Susan entered the security suite and found Garibaldi, as was his habit, leaning back in his chair, his feet resting on a desk. She took a chair nearby.

'Any news?'

'Not yet.' He scrubbed at his eyes. 'You know what this is, don't you?'

'Your favourite part of the job?'

'My favourite part of the job. The hanging around waiting for information to come through.'

A smile quirked her lips. 'Haven't we already played this scene?'

'Maybe. But I still hate it and I reserve the right to go on hating it.'

'You could always just delegate it to someone else,' she replied.

'I could; but then I would have to be more creative in finding things to complain about and creative was never my strong point.' He stopped suddenly, leaning forward, zooming in on one of the monitors. 'I'll be one second.' Garibaldi tapped his link. 'Zack. Run an extra patrol through Red Nineteen. We've got a small group congregating and they look too furtive for my liking. Could be something, could be nothing.'

'Sure, Chief.'

He sat back again. 'Never a dull moment.'

Ivanova picked a loose thread off the sleeve of her jacket. Her eyes were grave and shadowed. 'Do you think that we can get an ID off Londo's description?'

'Yeah, I do. I have to hand it to him - it was pretty detailed; when Londo says he has someone's face clearly in his mind, he isn't kidding.'

'Mm.' She crossed one leg over the other. 'I still can't quite believe he volunteered for it. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.'

He looked slightly amused. 'Join the club. He did mention something about maybe calling in a favour in the future.' Ivanova's face darkened; Garibaldi held up his hands. 'I know, I know. Londo has the nerve of a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.'

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth again. 'You have quite a way with words.'

'I try. I know Londo can be difficult...' Her eyebrows rose. 'Okay, he's a pill; lately, even more so. But even with all of that I still sort of like the guy.'

Ivanova was sceptical. 'You don't like anybody.'

'I like you. Sometimes. On a good day.'

'Gee, thanks.'

He grinned infuriatingly. 'But we do seem to have killed two birds with one stone.' She looked at him expectantly; Garibaldi leant forward like a conspirator.

'One: we have a detailed description of the perp and that, along with the intel we got from Delenn, has got us a lot closer to making an ID. Two: I think that the shock of getting help from Londo has actually distracted the captain from being in shock over his sister. Temporarily, anyway.'

Ivanova laughed slightly. 'Who knows why Londo does half the things that he does. Me? I feel like strangling him most of the time and then… Then he turns up trumps.'

'What a universe, huh?'

She nodded and then the smile died on her lips. 'Has John talked to you? I mean really talked?'

Garibaldi sighed, stood up. 'No. Y'know, when he went off the deep-end over that Morden guy, it worried me. It pissed me off. Admittedly, I understood but it still pissed me off. But I gotta tell you, right now I'm even more worried. I wish he would blow up. But if this is the new, improved John Sheridan then I guess we'll just have to get used to it. Talk about being careful what you wish for…' He ran a hand over his head. Susan's frown-lines had deepened, the set of her mouth harder than usual. She had been John's friend long before he had, Garibaldi reminded himself. They were close. And she was fiercely protective of her friends. Hell, she wasn't the only one. 'I'm glad for everyone's sake that he isn't tearing the station apart; it wouldn't help him. But keeping it all in like this? If he loses it, I don't know what he'll do.' Garibaldi shrugged, thrust his hands into his pockets. 'I wish that he would open up some about it. I guess that means he hasn't said anything to you, either.'

'No, he hasn't.' Her voice was soft. There was always the very strong possibility, Susan reflected, that John had found someone else to talk to. She hoped so; but Delenn had seemed on edge this morning, and over more than just this whole nightmare and the news she was bringing to them.

Ivanova shared neither her suspicions nor her thoughts on the matter with Garibaldi and they sat in silence for some moments. When he spoke again she started, head jerking.

'You know I fed the details into the system, started a cross-check for any similar cases?'

'You've heard back on that?' She wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer

'And how. There's been a similar pattern across the galaxy dating back to approximately two years after the war ended.'

