From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.eduSat Jan 13 18:28:30 1996
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 18:38:18 -0600 (CST)
From: watkins julia k <julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply to: b5-creative@blob.best.net
To: b5-creative@blob.best.net
Cc: watkins julia k <julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: "Penultimate" (a B5 nightmare)

This is for Karl, desperate for fiction not debate.

Here's my JMS-HAS-ME-SCARED nightmare. (I really did dream this,
a few days after watching PtG for the first time.)
    Warning: this _is_ a nightmare, so it doesn't so much end
as fade out unresolved. What I've done here is put words to a
sequence of wordless emotion.
    Justin's comment was "Julie, calm down."

I wrote this last month, but I haven't posted it yet because I 
have 4 (or more) stories that happen "before" this. I keep writing
out of order. Posting this means I have to give away the result 
of my Anna Trap story ... and it still might be confusing. But 
the responses I've gotten have been good, so I will make the 
"sacrifice" of giving away a surprize (it should be no surprize
that I want Anna to live).

What has happened before: Anna Sheridan was found alive and 
rescued from the Shadows "somehow". (That story will be posted
once I finish writing it, possibly to the adult list.)
She and John are exchanging handwritten letters that travel
circuitous routes and often arrive out of sequence.

It would be neater if I could describe this mood without
pulling Anna in and muddying the waters, but I wasn't able
to figure a way to make this independant of my other stories.
I'm not going to plot the path from my Anna Trap story to here
because this is too damn scary. Not to mention unlikely:
This story goes to the end of the arc, but it's only to the
end of the Shadow War, while jms has more planned beyond the
Shadows, from what I can gather. 
   
Have a shiver, but don't take this seriously.

===============================================

                "Penultimate"

In happier days Delenn would have looked for John in a garden.
There were none in this place where they had fled to when the
station was lost to them. This one room had been left clear to
be for memories. Alone in the dark, one could imagine that hid
in the shadows was all that one longed for, just out of reach.

John was sitting in that place, in the center of the darkened
room, sitting on his heels before the single dim light. He was
still, as if meditating. He held a creased paper in one hand.
Delenn knelt and sat beside him, facing him, leg touching leg.

"A letter from Anna?" she asked.

"Yes. I needed this today."

"Is she well?"

"She sounds scared. She's pushing through it. By her number there's
two I haven't received yet. Maybe they'll come later. Probably not.
I think one was lost with _Lotus_." He folded the paper carefully
away. "I dreamed this morning." Delenn's breath stilled. "Anna--"

A good dream, she hoped, but then saw the hollow of his eyes.
"No."

"I saw her. She was sitting--" --as he was sitting-- "--before my
grave. Yet, not a grave. There had been nothing left of me to
bury." He took a long breath, eyes still forward. "Anna sat before
my stone, as I never sat before her's. She said 'good-bye' and
kept on living."

It was a long time before Delenn could answer. "A good dream,
then," she forced herself to say. "There will be at least some
left to remember."

"What Kosh told me--it will need to be soon now or we will lose
our last chance. I fear Michael is going to be a problem. He's
seen too many people die."

"He's already come to me. He wants me to stop you. I--"
Delenn's voice caught. "I made sure he took my answer the way he
wanted to hear it. When the time comes you must be gone before
Michael or Paul know a ship is missing." Paul who had taken over
for others lost before him. "They mean to stop you. You won't be
able to convince Michael to let you go."

"No good-byes."

She shook her head, unable to speak. His arms surrounded her and
she clung to him and the veiled dream of her waking came clear:

        A dream.

        In hurtful, angry fire.

        Three ships.

        Occupants: Delenn and crew. John. Michael and Paul. Delenn
        had the one ship that could run away home.

        One chance, waiting.

        Z'Ha'Dum.

        Two men argued.

        "Come back!"

        No answer.

        "Now, Delenn!"

        She ordered retreat, stranding all, drawing enemy eyes
        away.

        A moment of cruel beauty.

        Two ships returning. Michael had been rescued. Delenn's
        ship was unmarked.

        Accusations.

        "They didn't have to die."

        Silence for an answer.

        It was her turn next.

Delenn held to him, drinking in his scent, the warm touch of his
hands on her back. John was too close to the fire now to feel
anything but gentle warmth from her. He held her as she wept.

===end===

===================================

        *       Z'Ha'Dum        *

===================================

         "Aftermath" [fragments]

        ...

Michael turned his back on Delenn, but didn't leave the room,
caught between chasms of "no friends" and "you let John die".
   "Michael, do not close me out. Not you. I cannot bear it."
Unrepentant, she would not explain. Still, what could he do but
forgive?

        ...

Another senseless sacrifice. If there had been any purpose to
her death, or John's, it wasn't anything Michael could see.
Delenn, how could you do this to me? How could you trick me into
helping?
   His world had both expanded and contracted. Endless stars,
a shrinking haven of ships, but home--what they fought for--it
survived. It would be enough to rebuild; he wanted to believe
that. One brilliant flash of hope--that was what they saw before
they burned their bridges behind them, trapping the evil as well
as themselves.
   God, dear God. Don't let me die before I know why.

===end===

====================================

--Don't ask me what happened. That's all the nightmare showed me.
Woke me up 4am in pitch black. I don't think I wanted to know more.

Comments, anyone?

Julie / julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu