In Valen's Name
Part 4
= = =
Garibaldi moved mindlessly through dinner, then headed for the compound, where
he knew, Drew would find him. The young man hailed him a moment later, jogging
to catch up. Seeing him, Michael eased himself into a trot, an easy lope that
set him in stride with his colleague by the time the blond had reached him.
They began their nightly run in silence, but by the first turn Michael found his
voice.
"You blew me away this morning, " Michael began at last.
Drew looked puzzled. "Me? What?"
Garibaldi had thought his emotions were under control, but the lump in his
throat told him otherwise. "What you said, in Navain's class." He couldn't
make eye contact.
"Meant it. I am honored. You could have easily told me to fuck off." They
were silent for a time. "Still can, if you've changed your mind," offered Drew.
"No," Garibaldi said with a shake of his head, "just don't know how to start."
The younger man waited a moment or two to see if Garibaldi would continue. "You
said you needed to think. About what?"
Michael smiled in appreciation of the trainee's gentleness. Hesitantly he began
to share his confusion about whether he was meant to be a Ranger, his
frustration with the training, his failure.
"I don't think it all came together for me until last night. You know Delenn is
here? I got called down, right before dinner. She was with Durhan and Ardret
and Navain when I got there, although they beat it out right away. I figured I
was getting the hook.
"Delenn tried to be civil about it, tried to be kind. She was asking questions
-- god, I don't even remember now what question it was that set me off -- but
the next thing I knew I was yelling about how the training had nothing to do
with what it really took to be a Ranger, and how I hadn't found what I came
looking for. I lost it. I told her if she was going to scrub me, to just do
it, and get it over with."
"And ... ?" Drew asked when Michael lapsed into silence again.
"And then," Garibaldi answered, "she made one of those cryptic Minbari comments
that tells you these people spend altogether too much time with the Vorlons.
And the meeting was over."
"That's it?" Drew looked perplexed. To Garibaldi's "yup", he responded with
another question. "So what did you do? I saw you at dinner, but you
disappeared right after."
"I took off to the chapel, to try to sort things out. Maybe that was the
mistake. All I could think about was how I've screwed up my life again. That's
the only thing I've ever been good at: fucking up. I couldn't take anymore. I
went back to the barracks and packed my bag. I was on my way down to Tuzanor,
to get the first transport out."
He stopped, unsure whether he ought to share the conversation with Navain.
Would he betray a confidence if he did so?
"But you didn't leave, " Drew said softly. "Why?"
A chill ran through Garibaldi as he heard Navain's voice in his head. "Yet you
remain ... Perhaps you need to ask yourself why." He slowed to a walk and his
companion matched the pace.
Why did he stay? Because of Navain? The teacher was a good part of his reason
for leaving. Did a few stories change so much?
"I guess," Michael said at last, "because I can't bring myself to make a liar
out of Jeff." He had to laugh at the flimsiness of the reason. But there was
truth there, as well. "Jeff believed I could do this, believed I would do this.
I owe it to him to at least understand why I can't. It's not fair to just walk
away." He turned to look at Drew. "Does that make any sense?"
The blond nodded, staring thoughtfully at the ground as they walked. "His faith
in you has been important. That was obvious this morning." Drew tested the
waters with a sidelong glance. "Thank you for sharing that story." They walked
a while more. "So ... " he asked cautiously, " ... do you understand?"
Michael struggled with the question a while, then tried to sort out what little
he did understand. "I realized last night when I talked to Delenn that I came
here looking for something, something bigger than training in this and classes
in that." His pace quickened. "I've worked with the Rangers for nearly three
years. I've seen who they are, what they are. I came here to be a part of
that. But ... " The rest was a jumble.
"A part of what, Michael?" Drew asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What
makes a Ranger? Who are they?" He hung open-mouthed in wait for Garibaldi's
answer.
The words 'delight, respect, compassion' ran through Garibaldi's head, provoking
a smile, but not escaping into the conversation. The real answers took longer
to form, distilled from the images of countless Rangers who had reported to him.
"They're people of honor and integrity ... " Michael shaped the words slowly,
seeing their faces before him. " ... courageous ... " He shook his head. "
... but not foolhardy. They've seen the Light and the Darkness and they've
chosen the Light. They know how fragile and how precious it is." His body
hunched inward to protect the unseen flame. "Nothing is more important to them
than preserving and defending that Light." For a moment, just a moment, Michael
thought he heard the fire.
The younger man was wide-eyed, awed by the words echoing in his brain. "God,
Michael, that's a beautiful definition," he said reverently. "We walk in the
dark places no others will enter. They've seen the Light and the Darkness. We
stand on the bridge and no one may pass. Nothing is more important than
preserving and defending that light. The words are different but the meaning is
the same." He stopped and studied Garibaldi with a look near to horror. "You
came looking for that. You mean you don't feel you've found it ?"
The urge to flee seized Garibaldi, a panicked desire not to have this
conversation. He shook his head desperately from side to side, avoiding Drew's
eyes. The blond sucked his breath in sharply and turned to walk again. Michael
forced himself to fall into step.
"But where? Where does it break down, Michael?" Drew's words were choked by
disbelief, strangled by the refusal to believe.
"What?" Garibaldi froze in place. "What do you mean?"
"Listen to your own words, Michael," Drew pleaded. "Measure yourself against
them. Where do you come up short?" The gaze that searched Michael's face
prayed he would have no answer.
His eyes were on the man who asked the question but Michael was seeing something
else. Mars, through the distorting lens of the bottle. Mars, in the
controlling tidiness of the Edgars compound. Mars, in the bar room strobe
light. Mars, as the mind-shattering scream echoed in the transport tube. Mars,
the prison of a near dead friend.
Drew's voice was flat as he began a litany. "Aren't you a man of honor? Aren't
you courageous? Aren't you ... "
Garibaldi snapped back from where his mind had been reaching and saw the young
man before him as if for the first time. "What?"
"The first thing you said about the Rangers was that they were people of honor.
Doesn't that describe you, Michael?" It was a challenge, a prod, a prayer.
Drew stepped a little closer, his hands held out before him, as though to steady
a stumbling hero.
"No."
The single syllable struck the younger man like a blow, tore through Garibaldi
like a knife. He shook his head hard. "No, damn it, I'm not," he spat, still
answering the original question. "Do you know why PsiCorps grabbed me? Because
they knew what I was, what I am. A drunk, a fuck-up, a crazed, paranoid loser."
He flung an arm up over his head as though to swat the despair, and turned away
from his speechless companion. "They took me because I was already so worthless
there wasn't much they had to do.
"And they went in and made it worse," Garibaldi said, spinning to face Drew
again, despair turning to terror. "They screwed with my mind to make it worse."
His jaw twitched as he tasted the horror of it again, and his eyes narrowed as
he saw again the days on station. "I couldn't trust anybody." His voice was
flat; his head shaking numbly from side to side. "I ripped into the people who
were trying to be my friends. Sheridan -- damn it, the shit I gave the Captain
no one should have to put up with." He winced at the bitter taste of shame. "I
rode him about Lorien. I accused him of playing god. I punched him out in
front of the crowd on the Zocalo." The shock he saw in the young man's blue
eyes was cold confirmation of the worthlessness he felt. "I walked out on my
job -- but hey! why not? When have I ever had a job I haven't fucked up on?
He turned to face the city, its moonlit crystal structures shimmering below
them. Wordlessly, Drew approached him. Garibaldi's eyes were tightly shut, but
when he sensed the young man at his elbow he began to speak again, a low
sleepwalker's drone.
"And then I sign on with Edgars. Slime of the galaxy, and I'm doing his dirty
work. Hiding his shit from Zack, who's still trying to be my friend." His eyes
snapped open as he clutched at his skull. Frustration fired through him and he
paced out a tight triangle, a projectile ricocheting endlessly off invisible
walls. "Firing Lyta on his say-so, lying about how I felt about Lise, saying
yeah, yeah, yeah to his crap about the Captain being misguided and a threat and
needing to be stopped."
He stopped in front of Drew, staring into his eyes, seeing him, daring him to
hear the story. "I go and snatch his dad, and hand him over to Edgars. The man
was no part of any of this. A goddamn innocent, but that didn't stop me."
Michael shook his head with a vicious sneer, but he didn't release the young
man's gaze. His voice went cold. "I hunt him down and cage him, and use him as
bait to lure the Captain into a trap. Shit! Boldfaced!"
Anger returned to him, and a disbelief almost matching his listener's. "I lied
straight out to Sheridan, fucking lied, and didn't even blink. I let him trust
me, I asked him to trust me, when I knew, I fucking knew I was signing his death
warrant."
He meant to stop. It was enough, too much. He couldn't do this. It wasn't
fair to the kid. But somehow the images kept forming, coalescing into words,
tearing out of him. He couldn't stop.
"I lured him to Mars," he continued, turning his eyes to the stars, "took him
away from the fleet, put Susan in his place." He could see her broken body, and
Marcus there beside her. "Why kill one friend when you can go for two, right?"
He paused to watch those words shiver through the young man.
"And he came, trusting me, believing I was gonna help him find his dad." A wash
of pain greyed his face and he raised his arms in a gesture somewhere between
prayer and surrender. "The whole fucking bar was Edgars' people. Sheridan
didn't stand a chance. He walked right into it, because of me."
He spit the words out, but the sour taint of self loathing remained. "Right to
the end, he trusted me. And I didn't even hesitate. No guilt, no apologies. I
betrayed him without thinking twice. Judas! " He spun and strode away as the
tears began.
"Michael!" Drew reached an arm out to him, but his feet would not move. He
watched the figure move away and then, suddenly, stop and drop to his knees.
Garibaldi's sobs had slowed by the time the young man reached him. The blond
dropped onto the ground beside him, setting a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Michael?"
Garibaldi looked up into eyes searching for understanding. He knew the risk of
sharing this nightmare with Drew. The kid's illusions were already shattered,
and if Michael went on it could drive the young man away for good, but it was
too late now, far too late to stop. He could walk away if he wanted to, but the
story needed to be told, spoken aloud, if only for the night sky and Michael's
soul to hear.
"I drugged him," Michael explained coldly, watching for reaction in the young
man's eyes. "He tried to fight his way out, when he finally realized what I'd
done to him, he tried to fight his way out. But I drugged him." The cruel edge
in Garibaldi's voice brought fear to Drew's face, fear Michael recognized all
too well. "He couldn't even stand, much less fight. And there were so many of
them, so goddamn many. Everywhere." He clamped his eyes shut again and clawed
at his head. Drew's reaction no longer mattered. Nothing did. Nothing but
confession.
