Author's Note: This chapter covers most of "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place". (I really, really wanted to write it on through to The Kiss, but it just got too darned big…) Some dialogue is quoted from that episode. As always, additions and gapfillers are my own.

Part 37—"Where There Is Darkness, Light"

Ten days passed, in which the war continued to go badly. One bright spot amid the gloom was Marcus, who recovered slowly but steadily. I found a little time to spend with him nearly every day, and twice saw Susan there as well—once telling him a story from early in her EarthForce career that had both of them laughing, and another time helping him walk back and forth across Medlab. The sight of them together warmed my heart, but also made me feel oddly lonely. I had not seen much of John lately, except in official meetings or half-distracted in the War Room. He was spending so much time there, he practically lived in the place. I missed his company, worried over his health, and had no idea what to do about it. Assuming I could do anything, with the war going as it was.

Rathenn went back to Minbar, to resume his oversight of the Ranger training camps there. The Anla'shok themselves went back to their work, with all its risks and dangers. Steady streams of information came back to me from the constantly shifting front lines, yet none of it helped with the one burning question uppermost in our minds. What were the Shadows attempting to accomplish with their seemingly haphazard assaults? Where was the pattern that might show us their goal? Without that, as John said, we were forced into pure reaction—responding to each fresh outrage on our enemy's terms, with no ability to affect the situation, let alone turn it to our advantage.

Stephen was still on walkabout, and was never more sorely missed. Every new assault, every planet that fell to the Shadows or their allies, produced another wave of refugees, among them more sick and injured than any of us cared to count. Worlds near the battle lines were swiftly overwhelmed, and were often the next to succumb. Babylon Five had gained a reputation as a haven even in the farthest-flung reaches of known space; before long, our "Fortress of Light" became the preferred destination of refugee ships. Lennier and I were kept frantically busy finding other havens for the desperate and the driven—and to their credit, many among the non-aligned powers stepped up when we asked. Others needed cajoling or outright wrangling with; still others refused to extend any aid, and would not be budged.

G'Kar joined his efforts to ours for a time, and in several cases successfully appealed to those who refused Lennier or me. His selflessness impressed them; here he was, the exiled leader of a beaten people who should be focusing all his efforts on his own kind, and yet he was reaching out to help others in as bad or worse straits than the Narns. I felt humbled by, and grateful for, his courage and compassion. And I had cause to reflect yet again on how easily we judge, when often we know so little.

John spent most of this troubled time buried in dispatches and reports and a bewildering array of combat analyses, none of which brought him anywhere nearer spotting the pattern behind the Shadows' attacks. Susan told me she hardly saw him either, and what little she did see wasn't good: "He's barely eating, I don't think he's sleeping, and if he swills any more rotgut station coffee without a decent meal, he's going to burn holes in his stomach. Oh god, don't look like that—I wasn't being literal about the holes, okay?" She was pacing across the small corner of C&C that served as her "office"; it was sufficiently out of the way to permit us something like a private conversation. "The point is, he's treating himself like pure hell, and if he doesn't knock it off, he won't be able to function. Bad enough with him carrying on cranky the way he has been lately. I don't want it getting any worse." She stopped pacing and flashed me a tired smile. "I know you know all this already. I guess I just needed to vent about it."

"I wish I knew what to do about it." Feeling morose, I stared down at the glossy surface of Susan's workstation. I had tried more than once to pry John out of the War Room, and on occasion I succeeded… but less and less as time went on, and lately not at all. And there was something else, something I hardly knew how to voice. It was weighing on me, though, and I had to talk to someone… "I have the feeling…" I began, and stopped.

Susan leaned against a section of bulkhead. "What?"

"Something is different with John now. Toward me." My hands came together; I toyed with my fingers in a vain attempt to calm myself. "I don't mean to sound dramatic… I am not saying he cares for me any less, or… or has withdrawn his affections. If it were that, I would know. But he is withdrawn. Holding back. I wondered, when I first noticed it, if I had offended him somehow—but if so, he would tell me. I cannot explain it."

She gave me a sympathetic look. "I've been in the War Room when he's there and you walk in, and he still lights up like a hyperspace beacon. His feelings for you haven't changed a bit."

I spread my hands. "You see where my problem lies, then. If I do not know why he is acting differently towards me, how do I remedy it?"

She shrugged. "Maybe he's just exhausted. God knows there's enough of that going around." She folded her arms and scowled. "Man needs a vacation. And there's no way for him to get it."