'Two years,' she mused. 'That fits in with Delenn's timeline, factoring in Jerhann leaving Minbar and the two of them perfecting their M.O.'

'Exactly. And I'm sure that over the next few months they'll discover a whole bunch more. And there'll be other crimes before that – assaults, one-off killings, God knows what else.' The angles of his face looked harsh.

Ivanova's gaze followed his restless wandering around the office. 'How bad is it so far? I mean, how many..?' She nodded vaguely toward the computer-bank.

Garibaldi came to a halt, rested against the desk. 'Those two had quite a busy time over the years: five or six women at a time and then it would all go quiet – sometimes for over a year. Then it would start again. Including the four girls who were killed here we're looking at upwards of sixty victims.'

She tried to absorb it and couldn't. She tried to picture their faces and it was all too easy. Over sixty women. One was bad enough. The collar of her uniform felt too tight. She tilted her head back, studied the ceiling for a moment. There was a patch of mould slowly spreading in one corner. Ivanova looked back at him. 'It sounds like we've come the closest so far.'

'Close?' Michael shook his head. 'We're not just going to come close, Susan, we're going to get him. Especially if I've got anything to do with it.'

She left him to his logs and monitors. And hoped that all of their better angels would rally together and given them a fighting chance on this one. Michael tried to learn the lesson of patience: it did not come easily but it was, he reckoned, the only way he might retain his sanity. His better angel, perhaps, might have heard Susan's request. One of the comp. panels chimed, the information flagged as priority.

Garibaldi read it twice, eyes gleaming. 'Gotcha.'

ooOOoo

The moments spent outside Sheridan's office felt like an eternity before Garibaldi was told to come in. The captain was staring out of the window, hands behind his back. He didn't turn when Garibaldi entered, didn't seem to notice that he was even there. One hand was clenching, relaxing, clenching, relaxing...

'Are you okay?' A banal question and one to which he already knew the answer. He didn't know what else to ask.

'I've just been speaking to my brother-in-law. I had to tell him what happened. It's one conversation I could have done without.' The words were bitten off.

'You don't get on?'

A slight shrug of his shoulders. 'Oh, it isn't that … exactly. He's a good guy, I guess, but he's just… I can't seem to… No, we don't get on. He has a tendency to disappear up his own ass sometimes. I mean, Liz is in danger of her life and he just questions me like some goddamn lawyer. What does he think we're doing out here? Sitting around waiting for her to be chopped up like…' He stopped, ran his hands through his hair, let out a long breath and sat down. 'What did you want to tell me?'

Garibaldi took one of the chairs, slid a file across the table. Sheridan glanced at the cover, didn't move to take it; he waited for Michael.

'The information we've been waiting on came through: we can finally put a name to the face. Kyle Hendrickson. He served in EarthForce during the war, a lieutenant, and his ship was, no surprises here, the Galatea. As far as I can make out, he was pretty much a loner except for a small group of like-minded weirdoes on the same ship.'

'If that's in the records, why the hell weren't they had up on war crimes in the first place?'

Garibaldi was cynical. 'I think that comes under the heading, "The Least Glorious Moments in EarthForce History." Those members of the crew in charge of the Minbari prisoners underwent disciplinary hearings for use of excessive force in the line of duty - or some crap like that. Basically it translates as, they got away with it. Anyway, the Minbari never kicked up much fuss about war atrocities to begin with; you'd have to ask Delenn about that one. And EarthForce wouldn't want to admit to being anything but the good guys in all of this, so-

'So lets all turn a blind eye and pretend it never happened,' Sheridan finished. 'Because that has always worked out so well, hasn't it? Do they never learn?' He was still for a moment, silent; the anger that he was trying so desperately to contain just beneath the surface. 'So, Hendrickson.' He picked up the file.

'Hendrickson leaves EarthForce about eighteen months after the end of the war, and that is where it all gets even hazier. He was a drifter, picking up odd jobs all over the galaxy. Then he disappears from view altogether; now, there's no record of him coming on board Babylon Five but when I ran his picture through our computer logs it came up with a match to a Jack Whitechapel.'

