Babylon 5 1. Disclaimer

Someone told me to go disclaimer and time line (somehow) the working of this story so far. So far as story goes it's:  
  
Broken, But Good (found outside this link but in fanfiction file)  
  
A Few Dates and I Would've Married Her (found outside this link but in fanfiction file)  
  
The Phoenix Ascendant Arc:  
  
Act I:  
  
From The Ashes  
  
Smoldering Embers  
  
Arise the Flames  
  
Intermission  
  
Act II:  
  
In the works  
  
The main brunt of this piece, no matter how long it gets will be titled The Phoenix Ascendant Arc. This is a post B5 TV series, the telepath war, and Lyta's voyages with G'Kar, all of the story set in their timeline and not an alternate universe time line. So you can say, in the give or take, it's probably been between five and seven years since the show ended and this tale begins.  
  
I claim no ownership over those people, ideas, places, history owned by JMS, though I do claim my own. I claim writer-ship on characters inspired by friends, but the ownership rights of those characters belong to those people. I claim the ideas, foibles, and plot bunnies that will a bound after you click for the next page, but I also attribute them at the same time to the people who have inspired me.  
  
Such as Anonymous, Gok, C Sullivan, Rebecca, Melissa, Dale, Erica...and a few dozen others.  
  
I hope you enjoy the story and if you feel it touched you either way, I'd love to hear feed back. 


	2. From The Ashes

Phoenix Ascendant ~*~ "From The Ashes" Part One  
  
"And there he was up to his ears in blue slime, and I couldn't even do anything but laugh," She finished, chuckling along with her companion.  
  
"I'd pay for pictures of that," he said, as he stopped laughing, still grinning wide and took a sip of his drink. He looked over the people, as was habit after working security so long, and then back to her. "I guess it was a good thing you two traveled together. No one was quite sure whether the two of you would do well together."  
  
"We didn't get along for the first year, at all. Even a while after that." Lyta said looking very hard at the table, like she might be taking it apart, or do some hard equation in her head. She looked up again, liked she snapped out of being dazed and half smiled, one side of her lips curling slightly.  
  
"Traveling with G'Kar..." she said pursing her lips, thinking for a second, the effect scrunching small lines on her forehead even though she didn't realize it. "Was rather like traveling with an eccentric, noble uncle."  
  
Taking another bite, she moved the fork in the air for a second and swallowed her food. "It wasn't always easy and sometimes it was only slightly better than the prison cell, being stuck in that small craft with no one but the two of us, but somehow it got better."  
  
"It sounds like you had an interesting time," he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, and folding it to put it on the edge of the table. "What was your favorite part?"  
  
"Favorite?" Lyta echoed for a moment, leaning back in her chair and lacing her gloved fingers together. "Probably learning over a hundred languages."  
  
"Over a hundred?" He asked, astonishment written all over his face, trying to figure out how she could even say it. That would take so much time in many ways. Even with years, it couldn't be over a hundred. Could it?  
  
"Yes; over. I seem to have a knack for just picking them up." She said, smiling just slightly. "The first time it amused G'Kar, the second time it amused me, a few time after it was actually rather useful, too, more than amusing."  
  
"You just picked up a hundred languages?" Zack asked incredulously.  
  
"I learned the first one while I was sleeping. We had arrived at this planet and the next morning I could speak their language fluently. As if I'd been raised there all my life," she replied, smiling just barely from where she was leaned back in her chair.  
  
"From then on it just got easier and easier each time we came to a planet. I took up a study of most known ones at that point, to over come, the more than occasional, travel boredom, too. I learned all of them with a spectacular speed."  
  
"Whew," he laughed, slightly amazed, but at the same time somewhere in the back of his mind he regretted hearing all the little things. They all added up more and more things to a file on her. A worry about her on the station. What could be done by her and how easily. Her file was so thin and sparatic as was. "What a favorite. What was least favorite then?"  
  
Lyta might as well have felt her skin turn to ice at the memory that it brought to mind. A cold shiver ran straight down her spine and she could see it in the back of her mind. That fight. That silly, stupid, child's fight. The explosion of that beautiful star.  
  
"I'd rather not-"  
  
Beep-Beep.  
  
Zack tapped the communicator on his wrist, trying to figure how bad could be with how crest fallen Lyta's expression had gotten suddenly. Cold and very alone, like no one might be near her for miles. He wondered how much better she truly was suddenly, too.  
  
"Allan here."  
  
The communicator answered faster than Lyta's halfhearted and faltering smile at his mouthing of an apologetic 'sorry'.  
  
**Chief, you might want to get down here. We found another body in Brown Sector. Same as the last two.**  
  
He let out a breathless sigh, before tapping the wrist communicator again. "I'll be right there." Letting go, his expression torn, he said helplessly, the way he didn't usually seem. "Sorry about this, but I better get down there."  
  
"Understandable," Lyta said, having not yet moved from sitting back in her chair, looking much too understanding for the way she felt, one hand resting on the anchored bottom of a necklace chain under her shirt. "You go. I'll get the bill."  
  
"Thanks," Zack replied, giving her a grateful smile. He strode off a few steps, before turning back toward her. She hadn't moved yet he noticed and then she did, but only to pull her napkin off her lap and toss it on the table near her.  
  
"Hey, Lyta?"  
  
"Yes?" She asked, turning side ways to look at her with a curiously concerned expression.  
  
"There's a dinner tomorrow night, a celebration for one the new ambassador's," he said, trying to breathe at the same time he spoke, gathering some courage. Why did some things never change no matter how much time passed? "I was wondering, if you don't have other plans, if you'd like to come?"  
  
"I wouldn't mind, no," she said, wondering if he was okay. He was supposed to be going to investigate this murder already. To leave her to her shaken up thoughts about that star system. She never did try to think of that day often.  
  
"Great, it's-" he stopped short of finishing the sentence, flushing slightly as his cheek warmed in reaction, and he started again. "Ah-I'll see you then. I'll come by around nineteen hundred."  
  
Lyta watched him head off in hurry. Almost in more of a rush than he'd needed, like he was fleeing her presence. She took a deep breath in and released it slowly, trying to release her mind from the images of the star, telling herself she was over reacting. If he hadn't wanted to be near her, he wouldn't have asked her to come out tomorrow. He wouldn't be even trying to make sure she was doing well while she was here.  
  
He was rather a good friend considering.  
  
Probably the only one she had here.  
  
Not that she needed to have one.  
  
She learned that long ago.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About the same time )  
  
The world around him lurched, swaying in consistency from steel to water. His grasp on the world was the ebb and flow of existence and he was only a speck inside it all. Slowly it came back to him, ever so slowly, and yet so much faster than the first times.  
  
The first times involved entire hours of black out, incredibly painful migraines, and a sense like the entire world was completely wrong everytime he opened his eyes. He hated it, but that hate only drove his reasons further into him.  
  
The way was right. Anything, everything, they did was for the good of the future. The right ways. The right out come. Nothing else mattered.  
  
He moved his arms slowly; adjusting to the fact he felt like he was swinging his arms through gravity times four from his normal. He moved his fingers aligning his fingers to the feeling of sludge. He opened his eyelids several times feeling the cement that raised over eyes of a bright hue.  
  
Yes.  
  
To the future.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Fifteen hours later )  
  
Lillian stared at the computer screen like it had a life of it's own. It was running through static's programs and tests of all kinds on samples from the three latest men brought in.  
  
She'd manage just in time to neutralize a sudden and very surprising out break of the Banta Flu before it could spread. Surprisingly convinced Captain Lockley to stay in bed, even though the woman was quiet against recuperation from the Banta Flu, swearing she was fine even when she couldn't walk straight or stand without leaning to a direction. She'd managed to give Vir Cotto one more lecture, this after noon, on how fast food wasn't good for his dietary track and his esophagus.  
  
She even settled a few dozen other small problems, too, so why couldn't she find the missing link in these cases?  
  
They were identical almost exactly. All of them middle aged men in the primes of their lives. All of them Lurkers from DownBelow. All of them in perfect health it seemed until they had a brain aneurysm out of the blue. There was no cause and effect to question even after a dozen tests. She was looking for a needle in a haystack. She had at least one or two person in each different staff working on it, and still nothing.  
  
"Dr. Hobbs?"  
  
She looked up after a second, to see one of her newer male nurses staring at her a bit concerned. She wondered how many times he might have said her name before she looked up. The computer was still moving below her line of vision in her peripheral, but she knew it was getting no where.  
  
"Something new?" she asked giving the room a glance around, and noticing it was rather quiet.  
  
"No, ma'am. You told me to remind you when it was a few hours from the dinner, so you wouldn't miss it" Jeffery Stewart said with a slightly hurried sound to his voice.  
  
He was new and nervous to be here. This was Babylon 5 after all. The central hub of the most widely known galaxy spanning news and largest changes in the past ten years. He was fresh from Earth and it was much like being country boy all over again. There was no past to stand on in this busy world in the middle of neutral space. No way to know exactly who he was supposed to be impressing or helping, so he just did what he signed up to do really.  
  
And, for the most part, that was just fine with him.  
  
"Thanks," Lilian said giving him a reassuring smile. She blew a deep sigh up of annoyance at her hair around her face and shrugged. "I'll have to continue on this after I get back. Make sure to keep me informed if anything comes up. Anything at all. "  
  
"Yes, ma'am."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Give or take a few hours )  
  
Lyta couldn't even remember the last time she'd gone to a dinner very clearly. Not something up to the scale of what she had been invited to. So sitting there in a dress that cost more than her normal suites, she couldn't help but feel already out of place, even by herself.  
  
Somewhere in the back of her head she could still G'Kar's nagging about it not hurting to spend a few credits here and there on herself when there was so much. She rarely spent anything on herself. Food, shelter, clothing and the rest went where it was supposed to, because she didn't need frivolities. He forced the issue a few times and she ended up with things.  
  
Just like now, when he wasn't forcing the issue except in a memory and somehow she ended up sitting there in a jeweled gown waiting for her door to ring, wondering just how stupid of a scene it would really appear to be. The dress was beautiful. That was a given, but she still wasn't sure she should have bought it. It was just one lousy dinner. What else would she ever wear this to? It was already ostentatious enough that she'd gotten this room when a smaller one would have done just as well.  
  
A glance at the screen of the Bab-Com reminded her she needed to listen to and return a few messages that had been waiting earlier this afternoon even as she continued to run her hands lightly over the material of the dress. A pair of matching gloves and a sheer black over jacket still lay over the side of the chair next to her, but for the moment she could enjoy a small amount of freedom.  
  
Very, very far within her she could admit to small amount of silly, childish joy at just sitting there in the dress, at just knowing it was hers, and knowing she would get to show it off. Of course, most of these thoughts were dismissed the moment they were found, but every once and while they continued to pop up.  
  
The dress was a soft cream shade, which accented the color of her skin perfectly, with a thin black shear running over the entirety of it. In the black sheer was an intricate pattern design of small black beads that glinted in the light. It was made to have a skirt that poofed out around her, a style from years past on Earth, that had surprisingly looked good when she tried it on.  
  
At least the storeowner had said so. It just reminded her of how thin and how pale she seemed to herself in the mirror. Sometimes she could almost forget looking into the mirror that she wasn't still that girl from so many years ago, but the haunted eyes and the million unseen scars would never let her believe that for long.  
  
Even dressed up like someone's toy princess, with delicate ribbons in her hair, she was still just a demented creation of the Vorlon's. A doom's day device wrapped in silk and satin, like a bomb wrapped in a shiny paper with a pretty bow. Pulling on the jacket and the gloves, she truly wondered, whom she thought this was really fooling, because it was working in reverse on her.  
  
In fact -- Of course, the door ring would come now, she thought half glumly. Right at a good point of self-analysis. She stood up slowly, willing her subconscious to be a little quieter than it had a habit of being over the last few years.  
  
"Open," she called out to the door as she picked up the gloves off the arm of the chair and started slipping them on, not looking up to see Zach's completely stunned expression.  
  
"You-" Zack's words faltered when she looked up from tugging at her first glove. She looked like she'd step straight out one of his dreams. She looked so beautiful it hurt to breathe. She looked perfect, if a bit awkward in the way her expression sat waiting for him to finish. "You look wonderful."  
  
"Thank you," Lyta replied, sheepishly, taking it as a good heart compliment. She gave a moment to way he looked, dressed up in a more formal version of his uniform. "You look nice, as well."  
  
Everyone complimented everyone dressed up, it was after all protocol, so she really didn't think about either compliment all too seriously. It just made her realize how many people might stare at her. It also made her reexamine once more, as she finished with the second glove, just how many people who'd seen her years ago, would suddenly realize she was there before their eyes once again.  
  
"Why thank you, Miss Alexander," Zack said starting to smile. He'd taken forever to get ready. To feel ready. To think that he wasn't out of place in every way, shape and form. "Ready?"  
  
That was the dangerous part of the game, but she wasn't anymore afraid now than she was then.  
  
"I suppose we should be going, shouldn't we?" she said, picking up a small black purse on the coffee table in the center of the room and giving into the fact this was all actually happening for or against her better judgement. "I wouldn't want to make you late."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Twenty or Thirty Minutes Later )  
  
"It's such a lovely celebration," Vir Cotto said, pressing his fingers together at the tips. He tapped them every few seconds like a silent applause, though he had decided it was more of a nervous habit for the young Centauri years ago during many dinners. "Don't you think?"  
  
"It is-" The Minbari said slowly. "-quiet a learning experience."  
  
"Is a learning experience?" Vir asked sounding affronted, turning to look at the man at his left. "Is that all you have to say? At the dancing? And the clothing? And the ceremony?"  
  
"It's new and different, the entire thing is very-" he shifted slightly to look at the performers in front of him. "Enlightening."  
  
"Enlightening. A Learning experience," the Centauri said the words like they were small curses, even as his lips quivered to a vague and amused smile. "Maybe one day I'll understand how you can use such words looking at such overwhelming beauty."  
  
It was all of those things though. A learning experience, an enlightening new spectacle, a ceremony of light and color, a brand new world sharing with them all it had to show. The two continued on in quiet conversational comment every few minutes, but mostly enjoying each others company and the show before them.  
  
"Oh! Oh, is that-" Vir said, suddenly, pointing towards a small group of people within the twenty feet of the door. "The -uh- Vorlon telepath? What was her name?"  
  
"Lyta," he replied from the side, as his eyes surfaced across the ripples of people to find the one woman who could still look completely alone in a room of hundreds. "Lyta Alexander."  
  
"Isn't she supposed to be dead?" Vir asked, leaning toward his companion, and talking quieter like he feared being over heard.  
  
"Those who die at the same time have a habit of being reborn around the same time, too," Lennier said with just the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes.  
  
"But you didn't-" Vir mumbled and then flushed, a soft, and mostly unnoticeable, pink to the edged of his hair black hair, as he got it. "Oh. You mean. So that's where you were during all those silent years?"  
  
"For a few of them," Lennier replied, glancing back to the red haired woman nearer to the door than the party. It was very her, by retrospect. Closer to a route of escape, than a willingness to be too far from her safe retreat and experiencing brand new things.  
  
{Nope.}  
  
"If you'll excuse me," he said to the nodding, and very obviously curios, Ambassador of Centauri Prime. Though by leaving that moment he missed Vir's sudden facial confusion and his look around for a moment flounderingly.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Zack walked beside Lyta tentatively as a schoolboy.  
  
He said his hello's and told those who asked questions all about how work was, whether things were going well, and about the fact no one was quiet sure what was going on down below soon. He added, confidently, each time that he was sure they'd now soon though.  
  
{Nope.}  
  
Lyta shifted uncomfortably he noticed and looked around them, just as a few others were doing at that same moment. He thought he'd heard something but looking around he noticed he was wrong, too. He opened his mouth to tell her a joke he'd planned hours ago.  
  
"Chief! Chief!"  
  
A woman came rushing up to them. She was dark skinned and light eyed, with a look of astonishment and panic to her eyes, and her brain patterns. Her dress was dark blue and it hung off her shoulders accenting her bare skin quiet nice.  
  
"You have to come with me now."  
  
Zack looked from Lyta to Doctor Hobbs, wary expression taking his features, as one hand raised instinctively to his weapon. "Woah, what's happening?"  
  
{Nope.}  
  
"Hmm?" Lyta registered quietly and curiously, as Zack looked a touch confused and this time not because of the person in front of him.  
  
"We've found something new about-" the woman gave an odd look to the woman next to him suddenly. A looked that changed into a queer look at her like someone trying to place her face. She didn't look away, but felt the subject dropped for something more important as she looked back at back Zack again. "Perhaps we should talk about this in private."  
  
He cleared his throat, uncomfortably, and looked at Lyta, "I'll be back as soon as I can."  
  
Watching the two leave together she swayed slightly, trying to place what it was that was rubbing her the wrong way. It wasn't either of them and it didn't seem to be anything in the room. It seemed to be...in the air?  
  
"Neech sak schneck, slem ba, Lyta."  
  
She turned around surprised, the wash of feeling adrift softened by the face she met when she turned. It made her lips quiver and curl at the edge, even though it never made it to a smile. But he didn't need that smile. It was enough. Her eyes were lighter, more comfortable, too.  
  
"Neech sak schneck, slem ba, Lennier," she replied to him softly.  
  
So soft in fact that he thought it echoed in the sound of the air she expelled saying it. Or perhaps it only echoed in his mind. It was so rare for the woman standing before him to call anyone friend, and only after one seemed to banter it around and hit her with it first.  
  
"You look," Lennier started watching her face change from comfortable back to looking withdrawn, so he finished with what he usually tried to finish with; honesty. "lonely and out of place."  
  
It earned the very wisp of a smile that only made a one or two second dash across her face. She had place for the truth and after a few dozen compliments to her dress and her looking radiant, she felt more out of place than she knew what to do about. She was not a princess dressed up.  
  
"I meant to stop by earlier," Lyta said, reluctantly.  
  
"But things got in the way?" He asked queerly, like he was paraphrasing something and it got the another faint smile out of her.  
  
"I hear you've been named liaison to Babylon 5 to speak with Delenn's voice, and to be her eyes and ears here, as well as the president's," she said, as she followed him inward a bit of the way to a table in buffet style. "You weren't as unwanted as you suspected originally."  
  
"You sound pleased with this?"  
  
"Yes." Lyta folded her hands together even as she eyed a small section of fruit on the table before looking back at his face. "You need something to be fighting for and, regardless of anything else, you'd rather be doing it in her name than anyone else's."  
  
As he started at her levelly, about to look away, she continued to speak, and her words ensured that he didn't look away or lock her out either. She realized in speaking that it had been too long, and, as weird as it felt that she had missed  
  
"Even if it is a another way for you to repent, to her," Lyta said picking up a plate from the end of the table and floating it two inches to her hand, a thing few people noticed. "For what you've let haunt you all these years. It's commendable, but it's also, inspiring."  
  
For someone so controlled, he seemed rather unsuited suddenly, even when he spoke to change subject. "And what was it that inspired your sudden return to Babylon 5?"  
  
Lyta looked down this time, a habit still ingrained in her from so long ago. She looked down, almost passively, even after years of being anything but passive. It was the same question that had troubled her for each of the nights she'd been here. That same question that echoed into the darkness of her thoughts one and on into that screaming silence in her mind.  
  
"I'm still learning what I came here for." Lyta stopped mid sentence, her lips forming an "o" and that happened to be the next sound that came out.  
  
{No- Ah ha! There you are! I was sure you were here and now I've found you!}  
  
{Melissa?}  
  
{The one and only! Were you expecting someone else?}  
  
"Lyta?" Linnier asked, concern lacing into his voice, as he reached out to lay a hand on her arm gently. She waved him off, only speaking softly to ask for a second and he watched her.  
  
{What are you doing here?}  
  
{Well, not partying it up the way you are. That food looks delicious.}  
  
{What- Why? Where are you exactly?}  
  
{Remember where the shown down was? Remember where the strike was staged?}  
  
Lyta's face seemed to fall and all he could do was watch and wonder what it was. The obviousness that he was missing something was plain as the air between them. He didn't wish to know what it was that made her face fall, but he wondered what it could be to make her go through so many reactions simultaneously.  
  
{Yes. I remember.}  
  
"Lyta," the touch at her shoulder grabbed her attention. Sudden and pressure wise, spinning her to one side. Her eyes raised to see Zack standing there, and shifted between him to Lennier to back to him. "Sorry about that. I didn't think anything would come up this time. Stations been quiet most of the morning"  
  
She touched her temple for a moment and realized the girl was done speaking. It was quiet, too quiet almost. Too quiet for the shock that was still having repercussions in her thoughts. How many? And why? And why there? No. No, she couldn't. And Zack was talking about his apologies once again. He never failed to be sincere but sometimes he could over state too well with the dripping sincerity that wafted from him without words.  
  
But Melissa, here...now...and not just here and now, but there, too. That place she had avoided so well these few days no matter how many times she thought about it.  
  
"I need to go," Lyta said abruptly, and both of them looked at her suddenly for her words in-between others speaking. Zack's expression relayed shock, but Lennier didn't seem even surprised, almost expectant.  
  
"Now?" Zack asked.  
  
"Yes. It's important." Lyta held out a hand to Lennier that he took. She squeezed it and nodded. "I'll see you again soon. I promise."  
  
"Be safe," he said, holding her hand a second longer than perhaps was needed, till she tightened her lips a small bit and nodded in response, too. After that he did a turn and walked his way back to the table where Vir sat talking to the Ambassador on the other side of him.  
  
"Zack, I'm sorry," She said shaking her head. "But I have to go. Now. Something's come up." And then suddenly it hit her, she knew she shouldn't, but maybe, just maybe, she should. There would be less trouble later and it already had the possibilities of exploding in her face.  
  
"Actually," she stopped and looked at him warily suddenly, "On second thought you should probably come with me."  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Where have you been?"  
  
A young woman launched at them suddenly from a doorway. She had soft red hair in a flip style, bright eyes and a completely animate face. She was all movement and enthusiasm, as she seemed to explode from the doorway with the kind of energy you wished for at this time of the night doing all nighters.  
  
"What took you so long?"  
  
Zack couldn't help but smile at the girls' liveliness, but it was Lyta's demeanor that kept him from a full-blown smile. She'd gone for looking shocked to looking almost too displeased. The air was tense just walking with her while she wouldn't explain what was wrong except to say that something had come up and that it wasn't a good something either.  
  
"Wow. That dress is so cool."  
  
She definitely was very energetic though, but he didn't understand really what it was she needed him here for. There was a small group of people here so far as he could tell, who didn't look that much different from much of the people in down below. He knew he was missing a few things, but what he had didn't amount of much so far.  
  
Lyta's first words were heralded by the entire silence of everyone there, so sudden that the silence was deafening, and the eyes on the two of them could have made it like they were center stage at the moment. An middle aged woman dressed in a ball gown and a young woman dressed in space aged stellar wear both staring at each other like no one else was even in the room.  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
The girl seemed to almost begin to pout. She bit her bottom-lip for a second, fighting off the pout and her expression became more determined.  
  
"Because I was tired of being left behind to wait?" The girl shifted warily, her spiral-bottomed coat shifting around her ankles with a rustling sound. "Besides you said you were thinking of stopping by here and I though what better place to show up and surprise you?"  
  
"I told you that I would send word when it was safe," Lyta said stiffly, her arms crossed over her chest. The tension in the air seemed to be mounting by the moment.  
  
"It doesn't help that when you say that you think at the same time that it's not safe now and it might not be safe anytime soon, if ever. It didn't help then, it doesn't help now," the girl said crossing her arms, almost mimicking the woman in front of her in perfect post. "I'm already here now. So the why's are mostly irrelevant anyway."  
  
"And how did you do it this time? Jump ship? Hide as a stowaway? What were you thinking? What about Telepath Integration Laws? I thought you were going to follow them and not break waves," Lyta said, her voice starting to rise, and Zack noticed that the room seemed to be getting warmer, too.  
  
"It's already done now," the girl repeated, stubbornly. "The how's and why's are irrelevant."  
  
{Brat.}  
  
{Assassin.}  
  
{Insolent Child!}  
  
{Cold hearted bitch!}  
  
The edges of Lyta's lips twitched faintly for a second, as she remembered the original fight those words had all come from, and her lips screwed into a half smile, half smirk. "I've missed you, too."  
  
The way they went from daggers shooting out of their eyes to the smiles he couldn't guess what exactly had passed between them, but he knew something had.  
  
Zack wasn't chief of security because he the slowest of people, exactly the opposite. He'd been groomed for this job, almost literally, in ever sense except for formality by Garibaldi. He'd understood how hard it must have been for her to be taking him where she had been after all those years and everything that happened here, so he was kicking himself for not seeing it about fifteen minutes ago.  
  
The shock took longer to adjust to than figuring out what that one thing he hadn't understood was. He was standing in a room full of telepath's. There was a collective of telepath's on Babylon 5 and they'd all gotten here without anyone realizing there were here, too.  
  
The girl fell into Lyta's arms and he watched them hug. He couldn't be sure but in those few seconds before they parted she was probably the most relaxed he'd seen her face the entire time since she got here. He had only ever wished that he could be someone to create that in her, and somehow he felt sometime very akin to jealousy watching them.  
  
He watched Lyta then go person by person. She said each of their names, hugged them, shook their hands or placed a hand on their shoulder, she asked them questions about their lives and how they were. She kneeled on the ground, regardless of the dress, to hug children, places kisses on their cheeks, and laugh about the little things they told her. She cooed over babies in arms and laughed at things that were obviously said only between two or three of them and all of it not aloud.  
  
Standing somewhere inside the door but only by about fifteen to twenty feet, he was uneasy to even be there. He had no idea what was going on and whether what he'd suspected might be a minor problem having Lyta on the station had just blown completely out of proportion with this new turn of events. Even the fact that he wasn't alone in this surprise and she hadn't know as well, was comforting. They'd done it around her knowledge, which meant she was running nor controlling this group. It made him wonder if they were following the new regulations for telepath's at all.  
  
"Zack!"  
  
He looked up at the outburst of his name, flushing slightly in embarrassment for his thoughts on first coming back to looking at the person who'd called his name. Had she heard what he was thinking? Was she disgusted with all of the things that were running through his mind? She hadn't seemed to notice, he decided, as she was waving him to the back of the room.  
  
"Uh- " he started, but he didn't have anywhere to go with the sentence, he was knee deep in speculation and possibilities that could blow wide open, the ways this could go were unlimited. "Yeah?"  
  
"Melissa says she wants to show you her new trick," Lyta said, lacing an arm under his, as she felt slightly fatigued. Her head was filled with the blissful sounds of familiarity, family and the sensation of it all wore down her need to be strong, tall and independent. She felt safe, secure and, very suddenly, exhausted.  
  
"Melissa?" Zack barked, louder than he expected. It had come out louder because he was suddenly surprised to have Lyta lace her arm into his and rest her head against his shoulder. All she did, though, was raise a finger to her lips, say "shh" and point to the girl sitting on the floor in front of them. It got him all sorts of jittery though. Here she was middle of a telepath den laying her head on his shoulder and covering a yawn with gloved fingers.  
  
Melissa apparently was the name of the young woman with the red hair and animate face who she'd been arguing with earlier. She was now sitting on the ground in an Indian style position, on her coat with parts of it spread around her by a hap hazard way of sitting on the ground. Her elbows rested on her knees and from behind she seemed to be focusing on a toy top laying on it's side in front of her.  
  
He thought it was his imagination that it seemed to shiver every few seconds, until it rolled across the ground slightly. His breath caught in his chest and he realized that familiar thundering silence had returned to the room. It was like no one was breathing at all. The toy spun along the ground not getting off one of its side being on the ground. Melissa let out a huff of air and a stretched suddenly, tilting her head, like she was trying to doing something.  
  
And just as suddenly it happened. The top jumped off its side. It was standing perfectly still and upright on its point. It began to spin slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room erupted with sound suddenly, among the many; laughter, applause and the sound of soft crying.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"And Trinity was the one with the new born twins," Lyta said counting off on her fingers, a smile on her lips that hadn't seemed to vanish for a few hours now. "Her husbands not here. Apparently he's on Earth training to be in Earth Force as part of the third wing of telepath's let in. He's always dreamed about being able to flying."  
  
She was talking on and on about all of them since Zack had asked one question. It felt so marvelous once she'd gotten over being surprised by a small collective of them being here. It was only about twenty people, give or take the number of kids running around with them at the time.  
  
"Oh, and Dorien, the one who stayed in corner with his book, he was freighter captains' right hand man for so long. He was born a space boomer to a pair of completely normal parents. They never wanted to let him go so they just hid it from everyone and told him he wasn't different until they couldn't hide it from him any longer. He is much happier knowing who and what he is, but I think he misses the life on the ship going new places and old places all the time."  
  
While walking, her pointer finger balanced on her opposite hands ring finger, she said aimlessly. "I think that's all of them."  
  
"Not quite," Zack replied. "You forgot to tell me about Melissa."  
  
Lyta's smile quieted but it seemed to sit more inside her eyes now than in her lips. A calm, pleasant expression for the few seconds when she said nothing at all. She had, an undo novelty and adoration in Melissa, and it went both ways. After so long, after what had passed between them, it wasn't surprising they viewed each other almost exactly like true family, though to others they rarely let it show.  
  
"Melissa," Lyta started hesitantly. "Is a tough case sometimes and not others. Her parents died during the Telepath War, which isn't too surprising, many of our people did. Melissa, though, has blocked all of her memories of her parents since the first time she ran away from Psi-Corps back when she was fourteen. It seems as though if she can't remember them she doesn't have to face the fact she was the one who found her parents."  
  
"Poor kid," he remarked, shaking his head. No kid should have to go through that.  
  
"She's special though," Lyta said immediately after, her voice harder and lower. "Gifted."  
  
"Yeah, I had been meaning to ask you about that," Zack said, radiating more uncomfortably without even realizing it, adjusting one part of his collar. It was late, he'd be up early for a shift, and he still didn't know what he was going to do about all of this. He had to do something, of course, but what? "She's-"  
  
"Telekinetic," she answered, nodding, as they continued to walk towards her room. "Psi-Corps used to test us, anyone who came out of the program whole, desperate to know, to learn how to control and use it to their advantage. Melissa was fourteen the first time she realized she could move something very small if she focus her entire being on it. The next week was the first time she ran from them."  
  
He tried to find something to say but his words seemed flat in his mind. What could he say? That he was sorry she'd had a short and very hard life so far?  
  
"She's been lucky though," Lyta continued on, as if she hadn't noticed his silence, turning the corner toward her quarters, her voice growing stiff. "Unlike others."  
  
Zack looked from her to where she was looking at harder than he thought she could after this evening. His eyes followed to where he gaze was and the weapon at his side came out the next moment. The door to her room was hanging open, the room beyond it completely dark and ominous. He glanced at the woman next to him, lips pressed tight, fist balled, and he began wondering if it was his imagination or if it was getting warmer suddenly near her.  
  
She watched him slide up to the door and tell her to wait, but she didn't. She went right past him, and even as he exclaimed for her to wait, moved into the room. It became lit immediately, simply by her will of it. The light was blinding and then went to normal. If she had been mad, it changed in an instant. There was no one here, she knew that on entering, but it was the scene around her the got her even further mad. Her entire main room was a wreck, she knew the two side rooms would be the same.  
  
"Damn," she heard Zack swear behind her, gun still in held upward in his hand.  
  
"It's not here," Lyta whispered softly. It was the sound of rage, like the coming of a storm spoken in thunder.  
  
