Love is a Bitter Gift, Part 1 of 1

Spoilers: Set after "Sleeping in Light" so, well, everything

Disclaimer: The only thing that's mine is the plot, such as it is.

Note: Although I was once very active in B5 fandom (at least in the tiny corner of it known at the John and Delenn mailing list and its spinoff the B5 War Council), I haven't posted anything B5-related publicly in at least 15 years, though I've carried its legacy in my email address for all that time. I rewatched the series this summer; every time I do, I'm struck even more by how tragic Susan Ivanova's life really was, and this is the result. The title is a paraphrase of something Arwen says to Aragorn in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings as Aragorn is preparing to 'sleep.' I hope you all enjoy.

On two nights each year, Susan Ivanova turns off her comms, locks the door to her quarters, and gets blind drunk, mourning the loss of what might have been and what may never have been in the first place.

It's easy in EarthForce to get away with such things.

If anyone notices – which is doubtful, given the arm's length at which she keeps her staff (at which she has always kept her staff, even on her first command, where her XO had watched, befuddled, as she sat in her captain's chair conjugating verbs in Adronato; time had, just as Marcus had said, marched along quite happily even as she learned the language) – she certainly has them all far too intimidated to actually do anything about it.

Now that she's Ranger One, she knows it's all but inevitable that someone will eventually notice her twice-yearly disappearance; she just hopes that when it finally happens, it'll be someone who subscribes to the Minbari code of privacy rather than the human.

In this, as in many things in her life, her luck does not hold out.

The vodka wasn't quite right, but then Minbari grains weren't quite the same, not even considering that she was the first person on Minbar for whom any sort of vodka had ever been made in the first place. Still, it was alcohol, and already a faint dissociation fuzzed the edges of her sight.

It wasn't enough, of course; not nearly enough yet to dull the memory of his voice, of his bearded face, pale as death, beside her as she struggled fruitlessly to push him away, to disconnect the machine, to yell for help.

To do something.

Anything.

The sound of the door chime made her drop the glass in her hand. "Damn!"

"Susan?"

Damn. Double damn.

"The door's locked for a reason, Delenn," she said, hoping it would be enough.

Of course, she didn't particularly expect it to work and, soon enough, the door slid open. "Damn override," she muttered. Her back was to Delenn as she swept the shards of glass into a dustpan.

"Susan?"

She sighed. "Yes?"

"Are you all right?"

There wasn't any answer to that question. What could she say? That all these years later, she was still berating herself for rebuffing Marcus so consistently? For not rebuffing him enough for him to give up and get over his feelings?

For being too damaged to give him even a fraction of what he wanted?

For letting him die?

For…everything?

"I mourn him too," Delenn said into the quiet that followed. Then she added one single, damning word: "Marcus."

Susan froze. The alcohol-induced fuzziness vanished as though in response to Delenn's invoking his name.

What could she say to that, really? What could she admit to Delenn – when anything she could admit she couldn't even admit to herself?

"Delenn, I – "

Delenn sat on the chair opposite her, glancing at the half-empty bottle of fake Minbari vodka with a faintly disapproving air.

Susan sighed and met her eyes for the first time. "Delenn, please, just leave me alone."

They stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity, until Delenn closed her eyes and nodded reluctantly. "All right," she said. She stood and left, but not without one final concerned glance that Susan felt all the way down to her toes.

When Delenn didn't show up at her door on the night of her next vigil, she thought perhaps her old friend had let it go.

The following year proved her wrong.

And, perhaps because of the memories that hung around her so thickly they might just have been tangible, the ringing of her door chime was enough to cause her heart to lurch in fear.

That instinctive terror, ingrained in her for as long as she could remember, couldn't be denied, no matter how irrational; no matter that a moment later, she remembered that even if the ghost of Alfred Bester himself were to come for her, leagues of Rangers would line up in front of her quarters to defend her.

There were some privileges to being Ranger One, after all.

"Susan?"

She felt both a surge of affection and a certain fatalistic amusement, and she didn't wait for Delenn to override her lock code. A quick command opened the door and her long-time friend tentatively entered her quarters.

"What took you so long?"

Delenn acknowledged this with a quirk of the lips and a tip of the head. "You've drunk more," she observed.

"This one's worse."

Delenn let that statement hang in the air between them for a very long moment. "Is it?"

"Marcus…that's…that's guilt." She took a long swig of vodka – the real stuff for this vigil, always, despite the dubious legality and subsequently outrageous shipping costs.

