Title: In the Shadow of Your Heart
Characters: Delenn/Lyta
Rating: T for some language.
Author: catherinelefey/CaptainCatherine (also posted on my tumblr page, see my profile for more on the B5 Tumblr Community)
Prompt: (many thanks to Delenn, for the prompt and for generally being wonderful) Delenn/Lyta, set sometime after the Minbari Civil War. you left me in the dark/No dawn, no day/I'm always in this twilight, in the shadow of your heart
Sometimes, Lyta gets so angry that the world blurs and her hands shake with the effort of holding up the walls around her mind. She sits on the bed and feels tears welling up behind her eyes and crushes them back mercilessly because she has nothing else to crush. Her quarters, like the rest of her life, are empty and cold. There might as well be fucking tumbleweed on the floor to liven the place up. And when she is like this, the only face she can see is hers. Delenn's face, hard and unyielding, is stuck in her memory and no matter how many mind games she plays, how many people she blames, it always comes back to her. Delenn and her speeches about things from a thousand years ago, about standing between the dark and the light, play over and over in her mind. She sees Delenn's slender fingers entwined with her own, her eyes dark and warm and cold and bright all at once and wants to punch her, hard. She wants to see her, broken and bleeding on the floor, and scream at her the things that reverberate inside her head. She wants to know why, to know who made her what she is, why she feels so cold and alone. Why if she really was an instrument of peace and Something Important In The Universe, then she sleeps in too small quarters and spends her days begging for work. She is alone, a pariah on Earth and a has-been on the station. No matter how many ways she looks at it, traces the path of her life these past four years, Delenn is always there to push her into the twilight, a smile on her face.
Sometimes, Lyta thinks she hates Delenn.
Sometimes, Lyta thinks about those dark days and how the grace that clung to Delenn's every word, every movement. She remembers the straight curve of her spine as they stood together on the deck of the White Star and how her eyes sparkled like diamonds as they stared at the darkness, coming towards her. Remembers how her words were like fire, and they lit a fire deep inside of her and given her faith, something she'd thought she'd given up when she'd left the Corp and just how good it felt to be wanted, needed….special. Even through the darkest days, when the Captain walked around like a zombie and none of them really slept, Delenn was there, solid and shining, something real and warm and bright. Their star. In those days Delenn could do no wrong, and Lyta felt no need to think about a future where there were no wars and no Vorlons, because Delenn would provide. As the Minbari say, faith manages. And Lyta had faith in Delenn, had faith in her glittering eyes and her warm touch and in a future. Which is why it hurt so much to see Delenn charging to save Earth, to see her allies and friends (could she even call them that?) find a new cause to champion, to be ushered in as Earth's saviors while she say alone, seething and raging in an empty room.
Sometimes, Lyta thinks she loves Delenn more than she's loved any person before.