From: Coridon.Henshaw@TCSconcordia.tor250.org (Coridon Henshaw)
Subject: Final Moments (spoilers for FtA)
Date: 05 May 97 20:51:44 -0500

Minor spoiler for Falling Towards Apothesis.


















Final Moments
=============

Before JMS beats me to it, this is how I would write the next to final scene
in
Babylon 5.  My guess is that the _real_ final scene is the station exploding,
killing everyone.

You might need a few kleenex.

Characters, names, et cetra, copyright JMS, PTN, WB.

Non comercial use only!

===

Delenn was updating her final messages to the people she cared for.  As far
as John knew, she was praying.  She kept a few messages for different people,
and for different deaths.  John knew about some of them, but the one she was
most likely to use was encrypted with her diplomatic code and she alone knew
the key.

She started by reviewing the message she left before she married John.

A much yonger looking Delenn appeared on the screen.  "I'm going to be
married in three days.  I should be .. 'on cloud nine,' as the humans say,
just like John.  But I am not, even if I look it in public.  I know that our
happyness has the very short time limit of just over nineteen years." She
paused. "The universe has trapped me in a cycle of caring for those who will
die before me.  The first was Dukhat, who was as good a friend to me as was
possible considering our relative positions.  I do not blame humanity for his
death.  We killed him out of willful ignorance.  He wanted to make contact
with humanity, but the fools on the Grey Council did not.  He was right, and
he died proving it.  Then there was my first love, who was killed on the Black
Star.  I do not blame John for his death -- the final transmition from the
Black Star was 'we are going to kill a helpless monkey.'  They deserved what
they got for planning to attack a surrendering ship.  I would view this
differently if they had not planned to attack, but I am not in the habit of
playing 'what if' games about the past."  Her recorded image paused.  "And now
there is John.  Nineteen years of joy, and then...  Nothing.  As we have ended
the cycle of the Shadow war together, I will end my cycle.  When he dies, I
will die with him.  I am tired of living in mourning.  Delenn of Mir, Satai,
Entl'zha, Ambassador.  In Valen's name."  Her image touched her heart with
it's right hand.

Present-day Delenn still felt the same way, except for 'ending the cycle' of
the Shadow war.  She now knew it to be false.  She re-encrypted the file,
knowing that she would need it later.  Not too much later, but, later.

She started updating another message.  "This is my final message for my son
and my friends to see after I have died."  She paused.  "When John came back
from Za'ha'dum, there was a price for his life.  The price was that he would
only live for twenty years.  I knew this since he came back."  She never told
anyone, and neither did John.  Not even their son knew.

"I decided to end it this way, for us, shortly before our wedding.  John knew
nothing of my plans.  I have made arrangements for my authority to be
transfered to the apropriate people."  Satai Lennier would replace her on the
Grey Council.  Marcus would take the Rangers until David was old enough,
assuming he was willing.

"I request that you view the rest of this message with David, Marcus, Susan
Ivanova and Lennier.  Do not delete any of my files until after they have seen
this entire message."  She inserted a few minutes of still frames to allow
whoever viewed her last message first to find all those important to her.

"David, there is a lot about your heritiage that you must know.  You have the
DNA of all three people who make up the One.  Valen, John, and I.  I am a
decendent of Valen and carry some of his DNA, and so do you.  You are THE
One."

"You are not, directly, John's child.  You are the product of Minbari genetic
engineering.  When John came back from Za'ha'dum, he could not father
children."  Delenn went into depression when she first heard this.  And rage
because John didn't tell her until after they where married.  "One of his
cells was cloned and his genetic code was mixed with mine.  The resulting egg
was implanted into me.  I have explained all the details, and prophecy, in a
private file for you.  As much as you have a proud, but dangerous, potential
future, I am deeply sorry that we ever decided to have you."  She knew her son
would take this badly, but he had a right to know the truth, no matter how
painful it was.  She finally learned that from John after they had a few more
fights over trust.

"You are not Minbari enough to fit into our society, but you are not human
enough to fit into your society.  Like me, you are stuck in the void between
our peoples." Tears began to form in her eyes.  "I cannot imagine how I could
could condemn my own son to this fate.  I made the decision to stand in the
void between our peoples with my eyes open.  I knew that I would be rejected,
but I did it anyway.  Along the way, I found happyness, for a time.  You never
could make that decision.  I am sorry."  She was overcome with emotion.  She
paused the recording and quietly sobbed to herself for a few minutes.  When
she regained some of her composure, she resumed the message.  "I urge you to
follow the calling of your heart.  I made the decision to join John where
shadows do not fall many years ago.  I am aware that humans do not widely
believe in an afterlife, but John had a Minbari soul."  That would fall like
a bombshell.  Not even he knew.  She tested him with her triluminary while
he slept one night, before they married.

She continued her monolog.  "I will not ask for your forgiveness.  I will
accept your feelings about me, no matter what they are.  I love you, David.
Goodbye."  She was forced to stop recording again.

"Satai Lennier,"  Another bombshell.  No one else knew. "I know you love me,
but I could never care for you as much as I care for John.  Please accept
that.  Someone will come along for you eventually."  She forced a smile.  "You
have been very loyal to me, and that is a debt that I could never repay.
Thank you."  He was named as the executor of her will, no matter how she
died.  She explained this to John in that she didn't want to trouble him with
details at a time of such pain.

