Author's note: Hey how's it going out there in TV land? This fan fic is based on the last episode of the fourth season of Babylon 5 called "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars". It takes place mainly about 500 years post Great-burn, but as it utilizes time travel there are a variety of deferent times. The characters Brother Michael, Brother Alwyn, Barbra Tashaki, and Delenn III are barrowed from the show. Sister Alanis, Sister Claire, Lady Ann, and Brother Forest etc. are of my own creation. Now I can't be curtain but I think there's something missing from the story so far, so ANY suggestion you my have will be helpful. I apologize if it's a little slow at first but it's necessary. To reacclimate you into the time period the first block is quoted from the episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars". Please don't forget to respond.
Disclaimer: How about this, the shows been off the air for almost a decade give or take and I still feel obligated to put up a disclaimer. Okay here we go. Babylon 5 was created by J. Michael Straczynski (ß quite a name huh?) and is the property of him and Warner Bros. I am not making any money; I'm just a fan playing in the world she loves. On with the show!
January 2, 3262
"Yes, but space is closed to us now," Brother Michael said, turning to one of the few windows in the monastery. A very common scene is being played out in Brother Alwyn's study once again. Brother Michael, a somewhat nervous and fidgety individual, yet again decides that tonight is just the precise time to have a "crises of faith" and peel the remaining bits of sanity out of Brother Alwyn's brain and patience. Pestering Brother Alwyn seemed to be becoming a nightly or at least weekly ritual.
"Just look at us, Brother Alwyn. And look at what Earth has become," he continued, peering out of the window into the harsh land beyond the monastery. The wind rose thick with dust that caught on the window pane and gathered around the edges like a grim snow storm. "Our cities are little more than villages. All those great secrets of our ancestors are almost gone."
"Almost," Brother Alwyn agreed, but then added consolingly, "That's why we're here. To find the ancient wisdoms and preserve them. Why, we've already found and restored so many books."
"Yes, but we are not one inch closer to-to those flying machines that the books talk about, or to the stars. And if the truth really does lie in the stars then how will we ever know the truth?" Brother Michael drew his gaze away from the window, away from the smoke coming from just over his field of view and walked to a table Brother Alwyn had in the middle of his study.
For some reason Brother Alwyn seemed to be unusually obsessed with Pre-Burn tech, when most people stayed away from it like it were a disease. It was difficult to find a place to put the large book in his arms down because of this. How much clutter can one table hold?
Brother Alwyn rested his eyes on the book with the same look of revered interest that the newest of recruits wore, and loss soon after. "Look, the others. The blessed Sheridan who lived and died and returned from the dead and was taken bodily into heaven. And Ivanova the strong and Delenn the wise. They could all be fables for all we know. You know the worst of it?"
"What?" he asked, a little more annoyance then he had intended bleeding through.
Brother Michael sat down beside him. "I was halfway through illuminating it when my heart just left me. You know the prophecies. The prophecies of Delenn III said that the Anla'shok, the Rangers would come again to the Earth in her greatest hour of need and rebuild what was once the cradle of Sheridan and the Alliance. And we have waited so, so long Brother Alwyn and they have never come. If that's a myth, then everything else could be a myth. And the whole of my life could just be a lie." Quite unexpectedly a deep sense of morning came up in his chest. It was the sense of a child's first thought that God might not be real.
"And if they do not come today, but come tomorrow is your life a lie then? I cannot help you, Brother Michael. That is what faith is for," he said, his voice coming down just a note as though he could sense just what Brother Michael was feeling. "Faith sustains us in the hour when reason tells us that we cannot continue, that the whole of our lives is without meaning."
"Then why where we born able to reason if reason's useless?"
"Not useless. But it's also not enough." He caught his tongue just briefly enough for Brother Michael not to notice and still give some thought to what he was trying to say. "Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both then you can with just one. If you must have reason for an answer, then consider this. If today the Rangers came back to Earth from their place in the heavens you would not know about it. They would come in secret and move around us and help us and we wouldn't even know they were here because the secret that they bring is feared by people who still blame science for the Great Burn."
"Then you think the Rangers are here today?" he asked.
"I believe they could be." Wait. What was that? Was he trying to say something? Brother Michael thought that he had detected something in Brother Alwyn's voice that beckoned him to read further then face value. "That's all that faith requires," he continued before he could think much further. "That we surrender ourselves to the possibility of hope. With that, I am content. And I believe you will be as well. It's beautiful work. Too lovely and significant for you to half-finish. Finish your illumination, Brother Michael." He got up and went to walk him the short distance to the door, the tone in his voice making it clear that no further discussion was to be had. "You've gone this far. It's too late to lose your faith now or my faith in you," he added, handing the book back to Michael.