"Guilt?"

"I knew what he wanted. I could have given it to him."

Delenn blew a breath out between her teeth. "He wouldn't have wanted it if it was not sincere."

"I know," Susan said quietly.

"Could you have been…sincere?"

Susan waved her hands vaguely into the air. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably." She sighed, trying to remember what it had been like, those two short years – stinging from two betrayals in quick succession, convinced that it would be easier just to…not feel…at all. Then there had been Marcus and his ridiculous chart and compliments he'd hidden behind the veil of Adronato, which had…terrified her. "Probably not."

Delenn digested that for a moment. "Why not?"

The tone of Delenn's voice suggested she knew the answer to her question already, but Susan couldn't bring herself to protest. "I was – I was scared." She shrugged. "It was so soon after Talia."

Delenn gazed at her speculatively. "And you feared another…betrayal?"

Susan shrugged. "I was afraid of…everything. Everyone I'd ever cared about…left me. I didn't want to trade a few months of feeling good for years of hurting after."

"And yet, here you are."

She chuckled mirthlessly. "Here I am."

"And how is this anniversary worse than any of the others?"

Susan got the impression that Delenn knew the answer to her own question, but that had been her old friend's modus operandi for so long that any annoyance she might have felt barely even registered. "This…it's twenty-four damn years later, Delenn, and I don't even know whether it was real. How much of it was that goddamn Psi-Corps plant, and how much of it – " She cleared her throat. " – how much of it – " To her horror, her throat closed around a sob. "I can't let it go because I don't even know what I lost."

"I've heard it said," said Delenn after another long pause, "that there are no barriers when telepaths are…intimate."

Susan's head jerked up and swiveled sharply to face Delenn. How had she known?

"When telepaths make love," she amended amiably. "You did tell me you loved her."

To this day, Delenn was the only one she had ever said the words aloud to. John had suspected even then; Stephen had implied he knew too. Michael had let her search Talia's quarters after she had left. Lyta…had probably known.

But only Delenn had ever heard her say it.

Saying it aloud had been one of the scariest things she'd ever done – because she hadn't, until just at that moment, admitted even to herself what she might have lost the moment the plant erased Talia's personality.

"How did – ?" She fought with a sense of betrayal for a long moment, then she remembered a hushed, hurried conversation in a transport tube. "I forgot. John asked me if he could tell you. One time when Bester showed up."

"Yes. He knew that if he were scanned, Bester – or any telepath – would learn the truth about you, so he asked me to make sure you were taken to Minbar if that should happen."

Susan felt a surge of affection for both of them. "Thanks."

"Draal…also knew. After you used the Great Machine to look for First Ones. He was…adamant…that you did things you should not have been able to, and he realized that there was only one possible explanation for it." Seeing Susan's stony expression, Delenn patted her arm. "I would not confirm or deny his suspicions."

She shook her head; even now, her mother's voice echoed in her head and it took all the self-control she had to stay in the room. "I've wondered about that for…years. I tried to brush him off, but – "

"And…" Delenn added, interrupting her a quiet, gentle voice, "…there were times, especially when John was…on Z'ha'dum…that I thought I felt your mind brush mine." Her eyes grew distant. "That you were trying to offer me comfort."

At that, Susan's eyebrows raised sharply.

"Surely you knew that all Minbari have some small telepathic ability? Not much more than, as you would say, a latent telepath, but enough to feel the touch of another's mind. We can all shield our thoughts to some extent and recognize when others touch our minds."

Susan grunted. "Okay, so I'm an average Minbari. Or a telepathic human. Swell. There's still a few billion humans who'd like to hang me for either one."

Delenn sat down and just waited, the very picture of serenity, recognizing Susan's attempt at distraction for what it was, though her eyes, as always, gave away how much Susan's pain was affecting her.

"I…it's worse because…." Susan sighed and sank down into the chair facing Delenn, twirling the empty glass in her hands. "Because if that's true…about telepaths…then she knew about me. She knew about me."

She shook her head, trying to push back years of paranoia; part of her, still, was convinced that just saying it aloud would jolt her whatever psi abilities she had from 'latent' to 'active' and bring a hoard of Psi-Cops to her door.

As a child, in her nightmares, it was usually her mother who dragged her away, her eyes dead and her voice a droning monotone. There had been a few others during her early years in EarthForce. The telepath she'd pushed out a window on Mars had surprised her the day after one of those nightmares and had only a pool to thank for his life.