"He never had a chance. They pounded him. He tried so hard, so hard to fight
back." The tears were back. He winced, the memory of Sheridan's courage
compounding his shame. "In spite of the tranq, he kept getting up, fighting
back. And they just kept beating on him. Punching, kicking. They didn't have
to. Damn, they could have just grabbed him and carried him out. He was so
fucking outnumbered." Garibaldi's eyes begged his friend to help him make sense
of it all, but in Drew's face he found only horror. Michael nodded when he saw
that. He may as well know the truth.
"They beat on him, beat him down, crushed him." Michael snorted, a caustic
leering laugh. "Shit. They liked it. It was a party to them."
Again the laugh, but this time transmogrified into a sob, the first of many.
Drew's left hand squeezed the shoulder where it still rested while the right
reached up to touch Michael's face. But Garibaldi would not be comforted. With
a roar he shoved the hand away and folded himself in on his grief. Moving
himself in front of the tormented man, Drew settled down, his knees touching
Michael's, his hands gently caressing Garibaldi's shoulders. He shed a few
tears of his own as he let Michael cry.
Garibaldi did not raise his head when he spoke again, did not open his eyes.
His hands dropped to his knees and his body sank in sadness. "And there I was,
his friend, the one he trusted, there I was, watching. Watching him fall,
watching him hurt, watching him get the life kicked out of him." Memories
filled with remorse, memories he would give his life to change, but couldn't.
"And I did nothing. Nothing. I sat there and let them kill him. I never
raised a hand or a voice to stop them, to save him, to help him." He was bent
nearly double, crushed by grief. "I just sat there and let them."
Drew felt the body tremble under his hands. He watched Michael's torso shudder
as each breath he tried to draw fled from him again. At last Garibaldi
straightened, taking hold of Drew's wrists to pull the hands from his shoulders.
Their eyes met, and the young man paled at the emptiness of Michael's glance.
"Of course, they didn't kill him," Garibaldi said dryly. "They would've if they
could've, but Clark wanted him alive." His voice had the casual air of a man
stating the obvious, but with each word, his grip on Drew's wrists tightened.
"You can't torture a dead man.
"After all that we'd been through, I handed my Captain over to Clark. Clark and
his PsiCops. After all we shared, all we fought for, I gave him to those
bastards." He threw Drew's hands back at him so hard the young man rocked over
backward.
"Michael, you weren't responsible," Drew cried out to him, as both men struggled
to their feet. "It wasn't your fault."
"That's what they all said," Michael snapped, staggering, laughing insanely.
"They all forgave me, said it wasn't my fault." Frenzied, Garibaldi began to
pace. "That's what I said. It's not my fault. It was Bester. It was
PsiCorps. It's not my fault. But it's not true. It was my fault. It is my
fault."
He leaned forward to look up into the frightened blue eyes and snarled, "they
used what was in me. They didn't plant something that had never been there
before. The anger, the suspicion, the distrust, the hatred -- it's all there,
was there, still is. Everything it took to betray Sheridan is part of me."
Garibaldi straightened as the horrified trainee reeled back, away from the
venomous hiss of truth. "It could surface again."
Open-mouthed from shock, panting from the emotional workout, Drew gasped out an
attempt at comfort. "No, Michael, that's not going to happen ... "
"How the hell do you know?" Garibaldi screamed. Nose to nose with shuddering
blond, he demanded, "you arrogant ass, how could you possibly know what I might
do? How do I know? I swore to protect my Captain, and instead I led him
straight to hell."
With each backward step the young man took, Garibaldi took one forward, sneering
into his face. "You think mumbling a few words about standing on the bridge is
suddenly going to make some magical difference? I betrayed my CO, my friend."
He backed off a step and spat the words to the ground. "What honor do I have
left?"
Garibaldi stood silent, staring vacantly. There were no tears left. There was
nothing left. Nothing. Nothing left either for his silent companion, yet
another innocent he had dragged down with him.
Michael shook his head sadly at the sight of the kid, studying him, struggling
to understand everything he had heard. Get out of here. See me for what I am
and hate me for it and get out of here while there's still time to save
yourself. But the words would not come out, and the young man did not leave.
Michael Garibaldi did the kindest thing he could think of: he walked away.
"His name is John, isn't it?" Drew's words struck Michael's back and knocked
loose a forgotten sob. He froze, but could not turn back. Drew closed the
distance between them and laid a hand on Michael's back, soothing the wound of
his words. Nervously he stepped up beside Garibaldi, dodging when Michael
turned to look at him. "Michael ... " His voice cracked when he tried to
speak. Exasperated, Garibaldi pushed past him. The younger man scrambled
around him, planted himself in Michael's path, grabbing him by the shoulders
with a startling strength. "No."
Garibaldi glowered at him, knocking his arms away. Drew blocked again, this
time pinning Michael's elbows to his sides. "You can't walk away like this. I
don't pretend to know what to say to you. I don't even know what I feel yet.
But I know you can't walk away, Michael. Not now. Not like this. I can't let
you."
"Why not?" Garibaldi snarled. The stinging pain began in his throat but it
spread: to his eyes, to his chest, to his soul. "Everyone else did." New tears
washed his cheeks, and he surrendered to them. Timidly, Drew stretched his arms
around to cradle Michael, and Michael, exhausted, did not resist. His arms were
limp at his sides. His face dropped down on the young man's shoulder.
Awkwardly at first, then with tenderness, Drew held him and let him cry.
In time Michael wiped his eyes, and they stepped back from the embrace.
Garibaldi mumbled an apology to the ground between their feet. And then he
looked at the kid, still struggling with shock and fear, confusion and anger.
"I'm sorry. I know this wasn't what you bargained for."
Drew whispered out a laugh. "No, I guess it wasn't. But that doesn't change
anything, Michael."
"This changes everything." Michael's voice was steel.
"Isn't it time to get past the excuses?" Drew fired back.
Garibaldi's head jerked back and his eyes widened in rage, but the young man had
a fire in him now too, and he wasn't about to stop. "It's over, Michael. I'm
not trying to deny what you went through, to dilute the horror of what happened.
But it happened -- past tense -- and damn it, you were part of the rescue, too.
Sheridan is alive. Alive and well, and President of the Alliance. And he's
forgiven you, you said that yourself. They all forgave you."
Michael snorted. "Yeah, they forgave me," he muttered. "What does that mean,
if they don't know the truth? They transferred the blame to Bester," he said,
rolling his eyes at the name, "but none of them, none of them saw that it was
me, that he may have been calling the plays, but I was doing it." He curled his
lip in disgust. "They didn't forgive me. They just refused to judge me."
"I know the truth," Drew began, straightening, but Michael cut him off.
"And you forgive me?" He took a step back and looked his companion up and down.
"Come on, kid! I never took you for stupid. Or a liar."
The young man bit down hard on his lower lip. "You rocked me, Michael. Is that
what you want to hear?" He paused, appraising the defensiveness in Garibaldi's
stance. "OK, you've heard it. I don't know what I feel right now, and it'll
probably be a long time before I do. But I know this: whatever wrong you've
done, you've grieved for. You've wanted to right it, tried to make it right."
Garibaldi looked away, and the young man, brazen now, stepped around him into
his line of sight. "It's not my place to forgive you, Michael, but it's time
you forgave yourself."
"Never." One word, barely audible, carried infinite sadness.
"Coward!" Drew spat back. He caught hold of Garibaldi's left hand an inch
before it hit his face.
"I'm going to throw your own words at you, Michael," Drew said defiantly,
releasing the trembling arm. "They've seen the Light and the Darkness and
they've chosen the Light. They know how fragile and how precious it is.
Nothing is more important to them than preserving and defending that Light." He
pronounced the words slowly, drawing them up from his memory, startling Michael
by his ability to recall them.
"All right! You've seen the darkness, Michael, yes, but you've seen the light
too. All you can do, all any of us can do, is to choose the light. It doesn't
make the darkness go away, doesn't make the light any less fragile." He stared
into the blazing blue of Michael's eyes, watching the shifting emotion there.
"But you fight for it, struggle for it, even when you're losing, even when you
are the enemy. That's where the courage comes in."
Michael Garibaldi was shaking. Fury, shame, despair, exhaustion, all now
contended within him, making his heart pound, his breathing ragged. His limbs
throbbed, his head ached, his eyes were swollen. Mindlessly he clenched and
unclenched his fists as his arms hung limp at his sides. When he finally spoke,
his voice was slurred.
"Maybe I don't have the courage either."
The response shocked Drew -- Garibaldi could see that -- but it no longer
mattered. He was no hero. If that made the kid angry, so be it. He wasn't
looking for forgiveness.
The young man turned his head from side to side, a slow, exaggerated shake of
disgust. "No honor, no courage," he said sadly. "Maybe Sinclair was wrong
about you."
"Maybe he was."
Garibaldi shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked slowly back to the
barracks. He would sleep. Beyond that he could see nothing.
= = =
The scream reached him first. From far off, from a pinpoint of light lost deep
in the blackness of space, the scream reached him. It was terror and
helplessness and the searing frustration of one whose life was no longer his
own. It was the last desperate cry of a soul slipping away. It was his own
voice.
"Michael!"
He cried out to himself but he could not answer. He searched the blackness but
there were no stars. There was nothing. Nothing left.
"Michael!"
Something in him struggled, fought against the numbness. His body was leaden,
his brain sluggish. Only a sliver of soul remained to resist the enveloping
darkness. A tiny something that fought its way to the light.
"Michael, wake up!"
Jhevnak stood over him, shaking him hard. Garibaldi blinked against the
multiple assaults of daylight in his eyes and young Minbari's voice in his face.
He wanted only to push it all away, but his limbs did not answer readily to his
mind's desires. Rousing slowly, he regained control of arms and legs as deeply
asleep as moments ago he had been. Still fully dressed, right to the boots, he
lay sprawled across the bed just as he had fallen there the night before. He
propped himself, with great effort, on his elbows, and began to focus on
Jhevnak's voice.
"... you did not come down to breakfast, we were concerned, but did not wish to
invade your privacy. When you failed to attend class we felt we must intrude.
Michael, are you ill?"
