From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Tue Jan 28 21:58:12 1997
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 04:48:41 -0600 (CST)
From: watkins julia k <julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: b5-creative@lists.best.com
Subject: **Spoilers**  The First Choice (complete)


Fourth Season Spoilers

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s

Spoilers FTA (you are warned!)

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s

This is my reaction to FtA, specifically to "he will simply stop."
There's a lot of hurt, and not much comfort here. I'm sorry: the happy
times are a blur to me still. Maybe that will come to me later.

I would like to thank Les McBride and Pfyre for helping with the
draft of this story. Your encouragement has been much appreciated. 

Julie W
dealing with the John-that-lives-in-my-head 
who doesn't want to die in his sleep

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Standard disclaimers: This story has been written for "entertainment"
purposes, not for monetary profit. The characters from B5 are the
property of jms, PTEN, & Warner Brothers, no copyright infringement
is intended.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"The First Choice"
     by Julie Watkins
     julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

The conference was not exactly boring but John Sheridan was having
trouble (still) following Minbari. He begged off, bringing Delenn with 
him, wanting to go sit on the "grass" outside, under a spreading Ar'Lod 
tree and look at the mountains. The sun was out, and the day on
Minbar was dry and not overly warm. It had been a pleasant lunch.
Now they sat quiet, side by side, leaning against the broad trunk.
Silent; almost meditating.
   His hand clenched on her arm, audibly inhaling. "Delenn." 
   Sudden worry caught her, which she fought down. "John?"
   "Huh. Damn." Another breath. "I was gone there. I don't know how
long."
   "Valen," she pleaded. She wasn't ready. She could never be ready.
   There was little question. "Hold me." He seemed certain.
   Her arms encircled him, pulling them face to face. "Please--"
   His eyes weren't tracking, his face utter sadness. "It's now. I'm 
sorry." He pulled in another deep breath. "My legs, my eyes are
gone."
   "No--"
   His whole body went slack. Then his breath shuddered in again, 
unaware of the missing moment. "Huh. Love y'. Didn't-- want, goodbye." 
The few words left were whole sentences. /I didn't want to leave 
without telling you "I love you" one last time./
   It was also with her. "I love you."
   Another hard breath drawn in. "Sorry." /I never wanted to cause you
pain./ It wasn't fear that made him fight, he fought for her. He would
not let go until she gave him leave.
   Accept this? She could not: she had never believed she could.
Endure it? She had no choice. She would not beg. 
   "John, I am here. Life," she sobbed. "I promise you." She would
continue; she would not look to die before her time.
   His next breath was easier, shallow. "Wait." /I will wait for you 
in the place where no shadows fall./
   Delenn held his head closer to her chest. /My love./ "I will join you
there."
   His breath left him long ... softly. A gentle rattle as it stopped.
   "John," she whispered through her tears.
   Half a minute gone.
+++

"I'm just tired, Delenn, that's all." He paced over to lift her chin. 
"Don't give me those eyes." He smiled broadly, trying to ease her
worry. "I was a hard session and they wore me out. Not to mention a
long argument with a four-year-old who didn't want to go to sleep.
Please, you have nothing to worry about."
   "'Nothing'," she repeated, turning away, trying to hide her tears.
   He closed his eyes, trying to push away the lump in his throat, his 
belly. He couldn't keep living like this. In the years following their
marriage, the future seemed long to come, and there had been little
time to think. Now, with the near-peace achieved, there was time for
happiness. But more and more he saw Delenn fall into brooding.
Something had to be done. 