"He said something very like that not long ago. About the war never taking a vacation day." I smiled a little, remembering. He had been so tired, as had I… yet simply being together, talking of Garibaldi's misadventure in Grey Seventeen, was balm for both our souls. That kind of moment had grown rare between us since the incident with Neroon, and so was all the more precious to me. "It feels as if he is building a wall and hiding behind it. But why would he do that? If his heart has not changed…" I trailed off as awareness dawned, followed by a mix of sympathy and exasperation. "Damn it," I said—very softly, so no one but Susan could hear.

Her eyebrows nearly met her hairline. "Can I ask what bombshell just dropped that would make you swear? In front of me?"

I threw her a wry look. "I know what John is doing. What was the phrase you used once to describe it? 'Macho male bullshit'?"

It took a moment, but then she understood. "Oh, for godsakes! As if anybody could shoulder all this mess single-handedly…"

"And it is so like John to try." Had he been before me in that moment, I don't know if I would have hugged him or given him a good, hard shake.

"I say call him on it. Straight out. I know Minbari prefer indirection, but…"

I shook my head. "I tried that. After he and Lyta went out in the White Star to tangle with a Shadow vessel, he very carefully did not tell me how close they came to being killed." My gaze went to my shoes. "I 'called him on it' then. We did not get very far in resolving the issue." Because he said the word love, and I was too caught up in that to pursue it. But I could not share that yet, not even with Susan. I looked back up at her. "In the meantime, we are no nearer getting him out of the War Room, let alone to eat and sleep properly. Truly, Susan, I don't know what to do."

"I don't suppose you'd consider going in there dressed in a filmy negligee? Bet you anything he'd follow you out." She kept a sober face, but the glint of humor in her eye told me she was teasing.

I mimicked her expression. "Imagine the gossip. The proper and elegant Minbari ambassador, behaving in such a fashion. The station would live on it for days."

"Weeks."

"Months."

"At least."

Susan was the first to break, with a soft chuckle. "Okay, all kidding aside…" Her expression changed, as if an idea had struck. "There's a delegation coming—a group of clergy with ties to the resistance movement on Earth. Brother Theo put it together, along with a Reverend Will Dexter that Theo knows from somewhere. They'll be here tomorrow. John'll want to talk to them; he's been badgering me to find out more about resistance movements back home and how we can help. It'll make the perfect excuse for a dinner party."

"And not in the War Room."

"Definitely not."

I felt a glimmer of hope. "Let me know when they arrive. I will take care of the rest."

ooOoo

It was not merely the desire to get John out of the War Room for some breathing space and a civilized meal that prompted my agreement to the dinner. Since breaking away from Morgan Clark's authority, Babylon Five had only fragmentary information about conditions and attitudes on Earth… but we monitored ISN as best we could, and—as Mr. Garibaldi put it—kept our ear to the ground. What little we heard was troubling, especially to me. Clark had lost no time portraying Babylon Five's command staff as traitors to the Earth Alliance, turned toward rebellion by an "unhealthy proximity to alien influence." As if non-humans were a disease one could catch through repeated exposure. A few stories went further, portraying our "influence" as outright manipulation intended to weaken Earth… and ultimately to conquer it, though this was more often implied than stated. The very nebulousness of our reputed intentions made them all the more frightening to those who believed such tales.

In these scare-stories, I was often cast as the principal villain. Given that a mere thirteen years had passed since the end of the Earth-Minbari War, this was not surprising. I hated the thought of it, though, and it weighed on me more than I expected. Once or twice we even caught old footage from the disastrous ISN interview I had given in 2259—picked up and repackaged into easily digested news bites that portrayed me as a consummate actress, using false tears and my part-human appearance to conjure sympathy from fools. I couldn't help but wonder if Brother Theo's fellow clergy had heard the stories, and if they believed them. Best let them see me, and judge me, for themselves.

It was mid-afternoon when I heard from Susan. "I gave them a chance to rest up, and now they're with Brother Theo," she told me over the Babcom. "They want to meet you whenever it's convenient."

