The Paths Not Taken
//Private Thoughts or argument - when one person is trying to decide something.//
*//Thoughts broadcast to/from (another) telepath//*
Italic'd words like this are translated from another language for the reader
~Emphasis marks~
~~~~ scene change - small (or POV change)
******** scene change - large (or POV change)
The Paragon of Animals Part 2 (missing scene & flashback, start of episode)
He couldn't remember offhand where Rolenn's offices where, but the computer did have her commlink number, so he called in that way to make Lyta's appointment. Remembering his last meeting, he had the translator program already standing ready as the doctor's face appeared and nodded in recognition.
"It is an honor to see you again, Chief Allan. The purpose in your call?"
"Lyta Alexander has returned, but was injured while away. She says it is not serious, and the wound has received primary care, but it still causes her pain. She has refused to see anyone in medlab, but agreed to see you today."
"When and how was she injured? When did she return?"
"At least two days ago, because that's how long her return trip was, I don't know because she refused to tell me - it is a stab wound to her left hip leaving a tear about this long, and it has been stitched closed. She arrived late yesterday evening, and was asleep within an hour of arriving. She promised to be there by noon today, but I hope she will sleep longer, she needs the rest. If you could also check for exhaustion and recent malnutrition, I would be very grateful. She looked like she's been put through the wringer, if the expression translates."
"The verbal expression does not. But I can guess the basic meaning from your facial expression, and will be able to receive further explanation later. Thank you for your call, I will contact her if she does not arrive here before sunset-time. It has been some time since I last saw you, I am glad your care for Lyta has not diminished." She bowed slightly and disconnected.
//What the heck does that expression mean? Either ~I~ missed something or the translator did . . . doesn't matter, it was a compliment.//
It had been months since he last saw the diminutive minbari, though, just after the second vorlon had been driven off of Babylon 5. Zack shivered slightly as he remembered . . .
~~~~
He'd just left the micro-gravity section of medlab, tracking down everyone who'd been there at Kosh II's killing. The moans of the officers burned had faded behind him as he entered the lift, passing a minbari woman hurrying toward the way he'd just left.~~~~Not that it registered in his mind. He was trying to figure out where one missing person who'd been involved was. Lyta. He knew he had a huge crush on her (at his age!), but hadn't found the courage to talk to her. All he could do was try to protect her, something that he hadn't been able to do very well that day.
He had seen her catch a blast after she ran from the furious vorlon, a glowing white tentacle lashing out to her as she ran to 'safety' behind a pile of crates next to Sheridan. But he hadn't seen her since then, and he was concerned for her. There hadn't been any bodies left at the scene, but she wasn't in any of the three medlabs on station. He went to Central and checked with the tracking systems and securecam footage to see where she'd gone.
So almost 20 minutes later, he'd been standing in a receiving area in the minbari part of red sector, looking through a doorway at a secondary room, trying not to gape at the sight in front of him. Lyta *had* been injured: she was burned worse than any of the others. She hadn't had body armor on like the security members had, and it showed.
She was sitting on an examining table, facing away from him as he stopped in the doorway. She was undressed, her legs covered by a white medical robe, her hair loosely pinned up to keep it off her oozing wounds, some of which exposed muscle tissue. She'd been blasted on her neck, shoulders, parts of her arms, and her upper back down to the middle of her spine where a minbari doctor was gently pressing a small crystalline device of some sort to Lyta's back for several seconds. The area directly under the device suddenly healed, the charred skin drying up and falling off to reveal healthy skin growing underneath, then the device was shifted over to repeat the process.
//The officers in medlab have burns almost as serious, they'll both live but the scarring will be severe - could this minbari help them?// Zack wondered to himself, then moved in a small step from the entranceway.
The withered, gray-boned old minbari had barely glanced up at him during his silent arrival, but now, a minute later, she paused in her work and gave Lyta a look Zack couldn't read. Lyta looked back at her with a puzzled expression until Zack cleared his throat. Lyta promptly lifted the loose part of the robe up and covered herself while attempting to not look startled. Rolenn smiled slightly at him then, gesturing that he was now allowed to enter.
Rolenn made some comment in Adronato to Lyta that Zack could not translate.
Lyta looked at him for a few moments as he walked over to face her. "Si," she replied.
"Yes, what?" He asked, not liking being left out of the loop.
The old minbari woman just gave him a brief-but-big grin and continued her ministrations, leaving Zack with the impression he was not going to want to know the translation any more than he would receive it.
He cleared his throat again. "I just wanted to find out where you where, is all. After the . . . incident, I couldn't find you."
