Disclaimer: The Babylon 5 universe and its inhabitants are not mine. I'm
just borrowing them.
Protecting the Future
"Where is he?" she yelled. She swung her bare feet to the floor and paused just long enough to let the unexpected wave of dizziness pass before demanding of the empty room, "Lights, goddamnit! Lights, now!" The lights sprang on, and she quickly headed for the door, barely taking notice of the spartan, metallic room she had awoken in.
She charged out of the room wearing only a drab gray bed gown. On her way down the corridor she looked into several other rooms, hoping he would be in one of them. Several nurses tried to stop her, telling her that she should be resting still, but she just ignored them. Other than a lot of yelling, most of the nurses made it through relatively unscathed; all but one. She grabbed him by his collar, slamming him against the wall. "Where is he, damn you? Tell me where he is before I rip your fragging head off!"
The nurse quickly regained his composure, but not before glancing at the door at the end of the hall. "Now, calm down." he said. "We just got word that the doctor'll be here soon, and he'll be very unhappy that you're out of bed so soon after what you've been through."
"Oh, so he's in there, huh?" she asked, having noticed his nervous glance. "Good, he's gonna need a med lab room when I'm done with him." She strode down the hall purposefully, fully expecting to face his annoying grin. He'd probably have some smart-ass remark for her, too.
She reached the end of the hallway, slammed through the door...and stopped dead in her tracks. She was in some kind of observation room, with one wall almost completely made of glass. She looked through the glass at the room on the other side, and saw what appeared to be a corpse under a white sheet, with one foot sticking out.
"It's not him, it can't be. We just finished a war. I'm sure there were a lot of casualties. It could be anybody." She slowly made her way to the chart hanging on the wall, her heart pounding as she opened the folder to read the name at the top of the first page.
She let out an awful wail as she focused on his name on the chart. She threw it at the far wall, and ran over to the glass window to look at what she realized was the body of the man who had loved her enough to actually give his life for her.
"Commander, you really shouldn't be in here." she heard a voice say from the doorway. "You really need to go back to your room."
"Go away!" she screamed. "Just get out!"
A security guard joined the nurse at the door, asking if he should escort her back to her room. "No, she'd never stay there, and we don't want to risk hurting her in the struggle. The doctor will know how to handle her, and his flight is coming in as we speak. I'm on my way to meet him now."
She started slamming her fists into the window separating her from him as the impact of what was happening around her set in. She began to recall what had happened to her, and what he had done for her. Her vision began to blur as she slid to the floor. He couldn't be dead. Not like this...
"Not for me!" she yelled. "Not for me!"
Susan struggled to extricate herself from her blankets. "Lights, low," she whispered through her sobs. Every night since Marcus's death, she prayed to whatever god might be listening to keep the nightmares away, and to just let her forget. And every night, she realized all over again that every god that existed had forsaken her as his memory haunted her. She slowly sat up and eased herself out of the bed, catching the edge of the doorway for support as she made her way to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and saw her long gray hair plastered to her face by a mixture of sweat and tears.
Damn modern medicine! She remembered hearing once that as recently as 200 years ago, the elderly almost always started losing their memories by the age of 75. Now, at the age of one hundred and one, she could still remember in vivid detail the agony of every day since he left her alone with her guilt. The only thing that had kept her going was a need to make him proud of her.
She went back into her bedroom and looked around at the room she had occupied for the last two months. The walls were mostly bare, with only a few random paintings. Her armchair was in one corner, next to a window that looked out onto a garden, with what passed for a lamp on Minbar on the other side of it. The opposite wall contained her small dresser, with only a single brush, a leather hair band, and her Ranger pin on top of it. And there, in the middle of the room, was the four-poster, canopied bed she had had imported from Earth. The large, soft bed was the only real luxury she had ever allowed herself to have, and that wasn't even a real luxury, because it reminded her of Marcus's absence every time she even looked at it.
