From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Aug 4 01:47:13 1996 Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 09:45:40 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "Future and Past" (complete) Hello all! Spoilers WWE s p o I l e r s p o I l e r This is another WWE reaction story, happening about a month after "Circle". There's a story in between, in which Catherine finds out what happened to Jeff, but this story--a contrast of Sinclair and Sheridan-- got finished first. Please send comments; I hope you find this interesting. "Future and Past" will make more sense if you've already read "Circle" A main point of "Circle" was that Valen had left an extensive historical record ... including several photographs. The original files had degraded from over-use and the unrestored images are blurred but recognizable (after the fact). At the end there is a specific speculation on a piece of backstory that might be discovered in a future episode. Anyone think I might be right? Many thanks to Jenny, Sue, Adele and Alison who commented on the draft, and helped me smooth this out into something less "loud". Julie the possessed Standard disclaimers apply, also to "Circle". ================ "Future and Past" by Julie Watkins Two figures in black. Sheridan was deep in thought, haunted by the vision of shadow wings that trapped him (the sweeping sword of light) and it took a while to register: Garibaldi and a woman. Too short for Ivanova. Ivanova was in C&C. The woman wore unrelieved black, her face had a sober calm. Catherine Sakai, Jeffrey Sinclair's almost wife. She had come to the station for answers after Garibaldi had sent her notice Sinclair was dead. A wave of empathy washed over him, and he turned for a better look. The black of Garibaldi's uniform was broken by white piping and blue badges. The grief on his faced was easier to see. Garibaldi noticed Sheridan looking up at them from where he sat at the conference table. At the captain's nod they took the stairs down and he straightened then stood for the introduction. Sheridan looked like he wanted to talk and Garibaldi took his leave. Sheridan gestured at the chair beside him, sitting after she had done so. "I'm sorry," he said. She nodded, and he had to look away after a moment. "Ah, I'm sorry you had to wait for the whole story. Michael thought it would be easier for you if you got a suspicion first and didn't get the rest until you were ready to see it." When she didn't immediately react he added softly. "It still makes my head spin some times." "Same here," she smiled. The silence got awkward. Sheridan wondered why he had asked her to stay. He hadn't met her in those few days of overlap when he was the new CO and she was still on station. Sakai had been living in Sinclair's quarters, still there waiting for him to return when the reassignment went through and she was suddenly--by the regs--a squatter with no rights. Had the marriage been done and registered due consideration would have been given and she could have taken whatever time was reasonable, and the movers would have taken her instructions. Instead, it was a jagged dislocation. She would not have had any time to say "goodbye" to what she must have felt as "home", if only for a short time. Ivanova had (she told him) just barely managed to get word to Sakai before the official announcement, but the scuttlebutt had already found her in a Zocolo cafe where she had been negotiating another free-lance job. When Sakai got back to Sinclair's quarters the movers were already there. All the careful military politeness couldn't cover the fact that she had to pack her things _now_, because that's what the orders said and not "as advised by Commander Sinclair". She had offered her help to put Jeff's stuff in order, but she was too upset and had to go, leaving strangers standing in her bedroom. The insensitivity had been unintentional. The orders had been given by an EarthDome bureaucrat who didn't know about Sakai, only that Sinclair was on his way to a new assignment, hadn't made arrangements, and a new CO would be arriving in a few hours time. Sheridan had been horrified at the terse report Ivanova gave him, after the _Tragoti_ incident cooled down, but she assured him he hadn't thrown Sinclair's fiance out onto the street. "I claimed 'too short notice'," Ivanova explained. She had had him assigned to one of the VIP apartments that were scattered through officer territory which were the same size and had the same amenities. "That's why you have artwork already in place. In my opinion, you can keep it there." Sheridan took his time replacing the station artwork with new accumulation. Sakai lost no time vacating the station. According to gossip he overheard, it took Sinclair a while to contact her and the conversation didn't go well. Some months later news had come through that the engagement had been broken off. "Typical Jeff and Catherine," Garibaldi had shrugged as he told