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icepixieSo, uh, I was not planning on a sequel to "Closet Idealism," and then one day a couple of scenes appeared in my head, and the people in them told me in no uncertain terms that actually, I was going to be writing a sequel, thank you very much. Susan is kind of scary when she doesn't get her way, you know?
Title: The Little Dreams We Dream (Are All We Can Really Do)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
icepixie
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,089
Summary: Susan hasn't been as careful with her heart as she should've been. AU. Ivanova/Garibaldi. Angsty, but I do promise that the epigraph is pertinent. Sequel to "Closet Idealism."
Timeline/Spoilers: This is significantly less canon-adherent than its predecessor--I compressed and reordered a few events to suit my needs, and completely changed others--but still spoils all of season four and one or two things about the first few episodes of season five.
Note: One scene in particular, as well as a few scattered lines of narration, owes a debt of gratitude tomylittleredgirl's "Dead Souls," which you should totally go read, because it's amazing.
* * *
In the middle of the night
We keep sending little kites
Until a little light gets through.
-- "Kite Song," Patty Griffin
I
It has been seventeen days since her life took the express transport to hell. Seventeen days since John Sheridan followed his dead wife into a trap; twelve since Michael Garibaldi was abducted by the Shadows; five since she, Delenn, and Lyta went to Z'ha'dum and came back empty-handed. And now, it has been twenty-one hours since she and Marcus Cole set out on a fool's errand to beg more First Ones for help in a war they almost certainly cannot win.
Susan does not think this is an auspicious start to the new year.
Four hours ago, Marcus all but shoved her off the bridge, claiming her pacing was making the Minbari crew too nervous to perform their jobs. (When she resisted, he'd threatened to relieve her of duty. She'd reminded him that technically they weren't part of the same command structure; he'd noted that he was more than willing to withhold translation services until she slept. She had sulked all the way to the dormitory.)
She has spent the past three hours and fifty-eight minutes tossing and turning on the slanted Minbari bed. With everything that has gone wrong, who the hell could sleep now?
A vision of the bottle of vodka in her quarters taunts her in between the Vorlons jumping over fences she tries to count.
Just as she's about to march back onto the bridge and dare Marcus to relieve her of duty again, the man himself comes into the room. "It's your watch," he says, touching her shoulder.
"Thanks." She sits up, yawning. "I wasn't getting any sleep anyway," she says. "You should've let me stay on the bridge."
He sits on the bed next to hers, looking pensive. "You're worried about Michael, aren't you?"
She huffs a derisive breath. "Of course I'm worried about Garibaldi. I'm worried about him, about the captain, about half the damn galaxy."
He looks at her from under those impossibly long lashes, apparently considering his words carefully. "I mean...in a more personal sense."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she demands, seething at the insinuation. She's barely admitted to herself that Michael is more than a friend with whom she occasionally has sex; what right has Marcus to figure it out when he's not even involved?
"I saw him coming out of your quarters early one morning with his shirt on inside out. I put two and two together; got four." He smiles a little, albeit lopsidedly.
She closes her eyes and prays for the willpower necessary to prevent herself from hitting him.
"Is it serious?" he asks.
She sighs, briefly glancing at the ceiling. "I don't know. It wasn't supposed to be." She would like to say that it still isn't, but she would be lying if she did. The wolf at her door every night has his face more often than not. "But sometimes things happen without you expecting them to."
His mouth twists momentarily before he smoothes it straight again. "I suppose they do."
She knows she is watching his dreams shatter, but there is nothing she can do. She didn't ask for his adoration. It's his own damn fault for pinning whatever ridiculous hopes he had on someone like her.
The kindest thing she can do is pretend not to notice, and so she does, standing up and telling him she'll wake him for the next watch. She heads for the bridge, feeling a renewed need to pace.
* * *
Several days later and entirely too much wiser, they return to B5. One of the first things she hears is that Michael is back.
She might have been surprised by how desperately she wants to go see him in MedLab. But she doesn't have time to go see him, so of course it would be the one thing she wants most to do. That's how life works.
She doesn't have time because the Vorlons have gone goddamned crazy, and she has to find Lyta now, find out what she knows, see if this can possibly be stopped.
She doesn't hold out much hope of that.
* * *
In the middle of Lyta confirming her suspicions, John Sheridan returns from the dead.
Susan wonders if she should start believing in miracles. The Hanukkah candles she lights every year notwithstanding, she generally has subscribed to the premise that all unexplained events are simply caused by sufficiently advanced technology. But seeing Sheridan in his office, very much alive, is pretty damned miraculous. Coming on the heels of Garibaldi's return...well. Maybe those ancient writers of scripture were on to something.
She flies across his office to hug him, this man who is not only her CO but who also, somewhere along the way, became her quasi-big brother--a sort of balm, if not a replacement, for the one she lost.
He thanks her for going after him to Z'ha'dum. He chastises her for the foolhardiness of the act, too, but his puppyish grin belies any sting the words might have carried. He says he's called a meeting in the war room, and is obviously bubbling over with some kind of good news he plans on telling everyone. Presumably it has to do with the alien sitting quietly in the corner.
She hates to be the one to break it to him that whatever it is, it cannot possibly counteract her discovery. But she does it anyway, summing up the Vorlon situation in a few sentences, and watches his face fall, just as she expected.
She really, really hates this war.
* * *
When they walk into the war room, she sees Michael sitting at the table. Her stride falters. For an instant, she wants to run over to him, clasp him in her arms, and never let go.
Luckily, sense reasserts itself, and she continues walking, claiming the seat beside him when she reaches the chair.
Under the table, she takes his hand, curling her fingers around his larger ones, and squeezes so hard she feels on the verge of breaking bones. He squeezes back, just as tightly. Their eyes meet, briefly, before darting away again, and they finally let go of each other's hands.
The meeting gets off to a bad start when Michael demands to know who the alien John brought with him is. John is obviously less than pleased at Garibaldi's suspicion, and it takes Delenn, with her usual grace, to defuse the situation. Things only get worse when Susan and Marcus explain what they found, and Lyta what she knows because of her contact with the Vorlons.
They reach one conclusion at this meeting, and it is that with the Vorlons and the Shadows waging their war by destroying everyone else in the galaxy, they are all pretty well fucked.
* * *
Like everyone else, she and Michael leave the room somberly, the full weight of the situation resting as much on their shoulders as it does on the others'. They head for his quarters, since it is late, although they are more shocked than tired.
Despite all the bad news weighing it down, as she walks beside him, closer than she might have a year ago, the relief she initially felt when she heard he was alive rises back up inside her. Along with it comes the inevitable question of just why she feels so much of it. It's one she isn't sure she wants to know the answer to, but as soon as the door to his quarters hisses shut behind them, she pulls him into a kiss that stands in for both I was worried sick and I was never supposed to care this much.
It is a long time before they part, and even then, it's not entirely; their arms still around each other, they touch their foreheads together, still desperate for contact. She closes her eyes and wishes they weren't all going to die very soon.
He asks if she's had dinner yet, and when she says no, he offers her his leftover takeout. A few minutes later, they are sitting on the couch, her with a plate of rice and sweet and sour vegetables on her lap. He steals the occasional carrot or mushroom from her plate as she eats, and they talk about the war. She thinks that she used to have conversations about other things before this campaign, but at the moment she has no idea what they were.
She asks him if he remembers anything about what happened to him while he was away. He already told them he doesn't, but she can't help the impulse. She doesn't like unsolved mysteries, at least not when they could potentially come back to bite someone in the ass.
His voice is a little sharp as he replies. "Nothing."
She supposes he has a right to be irritated; everyone from Stephen to Captain Sheridan has been asking him where he was and what he was doing--or was done to him.
In the silence that follows, she looks down at her plate, wondering if she should apologize. When she looks up again, ready to spit out a tentative "sorry," some perversity probably born of spending too much time around him inspires her to say instead, "Well, at least if you don't remember anything, you don't have to write it all out in five hundred different reports."
For a moment she thinks her joke might fall flat, but then he grins. "You're right. Although by the time I'm done writing 'I don't remember' to five hundred different versions of the question, I might be tempted to make something up."
Ease of a concern she didn't even know she was carrying washes over her. Whatever he's been through, whatever the Shadows did to him, he's still Michael.
When she's done with her meal, they peel off their uniforms and crawl into bed together. He pulls her close, holding her tightly in the darkness. She buries her head in his shoulder. Eventually, they fall asleep.
* * *
They catch as much time together as they can over the next three weeks. Given how busy they are, this translates to the odd meal in the mess hall and the occasional evening tucked away in one or the other's quarters working.
From the couch or table on one of these evenings it is an easy journey to the bed. And when their schedules are wildly different, she will sometimes go to sleep only to wake up a couple hours later to him slipping under the covers, an arm coming to rest lightly over her waist, and his voice murmuring at her to go back to sleep.
Sometimes, she finds her way to his quarters after a long shift and does the same.
It's not something they talk about. They've each figured out the other's lock code, and have made a tacit agreement not to change them until they dredge up the courage to actually authorize each other's keycards. She hasn't made a guess as to when that will be. If she's entirely honest, she's pretty sure the coming confrontation with the Shadows and the Vorlons will make the question moot very soon.
Amusingly, Sheridan has stopped placing separate calls to their quarters when he rouses them in the middle of the night for an emergency meeting. He just finds one of them and asks that he or she bring the other along. Beyond that, he doesn't inquire--undoubtedly this is Delenn's doing--and makes no mention of their overlapping nocturnal locations. Susan, who has never liked being the subject of gossip, is grateful for this.
Most nights, she and Michael are too tired or have too much on their minds to do anything but sleep like the dead for a few hours before getting up and going back to work. Other nights--and, on two memorable occasions, days--when she feels as if she's coiled so tightly she's going to break any moment, sex loosens the spring her body has become to a point where, for a while at least, she isn't afraid of snapping in half from the strain.
Talia's silvery laugh echoes in the back of her mind when she remembers how sure she'd been that her relationship with Michael could be compartmentalized into "just friends" and "just sex." She hasn't been as careful with her heart as she should've been, and the way she misses him if their paths still haven't crossed by the end of a day is proof of that. She often wonders if being in regular communication with her heart again is an asset or a liability.