Sheridan's face hardened. 'Whitechapel?'

'Yeah, so?'

The captain released a breath. 'The first recorded serial killer, Jack the Ripper. He made his kills in the East End of London – an area called Whitechapel.'

Garibaldi watched him. 'You've been looking into that, huh?'

Sheridan met his gaze. 'It seemed like a sensible precaution.' A moment. 'I can't say that I like his sense of humour much.'

He sat on the sofa, hands clasped loosely. Garibaldi still watched him, trying to pinpoint his exact mood and finding it far more difficult than he was accustomed to. Sheridan had always seemed pretty easy to read; or maybe, Garibaldi thought, he was just very good at giving that impression. He continued the briefing.

'It turns out there's a price on Hendrickson's head. Or, on the person we now know to be Hendrickson. A couple of years back there were a series of killings on a Centauri outpost: same M.O. and the timeframe fits with what we got on Jerhann so we can be pretty sure Hendrickson's the guy. The Centauri never knew who he was but they wanted the head of whoever was responsible. And where the Centauri are concerned they mean that literally. The victims were Centauri slave-girls. Their, uh, employers took exception to him killing their...'

'Merchandise?' It was said with dreadful and uncharacteristic sarcasm.

Garibaldi's face twitched. Merchandise was the word. In the rigid hierarchy that defined Centauri society, the slave-girls were at the very bottom of the food chain. Some of them couldn't even aspire to that less-than-lofty height. They were usually pimped out by whoever had bought them until they were too old or too broken to be of any further use, and then abandoned.

'Yeah, well, they're offering fifty thousand Centauri ducats to whoever hands him over to them.'

'How many were there?'

'Girls? Five.'

'So, ten thousand per life.' Sheridan looked at him levelly. 'If they wanted him for free, I might have considered it.'

There was silence for a time and Garibaldi could hear the faint roar of the shuttles from the tracks passing overhead. 'I've passed on the information to all security personnel and also to the Rangers – we might as well make the most of them while they're here. We're stepping up security throughout the station, concentrating on Brown and Grey Sector: no-one will sneeze on board that we won't know about.'

Sheridan nodded, stood, started pacing the floor. Not his usual wanderings but regimented, precise steps along one line. 'I've been thinking about this a lot.' He almost managed a wry smile. 'Obviously. This guy, Hendrickson, he's sitting back waiting to see what we'll do next; he's enjoying the fact that pretty much the whole crew is concentrating on him. He wants to know what our next move will be. So what if we don't make one?'

'Okay, now you've lost me.' Garibaldi watched him. There it was, he thought, that look; the one that meant that Sheridan had had one of his ideas, the ones from which he would not be diverted.

'I mean that we stop looking. We pull off all security. In other words, we do absolutely nothing.'

Garibaldi turned a hand palm-upwards. 'No offence, but have you gone out of your mind?' He stood up, faced him. 'How are we supposed to find him if we don't go after him?'

Sheridan held up a hand, placating. 'Just hear me out. You know how big this place is and you know, better than I do, how long it takes to find someone who doesn't want to be found. Now, we can try to corner him but we don't even know where we're looking; and even if we did manage it, it might just panic him into killing Liz and making a run for it. He wants our attention and so far we've given it to him. He wanted to rattle me and it's worked. We've done everything he wanted us to do. So how about we stop. We don't give it to him, then he'll come looking for us and while Liz is his bargaining chip, he won't want to give her up until he has what he wants.'

Garibaldi tilted his head back, looked at him from half-narrowed eyes. 'When we found Jerhann you said you didn't want to play the game. You change your mind?'

Sheridan's hand had clenched again. 'I also said that I'd put up with anything to get him, and this happened. No, I haven't changed my mind but we have to do something. He's following his own rulebook and dragging us along with him and I'm sick of it. You can't tell me you're not. I'll do anything I have to do to get her back, but on our terms, not his.'

