or reach him. Those fingertips turned to claws and for a moment the serene song became a squeal of pain, stars flicker and courses change, and a moment later, the presence jerking back, the song returns to it's original beauty.
Rainstorms and meteor showers reflect tears that won't fall, and yet the fruitless search, for a flicker that only smokes faintly from beyond,d continues on.
"Do you mind company or are you seeking solace?"
For a moment it seemed like she wouldn't answer but then her head turned toward the door, which caused her fiery red hair to wave over her shoulders. The dark inkiness of her eyes seemed hollow and endless even as it dissipated slowly into her real eyes, deep and bright as copper. Lyta blinked a few times, focusing on the simple three-dimensional woman before her.
"I think they're planning something," she said finally coming back to her body and to her surroundings after another minute of silence.
"The shadows?" Delenn asked as she walked calmly and slowly toward Lyta, the way one might toward an animal that could be both soft and fearsome.
"No, the Vorlons," the telepath replied, turning back to the window through which they could still see the planet of Z'ha'dum.
"Are you certain?" she mirrored with a question, shivering at the sight of the planet. It was still the only hint and miracle that might produce the man she loved.
"Everything's too quiet," Lyta said, finally turning from the window completely. She raised her arms up as if to elucidate something but no words came. Looking to the other woman who stood with her, so serene compared to the maelstrom of her soul, she shook her head. "I'm not certain of much lately but I can't bring myself to believe they're doing nothing. And the Vorlon's never do anything only half way."
"Have you eaten?" Delenn asked, her eyes obsessively still on the planet almost unable to look away. "I came to see if you would like to join me for the supper meal."
Raising an eyebrow, the telepath stared at her and let free a sigh. Minbari were confounding at times.
"Can I ask you something frankly?" Lyta posed her words delicately, leaning back in the chair. She was dressed now in a sheaf gown of soft cream with a myrad colored vest jacket that went to her ankles over it, something Delenn had pressed upon her as a gift when she related that she had nothing more comfortable than her black work clothing on the White Star.
"Of course."
"What will you do if we can't find him?"
Delenn looked puzzled for a moment, like the question might have been in a different language, but she finished the swallow of her tea and said succulently, "I will mourn and move on with my life."
Lyta tilted her head slightly; reaching up to scratch her neck, surprise seemed to break loose on her pale face. "That's it?"
"Nothing involving love is ever so simple, Lyta," Delenn commented, the tremor of emotion which touched her voice was apparent even with the steady, calm gait of her words. "But loss is not something new. We few, we finitely happy few, are not the first to ever have that experience. I hope and pray that I will find John, but I know the other paths possibly before my feet."
Lyta watched Delenn as she spoke, though. The tension at the edges of her bright eyes, how she held her jaw a little stronger, seeming to force herself to say words she might not quite believe. She could tell the battle between the emotional and logical sides of Delenn's mind both vied for what might happen in these next few days.
Delenn watched the woman before her, swirling the small glass of extraordinarily old wine while she stared at it. And when you caught her attention, you could tell by her eyes that she hadn't been there the minute before but eons away, maybe even lives and whole existences away.
"I hear the Vorlon will be sending another representative soon," Delenn commented, gently, after finishing the bite of food in her mouth.
"Hmm?" Lyta emitted softly, raising her eyes slowly from the liquid in her glass. She hadn't honestly been so far away this time, only as far away as a heartbeat that she still searched for in vain. "Yes. I'm supposed to report to Kosh when he arrives."
"Kosh?" Delenn repeated the name, her voice perking with confusion. What changes exactly had come over Lyta few could tell, but she could feel the touch of the Vorlons in the red head before her and all around her, like a protective and impenetrable shield.
"They are all Kosh," Lyta replied blandly, before bringing the wine glass to her lips and taking a long sip.
"Is it disconcerting to you? That they will send someone so soon to replace him?" Delenn asked, leaning over and beginning to collect the bowls on the side of the table into a stack.
"Babylon 5," Lyta started, for a second her breath skipped, but her expression was perfectly still and almost absolutely foreign to any emotion making her seem all but inhuman. "Babylon 5 needs a Vorlon ambassador. The faster they fill the space, the sooner the station stops feeling like something is wrong and doubting."
"Perhaps that is true, but will you feel like nothing is wrong or worth doubting then?" Delenn asked as she stood up the stack of dishes in her hands. Her expression resting on the woman before her was compassionate. "There is no shame in mourning the loss of those we loved."
"He was my mentor," Lyta stated defensively and, suddenly, the room seemed to warm.
