The Paths Not Taken
//Private Thoughts or mental argument - when one person is trying to decide something.//
~Emphasis marks~
~~~~ scene change - small (or POV change)
******** scene change - large (or POV change)
The Paragon of Animals, Part 1 (missing scenes, start of episode)
Anton Christov wasn't having the best of days. He'd decided several hours ago that customs duty was likely going to be his least favorite part of working security. The fact he'd just started his first-ever shift in customs several hours ago didn't add to his joy. //35 down, 3 to go. Ah well,// he thought, //at least this is the last transport for a couple of hours, 36 down, 2 to go, and since it's from Mars I don't have to deal with a shipload of cranky aliens. Just cranky humans. 37 down, one left.//
"Identicard, please."
"I've lost the one I had. Could you please contact Chief Allan?"
Christov blinked at the worn-looking woman in front of him, tapping his link to get his supervisor's attention. He wasn't about to call his boss, THE boss in fact, without checking with G'Nol first. The chief had enough problems without adding some stray traveler to his agenda. "Ma'am, I cannot allow access to Babylon 5 without a proper identity check. If you cannot produce verifiable ID, you can't-"
"Miss Alexander!"
They both looked up as the Narn officer rounded the corner and stopped in surprise before his permanent facial scowl brightened into a narnish smile. "Welcome back!"
Christov blinked in surprise //G'Nol, cracking a smile? Unbelievable.// and linked to StationHouse that the chief was needed in Customs Bay 4, ASAP.
"Christov, her ID can be cleared from Central. Miss Alexander, It is good to see you are intact, considering where you were and when. I expect Chief Allan will likely want to take your report himself, and personally update you as to current events on-station."
"Thank you, G'Nol." She stated quietly.
A moment later, Zack Allan arrived, looking tense - and mildly annoyed at be called in without a reason given. He then did a double take at her and grinned huge, tension suddenly lifted like a 1000Kg weight had been removed from his shoulders.
"Hi, Zack." The new arrival smiled slightly before being escorted out of the customs by a silent, smiling Allan.
"Hey, G'Nol, rhetorical question." Christov asked a minute or so afterwards, as they set the computers to standby and started to work through the report of the session.
"I'm listening."
"Is she important or something?"
The Narn blinked a few times while decided the best way to answer. "I am aware of her presence, her abilities, her clearance levels - some of which are higher than my own, and the fact that Chief Allan would want to debrief her, himself." //Bad pun, there are other pretty females here for you, there is no need to joke about your boss's woman - especially when she's a mindwalker!//
"You're a sector chief. The only clearance levels higher than you are for command level staff . . . oh. Duh. Never mind."
"You'll undoubtedly see her in uniform soon, probably within a week or two - There was a part of training that was being delayed because of her absence, Allan wished to know of her fate before looking for another to take over."
"What?"
"She left with Captain Ivanova, Dr Franklin, and some others last December. I'll assume you're aware of what's happened since then. I know the Captain had tried several times to locate her this past month, without success. There was no word received from the resistance, earthforce, or numerous Rangers stationed on Mars as to her safety." G'Nol then immersed himself in paperwork, letting the discussion end.
~~~~
Zack walked beside Lyta, fighting to keep his face expressionless while he lead her to a quiet corner, away from the few people still in the area, away from the securecams' ever-watching gaze. He turned and faced her at arm's length, his eyes absorbing every detail on her. Then he closed his eyes, drew in a ragged breath and suddenly pulled her into a hug. Lyta stiffened momentarily before melting into his warm embrace, her arms wrapping around his back, her eyes closed and her ears hearing only the strong steady rhythm of his heart for several long minutes.
Finally Zack broke the silence. "You went missing during the attack near Mars. We didn't know if. . . I. . ." He pulled away just enough to look into her eyes, trying again. "I . . ."
She smiles tiredly at him. "It was . . . memorable." She laid her head on his shoulder again, grateful for the support against the comparatively higher gravity on B5 compared to where she'd been for the past 2 months, and suddenly feeling much better from the first physical contact she'd had in too long a timespan. //Oh, I missed you . . . and I think the feeling might be mutual, since your PPG is in a side holster it means there's something ~else~ in your pants.// She let her hands slide down from holding his shoulders to link her fingers together in the small of his back, pressing a little closer. //I know you cannot hear this, Zack, but thank you.// After another warm minute, she shifted slightly as she stepped back, letting her hip brush lightly //Ow!// against his groin, eyes dancing.
"Your story first? Or mine?" She asked as she moved her hands to grasp his and changed the subject. "You have my ID someplace, yes? A change of clothes, shower, and a long sleep would be nice, but I need access to my quarters for that."
