Disclaimer: Characters and situations owned by JMS.
Timeline: Starts shortly after iThe Gathering/i and ends shortly before the framing narration of iIn the Beginning/i and the iWar Without End/i flashfowards.
Thanks to: My gracious beta Kathyh, as ever.
I.
When Delenn arrives at the new Babylon station, hoping against hope this one won't be destroyed or mysteriously vanish, she is careful to not let anyone know this is, in fact, her first ambassadorial assignment, and that she is anything but a career diplomat. Partly because she doesn't want anyone to know she's a member of the Grey Council, and partly because it might cause the humans to feel offended, or curious, or both. She wants to avoid either.
As it turns out, she needn't have worried. The Centauri and Narn representatives create so much drama between them, both individually and together, that not many among the station's human staff or other envoys find the time to pay attention to anyone else. Just as well; she's here to observe Sinclair, keep in touch with the Vorlon ambassador, and watch out for any signs that the Great Enemy has returned. It is much easier to do this if she's not the center of attention.
She herself doesn't intend more than polite and diplomatic interaction with either Londo Mollari or G'Kar of Narn. They seem to have nothing to do with her great purpose, they are noisy, nearly all the time, and between G'Kar's demagoguery and shady dealings on the one hand and Londo treating his job like a license to party and gamble, with no sense of duty to his people or the rest of the galaxy whatsoever, she doesn't know who irritates her more.
And yet: they keep surprising her. After he nearly got Commander Sinclair killed with his selfish scheming, and made an embarrassing attempt to intimidate her, Delenn never would have expected G'Kar to be the one fellow Ambassador with a heartfelt and intense spiritual commitment to rival her own faith. It teaches her to let go of easy assumptions. As for Londo Mollari: Delenn is stunned when he appears to have been contacted by the same person who appeared to her mentor Draal and volunteers to fly the both of them to the surface of Epsilon 3. She is even more surprised when the Great Machine is revealed, and Draal finds his destiny by serving. Given the machine also called to Commander Sinclair, she can well believe it and its previous occupant were looking for people committed to the third principle of sentient life: self-sacrifice. But Londo Mollari? Londo, one of the most hedonistic people she has ever encountered? Who seemed to value a drink and a pretty woman's smile more than anything Babylon 5 was created to accomplish, and whose closest approach to thoughtfulness were occasional fits of depression about the decline of the Centauri Republic?
It is better to muse on this than to think of her dear Draal. Yes, it is a great purpose he has found, but it hurts, imagining him trapped in the machine, his body no longer his own. No longer able to tease her, or share a meal of delicious flarn while disputing the sayings of Valen. She has lost too many mentors.
So Delenn asks Londo when they are on their way back to the station: „Would you truly have remained and become part of the Machine?"
„They do not have brivari down there, so it is most fortunate I shall not have to find out," Londo replies, and then adds: „Your friend has made the right choice, Delenn. It is a good thing – having found a true purpose."
He has seen right through her, has deduced what she truly wanted to know. At the same time, he has shown her something of himself that goes beyond the flamboyant persona she is familiar with. Delenn finds herself both humbled and intrigued, and just a little bit concerned. In return, she decides to show him something she usually keeps hidden.
„It is," she confirms. „But will he be happy?"
„My dear lady, happiness is for children to grow out of, and he's well past that stage in any event," Londo quips, and she can feel his glib facade returning. All the same, she finds herself wondering: if he himself is still seeking for a purpose, has been ready to abandon his entire existence for one offered by a vision, if he values what he has so little, and longs for more so desperately – does that make him primed for heroism, or for villainy?
Delenn thinks of her own secret purpose. Thinks of what she builds in her quarters. Thinks of what she will do to her body, easily as radical as what Draal has now done to his. Thinks of the guilt she never talks about, the price to be paid.
She looks at Londo again, and for the first time, thinks that his dark eyes are like a mirror.
II.