"No, " Michael answered, still trying to clear his head. "No! I'm not sick. I
just overslept." He swung his leaden legs over the side of the bed and cursed
himself for not having kicked off the boots. Sitting up slowly, he looked
around the tiny room. "We?"
Jhevnak did not appear to notice the query. "You are late, Michael. We must
hurry."
Garibaldi was not about to hurry anywhere just now. "You go on without me ...
"
"It is kind of you to think of me, Michael," Jhevnak said, extending a hand to
Garibaldi, "but right now we have a class."
Michael accepted the aid as he got to his feet. "And you shouldn't be missing
it. Certainly not for me. Go on now. I'll be there as soon as I clean up."
The Minbari hesitated, waited for Michael to make eye contact. "You are
coming?" he asked, a sad suspicion in his voice.
Michael tipped his head back, pressing his lips together in a thin smirk of
recognition. "Yes. I'll be there," he confirmed with a nod of resignation. "I
just need a few minutes." Jhevnak gave a small bow -- a gesture Michael
awkwardly returned -- and strode from the room.
"Jhevnak?" Michael's voice stopped him at the door. "Thank you," Garibaldi
said as their eyes met.
= = =
He would have expected to feel better than this after a night's sleep, Garibaldi
thought as he joined the other trainees on the obstacle course. He'd missed the
Adronato lesson completely, which didn't feel like a loss right now, and he
wasn't sure why he was here at all, except that it mattered to Jhevnak. That
wasn't enough, he knew, but he had no reason to go either, nor a place to go.
Inertia manifest; entropy at work.
He went through the motions of the obstacle course, thoughtlessly, carelessly,
joylessly. He kept to himself when he could, interacting only with those who
could not be avoided. For one awkward moment his eyes met Drew's but the width
of the course separated them, and neither tried to hold the glance.
If only Jhevnak could have let him sleep through Navain's class. How was he
supposed to behave toward the teacher today? Their conversation felt like a
lifetime ago. How many times had the world turned upside down in the last --
what?-- two days?
Navain proposed a situation to the group, a confrontation with an enemy.
Questions were raised about the meaning of respect for one's enemy, of what it
meant to be an enemy, of justice, and revenge, and compassion. There was much
discussion, noted the corner of Michael's brain that was actually listening, but
no resolution.
Given his lack of attention, the question was embarrassing. "Have you anything
to add, Michael?" Navain had never put him on the spot like this before. Why
now?
Still, he was too numb to be resentful. He shook his head. "No."
"You have faced an enemy, have you not?" Navain pressed him.
Garibaldi scowled and made no attempt to hide it. "Yes."
The teacher nodded along with him. "And you have no thoughts on the question?"
Saving face was meaningless now, and Garibaldi was too tired to play games. "I
don't know what the question is."
From the other side of the room came the voice of a trainee. "When the battle
is over, must the enemy be destroyed?"
A cruel laugh escaped Michael. "If the enemy isn't destroyed, the battle isn't
over."
"You don't believe that peace is possible?" asked another voice.
He was shooting from the hip. "I've never known it."
The Minbari woman from their lunch table objected. "But what about our peoples?
We have made peace."
Diplomacy be damned. "Truce. All you ever get is a truce. A watchful cease-
fire. An uneasy truce. You notice no one ever talks about an easy truce?"
"Then you would destroy me?" asked Jhevnak coldly.
Michael flinched. "I didn't say that."
"Didn't you?" the Minbari insisted.
"You're not my enemy." Garibaldi squashed his annoyance, and looked to Jhevnak
with a pleading glance. It was, he realized, himself he was annoyed with, and
he wished he could erase all of this.
"Who is?" Drew's voice fired the challenge.
Michael halted, open-mouthed, just before the words "I am" could escape. "I'm
sorry," he said in a wave of embarrassment, "this is coming out all wrong."
"It is important that it come out, not that we judge it." Navain interjected.
Garibaldi looked at him accusingly, angered that the teacher had begun this.
Navain seemed about to speak again, but Jhevnak pressed the point.
"Earth and Minbar went to war. Humans and Minbari were enemies." The young
Minbari challenged his friend. "You say the battle is not over unless the enemy
is destroyed, yet neither Humans nor Minbari have been destroyed, so, by your
logic, our battle is not over. We are enemies." His eyes dared Michael to
respond.
"We've gotten past that," Michael slung back, trying to fight his way out of
this corner.
"How?" Jhevnak was not about to let him escape.
"We live together, work together," Michael answered, his arms waving in a
gesture that included the whole group in the statement. "We know one another.
We're not faceless pilots in fighters with the wrong markings." His eyes were
on Jhevnak. "We have become friends."
"So change is possible?" It was Navain's voice.
"Yes." Garibaldi replied with irritation. Life is change. Stupid question.
"Redemption?" Navain asked gently.
Michael shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes," he answered suspiciously.
Navain had one more question. "Forgiveness?"
A small muscle on the right side of Garibaldi's jaw twitched as he bit his lower
lip. He pushed back in his chair, looking around with a nervous smirk and
arched eyebrow. Forcing out a hollow sounding chuckle, he tried to be casually
flippant. "Forgiveness? That's when you kiss and make up so you can gang up on
the new guy you found to blame, right?"
No one laughed. Enraged to feel himself blushing, Garibaldi leaned forward
again and let his head drop. No one spoke, but the noise of his heart pounding
wouldn't have let him hear them anyway. He fought for his control, speaking at
last through gritted teeth, but still refusing to yield.
He looked straight at Navain. "To answer your question, yes, I suppose
forgiveness is possible, but I don't think it happens very often." His gaze
shifted left to Jhevnak, there beside the teacher. "We go forward, because we
have to." Raising his voice a little, he let his eyes skim over the group
listening so intently to him. "We work out ways to do that in spite of the
wounds." And there was Drew. "But the wounds are still there, they still
throb, and sooner or later, somehow or another, you pay."
No one responded. Michael had nothing more to say and no more wish to let
Navain provoke him. He dropped his gaze and tried not to notice the silence.
At last the teacher spoke. "We must end for today. Perhaps we can speak more
about this another time."
Even as the group moved out to lunch there was a hush over them. Garibaldi
remained in his chair, waiting awkwardly for the others to leave, hoping no one
would speak to him, trying to understand what he must do next.
= = =
He had little appetite for lunch or the company it would mean. He left the
classroom building and struck out alone across the compound, into the hills that
rose beyond the camp. He followed the first path he saw, climbing the crystal
formations, finding signs of life in his body again, letting his mind go numb.
He felt the large muscles in his arms and legs warming with the movement, his
rib cage expanding and contracting as his breathing deepened. From high
overhead a brilliant sun reflected off the crystalline rock, heating the air to
a shimmering dryness. Michael felt the slick of sweat spread over his skin, a
welcome, cleansing sheen. His hungry inhalations were audible now, their rhythm
in time with the motion of arms and legs, a rhythm he struggled to hold even
when the path became steep or obstructed by outcroppings of rock. The ground
felt good beneath his feet, solid rock, yielding soil.
His mind was quiet, aware only of the corporeal experience, the sight and sound
and smell and touch and taste of this moment in this place. It was pleasant and
strangely calming, not a somnambulant soothing but the energizing harmony of
meditation. He was grateful to be here, thankful for this place and the
opportunity to enjoy it. He felt giddy from the intensity of it, the watery
blues of the crystal formations, the orange -- no, oranges -- of the flowers:
bittersweet, tangerine, apricot, salmon, pumpkin, flame. Drunk with the
sensation, Michael reveled in the realization that, unlike an alcohol-induced
torpor, this high left him feeling keen, crisp, ready for any crisis.
Garibaldi scrambled over a rough section of rock, losing his footing and falling
hard. He winced as a sharp edge of rock dug into already bruised ribs, but
pulled himself to his feet and returned to the mantra of his breath. Falling
and getting up again. It wasn't so hard when there was a rhythm to fall back
into. His quadriceps burned with the exertion of the climb. When there was
work to do, some thing, some job you could do, to prove yourself, to repair, to
repay, redemption was possible; hard work, but possible.
The path lost itself here, no longer clearly defined by the footfalls of those
who had come before. With no clear direction, each step was a new choice. It
was harder now to keep the pace. His demanding lungs pounded the rhythm as his
innate stubbornness drove him to move in time. He chose, and chose again,
moving his feet, one with each breath, not waiting to consider where the choice
would take him.
Until the cliff.
Faced with nowhere to go except straight down, or back as he had come, he
retraced his steps, examining his choices, wondering which had been the crucial
one, the turning point. Choices. Mindless, thoughtless choices, but choices
just the same, and because of them, now there was nothing to do but to go back
and start over.
From where the path dissolved, he tried again, still pushing himself, but
humbler and more thoughtful now. This new route was a rough scramble, on hands
and knees, over jagged rock, on foot, jumping crevices. Difficult this climb
was, exhilarating but not without its terrors. But it was the right course.
At the summit, high above the Ranger camp, he stopped. Arms and legs fidgeted
and twitched in protest, crying out against the curtailed motion. His eyes
swept the camp laid out to view below him, their pendulum motion slowly
narrowing to the arc between the Entil'Zha's quarters and the temple that housed
Valen's statue.
Valen, and Jeff Sinclair, those two who somehow embodied the Rangers,
personified what he now aspired to be. Valen. Minbari not born of Minbari.
Who was he, behind the legends? The great leader, the near god, who appeared,
seemingly from nowhere, just when he was needed, knowing and doing all that was
necessary to unite the Minbari, and win the great war. Valen, the creator of
the Rangers, who defined the role and the regimen they still followed a thousand
years later, who seemed to simply disappear again, the rest of his life a
mystery.
And Jeff Sinclair. His Commander, and his friend. The man who had faith in
him, trusted him, when no one else did, not even himself. The man who gave him
a chance, a chance he hadn't earned and didn't deserve, a chance to prove
himself, to redeem himself, to believe in himself. The chance he grabbed at, in
spite of Lise's fury. The chance that looked like it could change his life, or
let him change his life. Jeff would tell him it was all in his hands.
Sinclair, so suddenly gone, so impossible to reach. Sinclair, who entrusted the
knowledge of the Rangers to him, once again, from afar, putting his faith in his
friend. Sinclair who hid his plans for Babylon 4, enlisting Sheridan in the
deception, to prevent Michael from going with him, leaving him instead with the
message inscribed now in Michael's heart. Jeff Sinclair, who stayed on Babylon
4, taking it back through the time rift, back to Minbar in the time of the great
war against the Shadows, back to the time ...
