The Paths Not Taken
No Compromises (alternate scenes - from end of "Rising Star", then two from middle of ep, then one from near the end.)
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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~
"Translated words from another language."
~~~~ scene change - small (or POV change)
******** scene change - large (or POV change)
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He was dead. Gone. But not buried. Steven had managed to cut through her hysteria enough to move his body into a spare cryotube. There was nothing injured or worn out on him, he'd just been 'stopped'. Her sole connection to sanity was the hope that they'd find a way to bring him back. They had to. She wanted to confront him on what he'd done.
He'd killed himself. For her. Because he loved her. She'd never admitted how fond she had been of him. Of his unstoppable persistence of trying to make her laugh or at least smile, every single day.
The hints he'd been dropping for two years. Waiting for the right woman. He'd found her. Didn't know if she knew it yet. //He said it to my face! How could I have MISSED it?! The garden and four poster bed comment. Telling me I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever met. Saying it was a greeting, but urging me to learn the language so I'd find out.//
When . . . if . . . they ever revived Marcus, Susan didn't know if she'd curse him out and then make love to him or the other way round.
The stars held no clue. She'd been staring at them from the secondary observation dome's window for hours, thinking. Grieving. She'd locked the door behind her, trying to keep away the memories and well-wishers and reporters and fellow soldiers and the voices. Oh, Mighty God, the voices. They'd made it so very hard to get up, get going, especially when all she wanted to do was lie there and complete her welcome death.
Sure, there'd been voices before. Her mother's voice, gentle inside her mind until the Corps found her out and put her on sleepers. Talia's voice. The voices of some of the first ones. Lorien, who nearly got the three of them killed because he was lonely, seeking company in his place under Z'Ha'Dum. The faint, strange touch, not aimed at her, when she'd passed by medlab months before during a session with Lyta trying to revive the altered telepaths. The way the Shadow Cruisers screamed in her mind, an accelerated wave of terror, unending, from the unwilling central core being.
But the voices now . . . now they never stopped. The overlapping, noisy tumult of the medlab techs as they found her, Steven's concern - both personal and professional. Unending waves from the ones she'd had to pass in the corridor to get here, so many, and the alien minds: ice-cold, jabbering in languages and images she didn't understand.
//A brick wall. Build it brick by brick. Let me show you how . . .that's what Talia told the little rogue girl, the first year I was here.// She'd tried to do it on her own, imagining the bricks. Teeps used visualization of metaphors to use their powers, right? That's what her mother, and Talia, and later Lyta had all said. She was visualizing as hard as she could, but she couldn't do it. She needed a trained telepath to show her now, or she'd go insane very very fast. It was no wonder so many new telepaths killed themselves within the first year. She was already tempted.
One tinsy problem, however, with getting training. The only trained telepath Susan came even close to trusting wasn't exactly available. Lyta was missing for more than a week, since the attack on the cruisers over mars. Franklin had let her go outside the bunker to give her a direct line of sight on the ships, and she hadn't been heard from since. No body found, a good sign. No clear signs of a struggle, no weapon-blast marks on the outside of the bunker. All good signs, even though she hadn't been armed in any way, which was a bad thing in hindsight. The rangers quietly looking through the morgues and hospitals hadn't found her, and hadn't been able to contact all of the other cells which had helped take over the supply base, so there was a good chance she was fine, just hiding for a while.
Lyta had better BE hiding, that much was certain. Between Sheridan's slip-up of saying her actual name over the channels, and the damage done to the earthforce ships (7 of which were having their entire computer systems gutted and replaced, the rest were going to be somewhat repairable, the damage level had depended on how long it took the crews to find and kill the altered teep), she was in a hell of a lot of trouble if the blame was ever pinned on her. Not by earthforce per say, because everyone under Sheridan's command was covered by the certificate of amnesty, but from the Corps. They'd clued in as soon as earthforce had hauled out the empty cryotubes with the Psi insignia and demanded an explanation. From what little information B5's crew could get out of the Corps, someone high up had just clamped down on the investigation and charges, stuffing them into a box on a dusty storage shelf. Ivanova was highly suspicious of who'd probably done it: Bester, not wanting to damage Lyta's corpse before he could get his grubby little hands on it. This incident must have whetted his appetite considerably, wanting to know how she'd done it. There were only four people in the universe who knew about 'that'. One other was Chief Allan, who she'd learned of the body-contract from, stopping his cold fury in an attempt to figure out what had gotten him so incredibly pissed off. By the time he could explain, Bester had left the station, wearing a smug look and carrying the contract in his hand.
