Too weary to move, Marcus rested his head on wall. He felt someone sit next to him. He knew who. He'd spent most of the evening purposefully avoiding her.
He yawned, "You didn't have to come you know." He lazily opened his eyes, lolling his head to one side to look at her. "This was mainly just for Mum's sense of tradition."
"I know."
His face breaking into a deep yawn, he smacked his thighs, rising." It's late. And, you probably need a place to stay. I'll get you a code to your parents' old apartment - it's still empty. It might be a bit dusty though."
"I haven't been gone so long as to for get that!" she joked. The dust on the inhabitants platform was legendary, and it got in absolutely everything.
They left the chapel and made way to his office where he programmed a new keycard for her old apartment and handed it to her. "Here you go. If you want I'll walk you over and show you some of the changes we've made since you were here last."
"I'd like that," she smiled widely, following him out. He showed her the new cafeteria and the video hall that sat fifty. Stopping at the door he swiped the card and handed it to her as the door raised up.
She looked inside, seeing only a few bare spots along the wall as her parents left most of the larger furniture since they couldn't ship it along to the new location. "My god! You didn't touch a thing. Freaky!"
He chuckled. "Well no reason to really until we replace Don. Unfortunately we can't afford that quite yet, but no one is really applying, anyway." He pointed behind the small kitchenette, it was filled with boxes. "We do use it for a bit of storage though."
"So why don't you move into it?" she asked. "If no one else is using it I mean."
"The cost of powering it up for just myself is money I need in other places right now." He had a decent sized closet on level 4 that was probably more than he and his meager belongings needed anyway. "We barely have our heads above water since the war. Well, I should let you tuck in." He went to the metal cupboard and after searching around a second pulled out a stiff clear wrapped bundle with a triumphant "Ah-ha!" Vac-packed linens – a complete bed in a bag.
"For clients who need a place to stay while we load the ships," he explained said pulling the rip-strip, and removing the plastic. Within a few moments it had swelled to four times it's size as air filled the pillow inside once again. A soft waft of fake flowers from the laundry detergent used to wash them probably years ago now.
She took the bundle from him, her eyes probing his uncomfortably.
"Well, you're all set. I should let you tuck in-" he began to step back, she advanced.
"Ok, Confession time, come here," She said reaching for his hand and pulling him to sit next to her on the bed. He waited for the shoe to drop.
"I didn't come for Nick's Wake. I didn't even know about it until I arrived. Jay told me when I walked into the gate. I came to see you, Marcus. I've missed you so much, I just had to come and see you again before school started up again." She squirmed a bit in her seat, turning to face him more fully Chris looked up into his eyes. "I would have come anyway if I'd known though - I liked your Dad."
He didn't quite know what to say; so he said nothing.
"I had the time off and seeing how you never write me back…I thought I'd drop by. Did you get any of my messages?"
Anger began to well up in him. "I got them all right," he growled. "And don't you dare give me any grief over my doing what you wanted."
"No. You did what you wanted. I don't recall having any say in the matter. I never wanted you not to talk to me again. I know you were mad at me, I can appreciate that and I can even agree you deserved to be, but you could have at least written after the war was up to let me know you were okay. I was worried sick. I had to contact EarthGov to be sure you weren't on the lists. I only started sending messages here hoping you'd be here or you Mom would send them to you."
The hint of sadness in her voice did not escape his notice. His anger subsided, he shoved his hands in his pockets. "She did. Sorry, You're right - I should have at least dropped a line. Yeah I was mad, hell yes I was. But once I got out of the Force, I just wanted to start over - a clean break. Didn't seem any reason to go backwards, you know?"
"But you're still here."
His green eyes flared in anger again. "Where else did I have to go, aye? University didn't exactly pan out, Dad got sick and Mum's not too much better, Will is unreliable at best. I'm all hey have to keep this place afloat. It's because of me it's sinking as badly as it is."
"What about you? What do you want, Marcus? All you ever said growing up was how much you wanted out of here."
"I owe them. End of story. Mum and dad sacrificed everything to get me to MUSI, and it didn't workout. He wanted to retire three years ago? Couldn't. Because I was away chasing fairy tales about 'happy ever after', and doing my 'duty'. He couldn't take it easy and he got sick, how do think that made me feel? That if I'd been here, it might not have happened."
"His getting sick is not your fault!"
"No, most of the problems we're having are the war and my leaving to begin with. The money being the main one. I need to get the place back on track before I can think of leaving, I owe them that much. I have to repay what I owe them," He took a deep inhale letting his anger pour out of him and started again with now without malice in his voice staring at the small gold heart pendant around her neck. He'd never seen it before, he didn't have to guess who gave it to her. "Is that why you left me for Ben?"
"What?" She asked taken aback.
"Is that why? You thought I'd never leave Arissia."
"No." She said softly stroking his arm. "That's not it at all."
Marcus bit his lip and after a few moments of silence spoke again, "You know what the worst part is? I never had you to begin with. It was all for nothing."
