I don't own Babylon 5, sadly.

The Time Loop of Babylon 4.

The sign Earthforce had shown was "Greatest adventure of all," and while he'd certainly had dozens of great adventures in his time and his career, although a lot of the things he had seen and done were hardly adventures, nor great - the mess with the Black Star during the war, losing Anna because of his damn career, watching for himself what Earth was becoming over the last decade while in the background the disease that was President Clark was lurking behind twisted things like Homeguard, Psi-Corps, and god knew what else before it culminated in his decision to follow the example of Mars and Proxima 3, and break away from Earth.

Sheridan certainly expected there would be a reckoning with Clark. The President knew the importance of Babylon 5; the station was the centre of Earth's diplomatic contact with the alien governments out there. He would not want to lose it, no matter how xenophobic he was. Sheridan knew Clark, despite his clear distrust and paranoia over aliens which spilt into outright lying - that bullshit about Earth being placed under martial law in order to protect the populace from the threat of invasion was one of the most pathetic lies he had heard in his life and career yet - needed Babylon 5, although what he planned to do with it, Sheridan had no idea. But he knew Clark was definitely under the influence of the Shadows and he had links with Morden if that clip of Clark's gloating confession of being involved with the conspiracy behind the assassination of President Santiago was anything to go by.

Why hadn't Clark attacked? If he was under the influence of the Shadows, it stood to reason Clark was receiving the same level of intelligence Londo and the other Centauri who met with the Shadow's agents, and so he would know about the slow but sure fight Babylon 5 was giving to the Shadows. The only logical explanation was Clark had been told to focus his actions elsewhere, but the problem was why?

The Shadows seemed to love creating chaos and destruction, surely breaking away from Earth, openly rebelling against their own government and taking a stand warranted some kind of attack?

Sheridan was not relishing the thought of another Earthforce fleet charging through hyperspace and attacking Babylon 5 again. The first time had been painful enough; he had known many of the captains of the vessels that had attacked, and he knew for some of them what they were being forced to do must have been painful, but because, as Major Ryan had told him and the command staff when the Alexander arrived at the station shortly before they broke away from Earth, Clark had spent a full year moving his people into places of power and authority and if anyone spoke up they were charged with treason.

Sheridan hated the thought of his friends and colleagues going through that hell, and while he understood the idea of keeping quiet and finding another way of fighting back against Clark, he hoped something happened. He also wished he knew what was going on back home. Information was hard to come across thanks to the restrictions and the embargo. The alien contractors could only bring in so much.

But this was one 'adventure' he had never expected.

The mystery behind the disappearance of Babylon 4 was one of the biggest mysteries of the last decade. The station had vanished almost as soon as it went online. It had just disappeared without any kind of trace, warning, or even a distress call. Investigators had found traces of tachyons in the region, a very high count, but nothing that explained the disappearance of Babylon 4. Two years ago, the station reappeared with its construction crew believing it was 2254.

Sinclair himself, along with Garibaldi, had led a rescue team. It was, as the now ambassador claimed "a close call," and now he'd experienced it for himself, what he had gone through on the station, considering the time stabiliser he'd worn on his belt had been damaged by the blast of the fusion bomb the Shadows had nearly used to destroy Babylon 4, Sheridan could well and believe it. He also deeply sympathised with the crew of Babylon 4; As far as they were concerned the trip was instantaneous. When he was young, Sheridan had read HG Well's The Time Machine, but he had never imagined time travel was real. But it was.

Time travel was not only real, Sheridan himself along with Susan, Delenn, Lennier, Marcus, Sinclair (now he knew the truth of the haunted but philosophical ambassador, and his destiny Sheridan wondered what more the universe had waiting to surprise him and his friends) had actually travelled through time.

It was nothing like you'd find in vids or books. Apparently, you needed the Great Machine on Epsilon 3 to push tachyons into a point in space, and then use them to punch a rift there while using anchoring devices to stop yourselves from becoming 'unstuck' in time. Sheridan shuddered as he remembered being yanked through time, to different points.