She stood now where her flight had been halted, face to the wall.
Standing behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders, just set them
there, and leaned into her back. Face in her hair, he nuzzled her
bonecrest. "I love you," he whispered. His hands moved down to
circle her waist, pulled inward. "Love, don't push me away."
    She turned in his arms, and he could feel wetness where her face
rested against his neck. "John, John, I can not bear this."
   "Hush that," he released one hand to place a finger over her lips.
"The time I have," he said sternly, "is the time I have. Same as any
other being."
   "I don't want you to leave me."
   "When the time comes, Delenn--"
   Her eyes bolted up in fear.
   "Not yet," His hands cupped her face. He studied it, her dark hair,
the smoothness of her skin. The future he'd seen--Londo, Centauri
Prime in ruins--they were working to stop that somehow. The time he
had spent in the underworld of Z'Ha'Dum had caused the images
--already tenuous--to fade. There was little he could remember, and he
might yet be able to change what would happen there, that the darkness
might be lifted sooner. The future was not set, he knew, but it had
been a _possible_ future in which he still lived. What he remembered
of Delenn--her mouth on his, desperate. That he remembered. Her face
had been old, ancient. Her hair grey. He had years ahead of him, still.
Perhaps there had been a cure. He could hope for that. Perhaps Lorien
had healed him better than he thought.
   In any case, it was reason enough that he could be insistent with
his wife, though it might cause pain. He would have time enough
to reach her, to make her accept. He would have time enough to give
her comfort.
   "When the time comes," he repeated, "it won't be my choice. 
I don't _want_ to leave you. Please look at me." His request renewed
her tears.  His eyes were clear. "I don't have time to waste. Can't you 
see you're stealing it from me when you turn away?"
   She looked down.
   He rocked her as they stood. "This is a gift, Love. David is a gift.
Delenn, you are my wife. I need you to be happy. I don't want my life 
eaten up in fear."
   "I'm not--" she faltered. "I will try--" Her voice sank to a whisper.
"I can not stop myself from thinking it. There will be a day you will 
not be with me."
   He smiled, wiping away her tears. "You are wrong to try to forget.
If you push aside the fear, it becomes stronger. You must know your
fear, accept it, let me give you comfort while I may."
   "'Comfort'?" Her voice had a touch of steel and anger in it. "There 
can be none."
   His voice also was sharp. "Delenn--"
   "What will come, will come. Why invite the pain sooner?"
   "I only want--" She tried to cover his mouth. He caught her hand and
pulled it to his chest. "You're hurting. Now. What am I, dead?" She
stared, stricken. "Don't answer that," he smiled grimly. "When's the
funeral?"
   She did not appreciate his gallows humor. She remained silent,
angry, until he relented.
   He kept hold of her hand and led her to the wide couch. He sat, and
pulled her down on his lap. "I see your hurt. What kind of husband
would I be if I didn't respond?"
   "Your words-- What you ask, I cannot give. You multiply the hurt
with guilt. I know you want me to be 'OK with this'. I cannot." She
leaned against him, almost boneless, hoping he would take pity. "I
love you." She said the words into his neck. "Just love me."
   He shifted to kiss her neck, then his lips traveled slowly up to her
ear. "I will always love you," he said in a low voice. He kissed her
mouth softly, then pulled back. "Kiss me--" he asked.
   She answered his smile with one equally bright.
   "--as if it were the last time," he finished the request. He held her
arms tight when she tried to back away.
   She refused to look at his face. Her eyes were focused on her hands,
spread--tense--across his chest. She could feel him breathing, she
could almost feel the beating of his heart. It was many breaths before
she could speak. "I do not wish to speak of your death."
   "We must."
   "Because you say this. What is there to say? When will you have
enough?"
   He sighed. "I'll shut up tomorrow. Tonight, we talk."
   "And that will be the end of 'lessons'?"
   "Until I catch you brooding again." 
   Her answering look made him flinch.
   "OK," he said swiftly, offering a compromise. "Three months, will
that work? After tonight we can't talk or think about the future for the
next three months. I won't call the next 'refresher course' until after
then, but only if I see you brooding. Then I'll have to wait another
three months before I can bother you again. No more than once a season.
Less, if we do the job right."
   "You promise this."
   "Yes."
   "I will hold you to that."

Not quite an agreement, John noticed, but it would do. Delenn moved
closer, intent on distracting him from his intention.
   The kiss was tentative. She still feared what his words would be. He
leaned back, lightly touching one breast through the cloth of her gown.
He looked at her through hooded eyes. "I know you can do better than
that." His voice was low and husky.
   She took the challenge. Pulling up her skirts, she swung one knee up
and over so she was straddling him. She put her hands on either side
of his face, he put his on her hips. She covered his mouth with hers.
Her tongue traced his lips and then opened them, exploring with
increasing pressure. He moaned when she moved her hips, but did not
move his hands. When she began to growl in frustration he moved to
reciprocate, practiced hands moving over her clothing and through her
hair. He touched her crest in the way he had learned, and she rewarded
him with the moan from the bottom of her throat that always made him 
quiver.

He let her meander through the digression as she willed, keeping
clothes fastened. Finally she stopped, leaning boneless again against
him, waiting.
   He ran his fingers across the edge of her jaw, drinking in her beauty.
"That was very good, Love."
   She smiled.
   "You should always kiss me so thoroughly." He swallowed. "Because 
we'll never know."
   She melted further into him, her body without tension, exhausted.
Her eyes filled with easy tears that ran down her cheeks. He lifted her
up so he could kiss them away. 
   "And when I'm gone," he said. She whimpered. "You will cry, and
you will remember me as I did this," he kissed another, "as you wipe
away your tears."
   She remained silent a long time. He soothed her, gentle caresses,
murmurings, and she memorized the touch and the sound. 