"I will come now." I had been poring over Ranger reports on refugees, working out the logistics of sending Minbari ships to ferry them from stressed planets to less crowded worlds, and a break was welcome. Even this one, for which I still did not feel fully prepared. I had grown used to being accepted, even liked, by most humans aboard Babylon Five. But these men were strangers, for all they were religious caste among their various cultures, and I did not know how much of Clark's propaganda they had absorbed. Don't borrow trouble, I told myself, quoting a maxim of John's as I bade Susan farewell and signed off. His father used to tell him that, he'd said once, whenever he worried about things beyond his control. Suddenly I wanted him beside me, to hold my hand as I faced Reverend Dexter and the others. But he was in the War Room, and would be until I dragged him out of it.

Theo's chapel was empty when I arrived. He and the others must be in the little study just beyond. As always, my steps slowed as I neared the large cross that hung on one wall. I could never see it without remembering Brother Edward, and his story about Jesus of Nazareth in the garden of Gethsemane. So gentle a man, Brother Edward, with such a violent and terrible past. He had laid down his life in the end trying to atone for it. As this is part of my atonement, I thought. Saving what lives I can, to make up for those taken by my words…

A soft footfall nearby made me look around. Brother Theo had come out of his study door and was gazing at the cross. He must have felt my scrutiny; he met my eyes and smiled, a little sadly. "Ambassador," he said.

Sudden insight made me feel for him. "You think of Edward too, don't you?"

He nodded toward the cross. "Every time I see it. Brother Edward was a good man. In spite of everything."

"He was." I bowed in respect toward the cross, and Brother Edward's memory, then caught Theo's gaze again. "They are waiting for me?"

"In here." He gestured for me to precede him through the doorway.

There were four of them, seated around the table where Brother Theo composed his homilies. Theo introduced them: Reverend Dexter, Rabbi Meyer, Imam Abdul, and Bhikku Cho, a Buddhist monk. The monk and the imam were both short and slight, the rabbi square-shaped with a jovial face. Reverend Dexter, broad-shouldered and dark-skinned, towered over the others. I had to crane my neck to look at him properly. "Ambassador," he said, in a deep, rolling voice that made me think of mountains. His expression was neutral; I had the sense that he, and the rest, were taking my measure.

Well, then. Measure away. I bowed, a dip of the head and shoulders that showed respect for presumed equals. "I am honored to meet you. We are very glad you came. Captain Sheridan has looked forward to it."

"Are you speaking for the captain, ma'am?" Reverend Dexter asked. A simple question, but with much behind it.

I permitted myself a smile. "There is no need. Captain Sheridan is more than capable of speaking for himself. As you will find out later on, if you will be so kind as to dine with us this evening." I glanced at Brother Theo. "Perhaps we may use your study? Commander Ivanova or I can easily make the necessary arrangements."

Theo bowed his head. "I should be delighted, Ambassador."

"Theo was just telling us about your situation up here," Reverend Dexter said. "He says there's a war on. And it's not going so well."

"Yes. To both, unfortunately. Which claims a good deal of Captain Sheridan's time." I shook off the gloom induced by these thoughts as best I could. "In the meanwhile, I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Or it can wait until later, when we are all together."

Reverend Dexter regarded me a moment. Then he smiled, an expression of extraordinary warmth. I knew then that my fears were nothing. In less than two minutes this man had judged me a friend, and the others would follow his lead.

"Thank you for the offer, Ambassador," he said. "But Theo's told us enough to get on with for the moment. The rest can wait till there's food and drink to go with it."

"God in heaven, the man paid me a compliment," Theo said. Behind Reverend Dexter, I saw the other three clerics exchange amused glances.

Dexter turned his smile on Brother Theo. "Now Theo, I've always said you were a fine fellow for a stuffy old priest."

"Stuffy," Theo repeated, and folded his arms. Beneath his mock annoyance I caught a spark of enjoyment. Clearly, this was a game they played. I felt a smile tug at my lips. Reverend Dexter caught it; he raised an eyebrow at me, with a look that said we were on the same side of something. He knew I had worked out their game, and seemed pleased by it.

We set the time for dinner, and I took my leave of them. Rather than face the complicated logistics of refugee ships again, I decided to change clothes and seek John in the War Room. I would not, as Susan had jokingly suggested, wear a negligee to lure him out… but it couldn't hurt in persuading him for me to look my best.

ooOoo

It took some doing, and a plea that my personal honor was at stake, but in the end John agreed to come to dinner. If he did not show up, I thought as I left him, with a light-hearted word ("Grouch") thrown over my shoulder, I would be here again to drag him out by the ear. Fortunately, this did not prove necessary. (If it had, I would have earned his mock characterization of me as a "pain in the butt." Though I would not have cared, so long as it got him out of the War Room for awhile.)

