From romana@UDel.Edu Sat Jun 15 14:20:45 1996 Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 21:52:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Laura Jane Swanson Reply-To: b5-creative@lists1.best.com To: b5-creative@lists1.best.com Subject: Nightmares (spoilers through WWE 2) This is my first Babylon 5 story. It came to me one evening about a week ago and wouldn't go away until I wrote it down. Then it started agitating to get out of my notebook... So here it is. It has spoilers through War Without End 2. Those of you who have seen the episode will know what it's based on once you get into it a bit. Thanks to all of my beta readers for much help and encouragement! This would never have gotten posted without you guys! As suggested by Ari, here's a "tear-jerker warning" - it's sort of sad. Enjoy. Comments can be sent to me or to the list. Please tell me what you think - this is my first story for the list, so I need lots of feedback. Laura Jane S P O I L E R S P A C E F O R W A R W I T H O U T E N D 2 Babylon 5 and the characters, etc. belong to JMS and Warner Brothers. They're not mine. I don't mean to infringe on anyone's rights - this is just Laura Jane having fun... "Nightmares" Delenn was dreaming of Earth. She had never visited the planet; John had spoken wistfully of showing her his world someday, when things returned to normal. They had been standing on a rocky shore, looking at the ocean, when a sudden storm had swept in, catching them far from shelter. They could not see well enough to navigate the slippery rocks without risking injury, so they stood huddled together, buffeted by wind and rain. Surprisingly, given her sheltered upbringing, Delenn felt perfectly safe. John had just pushed her wet hair back from her face and bent to kiss her when they heard the voice. "John! John, help me!" He looked up, his face white with shock. "Anna." His lips formed the word, but if he made any sound, Delenn could not hear it over the sound of the wind and the rain. When the call was repeated, he looked down at her. "I owe her at least this much," he said. "I'll be back as soon as I can. You are my love, my future, but I cannot leave her alone in the storm." Delenn nodded, understanding. "Be careful, John." It had taken only moments for him to be lost in the storm. Even his calls for Anna were lost in the wind and thunder. Soaked through, Delenn decided to sit down on a rock to wait. She couldn't get any wetter than she already was, and she was tired. The wind whipped her skirts against her legs and stung her face with salt spray and sand. She put her arms up to cover her eyes. Then, below the howl of the wind, she heard a deeper roar. A wall of icy water washed over her as she was lifted, swept away - And she woke in bed, with John asleep beside her. He might deny that he snored, but now that she was used to it, she found it comforting. It had kept her awake the first night, but she had been inclined to be wakeful then anyway. Before the ceremony, she had voiced her concerns to the doctors, who had told her that it was perfectly safe for her to sleep horizontally. In spite of their assurances, though, she had still felt nervous about it. Now, it almost seemed normal, like the sound of snoring in her ear. After a few minutes' effort at calming herself enough to return to sleep, she realized it was futile. She was unable to clear her mind sufficiently for meditation to do any good. Gently taking her hand from John's, she slid out of bed. She did not want to wake him with her restlessness, not with the chaos the next days were likely to bring, with the Shadow War escalating and the difficulties of commanding such a mixed force. She picked up her bathrobe from the chair near the bed. Slipping into it, she remembered his uncertainty when he had given it to her. "I'm not trying to change you or make you more human than you want to be," he'd said, seeming afraid she would be upset. She loved the robe, though, and not solely because he had given it to her. It was both like and unlike her traditional Minbari clothing, and she knew he had chosen the color because it was similar to that of her favorite Minbari robes. She paced the length of the room a few times, restless, then leaned against the wall, looking over at him. She knew she was smiling foolishly, but she didn't care. He was the only other person there, and he was asleep, his face as peaceful and contented as she had ever seen it. Her hair tickled her collarbone where John had kissed her good night; she pushed it behind her shoulder. Half of her wished he was awake to massage the tension out of her sore neck muscles - one more very pleasant human practice to which he had introduced her - and to soothe her back to sleep; the other knew he needed the rest, and enjoyed watching him sleep. The restless half nudged at her mind, urging her to find something to occupy herself with. She wandered over to the counter and picked up the snow-globe he had brought home that evening. "I know I can't take you on a proper honeymoon for a long time yet, not until things get back to normal," he'd said, carefully avoiding the fact that they had no way of knowing if things ever would. "If I could, I'd take you to Earth, to the shore where I used to spend my summers. Until then, this is all I can show you of it." She inverted it, watching the artificial snow spin slowly to the top of the globe. Turning it back, she smiled at the peacefulness of the little scene. Within the globe were a cottage with a red roof and a white lighthouse, the image, he had told her, of the ones that had actually stood on the Cape Cod beach he wanted to take