"If the truth really is in the stars, Brother Alwyn," he added before he was pushed out of the room, "then just once, once before I die I really wish that I could walk amongst those stars."
"If there is a way Brother Michael I pray that your wish comes true."
He knew he really shouldn't, but he stayed there in the hall way and pressed his ear against the door. Brother Alwyn was talking again, it sounded like he was talking to someone in a very dry monotone voice. But this didn't mean anything everyone knew Brother Alwyn liked to talk to himself. And still he pressed his ear in just a little harder, something in that conversation made him want to press just a little further. He could almost make out the words, thought he heard his name, when Brother Alwyn stopped talking.
He removed his ear from the door and thought. No… he was just being silly.
March 7, 2376
"All right now that's enough! This is a simple, reasonable request. Now I have been shifted from person to person and negotiation to negotiation! I will not tolerate this any longer!"
"I'm sorry," said the nasally voice of the woman on the other side of the view screen. "That's all I can do."
"Listen to me. Don't you hang-you hung up on me."
"You know screaming won't help matters."
The girl that was formally shouting at a face on the wall jumped and turned in the speaker's way. "Lor! You startled me," she said. She almost never used Lor's true name.
Barbara Tashaki, a pretty 40 year old business woman smiled affectionately. "It's a habit," she said playfully. "Delenn, you are the great-great-granddaughter of the parents of the Alliance. Imagine what people would say if they saw you having an out right tantrum with a Presidential aid."
"They'd say, 'Now hear is a girl dedicated to her predecessor's memory. Poised, and refined, and lethal to the taste.'" Delenn said this evenly and smooth as silk. She looked almost nothing like Delenn the first, but she spoke like her sometimes; elegant to the last. Being of mixed blood had betrayed her long ago. Taken from her the Bonecrest that she so envied in other Minbari. In its place was an intricate tattoo on a scared, bald head, perfectly emulating a female Religious cast Bonecrest. The only hair on her head was where humans had what is traditionally called bangs, half died purple of all colors. She braded them and placed them delicately behind her ears, more then half the length fell unbraded just below her bust. Dressed all in black, and always in a dress or skirt. She had soft, feminine features that made the boys she didn't notice fall at her feet.
"Besides," she went on, "she wasn't a presidential aid. Just an intern." She revolved on the spot for a moment with a long exasperated exhale, before setting to the center of the room where a circular purple coach sat and plopped herself down. "It's just frustrating is all. I'm sorry for alarming you."
"You didn't 'alarm' me Delenn. I've known you long enough for that to pass." She paused, uncertain she should continue with what was on her mind. "You know, you don't have to do this right now."
"Of course I do. I love her."
"Yes, I know but… you're still so young. You should be out there enjoying life instead of trying to create a memorial for your great-great-grandparents."
"Enjoying what exactly?" Her voice lulled away momentarily. She looked at the room around her. It was small compared to chambers on most other ships. But it resonated with the space and tranquility of the Minbari home world. Mostly it held to Minbari stile, triangular and crystalline, but the edges were softened with light white curtains and she owned a small but dignified collection of early Earth weaponry.
"There are far more people out there like her," she jabbed an aggravated thumb at the monitor, "then there will ever be of us. Politics, and scheming, and people out for no ones agenda but there own. They saturate the stars and pollute the spaces in between so that with every passing generation less and less good can grow. If I can carve out just a piece of unadulterated memory and reverence, maybe it can spread. Maybe it will remind people of where they've been, and where they must go. Maybe we can become again the galaxy Nana cherished. At the very least it might make this galaxy a little easier to live in." There was something in the way she spoke. Something that drifted effortlessly through the skin and into the soul. But Barbra seemed to be immune.
"You are so damn cynical. I know about all the scheming double crossers, I used to be one. You don't have enough experience to judge the whole galaxy. I don't even. All I'm saying is that you need a little more time under your belt. Perhaps you should go home and-" she stopped and cringed. She knew she'd said the wrong word.
"Home?" Delenn said menacingly. "Where may I ask? To Minbar where everywhere I turn I'm ridiculed even by the Religious cast, even by members of the Anla'shok. To Earth where even seclusion can't keep me away from the people that dog me for being a famous name leaching off heredity. Or better yet how about-"
"All right!" she said, putting her hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not cynical, I'm truthful," she said pouting like a little girl. "And as far as my lack of life experience-" she lowered the threatening finger that had resin of its own will and bit her tongue. Her agitation was almost as bad as her grace.
