Title: Time (That You Love)
Summary: Sheridan's parents learn about Lorien's time limit.
Rated: G
Notes: Let's not talk about the new-fic-new-fandom anxiety. Chronologically-dubious missing scene from "Rising Star" that plays with my particular bugbears re: Sheridan's family. Title from the Tom Waits song, just because. Branwyn and Prof Pangaea very kindly looked over it, even though I'm being the annoying friend who can only talk about her shiny new fandom that no one else is interested in.
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Time (That You Love)
by Lizbee
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They stole a few hours in the evening, after the speeches were over and the politicking had begun, and John took her to his family's home.
It was a continent away from Geneva. As the flyer crossed an ocean, David Sheridan told her about his agricultural pursuits, about the rich land and the peace of the countryside. John just held her hand and smiled. His grip was tight, but his eyes were distant.
It was dark when they arrived, and bitterly cold. Delenn wrapped her outer robe around herself and tried to see through the darkness. She was wondering -- foolishly -- if some fragment of John's past might linger here, and reveal itself to her. And she was wondering what the Grey Council would say if they could see her now -- on Earth, meeting the clan of her alien mate -- what her father would think -- what Dukhat would say.
The air smelled faintly of smoke ("Clark's supporters," said John's father, "torched the barn. The neighbours didn't let them get any closer. ISN said the whole place burned down -- your sister nearly had a heart attack.") but there was a light on in the house, and the sound of approaching footsteps. The door was thrown open. For a second, John's mother was nothing more than a silhouette. A shadow. Then she stepped outside, and reached for her husband.
"David," she said, "thank God. And John--"
"Mom!"
"And," her hand was dry, her smile fleeting but genuine, "you must be Delenn. I'm honoured to meet you."
She was tall for a human woman, and more reserved than her effusive husband. As they entered the house, Delenn saw lines of strain around her eyes and mouth.
"There's not much food," she was saying, "but enough to do until tomorrow. The Reynolds took Clyde and George--" this, Delenn decided, referred to the animals now greeting John and David. Dogs, she thought, although the sound they made was nothing like the "woof" the encyclopedias had described. "I hear you've gone into politics," she said to John.
"It's a long story," David told her.
The tale carried them through a meal of vegetables and meat. It seemed bland to Delenn -- most human food was tasteless to a Minbari palate -- but John ate with gusto. He had not yet lost the haunted look he'd carried since his imprisonment, and he deflected his parents' questions about his time on Mars.
Afterwards, Miranda Sheridan leaned back in her chair, exchanged a significant look with her husband, and said, "So, John. They tell me you died."
John hesitated.
"It's complicated."
All at once, Delenn found she couldn't bear to hear this story again. She thought she had resigned herself to the fact of John's shortened life, but thinking of it now, she found herself angry.
"Excuse me," she murmured, rising to her feet. "A moment, please."
John began to follow her, but she motioned him to stay. The dogs, however, accompanied her, tails wagging as she made for the back door. The winter air hit her with an almost physical force as she stepped outside. The cold reminded her of Minbar, but the scents and even sounds were utterly alien. The dogs raced back and forth between the house and a darkened outbuilding.
From inside the house came the sounds of raised voices. David Sheridan sounded very much like John when he was angry. Delenn was growing numb from the chill, but she had no desire to return to the family yet. She wiped her eyes, and followed the dogs.
The outhouse, she realised, was an aeroponics greenhouse. Automatic lights came on as she entered. The dogs, obviously well-trained, did not follow her in. The sudden, humid warmth was shocking, but more overwhelming were the scents: alien flora, nutrients and decay. The greenhouse had obviously suffered in the absence of the Sheridans; Delenn could see remnants of careful horticulture, but the surviving plants were running wild.
The main house's back door flew open, and a figure marched out into the darkness, stood for a moment, staring blindly at the dark landscape, then set out towards the greenhouse.
"I hope you don't mind," said Delenn when Miranda had closed the outer doors behind her.
"Better out here than in there," Miranda said, throwing a dirty coat over a chair and looking around her. "Damn. All those years of work for nothing."
Delenn thought of Minbar's cities, reduced to rubble in the wake of the civil war.
"Twenty years!" A stem snapped under Miranda's white-knuckled fingers, but her voice remained low. "How can you stand it?"
I can't, Delenn wanted to say. She held her breath for a moment, then said, "I don't think the pain would be any less, if we remained apart. I've lost John once already; I won't let him go again before it's time."
"He could be run over by a bus tomorrow," said Miranda. "That's what my great-grandmother used to say."