"It's not here," she said louder and the room did suddenly feel warmer, as her hand clutched through the fabric of her gown to whatever hung at the bottom of that necklace chain, yanking at it. A crash sounded a room away, then three or four simultaneously small crashes sounded from the back of the room they stood in as glasses exploded in the kitchenette.  
  
"Lyta?" Zack asked hesitantly moving to touch her shoulder, as he noticed she was beginning to shake.  
  
She sidestepped him the second before his hand could touch her shoulder. He watched her storm toward the wall and slap her hand on to the Bab-Com.  
  
**Two Messages Waiting**  
  
**First Message Now**  
  
"Lyta, its Susan. What do you think your doing-"  
  
"Stop message," Lyta said, tersely, seeming to forget the fact Zack was even there in the room with her. "Create connection to General Ivanova personal channel."  
  
**Access Code Required**  
  
"Alpha Nine Three Seven Eight Teep," Lyta said through almost locked teeth. She was getting worse and worse by the moment. Her mind was a black cloud that was only growing darker and darker and darker. It blanketed any thought and emotion around her senses, making them easier to hear, easier to ignore, easier to use as fodder to the fire that was building inside of her.  
  
"General Ivanova." The voice came but the screen was dark.  
  
"It's Lyta. Get a secure channel." The Bab Com beeped, disconnected and went blank.  
  
"Look, Lyta, I should call this-" Zack started up.  
  
"Don't even think about it," she replied almost too quickly, without even looking at him where he stood behind her. She'd stop him if she had to and, though she hoped she wouldn't, the best hope and possibilities of her people's future rested on the fact she would if she had to. "If you try-"  
  
"Secure channel. Lyta, what's-" The Bab-Com jumped back to life and the picture came with it this time. It showed a weary, long worked Susan Ivanova dressed in normal regulation uniform with her hair pulled back tight. Her eyes had bags from not getting enough sleep and her expression was drawn in concern. Her eyes brows arched getting a look at the two people in view. "Nice duds. Is there something the two of you need to tell me?"  
  
"Save it for another day," Lyta spat at the screen moving out of the way to let her see the ruins of her room. Furniture torn and tossed, tables up turned, the contents of shelves in piles next to the shelves on the floors. "We have a bigger problem. They've taken TEEP!"  
  
Susan's face radiated in reaction from bad to worse across the entire spectrum, then it blanked; all of it almost too fast to be seen, barely a few registered seconds. She moved from sitting up straight to learning back in her chair. "What do you want me to do?"  
  
"Susan Ivanova, don't play games with me," Lyta started, sounding more irrational and outraged. "You worked to get TEEP just as hard as I did. If we loose it now -to them of all people!- you'll feel the loss the same as they will. Their your people and it's you future, too!"  
  
"Lyta," Susan said gently, though her expression was suddenly drawn very tight, angling her line of sight from her to Zack and back to her. "Perhaps we should discuss this alone."  
  
Zack wasn't sure at all what was going on. This night had become so much more involved than he'd ever imagined early that day just over joyed. He'd imagined dancing, food, and just lighthearted conversation. He hadn't imagined a colony of telepath's, a sudden upturned room, a missing something and sudden spiral downward into something he hadn't the vaguest idea of that seemed to have just blown wide open on his station...but he did know one thing.  
  
"Mr. Allan won't be revealing any of our secrets."  
  
He was positive it wasn't what he knew so far the worried him most. It was Lyta. The way she was standing there in front of him dressed up like a queen, her arms leisure but strict at her sides, her face drawn tight, hair almost seeming to float around her head and shoulders, eyes wide and black with a ring of white light around them.  
  
"Right, Zack?"  
  
To Be Continued....  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Neech sak schneck, slem ba" means "I am your friend, in peace."  
  
It's one of many traditional hello's in Minbari. 


	3. Smodering Embers

Phoenix Ascendant ~*~ "Smoldering Embers" Part Two  
  
He watched careful to stay silent. Silent as if he was nothing. No thoughts. Only eyes. Only a feed back loop to the others while he sat silently, so silently in that booth. They wanted to see, to know, to hear, and to be present, without the endangerment.  
  
In this fleshly, oily, sweaty body, he adjusted himself, with the idea of cutting off the bodily feelings and influences. He didn't like this one so much as the last one. It wasn't as good taken care of and it was run down, it was weathered, beaten, and unnoticeable. Which was exactly what he needed right now, not what he wanted though.  
  
Ah, there she was finally.  
  
She looked gathered, but unhappy. Not in an obvious way at all, just in the way she carried herself and seemed more withdrawn than she had before. Or perhaps it was the almost visible red cloud that hovered around her mentally. That gave out these warnings signs for feet in every direction. She was a thousands thunderstorms packed into such a small amount of space, giving off such an intensity it was a marvel everyone who was near her didn't feel it.  
  
He gave him shivers down this oddly made body even and made him wonder why he'd ventured to be the one to come be here this early morning. No one had seen much of her for two days since the...incident. He hadn't been specifically involved in it, he was only involved by association really. He would have loved to have done it though. He wanted to. The thought made him grin slowly, crooked, and drooling.  
  
He would have made more of a mess. Done all sorts of dirty things to her room. They had been so tame with what they had done. They could have done so much better. They could have done it to where it would have hurt her more. After raping her of something she spent her life seeking, they could have decimated more, hit her even harder. They need to inspire more-  
  
Moving again, to follow her, but not close. Not close at all. Have to let her stay focused on her anger and her impatience. But whom was she waiting on? And why had she stayed hidden most of the last two days? And the crews that came and went in her old room, what were they needed for? And the new room, why was it buffered so completely?  
  
Calming his thoughts he watched the line that trickled out of people from the newest arrival flight. She stood there, glued to her spot waiting. She might be talking to whoever it was, but to try and get into her mind to listen was too dangerous. It was whispered too much about how easy it would be for her to do anything from that point, and how no one knew just exactly how powerful she really was.  
  
Especially after that explosion at Psi-Corps that was supposed to have killed her under floors and floors of rubble. The rumor was that out of hundred she alone surface alive and unscratched, covered in white dust from everything, looking like an angel on a battle field.  
  
Ah. Ha. Companion. Long dark brown hair. Blue Earth Force uniform. Rank? Huh. That was a pretty hard string to pull no matter who you were? How was this woman involved with the little red haired teep twit? And why?  
  
Heh. It wouldn't matter anyway. He liked the fact they were talking quietly to each other with concerned and angry expression. It made him feel hot. He knew they were talking about what they'd stolen from them. What they'd taken and that they could never get-  
  
{BASTARD!}  
  
Shudders ran through his body suddenly. His vision blurred, his mind was a complete spasm of pain and red light and it all came back with instant shock. The voice had been like the power of thunder warmed over by a thousand, so much so that he hadn't heard the word so much as inhaled the meaning from the voice as it almost forced him to pass out. He wished he had when he could see finally.  
  
The flamed haired whore was staring at him from across the entire floor, her eyes black and the air all around her black, stream lining toward him. He realized just about then he couldn't move his entire body. He felt like he was in a well of gravity that kept getting stronger and stronger. He felt incredibly scared and without even realizing it, he wet the dingy pants he had on.  
  
He had to let go before he couldn't. He had to get back to the others. He had to let go before she killed him. He had to get back to his body. He had....He had....  
  
He screamed out, the sound ripping through all the hustle of the large area between them, and fell to the floor.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( An hour later )  
  
She waited with an impatience that wasn't limited. In fact, it actually seemed to grow with the passage of time that it took for the waiting to finish up. Sitting in her chair, she filed through bueratic paper work like someone who'd done it since they'd been born. It wasn't calming her. It seemed really only to get her more and more annoyed at the entire situation.  
  
Why was there no paper work on this?  
  
Why hadn't she been informed the moment it was known?  
  
She looked up as someone cleared their throat to find herself meeting the eyes of her Security Chief, Zack Allan. Just perfect. The one person she wanted to see. She stood up as he shifted leaving one arm at his side.  
  
"You needed to see me?"  
  
"Yes, I wanted to ask you a few questions," Elizabeth said, walking to toward one wall. She called out to the room. "Computer Screen on."  
  
She didn't look at the picture on the wall, but the vague wince that touched his face, said that it got the message across just as fast as saying it. So she turned back to the wall.  
  
"Run picture sequence." The was a sequence of security shots of a certain individual. Arriving at a certain gate. Walking near the Zocollo with a certain Security Chief. Standing at a dinner talking to certain ambassadors.  
  
"Perhaps you can clear something up for me, Mr. Allan," Captain Lockley said turning around to face him. "Do you know who this woman is?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am." Zack said reluctantly, knowing he was in for it now. "That's Lyta Alexander."  
  
"Good, Mr. Allan. Then can you tell me why she's not in a holding cell right now?"  
  
Her eyes drilled into him as she watched him think. It was as if it all passed across his face and she started to talk as he opened his mouth to give her what she guessed would be a feeble, and unwanted excuse. She'd been steaming too long over this. It had been almost an entire week since she got here!  
  
"That's what I thought," she said crossing her arms. "What about why I wasn't informed of her arrival, presence, or the dealings with and of who she had in the time she's been here? After all the woman could be a damn clone, or a million other things, for all we know, she's supposed be-"  
  
"She's not dead," Zack finished like steel, in rebuttal, trampling right over the end of her sentence.  
  
"And you'd know? Because you know her so well? This is no time for school boy crushes, Mr. Allan. I have a station to run," she said turning to point at the screen, not caring how hard she stepped on his toes, and look back at him, "And that woman, even more so if it is her, is a danger to this station."  
  
"She hasn't done anything to merit being-"  
  
"The hell she hasn't," Lockley swore at him, as she rounded her desk. "All of what we went though the last time she was here. She swore never to return and that was her one and only way out of returning to Psi-Corps to face charges on their account and ours. Do I need to remind you of what she's done in the past, if it is her? Or the dangers to the station, if it isn't?"  
  
"No." Zack said, steeling himself. This was going to be hell. He knew what was coming, he hadn't a way to stop it, and didn't know how he was going to do it.  
  
"Have you read the security report your guys did for the past hour yet?" She said throwing it at him with a bite, when he shook his head, she had to keep from yelling again.  
  
"Let me see if I can phrase this properly. There was a 'disturbance'," she said using her fingers to emphasize the word even as she was getting quieter and louder as she went about telling the story. "With the arrivals. After the arrival of one of our Earth Force Generals, the late commander of Babylon 5, Susan Ivanova -who I also wasn't informed was coming aboard prior to arrival and is mysteriously missing now- a man started screaming. It lasted for about two minutes and then he passed out due to strange circumstances."  
  
"Strange circumstance involving this woman, who ever she, he or it might be, who there are over thirty witness that can claim to have seen her and seen that she wasn't acting normal at this same time," Lockley finished, placing her hands behind her, her face flushed and expression angry.  
  
"I want her taken into custody now. If you can't do it, I'll find someone else. Do you understand me?"  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About the same time, give or take, twenty minutes)  
  
"You do realize just vanishing, isn't going to help your case, right?"  
  
"It's not like you up and offered to stay and give a statement, yourself," Lyta responded from the kitchen, where she couldn't she her at present. "Cream? Sugar? Anything?"  
  
"Just straight black," Susan replied, as she shook he head, thinking that that the stupidity of that stunt needed to earn her some vodka in her coffee. "That'll get me in trouble soon enough."  
  
"I don't have any vodka, or any anything, since switching rooms yesterday." Lyta said airly, as she walked out with two cups, and handed Susan the one with coffee. She took a single chair to herself, her two bare hands holding the cup with tea above her knees. "So hopefully the coffee will suffice for now."  
  
"Thank you. It's not going to be easy to explain vanishing with you," Susan said after taking a sip of her coffee. "That I'm not a hostage, there was a reason I didn't inform Captain Lockley of my arrival before hand and a sensible reason for not staying to make a statement the moment something happened upon my arrival. Earth Force will want a report coving the reasons for all of this and my disappearance at the scene of a-"  
  
"Disturbance?" the red haired woman near her offered with a rue laugh. "Crime scene?"  
  
Susan forfeited her intensely troubled look when Lyta suddenly smiled. She guessed it was from her expression, but she wasn't quiet sure. When Lyta was actually, fully comfortable, she sometimes had the habit of almost behaving like someone younger.  
  
"Won't be half as bad as my results," Lyta said, the odd smile staying, even as she contemplated her tea. "I'd done well at not making myself too known. When I heard him, all those thoughts about stealing TEEP, hot and heavy wanting to have done worse, I just wanted to--wanted to-"  
  
"But you didn't," Susan said firmly, though she wondered if the woman sitting catty corner from her could be pushed far enough at one point to. After all she'd seen already, the idea was bad enough to hope she never saw it reach fruition. "Did you get anything else from him?"  
  
"Yes," Lyta said softly, like a slow sigh. She pulled her teacup up to her lips and took a long sip from the cup. She'd learned too much and nothing from his mind, all the bad thought jumbled with the self-preservation ones, all tinted with anger and darkness from hers, as it festered. "I know where his body is, and where their sanctuary is."  
  
"Why didn't you say that before now?" She asked, launching up with her cup. "We could have-"  
  
"Done nothing," Lyta said frankly, as she adjusted her hands around the warm mug, liking the warmth it placed in her skin. Long ago during that traveling she'd realized some parts of her deep inside would never be warm. Never again so long as she lived. "Their gone now, if they weren't the moment I realized who he was."  
  
"How can you sit there so calmly after what they've done? Don't you just want to," Ivanova broke off, her hands clenched, having moved from a position that looked like a chokehold.  
  
"You haven't seen the state of disarray my original room is in," Lyta replied watching the fiery Russian in her swinging movements before she started pacing with her coffee cup. The first room had some minor problems in it now. Nothing fatal or life threatening to the station, but there were some structural damages to the place that weren't easy to explain.  
  
"That bad?"  
  
Lyta shrugged, but didn't look away from her companion's eyes, when she responded openly with, "I've done worse to a place."  
  
The memory of a large explosion sat between them only jarred when the door beeped and Susan looked toward it.  
  
"The security chief and two of his officers," she spat. Her lips formed a thin line for a second, one hand clutching her cup with coffee in it.  
  
Lyta took a slow, deep breath in through half clenched teeth and nodded her head very vaguely. She knew what was coming. She'd known this was coming when she'd step on the station. It wasn't enough to hope that it wouldn't happen, especially once she'd been found out. She'd been surprised it had lasted this long without happening.  
  
"Open," she called out, her voice neutral but her mind tinted with annoyance. Only one other person in the room could hear the long sting of curse words in varying languages she didn't say out loud. It was the intent that got that person through on the languages they didn't know, too. Looking up to Zack and the two other men in the door, she must have looked the least dangerous thing in the room. A woman sitting in a living room chair sipping from a cup.  
  
Her one winning point though was the self-recrimination that sat in Zack's eyes even as he stood in the doorway focused on what he was there for. The other two she didn't know, didn't care about, mostly she was meeting only his eyes. Egging him further on in a task he felt so ill suited for that he felt physically sick. He didn't like doing this. He regretted doing this. Yet, he was there, in person, himself, doing it.  
  
All over again.  
  
"Lyta, we need to-"  
  
You need? Why is it always about what 'you' need? What about what I need? I have bigger problems than you do right now. I have problems so big you haven't even an idea how big it gets. I am missing the biggest discovery of my people, possibly one of the biggest discovery of time, and it's always about the same thing;  
  
What you need.  
  
"I know," she said, looking away from them, her voice completely lacking emotion, though her brown eyes narrowed on the trio in the door. Standing up and holding her cup to Susan, who as she caught her eye, was shaking her head. As she took the cup, Lyta didn't look away from her to them, as if she were ignoring the other three people in the room.  
  
"You don't have a room yet, do you?" Lyta asked, as if everything was fine. She didn't look away and she asked for nothing the way her expression sat. It was only the echoes behind her thoughts that were darker. She didn't look around the room, only brushed her bare palms against each other, and laced her fingers together.  
  
"I'd like you stay here, since I have a feeling I won't be needing it for a while." Turning, just barely toward them, she reached out to Susan. Her touch was even tentative after years of knowing her mind, and perhaps it was because she knew her that she touched so softly, speaking in the faintest echo.  
  
{When I'm gone, take him there.}  
  
{Lyta!}  
  
{Take him.}  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Two Hours Later )  
  
She was there and she wasn't; all at once.  
  
Physically she was still sitting in that chair, in perfect posture, with her hands together on her lap, her eyes open staring foreword. Meta- physically she was everywhere else, near and far, stretched out to her furthest limit, free of the mortal coil that she clung to only by a thread.  
  
If you looked at her through the monitor it seemed she barely moved. Her chest rose and fell in such a very small movement. Her eyes never blinked. Her hands never trembled, and her legs crossed never swayed even slightly. Aside from the smallest movement of her chest, she could have been a marble statue sitting in the room.  
  
She was where she wished; somewhere very far away and never gone all at once.  
  
Painstakingly questioned by Zack, till she though he might break through the line of superficial red tape standing between them when she wouldn't answer certain questions but he didn't, she was more than annoyed at the entire situation. He kept dancing around the situation, like a moth and a flame.  
  
She always knew she made him edgy, so why had he played at being fine till today? Was it simply a game? Or was it just that he'd stayed by her side so he could keep tabs on her till they decreed to not let her out of this room again?  
  
Days and hours and minutes being lost in this charade. The knowledge of how easy it would be to break this room in the palm of her hand. The room hadn't changed any. A new picture, a different type of chair, several different psionic echoes and the memory that every inch of the wall, every inch of this prison cell, hadn't changed in all the years she'd been gone.  
  
Here it was always noisy, whether it was the people, or the echoes of the people, but where she fled to, there was silence. Brief but completely silent, and staggering in a limbo between the two was a soft form of hell, a shattered comfort. She listened to the lull of that which only she was privy to hearing now.  
  
Stars sang in the long endless night and no one listened to their songs anymore that she knew, save herself. All those races that had learned how, vanished into the night, beyond the rim. And, yet, the stars sang on. As they had before life, as they knew it, had begun and as they would when life, as they knew it, was gone forever.  
  
{Do you ever stop and list to yourself and realize just how depressive you can sound?}  
  
Her eyes blinked suddenly, which was accompanied by a discordant sensation inside of her, and a sudden long string of swearing.  
  
{I'm not sure what you just said, aside from the fact I know it would have burnt me black, but right back at you.}  
  
Lyta stretched in the chair realizing her back hurt on one side and she shifted her hands, her expression growing rather annoyed. {Why are you here?}  
  
{Well, see, I'm stuck on this floating mass of metal in the middle of space, where this group of people has just happened to take captive, like, one of the most important people left in my life, and, well, I decided the only good answer to that was a strike.}  
  
Lyta raised a hand to her head, and rubbed over her left temple and eyes softly, even as she swore in more known languages. {Go back down below, Melissa. This isn't a game. Get away from the security area, before I remove you.}  
  
{That is so not a fair threat!}  
  
{Then stop acting like a child playing the penny game. They're serious about their rules.} Lyta frowned and stood up, as she pretended not to listen to the girl giggle at her thoughts on exactly what their rules really stood for. Sometimes between the human term a pile of beans and a narsak term of endearment for someone about to die.  
  
{I'm serious, too!}  
  
{You're rarely serious, Melissa, even when your trying to be.} Lyta walked around the circular table in the center of the running, running her fingertips along the edge of it. Echoes of voices and thoughts permeated her touch and thoughts, even as they were dismissed for her irascible conversation. {What are you doing?}  
  
{Come see!}  
  
Vision framed by flame red hair that was hanging loose, an image unfolded before her eyes. Correction, Melissa's eyes, which she was seeing through. Three juggling balls were hovering in the air, slowly rotating back and forth through the routine of juggling, every few seconds a small spec of color would appear and vanish on them. She couldn't get the colors to stay yet and no one aside from the air was juggling them.  
  
{Your control with them is improving, but that still doesn't give you the right to stage a strike outside this door. What do you think your going to accomplish? Aside from letting everyone know your a telekinetic and that there are more of us here, Melissa? Think!}  
  
{I am!} The girl retreated stubbornly with a burst of anger under Lyta's hand as she let the balls fall to the ground and collected them in her hands. {I want you to come out! I want them to let you out! I want you to break out! I want you to stop hiding behind that door and walk out! I know you can! Everyone does! Why are you staying there?}  
  
{Might makes right? How old are you? Do you think that if you start pounding on the door, they'll just let you in, and then let me out? Do you think they won't just take you in and lock you up, too, just for disturbing the peace out there and staging your silly little strike?} Lyta asked, as her fingers curled into a fist and she tapped her knuckles on the table, wanting to punch the table.  
  
Last time it had been Byron. Everything had almost worked out, if they'd only let it all work out. She refused to see everything and everyone be lost that way again. She didn't need more problems!  
  
{Ooohhh, is that what I am now? Am I just your problem, miss I can do everything and I don't need anyone??? Fine! Fine! Well, just rot in there! I didn't care anyway!}  
  
As she watched, and felt, the girl storm away, she raised her fist, feeling it tremble. She closed her eyes, tightened it still, and shot it back down. It stopped only about two inches from striking the table.  
  
The table shuddered anyway.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About the Same Time )  
  
"This one right here?" he asked as they got to the door.  
  
"That's what she said," she responded, agitated. Her movements when sharp and quick, unlike when she was relaxed. She was tense and pent up, angry and impatient. She hadn't liked having to wait so long either and not knowing what was happening.  
  
Zack tapped on the pad, just to get it to respond with the fact the door was sealed. He called into the room; nothing happened. Once more. Then he began an over ride. It didn't take too long, it was habit by now. When he was done, the door hung open. An inky darkness filled everything inside, and he pulled a flash light off his belt.  
  
"Lights," he called as he waved the light into the room. Nothing happened. He inched in slowly, flash light in one hand and gun in the other. "Anyone in here?"  
  
This aspect was very hated of all of them. This wasn't a large room by any scape of the imagination, but in the dark, all these places seems so much larger than they really were. It seemed like everytime you wanded the light across the darkness you were suddenly going to come upon something gut stomping and heart wrench. More often than not, it happened.  
  
A second beam of light only minorly distracted him for only a second, when Susan said, "I'll check the back room."  
  
He nodded, and replied, "Just be careful."  
  
Zack wandered through empty spaces everywhere, feeling creeped out by the fact he couldn't find any furniture anywhere. The kitchen was sparsely stocked. The room seemed to be this big void of space and nothing else. No furniture, no belongs, no nothing.  
  
Making his way to the back room, he called out, "Find anything?"  
  
"A man," Susan replied, as her flashlight was joined by another. He was tall and thin, and he looked like he was in a deep sleep from what he could see at the doorway, on a bright white unmade pallet.  
  
"Is he?"  
  
"Dead? No," she said, as she took her fingers away from his neck. "I'm not sure how much longer he would will be alive though. His pulse is weak and so is his breathing, but he's definitely alive."  
  
He nodded and raised the arm with the flashlight, it sprayed light across another empty wall, as he taped his communicator. **Med Lab One, We need a stat team down here at once.**  
  
He got an acknowledgement and then it beeped out. The darkness of the room save two beams of light seem to devour them in blackness, even more so when Invanova's flash light started flickering.  
  
"Stupid, faulty machine," she hit her flash light on the side of it's head lightly trying to make it work, when suddenly it failed. A clicking noise followed as she tried to flip it on and off.  
  
"We'll have to get a team in here. To fix up the lights," Zack said after a moment, moving the light around the room. "I didn't see much out there. Did you see anything else in here?"  
  
"Just the man and the bed," Susan said, having to admit she didn't really feel like cooperating with Zack at that moment. After what Lyta had said earlier, she had thought Zack was helping them, but now, who knew where Zack stood.  
  
In his normal place in line, in the chain of command, a little voice sniggled at her inside. Like your supposed to be.  
  
The silence grew thicker with passing time as neither of them said anything. It was a maddening silence in the darkness. Shadows deepened and lightened as their eyes adjusted to the darkness with one light source, and the room behind them where light poured in through the doorway.  
  
"It's completely empty save for the bed," Susan remarked breaking the silence after a moment. "Doesn't that strike you as rather odd that there aren't any clothes or anything anywhere?"  
  
"Yeah," he replied, as he shown the light down at the floor, not needing it so much anymore. He shifted uncomfortably as she said, "I've only seen a few others like this before and only one with nothing else."  
  
She didn't respond for a long time. Not concentrating on him, she found whips of words that seemed to pour out of him. He reminded her of a dripping bucket sometimes, brimming over his edges and leaking everywhere. It was strange to hear Lyta's name on it so often at the moment.  
  
The empty room reminded him of the day he'd found Lyta in a room almost exactly like this.  
  
"When?"  
  
"The other one like this? Well, I'm not sure I should really talk about," Zack said, reluctantly. "It's really her place to say if she-"  
  
He remembered she'd said something about the second Kosh making her live that way. It seemed a terrible way to live and yet she'd endured it. Alone, too. Clear shown in his mind though most of all he remembered the tears in Lyta's eyes and the shame the filled her entire expression when he'd arrived that night as a surprise.  
  
"Her?" Susan's voice in the darkness asked curiously.  
  
There was a pause, as Zack cleared his thoughts, and said barely about the sound of a hum, "Lyta's."  
  
"Lyta had a room like this?"  
  
"I'm not really sure I should be telling you this. It's her place to say and it was a long ago," he rambled. Silence took for a moment, and then he let out a sigh. If he did get in trouble for it, it was just another thing to add to the string of things after the way she stared at him angrily for over an hour already. "See Kosh, the second one, not the first, gave her these explicate instructions that she shouldn't have anything in her room. He said that it was all a distraction. She couldn't have anything in her room. No decorations, pictures, comforts; nothing at all. The one time I saw it, she was so ashamed she almost didn't even want to let me come in."  
  
"Damn," he heard her swear lightly, and barely made out the murmur of; "Damnit, what else has she seen and lived though, making sure not to tell anyone?"  
  
"It didn't last for long and then it was over, so the problem was gone," he said.  
  
"Still, no one did anything about it, Zack." He heard the anger starting to creep into her voice. "No one ever did anything about her, even when we did know. Not a one of us."  
  
"Yeah, well, it's over now," Zack said, trying to sound a little lighter in his speech. "The room just looks the same."  
  
When Susan didn't reply for a few seconds, he guessed she wouldn't, and then she did. But it was quiet again, more like a whisper, which he had to struggle to hear as the med staff poured into the room.  
  
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( One Hours Later )  
  
Stomping down the hallway, her coat swishing behind her, she swore angrily at the top of her thoughts. She didn't care if she could still hear her. She even hoped she could hear it. She hoped they left her in there rot. Stupid woman. Playing by their stupid rules. Sniffling once, she reached up to wipe the wetness from her eyes.  
  
She wasn't just a child to be moved around when she was told to. She'd show her. She would! She figure it all out and have it hand back. She'd be helpful. She'd show that she could be more helpful than just being something in the way. No one ever gave her the chance anymore. They just patted her on the head and expected her to run along and play. She wasn't even a child, either. She was in her early twenties and some of the teenagers got more freedom.  
  
It was down right unfair.  
  
But no one questioned Lyta's judgements.  
  
Besides it wasn't like she'd come here alone in the beginning anyway. Why had she been the only one yelled at? It wasn't like she'd known right away that she'd planned it all along and talked the other people into it. It was just her. Always only just her. It wasn't fair. Not at all.  
  
Sneaking past a guard set by one of the walls, she reached into his mind and made it so she was covered and unseen at all. It wasn't fair to them, but they could take a leap out an air lock for all she cared. They were part of the people who ruined her life and anyone she'd cared about. They were trying to ruin another life she cared about now. Not that she hadn't tried to help fight against that system.  
  
She just had been pushed away from helping.  
  
Once again.  
  
Looking left and right, she triggered the sensor that opened the door, and ducked under the yellow caution and red off limits tape and into the room. The door closed behind her, the security guard looking oddly at the door one wall away, as he'd seen it open and close. He was calling to report it, but he wasn't coming toward the door. That was terrific. No one would get in her way.  
  
{That's right. No one will get in our way.}  
  
The voice haunted her mind even as her head screamed in pain and she was lost in complete and utter darkness.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Two Hours Later )  
  
The door came open with a whooshing sounds and she walked into the room. It looked like most singular holding cell. If you'd seen one, you'd seen them all. The person sitting in it was face away from her. The chair was beside the tableside ways. Her long red hair hung over the back of the chair and her left hand was out on the table, her fingers moving in an odd pattern.  
  
She stood there a moment, tapping one of her feet, as if waiting. Then she cleared her throat loudly.  
  
"Do you ever think of just announcing yourself? Or is a simple hello too much for you still, Captain Lockley?"  
  
"Do you realize the situation you've put me in?" The dark haired woman started walking toward her, where she sat facing away with no designed movement to make it easier.  
  
"Lets see, I've jeopardized your station and your millions of people by walking out a space dock and being overtly nice to everyone for days," The woman in the chair said with a chilly air to her words.  
  
"Overly nice? You call what you did this morning being overly nice?" Lockley rounded on her around the chair, a look at her calm and completely chiseled expression rubbing her all the wrong ways. "Or are you still denying that you attacked a man this morning?"  
  
"No. I did not attack a 'man' this morning," Lyta tilted her chin and raised her eyes to meet the frantic and feisty captain hovering so close to her, not giving her an inch even with that movement, as she emphasized the word man.  
  
"I see," Lockley said putting her hands on her waist. "So the two men in a coma in med lab three are just mysteriously linked to you, because you haven't done anything?"  
  
"If you'd stop putting words in my mouth, captain," she rebuttaled, her voice growing colder, the color in her eyes reddening slightly. "Maybe you'd learn something. But we both know how well that goes over, don't we?"  
  
"So, now you have something to say? When three hours ago you were blatantly silent when asked to give your side of the story?"  
  
Lyta narrowed her eyes on the woman, even as her left hand continued to tape out a weird rhythm with her fingers. It didn't seem to stay the same, Elizabeth realized, as she also realized that the strange movement was driving her further and further along her growing aggravation of this moment.  
  
"If you don't let me out of here more people are going to die," she said calmly, her eyes not wavering from the Captains. "Then it will be on your hands, as well."  
  
"Earth-Force-does-not-make-deals-with-terrorists!" Lockley announced loudly.  
  
"So first I'm an attacker? And now I'm a terrorist? Do have any other names you'd like to call me before we continue on to a civilized conversation, Captain?"  
  
Lockley gritted her teeth. She had hated dealing with this woman the first time. Her grandeur shows of power, her flighty wit, her rebellious and haughty attitude. There was a reason she made a deal with her originally saying she'd never be allowed back on the station if she agreed to leave. And why was she still tapping her hand? Was it some show of power? Something to just annoy the crap out of her?  
  
"You did attack a man this morning, there are witness who can corroborate the story. He probably could, too, were he not in a coma. Last known whereabouts when you left the station you were a terrorists linked to several bombings of small Psi-corps related incidents. You were rumored dead in an explosion that took out the main base of Psi-Corps. Also rumored to be the reason it blew up."  
  
"Rumors can be such fickle things, can't they?" Lyta asked staring straight into her eyes, no give or take at all, just unending rebellion and tightly held anger. "It's nice to know you were such an avid follower of my life. I'm sure you cried your heart out over my supposed death."  
  
"I'm growing tired of these games," she said hotly at the woman sitting down. "At the best you're a terrorist, and worst, you're a mass murderer."  
  
Whatever it was, it was started to get to her so much she wanted to slam her hand down and stop her. Letting out an exclamation and tossing her hands out slightly, she shook her head. "If it wasn't for the fact you seem to have made friends in high places while you were gone, I'd be content to leave you here for the duration of figuring out what to do with you. Mr. Allan and General Ivanova, seem to be vying for your safe return from confinement. Do you know why that might be, Mrs. Alexander?"  
  