But what haunted him the most was encountering the future version of Londo, who was the Emperor of the Centauri; he had known Londo had ambitions, but he hadn't expected them to go that far.

Somehow Sheridan was unsurprised the Centauri were paying the price for their alliance with the Shadows; he and the others in the alliance had been seeing the results of the races influenced by the Shadows who forced them to go to war with each other. The Shadows had shown their true colours, launching their attacks on the Brakiri before Sheridan had persuaded the Vorlons through Kosh to intervene.

Sheridan would not think about the consequences; while he hadn't known Kosh very well, the ancient Vorlon had enriched the station with his presence even if he could have done so much more, and Sheridan was uncertain how to take Kosh's dream where he took on the appearance of his own father.

But the destruction of Centauri Prime…

Sheridan was unsure of how to take it, but regardless of what the Centauri had done to the Narn in the war and what they were doing right now, they did not deserve that. He had been yanked from one point in time to another while Zathras had repaired the stabiliser, but he was still haunted by Delenn telling him "Do not go to Z'ha'dum!"

Would he go to the Shadow homeworld, or not? He didn't know. He would have to think about this a little more, but there was time for that. He hoped.

At the moment he was busy thinking about the revelations which had been revealed about the truth of the fate of Babylon 4. Susan had told them all the earlier hypothesis was Babylon 4 had been drawn into the future. But it wasn't. No, Babylon 4 had been sent to the past, about a thousand years ago, to the Shadow war.

Delenn regularly referred to the war. She had described how the Shadows had been driven from Z'ha'dum, and a great deal of her knowledge of the Shadows, the First Ones, and the upcoming war that they were now fighting came from that time. But what Sheridan and the others had learnt had been mind-boggling.

Babylon 4 had replaced the Minbari's starbase, and without it, they would never have had the means of launching a full-time war. Sheridan, as a military tactician, understood only too well the importance of having a starbase to concentrate and organise forces; the homeworld was too vulnerable, and it would be too far to do good. Okay, Sheridan and the others might have accidentally triggered the stations' disappearance after travelling backwards in time six years, but it was an accident.

Besides, it had happened. Who were they to dismiss history? And yet Sheridan was having trouble coming to grips with the fact the whole mess with Babylon 4 was a massive loop.

He just found it difficult to believe - and he wasn't sure if it was because of his human understanding or not - that this loop was perpetual; Babylon 4 would appear in the past, a thousand years before shortly after the Minbari realised they were doomed to lose the war against the Shadows; Valen would take control, forming not only the Rangers and forming the Grey Council along with the rules which had guided Minbari society for the past millennia; the Earth-Minbari war would take place and Sinclair would be captured on the Battle of the Line and it would be discovered he had a Minbari soul forcing the Minbari to surrender when they were close to victory (Sheridan truly did not want to even think about what would have happened if it didn't happen); the Babylon Project would be activated to ensure they weren't nearly wiped out ever again; after the mess with Clark and the discovery telepaths dampened Shadow technology, Sinclair would return and they went to save Babylon 4.

Sheridan had fought complex battles in the past but this was perhaps the most memorable, and the most influential.

But what surprised Sheridan the most was the revelation that Jeffrey Sinclair was Valen, the legendary Minbari leader. Sheridan had heard little bits about Valen ever since the Minbari opened up their borders and their culture and history leaked out, but meeting the man for himself was something he hadn't expected, and truthfully he wasn't sure what to think.

Valen was Jeffrey Sinclair. Marcus had said it better, "a Minbari not born of Minbari."

Now they knew what that meant. Valen had grown up with humans, learnt to think like a human even though he must have known something was up but didn't know what. That along with his experiences had shaped his life, and Sheridan had no doubt in the past, it would serve him well. But at the same time, Sheridan wondered if Valen/Sinclair's soul was in a loop as well.

He hoped not, it must be driving the other man mad.