Tense and fidgety when dinner began, John visibly relaxed as the evening wore on. Little was said of serious business as we ate; as Brother Theo put it, there was no sense ruining a fine meal by giving ourselves indigestion while consuming it. I kept mostly silent, watching and listening as the others traded stories of places on Earth they knew or colonies they had visited. Most often, I watched John. It did my heart good to see him unwind, even a little. The burden of the war seemed to lighten a bit as he ate and talked, and I found myself grateful to Theo and the others for bringing him this respite. It was more than I had been able to do for the better part of two weeks.

At length, the meal ended and our talk turned more serious. Reverend Dexter picked up a thick book, which had rested next to him while he ate; I recognized a copy of his tradition's sacred writings. He opened it, and to my astonishment pulled out a small case full of data-crystals. The book had been hollowed out to make room for it. Between them, he told us as he handed it to John, he and Meyer and Abdul and Cho, and many others, had culled government communications, as well as transmissions from Earth's underground. Now it was ours, to do with as we would.

"So the resistance is still alive back on Earth?" Susan asked. I had not heard such hope in her voice for some days; the war was clearly weighing on her too, far more than I realized.

"The resistance is very much alive," Dexter said. "It's all there."

She sobered as she gazed at the case. "What do they say about us back home?"

This time it was Rabbi Meyer who answered. "That you're renegades. Pirates, a bunch of traitors working with aliens against Earth."

I flinched at the word aliens, even though I knew from his manner that Rabbi Meyer did not share the ugly beliefs he spoke of. I have never understood the need some have to hate that which is different, for no other reason than the difference itself. My own people are not immune to this, though we of all sentient races ought to know better. Minbari like to say we revere all life, as expressions of a conscious universe trying to work itself out—yet that value, so central to our view of ourselves, was lacking enough in us that we nearly destroyed the entire human race over a tragic misunderstanding. How then should humans under Morgan Clark have been any different, frightened and lied to as they were? Still, it was sobering to realize that it was not only the Shadows we were up against. Our truest enemy was hatred, fueled by ignorance and fear. Weaknesses the Shadows were all too eager to exploit. And even if the Shadows did not exist, such hatreds did, and would remain.

Susan was speaking again. "You took a big chance bringing this to us. What if they would've been right about us?"

Reverend Dexter leaned across the table. "I'd rather take a chance and do something than be frightened into doing nothing. That's the problem back home. Folks have been conned into thinking they can't change the world; they have to accept what is." His voice deepened with the passion of his argument. "I'll tell you something, my friends. The world is changing, every day. The only question is who's doing it."

"We're trying to do a little of that ourselves," John said. He picked up his water glass and stared briefly into it, then met Reverend Dexter's eyes with a faint smile. "With your help, maybe we can do a little more."

Brother Theo raised his own glass in a sober toast. "Let us hope."

ooOoo

I stayed up far later that night than I should have, going over Ranger reports yet again and sorting through my impressions of the evening. Reverend Dexter particularly intrigued me. He was a forceful personality, a walking bundle of contained energy in stark contrast to Brother Theo's serene decorum. In general, anyway, I thought, unable to restrain a chuckle at a memory of Theo's indignant reaction when John beat him at chess once. The sound of my door chime interrupted my thoughts, and for a moment my heart leapt with the hope that it might be John. But the voice that answered my query was Reverend Dexter's: "Mind if I come in, Ambassador? I'd like your thought on something."

I invited him in and offered him tea, which he accepted. "What was it you wished to ask me?" I said, once we had seated ourselves with steaming cups.

He gazed at his cup, a small and delicate thing cradled in his large hands. Then he looked at me, as if he could see clear through to my soul. "You love him a lot, don't you?"

I did not have to ask who he meant. Nor did I even think of not replying. "More than anything."

He swirled his tea gently. "I've seen it before, what Sheridan's doing to himself. Happens in war a lot. The men and women who make the decisions get so caught up in their own responsibilities, they forget there's anyone else there. Anyone to share the burden with."

I knew that too well. "I have tried…" I began.

He smiled as if to reassure me. "I'd guessed that, from how you were with him at dinner. And he with you, whenever he forgot that he's supposed to be the Man in Charge."

I could hear the capital letters in his voice. It made me laugh, despite the seriousness of what we were discussing. "He does have a small problem in that area. He takes on so much…" A sudden pang made my throat ache. "And that is part of why I love him, I suppose."