"Because you don't know who or what is killing the men down in brown sector, and I do, and without me you'll never be able to stop them. They're already getting ready to do it again. But, of course, you already knew that, didn't you?" Lyta phrased her words mockingly, stating her knowledge, where Lockley lacked it.  
  
So what she said was a half-truth. It was obvious by her face, it was more than she hadn't known already. Besides why fuel the fire by telling her they were probably on the station because of her voyage there? It brought up to many other unanswered questions that the caffeine wired captain would jump on in less than a few seconds. White lies didn't bother her in the slightest. She still had some big lies stored up from the past anyway. The little ones didn't seem like anything compared to those.  
  
"You're a danger to this station," Elizabeth said like she was swearing. "I'd be insane to let you out knowing what you can do."  
  
And I could have the next death on my hands if I don't, she heard the thought slip out. A rare thing, but it happened, especially when people tended to be in emotional states. They screamed things in their heads and never realized. It was a triumphant moment though, she'd gotten under Lockley's skin and inside her logic at the moment.  
  
"It's your decision then," Lyta said sitting back in the chair and adjusting her right hand in her lap, still playing an invisible piano with her other hand. One of the last twenty people to stay in this room had been a man condemned for murder. He'd studied piano growing up on Earth and moved his fingers to one of Beethoven's symphonies to keep himself busy in here. It didn't so much calm her, as it distracted a section of her mind that free floated always, and, also, she admit to a secret part of herself, she enjoyed the torment over the woman in front of her.  
  
"There's been almost one a day since this started, do you really need another before your convinced?"  
  
"Why is it you? Why do you only know?" Lockley raised her voice turning to face her and the door behind her trying to decided if she saw a predatory grin slip across Lyta's face in the space of less than a second and vanish just as fast. "Is that why you came here? Or did it come here because you?"  
  
"That's a silly question to ask," she said, gathering a smug smile. "The murders started days before I even arrived."  
  
"And you think, because you just know what they are, that you can simply sweep into this place, with apologies abounding from everyone for your past transgressions, and we'll let you just wipe away out little problem?" Elizabeth shot at her and shook her head. "It doesn't work like that."  
  
"Because I've dealt with them before," the red haired woman replied, completely ignoring the last question, her voice thick like a knife slicing through velvet. "And know better than you what they can do. You still think the deaths are aneurysms, don't you? Or have you even figured that the blood to brain was stopped without severing anything inducing death in seconds? The carteroid artery is a very small object that only needs to be pinched a few seconds-"  
  
Lockley stared at her blank faced for a second and then her mouth opened suddenly, "You can't reach the carteroid-"  
  
"You can if you're telekinetic," Lyta said firmly and watched Lockley's face pale slightly, and her mental state get more unruly. She really did seem to have distaste for anyone she couldn't completely control, and who might have abilities she herself couldn't use. "That's not even the worst of it, Mrs. Lockley. Not only are they dangerous because of this, but also because they were a pet project that was controlled by Psi-Corps. When the Psi-Corps was gone they were free to do whatever they wanted."  
  
"They were an experiment not just to see how long telepath's could truly leave their bodies but how long they could inhabit other people. They were tested and trained from birth, denied many of the privileges or rights of any normal person growing up in the Corps. They were nicknamed Leapers as a type of joke on what they did. They were twisted, and tainted, straight from their dark genesis in that hell. And now, now they're free to wreck the havoc on the entire galaxy."  
  
"You'll never be able to tell who they are on your own," Lyta said, staring at Lockley still with utter contempt. Except now it wasn't just contempt for the woman in front of her, but also for the organization which she referred to. One that had tried one time too many to kill her and everyone she ever cared about. "You won't know what bodies they've taken over or have a way to remove them, temporarily or permanently. You won't know who to trust the moment you walk out of this room, because they could be inside anyone. Your first officer, your security staff, anyone."  
  
"You may not like it and you might not like me in the slightest, but," A strange twinkle entered Lyta's red-green eyes as she finished her words, "You need me."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( The Next Morning )  
  
"Let me get this straight, you just talked to her and she let you walk out?" Susan asked, still looking baffled.  
  
"I just pointed out that she needed my help," Lyta replied, walking down the hallway between Susan and a strangely silent, Zack, "She simply acceded to high logic, after a nudge in the right direction. And it's not like she let me walk out without her thinking she was completely in control of the situation. She wanted me to swear not to use my powers except in the capture of the murders."  
  
"Did you?" she asked, sounded affronted and surprised.  
  
She didn't respond right away, the end of that conversation still on replay in her mind, every detail as crisp and sure as the moment it happened in. Talking to an irrational person, and getting them to think the way you wanted, was like playing poker and having to change cards in the middle of the game. She was used to paranoid high-strung people at this point, she already knew how to maneuver Michael pretty well, and Lockley had been so much easier.  
  
She stopped walking, causing the other two to stop, and she looked to Susan at her side, her words soft but her eyes focused hard. "How much would you give up for TEEP, Susan?"  
  
Her brown eyes softened, and darkened, all at once. She had promised, for the only main thing Lockley didn't know, and Lyta would do anything to avoid admitting she would die for. She shook her head, and took Lyta's hand for a moment, feeling the wash of her friends' emotions at that moment. Even the fatalist doubt, buried back in the back of her mind, that wondered if she'd ever see, again, the sunlight of what all her hard worked years had earned her.  
  
"We'll get it back," Susan said fiercely. "It doesn't matter who or what we have to go through, but we'll get it back."  
  
Lyta nodded, pulling her hand back, and starting to walk down the corridor again. She glanced at Zack out of the corner of her eyes and wondered what was going on with him. He'd been detailed to stay with her and make sure she kept her word, but aside from agreeing and asking where she'd like to go first, he hadn't made a peep. She has decided against looking in his mind, once more, and come to the conclusion she'd simply broken his little white bubble around herself again.  
  
He was just disappointed in her.  
  
She could deal with disappointment. Everyone seemed to get disappointed at her at one time or another, proving to her once again she didn't need them, and then returning just when they needed her again, as if nothing had happened. She refused to let that happen again. If he wanted to stew and sulk and be disappointed and be shut off in her presence, she was just going to let him. It didn't bother her.  
  
It didn't!  
  
It did.  
  
Lyta blew a deep sigh at her bangs and snapped her head over to Susan, who she had thought for a second might be laughing, but she decided against it, when Susan met her eyes inquiringly.  
  
"That's the room," Zack said evenly as they stopped about ten feet from a door. "But I've already told you there's nothing in it."  
  
"That depends on what you're looking for actually," Lyta corrected him, as she walked toward the open door. "What I'm looking for will be there. I don't want a distraction, so just stay here and keep each other company, I shouldn't be long."  
  
Zack watched her walk in and kicked himself once again. He was certain she didn't want him near by now. She didn't care. She was angry. It was his entire fault somehow, even if it wasn't. He should have handled it all better. He didn't know how, but he should have. His mind kept screaming that at him, even as he glanced at Ivanova with raised eyebrows and asked;  
  
"Do you have any idea what she's talking about?"  
  
"Psionic echoes," she replied looking from the doorway where Lyta vanished to Zack's face. "They're recorded psychic reflections of everything that's ever happened in the room. She wants to see if the room has an imprint of anything important she could use to help her."  
  
"But wouldn't-," he started, not sure where to take that sentence, so he tried so equally as stupid and sheepishly said. "And you're-?"  
  
"Yes," Susan said, not comfortable talking about it out in the open and in such a public place. She still hid her gifts. Even having anyone know who might jeopardize her career..she could have it all terminated in the blink of an eye. Speculation on how long she lied and what else she could be lying to them about. Her mind shuddered and she jumped.  
  
"What? What's wrong?"  
  
"She's screaming," she said catching her breath, her hands going to her head.  
  
"I don't hear anything."  
  
"Not out loud," she said, shaking her head sharply and heading in at a fast pace. "Something's wrong."  
  
Pulling out his gun he ran after her, and fell in behind both of them. They were both standing in the center of the bedroom, staring around them. It looked completely the same to him, nothing different. "Am I missing something here?"  
  
"They've got her," Lyta whispered almost too quietly, the timbre of her voice growing angrier. The entire room was becoming rapidly warmer, especially near her.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Melissa," she replied, though all she seemed to be able to hear was the two echoes dramatically staged to be the main things she noticed. One of a man saying over and over and over in a mantra of dark laughter "you will regret your actions" and the other of Melissa screaming in pure terror.  
  
To Be Concluded... 


	4. Arise the Flames

Phoenix Ascendant ~*~ "Arise the Flames" Part Three  
  
"What is she doing, again?"  
  
"Scanning the station."  
  
"The entire place and everyone in it?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Can she do that?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Does she, ya know," he asked, glancing across the room with a nod, "Do this-"  
  
"Zack! Give it a rest already! I don't know how she's doing it, how often she does it or how much she can pick up," Susan said, looking up from a book in her hands. She hadn't really been reading, but it was the words that her mind glossed over to take the edge off of waiting, and they had been waiting a while already. Against his expression of surprise, and then mask of normality that sprung up and she shook her head and said, "I know just about as much as you do."  
  
The waiting was definitely not her favorite part. Not in war, peace talks, debates, capture or even sometimes for the next morning. She wasn't fond of waiting. Not one bit.  
  
"If you really want to know," she said after a deep, exaggerated sigh, closing the book, with only her middle finger as a bookmarker for the moment, she looked over at Lyta again, for probably the hundredth time. Lyta was stock still in the chair at the table, that was titled toward them in direction, so she was still facing them. She was completely still, her body rigid, fingers curled against the ends of the arms of the chair, her eyes, wide and black. She hadn't moved or made a sound in a long time. "Ask her."  
  
"I'm sure that'll go over well," he muttered and standing up. He pressed his hands to his back and stretched, thinking it was probably stupid to even have said tha. He sounded like a child whining to himself. It wasn't proper course of action for his placement in this situation.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
Zack cast a sideways glance at the frozen form across the room, feeling it wasn't really right to say what he was thinking in front of her, though she didn't seem like she was listening. Not that it made it any easier at all. "It's obvious she doesn't want me here. She just puts up with me because Lockley demanded she have an escort who would report back about her keeping her word."  
  
She was growing a look that crossed her earlier annoyance with sudden amusement all at once. "Take a simple piece of advice that adheres to Lyta. If she didn't want you here, you wouldn't be. End of story."  
  
Yes, but at least she's your friend, he thought miserably. At least there was something there between the two women. Trust, loyalty, jokes, fondness, past occurrences, love, want, friendships! Something!  
  
He heard her make a sound suddenly and he glanced back to her face, she was watching him quizzically. Something odd about her expression, like she'd-. Had she? Could she have heard? He tried to decided if she was faking away from a smile, since it seemed one sat in her eyes, but never made it to her lips, which were still firm from her last words.  
  
He asked, feeling foolish even as he did, "Did you just?"  
  
"You can tend to be rather loud," Susan said reaching out and putting the book on the table. Her movements were concise, and her voice wary. She hadn't really thought about how she felt about Zack knowing, Lyta had simply let it be a byline in that phone call. No warning to prepare her and it made her feel uneasy. "I wasn't trying, but sometime it's hard to ignore someone who sounds like they're yelling at the top of their lungs."  
  
"I didn't mean-"  
  
"Yes. You did," Susan said, firmly, standing up from her spot on the couch. She rubbed her palms together for a moment feeling antsy. She'd had time to prepare for the fact he'd probably ask about, after all he'd served under her years ago, but there really was no way to be ready. Even if the subject wasn't specifically her. "I'm thirsty, do you want anything?"  
  
"Thanks, but no," Zack said after a moment, still not positive about this telepath thing once again. Privacy in his head was sometimes all he ever thought he really had, especially with his job, and with telepath's around - supposed that's what always made him so jumpy around them. That idea that they could know everything and anything jumping into his head at the moment it did.  
  
She walked across the room and opened the frigerator. She pursed her lips and shook her head, a wisp of an annoyed expression sat at the edges of her expression. The refrigerator was almost completely empty. There were some bottled drinks, a bowl of fruit, a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and a bottle of pills in the side door, probably vitamins. The drinks were water and fruit juices. The fruit looked slightly old, ignored, and like it might be bruised. The loaf of bread looked half hardened. The cheese looked to be the only thing that had been touched, a large portion of it missing from one corner. She hadn't the foggiest idea why the pills were in there though.  
  
"It's not really as hard as you think it is," Susan called out from the kitchen as she pulled one of the juices, a Minbari blend, out. Closing the door behind her, she grabbed a cup from the closest cabinet and started to pour the contents of the first into the second. "Just be there for her, regardless of whether she needs it. Especially, when she says it out loud."  
  
Throwing the bottle in a recycle can she carried the cup back out the living area, where Zack was staring at her slightly confused and overwhelmed, but obviously, ready to listen to what she was saying.  
  
"Let her rant and rave all she wants, especially if she directs it at you, even if she starts breaking things and talking in completely different languages at you. Expecut that she probably will. She's got an explosive temper, but once she's sure, completely sure she's your friend," she said slowly, remembering that day in the mines. The guns firing and them arguing about it owing each other, and how if they were just friends there wouldn't be any owing anymore. "She's got the kind of loyalty that people would pay millions for, that would fade only after all the stars have died. She'll take care of you to the point it'll make you hurt for her. The worst I've seen her do to anyone close was throw them across an area."  
  
When he raised his eyebrow astonished and curios, she continued. "It wasn't that serious even. It's really simple, Zack. To be her friend, all you have to do is be her friend. Well, and then, there's that one last thing, too."  
  
He watched her, silent still, waiting for her to finish her sentence. He really didn't want to streamline the only conversation that seems to not be completely strained in this room already. Besides she was telling him what he longed to hear. So many years ago, she'd considered him a friend, but it had been so many years, so many different paths and people. Neither of them was the same person they'd been the night they'd shared that first pizza on the floor.  
  
"What's that?" He asked, anxiously a few seconds later when she still hadn't responded.  
  
"You get to that point where you know she won't kill you, even when she darkens up her entire face, like the wrath of god warmed over, because she knows you're talking about her. Like she is right now."  
  
Zack did a double take at her words and looked at Lyta sitting in the chair. She was glowering at both of them, her eyes watery, hand still clenched at the ends of the chair arms and she seemed to be narrowing her eyes on Susan at the last comment. All of which made him flush shades of pink and red. He didn't even have any words; it felt like the air had been stamped out through his entire chest, so he missed the amused smirk that tilted across Ivanova's face in response to the red haired telepath's glare.  
  
"Find what you were looking for?"  
  
Reaching up and running her fingers through her long red hair, Lyta slumped back in the chair, grateful for the back support. Looking at her fingers, almost pale as snow most of her life away from a normal planet bound sun, running through long fire-claimed locks, not cut in so many years it hung to beyond the small of her back, she thought that it wasn't as easy as that question. It echoed on into her thoughts, even as she lost her glower, and continued to stare at her fingernails in her hair.  
  
"No," Lyta said, after a pause, unpleasantness tinting her voice, pulling her fingers out, and letting that stray strand of hair lay across one side of her chest, falling to her lap and pooling there just enough. She had found much, much that could be useful even, but not specifically what she was looking for. Which made it just not enough. Flexing her neck, she put her arms back on the armrests, curling her fingers slightly at the ends. She had closed her eyes for only half of a second before it came.  
  
"Stop that right now!"  
  
Lyta blinked and it seemed like if you placed it in slow motion you could have seen the blackness fade from inside her eyes, not completely overwhelming them yet. She raised an eyebrow at Russian woman in front of her, and said with slightly exaggerated tone, "What now?"  
  
"You've been doing this all morning since we left Down Below," Susan said, waving her cup at the other woman. Part of it was her logical knowledge about Lyta, the rest of it was her own stomach rumbling deep within. "I know you didn't have breakfast in all that and I've seen the state of your kitchen, when was the last you had a meal?"  
  
"A little while ago," the red headed telepath said after a long second, even though her voice was unsure and peeved.  
  
"Do you know what that means in Lyta-speak, Zack?" she said, waving her cup toward his direction, but stampeding on without even giving him a chance to respond. "It means she probably hasn't eaten in a day, maybe two. Since the moment her room was robbed. Probably even before that knowing her."  
  
Paying no attention to the fact Zack looked half clueless to what was going on subtext wise and Lyta was glaring her heart away, General Ivanova stated to the room, "We're going out for lunch. "  
  
"Susan," Lyta's voice drove a nail in irately the way she spoke. "We don't have time for this."  
  
"Sure we do. Zack's guys are on it. You can't do everything yourself or you'll work yourself into the ground," she said, knowing she had no proof that could happen though. It was rare to see Lyta winded, no less ground down by any amount of work she took upon herself. "Fresh Air Restaurant in thirty minutes."  
  
Her eyes landed on Lyta and stayed there, clarifying her point. "Take a shower. Change your clothes. Don't make me have it made into an order."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Fifty Minutes Later )  
  
He looked up from his watch to the woman walking up to him at a hurried, impatient pace. "I though you said thirty minutes?  
  
"She decided to tell me, only after I forced her into a shower, that she didn't have any other clothes with her," Susan said, shaking her head and sitting down opposite him at the table. She was dressed now in loose fitting black slacks and a long sleeve white shirt, with a lighter grey vest over it. Her Earth Force pin sat right over her heart and her com was still on the back of her left hand, but everything from uniform to rank bars were missing. Her hair was even down.  
  
"Where is she now?"  
  
"Changing. At least she supposed to be. I made her stop by one of the good market place seamstresses. Sometimes I think it might take a destroyer class war ship running into her before the point gets across," she said tearing at a corner of her napkin irritably.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About the same time )  
  
The figure in the mirror turned around a few times, looking over it's shoulder at almost every inch of itself, with this half dazed, half skittish look. It was wearing a long, close fitting blue gown made to accentuate the wearer without seeming too formal or too provocative. It seemed to dance on every line, fitting snuggly where it should, flaring out to be willowy where it should.  
  
"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you almost done in there?"  
  
"Just another minute." Taking a step back, and placing her hands to her stomach, she still couldn't believe the figure in the mirror was really she. It looked like a cross between herself and someone else, someone who looked soft and beautiful, not harsh and deadly.  
  
She walked out and stood at the counter behind a blonde woman arguing furiously with the seamstresses about when her outfit should be ready. Standing nonchalantly and not listening, as well as it worked to not listen. She just waited until the woman turned around in a huff and walked straight into her. Everything that was in her arms went flying in all directions landing in misshapen piles on the floor. The blonde woman swore and frowned.  
  
"That's just my luck today. Sorry about that," she said getting down to help pick everything back up. She looked over at the woman after a second while picking up a blouse. Then she did a double take while still grabbing more. "Hey, wait a minute- aren't you Lyta Alexander? I heard you caused a ruckus yesterday morning."  
  
She almost laughed when the thought that followed the last question implied to her having been much more. She was folding a skirt in her hands, as she nodded. "It's Mrs. Halloran, right?"  
  
"I surprised you remember," she replied, starting to stand; arms loaded with clothing that she sat on the counter. "Shopping?"  
  
"Apparently," Lyta replied, but without venom. She was blaming this waste of time on Susan still. It had all started with a dress, and if a dress wasn't enough she said pick a few other things out. It was almost like having G'Kar there to mother her. Standing finally, with the few things left, she placed them on the counter, not looking over at woman but still talking to her. "Do you still hear from Dr. Franklin?"  
  
"Stephen? Yes, often." Tessa said with a wry smile creeping out. She held out her left hand, shaking her head. "We're engaged. Two years now. Maybe one day, when we both give up our twenty four hours job, we'll actually consider getting to the getting married part."  
  
"Congratulations," Lyta said, giving the woman a momentary glowing smile, while she handed over a ticket to the seamstress and asked her to do some alternating on certain cloths. She got a date for when to pick everything up and turned around to meet the eyes of the still waiting, Miss Tessa Halloran, Babylon 5's resident head of security for the Interstellar Alliance and the woman who'd taken over Michael's job.  
  
"So..." the blond said leading into discussion, very unsubtle, "Where are you off to next?"  
  
"Lunch with," she paused a second, and uncomfortably finished with, "Some friends."  
  
"You don't sound very sure," Tessa said following her out. She really didn't want to lead up to her question, so she really didn't. She just decided to bite. It was her normal tactic and it kept most people off foot with her. "The scene you caused yesterday morning wouldn't have anything to do with the sudden influx of telepath's on the station, would it?"  
  
"I'm running quite late at the moment, Miss Halloran. Perhaps we could discuss this another time?"  
  
"Fine by me," she said, her walking pace matching Lyta's no matter how fast or slow she walked. "How about tomorrow morning? I don't have anything planned till 1100 hours. We could catch breakfast and talk about your soiree in Down Below. "  
  
Lyta only nodded, seeming to be lost in her thoughts, so Tessa stopped, wondering just how much was going on with her that she didn't know about so far. Tapping her badge, she put a call into Lockley, and scheduled a meeting for two hours from then. She had a few questions for the Captain about the woman, before she started doing the real digging.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( One Hour Later )  
  
The screaming ended.  
  
It was almost worse then.  
  
The utter silence seemed to fill their ears more deafening than the sound that had been issuing from the mans mouth. The blood was still running from his eyes, or what was left of them, as the jelly from those ripped apart eyes mingled in the rivulets of blood. His entire body felt like it was an ice block. His arms were hanging lifeless off the bed, the blood and eye jelly still wet under the nails of his hands.  
  
Jeffery shook himself and started going about an all out check on the two men. He hadn't the foggiest clue what had happened. Both men had been in a coma for almost a day and a half, no responses to anything, suddenly one was clawing his eyes out, then screamed himself to death and the other just died on the spot, without even a single murmur. Two deaths, sudden, and unexplainable, at least so far as he knew.  
  
It had creeped out two main stay patients so much that he had to remove them to med. lab 3 for the time being. So the lab was empty, save two other nurses and one doctor. All of which were standing there like he was, slowly starting to record, wondering what in gods name had just happened in the medical lab.  
  
Dr. Hobbs was going to love this.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About The Same Time )  
  
"Bitch!" He raged.  
  
"I swear I'm going to tear her tongue out, then all of her hair off her body, hair by hair, then all of her nails! Then, then, I will break every bone in her body. Slowly, one by one, until they're all broken, starting with her toes, fingers, arms, until everything is completely broken. All of her broken, bleeding, begging for mercy."  
  
{Never going to happen.}  
  
He glared when the pert, but weak, voice hit his head even as he watched her loll in the pain at the effort made through the obvious static. Because of her thought that her opinion even mattered, he hit her, hard, with a glove that had spikes on it. So it hurt, a lot. So did her head inside. More blood fell down her cheek, running across her lips, so she tasted it on her tongue she tried to rub them together around the gag. Then she asked herself if it actually hurt. It really didn't separate from all the pain that she was feeling all over.  
  
"Shut up, you insolent prat. No one asked for your opinion."  
  
She tried to shift her hands again, and felt electric stabs of pain. Cords of some type of material drove nails of pain into her everytime she tried to free her hands even slightly. Originally she guessed the wetness was sweat, but after a dozen hours, extra wetness coming now and then, dry, crackly, stuff trying to flake off if she shifted her arms without moving her hands, she knew it was blood.  
  
And hey, why not, blood was coming out of a dozen different places on her body at this point, wasn't it?  
  
Debating whether the pain was still present, really was a moot point beside that huge crashing panic she had just barely a handle on. Actually, in physical terms, she'd locked it to one side of her brain, in a far back room. The knowledge that she might be dying was a very odd thought once you locked away your panic and fear, and only survived on the knowledge you might start hyperventilating if you were actually feeling it.  
  
"She just a stupid I-want-a-revolution-telepath, like all the rest of Byron's flunkeys. She's in over her head and she just caused the death of one of my best Leapers."  
  
It made her think of many things. Her first home. Snowflakes on the tip of her nose. Her parents faces. Her first memories. The running away. All the faces of all the people who'd ever helped her. All those faces she might never see again. Tears welled up in her eyes even as she couldn't find a reason for why it was happening. She swallowed down a completely dry throat and worked her lips over the gag. Her jaw was sore, and so was her back from the constant up right position, tied to the chair so that she couldn't move at all. She had to do something, the longer she waited, the less blood.  
  
{LYYYYYTT-}  
  
She choked back a sound when a slam of pain washed across her entire abdomen and chest. It turned into a crash of red all across her vision. She had been trying to do something, something important..but she couldn't remember now. It hurt so much. It hurt so much everywhere. The tears started falling down her cheeks, mingling into blood on her skin, as everything went black again. But right before it did, it all faded into a woman's smile and these brown, calm eyes, even though she couldn't remember whom they belonged to.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About The Same Time )  
  
"Are you okay?" Susan said as she and Zack maneuvered Lyta to a bench on one side of the path. "Who's screaming?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You said they were screaming and almost fell down? Who, Lyta? Who's screaming?" Zack said, kneeled at one side looking up into her troubled expression. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought she looked half-asleep. She barely seemed to be aware of them, of what they were saying to her.  
  
"Lennier." she said after a second, very slowly, like it was an after thought.  
  
**Security. This Allan. I need a location on Minbari liaison Lennier.**  
  
"I need." Lyta rolled on after a second. It seemed like it was exceedingly hard for her to concentrate, her eyes seemed to darken and brighten like little waves. "Lennier. Tell Lennier."  
  
"Tell Lennier, what, Lyta?" Susan said, holding her friends' hand. It was all a wash at the onset of Lyta's thoughts. Everything was jumbled. It was almost like there was two of everything. It felt..strange and very wrong. Nothing like the Lyta she'd felt before. Almost like it was someone else.  
  
**The liaison to Minbar is in a meeting right now. His office chambers with the Drazi Ambassador."  
  
"Tell him?" She asked looking up for a second, like she wasn't sure what they were talking about. And then she nodded and it seemed to all fall back in place again. "Oh, I think I know where Melissa- Hey. Wait a minute. That's not nice."  
  
Both Zack and Susan watched, ignoring those who turned and looked at her like she was crazy and then with fear as her eyes began to glow white. Warmth radiated out from her, like she was a sun and the white became blinding. Then it was gone, like a switch had been flipped.  
  
"Ow. I think," Lyta said blinking, and adjusting her eyes to the scenery around her, letting everything come back into focus. She stood up, carelessly letting go of Susan's hand and not even looking at Zack. She just stood there, the soft blue dress rippling across her as she moved. Her lips formed a minimized frown as she said. "That wasn't very nice."  
  
"Lyta? What's happening?" Susan said, standing up. She definitely didn't seem to be enjoying the question game, especially since she wasn't getting any answers at present. It actually seemed to be winding her tighter and tighter.  
  
"They were being stupid." She said, airily, even though her expression was dark as sin.  
  
"They thought that they could solve all their problems by taking me as their next mark. They just got a whole new world of them. I know where they are now. Tell Lennier meet us here, and tell your security team to stay out of my way," Lyta said, giving the location, and she refusing to explain anymore as started walking at a very hurried pace back in the direction of Down Below.  
  
~*~*~  
  
They were all moving pretty fast.  
  
Lennier was still on the way to join them, as were at least two security teams, when they were finally in place. Lyta was taking them there at almost a run once she got down there, saying something was wrong, but she didn't know what yet. It just seemed to be getting more wrong the further they went downward to where they were keeping Melissa and TEEP. She hadn't said anything since telling them that and that had been a while back now.  
  
Silence was something they were all comfortable with on the job, so it startled everyone when Ivanova suddenly yelled and almost curled up into a ball. Waves of pain and confusion radiated off of her. She was clutching her arm to her, and had start leaning on the wall.  
  
"What's wrong?" Zack asked as Lyta helped her friend stand.  
  
"It-everything-hurts-in my," Susan looked wildly at Lyta suddenly. "Can't you hear it?"  
  
"The static," Lyta said after a second, nodding vaguely. "It's like someone's blaring something too loudly just off of a channel. I locked it away earlier when I first noticed it. I hadn't thought it would do anything."  
  
{There. I think that should work. Can you hear me?} Susan nodded slowly, as her mind silenced, like a thick blanket had been laid across all. {We need to figure out what's causing this. I'm betting it's what was interfering with my scans earlier.}  
  
Susan nodded and they continued down along the corridor. Lyta pointed in directions, and though beset by Zack's disapproval for her being in front and unprotected, she obstinately led the way. She waved a hand to halt them, at a sound round the corner and pressed her back to the wall. A large object jumped out from the other direction, was caught by a force of over three gravities in mid air and then released immediately, where it staggered to a standing position.  
  
"That was not quite the reception I had been expecting," Lennier said, in a hushed voice, his right hand holding the Ranger Staff in compact form still. "I feel pity for those about to meet you."  
  
A small explosion down the corridor silenced them again. Zack went forward a head of them, gun ready, slinking along one wall. They were in sections of down below that spread out like spider fingers. There were no doors, just rooms after rooms. They went through, jumping out and securing areas, trying not to split up too thinly in, while still checking to make sure they couldn't be ambushed. Which worked well, till they arrived into the room with Melissa and the heavyset man. The exact moment they did another person went running out one side.  
  
"Drop the gun!" Zack shouted. At the same time as, Ivanova targeted the man and said, "Don't make this any harder than it has to be. I'm looking at a damn good reason to split you into a million pieces already."  
  
Lyta nodded only slightly, and Lennier started to move in the direction of the door, the second man had run out of.  
  
"Make another move, and I'll blow her brains all over the wall," he said to Lennier and all of them, emphasizing his words with the gun pointed right to Melissa's temple, making her head loll.  
  
He was dressed in a red outfit that looked very much like a Psi-Corps uniform, only missing a pin, shabby by days of wear without recycling or cleaning, of the clothes or of himself. Melissa, though, looked so worse for the wear it almost hurt to look at her.  
  
Tied to a four-legged chair, her arms behind her, her stomach tied across, her legs each tied to one leg of the chair. She barely seemed conscious except when her eyes would roll to look at them, and it seemed to be an awesome effort for her to do just that. She had dried blood all over her, so much so it was hard to tell what was old and what might be new. In the places where her clothes were torn, or where skin showed freely, such on her face and arms, angry red welts surrounded bruises deepened into purple already and gashes both open and closed.  
  
"You can't do anything," Lyta said, crisply. Ignoring his harder push of the gun to the girl's temple, she nodded toward the door. "Go, Lennier. Before we loose the other one for good."  
  
The Minbari hesitated only a second longer and went running. The man pulled the trigger and a shot was fired. It shot out of the gun at Melissa and then bounced back at the gun in his hands remarkably, like it had hit a reflecting wall of some kind. At the same moment though, both Zack and Susan had shot him by reaction to his shooting the girl. His body fell back, the first shot finally connecting with a pipe above him, as the room wasn't too big. Steam suddenly filled the room all around them. No, not steam- smoke.  
  
"Is everyone-" Lyta started, but with a cough and a grunt of surprise, never finished as a sharp stab of pain slammed into the back of her head and she shoved her forward toward the ground. She reached the ground at an alarming speed, the impact of the fall skinning the side of one of her hands as she rolled over to look back. Zack was standing over her with a evil gleam in his eyes.  
  
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be made to kill one of your dearest friends for self preservation?"  
  
Zack's voice and Zack's face baited her, with eyes that didn't shine right now, as Susan was calling through the smoke to ask what was going on and where was she. "I don't know how you made it through the screen, but I can't let you leave here alive. I will do whatever it takes to stop you and your insipid spread of Byron's emotional plague of freedom. I'll become each of them one by one by one."  
  