'Okay.' Garibaldi nodded. 'Okay, I see that. For what it's worth, it might even be an idea that can work. It's still a crazy idea but maybe we need to fight crazy with crazy. Just tell me one thing: are you asking me to stand down security so you can go after him on your own? Because if you are-'

Sheridan cut him off. 'It's not like that; I learnt my lesson last time, believe me. I want your help, Michael. I need it; but I think that if we concentrate our energies closer to home and wait for him to contact us- Well, I really don't think that he'll be expecting that. It might just throw him off guard, and then…'

They faced each other. Garibaldi chewed the inside of his lip. 'Okay. Okay, we'll do this your way. But at least leave the Rangers to keep an eye out? They're a lot more unobtrusive than my people and no-one knows who they are.'

The captain had relaxed a little it seemed; the faint smile was almost benevolent. 'Yes, you can have your Rangers.'

Garibaldi started for the door. 'You're too kind. Y'know, I fully expect that by tomorrow morning the hair that I have left will have turned snow white.'

Sheridan returned to his desk, pulled a stack of files to the middle. 'Oh and, Michael...'

He turned.

'No small, discreet security detail; if we do this, we do it properly.'

The security chief tilted his head. 'Remind me: when was it you joined Psi-Corps?'

Sheridan's lips twitched. 'Go on, get out.'

'John...' Why was it so damn difficult? Michael wondered. Someone, a friend, in pain. It was supposed to be easy, surely, finding the words. 'Look, you know where to find me, yeah?'

Sheridan watched the man in his doorway. 'Yeah, I know.'

ooOOoo

Garibaldi stomped down the corridors, noticing the faces he passed only out of habit. It was one hell of a gamble. Yes, it may very well work; but if it didn't... He took a deep breath before entering the monitor room.

Zack looked up and for a moment Garibaldi felt a flare of anger seeing the black and yellow band around the younger man's arm. It would be easy to pick a fight; any excuse to blow off some steam. He bit it back.

'Okay, Zack, stand down the security patrols; everyone is back on regular duties.'

Zack put down slowly the flimsy he had been reading, kept his eyes on Garibaldi's face. 'Chief, are you sure about this? I mean … all the patrols?'

'Those are the captain's orders. We want everything back to normal within two hours.'

'Right.' Zack moistened his lips. 'Right. Okay. All the patrols.'

'Jeez, Zack, yes, all the patrols. Man, I know I'm speaking English – I recognise the sound.' He let out a breath. 'I'm sorry. Look, if everything goes according to plan this could all be over pretty soon.'

One of the plans that Zack never knew anything about but always just followed. And if this turned out to be a miscommunication, he could very well be the one to take the fall. 'Okay. Got it. I'll put through the orders. Where are you off to?'

Garibaldi had opened the door. 'I have to see a lady.'

Zack's smile was forced. 'Anyone I know?'

'Yes, but it's definitely not what you think.'

Zack started tapping at the console. 'Oh, Chief – there's someone here to see you. He's waiting next door.'

'Did he come with a name?'

Zack shrugged. 'He said it was personal and he's not armed.'

'Thanks.'

Garibaldi hesitated in the corridor. Seeing Delenn was his first priority: he could leave Mystery Man cooling his heels for a while longer. But it could be important. He opened the door, stepped inside.

A young man who had been sitting at the table stood, smiled as Garibaldi advanced. He took a few steps forward himself, stopped.

'Mr Garibaldi.'

Slim-faced, good-looking, dark hair cut short. A nice suit if not exactly new.

'What can I do for you?'

'Um, well, nothing really.' He looked amused, even a little relieved. 'We have met.'

Garibaldi frowned, examined him more closely. 'We have?'

The smile widened. 'Yes. Yesterday, actually. In Downbelow.'

Something around the eyes, the shape of the mouth.

'Andrew?'

The young man beamed. 'Hello.'

'Well, look at you.'

'I didn't think that my work clothes would be quite appropriate.'

Garibaldi had been right about the refinement; Andrew's words were carefully chosen, his voice pleasant.

'What did you want to see me about?'