"When they told me Anna died, I wanted to die with her." The hour
was very late now. Delenn's breath paused a moment, he knew she
was awake and listening. He continued. "I didn't. Something-- I don't
know. Something within me wouldn't let me give up. That was my first
choice: to live. You were my second choice: to love again." He did
not notice her stiffening, lost in melancholy memory. "Every kiss,
every night of ecstasy, you will remember. I do. I still remember
Anna's touch; think of it sometimes, I hope you're not jealous."
   Something felt wrong. He looked down at her face and saw something 
he hadn't expected, and then nearly chuckled at the implications. 
Delenn's mouth was opened to protest his implied suggestion. He 
hastened to cover it, not allowing her to speak.
   "No. I'm not going there. It's none of my business." In his mind, 
he laughed at his egotism. He had no doubt that if--sometime before
_Icarus_--Anna had been asked the hypothetical question, she would
have answered that she could be the only real love in his life. "Yes, I
remarried. Your mother didn't. As many widowed people don't as do.
That doesn't matter. All I'm asking, all I _can_ ask is for you to 
accept your life. All of it."
   "Without you."
   "You won't be alone. You'll have friends, people who care. I did.
You'll have David. David will need you. And the Cause. I don't think
we'll ever escape 'duty'."
   That earned him a ghost of a smile.
   He grinned widely in response. "Has so much really changed?
There's always something out there, making demands of us. Odds are,
hell, one more desperate crisis will arrive and take both of us out
together." That was her only other option. That, or to die first.
   "True, but--" 
   He was grateful to see that she did not seem enamored of mimicking
his "early" death. "Not a goal."
   "No."
   "Good. I'm glad. It's a promise then?"
   She nodded, resolute.
   Satisfied, he pulled her closer. "I will always love you. I know you
will always love me."   
   "Yes." She stood. "Have we reached 'tomorrow' yet?"
   He stood also. "Yes. Thank you." He ordered the lights out.

His arm was laid across her shoulder and hers across his back, they
began the familiar walk-together down the hall. David's door was
open. Glancing in, John was halted by the image of the child, one hand
touched by the night light, his crested head hid in shadow. John
released Delenn to walk inside.
   Her protest died in her suddenly tight throat. Though it had taken
much to coax the child to stop fussing and close his eyes that battle
was a small thing compared to the need she saw in her husband's
hesitant steps.
   But it had been tiredness that had kept young David so cranky, and
tiredness that still held sway when John knelt to look at the small,
sleeping face. It was hard to tell, but he seemed to be smiling, 
almost, as if caught in happy dream. 
   John's gut clenched in fear and pain. "I won't see you grown," he
said to himself. He ordered hot tears to retreat, and called on the
rituals of meditation to keep his breath steady. "I won't know you, not
the way your namesake knew and supported me. Please believe I would 
have been proud of you."

Delenn knelt beside him, keeping the silence. He took one of her hands 
in his, and with the other he gently stroked the child's fine blond
hair, and sleepy eyes opened. "I love you, David," John said. 
   The earlier, whining storm had disappeared as if it never was. "Love 
you, Dad. Mom."
   John kissed his forehead, gave one hand a squeeze. "Sleep now."
   He looked mildly puzzled, but obeyed. "Yes, Dad." The eyes
closed.
   Delenn stood, bringing John to his feet as well. In the hall, she 
put her hands on his chest. "John?" she whispered in concern. His eyes
were looking through her, past the walls of their quarters, unseeing.
She could only say his name. She already knew "what was wrong".
    John swallowed, struggling to come back to calm. David's face was
still clear in his memory, peaceful in the dim light, and he wondered
again what the loss would be to child, to have his father taken from
him without warning. "However old he is," John begged the universe
to hear his silent prayer. "I hope he's old enough to understand."
   But to Delenn, he spoke a different--allowable--pain. "I'm missing
Mom and Dad."
   "Yes," she said. "I wish they could be here."
   His face hardened. "'Family' should be more than this," he
complained. "These damn wars, they've stolen so much." He was letting 
the tears come now, and Delenn pulled him into a close embrace. His 
grief was for all that had been lost. "So much from everyone. So many 
people, so many families--they're all dead. No one to remember."
  "These lives," she said with surety. "They are but the first step
toward something greater."
   He smiled wanly, though she could not see it. "God, I hope so." He
would try to believe as she believed ... in eternity, in identity--
soul-- beyond this current ego. Perhaps, with her help, he could 
achieve it.
   Delenn's faith strengthened in the face of his doubt. "We will find 
rest," she promised. "Rest and fulfilment that we can know but
fleetingly here. And here-- what we do will be remembered even as
flesh fails." She lifted one hand to briefly touch his mouth. 
"Taste of it?" 
   He kissed her deeply, losing himself to the timeless flood. She 
guided him away from the dim light.