There's still no hope against the dual forces of the Shadows and the Vorlons, but as Londo might say, humans are good at manufacturing hope from despair. Thus, she, Sheridan, Delenn, and everyone else in the Army of Light goes on building the biggest combined fleet the galaxy has ever seen.
* * *
Right before she leaves to go hunting First Ones with Lorien, they steal a moment alone in the docking bay.
He looks warily at the shuttle she's about to board that will take her to the waiting White Star. "I still don't trust that guy."
Since the alien brought John back from the dead, Susan is inclined to trust him with her life, but she knows Michael, knows his paranoid streak, and she mostly understands. "I'll be careful," she promises.
He kisses her, quick but hard, and at the same time presses something into her palm, closing her fingers over the small, metallic object. "Just come back in one piece," he says, caressing her cheek before stepping back to let her board the shuttle.
She nods, the lump that has suddenly risen in her throat making it impossible to speak. Before she can embarrass herself, she turns and disappears into the shuttle.
Once she's in the pilot's seat, she opens her hand. Inside, she finds a tiny bell. It jingles faintly when she shakes it.
"What is that?" Lorien asks, peering at the bell from the seat beside her.
"I'm not sure," she says, putting it in her pocket and strapping herself into the seat. "Are you ready? We should get moving."
"Of course."
She links in to C&C to request permission to depart, and they leave for the White Star.
* * *
During their brief stopover back at B5, she looks up bells in the station databanks, and finds that they were once common good luck charms in Italy.
It takes up permanent residence in her pocket. Given what they're about to face at Corianna 6, she's likely to need all the good luck she can get.
She doesn't seek him out before she and Lorien leave to join the rest of the fleet. The romantic in her, the one that even Psi Corps's destruction of Talia couldn't kill, can't face saying goodbye for what she knows deep in her soul will be the last time.
* * *
II
Two days later, with the Shadows, Vorlons, and all the other older races on their way out of the galaxy, they are still alive.
She hadn't really planned on that.
When they call B5 to deliver the good news, Michael, standing in C&C with a cluster of gaping junior officers around him, doesn't seem able to believe it. "They just left?" he repeats.
When they finally convince him that the war is over and they are coming home, she sees genuine relief spread across his face. Grinning, he claims the outcome is anticlimactic.
Sheridan, cheerfully rolling his eyes at his security chief's relentless cynicism, says, "Maybe you had to be there."
"Maybe so. See you tomorrow. Garibaldi out."
* * *
The station has never seen such a celebration as what greets them at their arrival. She can barely pick Michael out of the mob that's there to meet them at customs.
He apparently has no trouble finding her, though, because when the crowd sees the returning heroes coming through the gate and surges forward, he's right in front of her. A second later, he crushes her against his chest, and she gladly leans against him, the combination of relief, joy, and exhaustion she feels suddenly leaving her lightheaded. With one hand pressed against the soft fuzz of hair on the back of his head and the other clutching a fistful of his uniform jacket, she lets the cacophonous, undulating mass of people fade away, lost for the moment in a little world made of just the two of them.
The crowd ebbs, following Sheridan, who is walking further into the station. Michael grabs her hand as they finally part and keeps hold of it as they start following the celebrants away from the gate. They make it about three steps before a gaggle of reporters start shoving microphones in their faces.
"How does it feel--"
"What really happened--"
"-- Captain Sheridan --"
"--at Corianna 6--"
"--a statement--"
She raises her voice. "I'm sure there will be a press conference very soon, and all of your questions will be answered there. Now, if you don't mind?" Dragging Michael along behind her, she strides through the collection of journalists, who part like the Red Sea in the face of her determination to escape and obvious willingness to forcibly remove them from her path if they don't move first.
Michael chuckles behind her.
"Not a word," she threatens, not turning around.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he says, smirking so hard she can hear it.
She heads for the nearest transport tube. She is still holding his hand.
* * *
Untold hours later, they stumble to her quarters, glad to be away from the noise, the crowds, and the endless badgering by reporters. The party, it seems, is going to go on for the rest of the night, perhaps the rest of the week.
Susan sighs, closing her eyes and leaning against the door. "Tomorrow I am sleeping in." She opens her eyes and smiles at him. "You know, I think tomorrow is the first day both of us will have off in months." The gravity of it suddenly strikes her. "We're done with this campaign."
"Yeah." He seems troubled, frowning as he stares at the carpet. "Of course, we still have all the problems back home to deal with."
She has to admit, where she sees the glass half empty, Michael sees it half empty and with a crack in the bottom through which all the remaining liquid is dribbling out.
But tonight, at least, she's willing to admit the possibility of full glasses—preferably full of something bubbly and alcoholic—and she's determined to see that he does the same.
"Michael. The Shadows are gone. The war is over! Can't we just...celebrate for a little while before we go borrowing trouble?"
He raises an eyebrow. "That depends," he says, coming closer and trailing his fingers down her waist, resting them on her hip. "What kind of celebration did you have in mind?"
She grins in a way that could only described as "sly," and in response, she begins to kiss him.
* * *
The next morning, she gets up before he does and fishes in the pockets of his discarded uniform, finally seizing upon his keycard. She touches several pressure-sensitive spots on it in quick succession, presses her fingertip where indicated, and then silently slides it back into his pocket. Grabbing her bathrobe, she heads for the shower.
When she gets out, dressed in civilian clothing, she finds both breakfast and her own altered keycard waiting for her on the table. She slips the card into her pocket and sits down. The only thing they talk about is their plans for the day.
* * *
At the first command staff meeting held since the war ended, Michael drops a bombshell on them that is bigger than anything the Shadows or Vorlons ever came up with. He waltzes into Sheridan's office and announces that he's resigning as head of security, effective immediately.
It feels like the structural integrity of the floor just imploded under her feet. They are all struck dumb, trying to process Michael's revelation
He'd said nothing about quitting this morning. They'd quietly gone through what has become a morning routine, and he'd left to shower and change in his quarters. And now, here he is broadsiding her--all of them--with this news.
She feels like whatever they are to each other should at least have warranted a mention of it.
"You can't just resign like this!" she exclaims as soon as she collects her jaw from the floor. She doesn't know if she's more upset that he's resigning, period, or that he didn't tell her first so she could talk him out of it.
He looks unnaturally innocent. "Who says?" He talks about how they're free agents now, and he doesn’t want to keep fighting wars he doesn’t understand, and then says he's going to go into business for himself, searching out the lost things people are willing to put a price on--do a little good, as he puts it. She hears almost none of it, too caught up in feeling like she's been betrayed.
"Well," he finally says, slowing the torrent of words that have been falling from his mouth. "I think that about covers it. Everything will be on your desk within the hour, sir." He nods to them all, his gaze not lingering on anyone in particular, and leaves the room before the captain can respond.
It is highly unprofessional, but at this moment, she doesn't give a damn. "Excuse me, sir," she says over her shoulder to Sheridan, and then runs after Michael.
She catches up with him a few feet down the hall, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around. "What was that? And why the hell didn't you tell me? You can't have decided to quit in the last half hour!"
He looks at her steadily, something in his eyes seeming almost amused at her outrage, which only makes her madder. "That was exactly what it sounded like," he says, beginning to tick points off on his fingers. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd try to talk me out of it. And as far as when I started thinking about it..." He looks uncertain now, and she wonders what that means. "Before the war ended."
"But we still need you," she blurts, despite intuiting that that fact will make no difference to him. He gives every sign of being very sure of himself.
"Zack'll do you proud. And I'll still be here. Just not working for Sheridan anymore."
"Is that what this is about? John?" She knows there's been some tension between them lately, but she had thought it was just the stress of the war getting to them both. Maybe she should've paid more attention, asked him to talk about it.
He presses his lips together. "This is about me wanting a different kind of life than the one I've been leading. That's all."
I'm part of the life you've been leading, she thinks.
"I have to go," he says. "And as I recall," he looks back toward Sheridan's office, "so do you. I'll see you later."
That night, they each sleep in their own quarters.
* * *
They adapt to his change in employment with less trouble than she expected. She still doesn't understand his reasons, nor why he was so quick to resign, but he seems happy enough with his new job. Every time she sees him, he has a new story about something or someone he's helped a customer retrieve.
She still misses him when she calls security on her link and gets Zack, or when his face is not among those around the table in a staff meeting. She hates that he isn't there to share a joke in C&C or a bitch session about dealing with ambassadors.
On an otherwise nondescript evening in late March, she pauses in the living area of her quarters and looks around. From where she stands, she can see a half-empty bag of tortilla chips and a box of uncooked spaghetti noodles on her kitchen counter, and one of Michael's jackets laying on the arm of the couch. In her bathroom is a toothbrush that belongs to him, and a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt in one of her dresser drawers.
She wonders when their lives became so intertwined. If it has anything to do with not working together anymore. If she had to choose, which she would pick.
Her door opens, and Michael walks in, whistling.
She raises an inquiring eyebrow at him. "You're in a good mood."
He walks over to where she's standing and kisses her lightly. "I found a man's cat for him today. He was very appreciative."
"His cat?"
He shrugs. "As I said, he was very appreciative. Some people, their pets are like their kids." His eyes light up as he describes his customer's reunion with the lost feline. She can't help but smile at his animated depiction.
It's not the same at all, but maybe he had a point--they were fighting to take charge of their own destinies, and if this is what he wants, she guesses she can live with that.
* * *
Incidentally, he was right about the problems that remain with Earth. And when Bester comes aboard offering help--for a price--she knows they must be worse than she'd imagined.
Like all true cowards, Clark is going to try to win this war with propaganda. That means they'll have to stay one step ahead of the lies, and keep their noses clean. The command staff is in agreement: the slightest misstep could turn public opinion irrevocably against them. If that happens, their chances of overthrowing Clark plummet through the proverbial basement.
Which of course explains Michael's comments to the ISN reporter.
The moment the words "God complex" leave his mouth on the screen, she sees red. She can hope his diatribe against Sheridan is taken out of context, twisted into something entirely opposite of the truth like everything else in this so-called news report, but as it is, it's pretty damning.
As soon as it's over, she storms out of Sheridan's office, unable to face him, Delenn, or her meal any longer. She would like to find Michael and force an explanation from him, but he's off the station for the next week. He had to know when this report would air; the convenience of his absence only makes it seem more likely that his remarks to the reporter were exactly what they sounded like.
