"Hey." Susan called as she stepped into Garibaldi's rooms to find him sitting there, drink of amber liquor in front of him. "You know, normally I would tell you you shouldn't drink that, but right now, I think I'll yell at you for not offering to let me join you."
"I haven't touched it." Talia was dead, and finally after a four day delay while Stephen ran all of the tests that he could without actually doing an autopsy, they were going to be able to have her funeral. When he had picked up the bottle down at the Zocalo, all he had wanted to do was to crawl inside it and never come out, wanted to never have to face seeing Talia in that coffin, still and cold, gone because of what he had done. Sure, he knew that Psi-Corps were the ones who had set the whole thing in motion but he had been the one who had stepped in and had ended things. That bottle and not remembering seeing Talia's collapse was so tempting, but…. "Weirdest thing. Someone left a pile of books down at security with my name on them. Zack dropped them off. Take a look."
"The Sun, The Moon and Talia?" Susan read the title as she took the very obviously old book from Garibaldi. "Talia?"
"Sleeping Beauty. It's an Italian version of Sleeping Beauty." he said as he sorted through the books. "Then we've got the actual Sleeping Beauty, some Irish or Scottish version, The Life and Times of Snow White, The Glass Coffin, yet another twist on Sleeping Beauty, Little Snowdrop. I think I've got every variation of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty that's out there. Oh, and Rumplestiltskin. That one must have been a mix-up."
"Someone gave you a bunch of fairy tales? Wait." Susan said as an idea hit her. "Do you think someone knows what happened? That you gave that apple to Talia, which, by the way, seems like a crazier idea every time I think about it?"
"I don't see how. The only ones who know are you and me, and that Mister Gold, who seems to have vanished into thin air. I went all over Downbelow and there's no sign of him. He must have got off the station somehow."
"You're sure he's gone?"
"As sure as I can be without alerting someone and starting a manhunt for him. I couldn't even find the place where I ran into him down there." Michael shook his head. The entire thing was confusing, and he wasn't entirely sure he was remembering some things correctly, but with what had happened, he wasn't surprised his mind was shot.
"But if he's gone, and I know I didn't drop off those things…. Did the monitors pick up anything?"
"Not a thing. They're running a diagnostic on them now. There might be some sort of bug in the system but…." As he talked Michael flicked through one of the books, to the illustration of Snow White in her coffin. He closed his eyes after a second. Way too much like Talia, down to the coffin of crystal.
"So, what do you think?" Could someone else know what happened? Susan wasn't sure how. All of Stephen's tests hadn't shown a thing. How could someone have found out what had really happened? "Did anyone notice you in Downbelow?"
"No one was close enough to hear what we were talking about. The most they could have seen was Gold giving me an apple. No law against someone giving out free fruit." If someone did know, they could figure it out later. With a sigh he pulled himself to his feet. As much as he didn't want to see Talia in that coffin, it was time.
There were roses, soft yellow and white roses, everywhere. Between him and Susan, the station's stock must have been cleared out. Talia was in a buttery yellow dress, the same basic cut of her usual outfits, but made of a soft silk like material that had cost him a fortune. The slight smile was still on her lips as they approached the coffin.
"Peace. She's at peace." It was a trite expression, Susan knew, but one that she kept repeating, that she knew had more than a bit of truth in this case. She reached out and took Talia's ice cold, stiff hand, and slipped her lucky penny into her grasp. "Goodbye, Talia. You were a good friend. Probably better than I deserved after how I treated you. You won't be forgotten, I promise."
"I'm so sorry." Garibaldi whispered as he leaned over the coffin. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. You deserved so much better than this." Even though he swore he wouldn't, a tear dropped down onto her marble while cheek, and he had to brush it away. "They can't hurt you now, but I just wish I could have done something before they hurt you at all." He slipped a rose, the only red one in the room, between the stiff fingers of her other hand. "There's a Mimbari saying about a place where no shadows fall. I hope if that's real, you're there now. Talia…." He couldn't say the rest, just gently brushed her cheek with his fingers as he finished the thought in his mind before going to join Susan.
The funeral, with Delenn and any human religious officials she could rope into assisting in charge for an interesting blend of rituals, was halfway through when Susan felt a cold feeling prickling at the back of her neck. "Tell me that who I think isn't here." she hissed to Michael.
"Who else?" he said after risking a glance back. "I'm going to have to have a word with Zack when this is over. I told him to arrest Bester if he showed up. I'm pretty sure I can get breathing to stick as a crime."
"He won't be breathing long enough for it to matter." Susan muttered as she pulled herself up. The Mimbari telepaths Delenn had brought in in case of Bester's presence were helping, but she could feel the hostility aimed at them and at the body in the coffin.
