Memoriam

Author's Note: This story takes place around 2265, early in John and Delenn's residence on Minbar. The usual disclaimer with regard to Babylon 5 and its characters; they don't belong to me, but the words and theme of this story do. One incident referred to herein occurs in my B5 fanfic "novel," What Is Built, when Delenn—desperate to end the Earth-Minbari War after the failed peace mission—goes home to her father and is turned away. That incident is not part of the B5 canon, but I've chosen to build on it for Memoriam.

With regard to David's age, his first naming-day (at three days old) counts as one, which makes him the equivalent of a ten-month old.

Part One

"Ba," David Sheridan said, grinning up at his father. A cereal smear decorated one plump cheek, and in his upper gum John glimpsed the nub of an emerging tooth.

John tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "Really? You don't say. I never would have guessed." He wiped the cereal from his son's face and kissed the top of his head, just below the bump of the vestigial bone crest beneath his coppery hair. The crest would grow as he aged, Delenn had said, with a serene smile in the face of his new-father panic when he first felt the lumpy spot. He is a child of two worlds, she'd reminded him then. Human and Minbari. Part of us both.

She always knew the right thing to say—to reassure him, make him laugh, make him think. There'd been times, during their first months on Minbar, when he'd badly needed all those things. He didn't regret moving here—he could never regret any part of his life with Delenn—but there was so much to get used to. Little things: summers that felt more like spring, mountains instead of flat farmland or skyscrapers outside the windows. That there were windows and not viewports. Sunday mornings with no bacon next to his eggs. Heck, Sunday mornings that weren't even called Sunday, and came every nine days instead of every seven.

They'd worked out coffee with expensive but vital imports, and he'd adjusted to the slanted bed more quickly than he expected. Helps to have incentive, he thought, with a pleasant tingle running through him as he glanced over at Delenn. She was watching him with David, the look he loved best. Bright-eyed and content, as if all was right in her universe.

She caught his gaze and frowned, but with humor behind it. "I know that look on your face," she said, mock-scolding, then sighed. "Sadly, we are far too busy this morning to take advantage of it."

"Don't I know it." He lifted David out of his high chair. "Later?"

Her seductive smile was the only answer he needed.

David poked his nose. "Ba?"

John grabbed his son's hand and nuzzled it. "Da. Da-da?"

David grinned. "Ba. Ba-ba." He trailed off into baby babble, not a syllable of which was recognizable as anything like Daddy.

Delenn laughed. "Not even past his second naming-day, and already he has a mind of his own."

"Like his mother."

"Like his father." They shared an affectionate grin. Still holding David, he bent carefully down to kiss her.

As they parted, a wistful look crossed her face. She shook it off and resumed her habitual calm, but it seemed to him there was a faint shadow in it. He waited for her to say something—she generally did with him, when she needed to—but she kept silent as she rose from the breakfast table. "I am still working through the draft agreement for bringing the Rhivali into the Alliance," she said after a pause. "I expect it will take most of the morning to have anything worth looking over."

He remembered the Rhivali; they'd sent a delegation to Minbar a few months ago, petitioning for Alliance membership. Tall and thin, with feline eyes and lightweight pelts, they reminded him of elongated, bipedal house cats. Their tiny federation consisted of a homeworld and five colony planets, if he recalled correctly; they had minerals and medicinals to trade, and hoped to use their earnings to improve their colonies' infrastructure. They also had a clan hierarchy so convoluted it made Minbari internal politics look kindergarten-simple. Best to let Delenn take the first, and probably second and third, cracks at crafting a trade agreement that would fly with the Rhivali and the other Alliance members. "I have meetings all morning. With Karrenn on David duty"—their son's nanny and a trained Ranger, a necessity given their responsibilities—"at least you'll have the study to yourself. I'll come find you when I'm finished. We can have lunch together. You'll need a break by then."