For years, it had often been an army of Besters, all with that insufferably superior smirk. Once, and only once, it had been an army of Talias – the shell of her, anyway; hundreds of Psi-Corps plants laughing with Talia's voice but without any of her kindness, her humanity.

"If she knew…somehow…somehow, some part of her kept it – " She had to stop and clear her throat. " – kept it from the Corps; they never came for me. And God knows Bester had plenty of opportunity."

She met Delenn's eyes for a short moment, but the compassion there scalded her and she couldn't hold her gaze. "And that means some of it – part of it – was real. It wasn't all…engineered. It had to have been." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Right?"

She got up and began to pace, raking a faintly shaking hand through her hair. "But…I didn't see it. I didn't see the plant." Echoes of that haughty smile, that mocking voice. "So if it's true, then maybe she – we didn't – " She shrugged. "Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I was wrong. Again. Like always."

Delenn sat quietly, hands folded in her lap, and just waited, giving her – as always – the space to come to her own conclusions. Susan supposed she should be used to that by now, but tonight, she turned to face her companion, eyes blazing as she demanded answers to questions that had haunted her for over two decades.

"Which do I hope for, Delenn? That it was all lies, that those barriers never came down, that it wasn't real and she never knew and that's why the Corps never came for me? Or that it was real, and that some little part of her survived, trapped inside her own body, down so deep Control didn't know she was still there, going through God only knows what as the Corps pumped the plant for information…for me? To save me?"

Very, very quietly, Delenn admitted, "I don't know, Susan."

"You want to know why it's worse? That is why it's worse, Delenn. Because if I loved her, I should hope for her sake it was all lies; that those barriers never came down; that she never saw me. But if it was the truth – if it was the truth, she suffered God only knows what…for me."

Delenn sighed. "Or…or perhaps you treasure the memories that you have, thank her for her sacrifice, and mourn her loss. If she kept your secret, she gave you a great gift. Would she want to see you…as you are now?"

Susan, who had been raising her refilled glass of vodka to her lips, grunted, nearly put it down, then shook her head and decisively took another swig.

Delenn reached over and took the glass out of her still-shaking hand. "Susan, if it wasn't real, then you have no reason to torture yourself. If it was, do not dishonor her sacrifice this way."

It took all her self-control not to yank her hand away, especially when just the faintest hint of Delenn's thoughts – all kindness, caring, compassion – drifted across her consciousness. It was enough, though, to make her eyes tear up. "I want it to be real," she whispered. "I want to have been right once in my life. Once. But I don't want that for her."

Silence reigned as Delenn poured herself a drink, returned to the chair she'd been sitting in, and slowly sipped her ice water until she finally set the empty glass down and broke the silence. "Susan, there are Minbari telepaths who have…a gift. They can make you…"

"…forget?" Susan barked, her voice hard. "Damn it, Delenn, no way!"

"Not forget. Help you find peace. Dull the pain."

"No." Susan shook her head violently; how could Delenn even suggest she allow another telepath inside her head?

"Susan – "

"No. No, Delenn." She scowled. "Did you do that? Have you done that? Since John?"

Silence, for a long moment. "No. I did not want anything to…alter…my memories. Even a little bit. I endure the pain because it makes my memories all the more real."

Susan just stared at her, eyebrows raised defiantly, daring Delenn to challenge her.

Delenn sighed, then stood and walked to the door. As it opened, she turned and looked back. "All right, Susan."

The next year, she almost expected Delenn to show up before she'd even opened the first bottle, but she was well into her second before the door chimed.

"It was real," Delenn announced as she slipped into the room.

It took time for the words to penetrate; she had, as John would have said, worked herself into a damn good funk, alcohol aside, and it took a few moments to drag herself out of her morose thoughts and away from the wolf. "What?"

"It was real," Delenn repeated as she matter-of-factly took away her half-empty glass and two-thirds empty bottle.

Susan watched her, her muddled thought processes struggling to encompass both what she'd said and what it meant. "How d'you…?"

"I sent Rangers. For the Psi-Corps records. There was one memory they never could get to."

Her first ridiculous instinct was to protest that if someone was going to send her Rangers into danger just to make Ranger One feel better about her spectacularly awful personal life, that order should damn well have come from Ranger One herself.