"I can use my security clearance to get you in, and retrieve your card from the Central Office while you - uh - " He became a little nervous suddenly, still trying to figure out if the brushing had been an accident //or if she likes me - I sure like her - but she's got too much class to look and find out - I hope! Do I?//
Zack cleared his throat and mind, then turned to guide her, his hands deep in his pockets to hide his body's reaction to being pressed close to a beautiful woman for several minutes.
As he walked beside her, he noticed she had a slight limp. //She's trying to stay off her left leg - no, wait - her left hip - Hip!? Maybe it ~was~ an accident she rubbed me?// There was also a faint yellow discoloration across her right cheek, from around her eye over to the whole of her ear. //You'll have to explain that to me, Lyta, But I'm still very glad you're not in a body bag waiting to be re-cyc'd into the Mars Gen- Oh God, Zack, don't think like that, you managed to not think like that when you didn't know! Shut up, brain, if you keep thinking this loud she won't be able to block it.//
As they walked to her quarters, he told her the basic frame of what had been going on. The new Alliance (she was impressed), Susan almost dying and how Marcus traded lives, now he was lying a cryotube in the most restricted section of Medlab (she looked upset), How they hadn't been able to find her (she just looked at the floor), and . . . "There are a lot more telepaths here now . . . President Sheridan has granted sanctuary to a group of human teeps. I don't mean anything harsh to you when I say this, I trust you with my life, and with anything else, but I hate having telepaths around! I just can't trust ~them~!"
********
Despite a few occasions of not being overly bright, Zack Allan was not stupid by any stretch of the imagination. If he made a mistake, he learned from it. And he never repeated it. One such mistake was Nightwatch. Since then, his intensive studies in history - Earth's, and Xenohistory, had showed enough patterns to help keep him out of similar messes. Back when he'd been fool enough to not yet see the warning signs //Name names? Not where I'm from, I don't name names.// his armband had brought, he had found out the hard way just how important Identicards were. Especially when accessing a room - the computer kept track where and when they were used. Sheridan had left the station, quite unofficially, for several days. He therefore hadn't been in or out of his quarters during all that time, and his commanding Nightwatch officer (not superior, just higher-ranking) had noticed that, nearly got Sheridan in a lot of trouble. So when Lyta Alexander had recently taken a very very unofficial visit to Mars, she'd agreed to leave her ID Card with him. According to the station records, she couldn't have left the station for very long, as she continued to access her quarters every day, going in and out a couple of times or more. Zack didn't trust the promise of amnesty the B5 crew had been granted, at least not where a potential excuse for the corps to take her away was involved.
Zack knew that old securecam data was wiped periodically, to save space. But the info on access points was much easier to compress, and was saved for months, sometimes years. There would soon be nothing in the form of hard data left on B5 to claim Lyta hadn't been here during that time she was not. Zack had learned.
"Lyta? Are you here?" he called out as he re-entered her room, her identicard in his hand and a cautious look on his face.
There was no reply.
For a few heartbeats he had the terrible feeling that her safe return had just been a brief daydream, then he felt more than heard the faint vibrations of sonics. He suddenly relaxed, and glanced around until he spotted the outfit she'd been wearing a few minutes before on the floor just outside the doorway into the restroom. She was in the sh-!!!
There was a bandage with dried blood on it next to her clothes. A large one. He could see several overlapping reddish brown rings - the wound had re-opened at least once and bled fresh blood onto the older, drier layers. Zack moved over to the bandage and bent down to pick it up. The blood was at least a day stale.
The vibrations stopped, he heard movement, a soft rustling of fabric for a few minutes with a faint hiss of pain in the middle. "Lyta," he asked softly, "how badly were you hurt?"
His eyes hadn't yet left the bloodstains, but after a few seconds a pair of bare feet stepped into view, and his gaze slowly moved up a pair of soft gold satin leggings, up to her hands tying closed the belt on a matching robe, and then up to her face where their eyes met momentarily before she looked away.
"I'm alright," she began slowly, gradually speaking faster as she tried to get the words out, "Now that I'm safe here, I can get it stitched up properly - there was Psi Cops all over the cities, transports, all of Mars, well a few less now than before, the independence celebration got a bit wild - that's when I was stabbed -"
"Stabbed!?" He managed to edge in before she continued at full speed.
"The other resistance members aren't doctors, but they've learned some, and I can get Rolenn - you've met her, right? One of the Minbari healers here - I don't want to go to a Medlab, I've been in enough trouble without making any extra official medical records to track me - it was just a light cut, less than an inch deep before the bone stopped the blade - I made it through a fifty-hour plus shuttle trip here, I'll be fine until morning but I'm really very tired and please don't look at me like that Zack! I was careful, I was!"
