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When Talia wakes up, the medlab is dark and quiet. It smells like ozone and meds, and behind that – the all-present smell of metal, dust and machine oil. Home.
She doesn’t quite remember when Babylon 5 became home: perhaps, that distinct moment never existed, or probably, that’s one of the many memories she’s lost. She can’t be quite sure which memories are lost to her, only that there are a lot of them.
As soon as she believes she’s physically able (she does not know how much time passes, but it’s too late now, too late), she rips the IV from her arm and gets up. For a moment, she almost lets the Sleeper think it’s her own—its own—choice to leave the bed and carefully dispose of the guards at the door, but then the moment’s gone, and she remembers that she no longer needs to deceive the thing. She’s home.
She makes sure the guards won’t wake up for a couple of hours and won’t remember anything happening on their watch (even though it takes a lot of concentration right now, it’s still so easy to manipulate other people’s memories; why in the world is it so hard to hold on to her own?) and crosses the small space to the door of the other ward. She enters the passcode the guards’ minds helpfully provided, comes in and turns back around to make sure the door slides locked behind her. She touches it, needlessly, as if to make sure it’s locked. As much as she’s waited for this moment, now she’d give anything to be anywhere else. To be dead, like everyone expected her to be. She’s never hated Jason and his gifts more than she does in this moment.
After what feels like hours, she turns around, and Susan is still there. Her body’s still there—she’s just as beautiful as Talia remembers her, even now, when she’s barely more than a body.
Susan’s breathing. Her heart, if the medical equipment surrounding her is anything to go by, is beating. She looks like she’s asleep–but she isn’t. For all the memories that are missing from Talia’s mind, she does remember how Susan’s mind felt in her sleep, and it never felt this—void.
Talia sits on a chair next to Susan’s bed and takes her hand. Talia isn’t wearing gloves, and that makes it even more painful: the skin-to-skin contact that does not entail a connection. The touch that does not change anything at all.
She isn’t sure Susan, were she really there, would even tolerate being in the same room with Talia right now, let alone touching her, but—this is all she’s ever getting, after months of imagining this moment over and over again (never, never like this), so she allows herself this moment of selfishness – as much of a closure that she’s ever going to get. She lifts Susan’s hand to her lips, eyes closed. She doesn’t say anything she’s been longing to say; none of it matters anymore.
She doesn’t intend to stay long. She’d stay there for the rest of her life, if it helped Susan even a little bit, but it won’t, so she kisses her hand again and stands up to go back to her own bed.
Her powers aren’t at their best, but her shields are all the way down, and, therefore, she’s supposed to feel anyone coming in from at least a few dozen meters, considering the metal walls. She doesn’t. She’s too caught up in her own love and grief to notice they’re not just her own anymore. It’s only when she thinks of death as a relief, only when she gets a flicker of hope, that she knows she’s sensing someone else. She doesn’t have any hope left in her, but even despite that, she does not seek death.
She knows he’s there mere seconds before he enters the medlab: he’s already seen one of the unconscious guards and now he’s cautiously looking around, checking for danger. He’s got an agenda of his own – this much is clear, otherwise he would have hit the alarms before rushing head-first into obvious danger. The Sleeper’s tactic that she’s mastered in the past months would be to strike before he even has the chance to see her face; to immobilize him, and then scan him to learn his intentions. The Sleeper would have used the situation to her advantage, building it into a complicated plan of gaining back the trust she’s lost on Babylon 5.
Talia, however, is not the Sleeper. She doesn’t want a cunning plan, and—this man’s only thought, beyond the pain, loss, hope and suicide is, “Susan”. After a moment, his intentions are clear to Talia even without a scan: he’s here to sacrifice his life for Susan’s. His disciplined mind is very good at concealing how exactly he’s planning to do that, but if there’s any way—
If there’s really a way he can succeed, Talia needs to stop him.
“They’re not hurt,” she says, making him jump. “They’ll wake up in a little over than an hour, believing the night was uneventful.”
“Talia Winters,” he says. He knows her name; that means he probably was there when she escaped. Or perhaps, someone, maybe even Susan, told him about her. “We should have restrained you.”
“That wouldn’t have worked,” she assures him and yanks his fighting pike out of his hands all the way across the room, dropping it on the floor. She’s bluffing: she took him by surprise, and that’s the only reason this trick worked so easily. In the state she’s in, she wouldn’t be able to levitate the Denn'bok back up, now that it’s dropped.