She goes to her quarters, and spends a few minutes therapeutically slamming cupboards. When the initial rush of anger is gone, she pauses in the middle of the kitchen area. Sighing, she puts her hands in her pockets and slouches against the counter, hating that Michael could screw them over like this.
The fingers of her right hand brush against something hard and metallic, and she remembers what she's been carrying with her for the past four months. She pulls the bell out of her pocket and looks at it gleam in her palm.
He told her that day to come back in one piece. She wonders now if, when he returned from the Shadows, he left part of himself behind.
* * *
Sheridan gets to him before she does. The news of their confrontation in the Zocalo hits the station's rumor mill within minutes, and she hears of it not long after.
That evening, she lets herself into his quarters, hoping to and succeeding in finding him there. She asks him what the hell he thinks he's doing.
The calculating look he gives her makes her blood freeze in her veins. "You're his friend. You've bought into it just as much as everyone else."
"Dammit, Michael, this is not about John! This is about you helping to ruin any chance we have of being taken seriously on Earth!" She is so angry she's trembling, and only a thin layer of self-control keeps her from hauling off and punching him.
"You want to talk about ruining your credibility? Look at your fearless leader." He crosses his arms over his chest. "He's your problem. Not me."
This can't be Michael, she wants to think. The man she knew would never undermine them like this. But he is in front of her, manifestly doing just that.
"I don't think I know you anymore," she says.
His gaze is steady. "Maybe you never did."
* * *
In bed that night, alone in a room that is littered with evidence of his presence, she revisits their fight. She's still half-convinced that before his capture by the Shadows, the Michael she knew would never have acted this way. He had been just as invested in their campaign against Clark as she was, and whatever problems he had personally with Sheridan wouldn't make him turn his back on it.
Then again, there are plenty of things she hasn't told him about herself. Maybe there is just as much she doesn't know about him.
Ironic, she thinks, that only now does she realize how badly she wanted to find out all the things about him she never knew.
* * *
III
After her shift the next day ends, she enters her quarters to find a small pile of her clothing, neatly folded, resting on the coffee table. Sitting on top of it are two novels, a hair tie, and a toothbrush.
Ignoring the empty feeling in her stomach, she efficiently gathers together his effects--it's a larger collection than the one he returned--and walks down the hall to his quarters. At this hour, he should still be doing business in the Zocalo, so she lets herself in and deposits his things in the same place on the coffee table.
At her door, she changes her lock code, and tells the computer to deauthorize all keycards but hers.
* * *
She makes it a point to avoid him. He appears to do the same. With prior knowledge of each other's usual schedules and customary haunts, they manage to not to cross paths for three entire months.
Marcus asks her once if she wants to talk about it. He does not ask again. Sheridan, she thinks, would like to ask her what happened, but talking about her love life with her commanding officer is one of the more awkward conversations either of them can contemplate, so he just invites her to dinner with him and Delenn as often as their schedules permit.
In August, she hears he's planning to pack up for good and move to Mars. Something about working for a multiplanetary corp, one of the really big ones. She's never thought of him as the corporate type, but, as he made so abundantly clear in the spring, she never really knew him at all.
She doesn't have time to devote much thought to it, though, because once EarthForce ships loyal to Clark start firing on civilian refugee transports, all her attention--and her anger--is focused on the war. It is both an easier and harder war to fight than the one with the Shadows; easier because the enemy has a face, harder because that face is composed of people she used to serve with.
Harder because when Garibaldi turns against them for good, setting up John to be captured, that face is someone's she used to love.
* * *
She orders him shot on sight if he shows up on the station. The worst part is that it isn't the hardest thing she's ever done.
Everything spirals down into the final battle with Clark's forces--the one that she will direct, in John's name. There is no future, and no past; only the present, and at present, her sky is filled with EarthForce/Shadow tech hybrid ships that she and the other White Stars are going to blow away--or die trying.
They might end up doing both.
* * *
When she wakes up White Star 2's infirmary, she can't move anything but her head. The last thing she remembers is Marcus yelling her name, and then the debris from one of the enemy vessels ricocheting toward them. These details combined, she feels sure, spell something catastrophic.
Marcus is there while she fades in and out of consciousness. Marcus is always there, his eyes red, his jaw set. She has no feeling below her neck, but she can see that he is holding her hand. He's the one who tells her Sheridan escaped, which lets her breathe a little easier.
He also tells her that Garibaldi apparently helped free the captain. She is tempted to believe he is only saying that because he doesn't want her to die without forgiving, even if there's no justification for doing so.
John comes to see her, and with that she can finally get some answers about her condition. For all that he's been through, Marcus retains a naïveté--or at any rate a capacity for self-delusion--that won't let him voice what she has suspected since the beginning is true. She isn't going to recover from her injuries.
My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--It gives a lovely light!
She tells John they cleared the way, and makes him promise to lead the final assault on Earth from the Agamemnon.
When he leaves, she looks at Marcus--sweet, patient Marcus, who looks more grieved at the idea of her death than she is--and feels a flicker of regret. Then again, this way...it never got a chance to end badly.
With more strength than she feels, she tells him to get his ass back to the bridge. After a long, longing moment, he does, and she surrenders to a dreamless sleep.
* * *
The first thing she sees when she wakes up is the machine, and the instant she sees it, she knows it was never God talking to her that she heard, but Marcus.
The instant she realizes that, she begins to scream.
His lifeless body even now hangs over the side of her bed. He is so pale and still, and she feels so thoroughly alive, like she'd never been injured. It is obscene.
Her shrieks bring two medtechs running, but she could tell them they're wasting their efforts trying to bring him back. She could if she can ever stop screaming, anyway. She just wants them to leave her and him alone until she can process this, until his cooling flesh says yes, he's really gone, and she is alive because of it.
When she starts kicking at one of the techs, they wrestle her to the bed and jam a needle in her arm. Darkness bleeds into her vision, and despite her best efforts she sinks back to the pillow, her eyes closing and consciousness fleeing without her permission.
* * *
After what she's been through, anyone would be entitled to a nervous breakdown. At least, that's what she tells herself after she has one. At the time, she is thinking of nothing but Marcus--his damned idiocy in sacrificing himself like this, the way he cheated her out of an honorable death, the way he must have loved her even when she gave him nothing, nothing at all.
When she wakes up, she asks the nurse where the body is. She is feeling much better than the nurse expects, and with her arm around his throat, he finds it prudent to just tell her already. Barefoot, in a medical gown that gapes open at the back, she runs to the room that currently serves as the morgue. She gazes through the glass at the sheet-covered length that she knows is Marcus, or rather what is left of him. Her eyes begin to burn.
It has been three years since she cried--three goddamned years--and she pours all of it out as she collapses on the floor. Talia and Marcus dead; Michael as good as, because the way she sees it, whether he returned to the fold at the end or not, he's the root cause of everything that led up to Marcus giving his life for hers, and she's going to find him and kill him for that.
Stephen shows up, looking horrified. She would rather sit here sobbing than face him, but he won't go away even when she shouts at him. Instead, he sits down beside her, infuriatingly calm. He was close to Marcus; why isn't he raging against the man's foolishness like she is?
The words well up and out of her mouth of their own accord; Franklin lets her rail against Marcus without saying anything, just letting her say what she needs to while he sits there, patient and steadfast as rock sticking out of a boiling sea. When she's done, he shifts closer and lets her lay her head on his shoulder. She feels like seaweed that's been thrown up on a beach after a hurricane--dry, brittle, out of her element.
He tells her he has some news. First, that the attack succeeded--Clark is dead, and Sheridan is even now in talks with President Luchenko about how to proceed with putting things back the way they were. She feels a weight drop from her shoulders.
Second, he says, is that Garibaldi has not been Garibaldi for nearly a year. Bester had been controlling him, and as soon as the Psi Corps' purposes were served and his mind was set free, Michael had thrown himself on the mercy of the Mars Resistance and helped free Sheridan.
Her stomach drops through the floor.
"You can't be serious," she says.
He tells her Lyta's scan confirmed the story. Sheridan has already taken it at face value.
If she were the kind of person who fainted, she would do so now; instead, she says she'd like to be alone. Stephen leads her back to a bed--another one, not the one Marcus died on--and talks her into letting him give her a sedative. She doesn't think she's ready to face a world turned entirely upside down just yet.
* * *
IV
Over the next few weeks, her world keeps upending itself each time she thinks she might have crawled back to a place where she can stand upright again.
John is president of the new Interstellar Alliance, and he and Delenn have gotten married somewhere in all the chaos of the organization's birth. Earth has signed on, along with the Narn, Centauri, Minbari, and most the League.
She takes the amnesty that's offered and rejoins EarthForce, because she can't picture her life without the military. Despite not being a soldier himself anymore, John is the one who presents her with her promotion to captain, and offers her command of B5.
That takes longer to decide. After the service they all performed for Earth, she could have her pick of any ship in the fleet, but finally, she decides that she's tired of starting over after a life filled with beginning again, and she accepts the position.
Then she finds out that Michael is going to head up covert intelligence for the Alliance.
His story about Bester and mind control and not being himself is believable enough that she doesn't want to murder him anymore, but she still can't bring herself to trust him again. Everything he did--his paranoid reaction to John's return, his resignation, even the cold and calculated betrayal of everything they had worked for--it was all outrageous, insane, but not crazy enough that she couldn't, barely, believe he was capable of it.
And she had believed. She had believed so much that she'd ordered him killed for his treachery. If he'd just showed some sign that he wasn't in control of his actions, that Psi Corps had hijacked him; something she could have noticed--
She's not completely unaware of the possibility that it might not even be him she's angry at.
Still, she asks John what the hell he's thinking, and he only replies that Garibaldi is the best man for the job. She wonders what that's supposed to mean.
* * *
The first sight of Michael she has since an evening half a year ago is in the former Council, now restyled as Alliance, meeting chamber. President Sheridan thinks it would be a good idea to bring everyone from the B5 command staff and the IA council together, despite the fact that they all know each other already.
She is busy shuffling papers, and catalogues the seats at the table filling up with half an eye. Finally, just before the meeting is scheduled to start, someone takes the last chair, which happens to be next to hers. She looks up to see who it is, and finds herself staring at him.
They both immediately find something fascinating in the documents in front of them to focus on, but not before she has a chance to take in the slump his posture seems to have acquired, and the haunted look in his eyes.
Sheridan starts the meeting then, and she attempts to ignore the man beside her as much as possible for the next two hours.