After her transformation, Delenn finds herself in a universe that is moving at an increasing pace into an ever more violent direction, and in many ways, starts to be the opposite of what it used to be. She has gone from being seen as Dukhat's successor to an outcast by her people. G'Kar, not herself, is the first to warn all the others of the old enemy's return; she can't tell him he's right, and feels ever more guilty towards him while watching his own transformation from blustery schemer to heroic defender in awe. Or is it a transformation? Was he always both?
Meanwhile, Londo, too, seems to have found his purpose at last, and it is a dark one. It should surprise her more; it does surprise her less. No more missed meetings at the council in favour of partying for Londo Mollari, and while he still jokes in conversations, his public speeches are all sharp as blades. When the war starts, her suspicion hardens to a certainty; it is not just that the Shadows must be aiding the Centauri and enabling their changed policy, it is that this contact has to be running through Londo, specifically.
„So Ambassador Mollari has fallen," Lennier observes regretfully. „It is a pity. I – had rather liked him. But that man is no more, and he who remains is a tool of darkness." He speaks her own thoughts, and yet, she finds herself at odds with his assessment, and wants to argue against it.
„We do not concede to the Enemy that easily, Lennier," Delenn says. „Not battles, and not people. Ambassador Mollari might now do great damage in the Enemy's service, yes. But were he to see the error in his ways, he could be brought to do great good. Or at least damage to the Enemy instead."
Lennier rarely allows himself to voice a different opinion in her presence; he is too much in awe of her, still. But now he looks sceptical, and quietly says: „There is blood on his hands, Delenn. So many Narn die every day. Can there be a return from so much darkness?"
Kill them all, she hears her own voice declare, and once more, she sees ship after ship destroyed, and knows that it can only be a matter of time before the human race itself is gone.
She feels her alien human heart pump twice as fast.
„If he wants it," Delenn says, her face as lacking in expression as she can make it. „Only then."
Unfortunately, Londo gives no sign regretting anything, at least not in her presence. Once, she corners him in an elevator.
„When will it end?" she asks him. „If the last Narn is gone? Is that truly what you want?"
„You shouldn't listen to Narn propaganda. It ends when the Centauri Republic is safe," Londo replies.
„There is no safety in conquest, Londo. All that achieves is proving to everyone else they need to ally against you."
„I don't recall any alliances made against the Minbari during your last war," he says. „I do recall your government making it very clear to my government that any help to the humans would be regarded as a hostile act which would invite retaliation. We were in no condition not to listen and obey then, Delenn. But we learned."
He can't know, Delenn thought. He can't possibly know.
„But not the most important lesson," she says, and her voice is sharp and taut, in a way she rarely allows it to be. „When to stop."
She turns away from him then, and exits the elevator at the first opportunity. Once her back is turned, he mutters something. Her hearing isn't as sharp as it used to be; another change owed to her half human physiognomy. So she can never be sure, but she thinks he whispers: „You're wrong."
III.
It's the fact that Londo uses the favor she has owed him ever since he helped her with Draal not for his own benefit but for Vir that gives Delenn a reason to believe he might not be completely doomed after all when she has all but given up on the idea that he could ever be more than a tool of the Enemy again. Vir is another person who keeps surprising her. There is a quiet strength behind his shyness, a bravery without any bravado and a capacity for compassion that grows instead of shrinking as more wars engulf more and more people. And Vir, who lives with Londo day by day until Londo calls in his favour, refuses to give up on Londo Mollari.
„One day, he will surprise you," he tells Lennier and Delenn, who share a sceptical look. Lennier later says he thinks Vir's own goodness causes him to see what he wishes to see. Delenn catches herself wondering whether that isn't what Lennier is doing with her. She wouldn't hurt him by telling him so, of course.
„There is no progress without the belief in the impossible, Lennier," she says.
Later that year, she experiences the bitter irony of these words, when Anna Sheridan returns, and John goes to Z'ha'dum. It is so odd: the blood of all those who died in the Earth-Minbari-War weighed on her, but it compelled her to action. The blood of this one man, who loved her, believed in her, trusted her in a way she could never completely manage to trust him, this blood, this life, it shatters her and binds her into devastated stillness.
