Author’s Note: Draws upon information, events and occasionally dialogue from the episodes “Grey 17 is Missing,” “Atonement,” “Racing Mars,” “Lines of Communication,” “Between the Darkness and the Light,” “Endgame,” and “Learning Curve,” as well as the novel ‘To Dream in the City of Sorrows.’ Marcus also quotes or paraphrases Hamlet, Macbeth and the New Testament, and his description of Stephen to Durhan is taken more or less directly from something Jason Carter said about Richard Biggs at Phoenix Comic-Con earlier this year, because it broke my heart and I wanted a reason to see it said it in a happier context.
Acknowledgments: Thanks so much to Medie for being my beta reader, my cheerleader, and as always, a hand to hold as “OMG deadline is almost here and I’m not finished!” panic inevitably set in. Oh, and for more or less coming up with the title! *g* Love you, hon!
Written for: Muccamukk for rarepairfest 2013.
It wasn’t so much waking up to find Stephen watching him that surprised Marcus; it was waking up at all. He’d fully expected to drift peacefully into the unknown country from which no soul returns, had rather been looking forward to it if he was being honest with himself. Not because he had any particular desire to be dead, but there were certainly worse ways to go and he was a romantic at heart, after all.
“Welcome back.” Stephen’s voice was dry and hardly welcoming, and his rather sharp gaze was more than a little disconcerting. That was the trouble with not dying as planned, Marcus supposed; the whole business was a little disconcerting. Not to mention damned disorienting.
The other trouble with finding oneself suddenly alive when one had expected to be dead was that it raised certain questions about the purpose one had intended to die for. Marcus sat up, rather too suddenly for health that, while still extant, was clearly not quite robust. He managed to blurt out “Susan!” before a wave of dizziness made him collapse back to the bed.
“–is fine,” Stephen answered brusquely. “You, on the other hand, are damned lucky that Lennier managed to let me know what you were up to in time to stop you. I’d ask what you were thinking, but I don’t have to.”
“I was trying to save her life,” Marcus protested.
“No, you were trying to make a grand gesture.”
Well, when you put it that way… “That too.” No point lying about it, he supposed.
Stephen snorted and turned away, jabbing angrily at buttons angrily on the biobed where Marcus lay. “Well, for the record, if you ever do anything that stupid again, you’ll be lucky if I don’t kill you first.”
“What would you have had me do?” Marcus protested. His own temper flared just enough to break past the cheerful façade he kept carefully raised most of the time. “Let her die?”
That snapped Stephen’s attention back to him. “How about talking to a doctor, maybe someone who knows how the machine works? Someone who could’ve told you that if you split the time between two or three people, it can still save a life without anyone having to give theirs in return?”
“But your own records said it was still too dangerous!” Marcus protested.
“Of course it did!” Stephen snapped back. “Do you think I wanted anyone trying something like this?”
Marcus stopped, taken aback. The idea had genuinely never occurred to him. “…oh.”
“‘Oh’,” Stephen echoed, with more facetiousness than Marcus felt was strictly necessary. “See, that’s the problem with a martyr complex. Why bother talking to anyone who actually knows what they’re doing when you can just assume they’d try to stop you and plow straight on ahead?”
“You’re taking this all a bit personally,” Marcus objected.
“Personally?” Stephen echoed incredulously. He folded his arms across his chest and gave Marcus a look that could’ve bent steel. “Marcus, I’m your doctor, and at least I thought I was your friend. I think I have a right to take you trying to kill yourself a little personally.”
“You forgot husband,” Marcus quipped. “Or rather, ex-husband, I suppose. Either way, as surviving next of kin, you’d likely inherit all my worldly goods. Such as they are.”
If anything, Stephen’s expression only hardened. “You think that’s funny?”
“I thought it was worth a go.”
“Oh, I know you did,” Stephen answered angrily. “You forget how often I’ve watched you derail a conversation with a well-timed quip. It’s practically your trademark. But it’s not going to work. Not this time, not on me. You did something incredibly selfish–”
“Selfish!” Marcus interrupted in disbelief.