He spoke slowly, carefully, making sure that he was understood. "I want to see it. The stab. Then I'll let you sleep - Oh, yeah," he pulled a small packet out of his pocket, "I brought a dermal regen pack with me - for your face." His hand hovered an inch or so over her bruise. "I'm using this on you before I go. And I'm making sure you take this for any pain." He placed a small pill in her hand.
She looked at him with one auburn eyebrow raised. "If you weren't Head of Security, I'd tell you to scram."
"Well, I am, so you can't. Rank."
She swallowed the pill dry before she sat gingerly down on the sofa and watched as he sat beside her, opening the package then holding the medicine against her right ear. "I'm a civilian. Pulling rank doesn't work."
"You . . . are a mess. This bruise goes right down along your neck." He moved a little closer, brushing her long red hair back as he moved his hand down to below her now healed ear. "This probably stings. I want to know where you were stabbed - you'll have to report to the captain and to the president anyway. Hold this to your ear." He placed the regen in her hand.
Lyta looked away, a slight blush creeping up from her neck to cover her face. Then, without meeting his intense gaze, she slowly shifted her weight to her right side, took his hand in her unoccupied one, and guided it to her side, a few inches above the hip-socket before pulling her hand away again.
Zack could feel a layer of satin, with the coarser fabric of a fresh bandage underneath. Her warm body underneath his palm intensified the inner argument of lust versus professionalism - He may be aroused, but she was obviously hurt, he couldn't put any moves on her!
The Officer won out over the Male, and he asked "May I?" with his hand still resting on her hip.
Lyta stopped blocking just enough to know he was sincere, then nodded once while she undid her top, slipping it off to reveal a matching camisole. She placed her robe on her lap for modesty's sake before she allowed Zack to gently pull the waistband of her trousers down just far enough for him to peel back the square bandage and check her wound.
//Do you know what your touch is doing to me, Zack?// she thought, frantically using the biofeedback techniques Kosh (Narenek, the first and 'real' Kosh) had taught her on focusing to try to keep her emotions from showing. Except it wasn't working. The tricks worked fine for gill-breathing in methane, and for a dozen other tests/errands/duties she'd done for the Vorlons, but it wasn't working this time, maybe from her intense fatigue (she hadn't slept in several days), maybe from the pill she could feel slowly taking effect, maybe from the fact that this was the first time Zack had ever touched such a sensitive area of her skin - physical contact intensifies telepathy considerably - but she could feel her heart racing. Even the gentle fabric she wore, usually soft enough to sleep in comfortably, felt rough against her nipples as the contracted the microsecond Zack's fingers began to brush her skin, tingling as he gently hooked the waistband and slid her pajama bottoms off of her buttocks, down to her thighs and moved back up to tenderly lift away the new bandage to look.
She was unable to cool down her skin from near-nova temperatures, unable to stop trembling from desire, anymore than she could stop noticing the faint, but quite wonderful scent of his aftershave mixed with the aroma of coffee substitute. //If only you hadn't said to me you didn't like telepaths, If only I was Normal, If only was I brave enough to tell you how I feel, If I could find the courage to see if there really was any hope of you liking rather than OW!!! just tolerating me, If, If, If wishes were starships, then lurkers would fly!!// She managed to clamp down on her thoughts just as Zack finally spoke.
"Six stitches. Messy ones."
Lyta had developed both a vested interest in the sofa arm beside her, and a deep blush that turned all the visible skin nearly the color of her hair. "Rolenn has fixed worse holes in me. The Minbari know how to keep it from scarring, too . . . I'll be fine." She moved the regen over slightly to another part of her face.
Zack replaced the bandage and guided her pants back up to their normal place, fighting the growing urge to let his fingers touch her soft, naked skin more than professional courtesy allowed. He remembered quite vividly his own test during the Day of Terror, although Lyta had not been involved then. He reluctantly tore his eyes away from the movement of her breasts //she must be cold by now, half-naked, she's peaked and shivering// against her top as she put her robe back on, and tried very very hard not to think about the new fact that she had pubic hair as beautifully red, if a few shades darker, than the soft locks on her scalp.
"The pill had a sedative, you should be out soon, and for at least six hours, Lyta. But you should try to sleep more than that, to help heal. I'll make a call to your healer this afternoon for you, make an appointment for sometime tomorrow - and Sheridan will be busy for a while, between getting hitched a few weeks back and the deal he's trying to get the league to sign, he can wait a while for your report." He stood them both up, letting her lean on him for a minute before he moved her to her bed, then pulled back the blanket as she sat down.
Lyta let him tuck her in, by then too groggy from fatigue and medication to argue. Zack placed the dermal pack to her face again, taking the time to heal the last traces of bruising away while she drifted off into a deep sleep. Afterwards, he placed a goodnight kiss lightly on her lips, and returned to his office to finish work, feeling a little lonely, and little aroused, but satisfied mentally in the knowledge she was safe again.
********