'It wasn't much, really. I asked around, about the girls and the Minbari-' He paused, fixed Garibaldi's eye. 'He's the one, isn't he? In Grey Sector?'

'Yeah, that was him.'

Andrew nodded, his face losing a little colour. 'I thought so. It's pretty awful, isn't it?'

You don't know the half of it, Garibaldi thought. 'It is that.'

'A few people saw him about but no-one knows where he lived. Or they don't want to know – I'm not really sure.'

He hadn't expected Andrew to remember their conversation, much less follow through on his offer. Under the wig and make-up he had seemed young; out of them he looked younger still. And so eager to please. 'Do me a favour – will you look at a face for me?'

His shoulders lifted, dropped. 'Sure.' He followed Garibaldi to the BabCom unit, stared obediently at the image pulled up on the screen.

'Have you ever seen him?'

Andrew took a moment, studying it carefully. 'No, I haven't. Who is he?'

Garibaldi turned it off. 'Someone we're looking for.' He looked at Andrew seriously. 'Don't ask anymore questions, okay? I don't want it that the next time I see you is in the morgue.'

Andrew's dark eyes flicked back to the screen, understanding; he smiled wryly. 'Looks like you didn't need me after all.'

'Hey, what you told me – it pointed us in the right direction. It helped.'

It was probably the first time in a long while that Andrew Meyer had tried to do the right thing. It seemed to have given the young man a nice feeling. And Garibaldi wondered again how people like him ended up this way. He looked him over.

'Why did you agree to talk to me? Try to help?'

Andrew opened his mouth, dropped his gaze, looked up again. 'You talked to me like I was a normal person; like I was a normal man. I don't get that a lot. For someone like you to do that for someone like me...' He shrugged, embarrassed. 'It meant something.'

'Why don't you go home, Andrew?'

He shook his head. 'I can't. I keep telling myself that when I earn X amount of money, I'll stop; move on somewhere else, start again. But getting X amount takes a lot longer than you think and by the time you get it, it's not worth what it was when you started. So. You do what you have to do.'

Garibaldi felt old. He'd seen too many like this. Andrew was little more than a boy and he was doomed already. 'I'm sorry I didn't recognise you-'

'Don't be. I'm glad you didn't. It means that Andrea isn't the only thing I am.' He paused. 'I have a degree in philosophy, you know. Only it turns out that it isn't really something you can make a career of and it doesn't give you many marketable skills.' He smiled again, wistful. 'I should get going. Thanks for seeing me.'

'Hey, no, thanks for helping.' Garibaldi held out his hand. Andrew hesitated for a moment, then took it. 'Good luck, Mr Meyer.'

He watched the boy go and remembered something that an old soldier, father of a big family, had once said to him: kids, they break your heart.

ooOOoo

With as little warning as there had been when they arrived, the security teams that had been patrolling Downbelow left. The spot-checks were ended; even some of the extra restrictions on outbound vessels were eased, though not entirely lifted. As always, conjecture marked the event. From his regular position at the bar in the Zocalo, Londo Mollari watched and wondered about the reasoning behind this. But he had done his part and he no longer considered it any of his concern; even so, he still raised his glass and silently wished Sheridan good luck.

John had spent most of the day in his office; he had made a brief foray to the command deck, an attempt to keep some sense of normality. That attempt had been futile. People avoided looking him in the eye; they didn't know what to say. Corwin had given him a status report, delivering the whole thing to somewhere in the middle of Sheridan's chest. In the end he had left them. It was like Anna all over again and he remembered with unusual cynicism the lesson he had learnt then. The conversations that suddenly petered out when you walked into a room; the looks that seemed to go right through you. The bereaved were pitied but they were also an embarrassment. A reminder of all of the things that people didn't want to think about.

He went back to his paperwork and stayed there even after the station lights had been turned down for the night. A light tap attracted his attention; he peered across the gloom between his desk and the light in the doorway. She was just a silhouette, the light picking out the apex of her crest like a diadem.

'If you would rather I left...' Delenn was already angling away, preparing to go.

