The Paths Not Taken

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//Private thoughts or mental argument - when one person is trying to decide something.//
*//Thoughts broadcast to/from (another) telepath//*
~Emphasis marks~
~~~~ scene change - small (or POV change)
******** scene change - large (or POV change)

Secrets of the Soul Part 3 (missing scenes, end of episode)

(note: It's been toned down as far as I will allow it. Much of the 'impact' of the situation has been lost, imho, but it's as close to PG 13 as it's gonna get. Parental Guidance warning! Body parts mentioned, references to adult sexual situations. m/f, f/f.)

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Zack nodded, putting his arms around her again. "I could never block them. They'd just rip into my brain - sometimes there'd be prostitutes over, doing it as well. I guess my dad - he wasn't my father, just the guy who was there when my mother died. I was eight. She had Chalmer's syndrome. It wasn't easy. He kept me because of the support cheques social services would send. I guess he and my half-brother were trying to get the same reflections, or whatever. I don't know, I was always too afraid to try dust myself. Their eyes would go like yours were. I can tell when I'm being scanned, now, from them hurting me so much. Damage, or familiarity, or something, I don't know. I never asked anyone. I've never told anyone, not even Mariah. She just knew I didn't want to ever go home, didn't ever bring her to meet them. I was afraid."

"How long did they . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"Until my brother enlisted. I was 17 then. He was killed in the first combat he was in. A few months later I ran away with Mariah and Jesse, I was old enough that the cops couldn't keep sending me back. A couple of bad jobs and the news of the second baby coming made me decide to join earthforce, too, but they didn't make me a groundpounder. I had kids already, so they give me a very short list of options. I decided to work security, to try to help prevent what I'd grown up with. I started flying about the same time." He sighed. "The pain doesn't get any better when years have gone by. I wish it would, for you at least, I don't want you in any more pain. You've already had so much." He hugged her a little tighter again.

//Who's Mariah?// She wondered, but didn't ask. She didn't want to risk fracturing their very fragile, rebuilt bond. //I'll ask later, but I know the computer said you were never married, and you had no next of kin listed. Second baby?//

She looked up slightly, meeting his gaze. She leaned up and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

"What was that for?"

"You looked like you needed it." She said shyly, laying her head on his shoulder again.

He must have blushed, since Lyta felt his face and neck warm up next to her own. "My beautiful Lyta," he whispered to her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Lyta's skin suddenly warmed up even more than Zack's. She ducked down for a minute, embarrassed, then she kissed him again. "Thank you."

He suddenly realized something. "Lyta, has no-one ever told you that before? That you're beautiful?"

She sighed and didn't meet his eyes. "I can't block out everyone, Zack. I have been only too aware of the looks I sometimes get by human men . . . and some others besides them. When they mentally picture someone without her clothes, the images are very difficult to block out, and if they're trying to make me see the image - It's hard. But no, not even when I - " She stopped suddenly and tensed up.

Zack took a second to decide if he wanted to urge her to continue or not. He was confused and emotionally drained, and she seemed to be upset. "Please?"

" . . . you're aware that the corps arranges marriages as part of its genetic program to breed stronger telepaths, right?"

"Yes . . . " his voice trailed off, suddenly feeling nausiated.

"And . . . you know . . . that I started my internship with the Psi Cops - for six months."

"Lyta," he interrupted, "did they try to make you - you've never been married at least your records don't say you ever were but - did they try to make you - with a P12?"

"I had no choice."

//Oh, God . . .//

"I didn't like him - I'd never even met him before I was told I had to, because we would be married inside of a month - his first impression wasn't a good one and it went downhill from there. He was ugly and he had a cruel streak that reached from earth to mars, but since despite generations of family in the corps, I was barely a mere P5 then, I should have been more - there was some sort of accident when I was a child and the corps took me in - although I don't know where I might have been before that, with both parents telepaths, I should have been more, at least a P9. I was latent until I was 26, that's almost impossibly old for talent to start. They don't like to let you know who your biological parents are - just the one with the same gender, you get their last name. I have no idea who my father was, just a 3rd generation. That's it. No pictures, I don't know what my mother looked like. She died in that accident. Everything was classified. I don't know if I have any siblings or cousins - your family is the ~entire corps~, that's how you're programmed from birth or when they catch you later. But, there was references to much stronger powers in my genes than I could myself use, and the corps made me - I . . . I am the mother of two children - the father was a Psi Cop."

"Twice?" He whispered to himself in shock.

"I couldn't block a P12, and he was stronger than I was physically, as well - it hurt. Oh, ~he~ enjoyed it, and he forced me to have sex several times during the half-month we had to live together, before I had conceived and they'd let me leave him. Even so, I had to take drugs - for ovulation."