Delenn remains in her quarters, sunk in silence, wrestling with fate and the need to believe that somehow, John is not dead, somehow, he will return. Lennier guards her, as he guarded her transforming body before. A great many well meaning people come and are sent away. Then Londo Mollari shows up, and Lennier is so surprised that he forgets to immediately brush him off.
„I have been called back to Centauri Prime," Londo says to Lennier. „It may be I shall not see either of you again. Let me pay my respects to the Ambassador, and I'll be gone."
Lennier hesitates, but Delenn finds herself rising.
„Enter, Mollari," she says. This time, she is not motivated by any concern for him. But it has occured to her that this is the one person on this station whom she knows to have connections to the Shadows. If he leaves now, there goes her chance to ask him about Z'ha'dum.
Delenn signals Lennier to leave them alone. The Centauri Ambassador used to have some regard for Lennier which could stop Londo from confessing the truth in his presence.
„I am sorry for…" Londo begins as soon as Lennier has left the room, but Delenn doesn't let him finish.
„If you have any respect for me at all," she says, „then tell me only one of two things. Tell me John lives, or tell me John died. And do not insult me by asking me how you should know. You work with the Enemy. What have you heard?"
Londo just looks at her. Then he sits down on the chair she has put there for non Minbari visitors.
„Nothing," he says. „Not since I was told to leave the station if I value my life. And that was before - when the Captain was still on the station, that is."
The desperate hope his presence had ignited in Delenn flickers and dies.
„So why didn't you leave immediately?" she asks numbly.
„I couldn't possibly present myself at the Royal Court without a fitting wardrobe, and Vir can't pack that quickly," Londo replies. „Also, while I still have a healthy regard for my own existence, I think I might be done with running away."
She doesn't think he's lying. „He went to save you," Delenn says bitterly. „To save everyone. Tell me, why should John Sheridan be dead and you alive?"
And I, she thought, and I.
Londo sighs. „How human are you?" he asks. „Can you process alcohol now, Delenn?"
„Why do you ask?"
„Because," Londo says, „if ever there was a time for you to get drunk, it is now. But not alone. And I am leaving, as I said. I think we should get drunk together. Didn't you want me to share a ceremony with you earlier this year?"
„Getting drunk is no ceremony," Delenn retorts.
„It is for us Centauri. In the right company."
Talking to Londo at least keeps the image of John's horrified face at bay, his look when he asked her whether she knew that Anna could be alive.
„I do not know," Delenn says. „Whether or not I am human enough. Are you aware that if my physiology is still too Minbari, I shall go mad and kill you?"
Londo shrugs. „There is a long line of people eager to do that, Delenn. I am always inclined to favor a lady."
He has a small bottle of brivari in his waistcoat. Of course he does. She takes a small sip. It is a pleasant burn, though it makes her cough.
„This is not not what I thought the prophecy meant," she says. „The joining of our people. Two halves together. In life, not in death! He should not – he must not…"
„I have had my share of prophecies," Londo murmurs. „And dreams. They are singularly unhelpful."
„But do you believe them?"
He takes the bottle from her and drinks. „Yes. Great Maker help us. Yes."
The right people at the right place at the right time, that horrid man had said, Sebastian. A murderer, a torturer, and yet in the service of the Vorlons. What cruelty would it be if all he'd meant was for John to be there to die, with his death dealing the Shadows a devastating blow? And for her to enable this with her innate need for secrecy, for only telling anyone as much as they needed to know at any given point?
„I would not have joined the Great Machine in Draal's place," Delenn says abruptly. „Not I. I was too sure my destiny was elsewhere."
Londo hands her the bottle again.
„And so it did. As did mine. Now I'm not sure whether or not the universe should be grateful, but I suspect that might be the case. That machine is a little bit too much power for any individual to have who still has dreams about their own destiny, Delenn."
She imagines what he could have done with the power of the Great Machine at his disposal and shudders. But then again, if he had taken Draal's place, he might never have encountered Mr. Morden, and through him the Great Enemy.