Delenn thought of who should be next.  "Marcus.  You have also been very loyal
to me, even breaking my orders to do things that turned out to be in my best
interests.  For that I thank you.  I wish you well with your wife."  He had
married Susan a few years ago.  What they saw in each other, she never knew.
"The sucession order for the Rangers is from me to John, or John to me,
depending on who dies first.  Since we are both dead, you become my first
choice for Entl'zha.  You are only the second human to hold this position,
after Sinclair, before he was Valen.  Do us proud, Marcus."  He already knew
about the order of sucession, but she wanted to underline the point that she
wanted him to take the position as her first, not second, choice.

"Susan, you have been a good friend to me, and I credit you with saving my
relationship when John found out what I did at the start of the war.  Perhaps
if you had not, I would sill be alive and you would not be watching this, but
please do not blame yourself.  This was my life and I have a right to make my
own decisions about it."  This was very ironic considering some of
the things she had done to control John.  Susan was named as David's legal
guardian if she and John died before he was 18.  Since David turned 18 a few
months ago, that no longer mattered.  "Take good care of David for me."

She paused the recording again and wondered what more needed to be covered.
"I believe John's wish is to be cremated and to have his ashes scattered on
Earth, as it was where he was born.  I also wish to be cremated, my ashes
to be mixed with his, and scattered on Earth, as it is the place I nearly
destroyed."  She paused.  "Please remember me as the person you knew between
my change and a few months after the Shadow war.  I consider those to by my
best years."  She paused.  "What I have done before does not make me proud.
As for what I have done since, well, I consider the true worth of a person
what they can do when they have nothing.  Goodbye to you all.  In Valen's
name."  She felt her heart and bowed her head, then ended the recording.  She
encrypted the file.

Delenn took a few moments to try and meditate, but her thoughts drifted to the
fate of the galaxy.  What happened at Coriana 6 was not victory, it was defeat
disguised as victory.  Instead of a Shadow cycle every thousand years, there
was an unending war between the Shadow allies and the rest of the galaxy.
They had killed half of Earth's population, destroyed Centauri prime, wiped
the Mir family out of the galaxy (she was the only one left), destroyed Mars
with mass drivers, xenocided the Drazi with biological weapons, made many
attempts against her son, and the rampage continued.  It was estimated that
an eighth of the galaxy's population had a keeper.  She did not have the
strength to order them killed, even though there was no way to save them.

John was right: in order to fight these people, you have to think and act
like them.  Delenn had ordered the Rangers to execute Lyta for destroying
Za'ha'dum and causing this..hell.  Her body was never found, but a fine red
mist found in the docking bay a few weeks after she disappeared.  John
launched an investigation, but they never found anything.  He suspected she
was killed by the Psicorps.  What the Psicorps would have done to Lyta pailed
in comparison to the way the Rangers killed her.  Even Delenn did not want to
know the details, but it was said her screams could be heard for weeks on an
otherwise deserted planet.

There was so much hope after the Shadows and Vorlons left, but both races
refused to leave gracefully.  They both left behind a legacy of allies that
prevented all the young races from being free to act on their own.  She
suspected that the Shadows where directing and aiding their allies from beyond
the rim, but she had no proof.  Even if she did, there was nothing she could
do about it.  Lorien wouldn't help.

Unlike the cyclic nature of the Shadow war, what there allies where doing had
no end.  She told past-John that the only way to avoid this future was to
surrender to the Shadows and that was not an option.  Having lived the past
three years, she considered defeat preferable to this 'victory.'

She started sobbing.  For herself, for John, for her son, and for the galaxy.

She took a few moments to try and regain her composure and left her room to
see John.

John was eating breakfast; Delenn entered the room with a very sad look on
her face.  John noticed.  "Why are you looking at me like that?"  It was
obvious, but he wanted to hear it.  "I was just thinking," she wiped her
eyes, "any day now, you will just 'stop.'"  John got up and held her
shoulders.  He was as unconcerned about his final death as he was about his
second.  "When it happens, it happens, and there isn't anything you or I can
do about it."  The tears started streaming down her cheeks.  They drew closer
and she held her head against his chest.  He rubed her back -- a human gesture
of comfort that she did not find very comforting.  And then it happened.  He
collapsed to the deck, cold, almost pulling her down with him.  They didn't
even have chance to say goodbye.  She followed him down, laying him to rest.
She felt his forehead and hair for one last time.

She quickly left for the bedroom, giving the computer instructions to decrypt
her final messages to their son and her friends.  She returned with dagger
that she told John was for cerimonial use.  She had obtained the dagger from
Minbar just for this purpose.  It was tipped with a combination of chemicals
that would be almost instantly fatal to her but would not harm anyone else
seriously.  She read the Minbari inscription out loud.  "For John.  So I may
be with you where Shadows do not fall."  She had no regrets about what she was
about to do.  She held the knife to her chest and stabbed herself in the
heart, dying almost instantly from the poison and loss of blood.  Her body
fell over her dead husband.

=== End final_moments.txt ===

You may have gathered that I have a very bleak outlook on the future of B5. 
After I wrote this, I asked myself 'is this too sad?'  The answer I found was
'I don't think it's sad enough.'

I have an even more depressing version that deals with the same event from the
perspective of the survivors.  I'll post it if anyone requests it.
--
| Fidonet : Coridon Henshaw 1:250/820
| Internet: Coridon.Henshaw@TCSconcordia.tor250.org