... of Valen.
Michael Garibaldi folded himself down to sit cross legged on the ground. Images
of Delenn's chrysalis flashed before him, cross cut with memories of his
conversations with those who had gone with Jeff to Babylon 4. Could he find it
in his skeptic's soul to believe the whispered claims? Minbari not born of
Minbari. Born of humans? A human carrying a Minbari soul? But why? Why Jeff?
Why not?
'Yes' was too far to reach, but for the first time, he found he could entertain
a 'maybe.' Maybe it was possible, maybe in some crazy way, Jeff and Valen were
one and the same. Whether he believed it changed very little. It might be
easier to accept Jeff's leaving, both the first departure to Minbar and the
ultimate farewell from Babylon 4. If Jeff had a destiny perhaps Michael could
understand his leaving. Perhaps, but why hadn't he let Michael go with him?
Unless he believed Michael had his own destiny.
He couldn't have known, of course, all that would happen after he went back.
Perhaps the Michael Garibaldi that Jeff knew did have some destiny, but that
Michael was gone, lost in the nightmare of the last year. Jeff could not have
foreseen what he would do, what he would become. No one could. Squinting
against the thought, he threw his head back and let loose a cynical chuckle. If
Sheridan could have seen the future he would have made certain Michael went with
Jeff. Could even Jeff believe in him now? Could even Jeff forgive him?
Unfolding his legs, Michael hugged them to his chest, rocking gently. He bent
his head forward, resting his forehead on his knees, eyes closed, enjoying for
just a moment longer the messages from his senses. All his muscles rippled as
he hauled himself to his feet, and began the downward walk.
Scrambling up had been strenuous; scrambling down was treacherous. Garibaldi
moved delicately over the rocks and vegetation, slipping in spite of his care,
sliding down the rocks. Even when he reached the path he found the pitch of the
incline a hazard that required some fancy dancing to keep his feet under him.
Never much of a dancer, he was grateful when the grade began to ease. He
stretched out into a normal stride, letting his arms swing comfortably at his
sides.
It was a small thing, a stone in the path, he thought, though it happened so
fast he couldn't be sure. Something caught his foot, causing him to stumble.
He lurched forward, arms out for balance, feet rushing to catch up with his
hurtling body. His right foot found the ground first, but balance eluded him as
his weight came down. The ankle buckled and energy of the fall was translated
sideways, tangling up his legs as he clutched at the air. The clump of
vegetation at the edge of the path could not support his floundering, and he
fell, tumbling wildly down the hillside.
Old instincts made him tuck, roll, protect his head, but a newfound calm allowed
him to ride out the experience. He made no frantic grabs at rock formations, no
desperate digging in to stop his fall. He simply let it happen, while a corner
of his mind marveled. It hurt; he would not pretend otherwise. Every inch of
him seemed to find some rock to crash down upon, adding new layers of bruises to
the denn'bok's work. Still, he didn't need to panic. He had fallen before,
probably would again, and this would stop in its own time.
It did stop -- he did stop -- a good deal later and lower on the hill that he
would have liked. He lay still there curled as he was into a little bundle,
just waiting for his breath to return. When the burning in his lungs subsided,
he began to inventory his body, gingerly moving first legs, then arms, then back
and neck. All systems reported in as functioning.
Reassured that he had survived the fall without major damage, Michael rolled
over and stretched his body out on the ground. He lay there quietly just a
moment longer, wondering if this long, hard fall were an omen for the journey he
knew he had to undertake. Folding his arms behind his head, and laughing at his
own superstition, he resolved to get up and be on his way. For the first time,
he opened his eyes to see where he was.
The hand was the first thing he saw. Garibaldi's eyes moved from the pale,
strong, open hand above him up the arm of the Ranger uniform to the brooding
blue eyes peeking from under the shock of golden hair. Drew was unsmiling, and
made no attempt to speak, only stood there, hand extended to a fallen comrade.
Michael wondered how long he had been there, and why he was here on the
hillside, and most of all, what he was thinking and feeling right now.
Searching the young man's eyes for some hint of an answer, Garibaldi was
ambushed by the range and the depth of his own emotions. Anger, shame,
ferocious pride, sadness, hope, and an oddly poignant gratitude tumbled within
him like puppies in a basket.
Why was this hand offered? And what would accepting it say? He waited,
uncertain, silently begging Drew to say something, anything that would move them
through this moment. No offer of words was made, nor was the extended help
withdrawn, and tentatively, Michael reached up and clasped the young man's hand.
Their eyes met for a moment, Michael's full of questions, Drew's yielding no
answers. Garibaldi planted his feet and a heartbeat later, by their common
effort, he was standing face to face with the young trainee.
Hands still clasped, they stood in the afternoon sun. Michael wanted to speak
his thanks, to ask so many questions. But what questions? Are we friends
still? Again? So trite. So true. He wanted to erase the whole conversation,
to make believe it never happened, and to tell Drew how profoundly grateful he
was that they had had it. He wanted to tell the kid to drop him, to find
someone else to look up to, and beg him not to leave. He wanted to thank his
comrade for his faith, his confidence, and scratch out these eyes that saw him
for what he was. None of the words would come. He tightened his grip on the
young man's hand and was answered with a trace of a smile. Their hands dropped
and with a nod, they went each on his own way.
= = =
Garibaldi made for the barracks, brushing himself off as he went. This would
not take long, but the sooner done the better. He collected a few items from
his room and throwing them into a bag, started to Tuzanor at a jog.
Halfway across the compound he pulled up short. One last thing to take care of
here. He slipped quietly into the temple, let his eyes adjust to the half-
light, and approached the statue of Valen.
The highly stylized carving was merely a suggestion of an image: the Minbari
bone crest, the flowing cape of the Entil'Zha, and a detailed carving of the
Ranger pin, were the only clearly focused features. The rest was obscure, and
no one would dare to say from this what Valen looked like. Michael Garibaldi
knew that, and knew that what he was doing was foolish. Still he studied the
face of Valen looking for Jeff Sinclair.
He spoke aloud at last, a soft voice in the soft light filtering through the
crystal panes, but he spoke without thought of embarrassment at being overheard.
"I don't know if it's you, Jeff. And I don't know -- whether it's you or not --
if there's anyway you can know what I'm saying, what I'm feeling right now. But
I wanted to thank you. I don't think I ever did, really. You trusted me,
believed in me. You gave me a chance, a lot of chances, to be the man you
believed I could be. I should have thanked you for that a long time ago." He
shook his head sadly.
"I'm sorry I never told you how much that meant to me, how much you meant to
me." He caught himself gesturing, and shoved his hands down into his pockets.
A quick glance assured him he was alone. "Your friendship was the one solid
thing in my life, and to wake up and find you gone was like having the ground
fall out from under me. I was angry, Jeff, angry and scared."
Hunching his shoulders, Garibaldi began to walk, pensively tracing a figure
eight on the temple floor. "It took a long time for me to believe I could do it
without you, but it happened. I never stopped missing you, but I made the job
mine, started to call the place home.
"When you brought me in on the Rangers I started to realize you had bigger
things going on than you were talking about. I tried to trust you, Jeff, the
way you trusted me. But when I got your message, when I found out about Babylon
4, Jeff, I was so angry I couldn't see straight. I still don't think I
understand why you wouldn't let me go with you, but maybe, maybe now I
understand why you had to go. "
He stopped now and looked up again at the figure looming above him. "I can
forgive you now, Jeff. It feels stupid to say that -- me forgiving you -- but I
need to say it, and I hope you can understand. I don't know if you have any way
to know all that's happened, what I've done. I don't know if you can ever
forgive me, and it scares the hell out of me to think that if one decision had
gone differently it could have been you I turned on." He shook his head to
empty it of the horrible images.
"There's something I have to do now, Jeff. When that's done, maybe I can come
back here and finish what I started. I'd like to do that." A wry smile crept
up the right side of his face. "I'd like to prove you were right about me," he
said with a chuckle, "but I have to do this first. I hope you can understand
that, Jeff. I hope you can forgive me.
Garibaldi shifted his bag on his shoulder and took a long last look at Valen.
"I miss you, old friend."
His footsteps echoed in the temple's half-light as he strode to the door.
"Michael." The voice was deep, gentle, pleading. Garibaldi stopped and turned
to face its owner, as he spoke again. "You must not leave now. Finish here."
There was no anger in Michael's heart and he found himself surprised by that.
He smiled gently, shaking his head, mouthing a "no." He drew himself up a
little straighter before he spoke. "I want to finish, Sech Navain," Garibaldi
found himself reassuring the teacher. "But there is work I must do first."
Navain started to interrupt but Michael silenced him with a look. "You told me
yourself: put down the burdens and do the work. I finally understand that. I'm
carrying around some awful heavy baggage, stuff that's weighing me down. I've
got to get rid of it, and that's what I'm trying to do. Don't stand in my way."
"If you leave now you may never complete your training," the Minbari protested.
"If I don't do this, I will never be a Ranger. I could stay and go through the
motions of the training, but I can't speak that oath until it's part of my
soul." He could see the recognition of truth in Navain's eyes. "This is
necessary," Garibaldi continued softly, adamantly. "If it goes well, I'll be
back, and I will finish my training. If it doesn't, " he considered for a
moment, "well then, none of it matters."
In the stillness of the temple, they studied the truths in one another's eyes.
Slowly, the Minbari began to nod. "You have learned much." Michael breathed
out a little laugh.
"Delight. Respect. Compassion." He chuckled at Navain's pained look. "The
truth is, you were right. That is what it's all about. And that's why none of
it will work until I deal with this."
Uneasy with the self-revelation he was about to attempt, Garibaldi dropped his
eyes to the floor. "I can't delight in who I am. I can't respect myself. I
can't be compassionate enough to forgive myself. Not until this is done." He
peeked at the teacher from under lowered lids, relieved to see him nodding. "I
have to put this burden down, and then I can do the work."
Navain nodded again, a smile skimming momentarily over his lips, taking refuge
in his eyes. "Go then," he said, pressing his palm to his heart before
extending it to Michael, "in Valen's name."
A roar bubbled up from deep inside Michael, a hodgepodge of joy and relief,
irony and resolve. It escaped him in a thundering laugh as he looked once more
to the statue of Valen. Nodding his satisfaction, he returned the salute. "In
Valen's name."