“Step away from her,” he demands. “If you hurt her, I—“
“I don’t think I could hurt her any more than this,” Talia tells him, but takes a careful step away from Susan’s bed. She’s still working on her next move, and right now she’s fully aware that the man could kill her with his bare hands if he tried, and that he will, indeed, try, if he believes she’s here to hurt Susan.
“What are you doing here?” He asks, picking up his pike and approaching Susan’s bed cautiously. He’s eyeing the heart monitor, making sure everything is in order. Susan’s heartbeat is slow, but even; her breathing is shallow, but still there.
“Saying goodbye.” She has no reason to be dishonest.
“And you needed to hurt three people to do that?”
“They’re not hurt,” she insists. “I needed to be alone with her.” That excuse sounded much better in her head. If she needed any proof of the Sleeper’s remaining effect on her, this would be it: it didn’t even occur to her until now that disabling three people, however temporarily, was too high a price for solitude. She’s a little terrified with herself now.
“Why would you,” the man speaks without looking at her; apparently, he doesn’t entirely trust the technology, and needs to check Susan’s pulse by himself, “need to be alone with her to say goodbye?” He seems satisfied with Susan’s vitals, and makes no attempt to attack Talia. She counts that as a victory.
“What did she tell you about me?” She asks.
Now he’s looking at her.
“Nothing. She never mentioned your name,” he says. She can see he’s not lying, and it hurts. She knows Susan well enough to guess she’d never tell a soul about them, just because that’s exactly how Susan is, but it still hurts.
“We were friends,” she says at last. She’s sure he noticed everything she’s not saying, but she doesn’t care right now. There are more important things here than her dignity.
“You’re a telepath,” he states. “There’s no way she was friendly with a telepath.”
He does know her well enough, then.
“She wasn’t at first. I chased her all over the station for months,” she explains, and, despite herself, smiles fondly.
Unexpectedly, that’s what makes him relax. He returns her smile. “I find that exercise very stimulating, in its own way.
”Marcus Cole,” he says after a pause, and offers her his hand. His Denn'bok is still clenched in his left fist, but Talia takes the risk and reaches out. His hand is cold, and his handshake is firm.
“Talia Winters,” she offers, although he already knows her name.
“Ms. Winters,” he says. “A pleasure, I’m sure, but I would be very much obliged if you left now. I would like to say my own goodbyes.”
The thing is – he’s still not lying. He did come to say goodbye. He’s not intending for both Susan and himself to survive whatever it is he’s planning to do.
“Don’t do this,” she begs. There’s no way around this discussion; the only other way to avoid it would be by hurting him.
“Don’t do what?” He asks. His poker face is outrageously terrible. “Say goodbye? You don’t hold a patent to that.”
“I have no idea what it is you’re planning to do, but I know it’s going to destroy her.”
“It’s going to save her!” He’s not screaming, but he might as well be; his mind explodes with emotion; it’s still the same love, and hurt, and hope, but there’s fear now – fear that Talia is going to stop him from doing whatever it is he’s planning, and then there’s resignation. He won’t stop at anything.
“How long have you known her?” She asks.
He says, “I don’t see how that’s relevant,” but she still hears “two years” in his mind. She can see flashes of memories as he’s recalling the brightest moments of those two years. He loves Susan so much – probably more than Talia ever has; if she’d loved Susan half as much as this man does, she would—she should have found a way of fighting the Sleeper without leaving her, anyway. Marcus, he’d absolutely rather die than let any harm come to her; he’d never hurt her the way Talia did. She’s glad Susan had someone like him in her life.
“In those two years,” she answers his thoughts rather than words, “did she ever mention how many people left her, hurt her, or hurt her, and then left her?” Not excluding herself.
He shrugs, and she gets more flashes of memories from him. They were close, but not in a way Susan was close to Talia. Their closeness wasn’t in telling each other things they’d never told anyone before, it wasn’t in trusting each other with their dreams and fears; Susan never told him anything she told Talia. Theirs was a battle-forged bond of shared looks and silences – strong, powerful, but very different.
Talia realizes that she’s already thinking of Susan as dead. She passed denial and bargaining, and went straight to depression. Marcus is still bargaining, and she can’t begrudge him that.
“Listen,” she says carefully. “I don’t know how you are planning to do this technically, but I know you intend to die for her.” She gives him a long look, and when he doesn’t try to deny that, continues. “She would not want that.” She has no words to explain how much Susan would not want that; how much being forced to live after something like that would ruin Ivanova.
“There’s a machine,” Marcus tells her, even though Talia never asked for an explanation. “An alien device. It transfers energy from one living being to another. If used to heal a fatal injury, it can kill the donor. Can, not will. Stephen and Sheridan used it to save Garibaldi, and all three of them survived.” He doesn’t believe what he’s saying – not in the part of surviving it. But suddenly, Talia does.
