B5 fic

Sep. 19th, 2005 12:33 am
eye_of_a_cat: (Default)
[personal profile] eye_of_a_cat
As promised, with a BSG ficlet still to come.

Title: Missing
Rating: Um. PG?
Spoilers: up to and including Objects at Rest (S5).


"Wait," she said.

Snow was beginning to fall again, fading their footsteps into white. She held up a hand to feel the cold wind twining through her fingers.

This place was not hers, but she knew it all the same. There was a fountain with steps half-hidden under drifts. There were trees, splintering black branches against the sky. There were buildings carved from crystal and curving paths, and beneath her feet the square would be paved with white, just as Lennier had described it. This was a calm place, a peaceful place. It would be a good place to come during Ranger training, to reflect, and pray, and rest.

John had stopped a few steps ahead of her. Winter in Tuzanor was hard for him, and he pulled his scarf up against the cold and rubbed gloved hands together. He said nothing, and he waited until the last of the light began to fade before taking her arm to leave.

~


The life she had not been able to imagine was not a difficult one. The Alliance struggled and faded and then grew again, each time stronger than before. The new Grey Council led wisely and well. In Tuzanor she was Entil'Zha, and Warriors bowed to her as respectfully as Religious. There was no one to call her Satai, although sometimes she imagined she could hear it all the same, spoken in Lennier's devotion or Neroon's contempt.

Her son was born the year they arrived on Minbar, growing healthy and strong despite the predictions of both his worlds. He met everything he saw with the same calm blue gaze, and laughed the first time she showed him the stars.

There was no word from Lennier. Without him, she watched Minbar heal and the galaxy stumble towards peace. The memory of Shadows and Vorlons, of shattered worlds and manacles around her wrists, grew distant, and sometimes it was difficult to imagine any other life than this.

~


Lennier's family elder watched her in silence for a long time. "We were concerned," she said.

"I understand." Rain was hammering at the windows, and the room where they sat was half in darkness.

"You were the first Satai to be expelled from the Council in three hundred years," the elder went on. "We did not wish Lennier to be dishonoured or brought to harm through following you." Her voice was iron, but her fingers tapped an uneven staccato on the table. "Was he?" she said.

"Never." The same answer every time she asked this question herself. "He brought you more honour than I can say. Twice he risked his own life to save others, and once to bring comfort to the dying. He helped me to defeat the Shadows and bring our world to peace. He could see the path ahead even when I could not, and he never doubted. Without him I would have been lost."

The elder nodded, considering this. Finally, she said "You speak very well of one who failed you."

"He never failed me." And then, "Have you spoken to him?"

"Once. He told us that he had betrayed you and the Rangers, and that he was not returning to Minbar. You would know why, of course?"

"An accident on board our ship. He blamed himself for being unable to protect us." She had told the Rangers on board the same thing. It should have been true. "If he contacts you again, will you tell him that I would very much like to see him?"

"As you ask." The elder got to her feet quick and sure, and ended whatever had begun with a bow. "We are glad he served well, Delenn. Thank you for coming here."

"The thanks should be mine," she said. "I owe you more than I could ever repay for sending him to me, and for never ordering him to return."

"We did," the elder said.

There were children playing in the rain outside as she left. They stopped as one to watch her, and none of them spoke a word.

~


That night she held close to John, face pressed against his neck and hands moulded to his back. "He never meant you harm," she said.

"He meant it that time."

Three years of silence, of the weight of that one moment hanging unspoken between them. Three years of remembering him in fragments. She never spoke his name where David could hear, and rarely even to John, letting his absence sound louder than both their memories. She never imagined he would be gone this long.

"One moment," she said, and the twist of discomfort in John's neck might just as easily have been her own. "If it can mean so much, surely a lifetime of service can mean more?"

"Service to you." There was no more anger in his voice, and that was worse.

"To me," she said. "To the causes we fought for. And to you. He lost those from his own family on the Black Star, and still he was willing to trade his clan's honour for yours."

"I know that. I know." His breath came ragged and torn. "What he did - it's done, okay? Nothing's going to undo it. Nothing's going to cancel it out. If he comes back, we'll talk, but this isn't getting us anywhere."

If he came back. Wherever John imagined him would no doubt be better than the place he was, hidden alone and ashamed where he could believe he was not forgiven. He seemed more distant now than he ever had. If he came back, he would be out of place in a world that could close so smoothly over his absence; what need in Tuzanor now for anyone from the time of Shadows and war, let alone an aide who loved her? And yet, what troubled her most about that if was the realisation that she could think the same. He would never have stopped searching for her.

