When Bester showed up, he was going to die this time. Michael tucked the blankets around Talia and her babies, trying to work out what to do as he though about the various unpleasant fates he could arrange for the psi-cop. Talia was still bleeding some in the aftermath of the birth, and as frail as she appeared, he doubted that she could afford to loose much blood. She needed a doctor down there now. He debated calling the medlab again but if the wrong person saw her, and especially if something was going on connected to the telepathy thing…. She really needed Stephen.

First things first, though. That bleeding needed to slow down, and then he could worry about finding someone to track down help. "I'm pretty sure this is going to hurt, but I'm trying to help, okay? I'm just trying to help." Not that it felt much like helping when Talia let out a moan as he touched her stomach and pressed down in what he hoped was the right place. And was this what he was supposed to be doing anyway? He was going to have to talk to Stephen and see about sitting up some sort of refresher course, especially if anyone else in security had gone to the emergency classes with the same instructor that he had. The doctor who had done the class had been so full of himself and so sure of medical superiority that he hadn't even bothered covering what to do after a birth, saying that proper help would be there long before then, and there was no need for them to have such information. The little he did know was from flipping through the book when he got tired of listening to the man droning on.

"Probably should have read that a little." He murmured to himself. If he screwed this up and did something to hurt Talia…. The bleeding was slowing, though, so hopefully he was doing something right. That was a start. Slow down the bleeding, and then see about getting some help down there. And wasn't there something else, something after the birth that needed taken care of? He thought he remembered something like that from flipping through the book. Hopefully that was something that could wait a bit, until Stephen could get there to take over the situation.

Before he thought about it, and had time to rethink it, he leaned down and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "You've done better than anyone I can think of. You just rest and and get better, alright. You're safe here, all three of you, I promise."

He almost kissed her forehead again, when he suddenly heard a noise, a pounding on his door.

"Who…" No, whoever it was, unless it was Londo maybe, could be drafted to go and hunt down Stephen. The bleeding had definitely slowed down to the point where it was likely safe to move from Talia's side long enough to answer the door anyway. With a reassuring pat, he turned and hurried towards the door. Someone who could find Stephen. That's all he needed. He would even take it if it was Londo on his doorstep. Probably the mention of female problems would send him racing off faster than anyone else on the station to get Stephen before he could be asked to stay and lend a hand.

Susan. Better than he was expecting, Michael thought when he opened the door and found the station second in command standing there.

Before he could say anything, she took a shaky breath and then drew herself up. "I found a place where we can cremate the body." Blood on his hands, blood on his shirt, Susan didn't know quite where to look without seeing that blood but she couldn't turn away either. She reached out, a thick tarp she had found near the docks, hopefully thick enough that she wouldn't have to see the body, in her hands. "We'll have to move fast, though. You know Bester's going to be here soon. Have you let John know what happened yet?"

"I've kind of had my hands full. How did you know to come down here?" And what in the world was Susan talking about, mentioning cremating a body? Although it did remind him that he needed to do something about the psi-cop he had shot.

"I heard the entire thing over the com." Susan told him.

"You heard? You know, I could have really used a hand down here." If Susan had heard what was going on, why in the world hadn't she got herself down there? Surely both of them couldn't have been sent to the same instructor for emergency training. If nothing else, Talia could have used someone else there for moral support and hand-holding.

"You could have used a hand?" She had been ready to bolt out of her quarters when she heard the second scream, and then by the third, her sofa probably had gouges where she had dug her hands in to keep from rushing out, to keep from shooting Garibaldi to stop what was going on. It wasn't Talia. She reminded herself for what felt like the millionth time that it wasn't Talia, it was a creature Psi-corps had made from Talia's dead body. If the real Talia had known, she would have asked them to kill her rather than let her suffer that fate, but still, the screams and how long the screams had continued before the merciful end…. "Did you have to take that long to finish things?" A shot to the heart, breaking her neck, there were a million merciful, quick ways to kill someone. Talia deserved better, and Susan couldn't believe that Michael hadn't at least given her that, a quick, easy death instead of…. She looked at him again and the blood. All of the blood, what had he done, cut her to ribbons? "What did you do? She's half your size! It wouldn't have taken anything to snap her neck instead of…." They could deal with it later, though. They had to get the body out of there and disposed of before Bester showed up. "Here." She shoved the tarp into his hands. "Get her and let's get this over with."