She hadn't started to cry again. The memories were too familiar, she'd built defenses over the years to keep herself from becoming emotional. He had liked it when she'd cry and scream, it was the only way he could become aroused. "They never let me see it. I'd left for the commercial corps, it was the safest place I could find, I knew I'd never be able to raise it anyway, only Psi Cops can, if they want to. P.R. reasons, to have this Psi Cop with a cute little kid that adores daddy or mommy is good publicity. I don't even know if it was a boy or a girl. They never want you to know - another control. The doctors won't tell you, and when they think the baby is strong enough to be born, you're sedated, and wake up the next day no longer pregnant. If they leave you alone it means the baby lived. If it died they'd start you on the ovulation drugs again in a month, and it would happen all over again. They left me alone after that, while the baby was still a latent, until 4 years later. The baby had begun to show signs of telepathy. Strong powers. They made me go through the telekinetic tests again. I guess it could move things, but I couldn't. They said they were pleased. They let me rent a better apartment, increased my allowance for food and clothing. Propaganda says the Corps will pay for all your expenses, if you're a telepath. What they don't say it that the Corps keeps you on a tight purse-string, since they control your bank account, you lose the 10% commission but you can't access the other 90% whenever you want. Two months passed. I was almost happy with my life. My work at Xenocorp was going well, I had a few friends I could meet with every couple of days, and I hadn't had to see any Psi Cops. Then I got home one day to find them waiting for me. ~He~ was with them. They said it was time, that I was going to have a second child. I freaked. After the sedative they gave me wore off, there was just the one Psi Cop. A girl I had known back in the academy. She reassured me that nobody would touch me. Just the doctors. Artificial insemination. He was shipped off to Proxima, were I pray they didn't make anyone else have to go through what I did. I think the second one was a boy. My dreams usually had a boy. But I don't know for sure. He, too, was taken during the birth, while I was too drugged to do anything. Then they left me alone again."

"Lyta . . ." Zack tried, concerned. "I . . . I didn't know . . ." //I've heard stories about gang-rapes by Psi Cops in those 're-education' centers on the prisoners for interrogation scans, but letting a kind, innocent, law-abiding girl get raped repeatedly, supporting this! It's not right. How often has this sort of thing happened?!?//

"No-one is supposed to. No-one outside the corps. There are so many things, so many . . . atrocities . . . that's why Byron can help. That's why I want him to be ~safe~ from the Corps!"

//?!?// Zack looked confused.

"If he can get us away, out of reach of the Corps, away from normals who hate us and fear us, and not just human telepaths - the Brakiri would like nothing better than to get rid of their teeps, but they can't just kill them - other races, too - if telepaths can just be left alone, we won't need all these rules and oppression - Zack, we could have ~rights~ again!"

"Rights?"

She looked a bit off, starting slowly. "Zack, have you ever read the earthforce bill of rights? Do you have any idea how often phrases like 'except in the case of telepaths, which shall fall under the jurisdiction of the Psi Corporation' occurs?"

"Uh - no." He looked at the floor, knowing where this was heading and not liking it one bit.

"Let me give you an idea - under earthforce law, telepaths have no rights because they are under Corps control. Guess what the Corps' bill of rights says?"

"Rhetorical question - does it even have one?" He asked apprehensively.

"No." Lyta said softly.

Zack's already low spirits further. //Well, this suddenly explains why you - and the other telepaths who aren't Psi Cops have such a slave mentality - you're treated like slaves!// He thought, then glanced at the upset and exhausted woman beside him on the floor.

He managed to stand up, joints stiff and sore from sitting still on the cold hard floor for so long. "Come on, Lyta, get up." He held his hands out and grasped both of hers, helping her up onto shaky legs. How long since you've had a good night's sleep?"

She was leaning on him for support, but she turned her face towards the wall. "Slept well? Days . . . maybe a week or more." Her expression suddenly changed for the worse. "Oh no - not again!" She whispered to herself.

He led her to her bed, his hands wrapped around her waist, guiding her. "If you're even a tenth as tired as I am, you're about to tip over. Lay down." He sat beside her, his level of worry growing as he watched her face changing.

"No! I can't, I can't block them, not again, not again!" Her frustration level grew quickly, unstoppable as the waves of passion began to echo through her mind, amplified as the dozens of telepaths again 'shared', still unaware that while they drew closer together - Byron and Susan especially - the intense pleasure that only telepaths could know, could experience, could share, was ripping Lyta's mind to shreds.

Zack had no idea how he could help her, as he held her while she cried, writhing in shame and terror and unwanted sensations, he didn't know of anything that could help . . .

. . . and Lyta was doubled over with her fists clenched to the sides of her head, not able to stop the tears, she was barely able to clutch onto Zack's sleeve as his mind raced, trying to remember something, anything, that would help her block out - that. //Like a pair of ~rabbits~// the thought passed in and out like the flit of a moth's wings, half a dozen memories all arriving one after the other . . .

