See Chapter One for Disclaimer

A/N: Hey everyone. Sorry part three took so long. I hate when real life interrupts. Anyway, part four is already started, so hopefully there won't be another long wait. Thanks for hanging in there, and as always, reviews are welcomed and appreciated.

Brother Michael stared blankly at the unfinished illumination of the mythical Ranger. He had worked on this particular illumination for weeks, and had been nearly done. Then the news came. Brother Alwyn, his friend and mentor for the last ten years, had been killed in a village several miles away. He'd been off following a lead on some ancient artifacts supposedly related to the Interstellar Alliance.

When Brother Alwyn had left, he'd been very confident that these artifacts would provide proof that the Alliance really did exist. He'd been sure it would force Rome to recognize them. Michael had felt surer of his purpose than ever before as he watched Alwyn leave the monastery grounds. Now everything was crumbling around him.

The other members of the Order stayed just long enough to see their leader buried before beginning plans to leave. Without Brother Alwyn guiding them, there was nothing to keep them together. Now, a week after the funeral, Michael was one of only ten left, and two of them were due to leave that day.

Tears cascaded down Michael's face as he remembered his last conversation with Alwyn, three weeks earlier, and contemplated his future without him. Michael had joined the Order when he was fifteen, against his parents' wishes. They had cursed him and ridiculed him the day he left, so he knew he couldn't go back to them. He had no useful skills. His main abilities were philosophical study and illuminating the Holy Tomes. Neither of these things would get him very far in the real world.

He picked a letter opener up from the desk and spun it back and forth by the handle between his palms. He watched the light from his small oil lamp glint off of the tip as he plummeted deeper and deeper into despair. There was nothing left for him here. His entire world had revolved around Alwyn, the Order, and their search for Pre-Burn information. With Alwyn dead and the Order dispersing, the search was ended. His world was gone. His life was over. He began running the sharp edge of the letter opener lightly over his wrist. Just as he was about to add the defining pressure, he heard the door to his room creak open.

"What do you want?"

"In my experience, that's a very dangerous question," stated a female voice that Michael didn't recognize. "I'm here to talk to you about your work."

Without looking up or taking the blade from his wrist, he replied, "I have no work. Now go away. I'm busy."

Instead of a shutting door, Michael heard footsteps approach him and saw a shadow loom over him. A woman's hand reached over his shoulder and deftly snatched the letter opener from him.

"Not anymore, you're not. That's a very dangerous place to keep a letter opener. You could hurt yourself. Now, I've come a very long way to see you, so why don't you turn around and talk to me?"

"I told you, I have no work. How can I talk to you about my work when I have none? You really should just leave me be."

He heard footsteps start to move away from him, and felt relief wash over him as he waited for the door to open and close. The woman, whoever she was, was leaving. Then he realized that the door never opened. The steps actually started coming closer again! What was the infernal woman doing? Why wouldn't she just leave him alone? Then he heard her start to walk away again, immediately followed by another return trip. She was pacing! Michael began to get angry with this audacious stranger who had no regard for his wishes. He pushed himself up from his chair and spun toward her, fully intending to begin yelling, when his breath caught in his throat.

There, standing in the middle of his room, staring at him expectantly was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. It wasn't her physical features that struck him as beautiful. He barely even noticed what she looked like. There was a presence about her that spoke to him in a way he had never imagined. Something about her went straight to the heart of him.

"Wh-who are you?" he stammered.

"That question I'm only mildly more comfortable with. So, you don't know who I am? I suppose that makes sense. It's not like you've ever seen a photograph of me or anything. Not with the state of things these days. I'm someone with a vested interest in your continued employment. Something that will be impossible if you do what I think you were just going to do before I walked in. What was that all about, anyway?"

While the mystery woman spoke, Michael began to look a bit more closely at her. There was something about her that seemed familiar; like he should know her. He wracked his brain for several moments, coming up with nothing. Then he focused on her clothes. He knew those clothes!

"That uniform...where did you get it? Where could you possibly have found clothes like that?"

The woman looked down at her black and silver clothing. "This old thing? It's mine. I've had it forever. Why?" A look of understanding then began to cross her face. "Ah, you're finally starting to realize who I am. I'll give you a hint. I'm not Delenn."

For the briefest moment, Michael began to hope again. Then he realized how silly he was being. It just wasn't possible. Doubt and despair resettled over his face like a cloud.

"Get out," he almost whispered.

"What? I come all this way, and you're telling me to get out? You're joking."

"No, I mean it. Get out now. I don't know who put you up to this, but it's a cruel joke to play on a man when he's grieving. Now get the hell out!"

"You think I'm joking? No, sweetheart, I'm not joking. I'm Susan Ivanova, and I've come a very long way to keep you from doing something monumentally stupid, and if the legacy of everything I worked for wasn't hanging by a thread right now, I'd just as soon let you do it. Unfortunately, you're far too important to waste."

Completely ignoring her obviously annoyed tone, he raised his head and looked her straight in the eye. His resolve wavered for a moment before he practically spat, "Prove it."

"Prove it? You want me to prove that I'm me? Oh, this is great. Just fragging great. And just how do you propose I do that? Hmm?"

"Tell me something only Ivanova the Strong would know."

"That's insane. That only works if you know something about the person that no one else knows. It's impossible." She started pacing again, trying to come up with a way to appease this pain in the neck so she could get down to business.

"Wait, I've got it. If I were some local girl trying to pull your leg, how would I know that there's an authentic Ranger uniform, complete with pin, in with Brother Alwyn's possessions? There's a diary confirming that he was a Ranger, too. Both are in his wardrobe. Go ahead and check. I'll wait." She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest, looking very smug.