Part 4
= = =
Garibaldi moved mindlessly through dinner, then headed for the compound, where
he knew, Drew would find him. The young man hailed him a moment later, jogging
to catch up. Seeing him, Michael eased himself into a trot, an easy lope that
set him in stride with his colleague by the time the blond had reached him.
They began their nightly run in silence, but by the first turn Michael found his
voice.
"You blew me away this morning, " Michael began at last.
Drew looked puzzled. "Me? What?"
Garibaldi had thought his emotions were under control, but the lump in his
throat told him otherwise. "What you said, in Navain's class." He couldn't
make eye contact.
"Meant it. I am honored. You could have easily told me to fuck off." They
were silent for a time. "Still can, if you've changed your mind," offered Drew.
"No," Garibaldi said with a shake of his head, "just don't know how to start."
The younger man waited a moment or two to see if Garibaldi would continue. "You
said you needed to think. About what?"
Michael smiled in appreciation of the trainee's gentleness. Hesitantly he began
to share his confusion about whether he was meant to be a Ranger, his
frustration with the training, his failure.
"I don't think it all came together for me until last night. You know Delenn is
here? I got called down, right before dinner. She was with Durhan and Ardret
and Navain when I got there, although they beat it out right away. I figured I
was getting the hook.
"Delenn tried to be civil about it, tried to be kind. She was asking questions
-- god, I don't even remember now what question it was that set me off -- but
the next thing I knew I was yelling about how the training had nothing to do
with what it really took to be a Ranger, and how I hadn't found what I came
looking for. I lost it. I told her if she was going to scrub me, to just do
it, and get it over with."
"And ... ?" Drew asked when Michael lapsed into silence again.
"And then," Garibaldi answered, "she made one of those cryptic Minbari comments
that tells you these people spend altogether too much time with the Vorlons.
And the meeting was over."
"That's it?" Drew looked perplexed. To Garibaldi's "yup", he responded with
another question. "So what did you do? I saw you at dinner, but you
disappeared right after."
"I took off to the chapel, to try to sort things out. Maybe that was the
mistake. All I could think about was how I've screwed up my life again. That's
the only thing I've ever been good at: fucking up. I couldn't take anymore. I
went back to the barracks and packed my bag. I was on my way down to Tuzanor,
to get the first transport out."
He stopped, unsure whether he ought to share the conversation with Navain.
Would he betray a confidence if he did so?
"But you didn't leave, " Drew said softly. "Why?"
A chill ran through Garibaldi as he heard Navain's voice in his head. "Yet you
remain ... Perhaps you need to ask yourself why." He slowed to a walk and his
companion matched the pace.
Why did he stay? Because of Navain? The teacher was a good part of his reason
for leaving. Did a few stories change so much?
"I guess," Michael said at last, "because I can't bring myself to make a liar
out of Jeff." He had to laugh at the flimsiness of the reason. But there was
truth there, as well. "Jeff believed I could do this, believed I would do this.
I owe it to him to at least understand why I can't. It's not fair to just walk
away." He turned to look at Drew. "Does that make any sense?"
The blond nodded, staring thoughtfully at the ground as they walked. "His faith
in you has been important. That was obvious this morning." Drew tested the
waters with a sidelong glance. "Thank you for sharing that story." They walked
a while more. "So ... " he asked cautiously, " ... do you understand?"
Michael struggled with the question a while, then tried to sort out what little
he did understand. "I realized last night when I talked to Delenn that I came
here looking for something, something bigger than training in this and classes
in that." His pace quickened. "I've worked with the Rangers for nearly three
years. I've seen who they are, what they are. I came here to be a part of
that. But ... " The rest was a jumble.
"A part of what, Michael?" Drew asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What
makes a Ranger? Who are they?" He hung open-mouthed in wait for Garibaldi's
answer.
The words 'delight, respect, compassion' ran through Garibaldi's head, provoking
a smile, but not escaping into the conversation. The real answers took longer
to form, distilled from the images of countless Rangers who had reported to him.
"They're people of honor and integrity ... " Michael shaped the words slowly,
seeing their faces before him. " ... courageous ... " He shook his head. "
... but not foolhardy. They've seen the Light and the Darkness and they've
chosen the Light. They know how fragile and how precious it is." His body
hunched inward to protect the unseen flame. "Nothing is more important to them
than preserving and defending that Light." For a moment, just a moment, Michael
thought he heard the fire.
The younger man was wide-eyed, awed by the words echoing in his brain. "God,
Michael, that's a beautiful definition," he said reverently. "We walk in the
dark places no others will enter. They've seen the Light and the Darkness. We
stand on the bridge and no one may pass. Nothing is more important than
preserving and defending that light. The words are different but the meaning is
the same." He stopped and studied Garibaldi with a look near to horror. "You
came looking for that. You mean you don't feel you've found it ?"
The urge to flee seized Garibaldi, a panicked desire not to have this
conversation. He shook his head desperately from side to side, avoiding Drew's
eyes. The blond sucked his breath in sharply and turned to walk again. Michael
forced himself to fall into step.
"But where? Where does it break down, Michael?" Drew's words were choked by
disbelief, strangled by the refusal to believe.
"What?" Garibaldi froze in place. "What do you mean?"
"Listen to your own words, Michael," Drew pleaded. "Measure yourself against
them. Where do you come up short?" The gaze that searched Michael's face
prayed he would have no answer.
His eyes were on the man who asked the question but Michael was seeing something
else. Mars, through the distorting lens of the bottle. Mars, in the
controlling tidiness of the Edgars compound. Mars, in the bar room strobe
light. Mars, as the mind-shattering scream echoed in the transport tube. Mars,
the prison of a near dead friend.
Drew's voice was flat as he began a litany. "Aren't you a man of honor? Aren't
you courageous? Aren't you ... "
Garibaldi snapped back from where his mind had been reaching and saw the young
man before him as if for the first time. "What?"
"The first thing you said about the Rangers was that they were people of honor.
Doesn't that describe you, Michael?" It was a challenge, a prod, a prayer.
Drew stepped a little closer, his hands held out before him, as though to steady
a stumbling hero.
"No."
The single syllable struck the younger man like a blow, tore through Garibaldi
like a knife. He shook his head hard. "No, damn it, I'm not," he spat, still
answering the original question. "Do you know why PsiCorps grabbed me? Because
they knew what I was, what I am. A drunk, a fuck-up, a crazed, paranoid loser."
He flung an arm up over his head as though to swat the despair, and turned away
from his speechless companion. "They took me because I was already so worthless
there wasn't much they had to do.
"And they went in and made it worse," Garibaldi said, spinning to face Drew
again, despair turning to terror. "They screwed with my mind to make it worse."
His jaw twitched as he tasted the horror of it again, and his eyes narrowed as
he saw again the days on station. "I couldn't trust anybody." His voice was
flat; his head shaking numbly from side to side. "I ripped into the people who
were trying to be my friends. Sheridan -- damn it, the shit I gave the Captain
no one should have to put up with." He winced at the bitter taste of shame. "I
rode him about Lorien. I accused him of playing god. I punched him out in
front of the crowd on the Zocalo." The shock he saw in the young man's blue
eyes was cold confirmation of the worthlessness he felt. "I walked out on my
job -- but hey! why not? When have I ever had a job I haven't fucked up on?
He turned to face the city, its moonlit crystal structures shimmering below
them. Wordlessly, Drew approached him. Garibaldi's eyes were tightly shut, but
when he sensed the young man at his elbow he began to speak again, a low
sleepwalker's drone.
"And then I sign on with Edgars. Slime of the galaxy, and I'm doing his dirty
work. Hiding his shit from Zack, who's still trying to be my friend." His eyes
snapped open as he clutched at his skull. Frustration fired through him and he
paced out a tight triangle, a projectile ricocheting endlessly off invisible
walls. "Firing Lyta on his say-so, lying about how I felt about Lise, saying
yeah, yeah, yeah to his crap about the Captain being misguided and a threat and
needing to be stopped."
He stopped in front of Drew, staring into his eyes, seeing him, daring him to
hear the story. "I go and snatch his dad, and hand him over to Edgars. The man
was no part of any of this. A goddamn innocent, but that didn't stop me."
Michael shook his head with a vicious sneer, but he didn't release the young
man's gaze. His voice went cold. "I hunt him down and cage him, and use him as
bait to lure the Captain into a trap. Shit! Boldfaced!"
Anger returned to him, and a disbelief almost matching his listener's. "I lied
straight out to Sheridan, fucking lied, and didn't even blink. I let him trust
me, I asked him to trust me, when I knew, I fucking knew I was signing his death
warrant."
He meant to stop. It was enough, too much. He couldn't do this. It wasn't
fair to the kid. But somehow the images kept forming, coalescing into words,
tearing out of him. He couldn't stop.
"I lured him to Mars," he continued, turning his eyes to the stars, "took him
away from the fleet, put Susan in his place." He could see her broken body, and
Marcus there beside her. "Why kill one friend when you can go for two, right?"
He paused to watch those words shiver through the young man.
"And he came, trusting me, believing I was gonna help him find his dad." A wash
of pain greyed his face and he raised his arms in a gesture somewhere between
prayer and surrender. "The whole fucking bar was Edgars' people. Sheridan
didn't stand a chance. He walked right into it, because of me."
He spit the words out, but the sour taint of self loathing remained. "Right to
the end, he trusted me. And I didn't even hesitate. No guilt, no apologies. I
betrayed him without thinking twice. Judas! " He spun and strode away as the
tears began.
"Michael!" Drew reached an arm out to him, but his feet would not move. He
watched the figure move away and then, suddenly, stop and drop to his knees.
Garibaldi's sobs had slowed by the time the young man reached him. The blond
dropped onto the ground beside him, setting a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Michael?"
Garibaldi looked up into eyes searching for understanding. He knew the risk of
sharing this nightmare with Drew. The kid's illusions were already shattered,
and if Michael went on it could drive the young man away for good, but it was
too late now, far too late to stop. He could walk away if he wanted to, but the
story needed to be told, spoken aloud, if only for the night sky and Michael's
soul to hear.
"I drugged him," Michael explained coldly, watching for reaction in the young
man's eyes. "He tried to fight his way out, when he finally realized what I'd
done to him, he tried to fight his way out. But I drugged him." The cruel edge
in Garibaldi's voice brought fear to Drew's face, fear Michael recognized all
too well. "He couldn't even stand, much less fight. And there were so many of
them, so goddamn many. Everywhere." He clamped his eyes shut again and clawed
at his head. Drew's reaction no longer mattered. Nothing did. Nothing but
confession.