Far in the back corner of her mind, while the front part remained concentrated on the man in front of her, she was focused on Melissa. It took groping with space and finding her through the bonds of whatever screen he referred to. There was no sight contact, which made releasing the bonds around the girl that much harder, even if that much harder only meant she had to squint to get it.  
  
"Can you do it, pretty, pedantic, pathetic Lyta? Can you kill this body that loves you so much that it would willingly die to protect you? Can you kill the others, too? A best friend? A little sister? A warrior in arms? Because I have nothing left to loose now. I've already destroyed your precious TEEP and mortally wounded your young friend. She'll die soon enough, too. Either way, I win."  
  
"You bastard," she said pulling herself up and sending him flying across the room, her entire resolve broken on his words. Her entire life's word. Her entire reason for this. She was screaming now when she spoke. Her voice boomed in his head, in everyone's. "You're an abomination of the Psi-Corps and you have the right to call me messed up?"  
  
Zack crashed against the wall, but it wasn't the man inside his head that cried out, but him. From both the brunt impact to his mind and his body. The other had vanished into thin air again. It made her incredibly uneasy. The smoking was finally thinning and she was grateful to realize Susan was helping Melissa at this point. She got up to walk over and was surprised when another gun shot out from Susan hand at her, holding Melissa's arm so tight it was turning white around where her fingers clenched.  
  
"Around and around and around, we go," Lyta said, breathing harder, as she slammed herself at the presence in Susan's mind. She felt the defensive reactions of both people, the man who fought for his life against an onslaught her deserved now, and those of Susan, who desperately hated the idea of anyone inside her head still. "You're more afraid of me, than I am of you. Back. Now."  
  
The presence left Susan's mind and the body on the ground started to rise. It was sputtering blood, and giving off waves of pain, though they seemed quite small in comparison coming off those of the young girl tied to the chair. He struggled to sit upright and glared into her eyes. His mouth moved to speak. His eyes spun in confusion and she simply continued to stare at him.  
  
"You wanted to know why I'm not effected by your telepathic inhibitor field, wherever you got it," Lyta said sneering at him, as she scrunched down at his level. "I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm more than you'll ever know, become or conceive of. Something you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about. I hope these people let you rot forever, unfed until you die of starvation, for what you've done."  
  
"Nnnnn," he grunted, blood starting to trail out of the corner of his lips. "Never."  
  
"No, you-"  
  
A moment later his body slumped lifeless, leaving Lyta staring at an empty husk feeling greatly unsatisfied.  
  
"Is he-"  
  
"Yes," Lyta said before the question even ended from Zack behind her, curling slightly. She wanted to break his body into a dozen pieces. She wanted to make all of his organs explode and his skin cut off his body. She wanted to watch him burn until there was nothing left.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Nothing left.  
  
Just like she had nothing left now.  
  
**Med. lab asap to Down Below. We have wounded.**  
  
Susan had just barely finished when a clang rang out, echoing across the room, the chair tipped and Melissa was trying to crawl away, her voice muffling through the gag as Susan started to yell at her. "What do you think your doing? You could be causing more damage to yourself!"  
  
Lyta turned her head to see Melissa trying to crawl in a direction, her movements weak and slippery on the hard floor, while Susan tried to stop her. Blood wet the floor from the girl and both seemed to be having a hard time staying stationary then. Lyta got up, not even realizing she did much, because everything was numb and walked toward them, watching Susan stopping Melissa's movements.  
  
She felt the alarm that surfaced through the girl, as she helped with gag and hand ties by removing them just looking at them. Dried blood on cracked lips, opened and bled again with the gag removed. Keeling down by girl she looked at her, being held by Susan. Her face was bruised and bloodied, but even as her eyes moved uncontrolled, they had a fire in them. Lyta almost didn't see it first, but the next second her eyes squeezed shut and she pushed outward, not with her body, but with her mind.  
  
Susan fell backwards caught by her hands, and Lyta stopped her mid movement, holding her in the air. She lowered Melissa down into her own arms, walking the pathways of Melissa's very injury obsessed mind.  
  
{Melissa. Stop. We're here now.} Lyta projected quietly, but what she hit was huge repetitive thought process. It cycled around and around on top of itself, in a loop. It seemed to be the only thing left standing against the pain and shock running through her. It was like a voice shouting in the center of a vortex, getting smaller and smaller.  
  
{Gotta get it. I stole it. Can't forget it. Must get to it. I stole it. It's mine. It's not yours. Fixed it. Mine. Must get it. Can't forget it. They'll take it again. Must hide it. Must get it.}  
  
{ The medical staff's on the way. What do you have to get ?}  
  
{Get? Oohh..TEEP.}  
  
{Melissa, TEEP's gone.}  
  
The moment she thought those words thought Melissa began to struggle hard again her holding her even, her voice cracking, as she had a hard time making her tonuge and lips move. "N..ot..go.ne. Hav.to."  
  
"Melissa. Stop it. You'll hurt yourself. It's gone. It's alright. You'll be alright," Lyta said, as completely oblivious to third person who joined the two watching her as she was to the tears that had started rolling down her cheeks. Nothing was going to be alright, but that could wait till later, too. Devastation always came in waves with time.  
  
"Nnnnoo.t..gon.nne," she shuddered out, and her entire body went still as an object ran into Lyta's leg, too fast and bounced back. Susan picked up the colorful ball that ran into Lyta. It was one of the color changing juggling balls though. ".se.e?"  
  
"That's a juggling ball," she said smoothing the young red haired woman's short hair. "Try to lie still. They're coming. I promise."  
  
"Lo..ok!" Melissa rasped, as she felt her hold slipping. It was like all of her footing was on water, and she was plunging straight down. "Y.u..haf.to.se..ee..i..t!!!"  
  
Her last words became more emphasized as she passed out completely. Susan looking completely worried, but at a loss of being able to do anything, offered Lyta the ball. "Do you have any idea what she's talking about?"  
  
"No..no," Lyta whispered, holding it in one hand, finally catching on. The colors all faded from it as Melissa consciousness faded. It was dingy silver with strange and foreign writing all across it. It only had two small holes in it on opposite ends. It was safe. It had been safe. TEEP was preserved for them. So safe, but for what? At the cost of a child. It rolled off her fingers, the way the tears rolled out of her eyes, and she didn't even hear it hit the ground when she hugged Melissa, rocking her back and forth.  
  
"Stupid girl, you silly, stupid, girl," she said, even as she cried into Melissa's hair. Tears and blood mingled on the fabric of her blue dress and on pale skin, as her small frame began to shake. The entire room was still aside from the sound of Lyta's voice and the sound of soft sobs that went through the room.  
  
Slowly and yet suddenly, all at once, the room began to warm up and the crying stopped completely, the only sound a soft humming noise, seemed to fill everything. The two in the center of the room sat completely still, and from her vantage point only Susan could actually see Lyta. Susan called out her name, wanting to know if she was alright, as her face was blank and her eyes glowing white, but for some reason she couldn't get her voice to be louder than the humming.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Later On )  
  
"Then it is all over now?"  
  
"Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it," Lyta said, as she ran a bare finger down a water glass, feeling the chill race through her finger, up her arm and down her spine. "In others, it's still just beginning."  
  
"You could've left it back on Haven," Susan offered, after she finished the bite of food in her mouth.  
  
"Haven?" Zack asked curiously.  
  
"No. I couldn't. I wish I could've. I thought I'd be able to keep it safe after everything I've been through. They aren't gone either, so the problems not solved, it's just not localized here anymore." Lyta shook her head, with a vague frown at the edges of her lips but not actually forming. The man that Lennier had caught had killed himself also, leaving them no proof, no case, and only a long, line of dead bodies.  
  
"Haven," Susan said slowly, after a questioning look at Lyta who just shrugged. "Is one of the telepathic homeworlds."  
  
"One of?" He asked, startled, almost loosing the grip on his fork. "I hadn't heard anything about-"  
  
"That's why you call it a secret, Zack," Lyta said, with a half smile. "Because no one else knows."  
  
"Whew. When did all this happen?"  
  
"Years ago, during my travels with G'Kar," Lyta said, going back to the contemplation of the water drops on her glass of lemonade, and completely missing Susan's smile at her. "I couldn't leave TEEP on Haven. Especially not now, I don't know how they found out about it. I can only hope they haven't found out about Haven. I can't risk either, by linking it to the other."  
  
"And just," Zack said, maneuvering with his fork in the air, "What is it?"  
  
"TEEP," Lyta said softly, her voice barely audible. A smile was curling the edges of her lips completely unconsciously. It seemed the smile was all there was, like she might say no more, as the silence went on and she tilted her head her smile getting a bit wider still. "It all started when I ran into planet."  
  
"You crashed into a planet?" Zack asked, sounding surprised and concerned.  
  
"No," Susan said, shaking her head with a slight laugh. "She ran into it. Dead on."  
  
"How do you run into a planet?"  
  
Lyta ran her hands against her cheek, shivering a little at the coldness of her fingers now, still unable to stop smiling, even more so in her eyes than on her lips. "You don't see it."  
  
"Wait a minute," Zack said, putting his fork down and shaking his head, his face full of disbelief. "You want me to believe you couldn't see the planet right in front of you?"  
  
"Well," Susan added. "It was rather invisible at the time."  
  
"No way," Zack remarked. "That's-that's not possible. You have to be pulling my leg."  
  
Lyta shook her head, laughing for a second, and then settling back into a smile. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair, reaching out only once to grab her drink and take a sip. "No, no joke. I ran straight into it and only after that did it start to really get interesting. The three of us spent a long time with the people of the planet, too, once our little misunderstanding was cleared away."  
  
"They were fascinating people, Zack," Susan said between bites of her dinner. "They tended only to a mark that stated, if someone could dream it, it could happen. A travel worthy, invisible planet, wasn't even the most extensive dream they'd proved they could make come true. It was amazing."  
  
"Woah- you mean, you're serious?" He asked, folding his napkin and placing it half on his plate.  
  
Lyta picked up the woven bag sitting on her lap, undoing the laces. She pulled from inside the dingy silver ball and offered it to him her eyes clear and trusting. "Does it look like anything you've ever seen before?"  
  
Zack took it in his hand, noticing first it seemed both cold like steel, and warm like it had a pulse when you placed both hands on it. It was about six inches wide in circumference, forming a perfect circle. Weighing it didn't feel any heavier than about four or five pounds at best. Its color was dingy grey. It looked like a metal, but not one he'd ever seen before. The writing all over it was of an origin he'd never seen either.  
  
"I've never - and you still haven't explained. This is?" he asked  
  
"No, it's not a planet", Lyta said, shaking her head. "That is the purest example of the future and the dreams of millions. As they say, Rome was not built in a day. It is the core of what will be TEEP."  
  
"Will be?"  
  
She nodded, just catching the slightest movement of Susan's to touch a spot on her shirt and then lower her hand. She mimicked it, even though Zack didn't catch either as an important movement, with the time spacing, especially since Susan had appeared to almost be picking at her uniform really.  
  
"After settling out a few differences and a few months worth of studying each other, we decided to leave. In return for our stay and exchange of knowledge they asked if we wanted anything, we dreamed of anything truly, not even as a group, but as individuals," Lyta said, reaching out and gently taking the object back into her hands.  
  
"We already had Haven. We had for almost a year then, so it took me a while to even come up with a logical answer to this question. I asked for one thing only, and with only one condition, should they accept my answer."  
  
When neither of them moved after he looked back and forth between them, Zack raised his hands curiously. "Well, what was it?"  
  
Lyta stared at the ball of metal in her hands still not speaking for a few seconds. She tilted it looking at the holes and reading across the words it had engraved all across it. Nodding, as if to it or herself, she then put it away, talking as she did. "I had found out during our stay there that their traveling planet was really a prototype. The first and only they'd ever made."  
  
"You didn't-"  
  
"She did," Susan said, nodding. "Funny enough they were happy to comply, especially with her terms."  
  
Zack's face was a garden of shock and disbelief as he looked between them. "And the terms?"  
  
"Only one," Lyta said her face gathering back into a smile. "That they ally themselves with us, as our first official ally. That we share our knowledge's and history's, our plights and joys, our every days and years from then until forever. Even so, they only had one condition in complying beyond that."  
  
"Which was?" he asked, feeling like he was adrift in a world of whimsy at this point.  
  
"That they got to name it. They have this just slightly skewed humor and they managed to keep it coming, even with this," the red headed woman smiled. "They decided it should be called the Telepathic External Exploration Planet. TEEP for short. See the humor?"  
  
"Wow." Zack said, sitting back in his chair. "Just, well, wow."  
  
"Yeah, I agree," Lyta said with a laugh. "Speaking of unexpected miracles, I think Melissa is about to wake up. I had wanted to grab her a new set of juggling balls as a surprise. Will you two wait here a few minutes?"  
  
"Of course we will," Susan said. "Hey, Lyta?"  
  
"Yes," she said, turning as she stood, amidst looping the pouch across her shoulder and under one arm.  
  
"Speaking of annoying, but wonderful things, isn't your birthday coming up soon?"  
  
The red headed telepath smiled over her shoulder, as she turned, the long cream white and black dress she was wearing now, rippling through the air around her. "Tomorrow."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About Two Minutes Later )  
  
"How long will you make her wait?"  
  
"I don't understand what you're asking."  
  
"Neither does she. Though, who knows how she misses it, being the strongest telepath I know alive, and it staring her in the face daily," Susan said, as she crumpled her napkin, watching her friend move slowly and unnoticeably, to the rest of the people, into the crowd. "What do you see when you look at her, Zack?"  
  
He watched Lyta as she sailed through a cloud of people like a small ship in untroubled waters. Everyone seemed to part around her, and she seemed more at ease than she had so far. Another new outfit on, she was wearing a soft dress of cream white, accented by a ribbon of black around the collar, going all the way down the front of the gown at an angel. The inner dress reached her ankles slimly, and at the sleeves belled out slightly behind her hands, those edges also done in black. A long vest shell in a coloured of dark maroon, off set it slightly, making it stand out more.  
  
"Someone I knew a long time ago. Someone whom I want to help," he started unsure of himself, or how he was supposed to respond. "Someone who, despite all of the works of the fates that be, seems to be getting better by leaps and bounds."  
  
"Not completely right there," Susan said as they both lost sight of Lyta completely now.  
  
"She's not better, Zack. She's at square one most every morning. Learning something new about herself she's never known. Having to make the hardest decisions without feeling there will be anyone there to stand beside her once she does. She feels proud of having taken up a crusade and made it all work out for the better, feels proud to be apart of it, feels proud of going out into the world, doing amazing things and surviving. But she would without fight somedays completely remain in the shadows were someone to come take over above her even."  
  
Zack wanted to say he would be, that he'd said so long ago, but only grimaced slightly. He remembered all too well the conversation so many years ago in the lift. That idea that she'd been so mad she hadn't even respond, ever. Not that day or ever after it. Shortly after it, staking her claim to a relationship and crusade with Byron.  
  
Somewhere inside, buried under a million changes to her psyche, herself, and all she's been through, there' still just a little girl who wants to be cared for," Susan said with a bit of disgust. "So much that she'd probably just at the chance to be cared for, same as she did with Byron. I'd hate to see that happen to her again. She devotes so completely to someone willing to help her, regardless of whether it's love or friendship, in an almost intoxicating way."  
  
"The funny thing about it really, though," she said with just enough acidic sarcasm in her voice. "Is that the Vorlon's weren't the ones who completely removed her humanity. It was us. We used her like a tool, put away and uncared for until we needed to pull it out again. We lied to her. We used her. We pushed her away. We hid things from her. We demanded she do things for us without reward. We sent her here and there and kicked her in the teeth for doing what we asked. We denied her anything she requested. We never made time for her. We never even remembered her."  
  
Susan sighed, as she got ready to stand up, "Lyta has a million reasons to hate and hurt us, when is someone going to give her a reason to love?"  
  
The End..  
  
...For Now.  
  
Expect an epilogue.  
  
*laughs* Expect a few more arcs. 


	5. Intermission

Intermission: ~*~ "Don't Play With Matches"  
  
( Evening )  
  
"There you are. Planning to stay with us this time?"  
  
Her eyes swiveled around. To the upside bright lights, harsh smell. Turning head slightly to the one side pretty red headed telepath who looks like she's waiting for you to either croak or speak. Turning head again, to other side, cute doctor guy. Really cute doctor. Lips cracked and swollen move too slowly.  
  
"You mean, I was awake before and didn't take the time to see if I had even the slightest chance at a date before leaving again?"  
  
Nurse Stewart blushed, then mumbled something about checking her stats and vanished, while Lyta struggled not to laugh, reaching out to stroke a tendril of the younger girls red hair back.  
  
"You woke up the first night here," she said, tracing her finger down the string of hair to along her cheek. She had been here most of the days, during the entire time, waiting for her open her eyes, watching and waiting. After the past, after what this girl had once done for her, what wouldn't she do for her? "Just long enough to ask Jeffery whether TEEP was safe."  
  
"Feel tired," Melissa whispered through a yawn, as she titled her cheek against Lyta's cool touch. {Jeffery?}  
  
"You're supposed to, you've been through a lot." Lyta said, looking over her shoulder and out the room, toward the two doctors talking. There'd been so much talk about Melissa already. Her 'strange' circumstances. She watched as the person she was speaking about met her eyes and started walking toward them. {Jeffery is the nurse who's been watching over her.}  
  
{I'll fall asleep a dozen more time if I can wake up to that face each time.} Lyta smiled slightly, shaking her head, and so did her young charge, who then began to giggle slightly even though it hurt.  
  
"Did I miss something?" Jeffery said coming in with a smile, and a slightly wary look behind his eyes, trying to convince himself he was positive he hadn't heard either of them say anything before they started giggling.  
  
"I have found, with these two," A voice said from the door and everyone turned to look. Standing the doorway was the liaison to Minbar holding tulips in his hands. "It is a common fact."  
  
"Lennier!" Melissa exclaimed smiling and trying to rise, under the offending, yet not cruel, hand of Lyta's that pushed her back to the bed. She compromised to staying lying down, only slightly propped up an inch or so craning her head toward the figure walking to the end of her bed. "Blue tulips; my favorite! But how did you know?"  
  
"It was something, as you humans say," Lennier started with a slightly smile creasing the corners of his lips and calming his eyes. "That a little bird told me."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Much Later That Night )  
  
"You just get in?" Lyta asked though her fingers as she yawned. Days without sleep troubled her, even if she didn't even need much or that during them she was focused on more important things. She always put off something for the more important things. Well, the more important things were better now. She needed to get a little rest at least.  
  
Susan nodded as she unbuttoned her jacket, "Long night. You be surprised what a restless crew can bring about in just one day."  
  
"When are you supposed to be leaving, again?"  
  
"Couple of days," she said as she moved rooms, still talking as she changed clothes. "I have them cleaning parts of that ship that haven't been cleaned since it got put together. Give a girl some general bars and just looking at someone in low rank is bad enough to make them jump. My ship is going to shine like god himself spit polished it now."  
  
Susan came back to the room, minus a jacket and her hair loose from its band, uncoiling across her back and shoulders, "You're sure you don't mind me staying here with you? I can always get another room, especially in light of circumstances."  
  
"The place is huge," Lyta replied, from the kitchen where she rinsed out her glass and turned it upside down on the counter, amusement infused her tone. "I could get lost in here alone. You'll have to stay and make sure I don-"  
  
*Beep-Beep*  
  
"Who is it?" Lyta called out to the door.  
  
"Jaden," the voice replied. "I have a delivery for Mrs. Anything."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About the Same Time )  
  
She watched the stars silently, petting the animal in her lap languidly. She had watched the stars as a child back home, they had been her window of dreams, but this sky was nothing like home. Every night she found a new star, told herself a new story to her made up constellations, and went to bed fulfilled with the knowledge that this sky would never be barred from her, this home never taken, and this life never ripped from her finger tips.  
  
That though did not make all the other parts better. Their government like any other had it's up and downs and a very rocky ledge to scale up before it was perfectly ready. They had their decrees for living set down in stone long before most of them had arrived, appointed, written and recorded for all of posterity, by someone their main beneficiary had chosen.  
  
No one really talked about their main beneficiary either. They talked about all the leaders of the Psi-Corps revolt except for that one and usually it acquired to the fact of having no name or sex even. It seemed to almost be taboo. The public gossiped about who the person was and those who knew stayed respectfully quiet on the subject, almost to the point of annoyance. Especially when council members declined to give a full opinion without consulting "their beneficiary".  
  
Council meetings. She'd spent the better half, no two thirds of the day, in council meetings. People were already batting around the idea of whether they should approach the Interstellar Alliance for membership. Whether they wanted their home to be that revealed at all, weather they needed to start talking about taking on large alley, but so much specifically large allies, but public ones.  
  
It had taken years to get to where they were already and that still wasn't far enough from where they'd started.  
  
"It's growing late. Coming in for the night or are you going to stay out and contemplate the stars some more?" The man in the doorway asked, traces of humor in his voice. He was silhouetted with yellow light from inside the house, so that it carved him out like a shadow. Tall and sinewy with long hair and a voice made for council rooms, for battle plans, for negotiations and taking action.  
  
He was probably smiling in that shadow, she thought with a laugh. "In a bit. Thank you for asking."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Back to the Babylon 5 )  
  
"I saw Kalee, too, on my last stop." He said, quirking half a smile across his rugged features. "You should see her now, it's like someone completely different. All smiles, no worries, and not one headache since moving her. It's more than I could have ever hoped for."  
  
"That's terrific," Lyta said, as she shifted the brown paper package in her hands just enough to judge weight and guess what was inside without too much peeking. "I'm glad I could be of an assistance to her."  
  
"And me," Jaden replied, with a nod, understanding this still wasn't an informal visit. "If that's all, I'll be going now."  
  
"The paperwork?"  
  
"Doesn't exist. Never did."  
  
"The flight log?"  
  
"Erased the moment I hit normal space."  
  
"This transaction?"  
  
"Never took place," Jaden said looking a little wary, but still repeated the same words he exchanged at the end of each visit. And the same feeling of vertigo filled him. Like a warm surge of water coated his skin and then she nodded very slowly as the door behind him opened.  
  
Watching the two, Susan stood in the bedroom doorway, unannounced, not introduced, brushing her hair across her shoulder and looking confused. She had a robe now, as she'd gone to change to leave "Mrs. Anything" to her guest. They seemed to be clearing it up, but what confused her was trying to figure out exactly what Lyta was doing to him. She could feel her using her powers, the air changed -almost seemed electrically charged -when she did, but what she was doing was always a long, twisted and frequently hard to understand question to ask her.  
  
"Have a nice day," he said, smiling, and he strode out of the room, whistling.  
  
Lyta sat down on the couch with her package and ran her fingers across it, a smile barely touching her lips, "Penny for your thoughts, Susan?"  
  
"And Jaden is?"  
  
"Someone who mistakenly said 'I would do anything for' and ended up with one of the best jobs you can never find," she replied, starting to open the package. She pulled at the stringer unwinding it and then pulling at one side of the paper. She liked these old fashioned packages. They made life seem simpler and nicer, it was something to touch and smell. "He's Haven's main cargo flyer."  
  
The box opened outward, to give way to a dozen folders with actual writing on it, filled with letters, drafts, blue prints, mock charts, proposals, always like normal. Everything was normal save one thing. A letter that sat on top of the thick folder. That was entitled to Leetah, a script in nice writing, in perfect, practiced cursive.  
  
"And Mrs. Anything?"  
  
"Hateel," Lyta said, frowning slightly at the letter facing her, the name backwards, the joke staring at her, almost too obviously. Not Hateel. Not Mrs. Anything. Not dear our main beneficiary. Not even Hateel, but Leetah. It might as well say Lyta, for the buttons it pushed inside her skull in reaction. "Hateel Anything was a mock name, and different appearance, that made it easier for both of us. He still sees me as a short, squat, dark brown haired, blue eyed woman."  
  
She pulled it out and her skin prickled, her blood running cold. Her fingers turned back the folded edge of the envelope, ignoring whatever it was Susan was saying now about her actions. Her decisions about Haven weren't really ever going to change and the harder it was to trace anything back to her or to Haven the better she saw the decision she was making. Pulling the letter out, her breath stilled in her chest. It was like watching the explosions in the war. You were horrified, but couldn't look away.  
  
As she opened the folded paper and read the message, she raised her other hand to her lips, across her nose and cheeks.  
  
"Lyta?" Susan asked coming back from the kitchen, realizing she wasn't listening once again. A bad habit of hers, when she wasn't interested or didn't want to discuss something, but it wasn't this that caused her sudden confusion. It was the stillness of the air, the way if there had been sound in the room, even the humming of the lights, the refrigerator, anything, it was deathly silent.  
  
Her eyes landed on her as she went around the counter. Lyta was staring at the couch, not the letter resting on one of her legs clad in a soft cloth with an odd pattern. Her hair hung around her face, down to the letter even, and she seemed paler than normal.  
  
"Lyta?" Susan asked again, setting down her drink and walking to her, everything starting to clash in her head, because she had known what the box contained. What could it be? A skirmish? A set of murders? Someone found out about Haven? When she placed her hand on the red heads shoulder, she didn't look up, but held up the letter to Susan.  
  
It caused her to gasp and drop the letter like it might have burned her.  
  
"It's not true," she said, starting strong, but faltering under Lyta's withering gaze, her entire face pale and eyes blank, at her and the brunt force of her thoughts.  
  
{You can feel it. You know.}  
  
It only took a minute to graze the letter, but it only took a second to catch the larger things. The smell of the strong winds that whispered winter and green grass that clung tenaciously to summer seemed to fill the area around her. The long fingers that held the pen for a moment were hers. The strong thoughts even held quiet were her thoughts. That being was she herself for a moment and she herself could have written that letter with all that there was.  
  
Dear Beneficiary:  
  
I'm pleased to announce there are no pitfalls to the review this period. Everything is looking up for Sanctuary, Home, Abode, and Asylum. Of course each one has it's minor foibles, problems, and victories each and every day.  
  
The sewage system in Home needs to be remastered, but we have that covered already. Abode is applying to have its council chamber built to Earthen specifics, we could break ground with your approval. Inside of Asylum they've finally started making everything in the lost children's shelter work out and almost all of the children already have homes, with open doors. And Sanctuary is as it has always been a friendly town full of ideas and dreams that would make you proud.  
  
In Sanctuary the leaves are turning the colors of the twin sunsets, while Abode already had its first snow as of a few days ago. I'm pleased to say we've mastered erecting and entrance to the newest ruins found near Home and that the excavation near Asylum is still pulling up new things even after three years.  
  
There is a clamoring for denouncement of our beneficiary. Many wish to give their thanks and homage, though most of the council understands you need to be secretive and your want to not be worshiped by your own people for doing even the greatest deeds we have been able to imagine.  
  
We do though long- No, I. I wish for you to see the wonder your actions. The simplistic joy of the perfect breezes through the leaves. To hear the laughter of the children of our race ringing out through the town at all hours of the day. To walk in the knowledge of the full peace that flows all around us now. Come and see what all your hard work has reaped.  
  
Come home to us, my willow.  
  
Council Member-Elect; Byron 


	6. Herald of Power

Phoenix Ascendant - Arc Two, Part One ~*~ "The Herald of Power"  
  
( About an Hour to Mid Day )  
  
Hate and Love.  
  
*SNAP*  
  
They were such very small four-letter words for the overwhelming feeling they could give a person. Each existed right at the edge of the other and at the opposites of true extremes. They were sly devils, those two, who could turn your head and your world inside out and upside down with the only the faintest of a notion. The greatest thing about the two was that they never liked to play alone it seemed, for they had a tendency to miss each other if they couldn't be dragging you in two directions at once.  
  
Which was exactly where Lyta found herself.  
  
On board later that day would be one very confused pilot and a dozen or so people who just wouldn't shut up. It wasn't even specifically that they wouldn't leave her alone. No, they did that just fine. They could sense the fumes coming off of her for miles. They had the first time she'd returned to down below. Now they simply stayed out of her way, but none of them were quiet. Not that it was even vaguely their fault. They just thought and she just picked up everything, every thought, image, whisper and neuron of memory.  
  
*SNAP-SNAP*  
  
It didn't so much bother her that they were thinking so much or so loud. They were just causing another reaction to the actual problem. They were salting a wound that they hadn't the vaguest idea was even there. And then, of course, there was the jubilation. She understood it and yet it still grated on her. For some of them this would be their first trip to Haven, the land of fulfilled dreams even after having heard the planet months and years ago, for others the final trip that would mean they would never leave it again. It could be surprising how long it could take someone to pack up their lives and say goodbye even after they'd been on the run without a home for so long.  
  
That came down to being the difference, didn't it?  
  
They were happy to be going.  
  
She wasn't.  
  
{Hello!?!?! Earth to Lyta?}  
  
"You don't have to shout," the red head said moving her lips and opening her eyes. Sometimes it felt more jarring to come back to her body than it did to leave it.  
  
"Sure and there are bears doing the hula outside the space dock." Susan said impertinently. Except when Lyta's expression didn't change except to get more severe when she raised her eyebrows as if to ask what this interruption was about, she only shrugged, half rolled her eyes and kept talking.  
  
"I've been talking to you for the last ten minutes and you've sat there still as a stone."  
  
"Just because I heard it doesn't mean I can improve upon the silence by responding to it," the red head replied with a peeved frown.  
  
"Wow, and that's not a Vorlon answer if I'd ever heard one," Susan said watching Lyta get up, suffering another momentary glare from her.  
  
"Well, thank you, I did think that was their point originally. I have to be going soon. Was there point you were making?"  
  
"You mean you're actually going to leave the room finally?" Susan said putting her hands on her hips and looking overly flabbergasted.  
  
She'd grown rather annoyed by the fact Lyta had seemed pensive, annoyed and had with drawn for the last two days since receiving her letter. The computer had only recorded her leaving the room once before now and that was on the same night she received the package. That outside trip had only been for about two hours. For the rest of the duration she'd pretty much, for what Susan could tell, sat on the couch unmoving.  
  
"Lunch," Lyta said. "With the ambassador of Centauri Prime and the liaison for Minbar."  
  
"Really?" Susan asked, actually starting to sound like she might be regretting her earlier tone, and was curious about her friends' momentary plans. "Are you going to change?"  
  
"Hmm?" Lyta emitted, sounding distracted and then looked down to her body. She was still wearing a pair of nightclothes. She pressed her lips thoughtfully and the colors and clothes began to shift suddenly. A flurry of color and movement seemed to surround her body and then it all settled down. Suddenly she was dressed with power, presence, and the ability to make anyone a little breathless looking at her, which amazed Susan, at least for the first half a dozen seconds.  
  
She was wearing what appeared to be black completely form fitting tights, that were accented by the fact she now wore a loose fitting brilliant emerald colored sweater that hung to about one third down her thigh. It accented the fact she was overtly female with a low dropping cut in the front. The outfit seemed to show more than it really did, making those who would see her wonder and gasp.  
  
All of it though quite obviously just normal clothing, seemed to somehow give the appearance of power and complete ease, as thought is was just asking someone to notice her and yet also know that they couldn't in a million years dream of touching her.  
  
"H-how?" Susan stuttered, flooded with shock.  
  
"Telekinetic manipulation on a molecular level. Can you tell I've been practicing?" Lyta asked with a coy smile as she played with something black in her hand. It shifted in her hand, elongating, and then became thinner at one end and thicker at the other, till it was a long black lacquer hairpin.  
  
Humming slightly she went about pulling half her hair up with the pin. In the end, she had a hairstyle that only added to the allure of her appearance. It was halfway pulled up and fell like a waterfall from her head down across her shoulders and past her shoulder bones anyway. At the edges near her ears it even appeared to have formed small downward spiral curls.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( About Half an Hour Later )  
  
"And you are?"  
  