At least she knew the Psi Cops were still hunting, which, despite being severe trouble, was a good sign. It meant they hadn't found her yet.
But that didn't solve Susan's troubles. She still needed a trained telepath. One she could trust, to help her block away the thoughts that kept barraging her brain. She needed a teacher who wouldn't be snagged by the Corps, who wouldn't ever tell anyone else she was a telepath. She'd made a call to Delenn over a secure channel asking for help, if there was maybe a ranger, a rogue who'd passed through here while fighting Shadow Ships that had fled to Minbar, anyone who could get to B5 as quickly as possible. There weren't any telepaths here that she could trust, at least none that she knew of . . .
That had been almost an hour ago. Susan had the nasty suspicion that there were no telepaths on B5 that Delenn thought trustworthy enough to help her.
"Aah!" She suddenly jumped as a hand touched her elbow, stumbling backward away from -
- from a little boy?
A young minbari, dressed in worker caste clothes - marked with the symbols of a sculptor's clan - maybe the equivalent of 11 earthyears, with the bright green crest of youth and 3 tiny bambi-like bumps, the start of what would one day grow into the full crest of an adult minbari.
"How the hell did you get in here, I locked . . . the door . . . the voices are quiet again."
He looked up at her face, a little puzzled. "I don't speak that language yet."
"Sorry. Are you - the one who - "
"Entil'Zha asked me to speak with you on an important matter. That I was to assist you until one with more training returned. But that I am capable, and should do all that I could." He paused. "Your mind is noiser than it was before when I saw you. Am I here to teach you to built walls to keep out the words of others not spoken? I can do that. But I can't teach you how to easily look behind their eyes, I'm not really able to do that myself, except to my sister. She can do it much better than I can. She's on Minbar, though. But I'm here."
She grasped his shoulders and bent down to stare into his eyes in hope. "If you can help me I'll be grateful forever!"
He began to look embarrassed, until she remembered how rarely minbari touched each other and lifted her hands off. "I'm human. It's all right. No broken taboos."
"You're a girl!" He shuddered in disgust.
"What?" She looked confused, then she recalled his apparent age - the opposite gender were most likely held in the same category as untreatable diseases, at least for a few more years.
"A girl. A female. A woman." His eyes flicked from her face to her chest then back to meet her eyes, causing Susan to blush slightly.
"Brazen little twerp, aren't you." She commented to herself. "So how do we begin?"
"Close your eyes. I'll have to go into - AHH! Your mind's on FIRE!!" His very brief scan cut off abruptly as his concentration faltered.
"No, yours is just cold. I don't like this I don't like people in my mind I d- Hey. What is that?"
"I put up a small wall for you, but it'll fall in a few minutes unless you help me. Like this. Use pictures to do it. Add stones."
Several minutes passed, leaving Susan damp with perspiration and a rough block in her mind, reducing the background voices to whispers. "Building walls isn't a very exact metaphor. It's the closest description, but it's still very different. I don't know if I could have solved it on my own. Thank you."
"It's not easy. When my sister first heard them, I was only a baby but I can still remember her screaming, until she was taught to move the voices away. You'll get used to the whispers. Unless you're alone and far enough away from others. Then it's quiet. Metal walls help some. I don't know why yet, I haven't been in temple long enough to learn why. You'll have to concentrate on filling the holes, when the stones fall out every so often. But you can concentrate for a few minutes in between. Whenever fi-!! . . . That could be it! Maybe that why she's called firehead! Earther minds are so hot!" His voice dropped to a confidential whisper. "But I think it's half because of what she looks like and half because she outswore that war captain who was here last earth-year. Starriders are very arrogant."
"Who - outswore - wait . . . Lyta? You know Lyta Alexander?!"
The boy nodded solomnly."She helped keep the black mindscream ships from attacking the station when they came. Her and my sister and all the others who were here. I was still too mindweak to help. I'm glad the Shadows are gone. But firehead serves Entil'Zha! On her ship when they'd fight Shadows, Entil'Zha always tried to get firehead - Lyta - to come. Sometimes Lyta couldn't because that vorlon made her do other things. But after she helped kill it, she was always with Entil'Zha." He looked quite proud to know Lyta. Then his face fell. "She hasn't come back yet, has she. Because she could teach you much better than I can. Ma'am . . . she ~is~ coming back, correct? She's not dead or in trouble from anyone?"
"I don't know. I hope she's not hurt. When would I - do I? Need another lesson."