Her eyes sparkled, and he knew what she was thinking. Then he watched her tuck the thought away, with what looked like regret. The regret lingered, deepened, and again he thought she might speak of it—but then David reached for her, and the moment was lost. She took their son from him and brushed a kiss across David's forehead. "I will bring him to Karrenn. And I will see you at midday."

ooOoo

By the time they met again, over a simple lunch of reddish rice-like grain dotted with crisp chopped vegetables and a spicy sauce, he'd largely set aside those little wistful moments. If they meant anything important, Delenn would tell him eventually. After living among Minbari for nearly two Earth years, he'd grown more comfortable with indirection and silent waiting—though he reserved the right to push when necessary. Delenn knew him well enough to expect it, had even (he thought) come to rely on it at times. So he kept their conversation to shop talk, and made her laugh at a story about the hyper-dignified Drazi ambassador's first experience of snow. The ambassador had arrived two weeks ago, at the tag end of Minbar's winter, just in time to catch the last snowfall of the season a few days later. "Barefoot outside his residence, nothing warmer on him than his usual leather tunic and lightweight pants, staring up at the white stuff falling out of the sky and grinning like a kid at Christmas. They tell me he was dancing in it for awhile, until he figured out it was damned cold outside and maybe he should go warm up. Even then, they couldn't pry him away from the window. Wrapped up in three blankets, nose pressed to the glass, staring out at the snow until it got too dark to see anymore."

She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the giggles. "The poor man… I shouldn't laugh, he might have taken ill standing out in the cold like that… but what a sight it must have been. Dal Trkesh, of all people, dancing amid snowflakes. Oh, I wish I had been there."

"I wish, too. I'd have paid for the privilege." He ate his last spoonful of sauce-covered grain, reassured at Delenn's good humor. Whatever was bothering her before, it was gone now. "Anyway, if you want me to look over that treaty, I have the afternoon." He grimaced. "Paperwork. My most favorite thing. You never told me there'd be so much of it in this job. Don't presidents usually get to delegate that stuff?"

"When they are willing to," she said, with a pointed look as she gathered up their empty bowls. "In this instance, v'mai, you have no one to blame but yourself."

He liked the way she did that—dropped endearments into their conversations, mostly in Adronado but occasionally in English. Sometimes he'd hear the word darling come out of her mouth, or v'mai—my heart—come out of his, and it always gave him an extra thrill of warmth. It made him feel that much more married to her, this trading of affectionate expressions. An intimacy of words along with everything else they shared.

He helped clear the table and then followed her into their study, admiring the sway of her hips and the way her silk robe swirled around her delicate ankles. Enough of that, he told himself. He needed to concentrate on the Rhivali treaty, official letters, drafts of things that had come up in the morning's meetings and couldn't be put off while he indulged in daydreams. "I will send you the file," Delenn said as he fired up his datapad and seated himself on his side of the double desk that dominated the spacious room. Outside the window, positioned and sized for maximum light, the Suan'trai Mountains made a compelling backdrop for the crystal and stone spires of Tuzanor that reached up from the valley below.

They worked together in companionable quiet for the next few hours, trading drafts and revisions. A few times, he looked up from his work to see Delenn gazing out the window, her eyes fixed on the towering peak she called Grandmother Mountain. She loved that mountain, had taken him halfway up it to show him its beauties the day after their arrival. He eyed it himself awhile, but saw nothing in particular to hold her attention. She had that wistful look again, taking in the rust-red slope dotted with white snow-crust. Early spring was upon them now—still winter if you asked him, but Delenn thought nothing of going out for a walk in weather like this with no more than a light wool cloak over her shoulders. He wondered if she wanted to be out there now, away from the demands of work and duty. Just the two of them, hand in hand, climbing the mountain path amid the dormant hala bushes that covered the slopes, breathing in the fresh, cold air that held promise of warmth to come.

He drew breath to ask her, then let it out. Her stillness told him her mood was more than wistfulness, or a desire to play hooky. Something was weighing on her. It came to him that she'd been like this for a couple of days last spring—quiet, weighed down. She'd said very little when he asked, just that she was tired and it was "a difficult time of year." The natural fatigue and fretfulness of her pregnancy's final weeks, he'd thought at the time, easily dispelled with hot tea and backrubs and cuddling. Now, he wondered if there was more to it.