'No, please.' He stood quickly, catching his knee on the edge of the desk and winced. 'Please, come in.' It was a mess, he realised. The desktop covered in half-read reports and things that he didn't remember signing but evidently had. It hadn't looked that bad since his first weeks there; he'd been at it most of the day and had actually got very little done. He guided Delenn across to the sofa by the window, sat opposite her.

Her hands were clasped in her lap, her back erect. Shoulders too set. If it had been anyone else he would have said that she seemed uneasy.

'Are you okay?' he asked softly.

Delenn's eyes widened a little. 'Me? I believe that I am the one who should be asking that of you.'

She held his gaze, no embarrassment there.

'Oh, you know...' He shrugged. 'It's hell.'

'Yes.' She withdrew, momentarily, then found his face again. 'Mr Garibaldi came to see me; he explained to me your idea.'

'What do you think?'

Delenn considered her words. 'It is an interesting approach. But I believe that you are correct in thinking that it will disturb him. The Rangers have started their patrols, they will keep a close watch. As soon as they see anything, they will tell me.'

Sheridan nodded. 'Thank you.' He released a long breath. 'You know, I feel like I'm playing a game with Elizabeth's life and I- I don't know what else to do. I know what I want to do: I want to rip the whole damn place apart until I find her. And I want to kill him and I hate feeling that way. I-' He stopped and for that moment his face was unguarded, emotions raw. 'I keep seeing her, imagining what she must be going through, how ... terrified she must be and all I can think about is that last night, when he took her, I was-'

'You were with me.' Her voice was level, almost toneless.

He started, examined her. She was still watching him and she seemed resigned to something. 'No. God, Delenn, no; I didn't mean- If I hadn't been with you I still would have been here or in my quarters or God knows where, but anywhere except for where Liz was. Where I should have been. I was so busy worrying about people who were already dead, I forgot about the ones who are still living.' His face softened and the shadow of a smile played at his lips. 'To be honest, I've been thinking that just for once it would be nice if you and I got to spend some time together that wasn't in the middle of some crisis or wasn't immediately spoilt straight after.'

'Yes. It would be ... nice.' She was silent for a moment, studied her hands; they loosened and when she looked up again her eyes held that shine he had come to know. 'You should not take so much of this on yourself. There is no possibility that you could have known what was going to happen. There was no reason to think that it might.'

'Yeah, maybe.' He loosened the collar on his jacket, pulled the zip down a little. 'I spoke to her husband earlier; I had to tell him what had happened. And it was only then- It's something that's been in the back of my mind these last few days and now…'

Delenn waited for him but his gaze had slipped past her, seeing somewhere else. 'Now, what?' she prompted gently.

John roused himself. 'Why was Liz here?'

She looked at him in confusion. 'I do not understand. I thought that Liz had come to visit you.'

'The day after Christmas? It's still quite a big deal for Humans; it's a family time, you try to stay together.'

'But you are her family, are you not?'

His head tilted. 'Well, yes. But she's got two young kids. Her boys. For her to arrive when she did, she would have had to leave home before Christmas Day and that's just not like her. Mothers don't leave their kids at that time of year unless they have to and Liz... She wouldn't, not unless there was something wrong.' He ran it over in his mind. Seeing her, the way her face had lit up when she had seen him. 'I couldn't believe she was here; I was happy. And then I was so busy worrying about what I was involved with here that I never even thought more about it. I didn't think to ask her.'

Her voice was soft, trying not to intrude. 'Did she appear to be in distress?'