"If someone doesn't try to knock it down and you don't try to look into other's minds, it will hold for a long time if remember to put back the stones as they fall. It gets easier with practice. When the wall is strong enough to last for about an hour, you can put another wall up right behind it. Adds strength. But that's all I know. Entil'Zha will find someone who knows more for you soon. She wishes to not let others know, so it will be a week or more for an unlisted telepath to arrive. I'm not listed as a telepath on the station's computers. I'm still a child, mother did not want me to be sent away to fight Shadows. See, that's why Entil'Zha chose me instead of another telepath, since you've said you don't like us - but you're one now - she knew you wouldn't probably meet with one that was listed."
"She's right. But I don't hate telepaths - they saved so many lives during the shadow war, and my mother was one, and now ~I'm~ one! But I hate Psi Corps! I can't let anyone else know I'm a telepath, they'd force me to leave earthforce and join! I'd refuse sleepers. I couldn't work with the injections anyway, I wouldn't be allowed to."
"I won't tell. Why would I wish to put Babylon 5's best warrior into trouble?"
"Best warrior?" An eyebrow went up.
"You fist-fight great, you fly even better, and you can curse out just about anyone. I've seen you fix stuff, too."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, boy," she grinned.
"Even the Anla'Shok?" He replied with a look of mischief.
Susan's grin faded as a memory of Marcus's nonstop flattery and humor wandered into her thoughts. "I don't know," she said in english.
The boy didn't understand her words, but her sad expression made him turn to go.
"Wait," she called.
He turned around, nervous about possibly making her mad.
"What's your name?"
"Trelno."
"Be well, Trelno. Greet me when you see me . . . unless I'm arguing with someone. Then I might be working."
"You never stop working. 'A warrior does not rest'. And you're the best warrior I know. But I will greet you." He grinned, displaying a gap where a baby tooth had fallen out and the adult one had yet to appear, and scampered off.
Ivanova smiled wanly, then turned back to look at the stars. The voices had died down to a background murmuring. She could learn to ignore them. But she wasn't up to being near people yet. Being close to anyone just made it louder. //I'll wait a while longer, add stones - bricks? - whatever - to thicken my block. I have a few days, at least, before I really have to start working again. But I'll die of boredom in the meantime! Assuming the voices don't drive me insane first!//
The weak block would hold as long as no one tried to scan her, and she didn't try to scan anyone. That was fine, she could live just fine with that. As long as she didn't let anyone from Psi Corps near her to find out she wasn't latent anymore. As long as no rogue-hunting Psi Cops came to B5. As long as that F*ck-headed son-of-a-psi-cop-bitch Bester didn't come near her ever again.
"I'm doomed," she whispered to herself.
She had rarely been this depressed. She wished Marcus was here to make her laugh. //No, that's not true. I wish he was awake, alive and unthawed. I miss you, Marcus.//
She hadn't come to see the universe because she wanted to grieve. She'd come to make a decision. Sheridan's last act as an earthforce officer was to promote her to the rank of Captain. Earthforce had agreed. She was a war hero. If not for her and Sheridan, the vast majority of senators, generals, and other VIP's would still be in jail or house arrest because of Clark. In respect and gratitude, earthforce had made her an offer.
The Warlock.
The newest class of ship earthforce had, named for the prototype. Since the civil war had destroyed so many vessels, it was going to be the new flagship.
Well, 'it' was one of three identical vessels, nearly complete. Whichever was finished first would be the Warlock. The other two would be completed within a few additional days, which one came the fastest depending on which one had the fewest problems during the last stages of construction. Assuming they didn't delay the launch for 6 months while they reconfigured her decks and attempted to install artificial gravity, an Alliance gift.
She could either leave immediately, oversee the final nuts and bolts, or she could wait a few weeks, take command as she was launched. Her ~OWN~ ship.
Or . . . she could stay here. Command B5. Be with Marcus.
She just didn't know what to do.
It wasn't easy, the walk back to medlab. Too many people, loud people, wellwishers who did more to hurt than to comfort her, alien minds, ranging from chilly to ice-cold. It hurt. It all hurt her, until she finally made it back to medlab and the steel walls around her helped support the walls in her mind. She decided to find out which passages were the least occupied during what times, to make new travel routes.
She placed her hand on the door to his cryotube. It wasn't even cold. He should be fine, though. No time to decompose. //He ~should~ be alive and well! I should be dead!// She'd accepted her death. The pain had finally faded away completely, before Marcus brought her back. Traded places.
//Damn you!//
Her earthforce blues didn't fit right. She'd gotten used to the rebellious Alliance uniform, the comfortable minbari cut and fabric. She wasn't sure she wanted to wear blue again.