She just watched him with her bottomless blue eyes burning a hole in him, he couldn't look at them anymore, it hurt to.
"The part that hurts the most is you never wanted me. Not enough to actually be with me. I know that now, I was stupid to ever think you did." He could hear his voice crack, rising in pitch ever so slightly at the very end as his jaw quivered with the confession. He struggled to keep it in check. He would not cry in front of her. Not after all this.
He felt her hand creep up his shoulder and raised his head in shock as she slipped it around the back of his neck "Ben and I broke up. I never stopped missing you." She pulled his head down to hers, their lips meeting softly.
Exhausted and emotionally drained, he felt himself begin to reciprocate in the warm pleasurable embrace. His tongue rolled smoothly over hers, his hands caressing her slim back, lifting her up and against him tighter.
"So, we've talked about the past already. Got that all straightened out. Where is home these days? What are you doing now?"
Marcus pulled his eyes away awkwardly, trying to calculate an answer that would sound reasonable. Staring at her bosoms wasn't helping him do that. He decided to stick with story set forth earlier in the week.
"I do, uh, security system technical sales and support for a large corporation run by I guy I knew from my days in the force. I work out of the Branch office on Minbar."
She looked taken aback. "Isn't that odd for you? Don't you get any hassle? I mean in the war we were fighting them."
"Actually, my being in the war was how I got the job, I spoke the language."
"You speak Minbari? Since when?" She looked shocked, and a bit impressed.
"During my stint on Io. I was a translator in the intelligence office. I never saw any action, just a lot of boring Minbari procedural manuals and history books. But after the war, knowing the new language on the block had advantages."
"I didn't know what you did during the war. With the way you could fly I thought you were a pilot or something." She said softly. She didn't say 'you never wrote me back to tell me either' but she might as well have.
He waved his hand dismissively, "I couldn't have told you anyway, we were under some pretty extreme regulations about talking about our work, and the monitored any outgoing communications."
"You're right…" She said almost to herself " 'Loose lips sink ships', right?" she nervously said repeating an ancient wartime saying about blabbing secrets.
"Something like that." He smiled softly.
"So, Why are you here on Babylon 5?"
"I live here. I have a few clients on board, and quite a lot of other accounts off station in the surrounding sectors. Living on Babylon 5 makes it more convenient to get around the them all." He sipped his wine trying to make it seem very routine and uninteresting. He waved his hand dismissively, leaning back in his chair. "Boring really, not the exciting stuff you get to do, saving lives and all."
She laughed; it was a husky full-throated laugh. "Eighteen hours a day strapped to a computer until my eyes bleed running endless incremental cellular hypotheses. Give me a break." She touched his arm. "Hey, You have a card? I'm betting we could use your services, I can give it to my division director-"
"Ah, no. Damn. I left them all in my quarters. Sorry." He made a mental note to have cards made, if nothing else it would be a good cover to have. "Wasn't expecting to need them."
She cocked her head to one side, a sultry smile on her red lips "Then how am I going to call you?" she asked raising her eyebrows suggestively.
Marcus was at a loss for words. What the hell was going on? "Uh, I can give you my page address, I guess. I do travel a lot, so could be a few days before I get back to you though." Try weeks, he thought.
"That'd be fine," She said sipping her wine and licking the remaining drops of liquid off her lips. Her eyes followed her hand on his arm as it traveled across the table and wound her fingers with his, and gave a soft squeeze. "I don't want to lose you again, now do I?."
Marcus could feel those words with all the heat and weight they were intended. He squirmed, "No, we wouldn't want that." He forced on a smile and squeezed her hand in return.
She looked up at him again, shrouded behind a lock of red hair that had slipped in front of her eyes, "Unless I shouldn't of course. I never asked… is… is there a Mrs. Cole somewhere?"
He shook his head no, looking away for the waiter with the bill. "No, not as of yet." There was no one in sight. He wrote his apartment number on a slip a paper with the words "bill me" and slipped it under his glass.
He felt her hand squeeze his again, her thumb stroking small circles on the soft skin on the back of his hand. His tongue suddenly felt a bit too large for his mouth.
"And, uhm, traveling so much doesn't provide much time or opportunity for any sort of relationship anyway." He was trying to pull some detachment into the conversation, steer it away from where she was trying to take it.
It didn't work. "You have any clients on Mars, by any chance?" Her other hand came up and stroked the strawberry red lock back into place. The way she did it was the problem, long and lingering, up with one finger and back with the other.
He turned his attention at the drink in his other hand, sipping it. "No, I don't get out that way much. I'm sorry."
"Well, maybe you could get a transfer, do you have a branch office there?" She suggested running her fingers along the edge of her glass.
"I'm afraid not," He glanced around the darkened restaurant; they were one of the only couples left. "We should go before they close the doors on us."
She nodded just noticing the empty room herself. "You're right, I have an early day tomorrow."
He rose and offered his hand, assisting her up. He paid the bill with a couple credit chips on the table as her hand slipped into his.
She smiled at him. "Walk me back?"