"I-um-Ember?" the girl answered, questionably and obviously startled. She had long dark brown hair to about her waist and bright blue, very nervous eyes. She had a way of standing that seemed to imply if you looked at her just a little harder she might be able to make herself completely invisible right before your eyes.  
  
"And you are in my med. lab for what reason?"  
  
"I came to-uh-see her," the girl pointed shakily toward the room nearest to the back left corner, starting to get much too flummoxed standing so close to the man who towered over her mostly. He seemed to be regarding her most seriously, as was everyone else in the room now.  
  
"Patient's name?"  
  
"Melissa." Ember said, almost stuttering but catching herself before it happened.  
  
She wasn't rather fond of figures of authority and she had many ways around them. Highest and most used was the shy, nervous child approach. She was nineteen, world hardened, and hadn't been shy or nervous since she'd been about eight, but she had the eyes to pull it off and it worked wonderfully.  
  
"Okay," The doctor said, glancing from her to the door where the young telepath girl was. "But don't make it too long. She still needs her rest."  
  
"I promise," the girl said, giving him a shaky smile and walking beyond. She put a little hurry in her step, a tiny dash, that might look she feared that if she didn't get there fast he might just change his mind on her. Her eyes were bright blue, wide and convincing if she acted nervous and scared.  
  
Everyone bought it.  
  
Why was it so many adults fell for everything so easily?  
  
{I'm not sure, but I'm all sorts of curious to who the hell you are.}  
  
Ember stopped about three feet inside the door since she'd expected the girl to be asleep. Getting in here had been half the fun and she'd surmised she might not even be able to get that far really. She hadn't honestly expected her to be awake and aware already.  
  
{So who are you? And why are you here?} She shifted on the bed, taking in her newest visitor someone she had never seen before. The girl had a mischievous air about her that just drew Melissa's curiosity like a moth to a flame. {Oh, yes, and where are you from?}  
  
"Ember. And Earth, then Minbar," She said with a laugh, that sounded rusty and forced, like it hadn't been used in a long while. She walked in more and let the girl on the bed get a better look at her. Her style of clothes was rather odd, colors only at the moment in silver and blues. The main part of her outfit was blue except for the bottom section of her pants and long jacket which had a slash downward and then it was all silver from there down. "I came see how you were doing. I arrived yesterday on a transport to meet up with the others."  
  
"They say you saved something very important of ours. That you risked your life," the new girl said curiously, edging on the foot of her bed. She hadn't really a clue what the girl on the bed had saved though people talked about it reverently like it was something important and holy, and that was enough for her. She'd never had to test her resolve to whether she'd step into gunfire for someone yet and she hoped that test was coming later rather than sooner.  
  
Melissa flopped back on the bed, with a small frown. "It wasn't the big of a deal. I mean, if you look at in comparison to what the others have been doing for our freedom for years, it's really small by comparison."  
  
"No," the girl with the blue eyes whispered, with a small, true smile. "I think it was awfully brave of you."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Same Time )  
  
**You Have Two Messages. Message One.**  
  
"Lyta, its Susan."  
  
"What do you think you're doing? Babylon 5 is probably the last place you should be taking part of your extended vacation on. Last you said you were going to see if you could stop by Earth around summer while I was on leave in Russia. If you were there I missed you and since I doubt you could miss me, my bet is that you weren't there."  
  
"Hopefully, you didn't get yourself into any trouble and you've found some peace. Not that I think you can find that at all on Babylon 5. I must confess I haven't even the vaguest idea why you'd go back there."  
  
Beep-Beep.  
  
"I guess they've broken something new now. Send me a message back before four months passes this time. Ivanova out."  
  
**Message End. Displaying next message.**  
  
"Well, well, well, this is the last place I thought I'd be dropping off an update to you. Tell me you are at least giving Lockley a run for her money. The woman needs someone to get under her skin that she can't boss around. What I wouldn't give to see her face when she realizes you're on the station."  
  
"Daddy!"  
  
"Mary, Daddy's on the com right now with someone important."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Oh, come here you little devil." Shrieks of laughter. "Say hello to your Aunt Lyta."  
  
"Hello Aunt Lyta!"  
  
"And what do you say to her?"  
  
"Thank you for my pretty dresses and the dolly! They're really, really pretty!"  
  
"Say, sweet heart, why don't you go find Mommy and I'll catch up you both in a minute."  
  
"Okay!"  
  
"Kids these days. Who would have ever thought of me as a father figure? Oh, and thanks for the Duck Dodgers helmet. I'm pretty sure I know, but I won't ask how you came by it. It's got an honorary place on that enormous desk of mine."  
  
"So, right, update."  
  
" The latest house we bought is a fold, there's a new warehouse open on five that's showing great signs of progress and I've found a few more of your missing attaché and sent them off in the right direction. Bet your doing better than I last saw you, make sure you keep it that way. Need to go give a menacing speech to my board, so toodle-loo."  
  
**Message End. There are no more messages.**  
  
Sitting there quietly she thought about the message and what it meant. Michael was great at stating the obvious in a code that only certain people would understand. In this message, there was only one person who would actually understand the code for the sentences he'd just used. It was a code they'd worked up very long ago in the beginning so anyone intercepting their messages wouldn't find anything funny about them.  
  
Lyta pulled out the necklace chain and held the anchor at the bottom for a few minutes thinking over his words. Her fingers played on it without triggering it all. It wouldn't trigger without Susan there either and she'd left about half an hour ago now. Shaking her head she stood up and walked over to the com system standing in front of it again. She dropped the necklace back inside her sweater and stood there staring at the blue screen for a few seconds.  
  
"Reestablish contact to Entil'Zha Delenn's personal channel."  
  
**Connecting. Stand By.**  
  
"Yes, who-"  
  
The screen cleared a man appeared, both preoccupied and unexpecting, he was talking before he even looked up to see who it was. The man on the screen had aged since she'd last seen him. She'd seen pictures of course, but she'd done a good job of actually not running into him. His eyes darkened and widened all at once after focusing on his face. Rage and shock were running hand in hand across his face.  
  
"Hello, Mr. President," she said with a large reserve of politeness, even if she wasn't feeling up to it.  
  
"You're- you're alive?!?" He seemed to have lost his grasp, anger taking control faster. "What the hell are you doing on Babylon 5?"  
  
"Yes. It's nice to see you, too, Mr. President." Lyta said, bristling, feeling the irritation just starting to roll off her in waves around the room. "Do you mind if I ask where your wife is?"  
  
"Delenn?" Sheridan sputtered. "Yes, I mind. What business do you have with her?"  
  
"I believe that's between her and I," the red head replied calmly, as she purposely looked over her shoulder and floated her glass of juice to her hand. She missed seeing it directly, but he both paled a little more and seemed to become just that much more livid.  
  
"Does Captain Lockley know you're on station?"  
  
"I should hope so. I was after all doing some work for her just the other day," Lyta said calmly, before taking a sip of her drink through the straw sitting in the cup. "When will Delenn be in?"  
  
It was all she could do to annoy him while looking both calm and stately there. Part of her, a very large part of her, wanted to reach out as far as she could and tear the man in two. After all he'd put her through hell and brought her and put her through hell and kicked her in the teeth for it. Kept her back and put a gun to her head when he didn't like what she was doing.  
  
"She's busy at the moment. She's away from Minbar right now," he said warily, looking like he was the wrath of god ready to strike her down. He was formulating this behind his eyes she was sure, but what she couldn't really tell. "I don't think it's best for you to try and contact her anymore."  
  
"That's not your decision, Mr. President," Lyta said, making the title pronounce and emphasized. "That's hers. What we discuss and what happens with what we discuss is, as always, none of your business. It's time you realized that."  
  
"Are you threatening me?"  
  
"Of course not," she said with a perfect lift to her tone, as her lips curled in a slight smile. "How is David doing? I heard he was just about to have another birthday a few weeks after the last time I talked to Delenn."  
  
"Leave my son out of this, you-you"  
  
"Monster?" Lyta offered casually, her voice hard as ice at the end of the word. Her eyes narrowed on him, the air around her crackling. "Since you apparently can't even make civil conversation for a single minute, I'm going to offer you this. You pass along this message to your wife and I'll just leave you be."  
  
"Don't you dare-"  
  
"Do you ever just shut up?" Lyta asked rudely suddenly, her minor hold on her temper snapping.  
  
"This conversation has nothing to do with whatever the hell you've done or are still holding on to from the past. If you can't move on, that's your problem. One of only about a million I could name. Get over yourself, Mister-I-John-Sheridan-Am-God-of-the-Known-Universe. I am tired of your petty games and wild life and race preserving schemes that step on anyone who is not important to you in that moment. Do not involve me, or my people, in your self-delusions."  
  
"Tell Delenn she can contact me, and Lennier, via Antari whenever she returns."  
  
Abruptly the com turned off when she slammed the button with telekinesis.  
  
It took a few minutes to realize it and it caused her to frown when she did turn around finally. She realized she'd broken all the glass around her again, except for the cup in her hand. The room looked like someone had thrown a tornado into it and she shook her head slightly. Looking down to make sure her clothes were still neat she headed for the door and the lunch she'd just make on time.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( An Hour Later )  
  
Time and space are infinite when you stare at them as clearly as you could out of this window.  
  
"General Ivanova?"  
  
There was nothing so different as this window from many others on the ship. It was one most of the people on the station never saw though and it was so hard to pick out from the outside. It was just a window. It would never be just a window. How many times had she stared out this window? How many times had she seen the coming storm through it? How many times the radiant break of the light through the dark clouds?  
  
How many old moments, passed so fast no one could hold on to them, were attached to this window?  
  
"Yes?" She said, letting one more moment pass before she looked at the person beside her. He looked gun shy and slightly life worn, but both confused and concerned to why she was standing there.  
  
"Is there something we can help you with?"  
  
"No," Susan replied, shaking her head, an odd smile at her lips. She could remember the very first time she'd step foot in this room. Nervous as hell, and ready for any reason to look annoyed at someone not doing their job right because of it. "It's nothing."  
  
"Do you need Captain Lockley or maybe-"  
  
"No," she said again, a bit harder and she turned back to the window. She glanced at him once and then asked calmly, rationally, and with too much pressure on her words. "What do you see out there?"  
  
"Stars?" The man next to her asked with an edge of timidness. He'd never known quite how to approach her years ago and she still made him uneasy now when she was off the subject of work. "A Centauri cargo ship and two Drazi passenger ships?"  
  
"No, beyond that."  
  
"I'm not sure what you mean, ma'am."  
  
Susan bristled at the comment of ma'am but it slid away as she shook her head and but her hands behind her back looking at it stately. "It's the future and the past. It's all right here and right now, standing where we're standing, looking out this very window. The entire world was ours for the taking and we did. We took it and we remade and shaped it. Right here."  
  
Ah. Nostalgia, he thought, figuring out partially what she meant. He struggled to see it though. He'd been in this room most every day of the last dozen or so years. He worked and lived in this room it seemed and he needed little more than that. Of course he had his dreams of bigger and better, especially after watching people who changed destiny come in and out of those door-- but out this window?  
  
"That's the power of this place," he heard her say quietly after a second. "Don't ever let anyone take that away for you. Don't let them send you away or convince you a break would be best for you somewhere quieter. Don't let them cart you off or promote you away. Don't let them talk you into somewhere bigger and better. Because for just a second, just a blink of an eye, you were here and they couldn't stop you from taking the future by storm."  
  
He fumbled for words and ended up nodding repetitively before saying quickly. "Yes, ma'am."  
  
Susan turned and looked at him for a second, regarding the man who met her gaze. Her eyes were darker than normal and something like doubt seemed to shadow her expression, as she thinned her lips, pressing them together. She let out a breath that he only heard because he was standing so close. He didn't understand. No one did until they had gotten away from here and then they spent every moment looking back wondering why they'd ever left.  
  
"That'll be all," she said with a resigned tone. She made it to the door before turning around to look back at him again. She found it funny that this would come to mind now, after telling him she didn't want to know that information. "Do you know where Captain Lockley is at the moment?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am. In her office."  
  
"Thank you," she said after a moment and she nodded to herself. Then she left with one confused Lt. Commander David Corwin in her wake, who glanced silently out the window trying to see what he'd just been told about.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Same Time, Far Away Place )  
  
"She's coming!"  
  
"So you've said," she replied. "For the last two hours."  
  
"Oh, you couldn't possibly understand, Heather," he replied, with a laugh and a skip to his steps as he moved a curtain and looked out the window.  
  
"Of course not," she said, trying not to let her lips even touch smiling. It wasn't so much the subject as the idea of him being happy that made it a harder aspect to not smile. Because of it sarcasm dripped from her voice. "Because it's not like she hasn't saved my whole race from war, pestilence, Teep Town and extermination or anything like that."  
  
"Oh, well, yes, there's that," he said, and then laughed slightly and threw open the curtains, letting the light stream into the room, over him, lighting it all up. "But it's her and she'll be here."  
  
"Settle down, Byron," she said with a laugh. She couldn't help it. It was rather infectious to see, hear and feel him in this state. Especially after having heard so much about this being who was supposed to be coming soon. "Or someone's bound to think your having a seizure with all this bouncing around."  
  
"Settle down? Settle Down!" Byron came upon her in swoop. Picked her up, and swung her around in a hug. His eyes were like stars and his smile was real, something she hadn't seen on him in so long. Which made both happy for him and wary for the object he claimed did this to him. "Settle down? I could no more make the suns set at this very moment from their dance in heavens. There's so much to do, to plan, to make ready. We have to-"  
  
"Abide by her wishes to be incognito," Heather stated. "Let her be herself. As Lyta Alexander she'll attract enough attention as is, and from what you've told me that should be enough to startle her into place already. I don't know what this 'delicate, sweet, and innocent' person would do if even half of the city tried to get down on their knees and bow to her for all she's done. She might faint or have a stroke."  
  
Okay, so she admitted, she was being a little hard on this mystery woman.  
  
Not that she was much of mystery. Byron had shared much of his recollection of their times with her. She knew how she moved and talked, but it wasn't the same as actually knowing the woman. It was very much still his interpretation from inside his head and Byron had a tendency to paint everything a bit prettier than it actually was.  
  
Actually, a lot better than it was. Especially when it came to people he claimed to be in love with. He tended to make them a lot better than they really were and she was sure this person wasn't going to be that much different. He had gotten into the dreadful habit about the time they were both 5 years old, and she had been tolerating it ever since - best friends did that.  
  
"A party still. A revolutionary leader and-"  
  
"Throw a party for something else, Byron," Heather said shaking her head in amusement. "You have a million reasons at your finger tips. Use one of them. Use the upcoming Winter. Use the unveiling of the monument. Use Asylums Children's Home Celebration. Add a Ball or a party if you need one, I'm sure no one will notice a little more rejoicing in that much."  
  
"Ah, Heather," he said, calming down slightly. Well, his heart and rampant enthusiasm, at least, though not his head, and that wide smile seemed to be screwed on tighter than a Drahk keeper was, so it wasn't going anywhere either. "What would I do with out you?"  
  
"Loose the election, of course," she said with a smirk. "Now back to your speech, Mister Council Member Elect."  
  
"Where were we?" He asked going back to looking out the window, his right hand playing with the edge of the cloth to his side. There were children running through the streets playing a game of hide and seek. Their laughter echoed in their thoughts as such a musical tone. Children laughing and playing who would grow up without fear. It was all that he could have hoped for.  
  
"The school system," she said after a moment, shuffling through a stack of papers in her lap once she'd taken her seat back.  
  
"No, we covered that," he said curiously looking at her over his shoulder. She had a habit of being on top of everything. She seemed to keep everything that could be of any use up to the moment on what was happening. She was so good to him, especially on days like this when he lacked the focus she so naturally had. "Didn't we?"  
  
"I still think it needs revision. The children will need more. Especially with how many are due and how many are still arriving."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( An Hour Past Midday )  
  
"I have to agree," Vir nodded rapidly. "It does seem quieter here now. Not like it was back in the beginning. Oh, sure, there's the Interstellar Alliance still, but everything's just kind of winding down."  
  
"I seem to have forgotten an appointment," Lennier said standing up suddenly. "If you'll both excuse me."  
  
Lyta gave him a glance that showed both amusement and faint annoyance. Lennier did not simply forget anything. He was, if anything, meticulous about everything he did from polishing his head to taking care of matters that Delenn handed down herself. It was very hard to believe he'd suddenly just 'forgot' something. Especially since seeming to have 'forgotten' also coincided with the meal having been over ten minutes ago. He nodded to both of them with his fingers in the shape of a triangle and walked away.  
  
She looked at Vir, raised a delicately shaped eye brow, and asked very directly, "What shall we discuss now, Ambassador Cotto?"  
  
"There is a serious matter I had been hoping to discuss with you," he said, with a slightly nervous air. "But perhaps here is not the best place to be discussing it."  
  
"You are sitting with the most powerful telepath on the station, in known space, and possibly alive," she said, as she made a wave with her hand delicately and all sound stopped. It wasn't as if it had simply been stopped. People were still talking and walking and bustling, there was just no sound. Absolutely none, like someone had made it go mute. She watched him swallow and with a wave it was all back again. "Here is as good as anywhere, no one will be able to hear anything you say."  
  
"There are some problems - back home," he said, taking a big gulp of wine from his cup. "The kind that can't be taken care of from the front. I was wondering if-"  
  
{You want me to help you plan or run your rebellion?} Lyta said, tilting her head slightly, and though she gave him a start by touching his mind, she felt his relief when he realized she had not said the words aloud.  
  
Staring at him for a moment longer, she said, "I never pictured you for a hero, Vir. G'Kar perhaps, Sheridan of course would die for his spotlight, Lennier - well, he has a habit of stumbling on to those things - but you? "  
  
"As I was telling one of my colleagues most recently, Miss Alexander, I don't have any visions of grandeur. I'm just a coward who's too tired to be scared any longer."  
  
"Would that all hero's could claim as worthy a reason as you just did for what you're asking," she said, fingering the necklace chain that hung through the low cut in her sweater. She stared passed him at the area they were sitting in as she did half a dozen things.  
  
She listened to Melissa's heartbeat and breathing, the lulls of her present dream. Her people in down below chatting. The ships docking and undocking. The entire populace good and bad with it's thoughts in both extremes. But mostly she checked to see who was listening or trying to. Not many people were listening so much as paying attention to the fact the Centauri Ambassador was not alone with a gorgeous and dangerous looking woman.  
  
It gave him center stage and apparently due to a few other things, she wasn't the first to appear as such with him.  
  
"Who was the other one?"  
  
Vir looked startled and looked around, trying to make sure it was him she was addressing. "What?"  
  
"Whom was the other woman, both dangerous and beautiful, who held your arm?"  
  
He paled before her eyes and looked away. She didn't pry though the guilt that radiated off of him but she was sure she would have been able to feel on the other end of the station. It was guilt so massive that she rarely felt in those aside from those who'd taken innocent lives, and unless, he'd changed, it only furthered a type of curiosity in her. How much had he changed since the last time he'd been here?  
  
"Mariel." He said in such a soft whisper it was only that it matched the loudest thoughts and pictures he was forcing upon the direct area that she nodded in vague understanding. "We parted ways. She's back home - on Centauri Prime. Married now."  
  
"One of Londo's castaway's? And now yours, too?" Lyta placed carefully, as she watched his eyes darken and round with her words. There was definitely more at play here than 'just a woman'. Vir had always been the child under their wing it had seemed so long ago and it was almost a sort of harsh blow to see him devastated to numb and guilty looking. But wasn't that how Babylon 5 had left them all?  
  
After all he'd gotten off with much less than she had.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Yes, what?"  
  
Lyta nodded after a moment. "Yes, I will help you. But there will be conditions."  
  
"Oh. I see. Uh, Mrs. Alex-"  
  
"Lyta."  
  
"Lyta," he said part nervously. This woman had come very far from the person he'd once talked to when he was completely drunk. He still wondered what it all was he'd said to her but that was so long ago and so unimportant now by comparison. "Can I ask you something?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Why?"  
  
~*~*~  
  
( One Day Later )  
  
"You're sure? You have to?"  
  
"Yes," Susan said with a laugh, tossing her bag on the chair and looking around to see if she'd forgotten anything. "Unless I'm really trying for a court martial."  
  
The red haired woman on the couch just frowned a tiny bit more obviously. She tilted her head to catch her friend's eye and said with a tinge of some emotion that couldn't be placed. "I could always kidnap you."  
  
It wasn't anger or sarcasm so that was what made getting the remark a little harder to understand. It seemed bland and quietly pleading in a way that you only heard if you spent too much time with Lyta. Though in Susan's opinion there really wasn't a line where it was too much time with Lyta.  
  
"You would risk yourself for it, but you wouldn't risk Haven by doing that." Dropping on the center cushion of the couch, she gave a half smile. "Everything will be fine. You're going home. I can only hope I can get there sometime before I decide to pass from this life."  
  
"You could quit," Lyta said after a second. She almost smiled when she watched Susan's lips draw closer together to bring some kind of retort. Susan liked her job. For better or worse she liked it a lot. If she had wanted to quit, she would have done it. Turning her head, and resting her chin on the back of the couch she said, "I'm just."  
  
"Scared?" Susan ventured when almost a minute had passed and Lyta hadn't completed her sentence. When Lyta didn't look up, she reached out and took her friends hand. For a moment she almost frowned. Her friends' hands were thin, pale and cold at the moment. "You'll be fine. You always are. And if you aren't, bang a few of their heads together or blow up a building and they'll get the point pretty fast."  
  
"He lied to me, used me," she said with a frown again as she looked beyond the couch. She hadn't looked at Susan yet. It seemed to be as if Lyta were going out of her way not to meet Susan's eyes. Shaking her head, her voice started to edge into angry finally. "I felt him let go of life. Held on to him as long as I could. He died in front of my eyes. Told me I wasn't allowed to go with him when he pulled that trigger. Everything I ever did after that is-is-"  
  
When Lyta finally looked up at her, Susan realized what it was that had been bothering her. The dark circles under her eyes and the hollow of dead space within them. Her friend hadn't been sleeping, might not have at all since she'd found out. Lyta's voice was calm, but it was like a knife cutting harshly through velvet, both on a physical level and a psychic suddenly. "He's supposed to be dead."  
  
Anger and hurt; in large amounts. Two emotions that together didn't bode well for anyone who had to face the red headed telepath, especially for the person who caused it.  
  
"Which is why you're going back now instead of in two weeks," Susan said, moving closer, taking her hand and squeezing it, even though the moment she'd moved close, Lyta had suddenly looked away again. "Haven is fine, and you will be, too. I have faith in both of you."  
  
Lyta looked at her after a moment. She had long now captured the urge to destroy everything within her touch. It had over taken her for a while and she'd spent that while raging as loud as her quietest whisper could manage. It was a controlled urge now, but she still had the whim to crush something until it was a very small and very compact and no longer of use.  
  
Letting out a controlled sigh, Lyta leaned in and hugged Susan, saying only quietly a minute later. "When do you leave?"  
  
Susan hugged her close and then pulled back far enough to put her forehead to Lyta's. "Tomorrow morning."  
  
Frowning slightly Lyta pulled away from the contact, and pulled one of her knees to her chest from where it was against the back of the couch. "You'll still be here when I leave then. We decided to embark for Haven late tonight. Straight route to Sanctuary, other stops afterwards."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Midnight )  
  
"Queer time to be going isn't it? The middle of the night?" She came out, still dressed in her uniform, dark brown hair pulled back, eyes speculative. Everyone appeared to have boarded and there was just a small crowd waiting at the front that comprised of Zack, Susan, Lennier, Lyta and now herself. "A bit like you're sneaking out."  
  
"I'm sure you're sad to see us go," Lyta replied to the captain, her hand resting on the shoulder strap to the bag over her shoulder. She was clothed in a close fitting dress at the moment, in a dark blue color, accented by a bright cyan color. Her tone was patronizing, but it wasn't mean or cruel. She felt too stretched at the moment to be cruel. Especially with what she was going to be facing soon enough.  
  
"I have to admit it'll make breathing a little more easier," Elizabeth replied, not even pausing to look at all the people staring at them having a conversation. It was too creepy to even try to think that half of them might be drilling into the nooks and crannies between their conversation for thoughts and such. Yes, she would be happy to see them go. "I wanted to stop by and-"  
  
"Yes?" Lyta repeated after half a minute went by and Lockley was just looking at her.  
  
"To thank you," she said awkwardly. It was like her tongue was getting tied up with gum in her mouth. The words just wouldn't come out. She was trying to be sincere without feeling too buffeted into what she was doing by all those around her. "For keeping your word and for helping."  
  
"You're welcome," Lyta said, oddly, regarding the jittery woman. It was very strange indeed. There was no under current of thought that this was leading up to. No motive. Nothing. She was just thanking her?  
  
"And if that's all I still have a very busy station to run," Elizabeth said, taking a step back, rubbing her hands together. She made a hasty retreat, at least telling herself she had come and she had said thank you. That was the whole point wasn't it? "Have a nice flight."  
  
"Thank you," the red headed woman replied curiously as she watched the captain of Babylon 5 hurry off almost as fast as she could. She was surprised she hadn't been warned from ever setting foot on the station again. But it didn't hurt to have someone who hadn't forsworn her out of place.  
  
"Well, that was strange," she said after a moment, moving toward Susan. She supposed weirder things had happened in her life. After all she was a telepath who'd been altered by Vorlon's and seemed nearer to a First One than anyone wanted to really comment about.  
  
"Not that strange," Susan replied, trying not to smile. "She just needed a good talking to about things."  
  
"Did you?"  
  
"Me? What would I have to with it?" The general remarked with a laugh, moving nearer to her friend. She held a hand out and was surprised when it was taken and she was pulled into a hug.  
  
{Thank you. For everything.} She pulled out of the hug a moment later and said with a questioning tone, holding Susan's hand. "Soon."  
  
"Soon." Susan nodded as Lyta let go of her touch.  
  
They hugged once more and pulled apart, each touching something at the end of a necklace chain unseen, before going different wars. Lyta stopped in front of Zack and smiled. There was something more radiant about him since the return of Teep. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was there sometimes when they'd had small conversations. They hadn't spent any real time together except one breakfast since his schedule and hers seemed to pull in different directions.  
  
"I wanted to thank you for all the help you gave me, too. Even if it was just to not throw me into jail everytime I threatened you," she said with a smile tugging at the edges of her lips. "Susan and G'Kar say I have a problem with my temper."  
  
"I don't have any idea what you mean." Zack smiled, the boyish smile he kept tucked away somewhere. Perhaps it was just because she was so close or because she was trying to be cute and kidding around with him.  
  
"I'm sure you don't," Lyta replied with a laugh, and reached up to place a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you."  
  
Turning around she smiled warily to Lennier, realizing this was the moment where she'd actually have to get on the ship and go face the bastard who'd haunted her dreams and her heart for so many years. Someone she wasn't sure she knew how to love or hate, but wanted to break into a million pieces. Someone who still had that strange hold on her that time and memories always give.  
  
"Ready?"  
  
"Yes, Lyta," he replied, calmly.  
  
"Then we should go," she said with a nod, thinking: 'Before I loose my footing and try to stay here out of sheer will not to look into his eyes and find my years since then are the manipulated lie of a fool.'  
  
Zack watched her walk around the corner toward her waiting ship. Watched the last shift of her walking, the last flap of her dress vanish, her hair lingering a second longer than that, until she was completely gone. And then he felt that sinking feeling inside his stomach, deeper even, at the deepest spot in him, sinking once more. She was once more gone.  
  
Just gone and with someone who wasn't him.  
  
It echoed all those years ago. He'd let everything slip between his fingers then. And now, too. She was once more gone. Just gone and he'd done nothing to stop it. Again. But what could he do? Just like then, she didn't need him, she'd barely noticed him upon leaving except this time instead of anger it actually had a goodbye. What could he do but watch her walk out of his life all over again?  
  
"Which is more important?"  
  
Zack wasn't sure if he'd actually thought that or heard it out loud till he brushed his hands on the sides of his pants and turned to say his excused good byes to General Ivanova, who was standing there waiting, expectantly on him. It was only then that he realized she had said the words outloud and it hadn't been him asking one of those questions to himself that he couldn't answer, again.  
  
"I don't understand what you mean," Zack replied after a second, taking a chance to glance at where his officers were in the closest setting. Mostly it was to deny the fact he thought Susan had just asked him whether he found his job here or his urge to run after Lyta and explain everything more important.  
  
"How long is it till you go back on duty, Zack?"  
  
"A few hours. Why?"  
  
"Good. Very good. Enough time for a very early breakfast," Susan said, as a small smile began to creep over her lips. "I have a proposition for you." 


	7. Herald of Death

Phoenix Ascendant - Arc Two, Part Two ~*~ "The Herald of Death"  
  
( About Thirty Minutes Ago )  
  
"You know, I always thought that it was some type of bedtime story they told us to just get us to forget our fears and sleep for a little while," Ember said with a soft reserve. Her attention was divided so she didn't have to concentrate much; on walking, on talking, on playing with a long lock of dark brown hair that had fallen out from being pulled back.  
  
"I mean, as far as homes go, Minbar's not bad.but it never became that, you know? Home, I mean. Not the way Earth was. I guess, after leaving Earth, I just assumed there never would be a place to call home again."  
  
"Haven's not a bedtime story," Melissa said with a laugh. "If you catch Lyta while she's not busy, I'm sure she'd be glad to share with you some of her first memories of the place. From that perspective in those first minutes- it's-it's huge, and beautiful, and breathtaking, and this huge inspiring hope. Haven is THE home. The first, the last, the great discovered dream."  
  
"And this Lyta person was the one standing watching the line board? She's that red head you pointed, right?"  
  
Melissa couldn't help but giggle at that terminology. "Yeah. She's the red head. The guru. The one in charge of this flying hunk of ju- Hello!" She started suddenly, titling her head and watching a tall, wiry but well built, man with short cut blonde hair making his way past them. "You didn't tell me we had new guys on board."  
  
"You've got me," Ember said, shrugging her shoulders, hand with palms up raised in a confused movement. "He didn't come in with the crew I was with and we're the only other ship I knew about. It was only me, two younger kids, and a nanny. Maybe there was another ship in that we didn't hear about?"  
  
"I know who my seat buddy is now," the telekinetic replied, with a sparkle coming to her eyes.  
  
"One doctor isn't enough?"  
  
"Well, that's not really fair," Melissa said, with a mock pout, holding the top of her bottom lip with her upper teeth for a few seconds. It didn't last long, because a huge smile blossomed out from that pout overpowering the mock-offended look. "I didn't really get to keep him."  
  
"You never did tell me how that date went. I'm still not even sure how you convinced him to go on a date with in the first place. Doctor- well, nurse- patient protocol and all," Ember said, dropping her bag on a table for the moment. "Which rooms are we in?"  
  
"Let's see- Dat-de-deet-da-dout," Melissa mumbled to an old, old rhythm with the nonsense words as she ran her finger down the list. "We're together actually! In room four with a few other people; looks like a family. Well at least we're bunking."  
  
"And so back to Nurse Jeffery?" Ember said, picking up her bag and nudging her new friend forward with a laugh.  
  
They wandered into what looked like a common room area. Far across the room you could see what looked like the doors to the cockpit, one closing at that moment. Inside the room there were couches in the four corners attached to the wall with tables in front of them, which were coming out of the floor. There were additional seats here and there throughout the room and an occasional small table.  
  
It looked remarkable like a waiting room, rather than a room you'd find on board any ship. There were what looked like vid-screens and message units in different areas of the room, plus something that wasn't on, but looked like it might be a computer system link.  
  