The aging woman felt as though she were being drawn toward the dresser, and took a box out of the very back of the top drawer, which she carried over to the bed. She sat down and ran her wrinkled hands over the intricate Minbari carvings of the wooden box. She had not looked inside since she first received it almost seventy years ago. Now, Susan reached to the back of her neck and removed the silver chain that had also been given to her all those years ago. Hanging from it was a very small, antique looking Earth key, which she used to unlock the box.
She lifted the lid and peered inside. At the top of the box were a six inch long silver cylinder, and an oval pin, about three inches across, with a green stone in the center and two humanoid figures, one on either side. These items rested on what looked like a brown pillow, but was actually a Ranger duster. They were items she was very familiar with, having a set of her own very much like this one, as did all of the people she had worked with on a regular basis for the last fifty years.
This particular set, however, caused her fresh pain like she had not felt in decades. Stephen had given her this set just before she had left Babylon 5 to take command of the Titans. Marcus had had no family to whom they could send his personal effects, and so he, John, and Delenn had all agreed that Marcus would want her to have them. She had accepted the box graciously; opening it just enough to quickly glance inside while Stephen was still there. She had put the lock on it almost immediately after he left.
Now, as she lifted the Ranger pin out of the box, she could almost swear she felt a hand caress her cheek. She turned, irrationally half expecting her heroic Ranger to be there, and found herself still quite alone. The loss swept over her like a wave. Almost everyone she had ever loved was dead. Her parents, her brother, Talia, Marcus, John...even Michael and Stephen were gone now. All she had left was Delenn, who was even older than Susan, but still playing an active role in the IA, and David, who had taken over the position of Anla'shok Na from her back in August. She knew that either one of them would drop everything for their old friend if needed, but they were far too busy for her to bother them just because she was lonely.
All of a sudden, another feeling of compulsion swept over her. She placed the pin back in its place and closed the box. She left the lock and key in the middle of the bed, got up, and walked out the door into the cool Tuzanor night. She practically glided through the paths around the Ranger compound, more sure in her steps than she had been in twenty years. She entered Tuzanor's cryogenics facilities and went directly to the only private room in the building. One advantage of having been Anla'shok Na for fifty years was that no one questioned her.
Susan walked in and looked at the cryo-tube on the raised platform in the middle of the room. There was a bench next to it, and here she placed the box. She opened it, took out the pin and the closed den'bok, put them on the bench next to the box, and removed the old duster. She unfolded it and put it on, settling it expertly on her slightly drooping shoulders. She sat down on the end of the bench closest to the cryo-tube and secured the Ranger pin at her right shoulder. She lifted the den'bok off of the bench and laid it in her lap, still closed.
"Well, I did it Marcus. I've lived the long life you wanted me to have. I think I've even managed to do some good with the gift you gave me. But now I'm old, Marcus. Old and tired. And very lonely. There really is no one left to play with anymore," she sighed, remembering saying the same thing to Delenn right before John left. "I just wish I knew if you were proud of me. I tried, for you. It wasn't always easy, but I tried."
She placed her hands in her lap, intending to smooth the duster over her legs, and felt something thin and stiff. She lifted the corner of the duster, discovering a secret pocket sewn into the inside of it, and reached in. When she pulled her hand out, she found herself staring at a picture of her sitting at the "Voice of the Resistance" news desk in her black and silver uniform. She was thirty years old. It seemed like another life.
She ran her fingers across it, astounded that he had obviously carried this with him on a regular basis. The pocket it was in was not standard to Ranger dusters. He must have had it put in just for the purpose of carrying her picture. She knew that he had loved her, but hadn't expected this. But then, she suspected there were a lot of things she didn't know about him...and never would.
Susan turned the picture over and saw some faded writing on the back. It took her a second to bring it into focus, but then she recognized the long forgotten phrase. It said "Nu'shan fel'ani In'A lis'e medran." She felt the tears well up in her eyes and spill over onto her wrinkled cheeks.