"Get…. Wait." Suddenly it hit him what Susan was thinking and Michael wasn't sure whether to be angry that she thought he had tortured Talia and killed her, or to feel sorry for her that she thought she was going to have to help dispose of a friend's dead body. "Susan, there's something you need to see."

"I don't want to see. She was already dead. This is just a formality. Now get her and we can get this taken care of." Susan drew herself up. Their Talia was dead. Garibaldi had just killed her possessed body. It didn't matter. It was just a body. The real Talia wasn't there. She was already dead. It didn't matter if he had cut to ribbons someone who was already dead.

"Susan…." Better to just show her. He grabbed her arm and before she could object, he had her through the bedroom door.

"I told you I didn't…." Blood, more blood was on the bedsheets, and Talia was lying there, deathly still. Susan almost closed her eyes, not wanting to see the damage that had been done, even as she tried to remind herself once more that this wasn't the real Talia. But… She was under the covers. Was Michael neat enough to tuck someone he had just killed in? Dead, she had to be dead, though. And it wasn't really Talia, it was a Psi-Corps fake but…. Something on the bed moved, causing Susan to almost jump. She edged closer, not even noticing she was moving, and then there was the movement again and then a noise, a…. "A baby?" Susan looked up at Michael in astonishment as it sank in what she was seeing, resting in Talia's arms.

"Babies. Take a look." Garibaldi said with a grin at the look on her face. "Told you I could have used a hand."

"But it's not…. It's not Talia, not our Talia." Susan whispered. Babies. Innocent babies. Even if the person who had given birth to them was an imposter, the body was Talia's. That had to count for something. If that creature thought she was going to take two innocent children back, and turn them over to Bester….

"Susan, I don't know how it happened after what Lyta said would happen when the alternate personality was activated, after what we saw, but something must have gone wrong. That's our Talia, the real Talia." Surely the fact that the psi-cop had tried to kill her was plenty of proof that they had somehow got the real Talia back.

"The real Talia? How? Where did she come from?" Susan moved closer to the bed, looking at Talia critically, as if she could somehow tell visually if this was truly Talia or the control personality.

"She was in the middle of giving birth, so it isn't like there was much chance to ask a lot of questions. The last thing she remembered was seeing Lyta and then waking up six months pregnant. Some time after than she ended up hooked up with activists on Mars and then got turned over to the rangers.

"

"The dead ranger? He brought her here?" Blood on the sheets. More than Susan thought should be there, and Talia was deathly white, her face drawn to the point the bone almost seemed visible.

"Right. He saw a psi-cop, told her to run. Only problem is that the cop caught up with her again, down in the water reclamation facility. She's got a pretty good bump on her head. I'm guessing he hit her and she either fell or he knocked her into one of the tanks. She almost drowned before I stumbled into the middle of things."

"She almost…. Bester's dead. John doesn't need to know. Stephen doesn't need to know. He's dead."

"We can declare it a suicide. Hey, he keeps showing up here knowing we all want him dead. If that doesn't say he's suicidal, I don't know what does. Who can blame us if we can't keep him from killing himself?"

"A painful suicide. She ended up in one of the water tanks? How long was she in there?" No gloves. She wasn't wearing gloves. Was that a sign that Garibaldi was right, and this was the real Talia, but if it was…. They had handed her over to Psi-Corps. They handed her over without raising a finger to try to save her.

"It couldn't have been more than a few minutes. I heard her scream right after I got off the tube. Four, five minutes tops even with having to go through the psi-cop to get to her. She had already gone under the water by that point, wasn't breathing, couldn't get a pulse." Remembering feeling that pulse fading out on him made a cold chill rush over him, but he reminded himself of what he told Susan, Talia couldn't have been under the water long. And she had been awake and coherent, even if extremely weak afterwards. Get Stephen up there to take care of her and she would be fine.