{He took me out to this quaint little bistro-ish place that served all kinds of food} the young redhead 'cast, as she raced forward to get a seat near the front. She ended the left side and stole a padded couch corner with a table coming out around it. {We sat and talked for hours and he laughed at the faces I made trying other civilization's foods. It was kinda- -- are you all right?} She asked Ember who seemed to be glancing at the ship oddly.  
  
"You can stop me if this sounds really odd," Ember started, looking back and forth around the room, taking in the fact there were bedrooms and that her memory usually didn't play tricks on her. "But this ship looked a lot smaller from the outside."  
  
"Oh. That."  
  
"Oh?" Ember raised an eyebrow expectantly. "So I'm not wrong?"  
  
"No, not really," Melissa replied, pulling her bag into her lap and starting to open it. "It really is the size of the ship you saw outside, and it really is the size of the area you see here and all the space you haven't seen yet."  
  
"You wanna try that by me one more time?"  
  
"I'm not really sure about all of it really. I asked once upon a time and didn't spend much time listening to the answer when it was told to me," she commented, sheepishly. "It has something to do with space distortion and organization, the amount of molecules you can fit and stretch in one place. To tell the truth, I just never wanted to know about it all really. It sort of breaks the bubble of magic that not knowing casts upon all of this."  
  
"Who's ship is this?"  
  
"Lyta's. Well, now; originally it was one of G'Kar's."  
  
"And G'Kar is?"  
  
"A funny Narn who teases you about refusing to be god if he knows you well enough," Melissa said, and then laugh at Embers stricken and confused expression, like this was all going in one ear and out the other. That was about as much sense as it made when you hadn't been there. "He's okay in my book. Saved my life once. Even if he does eat that nasty, smelling and tasting, spoo stuff like it's going to run out soon on universal scale."  
  
"You do manage to get into an awful lot of trouble it seems to need saving so often," the girl playing with her hair commented. "Do you like jumping in front of oncoming traffic, too?"  
  
"Most of the time I just kind of stumble into it," the red head replied; somewhere between sullen, slightly annoyed and sheepish. She never really tried to get into trouble, it just seemed to find her. The first time she'd come into contact with Lyta it had pretty fast, too. Well, Lyta's appearance had done some for the breaking of silence in her life and the endangerment issue, too. But with all that it had brought after that, it was worth it.  
  
Especially now that she was actually going to Haven.  
  
"Hey," Ember whispered suddenly, and pointed with her fingers toward the very front of the ship. "Look."  
  
Melissa leaned out of her chair in the direction her new friend had pointed and blinked a few times. So that's where the cute blond guy had vanished. She'd thought it strange she hadn't seen him at a table or a couch in here, so that made a little more sense. Also, made sense for why she and Ember hadn't seen him hide or hair of him before this time today.  
  
Of course, he was the pilot. Weird, he didn't look familiar.  
  
{Perhaps we shouldn't bug him, since he's the pilot.} The brunette 'cast.  
  
{Or maybe we should just for that reason. Even pilots need love, don't they?} Asked the telekinetic with a smirk forming, as she started getting up.  
  
{Anyone else, they'd think 'hey, I just risked my life and almost toasted myself into the other side of whatever's cross the board of life, why don't I give myself a break and just rest and watch the world go by' but not, you} Ember said, laughter echoing in her thoughts as she got up following the girl even as she shook her head.  
  
{No, with you it's 'hey, lemme see if I can get a date with the nurse who's been watching over me so graciously'. 'Hey, lets show that new girl all the silly funny things you can get away with on the station, because I didn't need to rest anyway'. Or 'hey, lets go flirt with the pilot who's going to be flying us the next few days, because now is so much better than later.'}  
  
{Oh, shut up, already} the red headed telekinetic giggled back, as she pushed open the door to the cockpit with her hands, and walked in.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Continued from last scene in "Herald of Power" )  
  
"And what's that?" Zack asked with part of his attention.  
  
"Later. Breakfast first." Susan said, leading off out of the waiting area for the docks. Cocking her head to one side she regarded him. "Is that little Crechian stand still right outside of Blue Three?"  
  
"Last I checked," he answered, casting one look back at Customs. Even as he looked, knowing she wouldn't be there, he told himself to snap out of it. This was how it always was, how it always would be. "But I'm not sure it'll be open at this hour."  
  
"If it's there, it will be." She laughed, when he gave her a slightly doubtful look, and started to smile. "I used to get a bite to eat there around 0200 when I couldn't sleep on those nights during the long haul. They have the greatest thing there."  
  
"Thing?" Zack asked, his tone sounding incredulous.  
  
"Well, it's like a breakfast taco, but it's not," The general said while she started moving her hands as if in an example. "It's not made of bread and it doesn't specifically have meat or eggs in it, but it's delicious. It's sweet and sour all at once. Ever imagined what it would be like to take a bite of both ice cream and of a pepper at the same time?"  
  
"Now that you mention it, no," he replied with a feeble chuckle, starting to wonder what he'd just what the hell he'd gotten himself into.  
  
"Well, it's like that, and not, all at once. Just trust me, you'll love it."  
  
"Do I get to blame you if I die from it?"  
  
"Nope," she said, turning a corner and flashing him an amused smile. "Because then you'd be dead and no one would know it was my suggestion. Besides my reputation is irrefutable."  
  
"And this is supposed to make me feel better about eating something you can't even remember the name of, why?"  
  
"Well, Zack," she said with an impish grin starting to form. "I could always order you to try it."  
  
They shot comments back and forth at each other the entire way down to the business section. Most of the station and it's inhabitants missed it because they were sleeping, but those who weren't got the merest glance into the life of their chief of security and an Earth Forces general. Two people who were usually stiff and tall, tight lipped and formal with everyone they dealt with were seen walking down hallways loose and relaxed, smiling, laughing, and acting perhaps as if they might not have a care in the world.  
  
"So what do you think?"  
  
Zack was still chewing.  
  
For his first bite as he pulled it up to his mouth he'd at least made a deal with himself that he wouldn't put it in his mouth and then just spit it out for two reasons. One, it was rude to the vendor, who was still less than ten feet away and two, well, Susan was staring at him very closely, which was making his stomach nervous enough about it already. So he'd stuck in his mouth and tried not to wince, preparing for what could be the worst food he'd ever tasted and was shocked by a fountain of flavors that struck him.  
  
Before he knew it he was still chewing and there was nothing left in his mouth. Glance down at the half eaten object in his hand, he barely managed to get out, "Wow. That's great. I mean really great."  
  
"See, have some faith," Susan said, laughing, as she glanced back to the vendor, holding up her hand. "Three more."  
  
After paying and taking the food, she handed Zack one more and started unwrapping her first, while they walked down the all but empty hallway. She started munching on her quietly, thinking that it was calmer here. It was always calm at midnight, but there were still dozens on dozens of places to go and things to do if you knew the right people on Babylon 5. On her ship there wasn't much at midnight but to stare at the ceiling and wish for sleep.  
  
"So what is this made of?"  
  
"Are you really sure you want to know?" Susan asked. "The last time I found something I liked almost as much as this, I asked what it was. It was called a Sarantrien. They were all too happy to oblige the question, me being who I was, and I never ate it again."  
  
Already more than half done with the second one she handed him, he finished chewing that bite and asked. "What was it?"  
  
"The mashed up bits of a heart and gizzard from a Rocnor cub, sautéed in its afterbirth." Watching Zack pale and almost drop his food, she nodded, taking a bite of her midnight snack and savoring the flavors. Then she glanced over at him, nudging his shoulder slightly. "So, still think your brave enough to go ask the vendor what's in it?"  
  
"I think I'll just let it settle in," Zack said after a minute. "I'll only go ask in the morning if it turns my face purple or my stomach starts singing Centauri opera. Dreadful noise, you know," he said with a slight conspiratorial look to his eyes. "They had one debuting here a few months back. I swear, it took no time at all to clear the people out of the entire marketplace area."  
  
"Oh, I've heard of those," Susan said, trying not to laugh too hard. "Is it true nails on a chalkboard sound better?"  
  
"Sound better? It makes it sound like the pinnacle of musical excellence," He said, unable to stop laughing. "Just don't tell them that. They get their noses all in a snit. It's all family and royal history, and therefor it's the most beautiful thing since gold."  
  
"Well, of course, with their grand and glorious history, how could they ever be at fault for something bad?"  
  
He stopped walking for a moment and wiped at the corners of his eyes as they got moist. Shaking his head, slowly stopping laughing and just about to examine the situation-but didn't. He somehow decided just to enjoy it, knowing it would pass too soon. The brief visit of the past always did.  
  
"Well, you're safe from the Centauri death rattle, since they can't get to you on that behemoth of yours." He said, still smiling as he crumpled the wrapper and tossed in a recycle bin as they walked by. "How is commanding a ship?"  
  
"Remarkably like running a station," Susan replied, after finishing off the last bite of her first midnight snack. "Except its much smaller and more manageable. They told me it would be harder in some aspects, but I never found them. I suppose it's because they can't cram a quarter million people on a ship. Sometimes I miss it."  
  
"Nah," Zack said. "What's ta miss? No need for translations devices in your ear all too often and no odd ceremonies that call you off at all hours of the night."  
  
"No, being suddenly trying to tear the place apart, too, every third week?" She offered with a small grin. "I miss it all, small and large, chaos and calm, problems and surprises. I don't think any of us left the same person we arrive as, and none of us stayed forever- Well, except you."  
  
"Someone had to stay and show them who was boss while you all went off to chase your own stars," he said, calmly. This talk slightly reminded him of Michael's last visit. The man didn't drink anymore, nor talk any less, in fact he seemed to have gotten more verbose and -god love him- paranoid the longer time passed, but even he'd missed the past without admitting to miss it. "So that thing with Lockley, that was you?"  
  
"She's not that bad. A little highstrung and blind where she wants," Susan said, waving her second not-a-taco. "But she's got it where it counts and if you have patience enough to wait out her ranting, she actually listens pretty well, too. Reminds me of a certain red head we both know."  
  
Zack nodded, watching the people as they walked by and the booths, scanning what was open and who looked shifty, especially those that scurried away from the front after noticing him. "What'd you tell her?"  
  
"I told her about a couple of things. About my past involving my mother, some of Lyta's past involving the station, some of her changes since leaving it and pointed out a few minorly important things about thanking those who help you whether they're in your chain of command or come to you freely."  
  
"Your mother?" He asked curiously. A minute or two passed in silence, where she stopped to look at small silver and red broach. He looked like a bird stretching its wings to the sky, but even though she was regarding it, he could tell she wasn't concentrating on that. "Look, you don't have to tell me about if you-"  
  
"When I was kid they put her on sleepers, when they found her," she said backing up from the shop, trying not to catch Zack's surprised expression. It was enough to just feel it. She didn't like telling the story and there was no way to just spit it out fast. It never came out fast, and it always dug into the old wounds. So she tried to make it concise, tried to make it go faster, even if it didn't work in the past.  
  
"She chose it over going with the others like her. Said she wanted a normal life with us. We watched her die, my dad, my brother and me, every day after she made that choice, until there was nothing left. Then she took her own life."  
  
"I'm sorry," Zack said quietly, and when she didn't comment for almost another minute, he added. "I can see why you hated the Psi-Corps so much now."  
  
"I hope they all burn in hell for the things they did," Susan said, tersely. She had never regretted that war, never regretted those deaths. They deserved to die for what they done to so many people. They'd ruined lives. They'd ruined families. They'd ruined everything that the word family meant to so many, until someone was strong enough to come and try and pick up all those pieces and make them work again.  
  
They hadn't expected it to be one of their own. They hadn't expected to come from within instead of without. Their entire structure crumbling without stability. She was glad for Psi-Corps failing, glad they'd all be sentenced to death, or life in prison, even though she found that lenient.  
  
"Captain Lockley," she started up a minute later, after clearing her throat, and getting back on the original topic. "Was actually receptive to most of everything I had to say. Most people are when it comes down to deciding whether you're going to make a friend or an enemy of someone who has the power to explode a class three star just from getting too angry."  
  
"A sun? Who?" Zack said, catching that a moment late, while he'd been trying to place the face of a vendor. He'd realized it had been someone they'd pulled in for questioning a few weeks ago, while he'd been listening to Susan as she kept talking. "You mean, Lyta-?"  
  
"Yeah," Susan said after a moment. "Temper management isn't exactly her strong suit."  
  
"I noticed," he commented, remembering for a second that she had kissed his cheek and felt a warm thrill inside him. He pushed it away as fast as he could remembering the woman next to him was a telepath, too, and felt his cheeks warm because of it. "But I didn't think- I mean, a sun is-"  
  
"Huge," she said nodding, and taking another bite. "And small in the magnitude of what she could do if she really put her mind to it. She won't. Not yet, at least. I think she's as terrified of the true scope of her powers as everyone around her is. Can you even imagine being the most powerful being in the universe, without knowing what your powers were, or how they worked? Knowing at the same time no one can help you figure them out and that everyone near you is going to turn you away because of what you could do?"  
  
"Jesus," Zack mummered, thinking about a million different suns, seeming like tiny stars, easily put out like candle flames under candle snuffers.  
  
"Damn straight. And those of us, who do get it, sleep soundly knowing she's still sane enough to understand that herself. It's a wonder some years she doesn't fall off the deep end with the situations she manages to get herself stuck in and the important people who just kick her at every turn," Susan said, as she tossed her wrapper in another receptacle they passed by. Clearing her throat and taking a deep breath she followed that up with something else startling.  
  
"I know you've been considering retiring."  
  
"WHAT?" Zack said, louder than he'd anticipated it coming out his mouth. "How did you-"  
  
"Smarter answer. Don't ask questions you really don't want to know the answers to." She ran her fingers over her cuffs for a second nervously, and stuck her hands in the pocket of her uniform.  
  
"That's part of what I wanted to ask you about. I think Lyta's about to get herself into another situation where she'll be in over her head, a situation she'll stay with 'til it's sorted out for better, or worse, and she's going to need someone to help her, whether she knows it or not."  
  
"Why can't-"  
  
She stumbled over his words before he had his question all the way out of his mouth, "Because Earth Force isn't quite happy I'm still here, but now I have Captain Lockley to back me up on there being an emergency need for me and my ship. I go back in a few hours. Anything pending over that time would mean I'd be taken into custody and court marshaled the first time I dock up again."  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Two and Half Days Later )  
  
{Jason!}  
  
A deep laughter sounded in his mind and the man bent down to pick up the child flying at him with all her might. She was barely the age of five years old, with hair light as corn silk, and eyes bluer than the deepest depths of any of the seas he'd ever seen and she came at him with the enthusiasm of most children. Her feet moving fast as they could carry her, arms wide open and her face glowing with a smile that could have lit up the dark.  
  
He had been looking for her and he wasn't surprised she found him first. She was a quiet little girl, who could make you forget she was next to you, her mind was usually so silent. She wasn't psi-null but she was a very special little girl. Incredibly special even with the fact she couldn't pick up others thoughts without a large amount of help and physical touch. What she could do so far outweighed all of that down side though.  
  
She could completely mask her psi signature and she could light fires, all with a simple thought.  
  
"Hello, Dari," he said, after spinning her around in the air a few times. "I see you're feeling better today."  
  
{My temperature broke last night.} She 'cast, hugging him with her face buried in his neck. {I'm better now! I'm allowed to come out and play with all the other kids!}  
  
"Ah-ah!" A female voice came up behind the two hugging a slight laughter in her tone. "I said you could get up and play, but you still have to take it easy. Your system is still adjusting from being ill for the last week. Afternoon, Jason. Out for a visit or can I help you with something?"  
  
Jason smiled, winked at the woman and then squeezed the little girl a touch harder to get her attention since she was pouting now. When she looked up to him he gave her a smile and learned closer to make it seem like he was just talking to her. "You'd better listen to Heather there. I don't want to be the one getting you in trouble. Then we'd both be in trouble with her and we don't want that, do we?"  
  
{Nope,} Dari cast with a small grin sneaking back out. {I can be good. It was just lonely being sick and away from everyone. It was really, really quiet. I have a new book. Would you like me to practice reading with you again?}  
  
"I'd love that, darling. Why don't you run along and get it and I'll be right in after you, okay?"  
  
{Okay!} She said after being set down and took off for her room again.  
  
"A new book?" He said with a grin.  
  
"We got another shipment in for the Library two days ago. This time from Minbar." Heather said, watching the girl run back in. She was overjoyed the girls fever had broke. She had been debating whether she'd have to bring it up to the council that they might have need to take her away to get someone to see her soon. "I was sure you would have heard."  
  
"Oh, that's right." He commented, "I'd almost forgotten. We get so many shipments in still. It's hard to believe it's been so many years. Who knew building a civilization would take so long?"  
  
"Me," Heather said, sounding serious, but her lips curled to a half smirk when he looked at her. "So what can I do for you today?"  
  
"Tell me that all of the sick children look as healthy and happy as she does?" Jason asked, nodding toward the building.  
  
"Two more caught it last night," Heather said reaching up to scratch her head, before glancing at the shrieking come from one side of the playground. Adrenaline was calmed by amusement, as she realized one of the slightly older children here had just shot a bull's eye with the padded mock arrow set. "Dari's been the first to recover from it so far."  
  
"How many now?"  
  
"Five," Heather replied, her voice both unhappy and dark, as she checked on them all mentally at that moment.  
  
"How'd she recover?"  
  
"Last night she just woke up in the middle of the night and asked for a glass of water. Sudden broken fever and so far not a single residual symptoms. It doesn't really make any sense." She said shaking her head, with her lips pursed for that moment.  
  
Two of them, Jessica and Sean, were sleeping soundly, still completely exhausted during their first day of this bug. One, a girl named Marie, was doing her school work and last two, Kale and Bradley, twin brothers who share everything, were whispering between beds because they couldn't sleep.  
  
"Well, at least we know we can beat this, too," Jason said, firmly.  
  
"It's breaking out all over the place. We need better medical supplies," Heather responded to his comment. "Better medical staffing for all of the cities, too."  
  
"So noted, once more," he said, as he placed his hands in the coarse pockets of his pants and started walking toward the Children's Center with her, taking note of the cool breeze and the children's light sweaters and jackets. "And how many things that does that leave us at that need major fixing?"  
  
"Too many," she said, with a frown as they rounded the corner of the main hall.  
  
{Too many what?} Dari piped up, suddenly, surprising both of them. She was standing in the hallway to their left holding her book loosely in her right hand.  
  
"Is that your new book?" Jason asked, pulling up a smile for the girl.  
  
{Yes.} Dari cast, giving both of them a long-suffering look. They weren't going to tell her because she was a child, she decided. That was the way grownups always were. They were always afraid to tell kids the truth or saying you weren't big enough to understand. All she had to do was get bigger, taller, and then they'd talk to her like she wasn't someone who couldn't understand. She didn't understand why they never even tried to explain stuff.  
  
"Do you want to read it in castle room?"  
  
Dari nodded slowly; then glanced at Heather and then back at him. {Can Heather come, too?}  
  
"I think Miss Heather's busy right now, darlin'," Jason said, offering her a hand. "She's still watching over the other kids, too. Remember? Like she did for you?"  
  
{Thank you, Heather} Dari said, and she launched herself at Heather's knees hugging them tight. She stayed there till Heather kneeled down and hugged the girl close to her, then placed a kiss on her forehead.  
  
{Go on, Dari. I'll come look in on you in a while. I'll even bring Artemis. Okay?}  
  
{Okay!} Dari said with a grin and dashed off holding out a hand to Jason.  
  
She watched the two go off quietly, a little girl, smaller and thinner than most children her age, and a black man who looked like he'd seen the worst parts of hell, but was willing to come through in the long haul for his kind. They looked so different and yet the warmth of love that radiated off of them was staggering.  
  
The little girl had originally taken to him because she said when he came close it felt like someone was tickling her all over. That was something Heather noticed, but it didn't effect her like it did Dari. To Heather he seemed like a live wire, but mostly because he seemed to be so much bigger in presence than in physical reality. Of course, even if he was corporeal he couldn't mask himself.  
  
Dari was coming along, finally, after not talking to anyone for years. They still couldn't get her to talk out loud, but getting her to start talking mentally so much was a big step already. She was talking fluently with two people at the very least and finally starting to play with other children, even if she wouldn't say anything to them. Some of the older kids understood, but some of the younger ones still shunned Dari. Heather watched them vanish off in their walk to one of the playrooms decorated up with storybook knights, dragons and damsels painted on the walls before she went to the rest of her business.  
  
After checking on the sick children briefly, Heather walked to door and grabbed her scarf. It wasn't really cold, even in midwinter. It was December back home, too. This year they were just barely getting the chill, Haven was on a closer course with the twins suns this year, which meant the winter would be calm and the next summer could be much worse than the last one. She admitted it was more a comfort than anything to be used against the weather, because she had a good sturdy coat and warm clothes already.  
  
Tying the scarf and flipping one part of it over her shoulder, she headed out of the Children's Shelter. Walking out toward the Council building, she tossed a ball back to some of the kids playing and tapped Byron's shoulder metaphorically and mentally as she did.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Two Days Later )  
  
"Was that what I think it was?" He asked curiously.  
  
She nodded, covering her mouth with her fingers when she yawned.  
  
"Do you know how dangerous it is to be using a Shadow Gate?"  
  
"Yes, Lennier," Lyta replied as they walked down the hallway. "I've been briefed about the do's and don'ts of Shadow technology by more people than just you. I'm sure Sheridan would want my head if he knew I reactivated it myself. There's a man who needs to get over his trigger finger, if any."  
  
Yawning once more, she asked, "Have you heard from Delenn yet?"  
  
"Not yet, no," Lennier replied. "But I expect her call any day now."  
  
"I'd like New Vegas lottery to call tomorrow and tell me I've won, too," she said with a teasing grin, happy to reach her room. Sleep sounded nice at this point. Had it been almost a week since she slept? "Well, this is mine. I'll see you in the morning."  
  
"Sleep well, Lyta." He said, nodding his head once, and turning to walk down the corridor.  
  
Looking after him for another few seconds, she shook her head and stepped inside her room. She had to admit she'd missed his presence. As overbearing, helpful, and nosy as he could be at different time, she had missed him a lot. It'd probably been only a year or so, maybe a little more than two. Could it have been so long? She'd gotten so used to him being there, which was different all in itself.  
  
She turned one of the lights to dim and changed into a shirt, that hung to mid thigh, to sleep in. She glanced at the letter on the table next to her bed. She wasn't even sure why it was still there. The edges were charred. The paper was rumpled, from being crumpled and thrown at the wall a dozen times, but also looked as if someone had made the attempt to flatten again.  
  
Shaking her head, she slipped into bed and told the lights to go off. She laid there in the silence of her room, where it was never silent for her. She could without trying hear the rest of the world around her and all the echoes of what had gone on before, but even all of that was drummed out by the chaos in her mind caused by Byron.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( One Day Later )  
  
{Oh...wow.}  
  
Lyta smiled, her eyes watching the sight in front of her with both a soft feeling of peace and nervousness, as she reached out to the girl behind her. {Aren't you supposed to be in a seat, preparing for landing?}  
  
The girl blushed, still holding the door to the cockpit almost like she might fall if she let go of it. Even with the words from Lyta in her mind, and her cheeks warming she couldn't tear her eyes from the scene in front of her. They'd just come out of hyperspace with an odd jumping sensation, and in front of them was a pair of bright twin suns balanced by two planets circling them.  
  
Maybe it didn't look much different from all the other planets she'd seen while coming out of gates before traveling, but this was like every single doubt of ever coming home fled her. She'd known Haven and Heaven from Lyta's descriptions, her memories, and their talks about them, but she'd somehow figured out she might just never get to come here. It was so normal, and so like looking at it through a microscope from here still but it made her loose the ability to breathe and some how brought tears to her eyes.  
  
Especially at Lyta's next words.  
  
{Welcome home, Melissa.}  
  
Melissa nodded, after drawing a ragged breath finally, and backed away leaving the door closed in her absence without a comment even. It was shock and the tears and trying not to give into the complete embrace of her deepest hidden hopes that came from her before she wandered off.  
  
Lyta smiled and took a breath in as she closed her eyes, seeing her people looking out the side windows, felt their joy, their tears, their hugs and laughter. The full peace of that settled in them when all the realistic knowledge they might never make it here even if this was a place there children could grow up free in. Leaving them mostly she reached out to the planets and felt the lull of the thoughts and life there. She didn't cry, but she let the breath out slowly, opening her eyes again, thinking finally that she'd stayed away too long.  
  
Touching the world just long enough the right person got the desired message by the bare touch.  
  
"What are the blue rings?" Lennier asked from across the small walkway.  
  
"Our protector," she said as she glanced at thing he was asking about. Both planets had what appeared to be blue bubbles encircling them completely. It looked almost like an atmospheric occurrence or a ring that just went all around it like a shield. "They stay around the planets regardless of whether he's here with us or traveling far away."  
  
"He?" Lennier asked, sounding very doubtful. "One single person is doing that?"  
  
"Well, I'm not sure you can call him 'a single person'," Lyta said, as a grin started to creep across her lips. "He will try to convince you without you noticing that he is just a person, though, but he's so much more."  
  
Arrival and landing took about two more hours, but there were no hitches at all. Lyta was relaxed about most of it, unlike everyone else. It seemed the moment they were down most of the people on board crowded toward the landing door even before the door opened. It left Lyta amused and with a smile on her face watched them, and it only became better once the door opened.  
  
She walked out, one of the last few, dressed the same as most everyone else coming out. She had a long sleeve button up shirt and pants outfit in a soft graphite color, matching boots, her hair braided down her back behind her and a bag hanging off one shoulder. Nothing about her screamed that she was anyone even slightly more important than the person who walked out in front of her or behind her.  
  
Standing at the doorway for a moment she took a deep breath of the real air, mixed scents of earth, faint smoke, and winter wind; and then moved on when someone nudged her shoulder to get a look out. A grin spread across her face when she stepped off the stairs and realized someone was already standing less than five feet from her with thier hand held out for her. She took the hand, graciously, and was pulled into a hug that she didn't immediately pull out of.  
  
Once she did though, she seemed much like the other radiant people around them, smiles and a soft glow in her face. "I heard you'd been busy lately. I wasn't sure you'd be here when we arrived."  
  
"And miss my second biggest fan after such a long wait?" The man asked with a laugh as he tapped her chin with a curled finger.  
  
"It's been much too long," she nodded. "Hopefully I won't have to leave anytime soon. You have to meet someone I brought with me. Where did he.?"  
  
Lyta twirled to one side, looking across the pseudo large crowd, and gaining a confused expression, until she finally spotted Lennier and waved him over. Some people were leaving disappointed needing to wait longer, but each time a ship came that amount dropped further and further. The crowd was thinning as people from the ship were being drawn off to houses and small restaurants, with the family and friends who'd been waiting, hoping to see them. Through the thinning crowd he made it easily over to them.  
  
"Here he is," she said, introducing the first man to the approaching. "This is Lennier. He's the Liaison to Minbar on Babylon 5 usually. Don't give me that look. He's safe and trustworthy. He's helped me a lot during the past years, especially on Earth."  
  
Lennier raised a curious eyebrow, without seeming to react to the compliments she was giving about him to someone else. He just took a moment to look at the man standing next to her. He was tall, not overly built, had brown skin, and dark, but happy eyes. He also seemed to be okay in Lyta's book, her posture was relaxed and her expression seemed quite happy.  
  
"Lennier this Jason Ironheart."  
  
"A pleasure, I'm sure," Lennier said, with a nod.  
  
"Any friend of Lyta's," Jason said, and then the smile dropped slightly. He nudged Lyta's shoulder slightly. {You've got company.}  
  
She furrowed her brow and looked across the almost completely clear area, save for two families, and found herself meeting Byron's eyes. A shudder ran straight down her spine and her skin felt clammy. By reaction she clenched one of her fists and looked away abruptly.  
  
Jason frowned slightly, but let go of the thought of asking, without even acknowledging it. Lyta always explained things in her own time and he had all the time in the universe to wait. "The council will want a meeting. Even impromptu and informal just to have their own small welcoming. I don't think I'm supposed to tell you but they're trying to figure it for four hours from now."  
  
"We need to get cleaned up and eat something, it's been a long trip," Lyta said, as she linked an arm with Lennier who, was diligently observing their conversation and, only moved to pat her hand softly with his other hand once she had his arm. For a moment it was as if he understood her sudden problem. It calmed her but not enough. She had matters she needed to take care of before dealing with city, state or planets.  
  
"Make it to two hours, and don't inform them that I'm coming."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," Jason replied, with amusement in his eyes, before he glanced across her shoulder and added. "I'll take care of your company, too."  
  
"Thanks. I owe-" She stopped almost mid sentence and both she and the large black man seemed to share a growing smile that confused Lennier to no end.  
  
Humans.  
  
They never did make that much sense.  
  
Telepath's could be so much more confusing of that species, too, he learned.  
  
~*~*~  
  
( Two hours Later )  
  
"I-We're not-"  
  
"Miss!"  
  
"Ready!"  
  
"Praise the Great Maker!"  
  
Lyta actually started to grin just slightly at their reactions, after she'd opened the door to their meeting and simply walked in. Seeing them all in a fuss over her sudden appearance was better than them prepared, with walls, charts, reports, and speeches. They seemed more real in this moment of sudden panic after her appearance.  
  
"Gentleman! Gentlemen, and Ladies," She opted, with a nod to one woman with dark brown hair sitting off to the side of Byron, another two women at the other side of the curved table and one last, a fourth, almost all the way on the other side. "I'm sure this impromptu appearance has caused you much surprise and I'll ask you to over look the fact I didn't check all your date planners to see when I could squeeze in-"  
  
"Anytime of the day or night," a man broke in. "You're welcome in this room."  
  
"That's over doing it a bit, but thank you," she said, with a small nod. "I'd guess from your reactions you all know who I am if only by reputation as the ninth member of this council or the benefactor of Haven and Heaven."  
  
She didn't look that much different than she had when she stepped off. Her body and hair were washed and cleaned, but she'd taken the job of braiding it back down instead of leaving it free. She was wearing her boots under a native gown that she'd bought while wandering the city near her house. It was turquoise with a silver ribbon running around all the edges, light weight enough for the sun, and close nit enough to keep the breeze from making her cold. It accented her body's shape without showing anything off or seeming to call much attention to her. She, now, blended into the general look of everyone in this room, too.  
  
"If I'm not interrupting?"  
  
"No," Byron replied, gathering her attention to the center left of the table, though he seemed more hesitant to address her now. "We just closed. We were having a discussion of asking you to join us for a meeting."  
  
"I see," she said, glancing around the room but not too sharply. It got her to memorize the faces and not concentrate on Byron's presence all at once. It didn't help all at once though. His voice, his presence was starting to grate on her quite like nails on a chalkboard. "I've been away from Sanctuary much too long and I must admit I long to be outside in her, before I start discussing about her and all her sister cities."  
  
"Of course, Benefactor," one the men closest to her said and almost paled when he saw her frown.  
  
"Lyta, please," she said, and afforded him a smile that seemed to cheer him up slightly. "I also see a lot of new faces since I was here last. You all have mine, perhaps we can start with your names?"  
  
"Conner O'Reily," the nervous man, who'd originally paled at her frown, offered up with sudden gusto. He was slightly tanned with reddish-brown hair and green eyes.  
  
"Sean O'Reily," the man next to him, said with a smile, and a twinkle in his matching green eyes. The two had to be identical twins, aside from temperament differences, she realized, as he, too, was slightly tanned with reddish-brown hair and green eyes. He'd been here before, his brother hadn't. Family influence?  
  