* * *
They can't avoid each other in their positions. In fact, Michael is probably the one person on the IA council she has the most day-to-day contact with. She still thinks John is crazy for trusting him with the position, but dammit, she has always liked working with him.
One day soon after that first meeting, they are in her office going over security arrangements for a visiting Minbari diplomat's arrival. The way he draws diagrams all over the flimsies and the jokes they share about the Minbari penchant for ritual are so familiar it aches. She tries not to remember all the other hours or afternoons they spent like this.
When he's about to leave, he asks her to come over for dinner. He is forcibly nonchalant about it, but she can see the intensity under the studied exterior, and it makes her stand up straighter, like an answer to his slouch.
She says she can't make dinner, but she'll stop by for five minutes at 1800--if she has time.
He nods, still pretending carelessness, and they part for the afternoon.
* * *
Exactly nine minutes after 1800, she rings his doorbell.
He doesn't live in Blue Sector anymore; since he's no longer an EarthForce member, he's not allowed. Instead, he's housed in Green Sector, near some of the other IA cabinet. Although it's one of the smaller living spaces in the ambassadorial area, it's still pretty nice, she notes when he lets her in.
They stare at their feet for a few moments like teenagers at a school dance before he asks how she is.
"Fine," she says, the word clipped practically to nonexistence, and then continues briskly, "Why did you ask me to come over?" Maybe if she treats this like a discussion of station or Alliance business, she can keep from--
Well. Never mind what she can keep from doing. Feeling. Remembering.
"I just..." He sighs and puts a hand to his forehead. Silence creeps between them. Finally, he looks straight at her. "After all that happened--I'm still trying to put everything back together, all the things that got screwed up while I...wasn't around."
She doesn't know what kind of response he expects, so she shrugs, carefully noncommittal.
"I want my life back. And you were part of my life."
It's not that she didn't have a general idea of what road he wanted this conversation to put them on. She just didn't expect his motivation to be laid so bare.
She can't do this again. She can't. Her heart has been twisted and crushed and shattered into a thousand pieces, and she doesn't have the strength to open herself up again. Not even for him; especially not for him, because someone with his face did his share of the damage, and because she went through hell over the last six months and she needs someone to blame.
She looks at the floor, wishing she were anywhere else. She guesses this is an answer.
He lets out a bitter choke of laughter. "Dammit, Susan, I figured you of all people would've understood."
The alternate Talia sneers at her in her mind's eye. God damn him.
"Go to hell," she spits, and leaves the room.
* * *
Their interaction for the next two weeks is business-related, strained, and kept to the bare minimum. She wears a bad mood like a jacket, and anyone who can possibly manage it stays out of her way.
Something that adds to her irritation is that EarthForce is sending her a new second, someone who was on the other side in the war. She knows why they're doing it, but she doesn't know how the hell she's going to be able to work with this person--Commander Maire McCreary, so the communiqué says. She'd rather have Corwin, who has been doing a perfectly competent job, even if he does still look all of twelve.
She thinks there are some ruptures that will always leave a scar.
* * *
Raiders have been attacking incoming transports for nearly a week, and it's starting to really piss her off. They figure the fighters have to be after something that's getting delivered, legally or illegally, to the station, but they've cross-referenced official cargo manifests--and Zack's unofficial ones, compiled with a combination of bribery and intimidation--until they're cross-eyed, and there's nothing that links all or even most of the ships the raiders are targeting.
"Maybe they aren't after something that's coming in," Michael suggests when she complains about the problem to him while they are coordinating on something else.
He points to the cargo manifests of the latest outgoing ships, which she and Corwin haven't been paying much attention to. "They could be attacking the incoming transports as a cover for a more...courteous...arrangement with some of the outgoing ships, so you won't be paying attention to them. They're usually after dust or something else prohibited, so you could quietly tail a few ships Zack IDs as suspected of carrying contraband, and see if they meet up with someone on the way to their next destination."
Sometimes she forgets just how twisted his mind is. "Thanks," she says.
He just nods and leaves her office.
* * *
She takes Alpha Wing out herself to enact his plan. By all rights it should be McCreary--who turns out to be a frighteningly competent, polite, but reserved young woman who reminds her of no one so much as herself when she first got here, which is a little disturbing--but some days she just needs to feel space around her in a way she can't while stuck inside a five-mile long rotating tin can. That there's a possibility she will get to blow up some raiders, whose very presence in her sector offends her, is definitely a nice bonus.
She comes back with a winged Starfury and a collection of broken ribs, with severe blood loss for good measure. But they did get rid of the raiders.
Stephen tsks while he patches her back together with more poking and prodding than she suspects is strictly necessary. Then he confines her to MedLab for twenty-four hours, mostly out of pique.
Her eighth hour in, Michael comes by with a report that could've waited on her desk until she was back. "Heard you were stuck in here," he says when she calls him on it. "Thought you could use a distraction." He collects the report, now bearing her signature. "Of course, if you'd rather I leave you to the mercies of MedLab's entertainment system..."
Her options are talking with him or staring at the walls. It's not much of a choice.
She grits out a question about how McCreary is handling things. Somehow, they manage a conversation that by way of hospital food and spoo turns into a debate about alien cuisine that eventually ends up with an agreement to have lunch at the Brakiri restaurant in the Zocalo together when she's up and about.
As he leaves, she wonders how the hell he managed to do that.
She sees him conferring with Franklin in the hall for a moment. When he's done, he turns and gives her a little wave through the window. He's not like Marcus with his dogged faithfulness, but dammit, he obviously still cares.
So, she is stunned to realize, does she.
* * *
They start lingering after meetings in one or the other's office, talking about books or politics, topics that have nothing to do with the business they coordinate. More often than not, they sit next to each other at Alliance functions or council sessions, and sometimes, when G'Kar gets long-winded, they pass notes back and forth. When their schedules permit, they occasionally have lunch together.
At one of these lunches, she asks him if he's thought about joining back up with EarthForce. She doesn't really know why. Maybe because she's trying to put everything back the way it was, and because if she can do that, she might be able to trust him again.
He says he likes his new job--he thinks he can make more of a difference in it than he could in the military. He thinks John and Delenn are building something good, and he wants to help them create it.
She realizes with a start that he really believes in the Alliance. She had thought he was too cynical to be able to buy into an organization devoted to galactic peace.
She wonders what else he believes in. And whether she wants to find out.
* * *
She stops by his quarters one evening to drop off some paperwork he requested, and finds him starting eggplant cacciatore. He asks if she wants to stay for dinner, and she agrees, then inwardly questions her judgment.
She asks if she can help, and he puts her to work chopping vegetables while he prepares the sauce. They did this a fair amount before the Shadow war ended, because he'd taken one look at the various types of takeout container filling her refrigerator and announced that he was going to teach her how to cook for herself. She'd become passable at a few dishes, but she still prefers throwing together a salad to actually using her stove.
They quickly fall into the pattern they developed, moving deftly around each other in the small space. He tastes the sauce, and offers her the spoon. The gesture aches with familiarity. Suddenly every molecule of her body fills with longing, and whether she can trust him or not, she wants it all back so goddamned badly it hurts.
She has to say something, because he's starting to look worried at her silence; because if Marcus taught her anything it's that saying nothing gets you nowhere; because once upon a time she loved him, and even with everything that happened, she doesn't think she ever really stopped.
"Michael," she says, feeling like she's about to cry.
He puts the spoon down and almost reaches out to touch her shoulder, but stops himself.
"How are things going with...getting your life back?"
For a second he looks confused, then his eyebrows arch with surprise. "Not too bad," he says. Then offers, "Still missing a few pieces, though."
She has so many questions he can't answer. "How do I know Bester's programming is all gone?" How do I know you won't hurt me again?
He spreads his hands. "You don't. You can't. You'll just have to trust me."
She wonders why the Psi Corps has taken so much from her. Her mother lying in an early grave. Much of her own life consumed in fear of her latent ability being found out. Talia...Talia used and then thrown away, nothing more than trash to them. And now Michael.
There is a choice before her, she realizes. She can refuse, keep her heart safe behind a layer of armor, and let them succeed in taking him from her as well. Or she can trust him, and in doing so, finally strike back against the Corps.
She pulls the bell he gave her out of her pocket. She could never bring herself to stop carrying it, even when she thought he--the real Michael--had betrayed them. "When you gave me this," she says, "you told me to come back in one piece.
"I don't think either of us are in one piece anymore. But I think--I think we could help each other put our pieces back together. At least...I want to try."
Something a little like longing and a little like joy passes over his face. "Susan..."
She crosses the two steps and ten months that separate them and kisses him.
* * *
A week later, while they are lying in bed, she tells him about her telepathic ability. She doesn't spare details; telepaths have always meant bad news for both of them, and she wants him to have an accurate picture of what he's getting into.
In the darkness, he is silent for a long moment. Then he pulls her close, presses his lips to her hair. "Okay," he murmurs. "Okay."
The tension drains out of her all at once, and she presses her cheek to his shoulder. She thinks maybe she is finally going to get this right.
Because she is a romantic, she says the words. With certainty in his voice, he says them back.
She begins to believe that the little kite they have tied their hearts to will actually fly.
* * *
In the middle of the night
We dream of a million kites
Flying high above
The sadness and the fear.
-- "Kite Song," Patty Griffin
End
N.B.: The title is also from "Kite Song." Thegratuitous Millay quotation is the entirety of "First Fig," from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920).
Title: The Little Dreams We Dream (Are All We Can Really Do)
Author:
icepixieRating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,089
Summary: Susan hasn't been as careful with her heart as she should've been. AU. Ivanova/Garibaldi. Angsty, but I do promise that the epigraph is pertinent. Sequel to "Closet Idealism."
Timeline/Spoilers: This is significantly less canon-adherent than its predecessor--I compressed and reordered a few events to suit my needs, and completely changed others--but still spoils all of season four and one or two things about the first few episodes of season five.
Note: One scene in particular, as well as a few scattered lines of narration, owes a debt of gratitude to
mylittleredgirl's "Dead Souls," which you should totally go read, because it's amazing.We keep sending little kites
Until a little light gets through.
-- "Kite Song," Patty Griffin
It has been seventeen days since her life took the express transport to hell. Seventeen days since John Sheridan followed his dead wife into a trap; twelve since Michael Garibaldi was abducted by the Shadows; five since she, Delenn, and Lyta went to Z'ha'dum and came back empty-handed. And now, it has been twenty-one hours since she and Marcus Cole set out on a fool's errand to beg more First Ones for help in a war they almost certainly cannot win.