"He never had a chance. They pounded him. He tried so hard, so hard to fight
back." The tears were back. He winced, the memory of Sheridan's courage
compounding his shame. "In spite of the tranq, he kept getting up, fighting
back. And they just kept beating on him. Punching, kicking. They didn't have
to. Damn, they could have just grabbed him and carried him out. He was so
fucking outnumbered." Garibaldi's eyes begged his friend to help him make sense
of it all, but in Drew's face he found only horror. Michael nodded when he saw
that. He may as well know the truth.
"They beat on him, beat him down, crushed him." Michael snorted, a caustic
leering laugh. "Shit. They liked it. It was a party to them."
Again the laugh, but this time transmogrified into a sob, the first of many.
Drew's left hand squeezed the shoulder where it still rested while the right
reached up to touch Michael's face. But Garibaldi would not be comforted. With
a roar he shoved the hand away and folded himself in on his grief. Moving
himself in front of the tormented man, Drew settled down, his knees touching
Michael's, his hands gently caressing Garibaldi's shoulders. He shed a few
tears of his own as he let Michael cry.
Garibaldi did not raise his head when he spoke again, did not open his eyes.
His hands dropped to his knees and his body sank in sadness. "And there I was,
his friend, the one he trusted, there I was, watching. Watching him fall,
watching him hurt, watching him get the life kicked out of him." Memories
filled with remorse, memories he would give his life to change, but couldn't.
"And I did nothing. Nothing. I sat there and let them kill him. I never
raised a hand or a voice to stop them, to save him, to help him." He was bent
nearly double, crushed by grief. "I just sat there and let them."
Drew felt the body tremble under his hands. He watched Michael's torso shudder
as each breath he tried to draw fled from him again. At last Garibaldi
straightened, taking hold of Drew's wrists to pull the hands from his shoulders.
Their eyes met, and the young man paled at the emptiness of Michael's glance.
"Of course, they didn't kill him," Garibaldi said dryly. "They would've if they
could've, but Clark wanted him alive." His voice had the casual air of a man
stating the obvious, but with each word, his grip on Drew's wrists tightened.
"You can't torture a dead man.
"After all that we'd been through, I handed my Captain over to Clark. Clark and
his PsiCops. After all we shared, all we fought for, I gave him to those
bastards." He threw Drew's hands back at him so hard the young man rocked over
backward.
"Michael, you weren't responsible," Drew cried out to him, as both men struggled
to their feet. "It wasn't your fault."
"That's what they all said," Michael snapped, staggering, laughing insanely.
"They all forgave me, said it wasn't my fault." Frenzied, Garibaldi began to
pace. "That's what I said. It's not my fault. It was Bester. It was
PsiCorps. It's not my fault. But it's not true. It was my fault. It is my
fault."
He leaned forward to look up into the frightened blue eyes and snarled, "they
used what was in me. They didn't plant something that had never been there
before. The anger, the suspicion, the distrust, the hatred -- it's all there,
was there, still is. Everything it took to betray Sheridan is part of me."
Garibaldi straightened as the horrified trainee reeled back, away from the
venomous hiss of truth. "It could surface again."
Open-mouthed from shock, panting from the emotional workout, Drew gasped out an
attempt at comfort. "No, Michael, that's not going to happen ... "
"How the hell do you know?" Garibaldi screamed. Nose to nose with shuddering
blond, he demanded, "you arrogant ass, how could you possibly know what I might
do? How do I know? I swore to protect my Captain, and instead I led him
straight to hell."
With each backward step the young man took, Garibaldi took one forward, sneering
into his face. "You think mumbling a few words about standing on the bridge is
suddenly going to make some magical difference? I betrayed my CO, my friend."
He backed off a step and spat the words to the ground. "What honor do I have
left?"
Garibaldi stood silent, staring vacantly. There were no tears left. There was
nothing left. Nothing. Nothing left either for his silent companion, yet
another innocent he had dragged down with him.
Michael shook his head sadly at the sight of the kid, studying him, struggling
to understand everything he had heard. Get out of here. See me for what I am
and hate me for it and get out of here while there's still time to save
yourself. But the words would not come out, and the young man did not leave.
Michael Garibaldi did the kindest thing he could think of: he walked away.
"His name is John, isn't it?" Drew's words struck Michael's back and knocked
loose a forgotten sob. He froze, but could not turn back. Drew closed the
distance between them and laid a hand on Michael's back, soothing the wound of
his words. Nervously he stepped up beside Garibaldi, dodging when Michael
turned to look at him. "Michael ... " His voice cracked when he tried to
speak. Exasperated, Garibaldi pushed past him. The younger man scrambled
around him, planted himself in Michael's path, grabbing him by the shoulders
with a startling strength. "No."
Garibaldi glowered at him, knocking his arms away. Drew blocked again, this
time pinning Michael's elbows to his sides. "You can't walk away like this. I
don't pretend to know what to say to you. I don't even know what I feel yet.
But I know you can't walk away, Michael. Not now. Not like this. I can't let
you."
"Why not?" Garibaldi snarled. The stinging pain began in his throat but it
spread: to his eyes, to his chest, to his soul. "Everyone else did." New tears
washed his cheeks, and he surrendered to them. Timidly, Drew stretched his arms
around to cradle Michael, and Michael, exhausted, did not resist. His arms were
limp at his sides. His face dropped down on the young man's shoulder.
Awkwardly at first, then with tenderness, Drew held him and let him cry.
In time Michael wiped his eyes, and they stepped back from the embrace.
Garibaldi mumbled an apology to the ground between their feet. And then he
looked at the kid, still struggling with shock and fear, confusion and anger.
"I'm sorry. I know this wasn't what you bargained for."
Drew whispered out a laugh. "No, I guess it wasn't. But that doesn't change
anything, Michael."
"This changes everything." Michael's voice was steel.
"Isn't it time to get past the excuses?" Drew fired back.
Garibaldi's head jerked back and his eyes widened in rage, but the young man had
a fire in him now too, and he wasn't about to stop. "It's over, Michael. I'm
not trying to deny what you went through, to dilute the horror of what happened.
But it happened -- past tense -- and damn it, you were part of the rescue, too.
Sheridan is alive. Alive and well, and President of the Alliance. And he's
forgiven you, you said that yourself. They all forgave you."
Michael snorted. "Yeah, they forgave me," he muttered. "What does that mean,
if they don't know the truth? They transferred the blame to Bester," he said,
rolling his eyes at the name, "but none of them, none of them saw that it was
me, that he may have been calling the plays, but I was doing it." He curled his
lip in disgust. "They didn't forgive me. They just refused to judge me."
"I know the truth," Drew began, straightening, but Michael cut him off.
"And you forgive me?" He took a step back and looked his companion up and down.
"Come on, kid! I never took you for stupid. Or a liar."
The young man bit down hard on his lower lip. "You rocked me, Michael. Is that
what you want to hear?" He paused, appraising the defensiveness in Garibaldi's
stance. "OK, you've heard it. I don't know what I feel right now, and it'll
probably be a long time before I do. But I know this: whatever wrong you've
done, you've grieved for. You've wanted to right it, tried to make it right."
Garibaldi looked away, and the young man, brazen now, stepped around him into
his line of sight. "It's not my place to forgive you, Michael, but it's time
you forgave yourself."
"Never." One word, barely audible, carried infinite sadness.
"Coward!" Drew spat back. He caught hold of Garibaldi's left hand an inch
before it hit his face.
"I'm going to throw your own words at you, Michael," Drew said defiantly,
releasing the trembling arm. "They've seen the Light and the Darkness and
they've chosen the Light. They know how fragile and how precious it is.
Nothing is more important to them than preserving and defending that Light." He
pronounced the words slowly, drawing them up from his memory, startling Michael
by his ability to recall them.
"All right! You've seen the darkness, Michael, yes, but you've seen the light
too. All you can do, all any of us can do, is to choose the light. It doesn't
make the darkness go away, doesn't make the light any less fragile." He stared
into the blazing blue of Michael's eyes, watching the shifting emotion there.
"But you fight for it, struggle for it, even when you're losing, even when you
are the enemy. That's where the courage comes in."
Michael Garibaldi was shaking. Fury, shame, despair, exhaustion, all now
contended within him, making his heart pound, his breathing ragged. His limbs
throbbed, his head ached, his eyes were swollen. Mindlessly he clenched and
unclenched his fists as his arms hung limp at his sides. When he finally spoke,
his voice was slurred.
"Maybe I don't have the courage either."
The response shocked Drew -- Garibaldi could see that -- but it no longer
mattered. He was no hero. If that made the kid angry, so be it. He wasn't
looking for forgiveness.
The young man turned his head from side to side, a slow, exaggerated shake of
disgust. "No honor, no courage," he said sadly. "Maybe Sinclair was wrong
about you."
"Maybe he was."
Garibaldi shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked slowly back to the
barracks. He would sleep. Beyond that he could see nothing.
= = =
The scream reached him first. From far off, from a pinpoint of light lost deep
in the blackness of space, the scream reached him. It was terror and
helplessness and the searing frustration of one whose life was no longer his
own. It was the last desperate cry of a soul slipping away. It was his own
voice.
"Michael!"
He cried out to himself but he could not answer. He searched the blackness but
there were no stars. There was nothing. Nothing left.
"Michael!"
Something in him struggled, fought against the numbness. His body was leaden,
his brain sluggish. Only a sliver of soul remained to resist the enveloping
darkness. A tiny something that fought its way to the light.
"Michael, wake up!"
Jhevnak stood over him, shaking him hard. Garibaldi blinked against the
multiple assaults of daylight in his eyes and young Minbari's voice in his face.
He wanted only to push it all away, but his limbs did not answer readily to his
mind's desires. Rousing slowly, he regained control of arms and legs as deeply
asleep as moments ago he had been. Still fully dressed, right to the boots, he
lay sprawled across the bed just as he had fallen there the night before. He
propped himself, with great effort, on his elbows, and began to focus on
Jhevnak's voice.
"... you did not come down to breakfast, we were concerned, but did not wish to
invade your privacy. When you failed to attend class we felt we must intrude.
Michael, are you ill?"