"Marcus, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. You should have told me. You should have forced the issue, made me deal with it. The whole time I knew you, and in the years since you've been gone, I saw you as some kind of hero, but now that I stop to think about it, you were just as much of a coward as I was. For two years you loved me without saying anything, and when you finally tell me, we're both half dead. I never had a chance to deal with it. You never gave me the chance to try to love you. You were too afraid I'd say no. Some hero!"
Susan felt her heart seize on her. She thought briefly about calling for help, but there really was no point. In all honesty, she was looking forward to death. Seventy years ago she had made her piece with the Universe, and had been prepared to die. The rest had all been a waiting game; seventy long years of loneliness, with nothing but responsibility to keep her sane. Now, with her Earth Force career fifty years gone, and the Rangers in David Sheridan's capable hands, she gave in and let her tired body slowly stop.
"I'm not afraid, Marcus. I'm ready. I've been ready. I have no idea what's waiting for me, if anything, but I'm ready. Who knows, maybe there really is an afterlife, and I'll finally get to tell you all the things I've been saying to the walls and this cryo-tube." Her heart continued to seize, and her breathing became ragged, but she didn't notice the pain anymore. It would all be over soon.
"Just in case there isn't anything after this, there is one thing I want to say out loud, just once. It's something I should have said a long time ago. Something I've never actually said to anyone. Marcus...I love you." Susan felt a hand rest on her shoulder. "Marcus?" She turned, really expecting him to be there this time.
"No, Susan. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there is still one more phase in your life before you get to be with him."
"You are the last person I expected to see now," Susan half laughed. "What're you-?"
"Now isn't the time for questions, my old friend. There is a shuttle waiting outside. We must hurry. It seems I was almost too late." Susan nodded and stood up slowly, taking her old friend's arm.
"All right, but I expect a full explanation as soon as we get to the shuttle."
Draal reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a small device. He pushed the blue button on the top of it, put it back in his pocket, and hurried Susan out the door.
Protecting the Future
"Where is he?" she yelled. She swung her bare feet to the floor and paused just long enough to let the unexpected wave of dizziness pass before demanding of the empty room, "Lights, goddamnit! Lights, now!" The lights sprang on, and she quickly headed for the door, barely taking notice of the spartan, metallic room she had awoken in.
She charged out of the room wearing only a drab gray bed gown. On her way down the corridor she looked into several other rooms, hoping he would be in one of them. Several nurses tried to stop her, telling her that she should be resting still, but she just ignored them. Other than a lot of yelling, most of the nurses made it through relatively unscathed; all but one. She grabbed him by his collar, slamming him against the wall. "Where is he, damn you? Tell me where he is before I rip your fragging head off!"
The nurse quickly regained his composure, but not before glancing at the door at the end of the hall. "Now, calm down." he said. "We just got word that the doctor'll be here soon, and he'll be very unhappy that you're out of bed so soon after what you've been through."
"Oh, so he's in there, huh?" she asked, having noticed his nervous glance. "Good, he's gonna need a med lab room when I'm done with him." She strode down the hall purposefully, fully expecting to face his annoying grin. He'd probably have some smart-ass remark for her, too.
She reached the end of the hallway, slammed through the door...and stopped dead in her tracks. She was in some kind of observation room, with one wall almost completely made of glass. She looked through the glass at the room on the other side, and saw what appeared to be a corpse under a white sheet, with one foot sticking out.
"It's not him, it can't be. We just finished a war. I'm sure there were a lot of casualties. It could be anybody." She slowly made her way to the chart hanging on the wall, her heart pounding as she opened the folder to read the name at the top of the first page.
She let out an awful wail as she focused on his name on the chart. She threw it at the far wall, and ran over to the glass window to look at what she realized was the body of the man who had loved her enough to actually give his life for her.
"Commander, you really shouldn't be in here." she heard a voice say from the doorway. "You really need to go back to your room."