"I know she practically raised you, Delenn, but really-why are you so obsessed with this?"
"It's personal," she said crossly. "And I'm not obsessed."
"Yeah that's what you always say."
"I just don't understand why they're so fervently against this. It isn't a difficult request. If they truly wanted to they could rebuild Babylon 5 in six months. And I'm not asking for anything nearly as difficult as that."
A small black human cat brushed against Barbra's ankles. She picked it up, scratched it, and went to sit next to Delenn with the cat lying contentedly on her lap. "Present diplomatic circumstances with Earth require them to make some concessions," she said in full political scholar mode. "Earth's opinion of your predecessors has been highly colored by the Telepath War. If the Alliance goes around Earth to set up this memorial it would embarrass them. The Alliance needs Earth's full support as one of the more powerful worlds, politically and strategically."
While she'd been talking Delenn had taken a small piece of plastic out from a pocket sewn from the inside of her skirt, and was now nibbling on the end of it. She always did that when she was thinking or nervous.
She shook her head vaguely. "The Alliance doesn't need Earth. What of Narn, and Minbar, and the Drazi, and Brakir, and so many others. The Alliance has proven itself with its loyal members time and again. Earth needs the Alliance more then the Alliance needs Earth. Besides Earth disserves to be embarrassed."
"You're probably right. But no one is going to take that risk. Delenn, this may not be possible in our time."
"No it is possible, it should be possible quite easily." She sighed uneasily. "No, there's something going on."
Barbra absentmindedly took up the control and pointed it at the monitor, directing it with her fingers to find ISN. Without considering Delenn snatched the control from Barbra's hands and shut it off just as the tell tail chime that herald the ten o'clock news sounded.
"I was going to watch that!"
"I don't like the news. It's depressing."
"Well of course it's depressing its news. Some of it isn't depressing it can actually be quite interesting."
"Like what?" she asked, her voice coming as close to a challenge as it ever did.
"Alright listen to this; six months ago the Vartok Home world reported something unusual around their nearest moon. Some sort of spatial anomaly they couldn't get a fix on. So the Alliance sent a team of scientists to take a look at it. Do you know what they found?"
She didn't even bother to feign interest. "What?"
"It had destroyed half a mile of the moon's surface. Poof, gone, vaporized not a trace of it was found. The team hasn't been able to get a lock on it for any length of time; it is so strong that it destroys their instruments. It's a complete mystery. They know only two things, it seems to be a fizzer in time space and even matter, that's why it's destroying everything it comes in contact with. And it's growing. They've had to evacuate the entire planet. It's a massive operation. My brothers even volunteered the experimental ship he's been developing. It's below decks right now, that's why we're being delayed to Earth."
Delenn was staring in the general direction of her bed, which was in the corner opposite the door, her eyes unfocused. If she didn't still have her bit of plastic in her mouth, Barbra would have sworn she'd gone completely catatonic.
"Oh come on Delenn you can at least pretend to be mildly fascinated."
"No," she said excitedly. "No that's it! That's why they're ignoring me!
"What's it?"
"They're using this planetary disaster as a smoke screen to ignore us. Think about it Lor. They can't listen to me, according to your theory, because Earth won't hear of it.
But they can't openly ignore me without offending those loyal to the ideals of the Alliance. Lor they're hiding behind Vartok."
"You said it yourself Delenn, there aren't very many people that take you seriously. Not on Minbar, Earth, Centuri Prime, or any where else. You can't honestly believe that there's a conspiracy against us."
"No, no, no, no, no," she said in rapid succession. "Not a 'conspiracy'."
"Finally some logic."
"Just a load of cowards hanging behind a dyeing planet. And they're going to stay there until somebody forces them out."
Barbra threw up her hands in exasperated frustration. She resisted the urge to grab Delenn by the shoulders and shake her to make sure there really was a brain between those ears, and took to pacing the room.
"Because I'm so adamant in getting this memorial done I've become a nuisance they can't ignore and can't publicly scorn. So they hid."
Barbra pressed her fingers against her sinuses to try and prevent the head ach she felt coming on. It didn't work. "I… I… I… where the hell did us go in this equation? Alright say that for the microscopic, insignificant, slightest of slight possibilities that you're right, what do you intend to do about it?"
"I'm going to press the issue."
"Ah."
"I'm going to Vartok."
