Author's Notes: As always, thank you for taking the time to look at my fic! I'm so glad you bothered. This is the first part of a fairly short (I hope) chapter story taking place in season three. You have two guesses as to what the paring is, and no fair guessing I/M straight off! ^_~ This starts out a little oddly, but I hope you'll bare with me. While watching "A Matter of Honor", it occurred to me that Marcus and Ivanonva shared awfully knowing looks for having just met. ^_^
I am still working on "Next Voice". I'm just physically incapable of concentrating on only one story. (sheepish)
Having put up with my blabber-- onward, valiant one!
-Meredith
"Now you were there last night
And oh were you afraid
Of things we'd come upon
While playing future games
But baby it's alright and so have faith
Oh yeah, you invent the future that you want to face."
-Fleetwood Mac, 'Future Games'
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Future Games 1/?
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
http://www.demando.net/
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His memory had betrayed him; in the flesh she was vivid and alive, a low release of single piano notes on the edge of his consciousness.
And still, Marcus could not bring himself believe in her.
The Captain's office on Babylon 5, which could have been any office on any station or ship or planet he'd ever been assigned to. They all blurred and ran together after a while, like one of Hasina's ink-paintings if you hung it up before it had time to dry. They were all gray-scale-- the Captain, Garibaldi, even to a degree Lennier; they hovered on the edge of his thoughts even as he was talking to them, but they would fade away soon enough. He would be reassigned and their faces would reappear in his dreams-- thousands screaming in agony-- but in the waking hours, he would not be able to place them. There was a difference in Delenn, and he found himself somehow relieved he could feel something. Admiration, for she was everything Sinclair had described her to be and more. The strength in her eyes and in her grip that triggered some protective affection in him. From time to time, Hasina's memory seemed to flicker over Delenn's face, some vague reminder in the way she'd held herself and been so unafraid, but they were nothing alike. Amidst their conversations and snatches of words, he was distanced from his body, feeling the person he had once been rattling around in the empty shell of his ribs. He was running on adrenaline and nothing else, a live wire, a sleep-walker holding onto the thought of all the lives at risk on Zargos 7.
And then---
Suddenly, he was fifteen again, with his leg trapped under the rocks in the quarry; the sun was going down and he could taste his fear on his tongue. The water, yellow-brown and glinting like the color of a hungry tiger's eyes, rose higher and higher to embrace him. It was her hand that held his firmly, her flesh chill with warmth hiding underneath; it was the flicker of ghosts and emotions on her faces that he focused his mind as they worked together to free his leg.
She was bright and surreal, clad in the blue of Earth Force, not the black and silver he remembered. Just a glance from her blue eyes, and she seemed to stiffen, a sapphire shadow of recognition eclisping her dark pupils. Then, she was speaking, coarse and matter of fact with just a hint of amusement flickering under her tone.
"Captain, the day something happens on the station and I don't know about it, *that's* when you should worry." A stab of respect and something like pride pierced his confusion, bringing a brief smile to his face. It withered under her covert, suspicious glances-- her hands were clutching each other at the small of her back, knuckles white. He thought, 'she's afraid', and hated himself for being the cause of it.
"This is Marcus Cole, one of our Rangers," the Captain gestured vaguely, before meeting Marcus' gaze, "Marcus, meet Commander Susan Ivanova, my XO." It was the name his mind ceased upon-- at last, a name!-- folding the syllables over one another so he might conjure it later to examine. Strange how the clamoring voices of his guilt had diminished in her presence, though he could still hear them. They were on his heals, he was running and he wasn't even moving. Speaking with a boldness born of the fear that the colony had already been leveled (again, not again!), he presented his case, returning the Commander's quick, furtive looks in equal number.
She could not be real! He wanted to reach out, feel the coarse fabric of her uniform under his fingers and know that she had become embodied, that she was not a dream born of his long-ago pain. Time had left her unchanged, though the winter of his almost death was more than a decade behind him. So long he'd waited, convincing himself that she had to be just around the corner, the turn of the season, the year. Now that he was sure there was nothing to believe in save the chaos bleeding over the galaxy, she had appeared.
He could see in her eyes, in the sculpted line of her back, that she did not believe in him either.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Let's say you fall in love-- such a stupid, stupid term. Doesn't say what it means. Let's say it's true and real and hurts so much that there really aren't (and this is the frustrating part) *words* for it. Sometimes you feel like clawing and ripping at the world just to find a way for it all to make sense, but it doesn't, and you carry it around inside you. You either build walls around it, or you tell yourself you don't have faith and keep on loving anyway.