"Go away!" she screamed. "Just get out!"
A security guard joined the nurse at the door, asking if he should escort her back to her room. "No, she'd never stay there, and we don't want to risk hurting her in the struggle. The doctor will know how to handle her, and his flight is coming in as we speak. I'm on my way to meet him now."
She started slamming her fists into the window separating her from him as the impact of what was happening around her set in. She began to recall what had happened to her, and what he had done for her. Her vision began to blur as she slid to the floor. He couldn't be dead. Not like this...
"Not for me!" she yelled. "Not for me!"
Susan struggled to extricate herself from her blankets. "Lights, low," she whispered through her sobs. Every night since Marcus's death, she prayed to whatever god might be listening to keep the nightmares away, and to just let her forget. And every night, she realized all over again that every god that existed had forsaken her as his memory haunted her. She slowly sat up and eased herself out of the bed, catching the edge of the doorway for support as she made her way to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and saw her long gray hair plastered to her face by a mixture of sweat and tears.
Damn modern medicine! She remembered hearing once that as recently as 200 years ago, the elderly almost always started losing their memories by the age of 75. Now, at the age of one hundred and one, she could still remember in vivid detail the agony of every day since he left her alone with her guilt. The only thing that had kept her going was a need to make him proud of her.
She went back into her bedroom and looked around at the room she had occupied for the last two months. The walls were mostly bare, with only a few random paintings. Her armchair was in one corner, next to a window that looked out onto a garden, with what passed for a lamp on Minbar on the other side of it. The opposite wall contained her small dresser, with only a single brush, a leather hair band, and her Ranger pin on top of it. And there, in the middle of the room, was the four-poster, canopied bed she had had imported from Earth. The large, soft bed was the only real luxury she had ever allowed herself to have, and that wasn't even a real luxury, because it reminded her of Marcus's absence every time she even looked at it.
The aging woman felt as though she were being drawn toward the dresser, and took a box out of the very back of the top drawer, which she carried over to the bed. She sat down and ran her wrinkled hands over the intricate Minbari carvings of the wooden box. She had not looked inside since she first received it almost seventy years ago. Now, Susan reached to the back of her neck and removed the silver chain that had also been given to her all those years ago. Hanging from it was a very small, antique looking Earth key, which she used to unlock the box.
She lifted the lid and peered inside. At the top of the box were a six inch long silver cylinder, and an oval pin, about three inches across, with a green stone in the center and two humanoid figures, one on either side. These items rested on what looked like a brown pillow, but was actually a Ranger duster. They were items she was very familiar with, having a set of her own very much like this one, as did all of the people she had worked with on a regular basis for the last fifty years.
This particular set, however, caused her fresh pain like she had not felt in decades. Stephen had given her this set just before she had left Babylon 5 to take command of the Titans. Marcus had had no family to whom they could send his personal effects, and so he, John, and Delenn had all agreed that Marcus would want her to have them. She had accepted the box graciously; opening it just enough to quickly glance inside while Stephen was still there. She had put the lock on it almost immediately after he left.
Now, as she lifted the Ranger pin out of the box, she could almost swear she felt a hand caress her cheek. She turned, irrationally half expecting her heroic Ranger to be there, and found herself still quite alone. The loss swept over her like a wave. Almost everyone she had ever loved was dead. Her parents, her brother, Talia, Marcus, John...even Michael and Stephen were gone now. All she had left was Delenn, who was even older than Susan, but still playing an active role in the IA, and David, who had taken over the position of Anla'shok Na from her back in August. She knew that either one of them would drop everything for their old friend if needed, but they were far too busy for her to bother them just because she was lonely.
All of a sudden, another feeling of compulsion swept over her. She placed the pin back in its place and closed the box. She left the lock and key in the middle of the bed, got up, and walked out the door into the cool Tuzanor night. She practically glided through the paths around the Ranger compound, more sure in her steps than she had been in twenty years. She entered Tuzanor's cryogenics facilities and went directly to the only private room in the building. One advantage of having been Anla'shok Na for fifty years was that no one questioned her.
