Author's Note: Cautionary warning for violence - and references to prior acts of violence - on this chapter. If Intersections in Real Time turns your stomach, this chapter might, too.

Chapter 9 - The Face of the Enemy

It was the shock of the first blow to his sternum that woke him, and John let out a yell the likes of which he hadn't known himself capable of. Punches and kicks continued in quick succession – chest, legs, groin, face, abdomen – again – again - and he continued to howl until some small corner of his mind that was still coherent and rational realized he did not want to give Morden the satisfaction. Still, he couldn't keep himself from grunting, and when he looked up through one swollen eye, he could see that Morden was smiling.

He blocked out the passage of time, but it was likely considerable. He felt his body giving way to the abuse, felt what was probably his left kneecap breaking, a concussion settling in, and then he stopped counting because it somehow hurt less that way. He did notice the taste of blood in his mouth, sharp and copper and undeniable, and he wasn't surprised to locate a tooth floating free. He spat it out, followed by a second. He pulled his knees up as much as he could to protect himself, but Morden only nudged them out of the way – by this point, John was too weak to fight him. Finally, the kicking and punching stopped, and John thought perhaps Morden was of the opinion that he'd lost consciousness. John kept his eyes closed and his body still, content to let the other man think just that.

He took the next few eerily quiet moments to take stock of his situation. His hands were cuffed behind his back, feet bound at the ankles – likely this had happened during whatever time he'd been unconscious following Garibaldi's knock-out punch. His nose was broken, to begin with. Working his way down, he was quite uncertain about his jaw. Three… maybe four ribs were cracked if not broken. There was the left kneecap he'd noted right off, and he was uncertain about his ability, should he survive this, to father children at any point in the future. As for his internal organs, he couldn't be certain, but the pain in his left upper abdomen might very well be a ruptured spleen, and he was fairly sure that any further pummeling to his stomach area would cause him to upchuck all over the cold, hard cement he was laying on. Where am I?

"This is Hell, Captain." Had he asked that out loud? He must have. Morden's voice was cold and unforgiving with his assessment. "And you are its chief damned soul."

John coughed, opened his eyes briefly for a blurry view of his surroundings – which from this position mostly amounted to Morden's feet – and then clenched them shut again. He called me Captain.

"Yes, I did."

Fuck.

"Captain John J. Sheridan. Babylon PD." He opened his eyes again and forced his gaze upward. Morden was standing over him, holding something roughly palm-sized in his right hand. My shield. "Well, Captain Sheridan. It's very nice to meet you. The real you, that is. How much of what you told us was the truth?" Morden wandered away. John didn't respond. "None of it? I know that's not right. I know…" There was a clatter of metal near John's face, and his eyes focused on a thin gold band. "I know you lost your wife. I know she really did die in a hostage situation that went badly. But I know that—" Morden crouched now, lifted Sheridan's chin with one hand so they could meet eye-to-eye. "I know that because I killed her."

John couldn't stop the shout of frustration that escaped him now.

Morden just chuckled. "I figured I might as well level with you, since you're going to die here anyway. You should feel honored. This is where I come to play with my most favorite victims. This is where the best of the best come to die. Jeffrey Sinclair died in this room, that pig, the one who never had a chance of getting on the inside because I had him fingered from day one. I thought about just capping him right away, but he was clueless, and he was useful. When he became a liability, I brought him down here, and I put an end to it. To him. And—" Another chuckle, and Morden straightened and began to pace. He stopped, though, to deliver the crushing blow. "Your wife died in this room too, Captain Sheridan. And here is where I will concede to this being partly my fault. I knew who you were all along, but you're quite the little actor, because I bought it. I bought it hook, line and sinker that you'd really left the force with a chip on your shoulder. Not that any of that matters now. Whether I found out then or now… we were destined to meet here, like this." Morden took a moment to consider his next words. "Your wife," he said finally, bringing a familiar framed photograph of Anna within inches of John's face. "She was fun while she lasted. Feisty, though. That's why she had to go. Ohhhh I had fun with her before I ended it, don't you worry. The way she screamed, the way she tried so hard to fight back… made it all the more sweet when I wrapped my hands around her neck and squeezed, and squeezed, until the light just… went out of her eyes." He crouched again. John was crying now, he knew he was. He could feel hot tears of anger streaming down his cheeks – it stung where he had open sores. Morden whispered, "She called out for you, did you know that? When I was fucking her. When I was raping her. Before I killed her. She called out to you then, and she called out for you with her dying breath. She was goooood, Captain. Even better than Delenn."

"You bastard." John spat the insult out with all the venom he possessed. "I'll kill you."

"No… no, that's not really how this's going to go. Unless it's Opposite Day." Morden extended a foot to make a point, delivering an unforgiving kick to the back of John's skull. "Sleep well, Captain. We'll continue this again in a little while."

How do you stop a war when you're not on either side? Commander Ivanova wasn't sure it was even possible, but she was sure as hell going to try. She'd grown up here in the streets of Babylon. Looking up from the corner of Coriana and 6th, she could see the studio apartment she'd lived in as a very young child, the place that held her first memories. She remembered walking home with her mother every day of kindergarten and first grade – three blocks up, two blocks left, one block over, and on Fridays, a stop by the marketplace for an ice cream cone. She remembered her senior Homecoming parade, which had woven all the main streets, including this intersection. She remembered the coffee shop where she'd spent countless nights since taking this post, even before Sinclair's assassination – because that's what it was, really – mulling over open cases and witness testimony. And she remembered Marcus, and the dream they had that someday, they'd walk these streets with their own child, and he or she could make new memories for all of them.