"Humans have such a curious approach to optimism." Delenn examined the roots of a shrub, but found them atrophied and dying. At Miranda's nod of approval, she detached the plant from its supports and discarded it.
"It's a hell of a thing, to find out you'll probably outlive your son. And he just -- told us, as if it's normal--!"
"I think," said Delenn, "that he considers it a fair bargain. He went to Z'ha'dum knowing he'd die."
"Dammit." Miranda ferociously snipped dead leaves. "I don't -- I mean, he used to be a Buddhist! Then he joined EarthForce, and suddenly he was a soldier, and a war hero. And now he's a politician -- and he's dying. Dead. And I barely know him. Not as an adult. Not as the man he is now."
"There's still time," said Delenn quietly.
"Not enough." Miranda wiped her eyes. "Are your parents alive, Delenn? Does your family approve of this ... match?"
"No," Delenn admitted, "but my clan will support me regardless. My father is dead, and my mother left when I was an infant, to serve in the Temple of Valeria."
"Do you miss her? I know Minbari have an ideal of service. Is it ... enough?"
"It is a great honour, and she is following the calling of her heart. And yes, I miss her."
"David says the ISA headquarters will be on Minbar."
"It seemed logical. Earth would be ... complicated, and the other worlds are all -- fraught."
"Yes. Quite right." Miranda pulled a bottle of protein solution from a shelf, opened it and sniffed at the contents. "And just as your mother left you, so John leaves us." She shook her head. "I must seem very bitter to you."
"War wounds." Delenn spoke without thinking, and immediately regretted it, but Miranda did not seem to take offence; she became still, her gaze distant.
"I thought -- I thought, they could destroy John's reputation and career, but as long as they let my son live, we could bear it. And now -- he has everything I'd have sacrificed and more, and I feel like I betrayed him."
"No," said Delenn.
"Twenty years--" Tears were spilling down Miranda's cheeks. "David is angry because he thinks everything is negotiable. That's what made him such a great diplomat. But as a farmer -- you have to accept the seasons. And sometimes," she took hold of a vine that was growing wild, "even with all our technology, we're just jumped-up apes at the mercy of nature."
"No." Delenn took Miranda by the shoulders. She could feel the tension and the strength that lay beneath the human woman's quiet facade. "John should be dead right now -- lying in a cave on Z'ha'dum--" The mere thought turned her stomach. "I went to Lorien, after I found out. He said he could not create energy out of nothing, but I offered my life in exchange for John's. He said," she hesitated, "that such a thing was impossible."
Actually, he had led her out of the garden, into the Zocalo. He had pointed at the crowd and said, "Choose one."
"I'm sorry?"
"You," said Lorien, pointing one elongated finger at her, "still have a role to play. You cannot spend years aligning yourself with prophecy, only to change your mind in the final days. Choose another to take your place."
She didn't know if it was a test or a taunt. Delenn had stepped backwards, watching Lorien's inscrutable smile. That smile had followed her as she walked away. She never told John. There was no need for him to know.
"I," she faltered, and tried again. "I don't think you have any need for guilt."
Miranda smiled. "You don't know much about human constructions of motherhood yet, do you?"
Delenn tried to laugh, but realised that she couldn't breathe. For a moment, as hot tears spilled down her cheeks, she was somewhere else, holding Dukhat as he died, going mad with grief. No war would avenge John, but she would fight the universe and time itself if it would win them a few more years.
A sob wracked her chest; she tried to compose herself, but she had concealed this pain too long. Miranda caught her in a rough embrace; it was neither tender nor comfortable, but it was utterly reassuring. If this was what it was like to have a mother, Delenn thought, she could perhaps grow accustomed to the idea.
Although Delenn had not spoken aloud, Miranda chuckled brokenly and said, "I'm not much of a maternal figure."
"I wouldn't know," Delenn said, or tried to say. She forced herself to breathe until the storm had passed.
"Come on," said Miranda, leading her outside. "They've stopped arguing, and I want to spend some time with my son before he leaves again."
The sky was bright: with the moon, with the stars, with the ships and satellites that surrounded them. Delenn lingered a moment, wishing it were possible to stay. To see this sky in summer, to know this world and these people properly. She wasn't aware of John's approach until he took her hand.
"We'll have to go back in a few hours," he said.
"Is your father--?"
"Coping." His jaw was tense, but his eyes, Delenn thought, were less haunted than before. "Mom?"
"She's very strong."
"Yeah. Yeah, she is."
The dogs surrounded them again, leading them inside, into the warmth of home.
end