Epilogue I.
It was, Delenn admitted, possibly egotistical of her to make her final stand on recorded human television. But some things needed to be said, and this was the last chance she would have to say them.
In the sunlight outside she sighed, silently, to herself. Her people flanked her, waiting for her orders to return to her ship, to the comforts of her seclusion: music, Shal Mayan's tee'la, quiet conversation with the aspiring acolytes who followed her. She had not asked to be followed, but she enjoyed the company, the insight.
Though at times, she missed... those she had known. Lennier. David.
John.
She fought down tears. She had known that history--that impartial, all-knowing force of history that poor woman in the studio worshiped--would do with him as it would, but it still hurt and angered her to see men and women who had never known a moral choice more complicated than a request to donate to charity making decisions about what should and should not be recorded about their struggle.
With a sigh, she opened her eyes.
The man who stood in front of her was familiar--sharply familiar. He inclined his head gently toward the studio behind her and said, "I saw the broadcast and thought I'd come say hello."
She knew that voice. She couldn't help but smile, a bit perplexed. "It has been a while. You haven't changed."
"You grow more radiant every year."
Now that was pure flattery and they both knew it. "Only because I am crowned with more white. Or less. I suppose I am returning to my natural state."
He grinned and offered her his arm. "Walk with me?"
This would have been unthinkable, years ago. But then, she had done many unthinkable things, in her time. And certainly the woman who broke and later reformed the Gray Council, who helped forge the Interstellar Alliance and drive out the First Ones, shouldn't be afraid to walk with a former minion of the Shadows.
It had been a long time, after all.
She took his offered arm, and they stepped forward into the garden. "It is pleasant," she said, "To see so many green spaces in the city."
"This place used to be called 'The Garden State.'"
"Oh?"
"I grew up around here." Another smile. "A long time ago."
"Ah." She looked around. The buildings were visible at the edges of the skyline, but they were all fronted by well-kept lawns, trees, pathways. "Has it changed much, since then?"
"It's unrecognizable. But that's progress."
"Minbar has not changed so much, I think," she said. "But it feels strange, to walk the paths in Tuzanor, with all who I knew gone."
He nodded, slowly. "Yes... yes. I know that feeling."
They passed through a grove of trees in silence, winding their way to a lake framed in mist. He didn't press her for speed, or for conversation.
"I was surprised," she said, "when Susan told me about you."
That made him chuckle. "I can imagine."
"I did not see you at her funeral."
He stopped laughing. "Funerals aren't good for me. I needed some time alone."
"Ah." She nodded. The mist was even thicker down by the lake than she had thought. Or perhaps that was just her eyes. Her eyesight had always been good, but even that had started failing her, these last few years. The dampness wasn't causing its familiar pain in her wrists and ankles, though, for which she was thankful.
"And you are helping the Rangers?"
He nodded. "There are still a few unresearched First Ones colonies out there. I'm hoping there's more intact technology somewhere. The database's descriptions seem utterly opaque to everyone except me, and I'm no engineer."
They turned back into the trees. The path was paved, for which she was grateful. The amount of moisture in the air would have turned an unpaved road quickly to mud.
"Morden," she asked, a sudden thought occurring to her.
He looked up, expectant.
"Have you ever forgiven yourself, for what you did while working for the Shadows?"
His eyes darkened and he looked away. She sighed.
"I don't know if you know this, but I was admitted to the Gray Council before the war with your people." She smiled, bitterly. "Just before, in fact. The encounter with the Prometheus interrupted the end of my initiation ceremony."
He nodded. She hesitated at the next, surprised at how hard it was to say, even after all the years. "What you may not know about my time in the Gray Council is that I had been apprenticed to Dukhat himself. He was a mentor to me. A friend... a father, in many ways, when I was separated from my family." She swallowed, hard. "When he died..."
"Delenn..."
"When he died, the Council was divided, leaderless. Half voted for reason, for mercy, to wait. The other half voted for punishment, for war." She could still not look up. "I was the deciding vote."