Lyta blinked at him, slightly groggy. "You were there? Are you alright? I didn't see you - I think a few were hurt - well of course you're alright, you don't have half your skin fragged off." She paused. "If you were there, you must have finally bothered to wear a helmet. Maybe you don't have a death wish after all."
"I do not have a death wish. The helmet just gets in the way sometimes."
"Of a PPG blast, maybe."
"I've got a hard head, I'll be fine. When did you turn into mother hen?"
Lyta grinned. "When these wonderful painkillers started to work."
Zack's mouth made a small 'o', and he waved his hand slowly in front of her eyes to gauge her reaction. //So that's why she's so hazy,// he thought. "How many drugs has she had, doc?"
The minbari glanced at Lyta, who translated for her.
Rolenn spread her hands about 2 feet apart and spoke the Adronato word which Zack knew meant 'much given as was needed but not overmuch'. She pointed at Lyta's feet and rambled off a sentence as her hand moved up to the place on Lyta's back where she was still healing Lyta's burns.
Zack guessed as to the meaning. "The burns started on her feet?"
Rolenn pulled one of Lyta's boots from a shelf and handed it to Zack. "Vielle na Sal'ti."
The leather had a blast mark from the heel up to the top, along the back and sides. Zack looked at the boot to Lyta's scorched neck and back to the boot. //Holy. . . //
"What size are you? I'll get you a new pair. Doesn't look like you'll be wearing these much again . . . um . . ." He tried not to stare at her, only half-wearing a white gown - her front was covered from her breasts to her thighs, but the rest was bare. "How . . . did your clothes fare?"
The redhead blinked a few times. "The Vorlon's . . . energy . . . affects organic material more so than synthetic. They're ok." She moved one hand to continue supporting the robe's upper half, pointing with the other to a shelf where her clothes were neatly piled. "Over there. But I have a spare pair of boots, so no thank you."
"Ri-Sa!" Rolenn commented sharply as she moved on from healing the telepath's shoulders to her arms.
"I ~am~ holding still . . . picky old grandma, aren't you."
Zack looked away as the healer paused slightly, eyes narrowing at Lyta before she shrugged and silently carried on.
"Lyta, can you ask her if that crystal gizmo will work on anyone? Two of my friends were badly burned, as well, and earth technology isn't advanced enough to prevent scars - I can't see any on you, and some of those looked like second or third degree burns."
"She already sent her daughter with one to help." Lyta said.
Zack looked relieved, and gave Rolenn the proper bow of respect before turning back to Lyta. "May I walk you back to your quarters afterwards?"
"I won't object. But shoo now."
"Why?" Zack asked as Rolenn returned the instrument to a cupboard and put Lyta's pile of clothing beside her. Lyta just gazed at him, her head at a slight tilt under Zack suddenly clued in to the fact she wanted privacy to get dressed in.
"I'll wait in the corridor . . ." He said, scooting out as the doctor helped Lyta with a shirtsleeve.
*//Ani Vst mar ilio tial, ael uki.//* Rolenn let the thought pass to Lyta with a gentle hand upon her head, letting her hair down for her.
Lyta just sighed, and disagreed. *//I have heard others say it, and I have heard Zack himself say it. He does not like or trust telepaths. So he must not like me because of it. I've had enough hatred thrown in my face, I will NOT take the chance of letting him know I care for him. I know you are the best healer of mind and body for a very great distance, but you're wrong on this. Zack tolerates me, but he is not in love with me!//*
Lyta finished dressing in silence, then joined the chief waiting outside for her. He walked her back slowly, letting her favor the tender muscles, helping her keep her balance as the drugs wore off. They didn't talk, besides him commenting he was glad she was ok. Inwardly, she wept at her betrayal of her master, and over her shame about loving a man who couldn't love her.
He contacted her again that evening, deciding on going right to her quarters instead of linking in. She wasn't there, but had left a note for him on the counter, underneath the forgotten regen pack.
'Yes, I did sleep late. Yes, I will visit Rolenn. Yes, I am going there now. And yes, I did eat breakfast, despite it being way past lunchtime. Thank you for bringing in food, I've been away too long to have had much left here that was edible. I'll pay you back as soon as I can. (Yes I know you left a note saying it was a gift but there's honor involved here.) Since you're probably asked her to make me eat more, call me when you are done your shift. I'll let you treat, I would enjoy your company. I'd prefer to eat in. Thank you for helping last night. I'm very grateful.'