Susan does not think this is an auspicious start to the new year.
Four hours ago, Marcus all but shoved her off the bridge, claiming her pacing was making the Minbari crew too nervous to perform their jobs. (When she resisted, he'd threatened to relieve her of duty. She'd reminded him that technically they weren't part of the same command structure; he'd noted that he was more than willing to withhold translation services until she slept. She had sulked all the way to the dormitory.)
She has spent the past three hours and fifty-eight minutes tossing and turning on the slanted Minbari bed. With everything that has gone wrong, who the hell could sleep now?
A vision of the bottle of vodka in her quarters taunts her in between the Vorlons jumping over fences she tries to count.
Just as she's about to march back onto the bridge and dare Marcus to relieve her of duty again, the man himself comes into the room. "It's your watch," he says, touching her shoulder.
"Thanks." She sits up, yawning. "I wasn't getting any sleep anyway," she says. "You should've let me stay on the bridge."
He sits on the bed next to hers, looking pensive. "You're worried about Michael, aren't you?"
She huffs a derisive breath. "Of course I'm worried about Garibaldi. I'm worried about him, about the captain, about half the damn galaxy."
He looks at her from under those impossibly long lashes, apparently considering his words carefully. "I mean...in a more personal sense."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she demands, seething at the insinuation. She's barely admitted to herself that Michael is more than a friend with whom she occasionally has sex; what right has Marcus to figure it out when he's not even involved?
"I saw him coming out of your quarters early one morning with his shirt on inside out. I put two and two together; got four." He smiles a little, albeit lopsidedly.
She closes her eyes and prays for the willpower necessary to prevent herself from hitting him.
"Is it serious?" he asks.
She sighs, briefly glancing at the ceiling. "I don't know. It wasn't supposed to be." She would like to say that it still isn't, but she would be lying if she did. The wolf at her door every night has his face more often than not. "But sometimes things happen without you expecting them to."
His mouth twists momentarily before he smoothes it straight again. "I suppose they do."
She knows she is watching his dreams shatter, but there is nothing she can do. She didn't ask for his adoration. It's his own damn fault for pinning whatever ridiculous hopes he had on someone like her.
The kindest thing she can do is pretend not to notice, and so she does, standing up and telling him she'll wake him for the next watch. She heads for the bridge, feeling a renewed need to pace.
Several days later and entirely too much wiser, they return to B5. One of the first things she hears is that Michael is back.
She might have been surprised by how desperately she wants to go see him in MedLab. But she doesn't have time to go see him, so of course it would be the one thing she wants most to do. That's how life works.
She doesn't have time because the Vorlons have gone goddamned crazy, and she has to find Lyta now, find out what she knows, see if this can possibly be stopped.
She doesn't hold out much hope of that.
In the middle of Lyta confirming her suspicions, John Sheridan returns from the dead.
Susan wonders if she should start believing in miracles. The Hanukkah candles she lights every year notwithstanding, she generally has subscribed to the premise that all unexplained events are simply caused by sufficiently advanced technology. But seeing Sheridan in his office, very much alive, is pretty damned miraculous. Coming on the heels of Garibaldi's return...well. Maybe those ancient writers of scripture were on to something.
She flies across his office to hug him, this man who is not only her CO but who also, somewhere along the way, became her quasi-big brother--a sort of balm, if not a replacement, for the one she lost.
He thanks her for going after him to Z'ha'dum. He chastises her for the foolhardiness of the act, too, but his puppyish grin belies any sting the words might have carried. He says he's called a meeting in the war room, and is obviously bubbling over with some kind of good news he plans on telling everyone. Presumably it has to do with the alien sitting quietly in the corner.
She hates to be the one to break it to him that whatever it is, it cannot possibly counteract her discovery. But she does it anyway, summing up the Vorlon situation in a few sentences, and watches his face fall, just as she expected.
She really, really hates this war.
When they walk into the war room, she sees Michael sitting at the table. Her stride falters. For an instant, she wants to run over to him, clasp him in her arms, and never let go.
Luckily, sense reasserts itself, and she continues walking, claiming the seat beside him when she reaches the chair.
Under the table, she takes his hand, curling her fingers around his larger ones, and squeezes so hard she feels on the verge of breaking bones. He squeezes back, just as tightly. Their eyes meet, briefly, before darting away again, and they finally let go of each other's hands.
The meeting gets off to a bad start when Michael demands to know who the alien John brought with him is. John is obviously less than pleased at Garibaldi's suspicion, and it takes Delenn, with her usual grace, to defuse the situation. Things only get worse when Susan and Marcus explain what they found, and Lyta what she knows because of her contact with the Vorlons.
They reach one conclusion at this meeting, and it is that with the Vorlons and the Shadows waging their war by destroying everyone else in the galaxy, they are all pretty well fucked.
Like everyone else, she and Michael leave the room somberly, the full weight of the situation resting as much on their shoulders as it does on the others'. They head for his quarters, since it is late, although they are more shocked than tired.
Despite all the bad news weighing it down, as she walks beside him, closer than she might have a year ago, the relief she initially felt when she heard he was alive rises back up inside her. Along with it comes the inevitable question of just why she feels so much of it. It's one she isn't sure she wants to know the answer to, but as soon as the door to his quarters hisses shut behind them, she pulls him into a kiss that stands in for both I was worried sick and I was never supposed to care this much.
It is a long time before they part, and even then, it's not entirely; their arms still around each other, they touch their foreheads together, still desperate for contact. She closes her eyes and wishes they weren't all going to die very soon.
He asks if she's had dinner yet, and when she says no, he offers her his leftover takeout. A few minutes later, they are sitting on the couch, her with a plate of rice and sweet and sour vegetables on her lap. He steals the occasional carrot or mushroom from her plate as she eats, and they talk about the war. She thinks that she used to have conversations about other things before this campaign, but at the moment she has no idea what they were.
She asks him if he remembers anything about what happened to him while he was away. He already told them he doesn't, but she can't help the impulse. She doesn't like unsolved mysteries, at least not when they could potentially come back to bite someone in the ass.
His voice is a little sharp as he replies. "Nothing."
She supposes he has a right to be irritated; everyone from Stephen to Captain Sheridan has been asking him where he was and what he was doing--or was done to him.
In the silence that follows, she looks down at her plate, wondering if she should apologize. When she looks up again, ready to spit out a tentative "sorry," some perversity probably born of spending too much time around him inspires her to say instead, "Well, at least if you don't remember anything, you don't have to write it all out in five hundred different reports."
For a moment she thinks her joke might fall flat, but then he grins. "You're right. Although by the time I'm done writing 'I don't remember' to five hundred different versions of the question, I might be tempted to make something up."
Ease of a concern she didn't even know she was carrying washes over her. Whatever he's been through, whatever the Shadows did to him, he's still Michael.
When she's done with her meal, they peel off their uniforms and crawl into bed together. He pulls her close, holding her tightly in the darkness. She buries her head in his shoulder. Eventually, they fall asleep.
They catch as much time together as they can over the next three weeks. Given how busy they are, this translates to the odd meal in the mess hall and the occasional evening tucked away in one or the other's quarters working.
From the couch or table on one of these evenings it is an easy journey to the bed. And when their schedules are wildly different, she will sometimes go to sleep only to wake up a couple hours later to him slipping under the covers, an arm coming to rest lightly over her waist, and his voice murmuring at her to go back to sleep.
Sometimes, she finds her way to his quarters after a long shift and does the same.
It's not something they talk about. They've each figured out the other's lock code, and have made a tacit agreement not to change them until they dredge up the courage to actually authorize each other's keycards. She hasn't made a guess as to when that will be. If she's entirely honest, she's pretty sure the coming confrontation with the Shadows and the Vorlons will make the question moot very soon.
Amusingly, Sheridan has stopped placing separate calls to their quarters when he rouses them in the middle of the night for an emergency meeting. He just finds one of them and asks that he or she bring the other along. Beyond that, he doesn't inquire--undoubtedly this is Delenn's doing--and makes no mention of their overlapping nocturnal locations. Susan, who has never liked being the subject of gossip, is grateful for this.
Most nights, she and Michael are too tired or have too much on their minds to do anything but sleep like the dead for a few hours before getting up and going back to work. Other nights--and, on two memorable occasions, days--when she feels as if she's coiled so tightly she's going to break any moment, sex loosens the spring her body has become to a point where, for a while at least, she isn't afraid of snapping in half from the strain.
Talia's silvery laugh echoes in the back of her mind when she remembers how sure she'd been that her relationship with Michael could be compartmentalized into "just friends" and "just sex." She hasn't been as careful with her heart as she should've been, and the way she misses him if their paths still haven't crossed by the end of a day is proof of that. She often wonders if being in regular communication with her heart again is an asset or a liability.
There's still no hope against the dual forces of the Shadows and the Vorlons, but as Londo might say, humans are good at manufacturing hope from despair. Thus, she, Sheridan, Delenn, and everyone else in the Army of Light goes on building the biggest combined fleet the galaxy has ever seen.
Right before she leaves to go hunting First Ones with Lorien, they steal a moment alone in the docking bay.
He looks warily at the shuttle she's about to board that will take her to the waiting White Star. "I still don't trust that guy."
Since the alien brought John back from the dead, Susan is inclined to trust him with her life, but she knows Michael, knows his paranoid streak, and she mostly understands. "I'll be careful," she promises.
He kisses her, quick but hard, and at the same time presses something into her palm, closing her fingers over the small, metallic object. "Just come back in one piece," he says, caressing her cheek before stepping back to let her board the shuttle.
She nods, the lump that has suddenly risen in her throat making it impossible to speak. Before she can embarrass herself, she turns and disappears into the shuttle.
Once she's in the pilot's seat, she opens her hand. Inside, she finds a tiny bell. It jingles faintly when she shakes it.
"What is that?" Lorien asks, peering at the bell from the seat beside her.
"I'm not sure," she says, putting it in her pocket and strapping herself into the seat. "Are you ready? We should get moving."
"Of course."
She links in to C&C to request permission to depart, and they leave for the White Star.
During their brief stopover back at B5, she looks up bells in the station databanks, and finds that they were once common good luck charms in Italy.