//But what would I wear instead, if I want to captain B5? I'll have to wear an earthforce uniform, at least until the station is formally made Alliance property. I'm an earthforce com- an earthforce Captain. I ~AM~ earthforce, wanted to be earthforce for a very long time. I've been earthforce for a very long time. I can't just give it up. The only other uniform I really respect is the Ranger one . . . and damn it all right to hell if I'll ever wear one after Marcus did THAT. 'We live for the one, we die for the one.'//
//I'm not 'the one'! Why did you do that to me?! It's not the first time people have died for me. But that was because I was in command. It wasn't for ~me~. You never took any orders from me, either. But you died for me. Why?//
She drew in a very ragged breath, willing herself not to cry again. //I can't leave you, Marcus. I don't know whether to love you or hate you, but I can't leave while you're here. Not while there's a chance of bringing you back.//
//I'm staying.//
********
Three Days Later . . .
Susan was in an open restaurant in the Zocalo, working. Mostly on practicing reinforcing her mental blocks against the medium-sized crowd around her. Partly she worked on paperwork, a near-endless supply of catching up and gearing up to speed on the station's current status. Corwin, bless his youthful little heart, had been taking care of all the technical details admirably, keeping C&C running like a minbari-made clock. It cut down the backlog of work for her tremendously. She was giving him serious consideration for a promotion to Lt. Commander, but he had several tests to go through first. Like could he stand having to send others under his command to die if need be. But Susan wasn't up to making him face that decision, she was still reeling from a death too close to her to put Corwin through that, even if it wasn't real for him. So instead she read through reports full of numbers, and stuck mental mortar in the cracks in the walls.
Then everything went silent, and she froze. Silence, total silence. She could feel her heart beating. Glancing around, she saw people talking and moving and going about normally. She couldn't hear them. She couldn't hear their thoughts. //What the . . .?!// She thought with alarm. Then she saw him, and her heart fell right into her shoes.
Tall, blond, a face to die for, and an intense aura of power. She blinked. He was still there. He seemed to be concentrating.
Susan figured out then how the silence had come and tightened her blocks as much as she could through a mix of hatred, fear, and a tickle in the back of her brain saying 'Now ~there~ is a man I'd sure like to know better'. She put down her pen as he walked closer, wishing she'd had the foresight to bring her PPG with her today.
"Hello," was all he said.
//Oh, God, he's got an accent like Marcus does!// "I'm sorry, but I'm-"
"Working, yes, I can see. Books, manuals, directives, regulations. The geometries that circumscribe your waking life, drawn narrower and narrower until nothing fits inside them anymore. My name is Byron. It's important that you meet me in Brown 3 in two hours. Come alone."
"Why should I do that?" She half-asked and half-threatened.
"My people are coming." He said. Her gaze flicked momentarily back to her papers, not enough time to blink but he'd already vanished, Poof!
//What the hell is going on?!?!// She franticly wondered as the noise around her returned to buffet her ears and her mind.
//This can't be a good thing . . .//
********
Two hours later . . .
Susan had ignored all her papers, spending every spare second she could on strenghtening her blocks against whatever this Mr. Byron might try to do. She had a station to protect . . . and a murdered ranger to think about when she could find the time. She stopped her walk when she spotted him, a few dozen feet down the hallway.
"Hello." He said simply. There was a pause as he glanced up behind her, and some others appeared from around the corner, a few from each side, coming up behind her. She was surrounded. They had to be teeps, too, they weren't giving off the muted chatter that normals did. "Thank you for coming."
Her stance changed to further stiffen her spine defensively and defiantly. "I came because your little performance earlier was an indication that you're a telepath. A strong one. Therefore potentially dangerous. Which is why I ~didn't~ come alone."
Several guards came into the hallway, from both directions, and gave the ragtag bunch a quick once-over with scanners and a pat-down. The telepaths didn't object. They didn't show any emotion at all as Byron again spoke. "We're unarmed. And I assure you we mean you no harm. We refuse to have anything to do with violence or technology. Ours is a simple way, as you will discover."
A guard called out, "they're clean."
Ivanova let her stance relax only slightly, dismissing the guards with a nod. "All right . . . so what do you want?" //Shadow's question for a possibly shady character.//
"A place to call home. My friends and I are all telepaths. More will come soon."
//Not here you're not, I knew that already, and you had better be kidding.// "Rogues?"