He said nothing. She pulled her hand away and rubbed her shoulders, suddenly cold.
"I understand," he said.
She looked at him. He was watching her, expression neutral. "It isn't my place to forgive, either," he continued.
She nodded.
"Come on." He took her arm again. "We're almost there."
They were enshrouded by fog. The trees were an indistinct blur around them. "Where are we?"
"This way." He urged her faster. She was having to walk much quicker than she had in decades, but she wasn't tiring. The ground sloped upwards, steeply, and his pace never slackened--and despite her worries, neither did hers.
Without warning they were breaking free of the fog, and running--running through cool sand, down a slope, toward a beach. The waves roared in her ears, the sand sank beneath her feet, and the stars! The stars stretched overhead in a blaze of glory, constellations she had never seen nor imagined. She threw down her staff and ran into the water's edge, giddy, splashing at the waves, glorying in the starlight. She felt young.
Startled, she looked at her hands. She was young.
How... She looked for Morden, frantic, but he was gone. His footprints traced a path for a while, then disappeared, melted into the water. There was no one else on the beach.
No... there was someone else on the beach.
She walked out of the waves toward him, her breath catching in her throat. He was walking toward her, his movement hesitant, anxious.
Even when her eyes told her, she could not believe it. It wasn't until he cried, "Delenn!" and swept her into his arms again and kissed her that she could believe, really believe, that it was John, that he was here, that he was real.
He brushed her tears away with his fingers, gently, and stared at her as though he had never seen anything more precious. "How did you..."
"I..." She looked one more time back from where they had come. The beach was still empty. "I'm not entirely sure. I walked here... with Mr. Morden..."
John looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned and held her tighter. "Come with me," he said. "I have to show you the city... I have to show you everything."
But he didn't move, and neither did she. After a minute he said, "I've missed you so much."
She smiled, and nestled her head in the crook of his neck so he wouldn't see her tears. "I know, John. I love you."
"I love you, too," he said.
Some time later, he said, "Look... over the water. The sun is coming up."
Epilogue II.
He could do nothing but stare at the devastation.
The half-human, half-Minbari pilot beside him sighed. "By the time we heard anything was happening, it was too late to stop it," he said. "The Outer Confederates claim they acted in premature self-defense, which is true if that message we received is true, but..."
"I leave you people alone for five minutes," Aaron muttered, "And you go and let Earth get blown up."
The pilot coughed. "That's a little unfair..."
"So is Geneva turning into a glass crater."
He shouldn't blame the pilot. Or the Anla'shok, who had given him this tour guide and passage on this ship. Though technically, he didn't need a ship to get anywhere.
"All right. I've seen enough."
The pilot--Aaron didn't even know the kid's name--nodded and turned the ship around, back into hyperspace. Aaron sighed and leaned back in his seat.
He wanted to pitch a fit and rend things. He wanted to make things explode. But he wasn't going to lose his composure in front of this Ranger, he was going to get good and mad and lose his composure in front of someone who really deserved it.
Like, say, Lorien.
The Younger Races had come pretty damn far in five hundred years. If the First Ones came back and wanted a rumble, Aaron was pretty sure that the current generation could give them a run for their money, if not outright win. So this continued policy of noninterference seemed... childish. Especially when a few wiser heads or an outright admission of The Larger Problem--which most people still didn't believe, even within the Anla'shok--would have probably precluded this whole catastrophe.
Earth was now covered in scorch marks. Dammit, they should have been able to do something!
He fumed all the way back to Lower Minbar Orbit, where the docks and his current apartments were located. He went home, closed the door, gave his old Soul Hunter sphere a pat.
Then he closed his eyes and reached--
He'd cheated, the last time he went to the song called the House of Light and Turquoise, by pretending that he was a Vorlon ship and had passage. This time he was stopped at the gate. He landed in a null-space, floating, an angry twisting shape of energy floating before him.
"The prodigal son returns," the Vorlon said.
"Hello, Whandall."
"You've been rather busy in this region of space, lately."
He made an aggrieved noise in his throat. "Once, Whandall. And it was four hundred years ago."