her to visit. Then, somehow, the gentle snow falling in the globe became the swirling rain of her dream. She felt a sick, hollow dread, a familiarity about what she was seeing that was not simply due to her nightmare. The door swung open. "Hello..." The voice was sweet, childlike, and full of pain. A woman stood in the doorway, lit from the corridor behind her, looking like a shadow with glowing edges. Anna. Delenn remembered her timeflash on Babylon 4. The snow-globe fell from her nerveless fingers, shattering on the rug at her feet. Delenn felt her heart breaking into the same near- invisible shards. She stared at Anna, paralyzed. After what felt like forever, John stirred, reaching across the bed for her. "Delenn, love, come back to bed," he murmured without opening his eyes. "John!" Anna's voice was full of the anguish of betrayal. He stirred. "Delenn? Where are you?" He opened his eyes, rubbing blearily at his face. Then he saw the figure in the doorway. "Anna!" He sat up, the coverlet falling. A tiny part of Delenn's mind reminded her of how it felt to fall asleep feeling that bare chest rise and fall under her cheek. Another part of her knew Anna was probably remembering the same thing. "Dear God, Anna!" He looked at Delenn. "What's going on?" Delenn saw the hurt on Anna's face when he asked this stranger rather than the woman who still believed herself his wife. Somewhere Delenn found a voice, although it did not seem to be her own. "I do not know. A dream woke me, and I could not fall asleep again. I did not wish to wake you, so I got up. Then the door opened, and she was there." She had hesitated to mention details that would make it clear that this was her home now, but had decided that it would be better for Anna to know where things stood from the beginning, if indeed this woman was Anna and not a Shadow servant. John nodded numbly, looking not at Anna but at Delenn. At last his eyes lowered, and he noticed the glass and the wet rug. "What happened?" he asked, indicating the debris as he reached for his robe. "She startled me, and I dropped it," Delenn explained. He nodded, reaching for his link. "Security," he said, "I want a team at my quarters five minutes ago. Sheridan out." He did not even give the person on duty time to reply. He turned to look at Anna. "I don't know if you're escaping the Shadows or serving them, but either way-" He stopped as she turned and fled through the still-open door. He was prevented from following by the glass on the floor before him. Delenn watched his face crumple. He looked as if he suddenly felt the weight of the universe on his shoulders. She stepped carefully around the glass to put a gentle hand on his arm. "John, I'm sorry." She was not certain what she was apologizing for, but she felt almost as heartbroken as he looked. Delenn was even more concerned at his lack of reaction when Garibaldi proved to be the one leading the security team that arrived moments later. After they had each told their stories, John summed the situation up, "I don't know whether she escaped from them or whether it was part of their plan. For so long, I wished to see her again. Then I learned of the Shadows, and I feared it. Now I don't know what to feel, and she's gone again." Delenn felt no jealousy of Anna. She too had come to love this woman who had meant so much to John. If Anna did return, whole and herself, she would find many things changed. Her husband was married to someone else now, and no longer loved her the way he once had. Still, that did not mean she no longer held some place in his heart. Love, Delenn knew, is a flexible and changing thing. Garibaldi frowned. "I don't like it. There's no record of her coming aboard. No one fitting her description has come through security. John, I know she was your wife, but appearances sure suggest she's working for the Shadows." John nodded, putting his arms around Delenn. It was meant to seem a protective gesture; only she knew he could not have stayed upright without her support. "I know," he said in a low voice. "That is what I expected. What I feared." Garibaldi's link beeped. Zack's voice. "We just had an unauthorized shuttle launch, Chief." Garibaldi swore. "Intercept it!" "Too late," Zack said. "It'll be through the jumpgate before we can get to it." "She's going back to Z'ha'dum," John said heavily. "It's too late for you to do anything, Michael." John and Delenn stood together in the darkness after Garibaldi and his team had left. "I have to go after her," he said at last. "If there's any way to save her-" His voice broke. Delenn felt him take a deep breath before he continued. "You are my wife now," he said firmly, "but I still love her too. It's not the same, of course, but I have to try to save her. I owe her that, at least." Delenn shivered. The words were almost an echo of her dream. There was nothing she could say. He led her back to bed. "In the morning, I will go to Z'ha'dum." He lay beside her, clinging to her as to a rock in a storm, his tears on her hair like salt spray. He slept at last, but Delenn lay silently wakeful much longer. She wanted to remember every moment, every breath, for she knew he would be gone when she woke. She knew that even if he did return somehow, he could never be the same. Her own tears only fell as the wave of sleep finally swept her into nightmares again. ___________________________________________________________________________ Laura Jane Swanson romana@copland.udel.edu "My home is not a place, it is people..." -Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold ___________________________________________________________________________