“Yes, selfish!” Stephen snapped back.
“John 15:13, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,'” Marcus quoted, his own temper rising. “Or, oh, I’m sorry; do Foundationists not care about the Bible?”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from an atheist.” Franklin laid down the tablet he’d been working on with a little too much force, then turned back to Marcus, waving a scolding finger at him. “You want to jump in front of a PPG for Ivanova, or anyone else for that matter? Fine. Give her the last of the oxygen in a dying ship? That’s a noble act. But running out on your friends in the middle of a battle and not even asking about other options before you jumped head first into the one that was sure to kill you? That’s using her as an excuse to fulfill your goddamn death wish, and yeah, I think that’s pretty selfish.”
Marcus wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Partly because his head rather hurt and it made thinking difficult. Well, no, that wasn’t quite accurate. His entire body hurt, now he’d had time to get used to being in it still. More, though, he hadn’t yet quite managed to follow Stephen’s logic.
Had he a death wish? He hadn’t thought so. Massive survivor’s guilt over Arisia and William, certainly. Gaping black hole in his heart where his family had been, check. Copious amounts of no-longer-repressed anger at the Universe in general, yes. But he wouldn’t have thought he’d gone out of his way to get himself killed in any real sense, he’d simply thought that if it were a choice between the Universe going on without him in it or without Susan, that he’d vastly prefer it be him.
“Did you stop to think for a moment how the people who care about you would feel about you throwing your life away?” Stephen asked then, more quietly.
“There are no more people who care about me,” Marcus responded immediately. He might be delusional, but not in this regard. He was fully aware that his feelings for Susan were unrequited.
“You’re wrong about that,” Stephen retorted quietly. “Ivanova may not be in love with you, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care what happens to you. And what about…what about the rest of us?”
The hesitation struck Marcus as odd, though for the life of him he couldn’t work out why. Still, he was moved by the implication that the people on Babylon 5 would care what happened to him. He hadn’t expected that. His presence here was transitory at the best of times, and even when he was on board, he rarely interacted with the command staff save when there was a crisis. (Though, granted, there had been a number of crises in the past two years.) The rest of the time he’d spent mostly amongst the Lurkers.
Stephen sighed, as if sensing Marcus’ surprise. He patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Get some rest. You may not be dead, but you probably took at least ten years off your life, if not more. Give yourself some time to recover.”
“All right,” Marcus acquiesced almost meekly. “But if I could just…”
“I’ll let you see her as soon as one or both of you is well enough to visit the other,” Stephen promised shortly. “Now go back to sleep. Doctor’s orders.”
Marcus drifted in and out of consciousness for what alternately felt like hours or years, but was probably somewhere in the middle. Days, maybe. Every time he opened his eyes, Stephen was there, watching as though he expected him to try again. It got to a point where it began to annoy; he hadn’t actually tried to commit suicide, whatever Stephen thought, so he certainly didn’t need to be kept on suicide watch.
Then finally a time came when he opened his eyes and Susan was there. She was standing ramrod straight, stiff and awkward, but she was there. “Hey,” she greeted him woodenly.
“Hello.” He drank her in with his eyes for a moment. Susan shifted, clearly uncomfortable. Awkward didn’t begin to cover it, he thought ruefully. “So. Did we win?”
She laughed: a short, almost ugly sound of disbelief. “You’re asking that now? It’s been weeks!”
“So?” Marcus retorted. “Until today, I had more important things on my mind.”
Susan frowned, which wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for, though probably the one he should’ve expected. “Yes, we won. No thanks to you or the two White Stars you took out of action.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “…two?”
“Yes.” She was glaring at him now. “Who do you think picked up Franklin on Mars and raced back here so he could unplug you from that damned machine?”
“Sheridan authorized that in the midst of the assault on Earth?” Perhaps Stephen was right after all about them caring about him. He felt oddly touched.
Susan snorted. “Stephen didn’t give him much choice in the matter, once Lennier told him what he thought you were planning.”