"I wanted more for him than this," she said.

"It wasn't your fault." John's heart beating beneath the palm of her hand, alive, alive, alive.

~


In the fourth year she went back to Babylon 5. The dull metal walls, the noise, even the crowds that pressed around her in the docking bay, were the same as she remembered. She had missed this place more than she knew; it was her home, as much as Tuzanor would ever be, and for a strange moment she regretted leaving John and David behind.

Vir greeted her with a bow and a sudden, hastily apologised-for hug. Without either suggesting it, they walked together to the gardens. "I meant to visit last year," he said, "but we had that Drazi thing, and the reconstruction, and, well, Londo, and there's just so much..." He waved one hand in the direction Centauri Prime might have been. "Just so much."

She had heard, of course. The damage done to the Centauri could never be erased completely, but Vir had never turned away from all that could be mended and rebuilt. She remembered the first time she had seen him, stumbling over words as Londo barked a reprimand, a world away from this certain and confident diplomat.

And Lennier, who had been his friend. For a moment it seemed so clear, but when she asked Vir shook his head. Not one message, not one word, not in all these years.

The garden was less comfort to her now, and the ripples that spread from one stone in perfect, widening circles no longer brought her peace. On the day before leaving she went back to Downbelow. The dark, musty bar was just the same as it had been five years before, and she sat for a long time in the metal caves of abandoned ductwork, remembering.

~


In the fifth year she travelled further than she had ever been, eight days in hyperspace to reach a small, half-empty handful of words clustered near the Rim. This was the last world the Shadows had reached. If Lennier had fled as far as he could go, his journey would have ended here.

The Vorlons had left the largest world intact, destroying only one of its colony moons. She could not tell whether they had planned more; half the planet's surface was blackened and charred, but people still lived there all the same. They watched her from a distance as she passed.

"There have been Rangers here before," she said to the only leader who would see her. "Were any of them Minbari?"

Impossible to tell anything from the flick of black membrane over mirrored eyes, the cold, modulated voice of the translator. "No Minbari. Not here. After what they have done."

She frowned. "The Minbari never harmed your world."

"Minbari. Vorlons." It tipped its head to one side as it looked at her. "You were their knives for a thousand years. We remember."

"We would -" she began, and stopped. Even the ground at her feet was burnt.

~


In the sixth year, she sent the Rangers to search for him. They found nothing.

~


She stayed unrecognised on the Brakiri homeworld. Cloaked, hooded and silent, she was only one more outline in an endless crowd of pilgrims, and no-one saw her leave the path before reaching the city.

Night came slowly, the sun sinking into a sea of fire over the hills. Summer and still warm as day as she knelt in grass scattered with white flowers, waiting. The comet was barely visible at first, then a brighter smudge in the darkening sky, then a blaze of light between the stars, brighter than any she had ever seen.

A hand on her shoulder. A voice from a time long gone, saying her name.

She knew, of course. She would have known before seeing his face, even before he spoke. But she could not make herself believe it was true, and a whispered "Are you real?" was all the words she could gather.

Dukhat smiled. "I imagine so. Either I am real or you are hallucinating, and I would be very concerned if you had developed a habit of speaking to your hallucinations."

"No." But if she moved, if she reached for him, she might be dreaming all the same. "How can you be here?"

"Are you truly interested in the mechanics? I would disappoint you, at any rate. I understand them no better than you do."

He was the same as she remembered, if remembering could ever keep more than echoes, and an old grief came back with all the fire she had used to forge it. Half-choked with tears, she no longer cared whether this was happening or how much she imagined; if this was Minbar, if they were in her rooms on the Grey Council's ship, if she could will away thirty years in the span of a breath, it was a small enough price to pay.

"Delenn." His hand, warm as her own, touched her hair and came to rest on her changed face. "What is this?"

"Prophecy. We fought the Shadows, as you said."

"Tell me."

She closed her eyes. "It was difficult to learn that the humans shared our souls. At first we lost time, and they grew to hate and fear us. Kosh showed me the truth. I have given up my place among the Nine and heard the others call me outcast, and I have spoken with Valen and sent away the Shadows. We were broken and united, and we are no longer the people you knew. The Shadows and Vorlons have gone beyond the Rim; our prophecies are completed, and Valen's work is done."

"And mine, then." He watched her, curious, searching. She had never tried to keep anything from him. "Yet you come here to talk to the dead."

They were half in darkness now, the night growing colder. She rested her head against his shoulder and felt his breath warm against her face. "One," she said. "I have been searching for him. But if he is not here, then he is still alive."

"You can't be so sure of that."