"Who is responsible for this…. farce of a funeral?" Bester demanded as soon as the ceremony was over. "Psi Corps has regulations concerning these things, and you have managed to violate every one of them." The Mimbari telepaths were clustered around the command staff, supposedly waiting to offer their condolences to Commander Ivanova and Mister Garibaldi, who had gotten themselves elected head mourners, but he knew perfectly well that their main purpose was to block him.
"That would have been Ambassador Delenn." Susan told him with a smile. They had wanted to plan the funeral themselves, but Delenn had suggested leaving the details to her instead, in case Bester tried something like this. "And I'm sure that she would love to hear your opinion." Maybe the Mimbari would declare war on Psi-Corps this time and free all of the telepaths. Too late for Talia, but it would be a fitting tribute to her.
"I want to know what happened to Miss Winters. Doctor?" He turned his glare on Stephen. "How did a Psi Corps member end up dead on your station?"
"Aneurysm." Stephen said. Some of the delay in the funeral had actually been so he could find the literature to back up the report and death certificate. "You can check the literature if you don't believe me. It's happened before when death of personality's been imposed. Just last year there was a case on Mars Colony."
"Brain hemorrhages, but there has never been a death as a result."
"Not until now. Either whoever put that thing in Miss Winters' head was exceptionally careless and caused the damage, or she was born with with a weakness in a blood vessel. The result was the same no matter what. The stress from the activation was too much. There was light bleeding for a short time, the inter-cranial pressure went up and eventually the blood vessel gave entirely and she was gone. You'll have my report and the death certificate shortly. It's listed as natural causes, although if I had my way, it would be down as murder with Psi-Corps as her killers. You people claim to be mother and father. I have never seen such abusive parents in my life!" With a angry look, Stephen stormed away, not wanting to be anywhere near Bester.
"Believe me, the Corps will be looking into this incident closely. We don't take the loss of one of our own lying down." With that Bester turned and stormed towards the front of the room, to stand in front of the coffin and glare down at the body.
"Don't take the loss of their own lying down. They killed her. They might as well have shot her the second they put that thing in her. It would have been more merciful." Susan muttered.
"Zack, could I ask you why Mister Bester isn't in a holding cell?" Michael asked as the other security officer came up. "He seems to be breathing. I believe I said he was to be arrested for that."
"Yeah, he got past us." Zack said with a wince. 'Got two guards down in the Medlab I need Doctor Franklin to take a look at. He did something to knock them out and….."
Before Zack could explain further, there was a shout at the front of the room by the coffin. "Mister Bester, what is the meaning of this?" Delenn fixed the psi-cop with a glare that would have made most people drop dead as Lennier and another Mimbari grabbed him and drug him away from the coffin. "This is a funeral! Miss Winters is dead thanks to your organization! And now you come here and desecrate her body?!"
"He did what?" Michael was at the coffin with Susan right behind him in an instant, both of their eyes going wide at the sight of the knife that had been plunged into Talia's shoulder. Without thinking, he pulled the knife free and advanced on Bester. "You stabbed her?"
"He thinks we faked this entire thing." Susan said. "He's lost what little mind he had." She motioned for the two Mimbari to drag him over to the coffin. "Look closely, Mister Bester. No bleeding. Talia's dead! She's dead, and as much as it hurts, I'm glad of it. Psi-Corps killed our friend when that thing in her head came out. After that, all that was left was a monster walking around with her face. I'm glad that she's gone before she could destroy the memory of everything Talia was."
"Delenn, can we borrow a few telepaths, long enough to get him down to a holding cell and make sure he gets locked up?" Michael asked. Stabbing a body in front of a room full of witnesses, he could hold Bester on that for awhile, although he didn't have any illusions orders to release him wouldn't come through within the hour.
"He's going to demand her body be turned over as soon as he gets out." John said as soon as Bester was gone.
"He can demand all he likes. She'll be cremated before then." Michael said with a grim smile. "I've already got all of the paperwork signed."
"Paperwork?" That was the one thing that was going to be tricky, Sheridan knew. They couldn't allow Psi-Corps to take Talia's body, but how they were going to get around it without violating some serious rules, he wasn't sure. "Psi-Corps…."
"Psi-Corps pulls that stupid "the Corps is mother, the Corps is father" thing to claim they're next of kin and to get their hands on the bodies of any dead telepath they want. Well, surprise, it turns out that Talia has an actual mother. She wants her cremated and her ashes returned to Earth so she can bury her next to her father. She signed the paperwork giving Commander Ivanova and I authority to handle the arrangements for her. Bester can pitch a fit all he likes, but there's nothing he can do."