It takes up permanent residence in her pocket. Given what they're about to face at Corianna 6, she's likely to need all the good luck she can get.
She doesn't seek him out before she and Lorien leave to join the rest of the fleet. The romantic in her, the one that even Psi Corps's destruction of Talia couldn't kill, can't face saying goodbye for what she knows deep in her soul will be the last time.
II
Two days later, with the Shadows, Vorlons, and all the other older races on their way out of the galaxy, they are still alive.
She hadn't really planned on that.
When they call B5 to deliver the good news, Michael, standing in C&C with a cluster of gaping junior officers around him, doesn't seem able to believe it. "They just left?" he repeats.
When they finally convince him that the war is over and they are coming home, she sees genuine relief spread across his face. Grinning, he claims the outcome is anticlimactic.
Sheridan, cheerfully rolling his eyes at his security chief's relentless cynicism, says, "Maybe you had to be there."
"Maybe so. See you tomorrow. Garibaldi out."
The station has never seen such a celebration as what greets them at their arrival. She can barely pick Michael out of the mob that's there to meet them at customs.
He apparently has no trouble finding her, though, because when the crowd sees the returning heroes coming through the gate and surges forward, he's right in front of her. A second later, he crushes her against his chest, and she gladly leans against him, the combination of relief, joy, and exhaustion she feels suddenly leaving her lightheaded. With one hand pressed against the soft fuzz of hair on the back of his head and the other clutching a fistful of his uniform jacket, she lets the cacophonous, undulating mass of people fade away, lost for the moment in a little world made of just the two of them.
The crowd ebbs, following Sheridan, who is walking further into the station. Michael grabs her hand as they finally part and keeps hold of it as they start following the celebrants away from the gate. They make it about three steps before a gaggle of reporters start shoving microphones in their faces.
"How does it feel--"
"What really happened--"
"-- Captain Sheridan --"
"--at Corianna 6--"
"--a statement--"
She raises her voice. "I'm sure there will be a press conference very soon, and all of your questions will be answered there. Now, if you don't mind?" Dragging Michael along behind her, she strides through the collection of journalists, who part like the Red Sea in the face of her determination to escape and obvious willingness to forcibly remove them from her path if they don't move first.
Michael chuckles behind her.
"Not a word," she threatens, not turning around.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he says, smirking so hard she can hear it.
She heads for the nearest transport tube. She is still holding his hand.
Untold hours later, they stumble to her quarters, glad to be away from the noise, the crowds, and the endless badgering by reporters. The party, it seems, is going to go on for the rest of the night, perhaps the rest of the week.
Susan sighs, closing her eyes and leaning against the door. "Tomorrow I am sleeping in." She opens her eyes and smiles at him. "You know, I think tomorrow is the first day both of us will have off in months." The gravity of it suddenly strikes her. "We're done with this campaign."
"Yeah." He seems troubled, frowning as he stares at the carpet. "Of course, we still have all the problems back home to deal with."
She has to admit, where she sees the glass half empty, Michael sees it half empty and with a crack in the bottom through which all the remaining liquid is dribbling out.
But tonight, at least, she's willing to admit the possibility of full glasses—preferably full of something bubbly and alcoholic—and she's determined to see that he does the same.
"Michael. The Shadows are gone. The war is over! Can't we just...celebrate for a little while before we go borrowing trouble?"
He raises an eyebrow. "That depends," he says, coming closer and trailing his fingers down her waist, resting them on her hip. "What kind of celebration did you have in mind?"
She grins in a way that could only described as "sly," and in response, she begins to kiss him.
The next morning, she gets up before he does and fishes in the pockets of his discarded uniform, finally seizing upon his keycard. She touches several pressure-sensitive spots on it in quick succession, presses her fingertip where indicated, and then silently slides it back into his pocket. Grabbing her bathrobe, she heads for the shower.
When she gets out, dressed in civilian clothing, she finds both breakfast and her own altered keycard waiting for her on the table. She slips the card into her pocket and sits down. The only thing they talk about is their plans for the day.
At the first command staff meeting held since the war ended, Michael drops a bombshell on them that is bigger than anything the Shadows or Vorlons ever came up with. He waltzes into Sheridan's office and announces that he's resigning as head of security, effective immediately.
It feels like the structural integrity of the floor just imploded under her feet. They are all struck dumb, trying to process Michael's revelation
He'd said nothing about quitting this morning. They'd quietly gone through what has become a morning routine, and he'd left to shower and change in his quarters. And now, here he is broadsiding her--all of them--with this news.
She feels like whatever they are to each other should at least have warranted a mention of it.
"You can't just resign like this!" she exclaims as soon as she collects her jaw from the floor. She doesn't know if she's more upset that he's resigning, period, or that he didn't tell her first so she could talk him out of it.
He looks unnaturally innocent. "Who says?" He talks about how they're free agents now, and he doesn’t want to keep fighting wars he doesn’t understand, and then says he's going to go into business for himself, searching out the lost things people are willing to put a price on--do a little good, as he puts it. She hears almost none of it, too caught up in feeling like she's been betrayed.
"Well," he finally says, slowing the torrent of words that have been falling from his mouth. "I think that about covers it. Everything will be on your desk within the hour, sir." He nods to them all, his gaze not lingering on anyone in particular, and leaves the room before the captain can respond.
It is highly unprofessional, but at this moment, she doesn't give a damn. "Excuse me, sir," she says over her shoulder to Sheridan, and then runs after Michael.
She catches up with him a few feet down the hall, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around. "What was that? And why the hell didn't you tell me? You can't have decided to quit in the last half hour!"
He looks at her steadily, something in his eyes seeming almost amused at her outrage, which only makes her madder. "That was exactly what it sounded like," he says, beginning to tick points off on his fingers. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd try to talk me out of it. And as far as when I started thinking about it..." He looks uncertain now, and she wonders what that means. "Before the war ended."
"But we still need you," she blurts, despite intuiting that that fact will make no difference to him. He gives every sign of being very sure of himself.
"Zack'll do you proud. And I'll still be here. Just not working for Sheridan anymore."
"Is that what this is about? John?" She knows there's been some tension between them lately, but she had thought it was just the stress of the war getting to them both. Maybe she should've paid more attention, asked him to talk about it.
He presses his lips together. "This is about me wanting a different kind of life than the one I've been leading. That's all."
I'm part of the life you've been leading, she thinks.
"I have to go," he says. "And as I recall," he looks back toward Sheridan's office, "so do you. I'll see you later."
That night, they each sleep in their own quarters.
They adapt to his change in employment with less trouble than she expected. She still doesn't understand his reasons, nor why he was so quick to resign, but he seems happy enough with his new job. Every time she sees him, he has a new story about something or someone he's helped a customer retrieve.
She still misses him when she calls security on her link and gets Zack, or when his face is not among those around the table in a staff meeting. She hates that he isn't there to share a joke in C&C or a bitch session about dealing with ambassadors.
On an otherwise nondescript evening in late March, she pauses in the living area of her quarters and looks around. From where she stands, she can see a half-empty bag of tortilla chips and a box of uncooked spaghetti noodles on her kitchen counter, and one of Michael's jackets laying on the arm of the couch. In her bathroom is a toothbrush that belongs to him, and a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt in one of her dresser drawers.
She wonders when their lives became so intertwined. If it has anything to do with not working together anymore. If she had to choose, which she would pick.
Her door opens, and Michael walks in, whistling.
She raises an inquiring eyebrow at him. "You're in a good mood."
He walks over to where she's standing and kisses her lightly. "I found a man's cat for him today. He was very appreciative."
"His cat?"
He shrugs. "As I said, he was very appreciative. Some people, their pets are like their kids." His eyes light up as he describes his customer's reunion with the lost feline. She can't help but smile at his animated depiction.
It's not the same at all, but maybe he had a point--they were fighting to take charge of their own destinies, and if this is what he wants, she guesses she can live with that.
Incidentally, he was right about the problems that remain with Earth. And when Bester comes aboard offering help--for a price--she knows they must be worse than she'd imagined.
Like all true cowards, Clark is going to try to win this war with propaganda. That means they'll have to stay one step ahead of the lies, and keep their noses clean. The command staff is in agreement: the slightest misstep could turn public opinion irrevocably against them. If that happens, their chances of overthrowing Clark plummet through the proverbial basement.
Which of course explains Michael's comments to the ISN reporter.
The moment the words "God complex" leave his mouth on the screen, she sees red. She can hope his diatribe against Sheridan is taken out of context, twisted into something entirely opposite of the truth like everything else in this so-called news report, but as it is, it's pretty damning.
As soon as it's over, she storms out of Sheridan's office, unable to face him, Delenn, or her meal any longer. She would like to find Michael and force an explanation from him, but he's off the station for the next week. He had to know when this report would air; the convenience of his absence only makes it seem more likely that his remarks to the reporter were exactly what they sounded like.
She goes to her quarters, and spends a few minutes therapeutically slamming cupboards. When the initial rush of anger is gone, she pauses in the middle of the kitchen area. Sighing, she puts her hands in her pockets and slouches against the counter, hating that Michael could screw them over like this.
The fingers of her right hand brush against something hard and metallic, and she remembers what she's been carrying with her for the past four months. She pulls the bell out of her pocket and looks at it gleam in her palm.
He told her that day to come back in one piece. She wonders now if, when he returned from the Shadows, he left part of himself behind.
Sheridan gets to him before she does. The news of their confrontation in the Zocalo hits the station's rumor mill within minutes, and she hears of it not long after.
That evening, she lets herself into his quarters, hoping to and succeeding in finding him there. She asks him what the hell he thinks he's doing.
The calculating look he gives her makes her blood freeze in her veins. "You're his friend. You've bought into it just as much as everyone else."
"Dammit, Michael, this is not about John! This is about you helping to ruin any chance we have of being taken seriously on Earth!" She is so angry she's trembling, and only a thin layer of self-control keeps her from hauling off and punching him.
"You want to talk about ruining your credibility? Look at your fearless leader." He crosses his arms over his chest. "He's your problem. Not me."
This can't be Michael, she wants to think. The man she knew would never undermine them like this. But he is in front of her, manifestly doing just that.
"I don't think I know you anymore," she says.
His gaze is steady. "Maybe you never did."