"No!" she ordered, stopping dead in her tracks. "Absolutely not! That place has been quarantined except for official rescue ships."
"The President is bound to be there. He can't possibly ignore us if we're right in front of his face."
"Glade to see I've been ushered into this little goose hunt again. It is too dangerous. I forbid it!"
"I don't need a mother."
"No what you need is some good old fashioned shock therapy. You have absolutely no proof that this isn't one of your delusions." In the few seconds silence that fallowed she could hear her heart pounding against her chest. Of all the times they fought, no matter how much she didn't understand her, Barbra truly cared for Delenn. And right now she was terrified for her. She knew that her obsession for this goal had been growing steadily for the past few months, and there was a real chance she'd go threw with what she said. She looked back down into the face of her friend and her hard rapid heartbeat softened. She sat back down and drew a hand across her face maternally. "I know this is important to you, Delenn. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly why, or how much. But I know it's important to you. Having said that it isn't worth being imprisoned for assaulting the president, or worse."
Delenn eyed her with the expression of a scorned child. She and Barbra had developed an odd relationship since they'd first met nearly two years ago. A mix between constantly squabbling sisters, sergeant mother daughter, hard flung enemies, and the kind of bar tender that you tell everything but your deepest secrets to.
Barbra peered a little further at her. "How long has it been since you slept?"
"Oh I'm not getting into this again." She started to get up but Barbra had hold or her wrist and shoved her back down. "How long?" She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Forty hours or so."
"Delenn you have to sleep. Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you stress yourself out during the day and then refuse to take the meds the doctor prescribed. I know you don't like chemicals very much but you can't live off five hours of sleep every two to three days."
Delenn wasn't listening. She was too busy turning over Barbra's words on the Vartok situation. Then something came across her. "What kind of ship?"
"What?"
"You said your brother has an experimental ship below decks. What kind of experimental ship?"
It took a moment for Barbra to regain herself after such an unexpected question. "Solar fusion."
"That's nothing new. People have been using solar energy since before space travel."
"Not buried under five kilometers of ionized rock. It's said to be able to stay berried for years and still be able to gather energy from the nearest stars solar radiation," she shook herself for a moment and caught back on her original train of thought. "Stop trying to change the subject. Get to bed."
"Huh. Oh, yeah, sure, in a little while," she said, vaguely registering the fact that Barbra had spoken to her and not knowing at all what she was agreeing to.
"No. Now."
For the first time she met eyes with Barbra, trying hard to hide the confusion in her. She always got so upset when she found that Delenn wasn't listening to her. Rescue came quickly fortunately, as at that moment Barbra pointed at the bed. Begrudgingly she conceded.
She lied awake in her bed hours and hours later. Her attentions focused on a single candle burning in the darkness, her eyes climbing up the flame as it turned gently from blue, to gray, to yellowish white. Her mind settled in the past; in one perfect moment of peace. A purple net surrounded her bed completely, shrouding her from the universe like a womb of her own making. And here, late at night, was the only place she felt safe anymore. It was the only place in the galaxy that she ever let the tears come out anymore. They fell every night she tried to sleep, every night without fail; comforting in there own small way. One by one they trickled down her face. One for every person she'd lost, one for every memory she didn't want.
She pulled herself into a ball as the last of the tears for the night fell, absorbing itself into the sheets, its companions into her knee. She knew what Lor would say if ever she told her of her nightly convulsive ritual. Which is why she never told her of the sadness that waited for her just behind the veil.
As a matter of fact, she was never really sad when she cried. Actually it was the only time that she wasn't. Here she could listen to her heart, the heart that was kept under lock and key at all other times. Here she could be free to be at peace… with herself and her thoughts.
She closed her eyes once, twice, sleep gradually catching up with her… 'You have absolutely no proof that this isn't one of your delusions,' she heard echoing softly in her head. There beyond the stars she saw it, her home… 'I'm going to Vartok.' It was just as she remembered it. The sent of the flowers on the air filling her… 'He can't ignore us if we're right in front of his face. What kind of experimental ship?' There she was, always so beautiful, always waiting behind her eyes. Her smile drew her in. the same way it did as a child. Her arms were open wide, beckoning her to rest in them… 'I don't need a mother! I'm going to Vartok-going to Vartok.'
Delenn sat up in her bed, breathing heavily, her words and her half sleep state sharp in her mind yet slipping fast, like water through cupped hands. Her mind raced in a hundred different directions and congealed in one spot. "The hell if I'm going to stay here."