WAITING FOR THE DAWN
Nineteen years and seven months after Z'ha'dum, they stopped arguing. Not that they ever really argued. They were more like disagreements. Of course, Delenn was human enough now that their disagreements sometimes became a little more…heated than they might have been otherwise. But that too was enjoyable, in its own way. Making up afterwards was even more so.
She had stopped "disagreeing" with John once before, in the sixteenth year. That was how she reckoned time now. One year after Z'ha'dum. Two years after Z'ha'dum. Twenty years after Z'ha'Dum.
The last time they had stopped disagreeing, he had taken her to task. "Stop treating me like I'm made of glass," he had snapped. "I'm not going to die." "Yes you are," she had snapped right back at him, and that had led one of their few true arguments. He was right though, Delenn mused as she lay beside him in the darkness. She put her hand on his chest lightly, watching it rise and fall, listening to the slow steady sound of his breathing.
Twenty years, more or less. That is what Lorien had told him. It was the "more or less" that was tearing away pieces of Delenn's soul. The uncertainty was destroying her. Did he mean twenty years to the day? Or perhaps it was nineteen years and eleven months. Or nineteen years and one day. There was only one inescapable certainty - her husband was going to die. And soon.
Quietly Delenn shifted her position, laying her head on his chest so she could listen to his heartbeat. And, as she had done on so many other occasions, she began to count. One. Two. Three. There was always that brief pause between beats when she would wonder is this the one? Is this the moment when he simply stops? But then there would be another heartbeat and the reassuring rhythm would continue, all through the long hours of darkness and shadows. She never told him, the next morning, why she was so tired.
She didn't need to.
Sometimes the pain was overwhelming. It hurt so much she thought she could actually feel her own heart crumbling inside her. At those times, Delenn reminded herself that the time they had together was a gift. But for Lorien and his powers, she would have lost him that dark day, long ago on Z'ha'dum.
It still wasn't enough.
Sometimes, when she lay with her head on his shoulder, watching the rise and fall of his chest and feeling his heart beat beneath her, the thoughts that she managed to suppress during the day emerged. They were wholly human, these thoughts. A true Minbari would have faced the bleak future, if not calmly, then with a certain sense of resignation. She wasn't a true Minbari though. Not anymore. It was the human part inside her that cried out why? It's not fair. Just a little longer. Please. And sometimes, when the night was darkest and the shadows were longest, then another thought would steal through her, sliding through her mind like something foul and loathsome.
I wish it were over.
She never said the words out loud, never even thought them during the daylight hours. She loved John Sheridan with ever fibre of her being, and she always would. She would never love another the way she loved him. He was the other half of her soul.
He completed her.
She had much to be thankful for. These precious years, their son David, the rich and fulfilling life they had built together here on Minbar… So many people never found even a fraction of what she enjoyed. She should be grateful.
It wasn't enough.
It was easier, somehow, in the daylight. Then, she could banish the despair and fear to the back of her mind, and live each moment with him to the utmost, cherishing every one, filing them all away in her mind to relive again…after. There was a Minbari saying, that a life lived in fear was a life half-lived. In the daytime, she lived life completely. The nights though…
It was becoming harder to go to sleep. Now, when their time together might be drawing to a close, she feared, more than anything, waking up alone beside the empty shell that once held the man she loved. And it was at those times, when exhaustion was tearing at her and her vision was blurred from tears she refused to shed, that the thought came unbidden:
I wish it were over.
What kind of person did that make her? To wish away the man she loved, simply because she could not bear the pain any longer? Then, guilt and shame would steal over her, mingling with the heartache and fear until she thought she might go mad from it all. And all the while, the only sound was the steady beat of his heart, filling the vast emptiness of the night. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four. Somewhere between 210 and 211, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Her husband stirred, waking her immediately. Delenn rolled over and opened her eyes. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, weariness written in the lines of his body, as if he had not slept all night, and something cold and vice-like clutched at her heart.
"Are you all right?" she asked, her voice seeming to come from a long way away.
"I'm fine. I just need to get a little air. You go back to sleep." His voice was rough and hoarse.
Delenn watched him leave, and certainty consumed her. It had begun. Briefly her eyes closed and her fists tightened, as if she could somehow stop the relentless march of time.
I don't want it to end.
Tears threatened to spill, but then her Minbari heritage took over. She rose from the bed and pulled on a robe. I can do this, she told herself. I can be strong for him. I must be.
Quietly and with dignity, Delenn stepped outside into the garden where dawn – and the future – awaited.
FIN