Then she wonders what she might do with the Great Machine, and only wishes she could, right now, no matter the cost, if it brought John back.
„We're not like each other," she tells Londo. Her voice sounds a bit slurred to herself. How odd. She takes another sip from his bottle. „Not a bit."
„I dare say."
Anything else she says, Delenn can't remember. She hasn't slept for a long while before Londo showed up in her quarters, and apparantly, the effect of alcohol on her half-human, half-Minbari physique includes not madness, but falling into unconsciousness.
When she wakes up, Londo is gone, not just from her quarters but from the station. A concerned Lennier tells her she has slept for six hours. It will be a long time until she sleeps again.
IV.
After the Shadows have left together with the Vorlons, and Londo returns to the station despite having become Prime Minister of the Centauri Republic, Delenn doesn't have the opportunity to talk with him alone in a good while. First, there is the civil war among her people, then, there is the need to support John in his effort to free Earth from Clark's regime, then there is John's imprisonment. But after he has surprised her by not only talking G'Kar into giving him the time of the day again but arranging for all the previously Non-Aligned Worlds to support her in her quest to free John, Delenn decides she really ought to.
„I am grateful, of course," she says. „More than that. I am glad. There was a time when I thought we would not see each other again, or that if we did, it might be in battle, and not on the same side. It makes me happy to have been mistaken, in the best possible way."
Londo smiles at her. „Being still able to surprise a lady in a pleasant way – now there's a compliment to warm an old man's hearts." Then he gets serious again, and surprises her by taking both her hands into his. „There is a debt I owe you, Delenn, you and Sheridan both, and it can never be repaid. Centauri Prime would have burned if the two of you had not lured the Vorlons away. There is no question about that. Consider my latest efforts a small gesture of acknowledgment for the greatest gift I have ever received."
Delenn had been aware that Centauri Prime had been one of the planets targeted by the Vorlons in those final hours, but that was just it: it had been one of several. Saving them all and preventing any future resumption of the vicious cycle Shadows and Vorlons had put the galaxy through had been the cause of her actions. But saying as much to Londo would be redundant; he had to know.
Besides, whispered the part of her which was forever calculating and strategizing, it can never hurt to have the ruler of the Centauri Republic considering himself beholden to us. Especially if that ruler is Londo Mollari, who had shown himself capable of terrible darkness. She returns his clasp.
„We should make a habit of this," she says. „Building alliances together. I can't think of a better way to show the age of war is well and truly over. Once we've freed John."
This time, she refuses to consider any other possible outcome. She cannot afford to give into despair again. John is alive, and he will be saved. And then, the age of peace would begin. She is not naive, she knows that even without the Shadows manipulating them, there are still feuds and disputes between people. Peace, once achieved, will have to be maintained. For which it needed allies.
„There are worse habits to have," Londo says wistfully and lets go of her hands. Then he smiles again. „Besides. Vir has been singing Minbar's praises so consistently that I decided I must visit your homeworld, if only to finally put a stop to all those elegies, yes? And I take it I would not be welcome as anything but an ally."
Delenn thinks of Minbar as she has last seen it, thinks of her beautiful city in flames. Minbari killing Minbari. Thinks of Neroon, taking her death upon himself, ending the war. She had been ready, under the star wheel. There is still a strange hollowness in her when she thinks of it. It isn't that she wants to die. She wants to live, with John, wants to live and create something strong and lasting out of all the myriads of strands that have led them to this point.
But Minbar came so close to destroying itself, and it might not have happened if she had not broken the Grey Council, or had taken up Dukhat's mantle instead of remaining on Babylon 5 because she had been certain, so certain, what her purpose in life was.
„How do you live with it?" she asks impulsively, and knows she can ask no one else. „Coming this close to destruction. Knowing you almost doomed your homeworld."
Londo frowns, but doesn't seem surprised by her sudden change of topic. There is silence between them, but Delenn does not withdraw her question, and he does not turn away. His expression is dark, but there is none of the intense anger and fear she recalls from the time when he promoted the war against the Narn.