"Sara Jenkins," the stout woman next to him said, much in the voice of a teacher or governess. Her clothes lacked much color, though her eyes seemed to make up for it. There was a shrewd kindness in those eyes that Lyta recognized right away even with the tight pulled hair and the aged face. This woman would be someone unafraid to stand up for her opinions.  
  
"Brianna Prince," the next woman offered with a smile, her eyes smiling as she nodded in hello. Dark brown hair loose and wild, bright blue eyes, and shyness. They had met many, many years ago. She'd been wise in Lyta's choice of this one it seemed, if she was still here. The woman had breath- taking ideas and only needed to be somewhere where someone would listen to her, regardless of her young age.  
  
"Byron Gordon," he said next, and she looked at him for only a moment before passing her gaze on to the woman next to him.  
  
"Leon S-"  
  
"Wait," Lyta said, holding up a hand to the man on the other side of the second woman with dark brown hair. The woman hadn't said a word, looked up from writing on her note pad, or seemed to have been noticed she'd been looked over until Lyta spoke again and she glanced up. Pointing at her, she asked her curiously; "Who are you?"  
  
"This is my-" Byron started, protectively.  
  
"I'm not part of the council. I'm their scribe," the woman said, with a minor annoyance inflected in her words, and Lyta was sure she caught just the faintest hint of a comment from the woman to Byron without even meaning to. "My name is Heather."  
  
"Thank you," Lyta said after a second. She'd easily picked up form the woman that there were concerns in her mind that made other places than this room much more important. She was probably the one Lyta seemed most interested at the moment. For more reasons than the fire she could sense in her just looking at her. She resisted a glance back to Byron at this, and nodded to the man who'd started on the other side of this Heather. "Go on."  
  
"Leon Stevens," he said, producing a smile that said he hadn't minded the sudden halt earlier. She'd know him before, too. He was good with people, but even better at building. She'd encouraged him to have more of a say, but as of when she'd last left, he hadn't. It was wonderful to see him here now.  
  
"Barkly Wilerson," a darkly tanned younger Centauri man, with black hair and bluish eyes next to him added. He couldn't have been more than half way past twenty, she guessed. Young, but she wasn't a voter here. Each of the people in this room was here for a reason and she'd learn those soon enough.  
  
"Mandrat," A stiff looking male Minbari elder replied, with the slightest nod in respect. Another one she knew well. Hard to get to council but worth it for some of the startling moments of clarity he could bring out of all the others. He was her first attempt back then to try to make the council like the cities multicultural.  
  
"I'm an honorary member when present, my name is Jason IronHeart," Jason spoke up from the end of the table, smiling in amusement as he had been leaning back in his chair, regarding Lyta thought the entire name exchange. He needed to speak with her after this, but the way this thing seemed to be going, he was placing his bets it would be a day maybe two before they got a good conversation about everything.  
  
Lyta nodded and looked across all of them, making herself look past Byron fast each time, and said;  
  
"It's a pleasure to meet you all, new and old. Over the next while I'm sure we'll all get to know each other very well. There's much each of you has sent me that will need discussing both in council and outside of it. I'd like to congratulate you for all the work you've finished up and commend you on the things you've put forth. I do, thought, regret to tell you, I will not be excepting your request for a meeting this evening."  
  
"Business before pleasure is never the way professional people work, I know, but that statement wasn't ever about coming home. I am home, again, to a place I fought, and bled, and watched my family die for, while I was away," she said, judging her words and their expression by them as she went along the line. "I plan to spend my first few days remembering what joy, happiness, freedom and home are all about again first hand. I hope you all understand."  
  
"Is there anything I need to know before you all go?"  
  
The sudden chaos erupting around the room was enough to make Jason start laughing. She picked up most of what everyone said and thought at the moment that it projected straight at. It battered her like a sandstorm and went away like pieces of paper inside the file of her mind. Her eyes landed on Jason as his laughter wafted through her and Lyta raise a hand to silence them. Some of them looked a bit worried, but she was smiling so their worry only went so far.  
  
"I'm glad to see all of you are so passionate about what you're doing, but it sounds like everything is at the moment well in hand and none of it is so serious it can't wait another night. So I will tell you all thank you for staying after your meeting during this time, say that I'm looking forward to more time with all of you one on one and in the here, and ask only one request of you at the moment."  
  
"Away so long and you've only one thing to say, lass?" Sean asked as he gave her teasing wink.  
  
"At the moment, yes. May I speak to the Byron alone, please?" Lyta said through the clutter of thoughts and voices. They cut off at once when she began to speak. It wasn't her tone, which was strangely kind, and it wasn't her demeanor, because that still seemed sweet and a little put on by the fuss, but there was something in the air around her that made her question seem like a demand.  
  
None of them could even place what seemed wrong, but they tripped over each other just trying to be gracious and grant her request. It really was scene and made her feel just a little more uncomfortable that they were scrambling to fulfill the smallest request. This really was one of the reasons she spent so long away from these worlds. She loved them overwhelmingly and they had a tendency to love her back with the rampant fever of a riot mentality.  
  
Most of the people hadn't the vaguest idea who she was out side of this office though, so she did enjoy that. Walking around, waving at people, walking through some of the shops, exchanging pleasant conversation all the while. Perhaps it was this string of thought at the moment that kept her from hitting him the moment the crowd between them had dispersed. The council room was empty and silent in that first moment, save for the sound ruffling the curtains in the windows all around the room.  
  
"I'm so glad that you'r-"  
  
"I will not dispense small talk with you," she said, blocking his sentence from its end.  
  
She had not even moved a foot closer to him, so that the area still stood between them like an abyss. He looked right. He felt right. He screamed that he was who he claimed to be, just by standing there looking surprised. Surprise seemed to register and drown on his face, coming with an expression of mollified sadness and expectation. He reminded her in that moment much of a child.  
  
"I could tear your mind apart faster than you could even attempt to block me to find what I want to know, but I would rather hear you say it," she stated, her eyes drilled into him, unwavering. "Why - No, How are you here?"  
  
"The why is much easier than the how actually," Byron said, half-leaning, half sitting on the left corner edge of the desk at the front.  
  
Standing alone in the room he could get a better look at her. She didn't seem at all like the woman he'd originally met. If it was at all possible in the passing years she didn't seem to have gotten older, but younger. The wrinkles at the edges of her eyes and her hands were both completely smooth and her hair was full of lustre and shine. No, the only part of her that seemed older was her eyes. This woman standing before him wouldn't hang on anyone words, nor stop just because no one was there push her the rest of the way.  
  
"Why did I come back?" He asked, not flinching from the rage that was radiating off of her. "Because there is no other place I would be but here. This is where I belong. Helping our people. Forging a new, better tomorrow for them today."  
  
"How?" Lyta asked, but the way her voice sounded, it was not a question; it was a demand.  
  
"That parts a bit harder to-"  
  
"You best get started then," Lyta said through her teeth, as she crossed her arms.  
  
"I've had the most powerful telepath's on both planets look over my memories of the last six years before I arrived here," Byron said, standing up. "All of them are baffled to what really happened the years before I woke up on New Vegas without a clue to who I was or where I'd come from."  
  
"The memories of most of my life came back slowly. The worst ones first, of course," he said, reaching up to touch the left side of his neck where the burn scarring was mostly covered by his hair. It went along almost his entire left side from just right below his knee to almost the top of his head. Most of the scars on his body were covered by clothing, aside from part of his hand, and the part that went up his neck, and across part of his head, though luckily only touched about an inch into his face, usually shadowed by his long hair.  
  
"Back then almost everyday I thought about giving up. Every morning, every memory was just another nightmare that floated loose in the darkness of my head. Killing people. The burn of the fire liking at my skin. Screams, panic, and this feeling like nothing would ever be better no matter how hard I tried. And when I thought it couldn't get any worse," Byron said standing up and walking toward her. "I woke one morning and there was you. The touch of your skin, the sound of you laughter, you eyes full with love, and your passion to see everything for our people through to the very end."  
  
Lyta turned away from his words, barely getting out a whisper of; "Don't."  
  
"From that moment forward, I had this bursting surge of hope. This knowledge that there could be more to remember than just darkness and pain. And slowly everything came back, every memory and moment of the times before-" he said raising a hand, barely a foot behind her.  
  
"Don't touch me," she said, barely loud enough to hear her own voice, it all catching. The swirl around her thoughts made her feel both smaller and larger than she was. Everything was a whirlwind inside of her; anger and hurt rising to a boil, threatening to just let go.  
  
"-Because of you, Lyta. You're reason I'm standing here. You're the reason for everything." Byron said, placing a hand on her shoulder to turn her around. "Lyta, don't you-"  
  
{DON'T TOUCH ME!}  
  
He never finished his sentence.  
  
The moment his hand came into contact with her shoulder, her face had turned to look over the shoulder he touched and the force of her voice inside his mind dulled any sound he had been able to hear the moment prior. And though she tried to contain it, the urge went faster than thought process to stop it, and Byron went flying. His body arced across the room and slammed into the bookcase, causing it to break and fall with him.  
  
A bubble formed above him a moment later, saving him from being hit by the top of the bookcase, it's contents and the two shelves below it, causing it to fall to the sides of him. Pain was searing across his body in places he hadn't felt hurt since he'd dropped a beam while helping build one of the new houses. Pain was first, then shock, then disbelief, as his eyes opened wide on the woman standing before him.  
  
"You're not supposed to be alive. I watched you die in front of my eyes, far enough away that I wouldn't get hurt, because you wouldn't let me. But not far enough away that I didn't feel their pain or your pain, the sudden lurch when your mind was gone," Lyta said, walking toward him from across the room, the building starting to shake as she spoke.  
  
"I stood there and watched you kill yourself and our people." The air around her seemed almost to shimmer as she took her steps, her eyes becoming more in focus for him. They were completely black, hallowed at the edges in white. "I continued your plans in memory of you."  
  
"I hoarded children for safety. I gathered people for a revolution." Lyta didn't even seem to notice the shaking of the building that was growing stronger and stronger. Things were starting to fall to the floor all through the room, and all through the building. "I blew up buildings."  
  
"I killed thousands of people for you!" She shouted at him and the building shook viciously all the way from the ground up.  
  
One of the front columns cracked, but didn't fall. Everyone walking by started hurrying children away, not sure what was happening, but sure that it was turning bad. On the air was a firestorm that hadn't been there fire minutes ago, one where you could almost taste the ash on your tongue already.  
  
For a moment she went quiet and all she could hear was a child shrieking outside. She could feel the tears on the little boy's face and the stark terror in him, a terror caused by the sudden upstart of the building. He was barely out of his mother's arms, barely able to walk alone. But he didn't know anything aside from the terror flooding him now as something that filled his mother with dread was something he felt, too.  
  
"Lyta?" He asked, going to push up on his hand, which ended in him screaming at a surge of sudden pain.  
  
"I won. I won the war." She said softly, after a second of errie complete silence where nothing shook around them, her eyes on the ground. She took a step back instead of forward. Then another step, and another. Then she finally looked at him again, her voice become pure steel again, rage coming with, causing the smallest tremoring shakes.  
  
"You're dead. Don't come near me."  
  
Turning on her heels she walked straight out of the room, not even glancing at the woman at the desk outside in the hall. The woman watched her though. The gate of her steps, strict, echoing in rage and confusion. The flare of the way she moved, seeming small and to not take up much space to look at, yet overwhelming to perceive on a mental level looking at all of her. Against her better notions, as she stood up to go in and check on Byron, Heather smiled.  
  
Maybe things were looking up for Haven, after all. 


	8. Herald of Rebirth

Phoenix Ascendant - Arc Two, Part Three "The Herald of Rebirth"

"Achoo!"

The building rumbled and silenced just as fast. The quiet and cantankerous mumbling of the sick woman didn't though, not even when the door opened to a bright and very awake face.

"Oh, look, you're awake," the voice said, it's own juxtaposition between amusement and sardonic glee in that statement alone confusing.

"Not for long if I have anything to say about it," Lyta grumbled as she pulled the thick woolly blankets closer around her. It'd only been a few days on the planet, settling back into getting home, and she'd come down with what seemed to be the worst case of no-one-knows-what that she'd had in years. Years on years. Before all the messing with her system by the Vorlons.

Heather let out a sound of annoyance, even though her thoughts betrayed her amusement at Lyta's comments and actions, very much paralleling inside her thoughts to the children she was watching, too. Taking a chair and pulling it up to the bed, she sat with the back facing Lyta, straddling it and looking at her clipboard resting on the top of the chair back. "Give me about ten or fifteen minutes of your time and I can promise no one will disturb you for at least another six or seven hours."

Lyta mumbled something unintelligible into the blanket wrapped tight around her, but she didn't close her eyes or move away. Heather assumed that was her non-committal way of simply agreeing, whether it was helpful and clear or not.

"Your test results came back fine this time. Apparently," she said, flipping pages on her clipboard. "Your immune system is massively packed to handle almost anything, which is why they're studying your blood work to create some antigens for our other patients, both adults and children. They think it's because your system is so specifically worked-up that it's why you caught and cured yourself of it so fast."

"If I was cured I wouldn't be in this bed," Lyta replied, as though the conversation truly were an inconvenience to her want for sleep. It was rather cute in a way, because while children simply accepted sickness with a slow pout for wanting to play, grown-ups avidly detested that one-day in bed. Or, well, five where it had come to Lyta's case.

Though Lyta's was the shortest case involving an adult.

"So says the woman who was only unconscious, barely breathing and definitely not able to eat, for four days while she was sick," Heather rebuffed her with. "Compared to her now state of simply being cold and sleepy. I'd say you're pretty close to being cured. Even though I think you'd probably be scheduling these one on one sessions with the other council members even if you were on your death bed."

Lyta narrowed her eyes and Heather could almost hear the unspoken 'I don't like you'. It wasn't a specific sentiment, it was simply Heather's nature to usually be able to pick up people temperaments and actions pretty fast just watching them. She'd had almost a dozen other people's memories to know Lyta through, but getting to see her in action had been completely different, too. Besides it really just meant Lyta was frustrated at being stuck in bed and unable to do anything, and had so few things to take the frustration out on.

Heather almost laughed though when that look made way for a very vague comment from Lyta of, "You're not a council member. You told me that yourself."

This time it was Heather's job to narrow the features of her face and look slightly taken aback. "Yes, well, when the benefactress of my planet makes it very clear that she is refusing to acknowledge the existence of the part of the board she's created and is part of, while still dictating orders and decisions from her sick bed it means someone somewhere has to be the go between to this little sadistic charade." :D

"Fine," Lyta replied, sinking back into her pillow and looking at the ceiling instead of at her visitor anymore, as though to dismiss her without actually doing it. "Report or comment or whatever away already."

Heather resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn't too hard after being Council secretary for so long. There were times harder than this to not just show out right insubordination or disagreement over someone's actions or even their opinions. Moments like these she wondered why anyone put up with the redhead in front of her, but she clocked it off again –with sweet and very forcefully persistent hopefulness- to the sickness.

"Council meetings hedge slightly on you at present, which I might add, is very unhelpful, because they'd like your input and no one was willing to even consider finishing the discussion on if you didn't make it. We actually have had two adult casualties to this virus so far. Realistically there should be a protocol or instructions about what is to happen in the case of your death. Should it come about in the future," Heather said, her voice slightly waspish. "It'd be a smart thing."

"If I get that choice."

"To write up your wishes for the people who follow you?"

Lyta sneezed again, many times in succession and the building shook hard each time and stopped just as suddenly, when she did. She frowned; her brow furrowing and then relaxed, with an annoyed distaste underlying her features. Slow, after another pause, she said, "No, I meant dying."

Without letting her stop to debate mortality on issues Lyta frequently disliked talking about, because there would be no true answer to all the questions, she continued; "Go on."

"Shipments have all arrived on time, anywhere between three and eight a day. I can have a document of them sent to you if you'd like. The irrigation system is having issues, but they think they found the problem last night. A new school building is being erected near the town square, next to the library. There's a crop on a new piece of land that seems to be causing an allergic reaction to most of the people who've eaten anything delivered from the region. We think we discovered the source of the problem and are working to rectify it already. There's talk of a college and an apprenticeship building, but no one's finalized plans yet or figured out who will run it. There's a worry about some of the outlanders getting snowed in and whether they need to be relocated against some of their own better judgments, since this winter is going to be a harsh one."

Looking up from her clipboard, where she was mostly reading off selected notes, she watched Lyta for any sign of acceptance on any of this. The woman in bed simply seemed to still be staring at the ceiling with that half blank, half distasteful expression still. Which annoyed Heather a bit, as she tended to actually like interaction with the people she was speaking to, not just silent, abject compliance.

"You missed the first snow for Sanctuary, which is amazing. I'm sure you'll love it once you're out of bed, which could be any time soon. Everything's coated in white except for the streets where it's already become well-waded slush in a sort of brownish beige color due to traffic. They've brought in new shipments deliberately for Christmas, to help everyone with cheer during this winter. The holiday goings on are going to be a huge thing this year. The planning took months," she offered, trying to get something out of her.

"And the other thing?" the red head asked, finally shifting her gaze from the ceiling, back to the woman in the chair.

Heather blinked, confused and surprised all at once. "Excuse me?"

"The other thing," Lyta said, motioning with her hand even as it was wrapped in the blanket. "The thing that's rumbling around in your head loud and obnoxious like pennies in a tin can. The thing you desperately want to bring up yet keep avoiding."

The brunette sat there for a long silent few minutes. Anger spun off of her in an unusual way. She didn't like being directed to tell things out of her order, even though she loved surprises. She didn't like being delegated to, without input. She hated being run ramshod over. And she'd done her most respectful to avoid that topic because she actually wanted to care for the sensibilities of the woman in the bed. Who seemed to care nothing at all for these things in her own account?

Letting the clipboard slide into her lap behind the chair back, she let out a very slow breath. Her voice was sterling and steel-like, even though it was a very quiet statement. "I don't approve of the way you're treating him."

"It's not your place to approve or disapprove of my actions," Lyta said, looking away once more, only spurring on the woman.

"No, it's not, but you brought it up and you're going to listen to it because you asked. I think you acted very childish before you came down ill and I've spent a good deal of time not letting that opinion reflect on anyone's asking how you are, or how your decisions have affected the council's running status since you arrived. You have butchered in a few days time the very system you put into effect. People vote in the council members aside from a select number you put in place or change. You have completely changed their vote into not having voice, by acting out your childish reaction."

"Are you done?"

"No, I'm not. Your actions are harmful to this community at the moment, and I see you as a danger to something I'm whole-heartedly involved in. I don't like that idea because before last week I'd never met you and I'd never been told anything except that you'd do anything for these people and just didn't want recognition."

"I would do anything for them. I'd die for them."

"Sure, dying for them would be easy after all you've done already. Wouldn't it? But you refuse to even deal with their decisions, because you don't like it now."

There was a very long silence in the room, before Lyta responded again. Her voice was very hollow and it was the first time Heather heard an emotion that wasn't anger, hurt or scorn in her words on the topic. It might sound empty and harsh to a casual listener, or even a human, but the emotions that came from the bed as sudden as a raging river were so mixed with love and loss that they almost consumed her. "He's not supposed to be alive."

Heather gulped against the torrent surrounding her and turned steel inside of her against the emotions. Her hands tightened a little on the chair, but she meant every word, even as a strange feeling of pity and confusion was filling her against her will. "Neither is Lyta Alexander. You might want to think on that sometime while you're casting stones."

"You love him, don't you?"

The brunette looked at the ceiling for a moment, before answering, because it was a hard thing to answer in any form. "Yes. But not in the way you're implying. I grew up with Byron. I know him. I know him like I know the scent of my own skin and all of my memories. I know the ways he thinks and the way he moves. And it's him. I don't know how, and I can't give you reasons for why, but it's him. And no one could imitate him, Lyta. No one, not that perfectly."

Releasing the grip on her chair, she looked down at her hands, trying to afford her actions logic as she spoke. "He hasn't come back to the council chambers since the day you two talked. I thought it would be good for him, when it happened, but he won't talk to the council members now. He stays out in the countryside and sends us messages. I don't think any of us can make him come back…"

Except you.

The words hung in silence, so massively implied that Lyta actually rolled on to her side to face directly away from Heather this time. There was a massive stillness and the emotions hadn't ceased at all, now mingled with an even stronger mash of guilt and anger all at once, but when she spoke minutes later, it was quiet and it was too hollow, almost like the will to say them broke the voice speaking them.

"I'm tired. I think…I think I'd like to sleep now."

Heather closed her eyes, the silence almost a recrimination at herself for saying all she had. She hadn't a right to place Byron's emotions and weakness at the feet of the person who'd recently caused them. Even if she'd get down on her knees and beg the woman if it'd make Byron come back into his own mind and life. She couldn't forget the emptiness in his eyes when she'd gone to see him only two days ago. She couldn't forget.

But, even worse, at the moment she couldn't forgive either.

"Of course," she said, her voice betraying those emotions, as she gathered her clipboard and returned the chair to where it had been. "Oh, I forgot. There's someone who's been waiting to see you the last few days?"

"Later maybe. After I've slept more."

( Three or Four hours later )

"What do you mean, 'you've never had a Christmas tree'?"

"Well, mostly, exactly what I just said," Ember replied, with a sort of glum expression for having to point it out as they walked through the center of town. "I've never had a Christmas tree. It's not like the Minbari celebrate Christmas and I've kind of lived there a very long time. Maybe my parents had a tree a long time ago when I was little, but I don't have a lot of memories from that time."

"Wow. You're not kidding?" Melissa asked, looking all aghast at having received this knowledge.

"No," Ember said, sullenly, tired of having to point out this weakness is her upbringing, which seemed so important to her newfound friend. "I'm not stupid. I know what they're for and pretty much what you do with them. I just, you know, haven't."

"Well, we'll just have to change that, won't we?" Melissa said, slinging an arm over her friends shoulder, noticing some of the tension release just like that. "We'll go pick out our tree with Lennier and then we'll go home and decorate it, and we'll open presents on Christmas Eve and morning, or whatever it is they want to call it here. And we'll give you the bestest Christmas any girl could ask for. Okay?"

"Okay," Ember replied, sheepishly, even though her gratitude showed in her thoughts. Getting an odd look after a second she piped up with, "Are you sure Lennier's going to want to be helping us pick out a tree and such?"

"Sure, he will," Melissa, said with a conspiratorial grin. "He'll love it. I'm positive. After all, I'm sure he's done weirder things when Lyta asked anyway. This one's just getting a tree. And think about it. If we get everything done fast enough, it could even be a surprise for her once she's well again. This way!"

"What? Why?" Ember asked, as Melissa suddenly whirled her around in a completely different direction. Back toward the Market and the downtown area, that they'd priorly been walking home from.

"Because," Melissa said, with a singsong quality to her voice now, oblivious and radiant even without the mystical touch the snowflakes falling on her gave her. "Lennier's just now getting out and we should be able to catch him before he's halfway out of downtown even. So keep your eyes open."

They started a light sprint back into town, even though Ember rolled her eyes at her friend's spontaneous enthusiasm. It never seemed to stop or slow down, especially once it hit new topics. Looking didn't actually take that long either, before Ember actually spotted Lennier and pointed him out Melissa at him. Melissa who went running full speed toward him.

He smiled bemusedly and actually stopped walking, just watching her patiently, and perhaps amusedly. "To what do I owe this surprising visit?"

"I had the best epiphany all ephinanies," Melissa said with a jubilant grin, as she tugged at the warm jacket she had on.

"Have you," he stated simply and Ember tried not to laugh, when part of Lennier's mouth tugged into a smile. It wasn't one of those distinctly respectful looks, but it was more like he was accepting her choice of words like it was some sort of play on what she actually meant.

"Yes," She said, mock sagely, as she moved closer to him. "We need a Christmas tree."

"A tree?" He asked, curiously. "I think I remember being briefed about this being a human winter tradition during my stay on Babylon 5?"

"It is," she said, grabbing his hand and turning him back toward town. "And they're supposed to have trees we can pick from tonight on the other side of town. And we need one. Like really, really, really, really need one. See 'cause Ember's never had one and having it all set up and surprising-like for Lyta when she's finally better would like amazing." It was probably her enthusiasm that endeared Melissa to everyone. She didn't lie and she constantly seemed to stretch things a little, but when you looked into her eyes, she frequently always meant what she was saying. There it was written across her face and shining bright from inside her eyes. "Please? Pretty please?"

"I suppose," Lennier started, gravely, looking at her while inwardly still bemused. "That it couldn't hurt."

( Far, Far Away on a Distant, but Very Familiar World )

"How long?"

"I do not think I care for your tone," she replied without meaning to be evasive, as she turned the spoon slowly in her steaming drink.

"You lied to me," He replied, pacing back and forth. His movements were fast and unplanned compared to her slow and deliberate being. But it had always been like this between them, for they were a myriad harmony of differences. It was one of the many reasons it worked out so well between them.

"No, John, I did not. Will you please stop pacing? You will…wear a hole into the carpet," she said, a smile crinkling her lips at the use of the human phrase, before she went back to the true focus of what had brought them here. "The duty of the Rangers is to help those in need and there were are very many in need. Does it vex you so that she might be one of them?"

"You shouldn't be associating with her." He said it, his voice firm and cruel, and as he watched her eyebrows rise very fast and lightening flash in her eyes, he regretted it instantly. He said quickly after it, "That's not what I meant."

"I should hope not."

"What I meant was," he stopped, coming closer to her. She was still more beautiful than he could imagine. Pictures and paintings could not touch her beauty because it was not simply just about what she looked like, or how she smiled, it was about how she was in presence and being. "Delenn, I love you. And I'd do anything for you, but she….Lyta is dangerous. Not to be trusted. I can't believe-"

"Have you seen the refugees?" Delenn prompted him gently, patiently, and soothingly as she stood up and nodded for him to join her as she moved to a small couch in the living room.

"You mean the telepath refugees? No. Of course not," He replied, his jaw strong and full of purpose, but his eyes were slightly confused. "I've been on Minbar all the time the war and clean-up took place. I've kept tabs on the situation, but I haven't been back."

"Then I will take you next time we have a selection that comes here before they go for their final destination," she stated, watching him sit down barely a few inches from her, yet not interceding into her personal space. Even though she watched his eyes widen with that being another surprise, she looked into her cup about to take a sip, saying very firmly, "You'd be surprised how many of them are only children."

"Children? That's not-" he broke up, his eyes glancing upward before swiveling back to her face, while he let out a deep breath. His face was a shade of light red and his eyes seemed to dart too much across her features as though looking for something that wasn't there, in a face that hadn't changed all that much from the moment he'd first seen it. He rubbed his hands over his face, saying, "How long?"

"A few years," the reply came, without pause and without regret.

"Delenn!" Sheridan barked, both with shock at the admission of it being longer than he thought, and even more so that she'd made her statement evasive and not honestly answered his question in her normal precise matter. "How cou-" his words started but were silenced by a slim and gentle finger against his lips.

"Perhaps, it is time," Delenn started removing her finger only after she knew he would let her speak, and gathered his hand into hers and squeezing it lightly. She tried to look beyond the flame of fear, and it's reaction of control, inside his eyes. "That we talked about some of the more important things involving Lyta in your life that you have never talked about before. Perhaps never even admitted to yourself."

She watched his expression, years of married living, like seeing all the answers in the smallest of planes and shadows. The skin at the edges of his eye bunched because he was tense and rebellious due to her words. The tight muscle in his jaw that showed his patience with her, and love, that would have seemed unbridled anger to anyone else. If he were asked he would say that he would tell her that he'd answer any question of his past. But that was not the same as turning lights into the places in a mind where only irrational emotions and shadows grew.

"Do you fear water because you know it can drown you? Or fire because you know it can burn you?" She asked gently, wishing that some of their conversations could be far more soothing than this one would be. She knew this haunted him and that it could for a long time, if ever it did end.

"No. You use it with a healthy respect to its more dangerous elements and avoid using it in dangerous ways that might harm anything or anyone," John replied.

"While acknowledging that the water can also save you from dehydration, or that fire can save you from freezing or prepare food for eating to keep from starvation?" Delenn said, hoping he was already understanding what she meant. Not what she said, but what she meant.

"Of course, Delenn," he stated blankly, nodding, though his expression had not the patience of hers.

She waited a minute longer, waiting for him to say more, waiting for him to understand the knowledge she had just handed him, and a very small frown turned the direction of her lips. So she tried again, and this time, she tried to be something the Minbari were often not; blunt. "Who are the people you know of that the Vorlon's changed?"

"Lyta, of course, and if we're to believe her statements before leaving Babylon 5, all the telepaths of all the races. It was the Vorlon's messing with the races that created the telepaths at all," he stated out, wondering with annoyance where this was going and why she was staring at him so patiently, still waiting. He thought for longer before he also added, his expression becoming clearer. "The Inquisitor who came to test us. Sebastian or Jack or whatever they were calling him then."

"And you," Delenn said softly, almost sadly, as though repeating something known and unadressed.

Specifically unadressed.

( Two Days Later )

The door opened, and she turned her head more to look toward the noise out of instinct than the need to do it, still sleepy as she had not so much heard it but felt it, but the moment she figured out what it was, she was awake. Stone cold, wide aware, awake. In her doorway, holding a tray of steaming lunch foods, face looking completely embarrassed, confused and concerned was Zack.

Zack Allan.

The man who was supposed to be on the station as Chief of Security.

Not on Haven…not on her planet…and not…serving her lunch?

"Zack?"

"I…uh…think they got annoyed with me sitting in the hallway so they decided if they sent me in with food that you'd realize I was here," he said, with this smile that seemed so very boyish.

Lyta stared at him long and hard, thinking none of this made sense at all. Zack was dedicated to Babylon 5. Massively and intrinsically dedicated to Babylon 5. He wouldn't leave that place, he loved it too much. Other people left, but never him. It was just so where he has always belonged. And then there was all the stuff that didn't make sense in her head that she hadn't though about since Byron's letter.

She pushed herself up and rubbed her eyes as she murmured. "And now the delusions start. Someone get me a nurse. Oh, wait, you people can't even diagnose me because of my unknown alien make-up."

"I'm real." Zack said, his voice filtering through with amusement as he came to the side of her bed finally and set down the tray. "Really, real. I was thinking about a trip and thought why not somewhere new?" He flushed under the expression she looked up at him with, her face completely gaunt and pallid, and her eyes little brands of copper burning into his soul without touching him. "Well, uh, and Ivanova sent me."

"You do realize she'll kill you for actually telling me that, right?" Lyta said, she attempted a smile even though only an edge of her lips lifting on one side. But it faded just as fast, as she looked down at the wooly blanket on her bed and played with it in her fingertips. "Usually when she's trying to be sneaky, she likes those things to be a secret. Not that I really approve of this intrusion into my personal affairs, but I'm sure that wasn't a priority in her planning. So what's her reason this time, since you've already spilled most of the beans ungracefully?"

"She didn't really say. Just that you needed a friend to be near you for the next while," Zack offered, still standing next to her bed, looking a little uncomfortable himself. He'd look at her and then look away, and she only realized it was because of her nightgown after the fifth or sixth time he did it. He really was sort of old fashioned in that way, she decided as she pulled the light sheet up around her. It seemed to make things a little better the next time he cast a slightly glance at her.

"Go back home, Zack," Lyta said, desolately. She had not called him friend in a long time, and she didn't feel an amazing sureness in him. Even after the saving of TEEP. After all, he'd only been there for it's fall out because Lockley had ordered him. Same as he was now here because Susan sent him. Hollow friendship was no friendship at all and she had no use for the pity of strangers.