She was awakened the next morning by joyful laughter, John's hand
brushing her hair from her face.
+++

The memory of his mouth on hers, she did feel it.
   Delenn held John's body to her, tasting his hair on her lips. She 
did not know how much time had passed before her solitude was 
disturbed by a stranger asking if something was wrong.
   "<Tell Rathenn,>" she answered in Minbari. "<He has died.>" She
forced the words out. "<Bring David here.>"

Then she was alone again, though there were a few others standing just
close enough to hear their voices, and she was thankful--her lungs
cramped so hard she had to fight to breathe--so thankful she was here
with him and "here" was Minbar. 
   Here, were people did not question. Had they been on Earth,
strangers would not have believed her. John would have been roughly
taken from her as humans, "trying to help," would have tried to revive
him, only to fail and leave his body dishonored.
   "<An old war wound.>" she heard someone say who must have been
one of Rathenn's aides. "<There was no treatment.>" The voices
stilled, and footsteps retreated. 

Searing as the pain was, she knew the shape of the comfort to come,
when the rituals had cleansed some part of the pain from her. Fate had
been as kind as it could be to them. She had knowledge of their
strength: he, to again surrender without fear; her, to help his passage
and not beg him to stay. Her the comfort to know he knew she had that
strength. One final victory, one final "goodbye". One final day of bliss
together, their last conversation, both love and laughter. Regret--
unspoken, but accepted-- had been in the unknown future, not a
present, thieving fear. Nineteen years, five months, twelve days since
he fell at Z'Ha'Dum.
   As fell her tears.

And when those tears, for a time, had ended, she heard a new sound in
the distance. She tensed, knowing the next separation was soon to
come. Footsteps.
   She looked up and saw David, standing taller than she remembered
him less than a morning before. He was being brave, for her sake. She
needed to be brave now for him, that he could let go of his grief.
   "<Come grieve with me, son.>" She released one arm to hold out to
him, the other holding John more tightly. "<His end came too quickly. 
I'm sorry he could not wait for you.>"
   Slowly David knelt at Delenn's right side. "<Father-->" He took one 
hand to hold to his breast. His hand had been steady as he reached,
but touching unresponding fingers sent him to shaking. As the
trembling increased, Delenn moved to hold David with both arms,
letting go of John. David struggled weakly, mouth open in wrenching
sobs, born of the fight to keep the words in--the words that would
shame him (so he thought) if spoken aloud--"Dad, dad. Don't go."
--though others would have understood.
   Rathenn and his aides took Delenn's motions for the signal that they
could take the body away. She did not look, she would not let David
look. David, still in denial, would have been looking for life, not
accepting death. The next time they saw him he would be lain in
dignity, not lifted lifeless onto the waiting pallet.
   Come the dawn, they would greet him again, as they had decided.
She would stand on his left side, and David on his right. Three days
times three, a pause, and then again, if all those called could not could
not arrive in the allotted time. There might be those who objected to
the altering of tradition, to letting aliens into the temples walls. She
didn't care. John's presence would give her and David strength. And
then he would be buried, as they had agreed, in her family's burial
garden. And that would be their final separation, until they met again,
beyond the veil.
 
Delenn heard the sound of the floater taking the shell of John Sheridan
away. When she opened her eyes it was not to look there, nor to the
people who had gathered, waiting for her signal to offer their sympathy
and assistance. The hard wood of the tree pressed against her back.
She looked up at triangular leaves, dancing in the breeze, red and
green. John's spirit rested here, she felt him--in her faith, she believed
it. A place to come to remember the past and hope for the future.
Holding David near to her, she called to that spirit, those memories.
   /My Love, stay near to me./
   /I will always be here./

+++ +++ +++

"He was gravely wounded at Z'Ha'Dum. He was dying. He was dead. 
I did all I could to help him. I cannot create life; only the universe can
do that. I can extend, enhance-- There is no magic, nothing spiritual
about it, only the application of energies, healing and rebuilding cells.
... I did the best I could. I gave him back a portion of his life, but only
a portion. ... In human terms, barring injury and illness ... Twenty
years. No more. And then, one day, he will simply stop."

                                 -- Lorien, "Falling Towards Apotheosis"

---fini---