"Pardon the intrusion," Delenn said walking back holding smaller plates with intricate blue desserts on them. "I did not mean to imply other than that you two seemed to have a close bond."
Lyta couldn't remember what exactly she'd been about to say when Delenn leaned in and kissed her lips because an explosion of shock shook through her figure. And she was trying to think what Captain Sheridan, who wasn't a big fan of her already, would say but the thoughts melted behind the desperation in the other woman's soft touch.
"Wait," Lyta stated, pulling away after a few minutes, face flushed. "Captain Sheridan?"
"What about him?" Delenn asked, curiously, with a wide, open expression of confusion.
"I'm sure this isn't what he's imagining you're doing, if he's at all, you know, thinking about us searching for him," Lyta said, stammering over her words. It wasn't that she couldn't say what she was trying to say, it was that she'd just realized that some part of Delenn, non-corporeally, was still mingled with her. The way telepaths could still feel the effects of each other after they'd stopped touching.
"And what am I doing?" Delenn continued, leaning back on the small couch in her bedding quarters.
"Coming on to me?" Lyta rebuffed, sounding just a little like she thought herself foolish and embarrassed for saying it out loud.
"Coming on to you?" Delenn repeated her statement, but her expression was wound up like she was thinking very hard and finding nothing but dense fog. "I am not on you, so I must assume this is another one of those human phrase of inference I do not understand. I do not understand. Do humans not have comforters?"
"Comforters?" Lyta repeated, looking bewildered. In her head there were varying images between Delenn's face close to hers, the pressure of her lips and that of a rich, thick blanket comforter.
"People who take care of you-" Delenn started, seeming confused as to how to go about what she needed to explain until Lyta broke off her words.
"You sleep with these people in lieu of the one you're missing?" she asked pulling back suddenly, still continuing to appear confused by this sudden turn of events.
"Nothing so simple and profane as you make it sound, Lyta," Delenn recanted, taking her hand gently and looking down at it. She gathered her thoughts for a few seconds before she continued again.
"Comforters are those who take care of you. They hold you when you are crying. They sit vigil to you while you are in meditation or search. They come take part in prayer rituals you hold. They hold your hand for better or worse in the long night between the lights. They become your flickering light in the darkest night. Do humans not have anything that comes close to this?"
The music was soft and the candlelight played across the walls and Lyta had been messaging Delenn's shoulders while walking the pathways of her mind, putting down her worries and concerns the way she had done much earlier in her life with small children.
"Oh," Lyta whispered as she struck on to the feeling of herself reflected back into her eyes and through it the reflection of the entire events. A soft bubble of surprise and then mirth struck through the woman who's back she had moved to working on. The redhead laughed softly, "I had begun to wonder yesterday about whether you were-"
A soft sigh slipped through the form beneath her, but she heard the real response in her head and it caused Lyta to smile just softly enough.
Their limbs were languid, caresses soft and sweet, the way the sun dips over a valley slowly beginning to take it all in. There were no mistaken lost meanings, longings for a moment that would come and be gone; it was simply them, the room and the silent, dark hours of the night.
"It's been so long," Delenn murmured, feeling the touches that blazed through her mind, shadowing her and mirroring it into someone else, on and on and on till no world existed outside of them. Everything went spiraling further and further into the darkness and then the blinding light as they culminated beyond a being of writhing flesh;
And into a perfect explosion, and union, of mind and understanding.
Who started crying first was almost as much a mystery as how it started. When all the doors of Delenn's mind had opened like a flower before Lyta's touch and much, but not all, of Lyta had opened for her in return, many secrets that were not so much secrets as hurts fell into the places where compassion and comfort could finally touch them.
Where Delenn feared a possibility of love lost, Lyta mourned an ending to love and life that no one knew had ever existed, and in sloppy, dedicated, mismatched turns they held each other through their moments of darkness, nostalgia, explanation and light as the night moved through them.
Lying together, Delenn softly stroked Lyta's hair listening to her fall off into her sleep slowly, the fuzzy doubts about whether this was wrong and she should regret sleeping with her captain's woman colliding with words Delenn had uttered earlier about comfort.
But the perfect mirrors of telepathic passion still shivered through their forms and she fell off to sleep without deciding, thinking for a brief moment, here and then gone, that she felt peaceful for the first time since finding out about Kosh's death.
Delenn lay there listening to the dreams her friends subconscious spun out slowly, singing softly, both out loud and inwardly as she looked to the future, to her hope of finding him, the dearest being to her heart and her soul on the next morning.