At thirteen, Susan Ivanova met a man she thought was Death, and fell in love. Tumbled into love, was cut, destroyed and rebuilt by it. She walled it away because she couldn't stand to feel anything anymore, and the years only gave her more fodder with which to make bricks. Take the key and lock it up.
She'd forgotten the part of the rhyme where everything fell down.
Death stood beside the Captain, watching her with wide, pale green eyes, and Death called himself Marcus Cole. A Ranger-- we live for the one, die for the one. You can't be here, she wanted to say, you're not real. He had to leave, had to vanish back into her youth. A thousand nights of her reverent prayers had not returned him to her side, why should he be here now?
She surprised herself by speaking so promptly and well, but she thought perhaps she was just pretending He wasn't there. His glances were quick and diffuse, like sunlight on her back; but she felt like Briar Rose. Opps, pricked your finger, now a hundred years of sleep. Maybe, when Sleeping Beauty woke up, the real world didn't make sense because she was so used to dreams.
At the same time (she hated herself for this, couldn't stand that she was thinking like this) she was remembering his tender hands bandaging her wrists, and...
(Don't think about it, don't you dare think about it)
And...
His voice, "*I* love you."
Emphasis on the 'I'.
But everyone Susan loved always left her alone.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
He saw her sitting at the bar in the casino, and he could no more have stayed away than he could have defied the laws of gravity. She was perched carefully on a stool, a graceful bird uncertain of her welcome or her ability to stay. Out of uniform, Susan seemed somehow more elemental, but just as dangerous, and her single long braid swayed back and forth like a panther's tail.
"I hear you'll be staying a while," the commander remarked by way of greeting. She pushed an empty shot-glass towards him, and he pushed it very gently back. "Thought not," she murmured, and he didn't get a chance to ask her what she meant.
"Yes, actually," Marcus leaned heavily on the chipped counter, "seems Delenn is somehow under the impression that I've got my head screwed on straight. Can't imagine where she got that idea."
The brief tilt of a smile, the sound of a 'hmm' a little vodka mixing in the back of her throat. Blue eyes narrowed, became imprisoned behind her thick lashes, and he thought again of her questions on the White Star; interested, careful and skillfully kept from being needy. She was trying to get close enough to figure something out, but she didn't want him to be able to reach for her. "Are you really from Arisia?" she asked, peering through the bent glass of the vodka bottle as if trying to remember some distant dream.
Somehow, the question didn't seem strange. "Yes, born and raised there," he replied, "closest thing to hell in the living world." Then, cautiously, "Ever been there?"
"No." Not quick, not defensive, just honest. She wasn't lying-- but she *had* been there, he knew.
"And you? Where are you from?" He finally felt comfortable enough to take the seat beside her. The lines of her brown-red tunic fell about her easily, seemed to shift with her restlessness.
"Russia," her lips drew together in a frown, "but you already knew that."
"I did?" he didn't try to keep the surprise out of his voice-- their relation to each other was a maze, and he was quickly finding he didn't actually mind being lost in it.
"You were there," her accent seemed to become more pronounced with each downed shot. Briefly, he felt the touch of Susan's mind on the edge of his, and wondered why she didn't scan him. She could have found her way around his blocks easily enough-- she had, after all, taught him how to build them. 'She won't invade my privacy, anyone's privacy,' he thought with admiration. Before, in the long years before meeting her again, he had scolded himself for loving her-- he didn't know her, not really. Now the pieces of the puzzle were just as enchanting as the whole.
"I was?"
"Damn it, stop repeating everything I say like some stupid parrot!"
He smiled, wide and without meaning to, "Got any crackers?"
She raised a single, elegant eyebrow, "We need to talk about this--"
"I should think so!" Marcus let out, feeling an did sense of relief. No dancing around this, no wondering if she had or hadn't been there.
"Some place *else*," she stressed, and suddenly took his hand. Her fingers were steel under velvet, and he allowed himself to be pulled along limply. "Come with me."
"Look," she said, after the stretch of silence that had blanketed them during the trip to her quarters, "I don't know what you think you're doing here, but--"
"Me?" he sat down heavily on the couch, hands clenched in his lap, "I didn't even know you would be here! I thought you... you were a dream, or something. A ghost." He reached toward her, knowing she was too far away, but wanting to offer the human contact. To his surprise, she moved forward slightly, before her knuckles tightened around the edge of the small end table and she stayed where she was.
"I almost was a ghost," the reference sent an irrational lance of fear through him.
She took a deep breath and looked away, "You keep acting like you don't know. What do you want from me?"
"Nothing," Marcus protested. That wasn't entirely true-- the gut reaction was 'whatever you will give me'. "Why do you think I'm the enemy?"
"Why shouldn't I?!" she spread her arms as if to take in the situation, "It's been fifteen years and you waltz in here looking just the same and playing innocent."