"Penny for your thoughts," he said. Lightly, giving her room to decide how to respond.

She came back from wherever she'd been and managed a smile. "Your people have not used pennies for centuries."

"Perfectly good expression, though."

Her smile deepened. "So it is. But now is the time for work, not talking. I have been distracted long enough."

She turned back to the treaty draft. Not ready yet, he thought. That was all right. He could wait.

ooOoo

Late in the afternoon, as the drawing-on sunset struck gold from Tuzanor's spires, Karrenn brought David in with his favorite fluffy blanket and building blocks. After she left, John and Delenn stole a blissful hour on the floor with their boy, stacking the blocks in towers of two and three and four. When David first tried five blocks and they fell over, he made a puzzled noise, then gathered them up with a determined expression and started again. This time the tower stayed upright, barely. Enchanted, David waved a plump hand at it. "Ba," he said. "Ba nai." He looked at his parents and grinned. Definitely a tooth coming, John thought. "Ba nai," David said again, louder.

"Big," Delenn said softly. "Ba'nai is 'big.'" She looked at John in wonder. "He said his first word."

"Well, I'll be damned." John knew how he must look right now, soft-eyed and sappy as a big teddy bear. Maybe it wasn't Daddy, or Mommy for that matter, but a first word was a first word no matter what. He handed David a block and tickled his foot. "You smart little guy, you. That is a big tower. Five blocks. Want to go for six?"

"Ba'nai," David said with enthusiasm, and set a sixth block atop the rest. The tower toppled, blocks scattering across the carpet. David's lip began to quiver.

"It's okay." One by one, John gathered the blocks. "Something doesn't go right the first time, you just try again." He set one block squarely in front of his son, then piled the rest between them. "Your turn. And then Mommy will do one, and we'll just keep going, huh?" He glanced up at Delenn as he spoke, and was startled at the expression on her face. She was gazing at David like she'd lost something, something precious she could never get back.

Sudden fear gripped him. Was something wrong with David, and she hadn't told him? No, there couldn't be. Any hint of that and Delenn would be in full-blown battle mode, ready to combat whatever dared threaten their beloved son's well-being. Not this quiet sorrow, like the drawing on of night. He took a calming breath and helped David steady his block, and as Delenn hesitantly added a third, it dawned on him what the problem might be. The more he considered it, the more certain he became. She was thinking of children, knowing David would be their only one. Wishing it were otherwise. But the odds against another were so huge as to be impossible. And they'd had their fair share of miracles already.

He set a fourth block in place, brushing her hand as he did so. Reminding her that he loved her, that they still had plenty left of their time together and a beautiful boy to share it with. He left the words themselves unspoken; it would hurt her to hear them said if she wasn't ready to say them. What she needed now was reassurance, and he had that in abundance. At least for the next eighteen-odd years.

ooOoo

Their cook, Jerelet, had left them an excellent supper before retiring to her small house nearby. Delenn regained her serenity as they ate, helping David with two bites for every one she took herself. "I'll clean him up," John said as they finished. David was a sight, both cheeks and most of his chin smeared with red sauce. Jerelet had taken to Earth's cuisines with enthusiasm, especially after a marathon lesson from a visiting Garibaldi in how to make the perfect marinara sauce.

The only clean spot on David's face was the end of his nose, on which Delenn dropped a kiss as she rose. "You clean him, I will clean the table."

"Deal," he said.

It took several minutes of gentle scrubbing, while David giggled and made ineffective attempts to grab and mouth the damp cloth, but eventually he was clean enough to pass muster. "There. Much better. No, don't eat that, you goon." He chuckled as he slipped the crumpled wet cloth from David's grasping fingers. "Hey, there's a nickname for you. Goon. David Goon Sheridan ys Mir. How's that for a mouthful?"

"What is a 'goon,' exactly?" Delenn spoke from the doorway to the kitchen, where she leaned against the jamb watching them. She was doing a fair job of keeping a straight face, but couldn't entirely hide the merriment in her eyes. "I am not at all sure it sounds appropriate for the son of a dignitary."