Completely dumbfounded, Michael walked over to the still locked wardrobe that had been moved to his room shortly after the funeral. He took the key from his pocket and opened it for the first time. There, in all its glory, was the uniform he recognized from the illumination. He removed a small, worn leather journal from the pocket and flipped through it, reading small snippets here and there.

The journal was full of Alwyn's ideas about his work. Not the Order's work. His work. There were notes about last year's gasoline discovery, and the request for the "artifact" drop. Then there was a short rant about the coordinate mistake for the drop. This was the last entry, made right before he left.

"How did you know? How could you possibly have known?"

"I died nine hundred years ago, Brother Michael," she grinned. "You know things when you go where I've been. Are you ready to listen now?"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Susan spent the next several hours telling Brother Michael her side of the stories that had made it into his holy books. She told him about the Shadow War, and the Civil War, and all of the fear and hardship that went with them. She told him about Earth's destiny to return to the stars, but in such a way that she almost cringed when she realized how much she sounded like Kosh. She also told him about Marcus, who it seemed had become the anonymous archetype for their limited understanding of the Rangers.

Michael spent most of this time taking notes and planning. Occasionally, he would burst out with a comment about telling the others, or about keeping Alwyn's work alive. He eventually started to sag in his chair from the exhaustion, and the pen he'd been using to take his notes fell from his hand. Susan waited until she was sure he was asleep, then picked up his pen and a blank sheet of paper and wrote him a note. It read:

Dear Brother Michael,

There are two things you need to know before I go. First, never lose faith. You are destined to play a great role in history. Your work is meaningful, no matter how hard it gets.

Second, your work will mean a lot less than it could if you don't have love in your life. When it knocks, welcome it with open arms.

Susan

Once back in her cloaked transport, Susan immediately set course for the return trip to Epsilon 3.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Several uneventful days later she arrived back at the Great Machine. She headed straight for CnC, as she'd affectionately dubbed it, and plugged herself in. Her mind made a quick scan to find Draal, and she found herself walking through the door of the room he'd created in his mind. As she entered, she heard what she recognized as a rather long string of Minbari expletives, and one word she recognized from the days before she spoke Minbari.

"Lumati? I haven't heard that name in a long time. What's wrong? I've only been gone about a week, and you sound like the whole universe is collapsing."

Draal spun to face her, looking like he'd been caught at something.

"Susan, I did not expect you to return. I thought you'd be eager for the end finally. What brought you back?"

"You didn't really think I'd go without saying goodbye, did you? You know how sentimental old age's made me. You still haven't told me what's wrong, by the way. And what does it have to do with the Lumati?"

"What? Oh, nothing you need to worry about. You've more than done your part. Come, sit. We'll talk for a while before you go. I'm going to be very lonely around here now. I've gotten used to the company."

Susan began pacing, her irritation beginning to show.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what happened, so unless you're planning on using this secret to keep me here, you may as well save yourself the trouble and give in. Is there still something wrong with the timeline? Did Brother Michael do something stupid after all?"

"No, Brother Michael does just fine. He gave a rather impressive speech to the remaining members of the Order the day after your visit. It looks as though the others will be returning, also. He will make a fine leader.

"The timeline is suffering again, though. The woman who is supposed to bring Earth back into space may never come into existence. The timeline is now showing that the woman who would be her grandmother is killed young, and this woman's son is sent into the orphan system and never taught the faith in technology that all of this depends on. If he does not know it, he can not pass it on to his children."

"So we'll just stop her from being killed. It's an easy fix."

"No Susan, if the woman survives, her murderers have a globally catastrophic plan B. It can't be risked."

"Who are these would be murderers? What makes them so dangerous?"

"The Lumati. They apparently sided with the Shadows, then the Drahk. They went crazy after the Drahk fell, and held Sheridan personally responsible. About eight hundred years ago, they developed Seers. Their Seers don't get details, thank Valen, but they do seem to be getting enough information to know who to target to do the most damage to Sheridan's Alliance. They won't be happy until it falls the way their allies did. They can't get at the people involved in the Alliance, so they are taking solace in attacks on Sheridan's home world."

"But that's ridiculous! Sheridan hadn't even been back to Earth in years when he died, and he's been gone for almost a thousand years! It's completely irrational!"

"Madness is an irrational thing. They were actually behind the civil war that led to the Great Burn, but there was no way around it. They were also responsible for Brother Alwyn's death."

Susan's mind reeled as she remembered the creepy Lumati Ambassador she'd dealt with back before the wars. There had been rumors about them, but there had never been any proof, and the rumors came from dubious sources. They seemed harmless enough, so nothing had been done.

"So what's next? If we can't stop the murder, what do we do?"

"The only hope would be for the son to be sent to a surrogate family that would teach him what he needs to know, but there isn't anyone. Every possible scenario actually shows him being raised in an actively anti-technology family. I'm out of ideas."

"I'll go," Susan blurted. Draal quickly hid the satisfied smile that tried to show itself, replacing it with the most convincing look of shock he could muster.

"Are you sure? You've been waiting so patiently for the end, and you were eager to go. This will be a much longer wait than the last time."

"I guess I'm not as eager to go as I thought. A taste of immortality can be a dangerous thing. Now that death doesn't seem quite so inevitable, I'm not as okay with it as I was. Besides, I was never fond of the Lumati, and I'll be damned if I'm letting them get away with destroying everything John and Delenn created. Can the Machine sustain me?" Susan paused, taking in Draal's last sentence. "Exactly how much longer are we talking here, anyway?"