See Prologue for Disclaimer and Author's Notes.

Vocabulary for this chapter: Jump. New gang members are intiated in one of an assortment of different ways; a "jump" is the most common. Being "jumped in" means fighting established gang members for a predetermined period of time, allowing oneself to be beaten and showing the extent to which you can fight back. Sheridan's initiation is vague but probably most closely resembles being "circled in" - a specific kind of jump, where the new recruit must fight his way through the center of a circle of gang members.

Chapter 3 – In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum

For three weeks, it went on like this. Every two or three days, Garibaldi would hand him an envelope or a package and give him verbal instructions on what to do with it. He was a runner; not explicitly a member of the gang – he hadn't been jumped in yet – but his loyalty, among other things, was being tested. He did what he was told, no questions, and though he certainly considered what he might be carrying, he never peeked, nor did he issue instructions to Ivanova to take down himself or his contact, because he suspected somewhere in here was where Sinclair had screwed up. He'd never gotten very far inside, and this was why. He hadn't passed the test.

Sheridan was good at tests. He liked tests. He didn't like to think about it while he was actually taking the tests, because if he did, his adrenaline rush would be replaced by an awful sinking feeling at the knowledge of what he might be allowing to happen. He knew he was carrying money sometimes; other times, he was reasonably certain it was drugs; other times he simply had no idea. And he knew he was being watched, always watched, because there were lookouts – he didn't know who they were, but he had every reason to believe they didn't trust him any further than they could throw him, and thus far his only contact had been Garibaldi, and only over the bar.

They'd been in his apartment, though. He'd come home one day not long after his first delivery to find the place ransacked. He'd actually let out a little sigh of relief the next time Garibaldi gave him a package. A knowing look passed between them at that point, and Sheridan knew they hadn't found anything in their search to indicate he was anything other than his cover.

Finally, on a rainy Wednesday, it wasn't Garibaldi who handed him the envelope.

It was Morden.

This would be their first meeting, and Sheridan tried his damnedest to keep recognition from registering in his features as the dark-haired man in the Armani suit sat down on the stool next to him. "Just keep drinking your drink," Morden said by way of introduction. He stared straight ahead, only looking at John through his peripherals. Sheridan took a sip in acknowledgement, trying to slow his heartbeat. "You've been doing some running for me, and by all accounts you do it almost like you've done it before. Have you?" Sheridan shook his head, sipped at his whiskey again, his eyes still focused straight ahead. "Good. I understand you lost your wife a couple of years ago, and you'd like to see those responsible pay the price. And," Morden continued, and now John noticed he had his own drink, from which he took a casual sip, "You wouldn't mind roasting a little bacon either, if you get my meaning."

"Who are you?" Sheridan let the question slip out as he turned his head to face Morden head-on for the first time.

Morden seemed to have a permanent smile plastered on his face. It wasn't a friendly smile by any means; John felt like he was being examined as a venomous snake might examine a creature just barely too large to swallow whole. "Now that's… really not important. What matters is that you are John Sheridan, and you want a few things – revenge, namely, for the death of your wife. I think we can work out a mutually beneficial relationship by way of which you can get that revenge."

"And what will you get out of it?"

"A good soldier." Morden took another sip from his drink. "You're already doing it, and as I said, you're doing a damn good job. You follow instructions well. So I'd like to bump it up a notch, and if it goes well, I will start giving you the means to get what you want. You keep scratching my back, I'll keep scratching yours. But first, I need to know how much it means to you."

"She was my whole life. How much does your life mean to you?" He knew there was real emotion in his tone at those words. This much, at least, was true.

Morden laughed softly and looked away from John for a moment, studying the scratchings in the wood of the bar. When he faced John again, the oily smile was gone. "Let's cut the crap, Sheridan. You've got to have some questions about all those things you've been doing that we told you not to ask questions about. Now I'm going to answer those questions. Yes, you've been running money and drugs and weapons around Babylon proper and its outlying communities, helping to arm my associates and facilitate a turf war."

"Who are these… associates?" John asked carefully.

"You've been in Babylon long enough now, Sheridan. Don't play me for stupid. You've heard of the Shadows?" John nodded. "Well… I'm the Shadow Man. Pleased to meet you." He extended a hand and John shook it loosely. "If you're in, I think you'd be a great asset. We'll take care of you. You'll get what you want out of the deal, believe me. But you've gotta be in all the way."

Sheridan raised his eyebrows in mild challenge of this statement. "Or?"

