A/N:For the 30-Day Writing Challenge on Tumblr. Prompt: "Unrequited love"
The doorbell chimed for the ninth time.
Ivanova could have laid in bed listening to it ring a lot longer, but after the final chime, she heard the door to her quarters slide open. The sound of footsteps entering the living room made her shiver.
Fighting the urge to pull the bedcovers over her head, she raised her croaky voice enough to yell, "Get out, Stephen."
She knew it was him. That pesky doctor had been trying to get her to come out of her quarters ever since it happened.
As if he heard her thoughts, Dr. Franklin called back, "I'm not going to make you come out, if that's what you think. I just brought you something."
"I'm not hungry."
Three uneaten plates of food stared accusingly at her from her desk.
"This isn't food. I think you'll want to see it, Susan." His voice was calm, comforting. It was a stark contrast to what Ivanova felt inside.
"Go away."
"I'm not leaving until you get your butt out here and see this."
Oh, what the hell… Ivanova hauled herself out of bed. It wasn't like she had anything better to do while she was "recovering."
She would have recovered just fine at her post, but clearly Sheridan couldn't see that.
Pulling on a bathrobe over her loose tank top and shorts, she gave herself a quick glance in the mirror.
She wished she hadn't.
In the living room, Stephen was waiting for her on the couch with a wooden box in his lap. There was concern in his eyes as he took in her disheveled appearance.
"What is it?" she rasped, reaching for the glass of water on the kitchen counter.
Stephen patted the couch next to him. "Have a seat."
"What's in the box, Doctor? I didn't come out here for polite conversation."
Sighing, he crossed his arms. "Well, okay. After…"
He paused, and their eyes met.
"After," he continued, "We went through his room and boxed everything up. Most of it's going straight to storage, but I thought I'd bring a few of his personal items to you. I think he'd want you to have them."
Ivanova shook her head. "I didn't ask for—"
"I know he'd want you to have them," interrupted Stephen. He offered the box to her.
Susan stared at it until her eyes began to sting. She rubbed them, but her hand came away wet.
"I don't want them," she said dismissively. She looked Stephen right in the eye, never faltering.
"He didn't give up his life energy so you could punish yourself," said Dr. Franklin. "Use the gift he's given you. That was all he wanted - to see you happy."
Susan continued to stare at him—wordlessly, defiantly.
The doctor stood, setting the box on her coffee table. "I'll leave these here if you change your mind."
Still silent, Susan watched him go, standing still as a statue in her place on the cold floor.
The moment the door closed behind him, she turned to go back into the bedroom—but stopped.
That box remained on the table, beckoning to her.
She stumbled over to it, slumping down into a seated position on the couch.
The designs on the sides of the box were a series of intricate carvings, Minbari in design, depicting some sort of battle. Susan examined them in silence. Eventually, she thought she saw them starting to move.
Her head was pounding.
She laid back on the couch and fell asleep.
When Susan awoke, she had no idea how much time had passed.
She rolled over and was immediately confronted by the wooden box, still sitting in the same place on her coffee table.
She wanted to leave it there.
In fact, she nearly did, but as she moved to get up, she heard a very British voice in her head, saying, "How old will you be in a year if you don't learn to speak Minbari?"
How old would she be in a year if she didn't open this box?
When she lifted the lid, it wasn't so much about quelling her curiosity as it was about getting the voice to shut up.
Opening the lid was like ripping off a scab. The ache in her chest—the one she thought she'd gotten rid of days ago—was back, full force.
The box contained only three things: a Ranger pin, a Minbari fighting pike(retracted), and a leather-bound notebook.
Susan picked up the pin, tracing the border of the blue stone gently with the tip of her finger. She'd seen so many others like it on the station recently. This one was different, somehow.
Replacing the pin, she ignored the pike and instead reached for the notebook.
Opening to the first page revealed only Minbari scribbles. Of course the man couldn't have written in English, she thought.
She began flipping through all the pages, catching only a word here and there (her Minbari skills were far from expert), trying to find even a paragraph she could read in its entirety.
Suddenly, halfway through the book, something fell out of the pages and twirled through the air before settling on her lap. She picked it up – it was a perfectly pressed flower.
Not only that, it was one she recognized.
She'd first seen it in a bouquet on her doorstep. Left by Lieutenant Corwin, although that tidbit of information was unknown to her at the time.
The last time she'd seen it was when she'd hurled it down on the bar in front of… him.
She turned over the paperlike blossom in her hand. It had lost most of its color over the past year. The only defining quality that remained was the delicate shape of the petals – now two-dimensional.
Suddenly angry, Susan thrust the indecipherable book back into the box and slammed the lid. Standing to her feet, she clenched her fists, crushing the delicate bloom in her hand. The powdered remains of the Ranger's parting gift scattered on the floor.
Heart pounding, she picked up the whole Minbari chest, and with all her strength hurled it at the wall of the little room. It smacked into the BabCom monitor with a crunch, and little splinters of wood flew in all directions as the ornately-carved lid snapped off its hinges. The contents scattered: the Ranger pin skidded across the ground and disappeared under the couch; the pike extended as it hit the floor and toppled her end table. The journal flopped—pages down, spine splayed open—into the entryway of the bedroom.
Ivanova stared at the mess she'd made. Strangely, the anger she'd felt a moment before was gone. She felt nothing anymore, except for a dull ache in her head.
Dr. Franklin must have something to take care of that… but she didn't want to see him right now.
She reached for her water glass, but it was empty.
Briefly she thought about getting dressed, but there was no point if she wasn't going to work. Wandering the halls of the station uselessly had no appeal to her.
Carefully avoiding the shards of wood on the ground, Susan Ivanova padded back to bed.
A/N: I cried. I cried a lot watching those three episodes. And yet, I find myself writing… not a fix-it fic, but a vignette highlighting Ivanova's grief. Life is surprising.