him, unconcerned, though it had cast a pall on the rest of the day for Sheridan. It didn't matter if the relationship had always been iffy. His arrival had precipitated the break and he felt guilty. "Another couple years--" Garibaldi had predicted. Less than that, Sheridan answered the memory. And now Sinclair was gone and for Sakai there could be nothing more than "might have been". What the hell did he think he had to talk to her about? he asked himself. She had signed on to help, but he'd be getting her recognizance reports through Marcus. "Did you have any more questions?" "Not at the moment." He sat back further in his chair. "I know I don't know you. I just -- " His far hand reached up to grab the back of his neck. "I used to be married." "I knew that. Your wife was killed." "She was on the _Icarus_ when it exploded." He was looking at the galactic map when he said that. The sites of the Shadow attacks were bright red triangles. He had been trying to figure some sort of pattern. "I found out later it had been a Shadow attack. Back then they weren't moving openly." "Shadows are the reason Jeff is gone." "Yes." "I'm sorry about your wife." "Anna," he said. "Her name was Anna." His eyes looked elsewhen and, dammit, his voice still caught on that "was". "You loved her very much." "I still love her." And Delenn, he added silently. I think I'm falling in love with Delenn. I don't know why we can't cross that last barrier. There are things she won't say, I can feel it. There are things she still doesn't trust me enough to know. That holds us apart. She looked away, uncomfortable. "Jeff and I argued a lot," she had to admit in the face of Sheridan's still raw grief. The only reason I'm wearing black is because it makes Michael feel better, she continued silently. Jeff and I may have spent more time in love than arguing, but once things got tense the feeling only escalated and we could only hurt each other. Our careers, our ambitions ... only I know now the drive wasn't for Jeff hadn't been ambition. We were going to be married. Could it have lasted if there hadn't been that summons waiting in the wings? Jeff, it's so damn appropriate that you let _Clark_ order you to leave. Her face turned hard. "I told him it was me or his career because I wouldn't wait any longer." She sighed. "I really wasn't surprised when he chose 'career'. Always. And that's why he left this time." "I'm not sure you're being entirely fair," Sheridan said carefully, hoping for a partial reconciliation. "Near as I could see he didn't have a choice." "There are always choices, Captain," she snapped. "He chose not to say 'goodbye'. Now you tell me: was that because he was afraid he'd lose his resolve or was it because he wanted to avoid another fight?" He held his ground. "Is this an example of how your 'arguments' started?" "I never had a chance --" she answered. "_We_ never had a chance. It wasn't that anything either of us did was right or wrong. It's almost a relief to me that it was 'destiny' that took him away. He doesn't belong here. 'It's not my fault'." The quote had a nervous giggle underneath it. "Damn. That sounds so selfish." "No--" he tried to disagree, but this whole conversation was making him uncomfortable. "We're all still trying to adjust." Well, not Lennier or Marcus. Delenn had something on her mind, but it wasn't Valen. "I think it's hurt Michael the hardest." Harder than you, he added silently. She caught the thought anyway. "I'm used to Jeff walking out on me," she shrugged. "This is new for Michael. Sometimes it feels as if he's a rival." "Oh?" Sheridan's eyes widened. He wasn't sure how to take that. On the _White Star_ Ivanova would only say "leave it" when he tried to get her to explain Sinclair's insistence that he couldn't talk to Garibaldi, even though he obviously wanted to. Later, as they approached the station she had whispered to him, "Michael is going to be very hurt. Michael is going to be a problem." Her answering stare was blunt. "They had a better relationship that we did--" She was talking about Jeff and Michael. She paused long enough for Sheridan to jump to conclusions if he wanted to and then stressed, "a _work_ relationship. Remember what I said about careers?" He nodded, not entirely convinced. Her voice changed to annoyance. "Whatever Jeff needed him to do, Michael was right there. Jeff pulled Michael out of the gutter and gave him his life back. Jeff was always number one with Michael, not the job, not ambition. So the only argument Michael ever had with Jeff was 'you're going to get yourself killed'." For the first time she looked upset. "Captain-- I'm worried about him. With Jeff gone--" she shivered, "anything can happen." "Sinclair's been off the station almost two years now." "But there were letters. Michael told me that. He was keeping him informed on the small talk, and then they were _working_ again together with the Rangers. Now there's not even letters." "He left him a message, didn't