"I hope you know what you're doing," she muttered to herself as she leaned against the old brick building that served as a drug store. The awning and her dark clothing kept her well hidden. She could see the line being drawn, bit by bit – on one side the Vorlons, on the other the Shadows. She was smack in the middle.

Sheridan was nowhere to be seen.

She wondered only briefly about his well-being before coming to the conclusion that he was probably dead, sacrificed for the greater good, and it gave her even more determination to end this here and now. She looked around. Her allies were hidden just as well as she, but they were there; oh, they were there in droves. The entire strength of the BPD was present, along with officers from surrounding communities and even a sizeable amount of civilian volunteers who were tired of living in fear. Shrouded in the darkness, they were a formidable force.

Movement to her left, just barely – a flash of yellow against the darkness where it shouldn't have been – and she lifted her radio. "First tactical squadron, advance from behind but do not, I repeat, do not fire until I give the order. I want them surrounded on all sides before we move in." She looked to her right, trying to draw the other line out. It was harder; the blue of the Shadows blended better into the darkness.

And then a shot rang out.

"Shots fired, we have shots fired! Second tactical squadron, move in and commence takedown procedure. Do not fire unless fired upon – I want as many of these fuckers alive as possible." She cut her radio and fell back to join her squad. She was so proud of them in that moment, but couldn't help a silent prayer – and may God help us all.

Kosh had been to Z'ha'dum before. Five years had passed, but it looked the same. It carried the same air of foreboding, of hopelessness, though a keener eye, the eye of someone who knew what really happened here, would see the bar as a final refuge for lost souls. Five years since his world changed; five years since he tracked a nameless man and a small band of rebellious followers to this bar; five years since he turned his back on the only person who'd ever loved him in order to protect himself.

He'd just made Police Chief, and he was too proud to let anything jeopardize that. So when the Shadows took his daughter, he went after her – until Mr. Morden confronted him with a fact that had been slid from his record years ago, a fact he threatened to make public if Kosh made any further heroic rescue attempts – the fact that long ago, in another city, another state, nearly another world, Kosh had been a Vorlon. If revealed, it would cost him his position, his badge, everything he'd worked for… and likely, in the end, the lives of himself and his daughter anyway.

Now he crossed the threshold, weapon drawn, willing to lay down his life if it meant he could rescue just one. Perhaps, it would be Sheridan… perhaps…

"Father?"

It was a barely audible whisper, and in the darkness he did not see her until she stepped from the shadows.

"Delenn."

"You have to help him." She didn't make any attempt to move closer; her expression was blank, unreadable. Then she pushed on a panel at the back of the bar and it opened, a hidden door into the darkness.

Kosh paused before moving slowly toward the open door, closer to Delenn. "They told me you were dead," she whispered.

"It was the only way. If I'd come for you, they would have killed us both."

She studied him for a long moment. "There are five young women in the small room all the way to the left of the stairs," she said at last, avoiding his statement. He wouldn't apologize, she knew that. If there was anything she understood about her father, it was that he never apologized for the way things had to be. "Sheridan wanted them to be freed."

Kosh gave a barely perceptible nod. At the top of the stairs, he paused and turned to look back at her one last time. "You should leave. Now."

Delenn felt suddenly small and frightened, and Kosh could read it in her expression. Her voice cracked slightly when she spoke. "I have nowhere else to go."

He could have fought it, could have insisted – hell, he could have sent her to his squad car, which was parked just blocks away. Instead he reached down to where he stored his backup weapon at his ankle and handed it to her. He held her gaze for a moment longer than he ever had, and then he said the words Delenn had waited her entire childhood to hear; words she'd been without even before coming to this horrible place; words that broke her heart because of their delivery here. "I love you, Delenn," he said. A pause, and he turned to descend the stairs. He was two steps in when she heard his whisper, "Goodbye."

Morden smirked in the darkness at the sound of footsteps approaching. He stood poised over Sheridan like a large cat protecting a fresh kill. He cocked his gun – there were two bullets in the chamber. It would be enough. Morden never missed. "And the final player in our little drama arrives at last." He let out a laugh, an evil laugh that – as Sheridan swam to consciousness – sounded not unlike every villain in every movie of his childhood. Boring, he thought to himself, then frowned – at least, mentally he frowned. He couldn't tell if he still had control of his facial muscles. God. I think I'm delusional.

"I was expecting you," Sheridan heard Morden say now. He fought to open his eyes, to see who had ventured down here to save him, but he couldn't. His eyelids were heavy, so heavy, and they hurt. How is that possible? "I was expecting you long ago, actually. Funny how it took the fall of someone as insignificant as Captain Sheridan to bring you down here. Funny how your own flesh and blood couldn't do it." What the hell is he talking about?

"This ends now," he heard, and the low, definitive voice drew his attention toward the doorway. He opened his eyes just in time to focus on the chief, weapon drawn.

"Chief," Sheridan choked out.

He couldn't get to his feet. He couldn't have stopped it. He heard the explosion of Morden's gun, heard Kosh get off a shot as well – and he watched helplessly as Kosh fell to the ground. There were a few moments of deafening silence, and then he heard Morden's voice, clearly pained. "I wanted to play with you a bit longer," he said. "But it appears I won't get the chance."

Sheridan looked up, and then wished he hadn't. Morden was bleeding from a single wound to the left shoulder; his right hand held the gun and as his shadow eclipsed Sheridan entirely, he pointed the gun from his standing position. The bullet would strike the captain right between the eyes, and he was helpless to stop it. "Any last words?"

Sheridan opened his mouth to respond, but before he could get a word out, both men were distracted again by the unmistakable sound of footsteps. He turned his head as much as he was able to gaze at his savior.