"I can't, well, no really. Well, I could go back to Earth, but I could just as well stay here." He said, using his hands to explain things, as per usual when he seemed to get nervous around her. "I…retired."

"Wow," the red head laughed, though too cruelly. "She convinced you up good to have gotten that out of you."

"I'd been thinking about it for a while anyway."

"And what do you get out this, Zack?" Lyta asked, steel filling her voice.

He wanted to say, he got to be near her, but that was too foolish and too honest, and he couldn't bring himself to say things he knew she didn't want hear, no matter how badly he wanted to say it or how honest it was. So he folded his arms loosely behind his back and said, "I get to see the creation of a new society, help out and keep an eye on a good friend I lost track of too many years ago."

Her eyes were dark and her lips were pursed as she stared at him, openly disbelieving. "Did you really sit out in the hallway for days?"

"Yes." Zack answered quickly, though his cheeks reddened very fast. "Well, most of it. Actually fell asleep in the chair waiting a few times. And during the points when I needed to get up and do something out of sheer need to move more, I helped out around here a little. Gave Lennier's class some pointers, and helped with some of the construction a few days ago when you still hadn't even woken up and I was too under-"

"Lennier's teaching a class?" Lyta asked, stumbling straight over his sentence.

"Yep. A self-defense class. Apparently a group of people saw him practicing one morning and started trying to emulate him. He told them they weren't doing it right. That it involved the mind and the body, some kind of meditation. And it broke into a class somehow. They usually having mid morning or early afternoon meets. Some times it's actual fighting, but a lot of the time it's meditation and discussion. He's mellowed a bit, hasn't he?"

Lyta's lips actually quirked back into a slight smile at that comment. "The more things change, the more they never seem the same."

Zack furrowed his brows, but didn't ask, even thought his expression said enough. He was too completely clear with his emotions in his face, but he turned it on something else as he nudged the tray toward her. "I've been told to make you eat. Apparently everyone seems to think this is a great and hard task. Prove them wrong and eat your lunch for me, so I don't have to scold you or make you?"

Her brows rose at the teasing tone, where he very obviously tilted the conversation suddenly away. "Make me what?"

"I'll have to make you eat." Zack said, menacingly, though his eyes were bright and teasing as he was leaning in toward the bed. "It can't be much harder than holding you down on the bed and prying your mouth open right?"

Lyta sputtered suddenly and her mouth opened in surprise.

Half because of his statement, and half because she was sudden thrown for a shock when her body reacted strongly to the idea and mental picture of Zack being on top of her. It made her suddenly feel much too warm, and far too undressed, and very embarrassed; even wrapped under the thick blanket. And, yet, this was Zack after all. Zack who was harmless and friendly, and tended to be too much like a daily teeter-totter in her world.

Dear god, what was she going to do with him here? On her planet? Not leaving?

Her cheeks flushed while she tried to banish what her imagination had suddenly created and she grabbed a spoon and the bowl at the top of the tray, anything to not suddenly be looking at him. "Fine. I'll eat the stupid food."

"Don't look away from her," A booming, laughing voice came from behind them both. "She'll find some way to hide it under the bed or make it disappear so you never know she didn't eat."

They both looked over suddenly to find Jason in the doorway. He was dressed still in warm winter clothing. His pants were a dark beige color with smaller lines of cream running in them length wise, over that was a large, thick, dark red jacket hung open to reveal a cream shirt that matched the pants stripes. His shoes were black and they still had snow edged all around the edges.

"So says the man who does it about as well," Lyta threw back a barb, but her voice had grown marginally sweeter.

"Ahh, but my body does not require a physical sustenance as yours still does," He said walking inside as he pulled two or three manila folders out of inside his jacket. Her eyes, copper and bright, hardened looking at them, which made him smile a little more. "I know, back to the books is not something you want to be doing, but I promised I'd drop them off to you this afternoon."

He glanced to Zack, though his expression wasn't lacking in kindness, when he said, "If you'd excuse-"

"No problem," the late security chief replied, with the faintest traces of the smirk still on his face as he turned and started walking for the door, after a lingering look at Lyta, which seemed to contain more than the silence of the moment he'd looked at her. "Just make sure she eats the lunch or I'll never hear the end of it."

Jason watched him go, as did Lyta quietly, till he was gone and moved to close the door behind him. It clicked, softly; a thundering noise in the room for the silent bubble that had formed. He broke it quietly as he walked toward the woman on the bed. "A good man, your friend there."

"If he is that," Lyta replied, furrowing her brow and holding her hand out for the folders he still held.

He held them firm even when her hand grasped them, making sure to look her full in the face when he said very surely, "He is a good man." Her response was a sound from her throat and non-committal because once he released the folder because her attention began to focus on the papers she was shifting in her hand. Jason frowned slightly, noting her unspoken annoyance and confusion on the topic. "Has no one told you yet that he was the one who spent the most time at your bedside?"

"Did he?" she replied, very distractedly without impression; as she flipped through more of the papers, lunch already forgotten on the bedside between them. Sewage lines, autumns last crops, two weeks worth of new arrivals, apprenticeships building…gala party.

"Has he done something I should know about? As I haven't seen him be anything but studious and jovial toward anyone, even if a bit skittish in adjusting to being the minority in our world," Jason broached, his voice dropping slightly and shifting to a more serious tone. He watched her very closely, his eyes seeming to shiver slightly as though he was peering into her almost. "I'm prone to thinking if you didn't want him on Haven, he wouldn't even know about her existence even. Do I need to remove him?"

"No, that won't be needed," she commented, finally looking up at him, as though this was a trial to discuss. She looked back down, shifting the first folder over near the lunch tray and closer to the end of the bed. Leaving the other two on her lap, she turned halfway and started bunching her pillow so she could sit up and lean against them. "In that aspect he's harmless. Well, not harmless. He was the Security Chief of Babylon 5 till very recently. He actually knows very much, but he is not a threat to us or to the planets."

Once she finished fluffing the pillows and putting them in place, she looked back up to find the most interesting expression residing on his face. It was somewhere between confusion and curiosity, and yet his eyes seemed to still contain that magical laughing shine to them. She liked those eyes, even though she knew they could turn black as death fast as anything, too. It was almost comforting to her to know that. It was strange, but she'd at least begun embracing that in herself.

Lyta let a small huff out of her chest through her nose, as she contemplated her blanket before continuing. She laced her fingers together and started calmly, "I'm not sure where I stand on Zack, though he is not a danger, I'm not sure whether he wishes to be a friend or not. We've all too often been caught on the very opposite sides of the law and it's damaged pretty much all interaction we've ever had between us. Once long ago, back when I'd first come to Babylon 5 I thought it would be different…but back then I thought a lot of things would be different. "

It was true and false all at once. She trusted Zack. She knew he'd die for a cause. She knew him as honest and open and dedicated to his causes. But there were other things she couldn't state that simply, especially about this last trip to Babylon 5. He'd been attentive, he'd taken her out, then he'd thrown her in jail, and then when the leaper had taken over his body he'd made reference to that body loving her enough to die for her. But none of those really matched up and it all confused and hurt her head now to think about it.

"I do not think that he is here out of friendship to me or to our people, but more out of the kindness to a request made by Susan. As I have said I would not count him as a danger, or an exact Ally, I also do not like the idea of him being allowed to leave with the knowledge of Haven and no way to protect that knowledge," she added reluctantly, looking back up and getting confused at seeing this slap-stick grin on his face. "What?"

"You like him." Jason stated, and smiled even more at Lyta's outraged expression of denial, and then spoke over her begun protesting attempts. "So much so that you want to write him off completely already."

"No, let me speak," he said, waving her off as her mouth open, her eyes still flashing. Walking around her bed as he said it, to sit on the bed opposite side the piles, he took one of her hands, his dark eyes were calm and soothing now. Which was the same with the ocean of his being around her room that he was much more free with around her.

Jason reached out a hand and stroked her cheek; the darkest brown against the palest white and fiercest red. "If you trust him and you do want for his friendship and alliance here, which I think you do, then do not push him away because the rest of the universe and your mixed pasts were a terribly hard and confusing place. I know that you are not a terrible and hard person at heart, no matter how much unrest and tragedy they would mount on your shoulders, Lyta, or how cold or distant you would become in appearance as a result. Don't become that person, because then I would sorely be missing my friend."

She gave him a tired and frustrated smile, very thin lipped, which conveyed many different things from sickness to travel to the pertinent conversation. And in her head suddenly very much in parallel she heard a woman's voice in echo asking for her grace, forgiveness, and wisdom in another matter. She closed her eyes and leaned against his hand, feeling him inside her and herself in him. There was a wash of compassion, acceptance and love, without reserved opinion or fear.

All of which was a rarity she hardly had time to let herself have.

(The Next Afternoon)

"Are you sure?" Sara asked, her shrewd eyes drilling into the man across the table and to her left.

"Positive. I think we should take this issue before Miss Alexander as soon as she well enough, " he replied, brushing a hand through his light hair, even as it was still ruffled by the winter wind and speckled with the snow that must have been still falling outside. "I just went through a very large recount of everything."

"Everything?" Berkley, their young and Centari, new representation asked. A slightly more obvious glow in his eyes at the audacity of the idea alone.

"Well not personally," the man replied, a little sheepishly. "I've got a handful of people helping. And you said you wanted it by this morning. I know I'm a little late, but I needed to check on some things after the third warehouse had a minor accident today." Quickly, after seeing their expression change to concern he added. "No one was grievously injured, though one of our men will be on leave for a few days rest."

"What is your opinion then?"

He wiped his hand nervously on his coat, feeling those eyes all drilling at him though without malice any of them. "I think if we don't start exporting some of it, that we're going to need to build another warehouse just to store some of the surplus we've got going."

"Would you be willing to leave a copy of your paper work? And if need be, would you be willing to give this report again in presence of the full council?" Brinna asked from the very end of the table, her high tight on the back of her head and her clothes still immaculately pressed after hours of them meeting. Her eyes though shined; as though they were the key to her soul and that fact this was all very amazingly good news.

"Of course, ma'am. Of course."

(Early Evening)

The sky was a tawny beautiful color, even with the world hidden and snow covered. The wonder that was Haven and its beauty. Her breath was stolen by that evening sky. It was snowing behind her and the most beautiful sunset, that came every night, and was different each time stole next her heart, too. It was a bleeding crimson color with soft and brighter pinks at the edges. Behind that as it faded were slashes and flashes of bright and rich orange, heralded by other shades that came softer as the light seeped away. First soft yellow, slight green if you strained to see it, then purple from the pinks and then slowly into soft blue.

Night would be upon them soon and they still had not said a word to each other.

He knew she was there. And she knew that he knew. But neither of them seemed to want to make a move and so they simply faced the same direction staring at the same time, listening at the same time to an odd, yet beautiful music that was created by some miracle of the world around them.

"It's the tree, you know," he said softly, and suddenly it felt, because the silence had encompassed them for what seemed like hours as they watched the sun lowering and set the sky with fire and fade. "I found it, or it found me, the very first time I set foot on this land. This amazing world. They let me name it, but I doubt they told you that, because it's a rare breed on this planet and a breed that's dying I suspect. I told them it should be a Willow. That it was very like one."

Her eyes shifted only very slowly to the man on the ground near her. He was less than ten feet from where she stood under the bounty of the tree over her head, the one he sat at the foot of the tree, his back leaning against it. With the pain in her heart at the reference though she made herself look at the tree and not the gesture that it's naming was. The bark was a very, very dark color of brownish-black, laced with streaks of what looked almost to be white under where the bark had chipped. The branches spread over forever and the leaves were in colors almost a mirad as the sky, yet they clung tenaciously to their branches and thrived even in mid-winter. It was nothing like a-

"I told them it was strong, rooted deeply to the place it loved, regardless that it was being eradicated. I told them to watch and see, that it would bend and it would shake, but it wouldn't break. Not in the worst storms even. And that if you listen, if you sit and listen to her closely, she sings the song of life, of survival, of eternity."

Letting out a soft sigh, she looked back to him again, sitting huddled to the tree on the ground. He was surrounded by the fallen snow on the ground and on himself, though it didn't covered his outfit completely. The normal black sort of suit he always took a liking to, with warmer things to cover over it even. The pain inside her chest was not something she truly wished to face. "It can't be the same, Byron. Too much is changed. Too much."

His face turned very slowly, as if he feared she might burn him again, just simply by looking at her. His face was an impassive pale, very like her own, though it was ruddy in places from the warmth his body supplied against the colder winds that shouted against their bodies. His eyes were cold and removed with a such sadness that it pierced, and yet such a strong flame of hope flicker in the center she almost stepped back, because his words didn't not address that hope when he said simply, "I know. But-"

"Friends, Byron," Lyta said very suddenly, and much too strongly. Even the music of the tree seemed cacophonic for a moment when she snapped it. She was much too cold inside. In ways that had nothing, nothing to do what-so-ever with the cold that swirled around her even as she wore a loose shift and pants to cover her body only. "It's all I can offer. And even that still feels like it will be too much."

She watched the light in his eyes flicker and almost go out at her words, and yet it seemed to stay focused on her. She did not need a lover. And especially not this man before her. Because this man before her would definitely be the death of her, if he'd not already been the forward to death of so much inside of her already.

And yet she found her eyes tracing the soft curl at the edge of his hair, the part she wrapped her fingers in to play with when he slept. Or the depth of the color of his eyes, where his words seems to make them shine brighter and truer as though he could look right into your soul and play for your mystical enjoyment what he saw there. The length of his face and his body, not marred by the scarring but added to by the differences. For a moment she wondered what it would feel like to touch that scarring compared to the clear, clean skin next to it. The softness of his hair….or his lips.

But it was not a joy to look at those things now. It was a masochistic and grueling undead want for the past that could not be. And each moment she took him in longer to her memories the pain inside her chest only increased. And perhaps he seemed to sense that pain in her, because his eyes shifted to the ground. "And you came here?"

"Because my council is missing one of it's members," She said looking away from him, same as he looked away from her. There was pain and even shame, even when she refused to name why she was feeling that shame inside herself. She wanted to look away. She wanted to forget. She wanted him to be dead. No, that wasn't true. Or perhaps that it wasn't and was true was what spurned her heart against herself even, as she made herself look back at him. "And that situation needs to be rectified."

"I don't belong there. Your opinion was very obvious," Byron responded, drearily. And he added. "Besides I've much enjoyed my quiet days here away from the hustle and bustle."

"I've been made to recognize, once again, that I am not God," she interjected into her words, with some irony. "And that I may be able to move mountains, win wars, give or take life, and many, many other things but there were very larger and even more important reasons why even though I founded Haven I left her running and management up to the people of Haven. The people of Haven chose you Byron."

Just like I did a very long time ago, her thoughts whispered softly and sadly. There was still there what had been. She could lie to herself and tell it wasn't, but it was. But the issue was not that it was there. It was that while it and he were still there where they had once been. She wasn't. And she never would be again. She'd grown from that place by leaps and bounds of her own making and of other peoples, including his.

"There's a Winter Gala tonight where the council members are all suppose to be present, which means though distasteful, we're both sort of on the schedule to appear there in our finest. Byron…" She said his name softly, softer than any words she'd said yet, and her hand was held out when he look up. Imploring him to take it. "Come with me. Come back to where you belong."

Byron moved to take her hand and for a moment it felt like little emotional anchors closing into her, but she pushed them all away. If they were going to be interacting again in her lifetime, it would not be from a healthy, respectful interaction. So when he tried to lace his fingers into hers, she didn't move, and she tightened her grip harshly for one second till he looked at her, pale and fresh against the back drop of a winter night, but with fired eyes as she said very clearly.

"Friends."

"Yes, of course," he said after a moment, though he didn't let go and she allowed him to cling in that very little amount.

So hand in hand she lead him away from the tree in the snow, like a parent holding the hand of child who had perhaps lost their way in the snow and gotten lost out in the darkness that was the world. After a time they walked side by side, but they did so in a varying silence that was periodically broken with her tidbits of information about the city and the planets and what was going on, though other than that they held hands in silence and walked casually toward the flickering lights of the city.

And only then did something finally distract her again. A single figure out by the great tree in the town square. It had been done up as a gift to the community from the council, same as the Gala, to remind them of all their reasons to be joyful in the simplicity of each other. The figure sat on a bench watching the exact area she walked into and even in the relative shadows night, she could tell it was Zack watching –waiting?- where she entered.

She thought to reach out and ask him a question, but realized she was neither close enough for him to hear, nor on good enough terms to just touch his mind and ask him. So she walked slowly in that direction, till Byron stopped at one street.

"This one is mine," he said softly, as though still unsure of speaking directly to her.

"Do you-?"

"No," he said, with the first part of a laugh she'd heard from him since…since she'd seen him here. "I can go and dress myself. And if it looks like hell I'm sure Heather will instruct me in high tones on how to dress right for a social party appearance. I'll be fine."

He wavered on the truth of his last sentence, but Lyta let him. She knew they'd both be frail and full of half-lies in a ways till they settled out what this relationship between them would eventually factor out as. He needed to retreat from her and the very forceful rule of friendship, to a space away from her. And it hurt, but it hurt in a good way. Because it registered in him.

"Of course," Lyta said, and even gave him a smile, looking at the Christmas tree lights behind his shoulder and the waiting man, who stood up now, but was still only there.

Byron leaned over to hug her, and though it felt mostly wrong, she let him that liberty take. For at least this night. Tomorrow would be a brand new day with respectful boundaries and sunshine, or snowshine, whichever. And sometimes you needed to be bolstered against that brightness while in your shadows still. Very suddenly she felt a spasm of jealousy and anger. Stronger than she'd been prepared to feel worrying over herself and him, because it definitely hadn't come from him. As he pulled away his face was reserved, but there was a cold calm behind it. No malice or anger.

Byron nodded her off, but when she turned to walk toward the Christmas tree and her other foundling friendship she found only a deserted road, and a deserted circle of benches where she could feel his lingered presence in echo only now. But where had Zack gone? And why? Could he have been jealous and angry at her? Was that why he'd been waiting? And if so, why? But, boy, wasn't that a sad symbology she told herself as she stared at the garish and bright twinkling lights of the beacon in the middle of the street. Alone with the symbolic ideal of a winter wonderland.

As she stood there rubbing her fingers that weren't so cold, she though she was very used to that though.

Alone.

With only an ideal to warm her from the cold.

TBC in Intermission 2: "A Very Merry Christmas"


	9. Intermission 2

Intermission: "A Very Merry Christmas"

(Early Morning)

It was the silence that woke her, or so she thought, when her eyes suddenly snapped open. Her mind took in the gentle rhythm of the dreams around her and the quiet thoughts of those already awake. She squirmed from her curled up position to laying on her back, so she could stretch her arms out and then let out a soft yawn into a bawled fist. And then she was laughed out loud as she spotted the gift left on the pillow next to her.

That was so Melissa.

Even when told gifts would be handled later, she'd go out of her way to break the rules somehow.

When she reached out to pick up the shiny silver rectangle though, she stopped short of her fingers touching it. No, not Melissa. She picked it up pulling it over to her. And she knew, though there wasn't even a tag that somehow Zack had come into her room and gone out of it again to leave this. It was him. His bundle of nervous energy, caught up in some hard chaos in his head, permeating the paper.

Lyta's fingers traced the paper a moment, wondering why he'd come and left her an early morning gift even though he's specifically missed the Gala last night. Heather, Jason and Melissa had told her they'd been sure to make sure he was invited and felt welcome. And yet he still hadn't come, and no one had known why, because they'd all been sure he'd wanted to come and was coming.

Breaking the tape felt sort of like defeating her promise to everyone about presents later, but this secret gift on her pillow didn't seem part of that promise all at once. A minute later the paper was strewn on the bed and she was looking at the gift with a confused glance. It was a picture frame holding a picture she well knew. Zack and her sitting and laughing at some joke she couldn't remember the words for.

They looked incredibly happy. _She_ looked incredibly happy.

It was long before everything had happened.

When her fingers, wrapped around the frame ran into something, she turned it over to find a piece of paper with scrawled words taped to the back. She sat back in bed, rereading it a dozen times and trying not to feel small and nervous by all it said;

_This beginning was amazing, though its ending was contemptible,_

_This new beginning's been contemptible, so maybe the ending will be amazing._

(Early Mid-Morning)

"So there we are, middle of this horrid shoot out –where we could be dying any moment-," Melissa interjects over her shoulder to the crowd seated at the table, while flipping pancakes. "And they were still arguing like it's the second coming to ask for an iota of help from each other, or acquiesce to the idea they've actually been helping each other. I swear I would have burst out laughing, if I wasn't busy dodging fire."

"Or causing the battles," Lyta's voice caught everyone's attention, from where she'd suddenly appeared in the Kitchen doorway. Wrapped up in a thick, down robe, she looked content mostly staring in amusement at her life and time adopted youngling.

"Eee!" Melissa squealed, suddenly. "You're awake!"

"And," Lyta added with a smirk curling her lips. "Susan and I don't fight."

"Now," Melissa responded sarcastically.

"Oh, I'd believe it," a response came from the table, and finally Lyta took in who the everyone else in the room was. She'd assumed for family –Jason, Lennier, Melissa and their newest tag-along of Melissa's best friend, Ember- but not for Zack. Her eyes narrowed and then relaxed. She had assumed he'd have somewhere to go, but truly where else and who else did he really know here? He was smiling, though he suddenly had a nervous air once her eyes found him. He kept the smile though, as he continued in saying, "I saw them when they first met. Like oil and water, even though it was million times better than the sparks that flew between Susan and Talia."

"Well, not everyone can give in so easily to fate dictating who their next love of their life will be," Lyta said with a sardonic shake of her head.

"True, true," Jason said, pulling out a chair and motioning with his head for her to come sit.

"So when is presents around here, again?" Ember asked, sounding a touch impatient, as she fiddled with the breakfast placemat in front of her that had only silverware and her orange juice on it.

"And breakfast is served!" The younger redhead of the kitchen announced suddenly, tossing her spatula toward the dish cluttered sink.

"Later," Lennier replied calmly toward Ember.

"Later? Then what's first aside from food?" Zack asked, nudging and winking at Ember to show he was on her side.

"The best thing in the world," Melissa replied almost dreamily.

She brought plates first to Zack, Lennier and Ember and returned to the stove. Her quiet airy response seemed to set a fire into the air that effected them differently in sets. Lennier looked amused, Jason and Lyta both looked toward each other with a sort of calm but effusive joy, and Zack and Ember still looked at them all like they were holding a secret neither understood.

Melissa looked at Lyta almost expectantly as she brought the next set of plates for herself, Lyta and Jason. Raising an eyebrow, which got Lyta to give her a shrug and a smile, she started again, "Well, when I was young and my parents-"

She paused hard suddenly at that last word, then swallowed and started again, "I used to own this archaic set of Doctor Seuss books. I read them till they fell apart. I took them everywhere, but I lost them a long time ago. In a book called The Grinch, it's about Christmas you probably know, but my favorite part….it's after all the gifts are gone and they all come out to sing. It's kind of like that."

"We're going to go sing? Like caroling?" Ember asked, audaciously, like this was something outlandish.

"Not exactly," Melissa said, smiling impishly as she looked from Lyta to Ember.

"Well, I'm confused," Zack stated, laughing, after finishing up a bite of food.

Melissa looked from Ember to Zack suddenly, her face paling as she spun to face Lyta, it was Lennier who responded to his words, amid the silence between the redheads. "I am certain they'll explain it when the time comes for us to understand."

"I'm sure," Zack replied to Lennier as they ate food, both not catching the silent conversation that flew between the redheads only a few feet from either of them. "They always tell us everything – later."

A few giggles came from around the table and conversation returned like normal to the table. The kitchen was filled with laughter and joking, with the truly good conversation of friends new and old that can only be perfected by the art of trials, tribulations and the wonderful of holidays.

(Late Mid-Morning)

Zack handled the end of breakfast. It was his offer as he'd told them at the end of the meal, because he had so little else to offer them here in general and especially on this holiday. Also, he felt he needed to be able to move and get up. To be useful was something he was starting to feel pulling at him like a terrible storm. On Babylon 5 there was always something for him to be doing, taking care of, delegating or deciding.

"I'm sure we can find something for you to do," Lyta said from the door.

He almost smiled once he'd realized it was she and finished drying the cup in his hand not looking to her yet. Partially because he was still getting used to people reacting to something he was thinking of and otherwise because he wanted to keep certain thoughts from being thought is she was reading his. "I'm sure someone will find something for me to do sooner or later. I just feel restless and useless. But then it's only been the first week or two. Most new beginnings are…rough."

"Yes," Lyta said softly, after a seconds pause. She had noted his stumbling into the beginning reference without meaning to and then pausing mid his own sentence because he felt his own stumble into it. It was rather cute in a sort of childish way. So she covered it up for him. "After all, we could always sit down at some point this week, go over your strengths and weakness, Sanctuary's strengths and weakness', and find a perfect fit for the two of you together."

"That would be nice," he said, giving her a smile before picking up the next plate to dry.

"We noticed your absence last night during the Gala," Lyta stated more diplomatically than she'd originally meant the statement to be.

"You know me," Zack replied, coolly. "I don't like big parties and stuff."

"You didn't seem to mind on the station," Lyta replied suddenly, and almost covered her mouth when the statement came out. She hadn't meant to say it and even more she hadn't meant to mean it. And she did. He'd taken her out the last time as a not-a-date basically, and then not shown to this one. And until this moment she hadn't realized it had truly grated.

"You and," he focused on the plate and placing it on the drying rack before finishing the second name, "Byron seemed to look like you needed space last night."

Lyta let out a strange and strangled sound through closed lips that might have been a laugh if they were open. She cross her hands on her stomach and wondered which one of them seemed more the teenager suddenly, because they were vying well in an odd way. "Byron and I are friends. Well, if you can call it that. Mostly, it's for Heathers expense."

"Heather?"

"Yes, the councils secretary-"

"I know who she is," he said, easily, not being rude in his interruption.

"She thinks I've given him a raw deal in refusing him entrance to my life again," Lyta started calmly, leaning against one side of the door and not looking at him herself. "That I'd torn up the council with my temper tantrums and that I should stop playing god with this world, if I left the running of it half to my choice and half to it's occupants."

Zack looked over toward her and she felt and saw what he did, even though she hadn't been prying. There was the image of her and Byron walking into town holding hands, smiling and talking, and then hugging, with the emotions of confusion, anger, and jealousy all as an undercurrent. Her eyes met his and so many questions filled her mouth.

"Are you telling me you two aren't ready yet?" Melissa asked, pushing at Lyta, her coat already on.

"We were just leaving," Zack told her, with an infectious smile. "I was just holding Lyta up with questions about this lovely planet all over again. I'm getting my coat now. Should we meet you on the steps?"

"Yes," Melissa said drawing her words out slowly. "We've been waiting fifteen minutes already. You two need to hurry up or you'll miss it."

And then she was gone again, and that odd silence was back, which Zack tried to push past even though she hadn't said anything since talking about Heather and her council still. "I'll go get my coat. Where's yours?"

"I don't need it," Lyta said.

"You'll be cold."

"Only if I let myself," she replied with a light secretive smile.

Zack gave her a strange glance but walked past her out into the hallway and started getting his coat out of a closet, thinking that the house seemed so old itself. But he'd been told Lyta had chosen this house and constructed large part of it herself, too. Wanting it to be rustic and natural and needing tending. He'd gotten a lot of stories about how powerful and how humble she was lately…and it was strange trying to relate the legend of Lyta and the girl he always saw when he looked at her.

And he needed to get a hold on that, too.

"All ready?" He asked, going to open the front door.

Lyta nodded, and right as his hand pulled the door open she said, "Thank you for the picture this morning."

He looked back in shock at her words, but only to be interrupted by a cheer that roared from outside the door causing him to look back outside. The entire road before the house was filled to the edges with people as far as he could see. On top of the steps at the house stood those he had breakfast with plus what appeared to be the council –those he'd met and few others-, and the steps were empty, but right where the ground started a massive huge crowd stood.

Calm and bright and smiling.

Lyta could hear them long before she could see them, but seeing them brought a few tears to her eyes. They came because the council had announced this location, and because the council wanted her paid a due even if no one so much paid it to her as much as an unnamed person they never knew was her also. She walked passed Zack and his shock as most of them began to hold hands.

It started as a low hum somewhere in the middle or the back, beautiful and sad. And as Melissa slid into her side under her arm, like the daughter that she'd never had, she felt the first crescendo that would be all those voice singing inside themselves and each other.

Not a song of words, but of hearts and lives.

Lyta?

Her eyes still shining, she looked down into the bright red hair of already tear-stricken face of Melissa who'd called her name, who wasn't looked at her but behind her. She looked back to Zack at the door still. He looked like he was trapped somewhere and confused. Letting go of Melissa who moved in toward her friend and other family members, she walked back across the landing toward him.

"Zack?"

His eyes were still on all the people. He couldn't tell what was happening but he could feel it. Not in a way that he knew what was happening. But in the way anyone could feel a coming storm. It crawled up your spine, raising all the hairs on your body and filling you with static energy. It made him nervous and twitchy, so when Lyta said his name out loud. The only sound he could hear in what felt like a blasting noise he couldn't, he jumped out of surprise.

"Zack," she said his name again softly, holding out a hand to him. "Do you trust me?"

"With everything in me," he said suddenly, so suddenly that when his words registered in his mind, his face flushed crimson. And his vision shifted to the ground, but she was still walking toward him and her hand was out.

"Come with me. I promise it won't hurt," she said, as she reached down for his hand and pulled him toward the people behind her.

Zack she said it softly, and tried not to look a little hurt or concerned when he jumped again. He hadn't expected her to speak inside his mind and she squeezed his hand, before looking out at all of the people beyond her. The world that she was so proud of that it hurt.

Trust me. He nodded as she directed him to sit down on the middle of the stairs with her and then something happened that he wasn't sure he could even describe.

It seemed like the entire world suddenly shifted and he was glad he was sitting, because he felt like he couldn't stand or hold himself. She squeezed his hand and he kept breathing. What had been crawling up his spine crawled up into his mind and broke wide open. And it was like music and it wasn't music all at once. But it was beautiful and so heart breaking.

Zack could see it all like it was an unending waterfall washing across his/her/their body. The lives they'd come from, the hard ships they'd endured, the family they'd lost, the lives that'd been torn….and then something else. The hope that they'd gathered, the lives they'd been offered, the world they'd been given, the lives they could earn, the families they could raise, the freedom they could cherish.

As the tears started to fall down his face, she watched him calmly. These were the stories she counted as more precious than anything she could procure or steal or earn. These were the lives of her people, and yet she watched his face. This face who'd haunted her once upon a time for a early adult puppy love to someone who'd directed her life to bars and locked rooms. Who'd give up his life and come half way across the universe to her, who distrusted and suspected his every move, with no motive other than to help.

Who wondered even as he cried if he felt for them really. Even though linked into all of them, there was no way to lie about the emotions that flooded him. The utter honesty, hurt and rejoicing for them was real. Those eyes filled with tears that didn't see her anymore but them, and her through them as their redeemer.

It was an auspicious beginning, she admitted, holding his body close to her as he floated through a sea he'd never known.

She noted looking over her family,

the cosmic enitity, a man who was more than anything anyone could imagine holding a small brunette hair silent child of untold power,

-the warrior, once lover, and dearest friend who was more loyal than friendship or love or self could earn,

the daughter or sister who hate had garnered and love had kept hand in hand with a best friend who could mean any number of future paths not knowing loneliness,

even the once dead lover holding hands with a woman who could be a future passionate friend and ally

Sometimes….sometimes the most auspicious beginnings could have the best of endings.


End file.