Fortunately, the years had granted her at least a little wisdom and she was able to take a mental step back and recognize Delenn's gesture for what it was. So, instead, she concentrated on forcing herself to breathe; she stared at the wall and counted the lines in the textured wall covering, willing herself to maintain her composure.

"She said…" Susan finally said slowly, "…she told me Ironheart…gave her a gift." She shrugged. "Never had a chance to tell me more."

"Perhaps," Delenn said gently. "Or love. Love is powerful, you know?"

"And stupidly self-sacrificing," Susan said, thinking of Marcus. Actively trying not to think of a tiny sliver of personality, hidden as effectively as Control's had been, hanging on to at least one precious secret.

They sat in silent contemplation for a few minutes. Susan couldn't really think of anything to say and Delenn was obviously content to wait until she could.

Finally, Susan whispered, "…Delenn?"

"Yes?"

"Bester once said – " She swallowed hard. "Did they really…dissect…her?"

Delenn's eyes closed briefly; the look on her face answered the question long before her mouth did. "Yes, Susan. They did. I'm so sorry."

Susan nodded mechanically. "At least…it ended. She's not…locked up somewhere, stuck in her own head."

"Yes."

"…but…"

Delenn waited, but Susan couldn't seem to find the words to finish her thought. Knowing she risked Susan's not-inconsiderable wrath, she reached out and lightly touched her wrist, hoping Susan would be able to sense…something. Enough, maybe, to give her a measure of peace.

"Is it…is it stupid that somewhere in the back of my head all these years, I thought maybe I could go rescue her?"

"No, Susan," Delenn said with deep affection, tightening the grip she had on her old friend's wrist. "Not stupid. Loving. Loving and selfless and courageous. Just as you are."

Susan just shook her head.

The next year, she'd barely finished her dinner when the door chime sounded, and Susan found herself smiling. "Delenn?"

Delenn walked in, carrying a container of sparkling mineral water; from the label, it was from a highly regarded retreat somewhere on the southern continent. Legend had it that it was one of Valen's favorite places – a freshwater spring surrounded by mountains of crystal; Delenn had, of course, knowingly invoked memories of both Valen's wisdom and their lost friend Sinclair, and Susan had to applaud her creativity.

Besides, it was, as mineral waters went, the good stuff, and Susan shook her head with a smile. She'd learned enough about diplomacy, often from Delenn herself, to know that she didn't dare refuse the offer.

Slick, Delenn, she thought with wry admiration. Very slick.

"I thought perhaps I would join you tonight," Delenn said, handing over the bottle.

"C'mon in," Susan said. "And thanks. Is…this supposed to be chilled? Iced? Boiled? Tossed with some flarn?"

Delenn laughed lightly. "I prefer ice, but you may drink yours however you choose."

"So long as I don't mix it with vodka."

"As you say."

Susan shook her head with a wry smile. "You're something else; you know that?"

"What am I?" Delenn said, with just enough of a tiny lilt in her voice to leave Susan positive she was being teased.

"A good friend," Susan said, serious despite Delenn's attempt at levity. "Thank you, Delenn."

"You are a good friend too, Susan. We've been through too much together for it to be otherwise. How could I leave you to suffer alone if I could do something about it?"

"You're a busybody."

Despite the fact that she didn't have them, Delenn nevertheless gave a good impression of having raised her eyebrows.

"You can't help but get into everybody's business. You're a problem solver." Susan sighed. "But in this case…." She shrugged. "Like I said…thank you."

"I once accused John of the same thing," Delenn said, smiling at the memory. "I said that he would spend all night untangling a rope because it disturbed his sense of order."

"Then you're in good company, I guess," Susan said with a smile.

They sat in silence and sipped their mineral water for a while, before Susan added, "You know, I've never been…good…dealing with feelings. Especially my own. Jeff had to do the same thing for me."

"Oh?"

"After my father died. My religion has a ritual…survivors and friends get together, share memories, say prayers. I didn't want to. Papa and I…it wasn't easy between us, but I didn't want to face that he was gone. Jeff bullied me into it."

"And did it help?"

Susan sighed. "It hurt like hell at the time, but…yes."

Another silence fell.

"I've always wondered. Is it weird? Knowing that Jeff is…was…Valen?"

Delenn shrugged a very human shrug. "At first, of course it was a shock. As I grew to know him, it became…a possibility. As he grew into his role as Entil'Zha? No, it is not 'weird'."