~~~~

When he'd joined B5 security, he'd read through the training files like he was supposed to, and one had mentioned that 'the only time a telepath cannot hear the voices' is (according to his source) just after a sexual climax with another telepath, and then only for a few minutes. Zack didn't ask how Sinclair had found that detail out, partly because of manners and protocol, but mostly because Zack hadn't arrived on B5 much before the first commander had left.

Zack wasn't a telepath by any stretch of the imagination, no matter now adept he had become at perceiving clues for solving puzzles. Plus it wouldn't help anyway, since his distraught friend was already 'hearing' the not-so-distant events. Then he managed to lock onto a different memory, with a different telepath than the one he currently held.

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Talia Winters. There'd been a somewhat serious altercation in the Zocalo a few months after he'd gotten there (well there'd been several, but this one was on his watch in his area) where a husband had been confronted by his wife and 'other woman', resulting in a double stabbing. Messy, but not fatal. Ms. Winters had been nearby, mediating a business meeting when the fight broke out.

After securing the wife in a call and confirming the other two were in medlab, Zack had returned to the Security office just as Garibaldi finished the routine questioning of the witnesses. The Chief had asked Talia to stay for an extra minute - he was well known to the troops for using any and all opportunities to ogle the pretty blonde - and asked her if there had been anyway for her to pick up on the incident telepathically before it turned nasty.

"No," she had replied, "while a telepath cannot block out all the thoughts around them, the fact that I was concentrating on a particular set of thoughts involved with the negotiation had kept out the ones being broadcast from a greater distance, even if they were of a greater intensity. And, Mr. Garibaldi, what goes on in your head is your own business, but if you ever comment on my potential attire like that out loud, I will remove one of your fingers at random and toss it out the nearest airlock. Good day Mr. Garibaldi, Mr. Allan."

The instant the door had closed behind her, Zack had sputtered to his boss, "Did - she just - "

"Confirm my suspicions? Yup!" He grinned. "I knew I'd finally guess the right color if I just kept trying. Now, for the choice of a solid satin or a lace . . ."

Zack had suddenly developed a severe interest in the vid monitors, but Garibaldi's final comment had burned the incident into his mind, where much of the other days had instead blurred into each other from monotomy.

//Concentrating on a close mind will blot out more intense but more distant emotions . . .// Zack thought, wavering for barely a second between their terrible intensity of the telepathic flashes in his mind, and the fact that he would do anything for Lyta to try to keep her from harm.

He tried to prepare against the mental barrage he guessed was coming as he pulled her face up to his and kissed her, full on the mouth.

He had no idea . . .

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*//He was Byron, on a thin mattress in brown sector, eyes wide with passion, hands clutched to the sheet, arching up towards Susan, watching as she writhed and moved on top of him, and he was moaning "Oh yes, Susan - please!" as his hands moved from the sheet to clutch at her - //*

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*//He was Susan, feeling the wondrous pleasure of an erection deep inside her hungry body, thrusting down, hearing this gorgeous man cry out her name, feeling his mind inside hers, stimulating her even more, feeling his hands on her damp body - //*

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*//He was Rosa, snuggled up her to lover like a blanketed pair of spoons, her hand on Cynthia's front, stroking, feeling the passion ripple around the rooms like a thousand conflicting Tsunami's, long familiar to each other and as comfortable as when they'd first begun to experiment as teenagers, back when they'd been moved from the children's creche to share a private dorm-room, feeling Cynthia's warm fingers as they stroked up along her thigh towards her belly - //*

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*//He was Cynthia, pressed back against Rosa, feeling the gentle heat of Rosa's palm caressing her, minds touching, riding the Psi-induced romantic winds together, her fingers trailing up behind her, the sensations familiar from years - decades - of shared passion, closer than sisters - //*

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*//He was Amiee - //*

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Zack's heart had beat three times since he placed his lips on hers, and his universe had been flipped over and spun widdershins in those brief moments, then his mouth parted from hers in a mutual gasp, hand grasping hand.

His forehead rested on hers, utterly drained of energy and emotion. //Can I help you this way? Will you let me?// He wondered as he collapsed to lie on her bed.

"Yes twice," Lyta whispered and laid beside him, moving one hand from his to stroke his sweaty face. "You . . . saw?"

Zack managed to nod slightly. //Saw . . . saw everything . . . I'll never know how you can live with that - Oh, to have the strength you must have - //

Lyta, scanning with her last traces of energy, felt his emotions, felt his pulse race in the arteries beneath his forehead under her lips as she kissed him softly, suddenly knowing how she could survive this, mind brushing mind until she left her body behind and entered his, gently sinking deeper and deeper - memories, feelings, questions, duties, ideas, personality, he welcomed her in and saw her experiences while she learned his, their pasts mingling in mental communion as he slowly lost consciousness . . . and she followed him into sweet oblivion a few minutes later.

They slept peacefully, without dreams.

********

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