"If it's all right with you…" Reverend Dexter said slowly, as if feeling his way, "I could say a little something to him. He needs some time away from it… the war, the weight of command, everything. I'm guessing you're not the only one who's told him so—but sometimes, people don't hear a thing well from folks they're close to. Especially when those folks are the ones whose burdens they're trying to ease." He sipped tea. "Sometimes it takes a stranger to get through."

Surprise, and a flare of hope, made me set my cup down quickly before I spilled it. "Would you? I cannot tell you how much I would be in your debt if—"

He shook his head. "No debt. You all are doing God's work up here. Least I can do is help it along."

ooOoo

Whatever he said to John, it worked. The following day, when a break in my own duties permitted me to seek John out in the War Room, he seemed eager to have me stay. He spoke of things freely that up until now he had kept to himself: difficulties of strategy, attempts he had made to work out the Shadows' objectives, his fear that he was—as he said—barking up the wrong tree. (He then had to stop and explain dogs to me, as I had thus far heard only his stories about Earth house cats and so had no frame of reference for their canine counterparts.)

High hopes of being useful to him sustained me through the first hour of poring over tactical analyses, looking for patterns. Sheer stubbornness kept me going through most of a second. By the start of my third straight hour in the War Room, I was reduced to slumping next to my exhausted (again) beloved and staring fixedly at the wall-sized star map. Try as I might, I could make no more sense of it than a gokk would of interstellar physics. I felt, in a word, crotchety. "You're right," I muttered at length. "There is no pattern to the Shadow attacks. No pattern at all." It galled me to say so, all the more because I was certain there must be one. Why then was it not apparent after so much effort to discern it? Had I become stupid and never noticed until now? "I'm sorry. I wish I could see it."

"That's okay." John didn't move from where he sat half-stretched out in his chair. "Sometimes it's just nice to have the company."

He sounded as if he meant more than those simple words. My crotchety mood evaporated like fog in sunlight. Suddenly, I felt—well, eager was an overstatement, but willing at least—to give our endeavor one more try. At least we were sharing the burden now. Discouraged or not, that counted for a great deal.

We got up and crossed the room toward a bank of smaller screens that were frequently used for tactical displays. For what must have been the hundredth time or better, John asked for a three-dimensional grid showing all the Shadow attacks in sequence. I focused on it hard enough to melt holes in the circuitry. Nothing, I thought… and then, just for a moment, something. A glimpse only, so swift I could not be sure—

Beside me, John tensed. He had seen it, too. I reached toward the screen, tracing the outline of the shape I thought I perceived. Full attack data, when requested, confirmed our suspicions. There was a gap, an empty sector in the middle of the Shadows' assaults. A large one. They had gone some distance out of the most logical attack path in order to strike planets on the far side. "Why?" John wondered. "Why leave it alone?"

A chill crept up my spine. All the reports from the Anla'shok, tracking refugees… "The Rangers say that many refugee ships fleeing the war have been heading toward this area of space because so far, it hasn't been attacked."

John looked grim. "What if they wanted to drive the refugees into one area—corral them—make it easier to hit them all at once?"

The very idea was abhorrent. The effect would be devastating, I told him. Demoralizing.

He seized on the word and nodded. "That would be their intent. Maybe this is as much about terror as it is about territory." His own people, he said, had used such tactics against each other during different wartimes in their history: "Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Dresden. San Diego." The thought of it made me physically ill, a reaction I was hard pressed to conceal. What he said made a terrifying sense, much as I wished otherwise. Caught by the horror of it, I scarcely heard my own reply. Or his, until four words—"It's what I'd do"—broke through and shocked me to the bone.

"What?" I could not believe he had said such a thing. Considered himself capable of such depravity even for a second.

The slight frown on his face showed puzzlement, apparently at my reaction. That shook me as well. Had he not heard his own words of a moment ago? Could he have failed to understand them? "Well…" he said, and shrugged, "if I were the bad guys—if I were them…" He paused, as if searching for some way to translate the incomprehensible. An incomprehensible that he found self-explanatory, to judge by his tone and body language. "The only way we're going to beat them is to think like them," he said finally.

"Think like them?" Worse and worse. Reverend Dexter, and Susan, and I, had been more right to worry than we knew.

"Yes," he said—again, as if it were obvious. And, as humans say, no big deal.

I had heard enough. "No." I grabbed his arm and started moving us toward the door. "You will come with me."