Susan walked in and looked at the cryo-tube on the raised platform in the middle of the room. There was a bench next to it, and here she placed the box. She opened it, took out the pin and the closed den'bok, put them on the bench next to the box, and removed the old duster. She unfolded it and put it on, settling it expertly on her slightly drooping shoulders. She sat down on the end of the bench closest to the cryo-tube and secured the Ranger pin at her right shoulder. She lifted the den'bok off of the bench and laid it in her lap, still closed.
"Well, I did it Marcus. I've lived the long life you wanted me to have. I think I've even managed to do some good with the gift you gave me. But now I'm old, Marcus. Old and tired. And very lonely. There really is no one left to play with anymore," she sighed, remembering saying the same thing to Delenn right before John left. "I just wish I knew if you were proud of me. I tried, for you. It wasn't always easy, but I tried."
She placed her hands in her lap, intending to smooth the duster over her legs, and felt something thin and stiff. She lifted the corner of the duster, discovering a secret pocket sewn into the inside of it, and reached in. When she pulled her hand out, she found herself staring at a picture of her sitting at the "Voice of the Resistance" news desk in her black and silver uniform. She was thirty years old. It seemed like another life.
She ran her fingers across it, astounded that he had obviously carried this with him on a regular basis. The pocket it was in was not standard to Ranger dusters. He must have had it put in just for the purpose of carrying her picture. She knew that he had loved her, but hadn't expected this. But then, she suspected there were a lot of things she didn't know about him...and never would.
Susan turned the picture over and saw some faded writing on the back. It took her a second to bring it into focus, but then she recognized the long forgotten phrase. It said "Nu'shan fel'ani In'A lis'e medran." She felt the tears well up in her eyes and spill over onto her wrinkled cheeks.
"Marcus, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. You should have told me. You should have forced the issue, made me deal with it. The whole time I knew you, and in the years since you've been gone, I saw you as some kind of hero, but now that I stop to think about it, you were just as much of a coward as I was. For two years you loved me without saying anything, and when you finally tell me, we're both half dead. I never had a chance to deal with it. You never gave me the chance to try to love you. You were too afraid I'd say no. Some hero!"
Susan felt her heart seize on her. She thought briefly about calling for help, but there really was no point. In all honesty, she was looking forward to death. Seventy years ago she had made her piece with the Universe, and had been prepared to die. The rest had all been a waiting game; seventy long years of loneliness, with nothing but responsibility to keep her sane. Now, with her Earth Force career fifty years gone, and the Rangers in David Sheridan's capable hands, she gave in and let her tired body slowly stop.
"I'm not afraid, Marcus. I'm ready. I've been ready. I have no idea what's waiting for me, if anything, but I'm ready. Who knows, maybe there really is an afterlife, and I'll finally get to tell you all the things I've been saying to the walls and this cryo-tube." Her heart continued to seize, and her breathing became ragged, but she didn't notice the pain anymore. It would all be over soon.
"Just in case there isn't anything after this, there is one thing I want to say out loud, just once. It's something I should have said a long time ago. Something I've never actually said to anyone. Marcus...I love you." Susan felt a hand rest on her shoulder. "Marcus?" She turned, really expecting him to be there this time.
"No, Susan. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there is still one more phase in your life before you get to be with him."
"You are the last person I expected to see now," Susan half laughed. "What're you-?"
"Now isn't the time for questions, my old friend. There is a shuttle waiting outside. We must hurry. It seems I was almost too late." Susan nodded and stood up slowly, taking her old friend's arm.
"All right, but I expect a full explanation as soon as we get to the shuttle."
Draal reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a small device. He pushed the blue button on the top of it, put it back in his pocket, and hurried Susan out the door.