In bed that night, alone in a room that is littered with evidence of his presence, she revisits their fight. She's still half-convinced that before his capture by the Shadows, the Michael she knew would never have acted this way. He had been just as invested in their campaign against Clark as she was, and whatever problems he had personally with Sheridan wouldn't make him turn his back on it.
Then again, there are plenty of things she hasn't told him about herself. Maybe there is just as much she doesn't know about him.
Ironic, she thinks, that only now does she realize how badly she wanted to find out all the things about him she never knew.
III
After her shift the next day ends, she enters her quarters to find a small pile of her clothing, neatly folded, resting on the coffee table. Sitting on top of it are two novels, a hair tie, and a toothbrush.
Ignoring the empty feeling in her stomach, she efficiently gathers together his effects--it's a larger collection than the one he returned--and walks down the hall to his quarters. At this hour, he should still be doing business in the Zocalo, so she lets herself in and deposits his things in the same place on the coffee table.
At her door, she changes her lock code, and tells the computer to deauthorize all keycards but hers.
She makes it a point to avoid him. He appears to do the same. With prior knowledge of each other's usual schedules and customary haunts, they manage to not to cross paths for three entire months.
Marcus asks her once if she wants to talk about it. He does not ask again. Sheridan, she thinks, would like to ask her what happened, but talking about her love life with her commanding officer is one of the more awkward conversations either of them can contemplate, so he just invites her to dinner with him and Delenn as often as their schedules permit.
In August, she hears he's planning to pack up for good and move to Mars. Something about working for a multiplanetary corp, one of the really big ones. She's never thought of him as the corporate type, but, as he made so abundantly clear in the spring, she never really knew him at all.
She doesn't have time to devote much thought to it, though, because once EarthForce ships loyal to Clark start firing on civilian refugee transports, all her attention--and her anger--is focused on the war. It is both an easier and harder war to fight than the one with the Shadows; easier because the enemy has a face, harder because that face is composed of people she used to serve with.
Harder because when Garibaldi turns against them for good, setting up John to be captured, that face is someone's she used to love.
She orders him shot on sight if he shows up on the station. The worst part is that it isn't the hardest thing she's ever done.
Everything spirals down into the final battle with Clark's forces--the one that she will direct, in John's name. There is no future, and no past; only the present, and at present, her sky is filled with EarthForce/Shadow tech hybrid ships that she and the other White Stars are going to blow away--or die trying.
They might end up doing both.
When she wakes up White Star 2's infirmary, she can't move anything but her head. The last thing she remembers is Marcus yelling her name, and then the debris from one of the enemy vessels ricocheting toward them. These details combined, she feels sure, spell something catastrophic.
Marcus is there while she fades in and out of consciousness. Marcus is always there, his eyes red, his jaw set. She has no feeling below her neck, but she can see that he is holding her hand. He's the one who tells her Sheridan escaped, which lets her breathe a little easier.
He also tells her that Garibaldi apparently helped free the captain. She is tempted to believe he is only saying that because he doesn't want her to die without forgiving, even if there's no justification for doing so.
John comes to see her, and with that she can finally get some answers about her condition. For all that he's been through, Marcus retains a naïveté--or at any rate a capacity for self-delusion--that won't let him voice what she has suspected since the beginning is true. She isn't going to recover from her injuries.
My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--It gives a lovely light!
She tells John they cleared the way, and makes him promise to lead the final assault on Earth from the Agamemnon.
When he leaves, she looks at Marcus--sweet, patient Marcus, who looks more grieved at the idea of her death than she is--and feels a flicker of regret. Then again, this way...it never got a chance to end badly.
With more strength than she feels, she tells him to get his ass back to the bridge. After a long, longing moment, he does, and she surrenders to a dreamless sleep.
The first thing she sees when she wakes up is the machine, and the instant she sees it, she knows it was never God talking to her that she heard, but Marcus.
The instant she realizes that, she begins to scream.
His lifeless body even now hangs over the side of her bed. He is so pale and still, and she feels so thoroughly alive, like she'd never been injured. It is obscene.
Her shrieks bring two medtechs running, but she could tell them they're wasting their efforts trying to bring him back. She could if she can ever stop screaming, anyway. She just wants them to leave her and him alone until she can process this, until his cooling flesh says yes, he's really gone, and she is alive because of it.
When she starts kicking at one of the techs, they wrestle her to the bed and jam a needle in her arm. Darkness bleeds into her vision, and despite her best efforts she sinks back to the pillow, her eyes closing and consciousness fleeing without her permission.
After what she's been through, anyone would be entitled to a nervous breakdown. At least, that's what she tells herself after she has one. At the time, she is thinking of nothing but Marcus--his damned idiocy in sacrificing himself like this, the way he cheated her out of an honorable death, the way he must have loved her even when she gave him nothing, nothing at all.
When she wakes up, she asks the nurse where the body is. She is feeling much better than the nurse expects, and with her arm around his throat, he finds it prudent to just tell her already. Barefoot, in a medical gown that gapes open at the back, she runs to the room that currently serves as the morgue. She gazes through the glass at the sheet-covered length that she knows is Marcus, or rather what is left of him. Her eyes begin to burn.
It has been three years since she cried--three goddamned years--and she pours all of it out as she collapses on the floor. Talia and Marcus dead; Michael as good as, because the way she sees it, whether he returned to the fold at the end or not, he's the root cause of everything that led up to Marcus giving his life for hers, and she's going to find him and kill him for that.
Stephen shows up, looking horrified. She would rather sit here sobbing than face him, but he won't go away even when she shouts at him. Instead, he sits down beside her, infuriatingly calm. He was close to Marcus; why isn't he raging against the man's foolishness like she is?
The words well up and out of her mouth of their own accord; Franklin lets her rail against Marcus without saying anything, just letting her say what she needs to while he sits there, patient and steadfast as rock sticking out of a boiling sea. When she's done, he shifts closer and lets her lay her head on his shoulder. She feels like seaweed that's been thrown up on a beach after a hurricane--dry, brittle, out of her element.
He tells her he has some news. First, that the attack succeeded--Clark is dead, and Sheridan is even now in talks with President Luchenko about how to proceed with putting things back the way they were. She feels a weight drop from her shoulders.
Second, he says, is that Garibaldi has not been Garibaldi for nearly a year. Bester had been controlling him, and as soon as the Psi Corps' purposes were served and his mind was set free, Michael had thrown himself on the mercy of the Mars Resistance and helped free Sheridan.
Her stomach drops through the floor.
"You can't be serious," she says.
He tells her Lyta's scan confirmed the story. Sheridan has already taken it at face value.
If she were the kind of person who fainted, she would do so now; instead, she says she'd like to be alone. Stephen leads her back to a bed--another one, not the one Marcus died on--and talks her into letting him give her a sedative. She doesn't think she's ready to face a world turned entirely upside down just yet.
IV
Over the next few weeks, her world keeps upending itself each time she thinks she might have crawled back to a place where she can stand upright again.
John is president of the new Interstellar Alliance, and he and Delenn have gotten married somewhere in all the chaos of the organization's birth. Earth has signed on, along with the Narn, Centauri, Minbari, and most the League.
She takes the amnesty that's offered and rejoins EarthForce, because she can't picture her life without the military. Despite not being a soldier himself anymore, John is the one who presents her with her promotion to captain, and offers her command of B5.
That takes longer to decide. After the service they all performed for Earth, she could have her pick of any ship in the fleet, but finally, she decides that she's tired of starting over after a life filled with beginning again, and she accepts the position.
Then she finds out that Michael is going to head up covert intelligence for the Alliance.
His story about Bester and mind control and not being himself is believable enough that she doesn't want to murder him anymore, but she still can't bring herself to trust him again. Everything he did--his paranoid reaction to John's return, his resignation, even the cold and calculated betrayal of everything they had worked for--it was all outrageous, insane, but not crazy enough that she couldn't, barely, believe he was capable of it.
And she had believed. She had believed so much that she'd ordered him killed for his treachery. If he'd just showed some sign that he wasn't in control of his actions, that Psi Corps had hijacked him; something she could have noticed--
She's not completely unaware of the possibility that it might not even be him she's angry at.
Still, she asks John what the hell he's thinking, and he only replies that Garibaldi is the best man for the job. She wonders what that's supposed to mean.
The first sight of Michael she has since an evening half a year ago is in the former Council, now restyled as Alliance, meeting chamber. President Sheridan thinks it would be a good idea to bring everyone from the B5 command staff and the IA council together, despite the fact that they all know each other already.
She is busy shuffling papers, and catalogues the seats at the table filling up with half an eye. Finally, just before the meeting is scheduled to start, someone takes the last chair, which happens to be next to hers. She looks up to see who it is, and finds herself staring at him.
They both immediately find something fascinating in the documents in front of them to focus on, but not before she has a chance to take in the slump his posture seems to have acquired, and the haunted look in his eyes.
Sheridan starts the meeting then, and she attempts to ignore the man beside her as much as possible for the next two hours.
They can't avoid each other in their positions. In fact, Michael is probably the one person on the IA council she has the most day-to-day contact with. She still thinks John is crazy for trusting him with the position, but dammit, she has always liked working with him.
One day soon after that first meeting, they are in her office going over security arrangements for a visiting Minbari diplomat's arrival. The way he draws diagrams all over the flimsies and the jokes they share about the Minbari penchant for ritual are so familiar it aches. She tries not to remember all the other hours or afternoons they spent like this.
When he's about to leave, he asks her to come over for dinner. He is forcibly nonchalant about it, but she can see the intensity under the studied exterior, and it makes her stand up straighter, like an answer to his slouch.
She says she can't make dinner, but she'll stop by for five minutes at 1800--if she has time.
He nods, still pretending carelessness, and they part for the afternoon.
Exactly nine minutes after 1800, she rings his doorbell.
He doesn't live in Blue Sector anymore; since he's no longer an EarthForce member, he's not allowed. Instead, he's housed in Green Sector, near some of the other IA cabinet. Although it's one of the smaller living spaces in the ambassadorial area, it's still pretty nice, she notes when he lets her in.
They stare at their feet for a few moments like teenagers at a school dance before he asks how she is.
"Fine," she says, the word clipped practically to nonexistence, and then continues briskly, "Why did you ask me to come over?" Maybe if she treats this like a discussion of station or Alliance business, she can keep from--
Well. Never mind what she can keep from doing. Feeling. Remembering.