Zack grinned, setting the note down. //She knows me too well . . . or at least my habits. I wish she knew how I felt . . . no . . . I have nothing to offer her, she'd never accept me. Maybe it's better this way, painful as it is.//
~~~~
"You're alive!" Susan's face suddenly changed from surprise to relief and joy. Then she sprang up from her seat on the couch to pull a second wine glass out of the cupboard and poured it full of white wine from the half-full bottle she was holding. "Here, take this." Susan pulled Lyta in from the doorway, handing her the glass and making her take a seat next to her on the couch. "Sit! Zack mentioned last night you were back, and that you had an extra hole in you. That better be fixed, it's nearly 20 hundred hours. I know you must have slept in - he said he'd stuck a sedative in you, you looked wiped, I checked the securecams to make sure he hadn't started a hallucination - did you know he'd started having nightmares about you not coming back on time? He told me - well us since Steven was there too - oh jeez I have to tell Steven you're back he was getting a little freaked about you apparently being sent to your death since he's the one who gave you the order to come-"
Lyta had to stop the verbal onslaught by putting her hand over Susan's mouth. After a minute of Susan looking irritated, she lifted her hand off and sat back, pulling off her unwanted black gloves and Psi Corps pin, tossing them on the table in front of them.
"Zack mentioned in his note that he'd told Sheridan and Doctor Franklin. As for me . . . I was in a coma for almost a month. Then I basically laid low, for the most part, until I could stand up and walk again. The headgear I had on overloaded or something . . . fried my brain rather well, but I'm fine now. I missed pretty much all of the independence celebrations, the party of the millenium and I was unable to even SEE straight, or sit up. I don't have any extra holes in me anymore, either . . . I was about to head back here when an overly amorous, not to mention drunk, man decided he liked me. The resistance had gotten me a seat on a transport leaving for here, I was already in the spaceport when he wandered across me. I had just turned him down twice in a row when he pulled out a knife. But Tess - uh - someone in the resistance cell Steven and I were with - she was with me still, and we knocked him out, left him someplace where the Port security could find him. But I couldn't get on my flight with blood running down my leg, so I had to miss it. I was stitched up and tried to rest for another day while another ride was found for me. Then I just had to sit through a two and a half day flight without moving any more than necessary . . . the lady next to me snored, too. But everything's ok." Lyta tiredly recited the story she'd prepared, hoping she could make the 85% lie seem real enough.
Susan seemed to swallow the story. "Ok. Everything's ok." She swallowed the last of her wine, tipped over the bottle to refill her glass, then realized she'd drunk the whole thing. "Damn, this one's empty too now." She held the bottle in her hand, looking at the light reflecting through the glass. "First I run out of real coffee, then I run out of booze. I have no idea when I can get another shipment of vodka in . . . everything's past nuts around here. Accelerated lunacy is a better term I guess. But everything's ok. Ok, ok, ok No it's NOT OK!!!! There's teeps here, lots of them, there's teeps here and I don't trust them! Well I think I trust that Byron, Well I know I like the way he looks and the way he can talk - and he didn't scan me - at least I think he didn't!"
Lyta had clapped her hand over her friend's mouth again. "Calm down, I can't make out anything of what you're saying. How much have you had to drink, not this bottle but other bottles? And how high are your caffeine levels?!?"
"Ok, so I had a couple of bottles, and the whole coffee pot tonight. But!" She stopped to breathe a few times, then got up and began to pace around her quarters. "But he is very good looking and he has been in my thoughts-"
"- you let him SCAN you?!"
"No, no, no, Lyta, I mean I've been thinking about him. A Lot. Very passionate thoughts. Different-ways-for-two-people-to-bend type of thoughts. Don't look so embarrassed all of a sudden, as soon as you see him you'll probably be thinking exactly the same things. I mean, I hurt still, I think I always will hurt over Marcus but they're both alike in ways and I am SO attracted to him, power, looks, the way he speaks, but I just know there's going to be trouble. And I can't let him near me because the Corps will get involved as soon as they can they ~always~ do and I can't let them near me!" She suddenly stopped pacing, gasped, flung the bottle as hard as she could in frustration, then *//I can't let the corps take me!!! I'M TERRIFIED BECAUSE I DON'T WANT MY COVER BLOWN!//* The bottle exploded into shards against the wall while Susan stumbled back a pace and collapsed into tears.
Lyta's eyes had sprung open into two huge perfect circles, and her jaw was about two decks down from where she sat in stunned silence.
Several minutes passed while the feisty Russian gradually calmed down into uneasy trembling while Lyta's mouth worked silently, attempting to voice a confirmation.
"You're . . . a . . . t - tel . . ." She slowly and quietly stammered.
