DISCLAIMER: Babylon 5 and its characters are the property of J. Michael Straczynski, Warner Brothers, PTEN, and/or TNT. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
BETA THANKS: Thanks to anyone who read this over and made comments. Quite
frankly there are too many of you to mention (ok I just forgot who you are
sorry), but thank you.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
WMD
By Adi
She didn't remember much about the first days after her reanimation. What she did remember were fragments of sensations, painful and sharp. The light was too bright, the room was too cold; she thinks she may have cried, she thought she remembered warm wetness on her cheeks, but she's not sure.
However she was sure that when she took her first breath, she was very much herself. She knew this as a dreamer knows that they've been dreaming when they wake from a nightmare, with relief and shrapnels of fear still in their skin.
Lyta said she had the Vorlons to thank for it; they had intercepted the transport taking her to earth and put her in stasis. She wasn't sure how or why they got rid of the other personality, and they were gone now, so she couldn't really ask. A lot had happened while she had slept, and that's what she called it, because that's what it felt like. Two wars, many deaths, a new beginning for the younger races, and a fresh start for earth. And now another war; a war among telepaths, and possibly the only reason she hadn't been left sleeping for a thousand years, or longer.
The lighthouse she and Lyta were currently residing in was safe, if not very secure. If someone surprised them, there was no way to go but down, but the sound of the waves on the cliffs soothed her, and at this point, if they were found them, it wouldn't matter anyway.
The lighthouse had a foldout couch downstairs but she preferred climbing up the forty odd stairs to the bedroom suite. The view was exceptional and it made her feel more isolated which was what she wanted at the moment.
"I love my love with an S because she's," She was sitting on the bed, looking at herself in the mirror and running a comb through her hair. The children's game had entered her mind a while ago, but she had been stuck on S for the past few minutes. Anything she thought up seemed silly and trite "Susan." She finally decided. "I hate her with an S because she's," Here she stumbled, she didn't want to hate, "sad. Her name is Susan, she comes from the stars and I gave her a secret."
"What secret?" Talia looked up at the redhead. She'd felt her come into the room, hell she'd felt her drive up to the lighthouse, but she hadn't let it stop her game.
"If I told you that it wouldn't be a secret now would it?" She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Lyta smiled back, but it didn't reach her eyes either.
"You never asked to see her." She said softly as Talia turned away, walked to the mirror, fiddled with something.. "Don't you want ..." The redhead trailed off, there was no one word to describe what she was thinking, and these days telepathic communication was just as confusing. "To see her?" She finished.
Talia looked at her and smiled gently. "More than anything," especially tonight. More than anything she wanted to see Susan, to kiss her lips, to apologize, to touch her mind and feel that warm safe place Susan had created just for her. She turned back to her work. "But I know what I'm here for, and to come back when I know I can't stay would be unfair, and cruel and I don't want to hurt her again." Lyta nodded, Talia couldn't see it but she could feel the sentiment. "Do something for me?"
Since she'd woken up she knew she had a purpose, Lyta had explained it to her. There was a reason for everything, and they were the punchline. She felt Lyta walk up to her from behind. Felt the redhead's breath on her neck. It would be so easy to lose herself in this, to spend her last hours with her body entwined with another, her mind... but it wasn't what she really wanted, and it would unfair to Lyta. "Anything," the redhead promised.
"Look out for her?" She did have to say who, or even why.
"For as long as I can." Lyta vowed. Talia nodded. It was all she could ask for, really, under the circumstances.
The silence that followed was broken only by the crashing of the waves, by the soft swoosh of the brush through hair.
"You know I would do this, if I could."
Talia slowed the brush for a second. "The movement needs you. I know that, I've seen it." She turned, looking Lyta in the eye. "It's alright," she tried to reassure, she knew she wouldn't succeed. Lyta would carry her death in her soul, and in a way, that was as it should be. She smiled. "You know you couldn't make me do this if I didn't want to."
Lyta nodded, looked down.. "I know."
Talia turned back to the mirror and looked herself in the eye. \We are all born to die./
And suddenly fairness didn't matter, and she was scared, very scared, and she wanted to be held, and loved, and Lyta would do that, and that was enough. She turned and embraced the other woman, seeking her lips like a blind man, like a starving man, like a woman who knew that in a few hours she would be dead.
And for a brief moment, two weapons of mass destruction came together and made something beautiful.
\/ Good Evening. In the headlines today the telepath crisis was escalated with the most daring terrorist action to date. A Psi-Corps pharmaceutical complex was destroyed in an explosion today. The fringe telepath group Remember Byron has claimed responsibility. Over three hundred psi-corps scientists were working in the complex at the time of the explosion, there were no survivors. \/
The End