„Do you still believe in prophecy, Delenn?" he asks her, abruptly. His voice is rough.
Now she knows that the words of Valen were but the knowledge of her friend Sinclair, who left before he could witness the end of the Shadow War, let alone anything else. There is no certainty there, not anymore. And yet, there is faith. Of a sort.
„In a fashion," she replies, recalling Neroon again, and her heart hurts. „I still believe I can fulfill what a prophecy once guided me to do."
„Whereas I hope that I already have," Londo says. „But to answer your question. I take each day as a gift, and try to make the best of it." His old lightness of tone returns. „Some brivari now and then helps as well. But I suppose I can't interest you in another experiment, hm?"
„Not now," Delenn retorts, and shakes her head, disguising herself in a smile as well. „And I must tell you that there will be no brivari when you visit Minbar. But I shall do my best to visit Centauri Prime as well, to your coronation, perhaps, and then we shall see."
„Now there's something to look forward to," Londo agrees.
V.
Delenn is on Centauri Prime during Londo's coronation, and has never felt less like celebrating in her life. The planet burns, the alliance she has worked for has just come this close to breaking apart and has, in fact, been responsible for the smoke and rubble around her. What's more, if she had not sent Lennier to search for evidence, there might have been enough time for Lyta to make her own discovery about those odd devices planted inside of Centauri ships before things got so out of hand. Londo says it was the late Regent, and he alone. Until now, Delenn would have said she has learned to read him, to know when he is lying and when he is telling the truth. But not anymore. It is as if he's surrounded by a glass wall.
Londo rejects any offer of help, and hurries them to leave. As much as the by now terribly familiar sight of a bombarded planet disturbs her, a part of Delenn wants to stay, wants to corner him again and make him talk to her, truly talk. But Vir and G'Kar, both of whom know him better then she does, seem to believe it is best to accept his request to leave. And there's the memory of what had happened between Lennier and her when they both believed they would die, the words said that should not, would not have been spoken under any other circumstances. She's afraid that if they stay here, by necessity in close proximity, it will be incredibly painful for Lennier. No, better to return to Babylon 5, wait for some time to do its healing, and then try again.
The next time she is on Centauri Prime, it is almost fifteen years later, and the memory of Londo's coronation and his ensuing visit to Minbar fills her with cold rage, which is directed at both him and herself. She should have known. Should have pressed. And now her son has paid the price for her inaction. For the fact that despite everything she knew, she has regarded Londo Mollari as a friend. Had believed there were things he would not do.
He looks terrible. When she is first brought to him, Delenn thinks he is insane, well and truly insane, what with the way he stares into shadows, with the way he rambles, with the terrible way he has aged. And with his questions, which aren't about anything to do with the present. They deal exclusively with the past.
„It's the historian in me," Londo says. „Indulge me."
„Why should I?"
„Because you are here, Delenn, and so is your son, and soon, your husband will be here as well. Because my world is once more burning, and if you just had given me that damn drink I asked for when I visited you on Minbar, none of this may have happened. Because I want to know, and" – he rises from his throne and points a shaking finger at her, „you. Owe. Me."
She opens her mouth for a scornful reply, a reminder of how he once swore he'd never forget what he owed her and John, and then he adds: „What did you do in the Earth-Minbari war, Delenn? That's what I want to know. And once you've told me, I shall tell you something you want to know as well. Not about David. About Lennier."
So she tells him. He's only the second person she has ever confessed to, and the only one not a Minbari. At first, her narration is clipped and furious, but she can't maintain her anger, not with this story, and not with the thought of Lennier on her mind. She has not heard of Lennier for nearly as many years as she has last seen Londo, but has never stopped hoping he would return. And as she speaks of her younger self, Dukhat's acolyte, that young woman who let her rage and grief call for a war so terrible that it nearly destroyed another people, something in her quietens.