"You never knew him. He would find me."

"Then why must you find him?"

There was not enough time until sunrise, not enough even if they could talk for days beyond that, to explain everything Lennier had been and everything he should have become. He was barely more than a child when Dukhat died, his life and work shaped by a war whose influence she could never describe in words. "Because he was our hope," she said. "And I failed him."

Dukhat was a long time in answering. His voice when it came was quieter, a thought more than a question. "Did I fail you?"

"No," she said, glad that he could not see her tears. The wind sighed through tall grasses, carrying the distant shouts and laughter from the valley below, and this was enough.

"You always believed in the prophecies," he said. "You could see where all others were blind. This was your gift. Now you search for what you cannot see, and tell me the past is done."

Done, but not finished. "You told me once that searching is a holy thing," she said. "You told me that a people with no true seekers would lose their way. I will search as long as I am able, and if I never find him, perhaps I will have learned enough to deserve a place by his side in another life."

In the circle of Dukhat's arm, she could rest and look up at the stars. A thousand points of light, a myriad of worlds where he might be, and between them all nothing but shadows.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-18 11:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] deborah-judge.livejournal.com
Squee!

The life she had not been able to imagine was not a difficult one.

I got that. And it hurt.

Oh Valen, you're breaking my heart with this fic.

It should have been true.

That's our Delenn, re-writing history the way it should have been.

"You were their knives for a thousand years. We remember."

Yep. The Minbari were just like the Drakh, only more genocidal.

Ack. There are too many painful and beautiful lines in this fic to count. I am shattered by the end. And then this:

perhaps I will have learned enough to deserve a place by his side in another life."

*cries*

You broke my heart when it was Dukhat and not Lennier in the last section, but I can see that's how it has to be. It's this chain of destruction going on from teacher to student. Delenn didn't begin it, and she can't end it.

I don't know if she will be able to be with Lennier in a future life, not after this, any more than Dukhat can be with her.

Do you know where Lennier is? Or do you not know either? Gods I want a happy resolution to this, but I just can't see one.

Ack. This is so beautiful, it's everything about the Delenn/Lennier dynamic that tears me apart and is just so right. I'm so glad you write this.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 02:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Thank you! This was the story whose ending I couldn't work out - I wanted it to end without her finding him, but with some kind of conclusion. (The happy alternative, of course, would have been for that to be Lennier in the last scene, and them for him to turn out to be alive. But that wouldn't work so well with the rest of the fic.)

It's this chain of destruction going on from teacher to student. Delenn didn't begin it, and she can't end it.

I'm really glad that part worked. It seems to be B5 fanon that Dukhat's relationship with Delenn was ideal, so it's Lennier's fault things went wrong the second time around, and, um, really? I can't imagine Vir starting a genocidal war if someone killed Londo.

I don't think I know where Lennier is either. (In an earlier draft Vir gave the impression that he might do, but on reflection I think Delenn would have seen that and got it out of him somehow.) Hopefully not trying to get himself killed... It's the same kind of problem as with the happy resolution, that it's difficult to see any way it could be conclusive whether they were apart or together. I think you'd need to be as good at revisionism as Delenn is to make it work either way.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 03:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] deborah-judge.livejournal.com
It seems to be B5 fanon that Dukhat's relationship with Delenn was ideal, so it's Lennier's fault things went wrong the second time around, and, um, really?

Why, why is fandom sometimes so insane?

I don't think I know where Lennier is either.

My hunch on a re-read is that he changed his name, disguised himself, put all this behind him, and married Mary Sue. In other words, that the Lennier that Delenn loves so wrongly no longer exists and therefore can't be found.

But the ending is perfect, because she takes her angst back to the person it came from. Her hope about being with Lennier in a future life sounds like typical Delenn self-deception, but I can't help but hope she's right anyway.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 04:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Why, why is fandom sometimes so insane?

Maybe it's the Minbari thing? Since they're the good guys, and they all agree that Dukhat was the best Minbari that ever lived and all bad things they did were not remotely his responsibility, etc., then he must have been as perfect as Delenn says. Although he was pretty dismissive of the Warrior caste Satai in In the Beginning, and that can't have helped the leadup to the civil war. I wonder what would have happened to the B5 universe if he'd survived?

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 04:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] julsiggy.livejournal.com
That was beautiful. Not enough people write Lennier-based fic.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 02:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Thanks, and hi! And yes, there needs to be far more Lennier fic.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 05:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] julsiggy.livejournal.com
Hi! I guess I never did really explain myself, heh. I came across your journal while searching for Lennier fic, because I am in love with him. *cough* Yes, well...ha ha. So, I read some of your stuff, loved it, and added you.