"And you think it's given you a right to come and go as you please, transporting whomever you like?"
"It was a nice thing to do for an old friend. Whandall, my planet just got blown up."
"You have my sympathy."
"Whandall!"
"But only that." The Vorlon floated closer. "You run to us when you hurt--we are elder races, not your parents. You do not need us to lay down the law. You need to learn without us to stop playing with matches."
"Is that what you told yourselves when the Ikaraans drove themselves to extinction?"
"Yes. It is." Whandall's colors changed slightly. "You win a point in this argument for not bringing up the War."
"Great. I win a point for not pointing out how you lied to us and killed us by the million to get your point across."
"You do not understand."
"Oh, I understand," he growled. "I understand that despite the Younger Races being your one big hope, you're perfectly content to have us slaughter each other, as long as some of us stay alive to save your asses when the supernovas start. The rest of us killing each other isn't a concern as long as it furthers your interests, because it's not as though we're individually smart enough to make a difference, is it?"
"You do not understand."
"Then enlighten me!" He crossed his arms. "Give me some answers. Or are the Vorlons still only good at looking mysterious and bullshitting?"
"Now that," said a new voice, "is being more than a little unfair."
He spun to face Lorien, who was standing behind him, regarding him with a disapproving expression. The ground was suddenly solid under his feet, and he took the opportunity to brace himself.
Lorien shook his head slowly. "Don't think that we don't yearn to save your races from all their errors. But there is no growth without pain. There is no success without suffering."
"Suffering," Aaron said, clipping off his syllables, "doesn't quite cover Earth's biosphere being reduced to hardy species of algae and a few million sentients in bunkers with shotguns."
"Earth will rebuild itself."
"And meanwhile eight billion people have gone up in smoke!" He looked, he searched, but he couldn't see any feeling in Lorien's gold eyes. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Lorien slowly held out his hand.
Aaron looked down. Glittering on Lorien's palm was a sphere of orbiting lights, small blue specks that swirled and pulsed in a seamless ballet. "What is it?"
"An access point." Something in Lorien's voice made him look up again. "You will not have much time, for it is difficult to keep the link open. But perhaps you will find some of the answers you seek."
He hesitated for a moment more, then thrust his hand into the link and connected--
--from one black place to another. Lorien and Whandall were gone. He was alone.
A door opened and shut behind him. He turned, but he didn't see a door, or a doorway; just a featureless black expanse and--
her...
"My God," he whispered. "Rebecca?"
And she smiled, relief, and then his wife was in his arms and he was kissing her--she was kissing him--and oh, God!
"Oh, Aaron," she murmured into his shoulder after a time.
He couldn't speak. After several tries, he managed to ask, "How?"
She sniffed and pulled back just far enough to see him. "This is what they've been building. The... the First Ones, the Soul Hunters. All this."
"All what?" He looked around, but could only see blackness. "I can't..."
"No, we're in something special. It's all one giant... like a giant computer. We're in an access point." She smiled. "I got special permission to see you... oh, God, Aaron. I've missed you so much."
"What have they built?"
"Well..." She shrugged. "Have you ever wondered if there's a Heaven?"
He stared at her. She smiled again and reached up to brush at his cheeks. "It's all right," she said. "Really, it's all right. It'll all be all right."
"But I can't stay with you?"
Her expression crumbled and she shook her head. "No," she said. "You have work to do."
"But I..."
"It's all right." She tried to smile again, glitter of tears haloing her eyes. "I'll be here... we'll all be here."
"Rebecca," he begged, taking her hands, feeling a tugging at the back of his mind. "Tell me... when you were trapped in hyperspace, the Leander..."
"Did the Shadows lie?"
He nodded.
"It was one long moment..." She lay her hand on his face. "We were trapped, I remember that. And we couldn't move... but I don't remember any pain."
"Becca..."
"I love you, Aaron... D'Vech creor chol, remember? But sometimes we have to wait for the border to be removed." She smiled again through her tears. "I love you."
"God, Becca!" He hadn't called her that since God he hadn't seen her in and she was fading away and he could still taste that damn perfume she always and oh God...
He sank to his knees on that black, featureless expanse. Eventually, he stopped trying to see her in the distance and covered his face with his hands.
"Did you truly believe we would let you fall?"
Aaron looked up, unwilling to stand. "Yes," he said weakly. "Yes, I believed that. You didn't give a damn--"
Lorien knelt beside him. "Of course we cared. Listen." Lorien reached out, gently touched his face. "You are our children, your races. Our hopes and dreams, our plans for the future, our future itself. You are not alone. You are not neglected. And we would never throw you into an abyss of our own making."
"I could only see the war." He glared accusingly into Lorien's mild golden eyes. "That's all there was!"
"No." Lorien shook his head. "No. There is always life."
After a time, he looked away. "How long have you..."
"A long time. Millions of years."
"Is everyone who ever..."
"No." Lorien sighed. "We do not know what truly lies beyond death, any more than you. The Soul Hunters believe nothing. The Minbari believe rebirth. We cannot arbitrate. We can only offer a choice. No one truly needs to die, not any more."
"And can people ever... come back?"
"Not fully, no." Lorien smiled. "But as you already may know, with enough effort, a being composed of nothing but energy may... influence the material world."
For a moment he didn't know what Lorien was talking about. Then it hit him. "Falanistal... poltergeist?"
Lorien closed his eyes and nodded.
He didn't know what to say. He stared until Lorien smiled again and stood, then offered a hand up. He took it, found himself on his feet under a ceiling of countless stars. Out in the distance, too far for the eyes to really make out, moving specks like swarms of fish darted and rolled, starships at play, exulting in the joy of movement.
"What will you do now?"
"I don't know." His voice was raw. He looked up at Lorien and shrugged. "I can't stay here, still. I mean, especially now... Earth will need help rebuilding."
"Is that what you truly want?"
His breath was catching. "No. No, I... Seeing her... I want to see her. I love her. I never really..." He had to close his eyes for a second. Everything was reeling.
"But she's right," he finally admitted. "I have work to do. She always was smarter than me."
"Will you tell anyone what you have learned?"
He laughed sardonically, startled, then grinned at Lorien's expression. "Come on. The last Jewish boy who came home with tales of a life hereafter got nailed to a tree."
Lorien smiled. "You no longer need permission to arrive and depart... though I think you've learned that already. But there was one question you never got an answer to, and I thought I would indulge your curiosity."
"Which one is that?"
"Why you."
Aaron started. "I... okay." He frowned. "Why me?"
"You have a talent, Mr. Morden, for finding the right people." Lorien nodded at his surprise. "You demonstrated it while working for the Shadows, and proved it while working to stop the Drakh plague and Earthforce's abuses. Whether by synchronicity or luck, you are a nexus. You find the correct people for the task at hand, and you bring them to the right place for change to occur."
He shook his head. "But I don't do anything special."
"Nevertheless." Lorien turned to look out at the stars. "You see them, out there?"
Swimming flecks of gold on the infinite. "Yes."
They watched in silence for a while. Then Lorien murmured, "That we could all follow, and live for the moment."
He looked up, startled. Lorien watched the ships for a moment more, then turned back to him. "Do you understand?"
Aaron shook his head. "I don't."
Lorien smiled. "Good." He turned away. "That is a good beginning."
"And what about the ending?" Aaron couldn't help asking.
Lorien was going, fading away. As through through a long tunnel he heard, "Perhaps that remains unwritten..."
He waited but heard nothing more. When he was sure he was alone, he turned from the spreading stars and walked toward Tuzanor, leaving the starships to sing amongst themselves.
-- FIN --
Comments welcome at aris at sandwich dot net.
--
THOMASINA: But instead, the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue. Oh, Septimus! -- can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides -- thousands of poems -- Aristotle's own library brought to Egypt by the noodle's ancestors! How can we sleep for grief?
SEPTIMUS: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language.
- Tom Stoppard, Arcadia