She has wanted to tell this to Londo once before. Years ago. When she had been wounded, had decided to undergo the ceremony demanding for secret truths to be told to another person. He had refused her invitation then, so afraid to look inside himself. But then, so had she been.
Londo listens. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't look into the shadows anymore. He's focused on her, and she has to revise her earlier impression of his state of mind. Which almost makes it worse. If he's not insane, there is no excuse for what he has done to David.
When she tells him about Sinclair, about that wondrous and terrible discovery, her horror that it was Valen whom they had dragged before them and the simultaneous blinding relief that this was the sign she had prayed for, the one argument she could use to persuade everyone they needed to stop the war, he says quietly: „And if it hadn't been Sinclair? If it had been any other human, whom your device would not have recognized, what then? Would you have still stopped the war?"
„If it had not been G'Kar who was brought before you in the days of Cartagia," she retorts, for G'Kar has told her about this years ago, „but any other Narn, would you have still made that deal? Would you have freed Narn?"
Londo looks at her. He's been drinking through the entire interrogation. He leans forward, and that is the moment when she sees it. Sees, and understands, truly and completely.
„The universe is a cruel place," he says while she presses her hand against her mouth in order not to scream, „but not without a sense of humor. And the occasional mercy, even. I might have tried to make a deal with another Narn, Delenn, but no Narn other than G'Kar would have accepted it. And I would not have had the courage to free Narn on my own account."
He coughs, and she knows it is true of her as well. Without Sinclair, without the shared horror among the Grey Council at the proof that it was Valen in the shape of a tortured man standing before her, she would have had the blood of humanity on her hands, and the Shadows would have reigned supreme thereafter.
She looks at him, her friend and enemy. Looks at the horror on his shoulder. Understands that she had seen it before, a long, long time ago, when first encountering the Drakh, blurry, obscene shadows of shadows that they were. „I would have tried and failed," she says. „But for the mercy of the universe. Londo…."
He raises his hand. „Lennier was here," he says. „On Centauri Prime. He came just a few weeks after my coronation. He helped us rebuild, after the war. I dare say it gave him some peace, but he was a bright young man, so I had to send him away before he saw too much. They would not have left him alive otherwise. As for where he is now, I could not say. I have been careful not to know, yes? But if I had to guess, I would assume that given he's made friends here, and has heard recent rumors, he might have gotten it into his head to come again and leave, not alone but with another young man. That is what I wanted to tell you. Now go. Go to your husband; I shall see the both of you soon enough."
Londo claps his hands, and his guards return. Delenn blinks. Their golden armour seems to swim in front of her. It has been almost two decades, but the way her half human physiology has made her much more prone to cry has never felt as wrong as right now. She does not want to cry. She wants to run towards him, embrace him as she had once done, then shake him and demand to know why he has not asked for help a long time ago. She wants to ask him where G'Kar is, whom she had tried to contact in vain before she had been captured. She wants to thank him for what he said about Lennier and David; she wants to call him a liar who simply wishes to torment her with false hope.
„Return her to the cells," Londo tells the guards. „And don't let her out of your sight for a moment. She's not to be underestimated, that one. The most dangerous woman I ever met. And I was married to Famine, Pestilence and Death."
Trust Londo to add yet another emotion to all the ones threatening to tear her apart. It was the kind of annoying quip the ambassador she first met would have made, all those years ago. So there is a core of him that years of imprisonment in his own body had not broken. Now tears truly would not do.
Delenn centres herself. „There is something in which I believe, and it is not prophecy," she says, with all the calm and precision she is capable of. „It is the third principle of sentient life. We talked about it, a long time ago. And now I see it fulfilled."
She lets her hands form a rhombus and for the first and last time in her life, bows to Londo Mollari. Something flickers in his eyes, and he raises his hand, whether in greeting or farewell, she can not say. The guards take her by her arms. As she leaves the throne room with them, a sound reaches her that makes no sense whatsoever, a sound that does not belong in this palace full of shadows and doom, and yet it is achingly familiar. It is the noise of children, chasing each other, laughing. It is hope; it is the future.