The captain tried to broadcast again, couldn't focus, so she moved back to the couch to sit next to Lyta again, *//Yes.//* as she touched hands to make the connection steadier.
*//!? But - Oh Lord, Susan, no wonder you hate - hate - all of this. The Corps, that creep Bester - when did - no wait I don't want to know that.//*
Susan withdrew her hand from Lyta's and spoke out loud, putting up her mental blocks again. "I've had my whole life to become good at hiding it . . . it's grown the past few months though, I didn't think I was even a P1 before but now . . . now I don't know how strong . . . You didn't know about this? I know you never scanned me, not after T . . . after Talia was exposed. But with the wars, working together, everything involved, I'm kind of surprised you were unaware."
"I never take my guards down anymore - I couldn't, not after I'd let Kosh in - when I first saw him. After he was murdered I walled everything away. Everything. Even with the new vorlon, I managed to keep just a little to myself until it- " She stopped with some memory she couldn't quite avoid. "Although I let . . . it . . . in more from terror and old loyalties than love."
"You really need to have someone lead you around, don't you. The Corps bred you well, did a ~good~ job of programming obedience into you. I don't want to be programmed! I want . . . I want to be free!" She pulled the unused glass from Lyta's hand and drained it of its contents.
Lyta sadly looked over to the table where lay her hated gloves and pin she again wore these black days, in exchange for being allowed to live - she'd sold out her own body. "No one is free . . . although your 'I am the almighty' speeches do make a helluva impact."
Susan followed her line of sight, knowing the reason why. "I've promised I will never let them get your body, Lyta, especially if you're still in it. I just wish I could do more. At least you don't ~have~ to wear those for a while . . . there's a training session due for-"
"Oh. Yeah. That. Auugh . . . It's all right. I'm used to being kicked in the teeth." She pulled away, unable to face her friend. "So . . . now what?" She asked, leaning out towards to table, staring into nothingness.
"I just don't know, Lyta. Byron is obviously an extremely powerful man, and telepath - my love life is fubar'd already, I don't need any damn hormones telling me 'this one would be a good fuck!' and surely you've heard the stories about what screwing a teep is like, well you are a teep and wait that didn't come out right - I mean - hoo boy -" Susan buried her face in her lap, moaning in frustration and confusion.
Lyta blinked a few times, then slouched back and gazed at her remorseful friend/co-worker/ally/fellow telepath. "I don't want to meet with the rogues Susan, as you said, it's only a matter of time before the Corps comes to either kill them or take them back, I don't want to become involved. But . . . if you ask me to meet their leader, give you a second opinion, I will."
Susan looked at her sideways. "You're blushing again. But - you know for certain it can happen?"
"I've done it, once." Lyta ducked her face down again. "Had it done - oh Susan there simply are no words for it!" She shuddered and relaxed into a long-ago memory.
"And here I thought you'd never had much of a sex life, you seem so shy."
Lyta's grin faded. "A few good nights with some P9 playboy who was 'just passing through' can't make up for what the Corps did to me. Especially when I found out the reason he'd been sen- never mind that. The past is unchangeable."
"And for now? For the future?"
Lyta closed her eyes and sighed. "There is someone I trust, who I could want, but suffice it to say he and I will never get past his own ideas. He doesn't even like me, I'm sure of it."
This was news for Ivanova. "Who is he?!" She demanded, begged.
"Someone who isn't about to go near a telepath . . . in that way."
"Oh. I guess there's no hope then."
"Hope? Always. A chance? When Satan straps on a pair of ice skates to get to work."
Susan decided now would be a good time to change the topic. "I am doing ok for now, but I'll need your help very soon to reinforce my blocks, learn how to control this stupid little 'gift' of being a teep. If you could? Oh, thank you. Um, I'm not really that hungry, but are you? I could have something brought in . . . "
"No, I think that Zack will want to personally stuff food into me. He . . ." she smiled a little wider, "he bought some groceries in while I was sleeping, and a small written lecture on how bad it is health-wise to be able to see someone's ribs through her clothes. I haven't lost THAT much weight. But he said he'd check back - what time is it? I think I may be late, he didn't set a time anyway but he might be waiting for me. I should go."
"He takes his job very seriously. And yes you ~have~ lost too much weight. Eat lots. Heck, make him take you out on his credits if you can get away with it. Captain's orders. I'll get us dinner out sometime this week too, so we can talk." She grinned and walked Lyta to the door. "See me again when you can, agreed?"
"Agreed. Thank you." The door closed behind her.
"Those stories are true . . . 'Stimulate directly' . . . Yow! Now I really know my dreams are REALLY going to be interesting . . ."
********