"There wasn't…. How long?" Not breathing, no pulse, at least the instructor had been clear about the damage being in that condition for even a few minutes could do.

"It felt longer, but probably not more than two or three minutes. She was awake, she was coherent. I don't think it actually hurt her." Scared a few years off of his life when he thought he wasn't going to be able to get her breathing, get a pulse back, but as for actual damage, he just didn't think so. "Maybe it's something with the telepathy. Maybe it protected her more than a normal human would be, but she was awake, she knew what happened, knew…."

"She knew what we did?"

"She knew what the other personality did. They couldn't resist telling her that. She didn't blame us for how things turned out."

"She should."

"No question there." Somehow Talia not blaming them for what had happened to her was worse than if she had been angry, had hated them and had only accepted help for the sake of her children. They deserved anger, they deserved hate. They could have kept her locked up, they could have shipped her off to Mimbar until they knew for sure that their Talia was actually gone. They could have…. They could have ended things for her if they had been sure there was no way to save her. They didn't have to hand her over to Psi-Corps.

"She needs Stephen. Did you call him yet?"

"I tried. He's somewhere in Down Below with Marcus, I'm assuming helping look for her, and without his link."

"Marcus. I'm not sure if I ought to hug him or hit him when I next see him." If he had let them know that Talia was there, they could have had half the station looking for her, and might have found her before she had been hurt, but then again, would that have just made it easier for the psi-cop to have found her? She could think about that later, though. "I can find Stephen and Marcus, but….. Will you be okay with them until I can get back?" Hopefully the emergency training offered to the security department was a lot better than the class she had got, with the instructor who thought pretty much the entire world was beneath him.

"Go. She needs Stephen now."

Susan stood for a moment, uncertain, before nodding and hurrying out.

"Want to bet that she'll drag Stephen by his collar all the way up here?" He moved the blankets a bit. There still was some bleeding, but it looked like it was controlled, anyway. That was one point in their favor. The bleeding was slow, and if Susan could get Stephen up there fast enough, they could get this mess fixed. Talia would be fine.

He ought to do something about the sheets, get something clean under her in place of the bloodstained linens, see about getting her cleaned up a bit, but he was half afraid any movement could cause more bleeding. Better to just keep her still and try to keep her as comfortable as he could until help was there.

"I could see about fixing your hair anyway. What did Psi-Corps do to it?" He got a comb from the bathroom, and went back to the bed, but then stopped and took a closer look. Something was wrong with her hair, something besides tangles and a brittle, frayed appearance. It was longer than it had been when Talia left the station, which made sense if she had been a prisoner for nine months. Not like prisoners got to the beauty parlor much, but something about how her hair looked was off.

"Okay, I'm going to try to be careful here, but let's see what they did. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to see what they did so Stephen can figure out how to fix things, okay? I'm not going to hurt you." He worked the comb into her hair, working it through as slowly as he could to avoid pulling. Something was definitely wrong. If the Corps had just tossed Talia into a cell or imprisoned her in a medical lab somewhere and had neglected her for months, it would be one thing, but her hair was uneven like it had been cut or shaved, and then allowed to grow without any attention. Shaved. He felt cold and he reached out, and as gently as he could, ran his fingers through her hair, gently feeling her scalp. At first he thought he was wrong, but then he felt the slightly raised markings that could only be the result of an incision.

What had Bester had done to her? She was talking, she was coherent, so at least he hadn't had parts of her brain removed, which was his first panicked thought. It wasn't that, and surely the rangers had thought to scan her for an implanted tracking device when she fell into their custody, but something else…. Could Bester have had them implant something else?

"I'm going to see about getting you some clean clothes, okay?" He leaned down and kissed her forehead again before jumping up and heading for the com. Hopefully he was just being paranoid, but if Bester had left a nasty little surprise…. It couldn't be on a timer, would need a signal to go off if there was anything. "Lennier?" He said as soon as the ambassador's aide answered the signal. "I need to talk to Delenn. I need a jamming device down here now, that can block every signal that you can think of.