'No. She was laughing.' He ran a hand through his hair; there was a note of bitterness in his voice. 'Then again, I saw so little of her that I wouldn't have noticed. Hell, I forgot she was even here half the time.' His lips compressed, the tick in his jaw visible. When he spoke again his voice was softer. 'Once, when we were kids, we were on holiday, I don't remember where exactly but there was this big barn. We used to go there to play. I remember I used to climb up to the highest beam, it ran all the length of the ceiling, and I then I'd jump off so I could land in the straw beneath. Of course, being a kid, I immediately got up and did it again. Liz wanted to have a go. She always wanted to do whatever it was that I did. But I wouldn't let her.' He laughed at himself, rueful. 'Probably because I didn't want my little sister doing all the stuff that I could. Anyway, I got bored, finally, and wanted to go, but Liz didn't. Instead of making her come with me, or staying with her to make sure she was okay, I left her in there. I wasn't that far away when I heard her cry out. She'd jumped off that damn beam and hurt herself. She broke her arm, in two places, and it wouldn't have happened if I'd been there for her. That day I made a promise to myself that I would take care of her, protect her, that she wouldn't get hurt as long as I was with her. I should have looked after her while she was here, and I didn't. I left her alone because I was too busy thinking about myself. What kind of brother, what kind of person, does that make me?'

'John.' Her throat felt tight, pressure building behind her eyes. It hurt to see him like this: someone who was always so strong now so helpless. 'It makes you the same as the rest of us – imperfect.' She shook the hair away from her shoulders, leaned forward to him. 'You did not, as you say, abandon her; and you did not leave her because you did not wish to be with her or for any selfish reason. You had to go because you were called and because you were working to protect everyone. You wished for justice, did you not? for the victims? And to prevent anyone else, any other woman here, from suffering that same fate: at the time that included Elizabeth. Whether you realise it or not, you were still trying to protect her. It is true that you may have been ... distracted ... but none of us can see clearly all of the time.'

The room was almost entirely in shadow. A pool of light at the desk he had left, another where they were seated. And the one thing that he could see clearly was her face. Sheridan leant across, took one of her hands in both of his.

'I always seem to be burdening you with my problems, and you always seem to have the right thing to say. You must be tired of it by now.'

So many things that she wanted to say to him, but, as he had said, it never seemed to be the right time. He cradled her hand in his and her skin burned under that touch. 'For Minbari, it is considered a privilege that another will speak to you of that which troubles their soul. You do not burden me; you honour me.'

'I think I'm the one who's honoured.'

It was a forerunner of the many vigils they would keep together through the years, those minutes where they sat in silence.

'You should get some sleep.'

'I suppose so.' Sheridan stood reluctantly. 'So should you – it's been a long day.' He glanced over at the open files and her gaze followed his. 'I'll probably stay on a little longer – finish off.'

She nodded, silent, not trusting herself not to say the words that hammered in her head, forcing their way to her mouth. They faced one another awkwardly, until Delenn finally moved to leave.

'Delenn.' He couldn't stop himself.

'Yes?' Only a step away from him, less, and Delenn turned back.

Stay, he thought suddenly. Stay with me tonight and every night. The words did not reach his lips. It was too soon; one day, maybe... Instead he told her, 'I just wanted to say … thank-you. For everything.'

'There is no need. I was glad to help.' She paused. She was so close to him that he was certain he could feel her breath against his lips. 'Goodnight.'

When John finally returned to his quarters it was with the expectation that sleep would not come; or if it did, it would be a mockery of that state. But he had to try, he told himself, even if it was only a little while. A few hours and he'd be back on duty.

Sleep did come, after a fashion. He saw Elizabeth, just as he had seen her all day. In pain, in the dark and needing him. He walked through corridors, opening endless doors but he could never get to her. She cried out, screamed with the pain and everything shifted slightly. It wasn't Elizabeth, it was Delenn – surrounded by light like fire and he couldn't reach her. She stood, unbreakable, a storm in her eyes but he was losing her. Helpless. A voice in the shadows and that tap-tap-tap of a cane on the floor. He had come too late. He would always be too late.

He woke, sweating, the sheets wrapped around him like a shroud. He freed himself, sat on the edge of the bed. Delenn. It always came back to her. Everything. And still, even now, in the middle of all of this, his senses, raw, sought her through the walls of the station. For a moment he could see her so clearly it was as though she were there, beside him, dark hair spread across bare shoulders and his pillows.

Only a few more hours and he would be back on duty.

He dressed, made his way to the sports area and spent the rest of the night smashing the baseballs into submission.