"Or…" Sheridan heard a quiet scrape of metal and looked down. Visible only because it glinted in the dim lighting of the room, Morden had extended a pocket knife, blade jutted ever so slightly toward John's torso. "This bullshit ends right now." And quick as a wink the knife was gone and Morden's sly grin had returned. "But I'd hardly want you to think I'm forcing you into anything. You've got 24 hours. Be here tomorrow, 6 p.m. sharp. If you're not here, we'll come looking for you. I know that you know we've been to your place, so if the answer is no, John Sheridan, I'd advise you to get the hell out of Epsilon County by the time that happens." Now Morden nodded his chin toward the envelope on the bar. "Either way, this is your last run. You know the drill by now. Blue bandana. Go."

Morden was gone by the time Sheridan looked up to question him.

"No."

John was already prepping for tomorrow night. After tomorrow, he suspected he wouldn't be back to this apartment for some time, and he wanted to make sure anything Ivanova and the others might need while communications were cut off could be found easily by them and not so easily by others. It was a tougher task than he'd anticipated, and now Ivanova was on his phone, giving him bullshit. "What do you mean no?"

"I mean no. N-O. One syllable, two letters, the opposite of 'yes'. You can't do it, Captain. I won't authorize it. I'm telling you there has to be another way, a safer way."

"And I'm telling you there isn't. I'll be fine."

"Sinclair –"

"Sinclair didn't pass the test," Sheridan cut her off. "He messed up early. They kept him around while he was still useful and not a threat, and when one or both of those didn't apply anymore, they threw him away."

"And how do you know that's not exactly what you're walking into?"

For the first time, Sheridan hesitated. He was cleaning his gun. It was relaxing, helped to squelch the adrenaline, center him on where he was and exactly what he was about to do. It also kept his mind off of drinking, which was what he really would've preferred to be doing right now. "I don't. Not for sure. But we've got nothing else. You said Garibaldi's rap sheet came back clean."

"As a whistle," the commander admitted. "Nothing on the bar, either. Not so much as a lapse in rent payments."

"Then this is the only way." He paused for a moment. It was an interesting feeling, the way his mind was divided. Part of him – a big part of him – was looking forward to this. It gave him a great rush, put him back in a game he'd missed for two long years, allowed him to completely bury himself in his work and forget how much he missed his wife, even helped him forget, sometimes, how much he wanted to just drink until he didn't feel anything anymore. The rest of him knew he was walking the thin blue line awfully tight – that if Morden really did know who'd taken Anna, who'd killed her, he might end up actually carrying through with his revenge. He'd be fighting against that every day. "They're definitely stockpiling for a big confrontation with the Vorlons, I just have no idea when or where. I'm not even entirely sure a date's been sent."

"You need to be out before then. If you're not, you won't survive it."

He sighed, a noncommittal answer to her comment. "Speaking of the Vorlons. I saw the news."

"That makes five this week. They're making their stand as well." Ivanova was quiet for a long moment. "Whatever you're going to do, Sheridan, you get in there, you do it, and you get out. Because if you go down at Z'ha'dum, nobody's going to come in after you."

"I know."

"OK then." Another lengthy pause. Sheridan could hear the scrape of her pen on paper over the phone and he knew she was signing off on his orders. There was no turning back now. "Sheridan."

"Mmm?"

"An old friend once said to me… 'May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk.'" Briefly, they both thought of Sinclair. "Be careful."

"Aye, Commander. Thank you."

As he ended the call, Sheridan stood and turned a slow circle in his new apartment. All files tying him to his real life, and to this case, were hidden beneath the floorboards under his bed. The apartment was relatively clean; he didn't want to come back to a mess. The fridge was empty of anything that might spoil, but various non-perishable food items were stashed here and there, giving the whisper of an illusion that he would one day return to occupy this space.

Only one thing remained.

With a sigh, he walked slowly to his bedroom. From the top shelf of his closet, he pulled a small, nondescript box and lifted the lid. There were three objects inside: His badge, a framed picture of Anna… and his wedding band. He lifted each in turn, caressed it gently, gave it a moment of thought. And then he lifted them all from the box and crawled beneath his bed to secure them in the floorboards as well, not knowing when, or if, he'd return to unearth them again.

Morden paced before his Board – the Shadow Cabinet, he called them – in a dimly lit room with no windows. This was where Important Business was dealt with; usually they met here to discuss planned offenses, counterstrikes, strategy – but tonight, John Sheridan was on the docket. Morden was smart and he knew Sheridan was smart, too, so he wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page. There was no room for error here.

"Sheridan comes in tomorrow," he was saying. "Six o'clock. When he's in, when it's over, I want him kept down here for recovery. I'll have the girls attend to him, but Garibaldi – I suspect you'll be the only apothecary he's looking for after a day or two. That's fine. I'm not ready to move him up just yet."