"No, " Michael answered, still trying to clear his head. "No! I'm not sick. I
just overslept." He swung his leaden legs over the side of the bed and cursed
himself for not having kicked off the boots. Sitting up slowly, he looked
around the tiny room. "We?"
Jhevnak did not appear to notice the query. "You are late, Michael. We must
hurry."
Garibaldi was not about to hurry anywhere just now. "You go on without me ...
"
"It is kind of you to think of me, Michael," Jhevnak said, extending a hand to
Garibaldi, "but right now we have a class."
Michael accepted the aid as he got to his feet. "And you shouldn't be missing
it. Certainly not for me. Go on now. I'll be there as soon as I clean up."
The Minbari hesitated, waited for Michael to make eye contact. "You are
coming?" he asked, a sad suspicion in his voice.
Michael tipped his head back, pressing his lips together in a thin smirk of
recognition. "Yes. I'll be there," he confirmed with a nod of resignation. "I
just need a few minutes." Jhevnak gave a small bow -- a gesture Michael
awkwardly returned -- and strode from the room.
"Jhevnak?" Michael's voice stopped him at the door. "Thank you," Garibaldi
said as their eyes met.
= = =
He would have expected to feel better than this after a night's sleep, Garibaldi
thought as he joined the other trainees on the obstacle course. He'd missed the
Adronato lesson completely, which didn't feel like a loss right now, and he
wasn't sure why he was here at all, except that it mattered to Jhevnak. That
wasn't enough, he knew, but he had no reason to go either, nor a place to go.
Inertia manifest; entropy at work.
He went through the motions of the obstacle course, thoughtlessly, carelessly,
joylessly. He kept to himself when he could, interacting only with those who
could not be avoided. For one awkward moment his eyes met Drew's but the width
of the course separated them, and neither tried to hold the glance.
If only Jhevnak could have let him sleep through Navain's class. How was he
supposed to behave toward the teacher today? Their conversation felt like a
lifetime ago. How many times had the world turned upside down in the last --
what?-- two days?
Navain proposed a situation to the group, a confrontation with an enemy.
Questions were raised about the meaning of respect for one's enemy, of what it
meant to be an enemy, of justice, and revenge, and compassion. There was much
discussion, noted the corner of Michael's brain that was actually listening, but
no resolution.
Given his lack of attention, the question was embarrassing. "Have you anything
to add, Michael?" Navain had never put him on the spot like this before. Why
now?
Still, he was too numb to be resentful. He shook his head. "No."
"You have faced an enemy, have you not?" Navain pressed him.
Garibaldi scowled and made no attempt to hide it. "Yes."
The teacher nodded along with him. "And you have no thoughts on the question?"
Saving face was meaningless now, and Garibaldi was too tired to play games. "I
don't know what the question is."
From the other side of the room came the voice of a trainee. "When the battle
is over, must the enemy be destroyed?"
A cruel laugh escaped Michael. "If the enemy isn't destroyed, the battle isn't
over."
"You don't believe that peace is possible?" asked another voice.
He was shooting from the hip. "I've never known it."
The Minbari woman from their lunch table objected. "But what about our peoples?
We have made peace."
Diplomacy be damned. "Truce. All you ever get is a truce. A watchful cease-
fire. An uneasy truce. You notice no one ever talks about an easy truce?"
"Then you would destroy me?" asked Jhevnak coldly.
Michael flinched. "I didn't say that."
"Didn't you?" the Minbari insisted.
"You're not my enemy." Garibaldi squashed his annoyance, and looked to Jhevnak
with a pleading glance. It was, he realized, himself he was annoyed with, and
he wished he could erase all of this.
"Who is?" Drew's voice fired the challenge.
Michael halted, open-mouthed, just before the words "I am" could escape. "I'm
sorry," he said in a wave of embarrassment, "this is coming out all wrong."
"It is important that it come out, not that we judge it." Navain interjected.
Garibaldi looked at him accusingly, angered that the teacher had begun this.
Navain seemed about to speak again, but Jhevnak pressed the point.
"Earth and Minbar went to war. Humans and Minbari were enemies." The young
Minbari challenged his friend. "You say the battle is not over unless the enemy
is destroyed, yet neither Humans nor Minbari have been destroyed, so, by your
logic, our battle is not over. We are enemies." His eyes dared Michael to
respond.
"We've gotten past that," Michael slung back, trying to fight his way out of
this corner.
"How?" Jhevnak was not about to let him escape.
"We live together, work together," Michael answered, his arms waving in a
gesture that included the whole group in the statement. "We know one another.
We're not faceless pilots in fighters with the wrong markings." His eyes were
on Jhevnak. "We have become friends."
"So change is possible?" It was Navain's voice.
"Yes." Garibaldi replied with irritation. Life is change. Stupid question.
"Redemption?" Navain asked gently.
Michael shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes," he answered suspiciously.
Navain had one more question. "Forgiveness?"
A small muscle on the right side of Garibaldi's jaw twitched as he bit his lower
lip. He pushed back in his chair, looking around with a nervous smirk and
arched eyebrow. Forcing out a hollow sounding chuckle, he tried to be casually
flippant. "Forgiveness? That's when you kiss and make up so you can gang up on
the new guy you found to blame, right?"
No one laughed. Enraged to feel himself blushing, Garibaldi leaned forward
again and let his head drop. No one spoke, but the noise of his heart pounding
wouldn't have let him hear them anyway. He fought for his control, speaking at
last through gritted teeth, but still refusing to yield.
He looked straight at Navain. "To answer your question, yes, I suppose
forgiveness is possible, but I don't think it happens very often." His gaze
shifted left to Jhevnak, there beside the teacher. "We go forward, because we
have to." Raising his voice a little, he let his eyes skim over the group
listening so intently to him. "We work out ways to do that in spite of the
wounds." And there was Drew. "But the wounds are still there, they still
throb, and sooner or later, somehow or another, you pay."
No one responded. Michael had nothing more to say and no more wish to let
Navain provoke him. He dropped his gaze and tried not to notice the silence.
At last the teacher spoke. "We must end for today. Perhaps we can speak more
about this another time."
Even as the group moved out to lunch there was a hush over them. Garibaldi
remained in his chair, waiting awkwardly for the others to leave, hoping no one
would speak to him, trying to understand what he must do next.
= = =
He had little appetite for lunch or the company it would mean. He left the
classroom building and struck out alone across the compound, into the hills that
rose beyond the camp. He followed the first path he saw, climbing the crystal
formations, finding signs of life in his body again, letting his mind go numb.
He felt the large muscles in his arms and legs warming with the movement, his
rib cage expanding and contracting as his breathing deepened. From high
overhead a brilliant sun reflected off the crystalline rock, heating the air to
a shimmering dryness. Michael felt the slick of sweat spread over his skin, a
welcome, cleansing sheen. His hungry inhalations were audible now, their rhythm
in time with the motion of arms and legs, a rhythm he struggled to hold even
when the path became steep or obstructed by outcroppings of rock. The ground
felt good beneath his feet, solid rock, yielding soil.
His mind was quiet, aware only of the corporeal experience, the sight and sound
and smell and touch and taste of this moment in this place. It was pleasant and
strangely calming, not a somnambulant soothing but the energizing harmony of
meditation. He was grateful to be here, thankful for this place and the
opportunity to enjoy it. He felt giddy from the intensity of it, the watery
blues of the crystal formations, the orange -- no, oranges -- of the flowers:
bittersweet, tangerine, apricot, salmon, pumpkin, flame. Drunk with the
sensation, Michael reveled in the realization that, unlike an alcohol-induced
torpor, this high left him feeling keen, crisp, ready for any crisis.
Garibaldi scrambled over a rough section of rock, losing his footing and falling
hard. He winced as a sharp edge of rock dug into already bruised ribs, but
pulled himself to his feet and returned to the mantra of his breath. Falling
and getting up again. It wasn't so hard when there was a rhythm to fall back
into. His quadriceps burned with the exertion of the climb. When there was
work to do, some thing, some job you could do, to prove yourself, to repair, to
repay, redemption was possible; hard work, but possible.
The path lost itself here, no longer clearly defined by the footfalls of those
who had come before. With no clear direction, each step was a new choice. It
was harder now to keep the pace. His demanding lungs pounded the rhythm as his
innate stubbornness drove him to move in time. He chose, and chose again,
moving his feet, one with each breath, not waiting to consider where the choice
would take him.
Until the cliff.
Faced with nowhere to go except straight down, or back as he had come, he
retraced his steps, examining his choices, wondering which had been the crucial
one, the turning point. Choices. Mindless, thoughtless choices, but choices
just the same, and because of them, now there was nothing to do but to go back
and start over.
From where the path dissolved, he tried again, still pushing himself, but
humbler and more thoughtful now. This new route was a rough scramble, on hands
and knees, over jagged rock, on foot, jumping crevices. Difficult this climb
was, exhilarating but not without its terrors. But it was the right course.
At the summit, high above the Ranger camp, he stopped. Arms and legs fidgeted
and twitched in protest, crying out against the curtailed motion. His eyes
swept the camp laid out to view below him, their pendulum motion slowly
narrowing to the arc between the Entil'Zha's quarters and the temple that housed
Valen's statue.
Valen, and Jeff Sinclair, those two who somehow embodied the Rangers,
personified what he now aspired to be. Valen. Minbari not born of Minbari.
Who was he, behind the legends? The great leader, the near god, who appeared,
seemingly from nowhere, just when he was needed, knowing and doing all that was
necessary to unite the Minbari, and win the great war. Valen, the creator of
the Rangers, who defined the role and the regimen they still followed a thousand
years later, who seemed to simply disappear again, the rest of his life a
mystery.
And Jeff Sinclair. His Commander, and his friend. The man who had faith in
him, trusted him, when no one else did, not even himself. The man who gave him
a chance, a chance he hadn't earned and didn't deserve, a chance to prove
himself, to redeem himself, to believe in himself. The chance he grabbed at, in
spite of Lise's fury. The chance that looked like it could change his life, or
let him change his life. Jeff would tell him it was all in his hands.
Sinclair, so suddenly gone, so impossible to reach. Sinclair, who entrusted the
knowledge of the Rangers to him, once again, from afar, putting his faith in his
friend. Sinclair who hid his plans for Babylon 4, enlisting Sheridan in the
deception, to prevent Michael from going with him, leaving him instead with the
message inscribed now in Michael's heart. Jeff Sinclair, who stayed on Babylon
4, taking it back through the time rift, back to Minbar in the time of the great
war against the Shadows, back to the time ...