I'm not really a Delenn/Lennier shipper...but the concept intrigues me. Sometimes I just like to read about an alternate universe where Lennier gets the girl, so to speak. :o)

Keep up the great work!

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-20 07:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Glad you like my fic! Being in love with Lennier is right and good.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 01:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] selenak.livejournal.com
Oh, that is beautiful, and stunning. All of it, but the meeting with Vir and with Dukhat at the end touched me most deeply.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 02:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Thank you! I wonder if Vir ever did find out what happened with Lennier in Objects at Rest? I can't imagine Lennier ever telling him, though.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 03:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jo-lasalle.livejournal.com
Came here through [livejournal.com profile] deborah_judge's journal; this is so beautiful and sad. Lovely.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 03:11 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-19 04:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kakodaimon.livejournal.com
While like everyone else I love the writing and impact of gloom, what I liked most was the dodge of too-blatant wish-fulfilment. One of the few fics that seems to abide by one of JMS's own writing principles, which was something along the lines of "you can't give the audience what they think they want"...

Alas.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-20 07:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Thank you. I tried to keep it somewhere between happy-ending and big-epic-tragedy-finish, but Minbari characters seem predisposed to veer towards the extremes...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-24 07:49 am (UTC)
ext_18428: (every footstep)
From: [identity profile] rivendellrose.livejournal.com
Oh, that was painful and beautiful and true, all the things I've come to expect from your writing. I love the bit with Dukhat at the end - her relationships with Lennier and Dukhat really strike me as two sides of the same coin in a lot of ways. Not to say that Delenn had the same feelings for Dukhat that Lennier does for her, I don't think, but that there's a level of devotion there that English knows only the word 'love' to describe.

I'm going to go sniffle and worry over the fate of Lennier, now. And hope that I can somehow find a way to make him come 'home,' if only for my own sanity and satisfaction.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-25 08:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

I don't know if Minbari just go in for really intense relationships in every respect, but Delenn's relationship to Dukhat seems to have been incredibly powerful. I did consider fleshing it out a bit more here, with her telling him about the war and her role in it, but I couldn't make it work in my head that way - maybe she never would have told him, the same way I'm guessing she'll never tell Sheridan.

(Delenn's relationship with Dukhat is Reason #1 on my long long list of reasons for hating my least favourite B5 fanon idea - if you've not come across it yet, it goes something like 'Humans are a lot more emotional than Minbari, and Delenn's personality post-transformation, plus her relationship with Sheridan, are all mixed up because she doesn't understand this strange human thing called love.")

And hope that I can somehow find a way to make him come 'home,' if only for my own sanity and satisfaction.

Lennier fans are contractually obliged to write at least one redemption!fic, just so you know ;)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-25 09:41 pm (UTC)
ext_18428: (every footstep)
From: [identity profile] rivendellrose.livejournal.com
If I've run into that particular bit of fanon, I must have blocked it from my mind out of sheer frustration. If anything, what we see in canon indicates that they have stronger emotions than humans, though they might burn out more quickly. Fits of rage and temper seem to be almost commonplace among the Minbari - Delenn's genocidal fury after Dukhat died, certainly, but also the near-disaster after Branmer died, Lennier's angry response when Marcus pushed him a little too far in Ceremonies of Light and Dark... even the rangers' comment that Marcus was 'carrying around a lot of repressed anger' indicate that these are hardly people who don't experience strong emotions. Rather, it looks like they experience them fiercely, feel them as a firestorm almost, and then resume life as usual once the passion burns itself out.

I don't go much for the idea that Delenn's personality changed along with her body - that idea bothers me for a multitude of reasons. If anything, I might accept that she was more able to express a lot of things as a half-human than she was as a full Minbari, because a lot of things are socially unacceptable for a high-ranking religious leader among her people.

Lennier fans are contractually obliged to write at least one redemption!fic, just so you know ;)

And I will happily fulfill that requirement, as soon as I can find a way that hasn't already been played to beautiful and full conclusion by someone else! That's the trouble with finding so many wonderful writers working around one character - it's hard to find things that haven't already been done so well that I wouldn't want to embarass myself by following the same theme. ;)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-05 03:13 am (UTC)
ext_18428: (Grey)
From: [identity profile] rivendellrose.livejournal.com
Just wanted to drop a note to say that reading this again is such a beautiful, bittersweet feeling.

I will search as long as I am able, and if I never find him, perhaps I will have learned enough to deserve a place by his side in another life.

Yes. That's just perfect. ♥
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