"Two dignitaries. And might I remind you that yesterday morning, you ended up with cereal in your hair."

"True." Her gentle smile gave his heart a sweet ache. He loved her so much, and he loved being a father. It overwhelmed him sometimes, how necessary Delenn and David were to every breath he drew—but he wouldn't trade it for anything. He lifted his son and nuzzled him nose-to-nose. David giggled, and the sheer joy of the moment reminded John of something. He'd meant to tell Delenn earlier, but David and work and far too many lascivious thoughts of his wife had intervened.

"I was thinking," he said, as he settled David in his arms. "There's an Earth holiday coming up that I'd really like to celebrate. I worked out the calendar match, and it's tomorrow. There's nothing elaborate to do; usually just a nice family meal and good wishes. But I'd like to celebrate it. It'll be my first one, and… well, it means a lot."

As he'd expected, she looked charmed by the prospect of exploring a human custom she wasn't yet familiar with. "What is the holiday?"

"Father's Day." He glanced fondly down at David, who was tugging on his shirt and trying to pry a button off. "A day to honor fatherhood, the things fathers do for our children. There's a Mother's Day too… I didn't figure that one out in time, managed to miss it by two days, but… well, that's what the roses were for a few weeks ago. That and just because I love you."

"Father's Day," she said. Quietly, and too controlled.

He looked up. Her face was blank, as if she hurt somewhere and was fighting not to show it. God, what a stupid thing to bring up. Parenthood, when he knew what she'd been trying not to dwell on all day. "Delenn—" He glanced around for a place to set David down, so he could take her in his arms. Then David whimpered and crammed a fist against his mouth, pressing the upper gum where the new tooth was. Distracted, John shifted his attention toward soothing his son. He heard the rustle of silk, but by the time he looked up again, Delenn was gone.

ooOoo

She was meditating in the alcove by their bedroom when he went to find her, having settled David on the living-room floor with his fluffy blanket and blocks and anything potentially hazardous or breakable out of reach. Though most of the time he welcomed the evenings when the household staff diminished and it was just the three of them, tonight he found himself wishing Karrenn had stayed awhile. Delenn needed him, and so did David, and it was driving him crazy being pulled in two directions at once. He tried not to feel guilty as he moved away from the alcove. He shouldn't disturb her just yet. David would be in bed before long. Then he and Delenn could talk.

He spent another half-hour or so playing with David, then gave his son a quick bath, rubbed ointment on his gums and dressed him in his nightclothes. All the while, he listened for Delenn's light step in the hall, her gentle voice from the doorway. It was his turn to put their son to bed, but Delenn generally showed up about halfway through to watch and share the task. Tonight, no sign of her.

David was drowsy, half-asleep already. John carried him into the small bedroom adjacent to their own, settled with him and his blanket in the Earth-style rocking chair—a gift from John's parents—and sang every slow, sweet ballad he could think of until David's small body grew heavy with slumber. He kept singing even after David started snoring, waiting for Delenn to appear. Never once in David's short life had she let him go to sleep without a kiss.

When his arms threatened to go numb, he got up and gently placed his sleeping son in the hammock-like Minbari cradle. David snuffled softly and pulled his fluffy blanket against his nose. "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," John murmured. Funny, how accustomed he'd gotten to leaving off the good night part after seeing Delenn flinch at it one too many times. Custom of the country, he thought with a wry smile, and went to find his wife.

ooOoo

She was still in the meditation alcove, kneeling by the low-burning candle with her shoulders slumped, gazing down at something in her hands. Her posture alone was alarming, even without what had gone before. Delenn never slumped, not like this. She always held herself with… not pride, but something else that kept her spine straight and her shoulders high. A vitality born of hope, of a bedrock conviction that every day held something of worth in it and should be met as if it mattered. That vitality was nowhere in evidence now. She looked drained and exhausted. He felt a pang, watching her. Did she grieve that much for the children they wouldn't have, and he'd never noticed until now? What a blind fool he'd been. Assuming that because he was okay with just David, she was too.

He moved quietly into the room and sat next to her, close enough that they touched. She stirred, acknowledging his presence, though she did not look up. He glanced at what she held and was surprised by what he saw. It was a portrait, colored inks on an oval of pale stone, as finely done as a Renaissance miniature. The subject was a Minbari man of late middle age, with lean and handsome features that spoke of intelligence and easy humor. The eyes were like Delenn's, gray-green and full of light.

Apprehension tightened his gut. Whatever was troubling Delenn, it wasn't children. It was something else entirely.

He touched her hand, indicating the portrait. "Your dad?" he said softly.

She nodded. In the alcove's low light, he saw her eyes were glistening. When she spoke, her voice was rough. "He has been gone a long time."

The anguish in her words made his throat ache. He wanted to hold her, help her somehow, but her brittle grip on the remnants of composure left him uncertain. He sensed she both wanted and didn't want to face what lay on her heart.

"You must miss him," he said. Easing into it, giving her space.

She nodded again. He raised a hand and stroked her back. She relaxed under his touch. He thought of a wild creature, wary of what it approached. He kept stroking, slow and steady.

"Tomorrow is his naming-day," she said finally. "His eighty-fourth." A sigh escaped her. "So many naming-days gone…" Her fingers brushed the painted face as if it were alive. "I wish he were still here, so he could see…"

"See David?" He moved his hand upward and gently massaged her neck.

She swallowed and bent her head. "David. You. Us. Everything in the time since his passing." She drew a shaky breath. A tear fell on the stone and left a small, damp mark.

He wrapped her in his arms then and pressed his lips to her hair. To hell with indirection and waiting. "Tell me."

Haltingly, she managed. The Earth-Minbari War that broke her father's heart and left them estranged. Her desperate trip home after the failed peace mission, the faint hope that her father could somehow help her find a way to end the slaughter her words had started. His own harsh words to her instead, delivered on his doorstep. "I should have told him my heart had changed. But I—" She raised a trembling hand and wiped her wet cheek. "I was too proud. Too hurt, that he thought me lost in my hatred. Even though he could not have known any differently unless I said." She was tense now, one hand a fist, the other gripping the portrait. "So I went away. Walked away from him in the snow and cold. I kept thinking he would call me back, but… And then he was gone to Yedor, and not long after that he died, and it was too late, too late…"

"Poor love." He held her as she wept, her tears wetting his shirt collar.

"I loved him so much," she said, her voice cracking as she struggled for words. "I wish I had spoken. I wish he could see, could know… I am still the daughter he raised, I always was, it was only a moment of madness that ever made me anything else…"

"Shhh. It's all right." It wasn't, but he didn't know what else to say, and his soothing tone seemed to help. Gradually she quieted, her sobs turning to hiccupping breaths and then slowly smoothing out. She sniffed, swallowed, wiped her eyes. Before she could ask, he dug a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and handed it to her. She managed a chuckle, still shaky, and dabbed her face with it.

"So undignified," she murmured, with a ragged attempt at humor. "Why do we cry, when it is such a messy business?"

"Because we need to." He waited a beat, then went on in a lighter tone. "Or because the Universe has a quirky sense of humor."

She gave a real laugh at that. Then her face crumpled, and she hid it against his shoulder. "I'm sorry for all this… but when you spoke of your Father's Day, I was thinking of him, and it was too much, just too much…"

"It's okay." He stroked her hair until she calmed again, then tipped her chin up so he could look her in the eye. "You know, I think he does know. About everything. Wherever that place is, the place where no shadows fall… I bet once you get there, everything comes clear. He loved you; just from what little you've told me about him, I know that. If he could talk to you right now from where he is, I bet he'd tell you he loves you still. I bet he'd tell you he never stopped, even when it seemed like it."

She held his gaze, apparently absorbing what he'd said. "I wish I knew for certain," she said finally. Small-voiced, like a child.

There was no answer to that. Except to hold her some more, and tell her he loved her, and hope that might almost be enough.