Now he frowned, "I saw *you* over a decade ago."
"Yes," she lowered herself into a small, overstuffed chair, looking for all the world like a warrior and a queen all at once. "In Paris. I was at boarding school in Paris."
"No," he shook his hair quickly, hair going every which way, "on Arisa. I was fifteen."
"I was *thirteen* and it was in Paris!" she brought her hand down swiftly, and it made a rather loud crack in spite of the cushions.
"Is there a Paris, Arisa like there's an Paris, Kentucky?" he smiled weakly.
"This doesn't make any sense," she laughed and it was a sudden sound, like her voice could barely remember how to make it.
"I came here because of Zargos 7," he said earnestly, "but I imagine-- bloody Minbari beliefs have a way of rubbing off on you-- that I was suppose to come here to meet you." He moved his shoulders sheepishly, resisting the urge to sink further into his seat.
"And you never met me when I was... younger?" she bit down on her lip until it bled, "Never went to Paris?"
"Never even been to Earth," he laughed at himself.
"I just..." she trailed off, frustration cutting into the words. Another brush from her psyche, light and sweet. Maybe she didn't even know she was doing it.
"Damn it!" he raked a hand through his hair, "Why don't you just scan me and see if I'm telling the truth! You can get around my blocks any time you want!"
"You *know*!" her voice was thick with accusation, and she somehow managed to recoil without even moving.
"Of course I know," restless, Marcus began to pace, "You taught me how to make *my* blocks."
"What?" It breathless, a single feathery word.
"You taught me how to block-- how to fail the Psi tests." Without meaning to, he came to kneel at her side, hands reaching for hers.
"Watch it," Susan's smooth fingers fluttered away like fleshy butterflies; she cradled them against her neck as if his touch might burn.
"Sorry," he set his teeth against one another and let his hands come to rest on the arm of the chair, trying to give her space and be close at the same time.
"This doesn't make any sense," she said again, almost like a chant. Turning her head away, her voice sounded distant, like the echo in a seashell long removed from Earth. "You don't understand, I can't have things in my life not make sense."
"I can't make heads of tails of it either. Alright," he said, feeling either a tightening of his chest or an expansion of his heart. There just wasn't enough room for the feeling. "We can't either one of us make sense of this, yes, no?"
"We can't," she agreed.
"There's things you don't want to tell me, and," he held up a hand, "I respect that." He flashed her a grin, "I also respect the rumors that you throw 'annoyances' out airlocks."
Her glance was almost feline, "You better believe it."
"Is it also true that you threw a telepath out a third story window?"
Her nod was a mere tilt of her chin, very regal, "I maintain that there was an ample pool bellow."
"Right..." he joked, making as if he was about to bolt. In the till air between them, the amity faded as though it had never been. "Anyway," he cleared his throat, "You know I'm a telepath, I know you're a telepath, so we're fairly even on the secrets score, am I right?"
"A old-fashioned Mexican stand-off," Susan quipped.
"Or a Minbari stand off," Marcus returned, "One side surrenders and the other side hasn't got a clue." He paused as if to think, "Actually, we neither of us have a clue, do we?"
"Marcus," she grinned mock-maliciously, "I knew the moment I walked into the Captain's office that you were clueless."
"Touche," he held up a single finger.
Another one of her 'looks', "You were saying?"
"We're never gonna sort this out-- why don't we just pretend we never met before this moment?"
He stood and waited for her to also rise before holding out his hand. "Marcus Cole, station ranger."
"Commander Ivanova," she gripped his hand tightly, "pleased to meet you."
"Pleasure's all mine," he grinned.
"Man," she pressed two fingers to her temple, "and I thought I was good at this denial thing."
"Pardon?"
Her braid swung with the shake of her head, "Never mind."
"Well, then," he stood uncertainly for a moment, "I best be going."
"See you around," she snapped her fingers, smile broad, "Uh, Marcus isn't it?"
"Quite right, Commander." He bowed and swept out the door, and Susan watched the closing panel plunged the room back into semi-darkness. For a moment, she stood with face unguarded, and was safe because there was no one to see it. Slowly, she cradled her left hand and drew back the gathered sleeve of her tunic, tracing the raised scar on her wrist with the tenderness one uses to handle thorns.
She had one to match it on her right hand.
'I love you', he'd said, when she'd been cut and alone and waiting to snap the thread of her life.
She was afraid he still meant it.
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To be continued.
(To the Tune of "Bingo")
Silly old Meredith had a fic,
she wanted feedback dearly-oh!
F-e-e-d- back,
F-e-e-d- back,
F-e-e-d- back,
And she wanted feedback dearly-oh!