Her opponent pursed his hands together, answering diplomatically. "We refuse to join the Psi Corps, yes. We tried working through the resistance, but their ways are not ours. So we slipped away, quietly. Created our own lives on other worlds. Because we can never go home, our lives have been spent in constant transit, moving from world to world. We have come here because an independent Babylon 5 may be the step needed to finally get a home. We want to put the word to others of our kind, have them gather here in safety. Not forever, only as long as we need. In time, we hope to create a small colony. Until we can go out to create a world of our own. A homeland for those who have no other home."
The Captain looked dubious. "That's a tall order."
"Perhaps. But where is it written that all our dreams must be small ones?"
A memory flicked unbidden to her consciousness. //Well if you're going to have delusions of grandeur, you might as well go for the really ~satisfying~ ones . . . He better move, or I'll get grouchy from being penned in.// "Do you speak for all of them?"
"These," he indicated as he moved to be next to them for introductions, "and more yet to come. This is Sarah, bright and beautiful. The somber David, the last of his family, the rest hunted down and murdered by Psi Corps. William, shy, but really quite interesting once you get to know him. Cynthia and Rosa, closer than sisters." The two women smiled shyly at each other as they were mentioned. Then Byron indicated the smallest group member. "And Simon. Special Simon, we call him. Say hello, Simon."
The boy carefully took a step forward, and looked at Susan with an expression of great concentration. Her mind suddenly filled with blossoms, thousands of them, clusters of colorful blooms that came into existence along the inner wall of her eyes. She could smell them, felt a petal's touch under two of her fingers. It was gorgeous.
"Flowers." She said, stunned. "I saw flowers."
Byron gave her a partial smile. "Then he likes you. He only gives flowers as a gift to the people he likes. He can remember everything he's ever seen, heard, smelt or touched, from the moment he was born. And he can project those memories into someone else's mind. Share a part of himself in the most intimate way imaginable. I saw the flowers he gave you. I'd say he's quite fond of you."
"Thank you," She said, quite impressed. And a little humbled.
Simon just nodded tiredly, moving back to lean against Sarah.
"He doesn't talk," Byron explained, noticing her curious look. "Not even to us. Not even - in here." He touched the side of his forehead with his fingertips.
"He doesn't look well." She noted.
"It's been a long trip." Byron said.
"Well, bring him to medlab. He's a minor, he should be checked out."
Byron nodded. "Of course. We can do a lot for you, Captain. We can earn our keep. Work for you. Help you as much or as little as you request. All we need is a place to stay. A place to call home, until one day when we can find a place to make into a home."
She nodded slightly. "I'll consider your request. Now head for medlab, ok?" She turned and walked away.
*//Come, Simon, let's go see how nice the doctors here might be.//* Sarah whispered to him as he helped him walk down the wall, still a little tired from his giving.
********
Late the next evening . . .
Sheridan glanced up momentarily after he saw someone entering his office, then finished writing his sentence before giving the new arrivals his full attention. Franklin had brought the telepath's leader with him as requested. "You're Mr. Byron?" He asked.
"Just Byron." The man answered.
Sheridan nodded, thoughtful and careful. "I saw what your friend did on my behalf. I'm sorry for your loss. Captain Ivanova has informed me of your request to start a small colony here. I assume she'd told you her decision."
Byron's reply was somewhat blunt. "She told us 'No'. It's a word we've become accustomed to. We'd hoped for something better here. We were wrong."
"No, not quite. See, the arrangement I made with Ivanova is that I handle any political decisions that effect the Alliance and Babylon 5. I'm putting this decision in that category. You have my authority to start a colony here. We'll set aside part of brown sector. It's not much and it's not pretty, but it's a start. We'll keep in mind your promise of assistance, and ensure all of you stay fed and healthy in return."
Byron's attitude had changed noticeably in that minute, for the better. "Thank you. I will tell the others." He left as quietly as he had come in.
Doctor Franklin wandered a few steps closer to Sheridan's desk. "I hope you made the right decision."
"We both know a telepath war is coming one of these days. It won't hurt to have some of our own on hand when things get ugly. Besides, one of his people saved my life. I owe them."
"Yeah, you've got a point. It'd be nice to know all the ones who helped in the shadow war could return safely, just to say thanks to them if nothing else. And we'll need to have a reliable teep nearby, since . . . since . . ." He slowed to a stop.
"She'll be fine. She's got too much spunk to have died. She's - just late getting back." Sheridan added, trying to sound sure. "But . . . find out if any of them have training in security and medlab assistance . . . and if they can be trusted like Lyta was. Just in case."
"Yeah." Franklin commented before leaving Sheridan to his paperwork.
********