"Even with the time travel?" She never really had managed to wrap her head around the circular reasoning – they'd stolen Babylon 4 because they had…stolen Babylon 4. Jeff had gone back in time to become Valen because he'd gotten a letter from himself telling himself he'd go back in time to become Valen – which, of course, he could only have been able to write if he…the whole thing made her head ache.

"Well, it's not really all that surprising, given that he appeared out of nowhere with a completely alien space station. It was just a matter of where, when, and which station."

Susan nibbled her thumbnail. "Michael once told me he watched that distress call for hours at a time. I guess when he was on B4, he had a time flash to the station being destroyed. He didn't know then about the Shadows, but he probably saw the same moment. He went down with B5." Susan exhaled. "We were all a bunch of self-sacrificing idiots."

That surprised a laugh out of Delenn. "Perhaps we were. But we were what was necessary. What the time and circumstances demanded we be."

"Mm. Maybe."

They sat and chatted for nearly an hour before Susan drained the last of the mineral water in a long gulp and said suddenly, "Is there anything you'd change?" A pause. "Other than Z'ha'dum?"

"No." Delenn exhaled. "And…except for myself, selfishly, I would not change even that." At Susan's surprised expression, she said, "I do not think the Alliance would have held together without him, without the…mythology…that sprung up around him, at least at first. For myself, of course I wish he hadn't gone. Or, at least, I wish the price hadn't been…what it was.

"But for the good of all this – " She made a vague gesture that encompassed their surroundings – Ranger headquarters, the seat of the Alliance, the small but growing community of non-Minbari that now called this place their home. " – no, I would not have changed even that."

Susan tilted her head. "Welcome to the Stupid Self-Sacrifice Club."

"I believe I've been a member for far longer than tonight, but thank you." Delenn smiled and nodded her head in mock-gracious acceptance. "I miss him…every day. Every moment. But we both tried very hard to remember that every moment after…Z'ha'dum…was a gift. He could have been lost to me then. Everything after was, as you say, a bonus."

"Doesn't make it easier, does it?"

"…no."

"I'm sorry, Delenn. For what it's worth. 'Tis better to have loved and lost doesn't really make it better, does it?"

"No." Delenn glanced at the clock; despite how early she'd arrived, the lulls in their conversation had consumed several hours and it was now the middle of the night. "Susan…would you like to watch the sunrise with me?"

Susan managed a smile. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Delenn."

"You're welcome. Perhaps, while we wait, you could tell me a happy memory you have of your Talia? I regret that I never knew her well. Or of Marcus? We shall…what is it called? Your ritual?"

"Sitting Shiva."

"Very well. We shall sit Shiva for all those who have gone before us to the place where no shadows fall, and remember."

The next morning, Susan finds herself staring at a pile of relics of Valen's at Ranger headquarters; she'd passed by them daily but had never really stopped to think about who they represented.

"Sorry it took me so long to remember, Jeff," she says quietly. "You tried to tell me after Papa…I should've done this for both of them a long time ago." She shakes her head, still hardly able to believe, even after all these years, that the Jeff she'd met once upon a time on Mars and Valen the Minbari holy man are somehow one and the same. "Thanks."

The next year, and every year after that, they all gather, those who can, to share memories – sometimes on the date of John's apparent death, sometimes on the date of Londo's and G'Kar's, or Lennier's, sometimes on Marcus's, and, of course, sometimes on Talia's.

Inevitably, as the years go by, their calendar adds more potential dates, and their gatherings grow smaller. Still, they're always at worst bittersweet; at their best, they're cheerful gatherings, full of storytelling and fond memories.

And each one ends with them gathered to watch the sunrise.

Though she still marks the two dates, and toasts each memory before going to bed, she feels freer, lighter, than she has since she was a young child, perhaps even before the Corps came with their sleepers and stole her mother away.

And when, some years later, she receives a visit from a long-since grown up Alisa Beldon, she is finally able to dismiss that last, lingering image she has of Control's sneering disdain and to remember instead the compassionate woman who taught a terrified little girl how to build her first mind shield.

It's fitting, then, that it's Alisa who teaches her the same thing when she's startled by the sudden awakening of her own no-longer-latent telepathic abilities three years later.

Delenn, of course, is enchanted by the symmetry of it all; Susan is surprised to discover that she has at last moved far enough away from that long-lingering grief to appreciate it as well.

Her past will always cast a shadow over her; she knows that. But for Susan it's enough that she can now see the sun.