... of Valen.
Michael Garibaldi folded himself down to sit cross legged on the ground. Images
of Delenn's chrysalis flashed before him, cross cut with memories of his
conversations with those who had gone with Jeff to Babylon 4. Could he find it
in his skeptic's soul to believe the whispered claims? Minbari not born of
Minbari. Born of humans? A human carrying a Minbari soul? But why? Why Jeff?
Why not?
'Yes' was too far to reach, but for the first time, he found he could entertain
a 'maybe.' Maybe it was possible, maybe in some crazy way, Jeff and Valen were
one and the same. Whether he believed it changed very little. It might be
easier to accept Jeff's leaving, both the first departure to Minbar and the
ultimate farewell from Babylon 4. If Jeff had a destiny perhaps Michael could
understand his leaving. Perhaps, but why hadn't he let Michael go with him?
Unless he believed Michael had his own destiny.
He couldn't have known, of course, all that would happen after he went back.
Perhaps the Michael Garibaldi that Jeff knew did have some destiny, but that
Michael was gone, lost in the nightmare of the last year. Jeff could not have
foreseen what he would do, what he would become. No one could. Squinting
against the thought, he threw his head back and let loose a cynical chuckle. If
Sheridan could have seen the future he would have made certain Michael went with
Jeff. Could even Jeff believe in him now? Could even Jeff forgive him?
Unfolding his legs, Michael hugged them to his chest, rocking gently. He bent
his head forward, resting his forehead on his knees, eyes closed, enjoying for
just a moment longer the messages from his senses. All his muscles rippled as
he hauled himself to his feet, and began the downward walk.
Scrambling up had been strenuous; scrambling down was treacherous. Garibaldi
moved delicately over the rocks and vegetation, slipping in spite of his care,
sliding down the rocks. Even when he reached the path he found the pitch of the
incline a hazard that required some fancy dancing to keep his feet under him.
Never much of a dancer, he was grateful when the grade began to ease. He
stretched out into a normal stride, letting his arms swing comfortably at his
sides.
It was a small thing, a stone in the path, he thought, though it happened so
fast he couldn't be sure. Something caught his foot, causing him to stumble.
He lurched forward, arms out for balance, feet rushing to catch up with his
hurtling body. His right foot found the ground first, but balance eluded him as
his weight came down. The ankle buckled and energy of the fall was translated
sideways, tangling up his legs as he clutched at the air. The clump of
vegetation at the edge of the path could not support his floundering, and he
fell, tumbling wildly down the hillside.
Old instincts made him tuck, roll, protect his head, but a newfound calm allowed
him to ride out the experience. He made no frantic grabs at rock formations, no
desperate digging in to stop his fall. He simply let it happen, while a corner
of his mind marveled. It hurt; he would not pretend otherwise. Every inch of
him seemed to find some rock to crash down upon, adding new layers of bruises to
the denn'bok's work. Still, he didn't need to panic. He had fallen before,
probably would again, and this would stop in its own time.
It did stop -- he did stop -- a good deal later and lower on the hill that he
would have liked. He lay still there curled as he was into a little bundle,
just waiting for his breath to return. When the burning in his lungs subsided,
he began to inventory his body, gingerly moving first legs, then arms, then back
and neck. All systems reported in as functioning.
Reassured that he had survived the fall without major damage, Michael rolled
over and stretched his body out on the ground. He lay there quietly just a
moment longer, wondering if this long, hard fall were an omen for the journey he
knew he had to undertake. Folding his arms behind his head, and laughing at his
own superstition, he resolved to get up and be on his way. For the first time,
he opened his eyes to see where he was.
The hand was the first thing he saw. Garibaldi's eyes moved from the pale,
strong, open hand above him up the arm of the Ranger uniform to the brooding
blue eyes peeking from under the shock of golden hair. Drew was unsmiling, and
made no attempt to speak, only stood there, hand extended to a fallen comrade.
Michael wondered how long he had been there, and why he was here on the
hillside, and most of all, what he was thinking and feeling right now.
Searching the young man's eyes for some hint of an answer, Garibaldi was
ambushed by the range and the depth of his own emotions. Anger, shame,
ferocious pride, sadness, hope, and an oddly poignant gratitude tumbled within
him like puppies in a basket.
Why was this hand offered? And what would accepting it say? He waited,
uncertain, silently begging Drew to say something, anything that would move them
through this moment. No offer of words was made, nor was the extended help
withdrawn, and tentatively, Michael reached up and clasped the young man's hand.
Their eyes met for a moment, Michael's full of questions, Drew's yielding no
answers. Garibaldi planted his feet and a heartbeat later, by their common
effort, he was standing face to face with the young trainee.
Hands still clasped, they stood in the afternoon sun. Michael wanted to speak
his thanks, to ask so many questions. But what questions? Are we friends
still? Again? So trite. So true. He wanted to erase the whole conversation,
to make believe it never happened, and to tell Drew how profoundly grateful he
was that they had had it. He wanted to tell the kid to drop him, to find
someone else to look up to, and beg him not to leave. He wanted to thank his
comrade for his faith, his confidence, and scratch out these eyes that saw him
for what he was. None of the words would come. He tightened his grip on the
young man's hand and was answered with a trace of a smile. Their hands dropped
and with a nod, they went each on his own way.
= = =
Garibaldi made for the barracks, brushing himself off as he went. This would
not take long, but the sooner done the better. He collected a few items from
his room and throwing them into a bag, started to Tuzanor at a jog.
Halfway across the compound he pulled up short. One last thing to take care of
here. He slipped quietly into the temple, let his eyes adjust to the half-
light, and approached the statue of Valen.
The highly stylized carving was merely a suggestion of an image: the Minbari
bone crest, the flowing cape of the Entil'Zha, and a detailed carving of the
Ranger pin, were the only clearly focused features. The rest was obscure, and
no one would dare to say from this what Valen looked like. Michael Garibaldi
knew that, and knew that what he was doing was foolish. Still he studied the
face of Valen looking for Jeff Sinclair.
He spoke aloud at last, a soft voice in the soft light filtering through the
crystal panes, but he spoke without thought of embarrassment at being overheard.
"I don't know if it's you, Jeff. And I don't know -- whether it's you or not --
if there's anyway you can know what I'm saying, what I'm feeling right now. But
I wanted to thank you. I don't think I ever did, really. You trusted me,
believed in me. You gave me a chance, a lot of chances, to be the man you
believed I could be. I should have thanked you for that a long time ago." He
shook his head sadly.
"I'm sorry I never told you how much that meant to me, how much you meant to
me." He caught himself gesturing, and shoved his hands down into his pockets.
A quick glance assured him he was alone. "Your friendship was the one solid
thing in my life, and to wake up and find you gone was like having the ground
fall out from under me. I was angry, Jeff, angry and scared."
Hunching his shoulders, Garibaldi began to walk, pensively tracing a figure
eight on the temple floor. "It took a long time for me to believe I could do it
without you, but it happened. I never stopped missing you, but I made the job
mine, started to call the place home.
"When you brought me in on the Rangers I started to realize you had bigger
things going on than you were talking about. I tried to trust you, Jeff, the
way you trusted me. But when I got your message, when I found out about Babylon
4, Jeff, I was so angry I couldn't see straight. I still don't think I
understand why you wouldn't let me go with you, but maybe, maybe now I
understand why you had to go. "
He stopped now and looked up again at the figure looming above him. "I can
forgive you now, Jeff. It feels stupid to say that -- me forgiving you -- but I
need to say it, and I hope you can understand. I don't know if you have any way
to know all that's happened, what I've done. I don't know if you can ever
forgive me, and it scares the hell out of me to think that if one decision had
gone differently it could have been you I turned on." He shook his head to
empty it of the horrible images.
"There's something I have to do now, Jeff. When that's done, maybe I can come
back here and finish what I started. I'd like to do that." A wry smile crept
up the right side of his face. "I'd like to prove you were right about me," he
said with a chuckle, "but I have to do this first. I hope you can understand
that, Jeff. I hope you can forgive me.
Garibaldi shifted his bag on his shoulder and took a long last look at Valen.
"I miss you, old friend."
His footsteps echoed in the temple's half-light as he strode to the door.
"Michael." The voice was deep, gentle, pleading. Garibaldi stopped and turned
to face its owner, as he spoke again. "You must not leave now. Finish here."
There was no anger in Michael's heart and he found himself surprised by that.
He smiled gently, shaking his head, mouthing a "no." He drew himself up a
little straighter before he spoke. "I want to finish, Sech Navain," Garibaldi
found himself reassuring the teacher. "But there is work I must do first."
Navain started to interrupt but Michael silenced him with a look. "You told me
yourself: put down the burdens and do the work. I finally understand that. I'm
carrying around some awful heavy baggage, stuff that's weighing me down. I've
got to get rid of it, and that's what I'm trying to do. Don't stand in my way."
"If you leave now you may never complete your training," the Minbari protested.
"If I don't do this, I will never be a Ranger. I could stay and go through the
motions of the training, but I can't speak that oath until it's part of my
soul." He could see the recognition of truth in Navain's eyes. "This is
necessary," Garibaldi continued softly, adamantly. "If it goes well, I'll be
back, and I will finish my training. If it doesn't, " he considered for a
moment, "well then, none of it matters."
In the stillness of the temple, they studied the truths in one another's eyes.
Slowly, the Minbari began to nod. "You have learned much." Michael breathed
out a little laugh.
"Delight. Respect. Compassion." He chuckled at Navain's pained look. "The
truth is, you were right. That is what it's all about. And that's why none of
it will work until I deal with this."
Uneasy with the self-revelation he was about to attempt, Garibaldi dropped his
eyes to the floor. "I can't delight in who I am. I can't respect myself. I
can't be compassionate enough to forgive myself. Not until this is done." He
peeked at the teacher from under lowered lids, relieved to see him nodding. "I
have to put this burden down, and then I can do the work."
Navain nodded again, a smile skimming momentarily over his lips, taking refuge
in his eyes. "Go then," he said, pressing his palm to his heart before
extending it to Michael, "in Valen's name."
A roar bubbled up from deep inside Michael, a hodgepodge of joy and relief,
irony and resolve. It escaped him in a thundering laugh as he looked once more
to the statue of Valen. Nodding his satisfaction, he returned the salute. "In
Valen's name."