"Cut the crap, Morden." This came from the one known as Bester, who was stretched across an old leather couch, feet propped up on one end and hands folded behind his head. He fit because he was shorter than Morden liked in his soldiers – but he was among the most cold and calculating killers ever to walk in the Shadows. "We know all this already. What's this really all about?"

"John Sheridan is heartbroken and hell-bent on revenge for the death of his wife. I have told him in no uncertain terms that I can give him that if he'll scratch our backs. And I know I can make good on that, because I know without a doubt who killed her… because it was me." He looked around at the other three men in the room. There were raised eyebrows but no words. "That information doesn't leave this room. From this point forward and for as long as I am alive, the truth as it will be known is that the Vorlons are responsible for Anna Sheridan's kidnapping and untimely demise." Nods in response. Again, a look at each of them, deep in the eyes. "What I want is someone who will function without question or hesitation in our vacant Chief Enforcer position. I think John Sheridan, given his background and his… motivation… is just the right man for that job, but that would put him on this board. That means this discussion never happened. Questions?"

"When things get dicey, don't you think he'll figure it out?" This question from Wade. Wade was a holdover from Morden's predecessor; he'd never liked the man. But he laundered money better than anybody Morden had ever met, so he stayed.

"If he does, we take him out. It's that simple. You forget the first rule of everything around here, Wade: deep down, nobody trusts anybody. You know that as well as I do." He leaned in close to make a point. "Everyone under me is here because they are useful and they serve a purpose. When you stop being useful, Wade, you disappear. That goes for Sheridan, that goes for you, and that goes for anybody whose shirt I decide I don't like, who chews too loud or who is simply in my way. Understood?" Wade scowled at his leader but offered a curt nod. "Good." Morden plastered his smile back in place. "Tomorrow. Six o'clock. Be here, gentlemen; you won't want to miss this."

The thing about being perceived as mindless and invisible – except when it came to the performance of certain tasks – was that the men felt free to speak about whatever they wished without first taking note of her whereabouts. Indeed it was even true that they told her things, things she wasn't supposed to know, when they were riding a good high or taking their pleasure from her body.

The other thing about being perceived as mindless and invisible was the "perceived" part. Delenn was not mindless, not by any stretch of the word, but allowing herself to be seen as such was the biggest reason she was still alive.

Anna Sheridan hadn't understood this.

What Mr. Morden had said was very true – people here survived so long as they were useful. Delenn was smart enough to be useful by pretending to be mindless.

But she wasn't; oh, she wasn't at all. She'd heard everything Mr. Morden had said, but it didn't matter. She'd been here when it happened.

She knew what had happened to Anna. She knew what had happened to others who had simply… disappeared. She had been there at the end of Jeffrey Sinclair's life.

And she knew something else, too. The next night, she was watching John Sheridan as he was led, blindfolded, by Mr. Morden through the door at the back of the bar – the one that blended into the wall so well a person wouldn't know it was there if they didn't know what to look for. She was watching as Mr. Morden led him down the secret passage to where the Shadows built their empire. And she was watching as he was surrounded on all sides, and still he did not flee; she was watching as the beating began, and he made no move to defend himself. Only then, after the first several blows, did she turn away; she didn't need to watch. She'd seen jumps before. She hurried back to her tiny closet of a bedroom, and even from there she could hear his cries of pain.

Delenn knew things; she'd heard things; and she was very smart. Maybe smarter than Mr. Morden. She hoped so, because it seemed that after five long years, her salvation may have finally arrived in the depths of Hell of his own volition, and together they would bring down the Shadows. If, that was, his heart hadn't hardened; if she could find the courage to defy her captor after all these years; if they could accomplish all this before the building war with the Vorlons came to a head.

If.

John Sheridan was the widower of Anna Sheridan, who had once upon a time slept in this very room and told Delenn stories about how her husband, an officer of the law, would come to rescue them. Anna… who had outlived her usefulness long ago.

And there was something else.

John Sheridan was the hazel-eyed man from her dreams.

The yelling and pounding and cries stopped, and she took caution to lie down, to appear to be asleep, to have missed it all.

Less than five minutes passed, five minutes of blissful silence, before her bedroom light was flicked on. Her eyes opened to see the four of them, and as Morden extended his hand and pulled her to her feet, kissed her hard and urged her to her knees, before she let her mind go blank, she gave one final thought to John Sheridan and his gentle hazel eyes and warm smile. When she looked up, what she saw instead were cold, brown eyes – it didn't matter whose eyes they were; she'd see them all tonight – and she comforted herself with the flicker of a thought – better useful than dead.