“What do you need to do with it?” she asks. The guards will be down for about an hour. She wonders if that's enough time.
***
She’s so fascinated with Susan’s returning consciousness (it’s warm, so warm it’s almost burning, and it’s so much better than anything Talia remembered) that she almost misses the moment she has to turn the thing off. It’s not until Marcus whispers, deliriously, “I love you,” that she hastily goes through the motions to stop the process. Marcus is still conscious, if barely, and she helps him out of the chair next to Susan’s bed and takes his place. Once the machine is properly secured on Talia, he visibly makes an effort to keep his eyes open and gives her a faint smile. “It didn’t hurt,” he wants to say – he’s not strong enough to form the words, but of course Talia hears them, anyway; she feels like her abilities have never been stronger than in this moment. She repeats the motions Marcus made to start the process again and...
...She can swear nothing happens. She can feel Marcus’ love, worry and guilt; he still feels like he should have done this alone. She can feel Susan’s mind – it’s there, right there; she’s drifting in and out of consciousness, barely touching the surface, but almost, almost – she doesn’t notice when she loses the sense of Marcus. She’s not sure if she has a sense of herself anymore. Part of her wants to say something; she’s not above proclaiming her love the way Marcus did before her, but all she says is, “It was all me. She didn’t make me come to you, it was me.” It’s the most important thing in the world, anyway. She’s not entirely sure she actually says the words with her mouth.
***
She wakes up to someone yelling. She can’t tell the words, to be completely honest, she can’t hear the voice, either; she feels the yelling rather than hears it; feels pure emotion – fear, pain, guilt, hurt, relief – so much relief – and knows that whoever is the source of those emotions is putting them all to good use and yelling on top of his lungs.
She opens her eyes. She still can’t hear the yelling; there’s a transparent wall between her and Marcus, and it’s Marcus who’s the target of the yelling. Doctor Stephen Franklin is standing with his back to Talia, between the wall and Markus’ bed, and he’s the one who’s feeling all those emotions – apart from relief, probably, because neither of the three of them is lacking that one. She can feel Susan, too; it’s like she never even lost the connection with her, not even when she herself was unconscious. Susan is sleeping; Talia cannot see her, but she knows that she’s in deep healthy sleep – it’s probably drug-induced, but it’s nothing like the deadly state she was in when Talia first saw her—was it last night?
She moves. Part of her mind suggests that she’s probably supposed to be restrained, after everything she did to the guards last night, but she isn’t. She can’t sit up; her body feels like she’s three hundred years old and has been dragging sacks of lead on a planet with double gravity, at the very least, but there are no restraints on her save for the IV and medical probes.
Marcus catches her eye through the transparent wall and gives her a weak smile, one co-conspirator to another, “We did it.” That’s a big mistake: Doctor Franklin notices the expression and turns around. Talia promptly closes her eyes, but in vain: Stephen gives Marcus a short wave and heads her way. She’s in for a yelling.
***
Next time she wakes up (she doesn’t remember how she fell asleep; probably that happened when she was pretending to sleep through Stephen’s lecture), Marcus is sitting next to her.
“My whole bloody body is aching,” he says. “Even the muscles I had no idea existed. Actually, those ones, especially.”
His head is filled with images of what might have happened if Talia hadn’t been there; most of them revolve around Marcus dying before Susan was completely healed; him being unable to save her even at the price of his own life. Talia knows he wants to thank her, but she’d rather he didn’t. Talia knows that if Susan had died despite his efforts, that wouldn’t have been the worst case scenario. Susan surviving his sacrifice would be a thousand times worse.
“How are you feeling?” He asks.
“About the same as you,” she admits. She doesn’t ask about Susan, but he hears the question, anyway. She should start working on her shields now, but she doesn’t want to. His mind feels too comfortable.
“She’s perfectly healthy, from the looks of it, although she’s yet to talk to me. Not for the lack of effort on my side.”
“She’s avoiding you?”
He shrugs. “All over the station. Not like it’s the first time.”
She smiles at the private joke. “She’s still good at it, I assume?”
He huffs in agreement.
“They won the battle, you know,” he says, almost as an afterthought. She opens her mouth to ask what battle, and then she remembers.
“President Clark killed himself, but not before giving some outrageous order. It’s a mess back there, but it’s our mess now. Oh, and I’m a deserter, by the way. I’ve been given to understand I’m going to regret being alive. I’m planning to hold you accountable.”
She doesn’t really feel threatened.