He resisted at first, though mercifully it was half-hearted. I didn't want to exert my full strength—it would leave bruises, and shame him besides—but I would if I had to. "We just figured this out," he said, as if that would make any difference. He needed out of the War Room, at least for a few hours, and in his heart he knew it. He soon gave up physical resistance and settled for verbal protests, which I paid as much heed as they deserved. "Yes, John," I said, like a mother quieting a noisy child. "Of course, John, whatever you say, John." And then we were out, and I felt as if we could both breathe freely for the first time in over a week. I kept tight hold of him as I pulled him into the lift. "There," I said as the doors slid shut. "It is a start."

The scowl he gave me was not convincing; his lips kept twitching, as if he were trying not to laugh. So long as we were out of there, I didn't mind if he amused himself at my expense. "So where are we going?" he said.

I moved closer, but spoke in a tone that brooked no opposition. "We are going to your quarters, where you will shower and then nap for at least an hour. Then we will see about food, and after that we will attend Reverend Dexter's gospel service. And then you are going back home and to sleep. All night."

"By myself?" he said, too innocently.

It took a moment for his meaning to come clear. Then I felt my face grow warm. "John Sheridan. Don't try to get round me. There's no point. You are going to shower, and rest, and eat, and be somewhere other than the War Room at least until tomorrow. There is nothing left to be said."

His eyes sparkled. "If I told you you're cute when you're mad, I'm guessing you'd hit me."

I gave him a look, mock anger through slitted eyes. "Don't tempt me."

"Okay," he said, suddenly meek. He leaned against the back wall of the lift and let out a sigh that held all the weariness of a hundred sleepless years. Then he pulled me to him and rested his cheek on the top of my head. "Ow," he murmured, and shifted slightly so that the tip of my bone crest was no longer poking him. "Forgot about that."

I could feel how tired he was. I hugged him gently back, doing my best to smile up at him without moving my head. "Every relationship has its drawbacks."

"S'okay." He sounded half-asleep standing up. "I'll take this one anyway."

"So will I." Forever and ever and always…

We held each other in silent contentment until the lift doors opened near our destination.

ooOoo

He tried to leave me at his door, arguing that he could perfectly well shower and nap without aid, but I was having none of it. "I am going to make sure you do as you are told."

"You don't trust me?" he said as he punched in his entry code.

"Not in the slightest, when you think you are needed somewhere." The door swung open, and I gently pushed him through it. "In. Shower. Time to relax. I will stay until you are asleep." The thought of watching him in slumber crossed my mind—a delicious, half-guilty pleasure—but an hour's nap hardly counted toward the watching ritual, and I had pushed the boundaries of that quite enough as it was.

He stopped in the middle of his sitting-room. "What are you going to do with yourself for an hour?"

"You have books. I can surely find something with which to entertain myself."

"I'm being nursemaided," he grumbled, but obediently headed toward his bedroom.

"Yes, you are." I raised my voice as he slid the bedroom doors shut behind him. "And I expect to hear that shower in the next five minutes."

I wandered over to the laden bookshelf, keeping an ear out for the sound of running water. John liked print volumes and had several of varying sizes, on an eclectic array of subjects: jump-gate physics, Earth history from various periods, the origins of baseball. My hand hovered over that one—John loved the game, and I thought I should learn more about it—but I felt more inclined toward poetry, or perhaps a story of some sort. He had a sizable collection of fiction, and I amused myself for another minute or two scanning titles, until it dawned on me that there was no sound of the shower running.

I turned toward the bedroom and called his name. There was no answer. Exasperated, and a touch concerned, I went to the doors. "John?"

Still no answer. Was he all right in there? Worry outweighed any other considerations. I opened the doors and went in.

He was lying down, snoring gently. He had gotten his boots off before succumbing; they sat on the floor next to his bed, one upright and the other tipped over. His face in repose was open, innocent, vulnerable.

I had to make myself look away. A slow count in my head, eyes fixed on a framed photograph of the planet Jupiter that hung on the wall, restored some self-control. At the foot of the bed was a folded coverlet, hand-woven from thick strands of colored yarn. I shook it out and laid it over him, smoothing it across his shoulders and chest. The temptation to touch him further was too strong to resist. I laid my hand against his cheek. He murmured and turned toward it, but did not wake.

Without giving myself time to think, I leaned down and kissed his forehead. Then I left the room, closing the doors behind me.