he? Michael told us he got a message, though he didn't leave one for you." "Jeff told Michael he was going and he couldn't let Michael come with him. He just said it, he didn't explain." Michael never had a choice, she fumed. Not even Michael. Jeff had to do what he had to do, and we weren't a part of it. Now Michael's lost his anchor. And the way it happened ... It's obvious Michael needs Jeff a lot more than Jeff ever needed him. That's got to hurt. And how much of that did I feel the first time I walked away? Michael _never_ walked. Without Jeff there, I don't know if he has confidence he won't fall back down to the gutter Jeff rescued him from, or fall further. She shivered. "I'm afraid he'll go get himself uselessly killed just to avoid another funeral." "Catherine--" Sheridan tried to reassure, "we've made a new team here and we're all working hard. He's had a hard knock, but I don't think he's in danger." "He's been hurt," she insisted, "and he doesn't want to be hurt again." "Agreed." There was a bit of impatience in the word, as if he wanted to say "the same could be said of all of us". She turned away, biting her thumb. Sheridan's too concerned with keeping the big picture in mind, she told herself, and she just couldn't seem to get through. Maybe she was overreacting, but she didn't think so. "Michael just wants to get it right, and he keeps getting slapped down. Again and again." Then her voice got very small, riddled with guilt. "And I'm not helping." "How is that?" he had to prompt. "'Misery loves company'," she quoted again. "Michael is miserable, and so was I when I first came on board. But I'm not any more." Not since I found out he hadn't been killed. She took a deep breath, staring at the map with it's bloody triangles. "I'm too blasted worried about my own skin. A hundred years? Even if stranded, that sounds good to me right now. With everything thing that's happening it might be that my future can only be numbered in days. And Michael-- I should have seduced him when I had the chance. Would have done us both good, to forget the darkness for a while. Oh, Jeff -- Sometimes he's just so blind." Sheridan opened his mouth, then shut it again. "What?" she demanded. "Your tenses," he explained reluctantly. "The relationships are past tense, but you still say 'Jeff is' not 'was'." "Huh," she considered. "Yeah, that's how I'm feeling." "He's dead." "No," she insisted. "He will die, but not yet. Last month he made a choice and he'll spend the next hundred years living with the consequences. I can't shove it down into one moment." Sheridan looked dubious. She smiled and did not withdraw her statement. "I guess I see the past as a place, not a time. A place I can't reach. I know it's already done, but I still see him in the process of living it." She breathed in, hands trembling. "If I think of him as being somewhere else I can't reach, then I don't have to think about the rest of it. I can pretend that what he does doesn't touch us." "What he 'does'," he repeated. "What he 'will do'?" "Yeah." Her voice shook. "That's the wall I keep running into. He lives--_lived_ in a past stable enough that he could send a letter to himself on a specific date." "The war," he whispered, seeing the direction of her thoughts. She nodded, eyes elsewhen, caught in fearful memory. Sometime in Jeff's future, she knew, he would have to make the decision not to say 'don't use "gun ports open" as a sign of respect' or to not write a letter to Dukhat. She hugged her arms to her. She didn't know how many years he'd spend trying to figure if there was a way to stop it and not break the loop, but at some point he would accept the Earth-Minbari war as 'necessary'. How could he do that? She caught a glimpse of Sheridan before she lost her focus again. His thoughts must have been the same. "When you destroyed the _Black Star_ you used remotes," she said to him. "No one on your ship was injured. Jeff lost every other man on his squad. I spent hours--years--with him, trying to tell him it wasn't his fault." For a moment her eyes went blind. "I guess it was, after all." "You think he could have stopped it," he whispered, and could barely hear her answer. "I don't think he even tried." "It was his 'destiny'," that's how Michael had explained it to her, and he obviously didn't want to accept it any more than she did. "It has always been," was the reason he gave Marcus, but she knew the reason was stronger than logic. You took that letter as a sign from God, didn't you, Jeff? What other explanation could there be, to read a letter whose words you could have never composed, only copied? Was it God? She didn't want to believe that. Nothing as omnipotent as 'God' could have anything to do with this. She didn't think she could handle a god who needed this much suffering. But Jeff would see it that way. She tried to push away the anger. She knew what he had to do wasn't easy. "You saw those photos," she said to Sheridan. The blurred, degraded