Oh, and:

[eye_of_a_cat]

Ask me what happens after the end of any of my stories, and I'll tell you. Or guess. Or, well, something.

Comments

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

'Elements of Consolation'. Did they ever have to process what happened?

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's followed by a lot of Minbari-level denial and the same thing happening again until S5. Or, possibly:

Lennier spends a long time thinking about it, and Delenn, and prophecies, and trying to work out a way to fit all of this into his universe without it making her not perfect. He ends up deciding that he's messed the ritual up himself by not speaking when he had a ritually-sanctioned time and place to, which would make him dishonest and tarnish the rest of the ritual. (And of course, if he had spoken he'd have hated himself for it just as much, but the idea of it being his fault either way is something he can live with.)

Delenn doesn't talk about it because she doesn't see a reason to, and if she thinks about it at all it's only in the same vague, hazy way she remembers all her moments of doubt regarding who/what she is - it was important at the time, but not any more. The first time she's really confronted with what happened is after reading the journal in OaR, which lists all the rituals he's ever neglected. (It was supposed to be a Ranger exercise in listing your flaws. He was very comprehensive about it.)

After this, she spends a long time imagining other things she could have said and done, and Lennier spends years teaching Religious Caste children; he's never forgiven the Vorlons, and he's afraid that they'll indirectly cause another civil war with the Sinclair/Valen/Valeria/Kosh thing. It doesn't happen, but somewhere along the way he finds his own kind of peace about everything that did.

After SiL he goes to see Delenn, planning to tell her how sorry he is for her loss and how much he's learned since to teach him that he never truly hated Sheridan the way he thought he did, and to teach him that forgiveness isn't something he can expect from some grand gesture for her anyway. He's surprised when she wants to apologise for something that happened so long ago, but by the time he's reassured her it doesn't matter, he's already decided that he's been away from her long enough already.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Ack, this is beautiful.

but by the time he's reassured her it doesn't matter, he's already decided that he's been away from her long enough already.

*cries, in a happy sort of way*

[kakodaimon.livejournal.com]

This untitled ficlet?

[kakodaimon.livejournal.com]

Accursed html.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Perhaps:

In this universe, Lennier doesn't leave to join the Rangers. He thinks about it, and even goes so far as telling Delenn he's thought about it, but somehow actually leaving would seem too much like a punishment and reward together, and either way he can't bear that. So he stays, and nothing changes, and he wonders when Sheridan will find out. Some days, he's tempted to tell him.

In better circumstances, Delenn would have noticed that Sheridan had guessed already. Sometimes she talks to him about prophecies, but only in very vague terms, and he doesn't know what it is she's looking for. Any time he gets close to guessing, she changes the subject anyway. It's only when she asks him whether he's still the same person who destroyed the Black Star that he begins to realise what her transformation meant to her; still, he doesn't ask what it is she doesn't want to have done, and she doesn't say.

She still sends Lennier to gather evidence on the Centauri, but that's more difficult when he can't hide it under Ranger training. He's away for longer and comes back hurt, and she divides her time between planning the attack on Centauri Prime and sitting with him in Medlab, trying to convince herself that this isn't Dukhat, the war isn't with Earth, and the past can't be the future. This almost works, until she finds out about the Drakh and sees what the Alliance ships have done to Centauri Prime.

Eventually she tries to tell Sheridan about the war, but he refuses to hear it; he knows enough to know he wouldn't be able to forgive her, and would rather not face that. And besides, they have an alliance to run. The Lennier thing annoyed him more, but still not enough to be furious with her. She hadn't realised before that conversation how much she'd been depending on him to leave Minbar and her for good once he found out. In the end she speaks to Draal about time in the abstract and hers in particular, and gets told without much room for debate that the only way she's going to repeat the past is by depending on her same prophecies to guide everything new she does, and that maybe it's time to live without any of them. Which isn't the best start to a future, but it's better than many.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Fascinating!

This meme is producing some excellent writing!