"I just..." He sighs and puts a hand to his forehead. Silence creeps between them. Finally, he looks straight at her. "After all that happened--I'm still trying to put everything back together, all the things that got screwed up while I...wasn't around."
She doesn't know what kind of response he expects, so she shrugs, carefully noncommittal.
"I want my life back. And you were part of my life."
It's not that she didn't have a general idea of what road he wanted this conversation to put them on. She just didn't expect his motivation to be laid so bare.
She can't do this again. She can't. Her heart has been twisted and crushed and shattered into a thousand pieces, and she doesn't have the strength to open herself up again. Not even for him; especially not for him, because someone with his face did his share of the damage, and because she went through hell over the last six months and she needs someone to blame.
She looks at the floor, wishing she were anywhere else. She guesses this is an answer.
He lets out a bitter choke of laughter. "Dammit, Susan, I figured you of all people would've understood."
The alternate Talia sneers at her in her mind's eye. God damn him.
"Go to hell," she spits, and leaves the room.
Their interaction for the next two weeks is business-related, strained, and kept to the bare minimum. She wears a bad mood like a jacket, and anyone who can possibly manage it stays out of her way.
Something that adds to her irritation is that EarthForce is sending her a new second, someone who was on the other side in the war. She knows why they're doing it, but she doesn't know how the hell she's going to be able to work with this person--Commander Maire McCreary, so the communiqué says. She'd rather have Corwin, who has been doing a perfectly competent job, even if he does still look all of twelve.
She thinks there are some ruptures that will always leave a scar.
Raiders have been attacking incoming transports for nearly a week, and it's starting to really piss her off. They figure the fighters have to be after something that's getting delivered, legally or illegally, to the station, but they've cross-referenced official cargo manifests--and Zack's unofficial ones, compiled with a combination of bribery and intimidation--until they're cross-eyed, and there's nothing that links all or even most of the ships the raiders are targeting.
"Maybe they aren't after something that's coming in," Michael suggests when she complains about the problem to him while they are coordinating on something else.
He points to the cargo manifests of the latest outgoing ships, which she and Corwin haven't been paying much attention to. "They could be attacking the incoming transports as a cover for a more...courteous...arrangement with some of the outgoing ships, so you won't be paying attention to them. They're usually after dust or something else prohibited, so you could quietly tail a few ships Zack IDs as suspected of carrying contraband, and see if they meet up with someone on the way to their next destination."
Sometimes she forgets just how twisted his mind is. "Thanks," she says.
He just nods and leaves her office.
She takes Alpha Wing out herself to enact his plan. By all rights it should be McCreary--who turns out to be a frighteningly competent, polite, but reserved young woman who reminds her of no one so much as herself when she first got here, which is a little disturbing--but some days she just needs to feel space around her in a way she can't while stuck inside a five-mile long rotating tin can. That there's a possibility she will get to blow up some raiders, whose very presence in her sector offends her, is definitely a nice bonus.
She comes back with a winged Starfury and a collection of broken ribs, with severe blood loss for good measure. But they did get rid of the raiders.
Stephen tsks while he patches her back together with more poking and prodding than she suspects is strictly necessary. Then he confines her to MedLab for twenty-four hours, mostly out of pique.
Her eighth hour in, Michael comes by with a report that could've waited on her desk until she was back. "Heard you were stuck in here," he says when she calls him on it. "Thought you could use a distraction." He collects the report, now bearing her signature. "Of course, if you'd rather I leave you to the mercies of MedLab's entertainment system..."
Her options are talking with him or staring at the walls. It's not much of a choice.
She grits out a question about how McCreary is handling things. Somehow, they manage a conversation that by way of hospital food and spoo turns into a debate about alien cuisine that eventually ends up with an agreement to have lunch at the Brakiri restaurant in the Zocalo together when she's up and about.
As he leaves, she wonders how the hell he managed to do that.
She sees him conferring with Franklin in the hall for a moment. When he's done, he turns and gives her a little wave through the window. He's not like Marcus with his dogged faithfulness, but dammit, he obviously still cares.
So, she is stunned to realize, does she.
They start lingering after meetings in one or the other's office, talking about books or politics, topics that have nothing to do with the business they coordinate. More often than not, they sit next to each other at Alliance functions or council sessions, and sometimes, when G'Kar gets long-winded, they pass notes back and forth. When their schedules permit, they occasionally have lunch together.
At one of these lunches, she asks him if he's thought about joining back up with EarthForce. She doesn't really know why. Maybe because she's trying to put everything back the way it was, and because if she can do that, she might be able to trust him again.
He says he likes his new job--he thinks he can make more of a difference in it than he could in the military. He thinks John and Delenn are building something good, and he wants to help them create it.
She realizes with a start that he really believes in the Alliance. She had thought he was too cynical to be able to buy into an organization devoted to galactic peace.
She wonders what else he believes in. And whether she wants to find out.
She stops by his quarters one evening to drop off some paperwork he requested, and finds him starting eggplant cacciatore. He asks if she wants to stay for dinner, and she agrees, then inwardly questions her judgment.
She asks if she can help, and he puts her to work chopping vegetables while he prepares the sauce. They did this a fair amount before the Shadow war ended, because he'd taken one look at the various types of takeout container filling her refrigerator and announced that he was going to teach her how to cook for herself. She'd become passable at a few dishes, but she still prefers throwing together a salad to actually using her stove.
They quickly fall into the pattern they developed, moving deftly around each other in the small space. He tastes the sauce, and offers her the spoon. The gesture aches with familiarity. Suddenly every molecule of her body fills with longing, and whether she can trust him or not, she wants it all back so goddamned badly it hurts.
She has to say something, because he's starting to look worried at her silence; because if Marcus taught her anything it's that saying nothing gets you nowhere; because once upon a time she loved him, and even with everything that happened, she doesn't think she ever really stopped.
"Michael," she says, feeling like she's about to cry.
He puts the spoon down and almost reaches out to touch her shoulder, but stops himself.
"How are things going with...getting your life back?"
For a second he looks confused, then his eyebrows arch with surprise. "Not too bad," he says. Then offers, "Still missing a few pieces, though."
She has so many questions he can't answer. "How do I know Bester's programming is all gone?" How do I know you won't hurt me again?
He spreads his hands. "You don't. You can't. You'll just have to trust me."
She wonders why the Psi Corps has taken so much from her. Her mother lying in an early grave. Much of her own life consumed in fear of her latent ability being found out. Talia...Talia used and then thrown away, nothing more than trash to them. And now Michael.
There is a choice before her, she realizes. She can refuse, keep her heart safe behind a layer of armor, and let them succeed in taking him from her as well. Or she can trust him, and in doing so, finally strike back against the Corps.
She pulls the bell he gave her out of her pocket. She could never bring herself to stop carrying it, even when she thought he--the real Michael--had betrayed them. "When you gave me this," she says, "you told me to come back in one piece.
"I don't think either of us are in one piece anymore. But I think--I think we could help each other put our pieces back together. At least...I want to try."
Something a little like longing and a little like joy passes over his face. "Susan..."
She crosses the two steps and ten months that separate them and kisses him.
A week later, while they are lying in bed, she tells him about her telepathic ability. She doesn't spare details; telepaths have always meant bad news for both of them, and she wants him to have an accurate picture of what he's getting into.
In the darkness, he is silent for a long moment. Then he pulls her close, presses his lips to her hair. "Okay," he murmurs. "Okay."
The tension drains out of her all at once, and she presses her cheek to his shoulder. She thinks maybe she is finally going to get this right.
Because she is a romantic, she says the words. With certainty in his voice, he says them back.
She begins to believe that the little kite they have tied their hearts to will actually fly.
We dream of a million kites
Flying high above
The sadness and the fear.
-- "Kite Song," Patty Griffin
N.B.: The title is also from "Kite Song." The
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 12:28 am (UTC)Garibaldi's betrayal is so much worse here. In a way, I feel bad that Sheridan has to tell him Ivanova is dying, because he know he can go to her even if he really wants to.
And the slow way in which they recover is gorgeous and very real feeling.
I have a feeling deep in my heart that Bester doesn't make it through his first visit to the station in season 5.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 01:06 am (UTC)Garibaldi's betrayal is so much worse here. In a way, I feel bad that Sheridan has to tell him Ivanova is dying, because he know he can go to her even if he really wants to.
This. His side of the story, especially at that point, would be just as angsty as hers.
And the slow way in which they recover is gorgeous and very real feeling.
Oh, I'm glad you said that. I hit a point somewhere during the writing of that where I was like, "I want this to END already," and so I rushed to meet up with the last two scenes, which I had written near the beginning. I'm glad it wasn't too obvious that I was doing that. ;)
I have a feeling deep in my heart that Bester doesn't make it through his first visit to the station in season 5.
HEH. You would be right. (If I ever write the rest of S5 in this series--and this one nearly killed me, so I'm leaning towards no on that--Bester would meet with a very unfortunate and very fatal accident.)
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Date: 2009-07-11 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 03:50 am (UTC)Noooo, what have I done?!
(Plus, I can't think of much I want more in the universe than Ivanova and Garibaldi teaming up to get Bester.)
That is an attractive prospect. I will have to think on it. However, at some point I also have to write my thesis, so no promises. ;)
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Date: 2009-07-11 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 03:51 am (UTC)Oh, wow. Thank you!
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Date: 2009-07-13 04:49 am (UTC)As a fellow writer (sometimes. When my muses grab me around the throat and get in my face and make it impossible *not* to ignore them like I have gotten so good at doing), I feel like I should talk about writerly things, but the truth is I loved all of it and honestly can't think of much beyond "Wow", "fantastic", and "well done".
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Date: 2009-07-13 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-29 03:57 am (UTC)And I should have, because I've read your stories before and loved them, but this is just amazing in so many ways, and I am in awe. I want to comment more, but I'm overwhelmed by HOW FREAKING GOOD you are and also ignoring my boyfriend who is like "watch this shot in peggle!" "now watch this shot in peggle!" and I am like OH MY GOD, THAT'S NICE HONEY, I AM GETTING PRESSED THROUGH A WRINGER AT THE MOMENT. So. Yes. Um. This pairing still wigs me, a little bit, but this is still my new favorite fic.
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Date: 2009-08-29 01:49 pm (UTC)This pairing still wigs me, a little bit
So would pointing you to a ficlet where they have a kid make your mind explode? ;)