remnants of the historical record of the historical person of Valen. In the nine hundred years since his death the slow decline of image quality had smoothed the features to something that was only recognizable in hindsight. "Can't you see 'happy'? Can't you see 'spiritual fulfilment'?" He shook his head. "They're too blurred." "I've had more practice. Believe me. What he's found is what he's wanted, all the years I knew him." And the universe, she thought. A thousand years ago something happened. Something was going to happen that the universe couldn't accept, but wasn't strong enough to stop. So it created what it needed, and then, later, found the need again and sent it back. The only reason it worked--the only reason everything didn't explode in a paradox--was because Jeff _believed_, and followed the signs, and didn't try to change anything. Not even the war. "Could you do that?" she asked Sheridan. "If someone showed you your life and said you didn't have a choice, could you accept that?" Sheridan took a time to answer. She seemed to want him to debate the question, to question the ethics of acceptance. No one had written him a letter, but his mind had been sent to the future. Londo had showed him the wreckage of Centauri Prime, giving him the blame for it. Delenn--his _wife_ Delenn--told him it was the future they had fought for, and for which they had paid a 'terrible price'. How did she know it was the best, the only future? How had he lost his innocence? Had he sold his soul to save his own life? Had he condemned others to die to save the life of Delenn, or his son David? He'd be damned if he'd accept that as the victory Delenn told him it was. There had to be another way. Sinclair--Valen--was shown victory and a peace of a thousand years. It was right for him to accept his spiritual calling. Steeling his resolve, Sheridan named his vision a warning, not truth. And he vowed not to let it happen, even at the cost of his own life. Looking straight at Sakai he answered, "No." "I guess that's why you're here and Jeff is gone." She said that too easily, he thought. He felt as if he were standing on the crumbling edge of a well, trying to scramble off before fate tossed him down. "Yes." "I'm upsetting you, I think." "What? No." The conversation had gone on long enough. He was trying to figure a way to end it. "You're upset I'm not grieving," she insisted. "It's OK." There was a small tremble in her voice that gave lie to the statement. "I'm not repressing. Jeff and I didn't part under the best of terms, and it's not as if he was killed in an explosion the way your Anna was--" She continued, but Sheridan couldn't hear the words. He had been trying to prevent this, to hold in his fear, but Sakai's words sent him over the edge. It wasn't the war, though the war was part of it. It was the Shadows. If time travel is possible, he finally let himself ask, what happens to my free will? If time travel is possible, can the Shadows see the future? Did they know they would be fighting me and did they target Anna to make her a weapon against me? If we had not fought the Minbari--and Sinclair knew it would happen and let it happen--then I wouldn't be the war hero and I wouldn't be the target and Anna wouldn't have been a target and she'd still be alive. Garibaldi and Kirkish--they saw a shadow ship on Mars years before Anna left on that survey. Earth sent _Icarus_ to Z'Ha'Dum knowing what was there and Anna was on the ship because she was _already_ targeted. He could feel his hair stand on end. What if Anna's not dead? What if her body's not dead? What are they going to offer me and can I resist? Sakai had stopped talking. Her eyes were locked on his, icy cold. "I poked something, didn't I?" Oh, damn, he thought. That pause was a little too long. There was no way to bring this conversation back to her Jeff. "You're flat petrified," she continued, pushing. "You're scared out of your wits." He had a sudden empathy with Sinclair about arguments. "Sometimes," he had to admit, keeping his voice low. Anything less, he knew, would have summoned the volcano. "I have nightmares. It comes with the territory." "Huh," she grunted, relaxing. It was some small comfort to know just how precarious the situation was. At least she didn't need to be distracted by false hope... and tomorrow she would be riding her ship back out into the abyss; looking for logic when there was no such thing. "Do you think the universe will tell me why before it kills me?" "Maybe it won't come to that," Sheridan said. There was a bit of Ivanova in her answering smile. "We have a hope," he tried to reassure. He had to believe that, pushing down the fear. "Can I hold you to that?" "I appreciate your help." "I appreciate your thanks." "Thank you." She tapped the table with both hands as a "you're welcome" and got up from the chair. "I'll let you get back to your work now." He almost stood to say goodbye but her back was already turned. ===end===