Another awkward silence descended between them, Marcus mulling over this new revelation, Ivanova glaring at him as though she would’ve laid the entire fault at his door had the assault on Earth failed, even though one White Star, even two, wouldn’t have made a great deal of difference in the final equation.
“Why did you do it?” she finally asked, her voice low and weary.
Marcus turned his head to look at her. “Does it really need to be said?”
Susan didn’t answer, only continued to watch him unhappily.
He sighed. “Because I love you.”
She closed her eyes, as if she’d been both expecting and dreading that answer. He certainly wasn’t expecting hers, though: “No, you don’t.”
Marcus’ eyebrows shot up and he stared at her in astonishment. “Excuse me?”
“You’re in love with some…Jewish version of Joan of Arc you’ve got up on a pedestal who happens to look like me,” she insisted, her voice still weary. “But she’s not me. Marcus, you don’t know me. How could you possibly love me?”
“I know enough.”
“Marcus.” Susan brought a hand up to rub her eyes with a tired sigh. “This is real life, not Camelot. You’re not Sir Lancelot or Don Quixote and I’m sure as hell not Guinevere or Dulcinea. Soul mates and grand gestures, that’s not love; it’s bullshit ancient romanticism that for some reason we just can’t shake. Love is hard work. It’s choosing again every morning to stay by someone’s side even if they drive you up the wall or you hate everything they stand for. You can’t love someone you don’t trust or respect.”
“I have the utmost respect for you,” he objected.
“Do you?” She gave him a hard look then. “Because either you didn’t know me well enough to know that I would have wanted you to stay in that fight and see it through no matter the cost to myself, or you didn’t respect my wishes enough to care.”
That stung like a…well, like an ice pick through his heart, to be honest.
Susan sighed again and dropped her eyes, looking anywhere but at him for a moment. “Look…thank you. For saving my life. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for that…” It took a moment though before she could force herself to look at him again. “But I’m never going to feel the way you want me to. I don’t know if I’m even capable of it; the romantic in me died a long time ago. Don’t waste your passion, your life, on me.”
“I can’t just turn off my heart,” he protested.
“I’m not asking you to.” Something wry, almost like a smile, crept onto her face. She glanced back over her shoulder as if looking for something…or someone. “Just…maybe turn it aside a little. Trust me, Marcus, there’s someone who deserves everything you want to give them. Someone who would be willing and able to give just as much back. It’s just…not me.”
He wanted to protest that no one could be more deserving, but somehow the words wouldn’t come out.
Susan took a deep breath and let it out slowly before changing the subject. “Look…a lot’s been happening while you were out…” She filled him in on the end of the war, the formation of the new Interstellar Alliance, and Sheridan’s appointment as its first president.
“That’s wonderful,” Marcus answered, the words sounding flat and insincere even to his own ears. “So then you’ll be taking over command of the station.”
She shook her head. “No, I’ll be taking over command of the EAS Titans.”
His breath caught in his throat. “You’re leaving.”
She nodded.
“Susan, don’t. Not…not on my account.” He’d hate himself forever if he was the reason she’d given up a command he knew she’d wanted ever since Sinclair was first reassigned.
“I’m not,” she answered honestly. “Well…maybe a little. But the fact of the matter is I need to command a ship before I can command Babylon 5, if for no other reason than to show the skeptics back home that I can do it and didn’t just get the job as a reward for good behavior. John knows that as well as I do, which is why he let me accept without protest. I’ll come back. Someday.”
Someday. After she’d given him a chance to get over her. “And if I still feel the same when you do?” he demanded.
Susan smiled again, more sadly this time. “You won’t.”
The first few weeks without Susan were the strangest. Marcus kept expecting to hear her page someone over the comms, or see her coming out of Earhart’s or a closed meeting with the Drazi. It was also difficult at first not to judge every decision the new commander made by what Susan would have done, like the way she handled the small but steadily growing colony of rogue telepaths in down below.
He still blamed himself in part for Susan’s departure, but as one of the senior Rangers on the station, he was kept busy enough that most of the time he hadn’t time to wallow in it. So it was nearly a month before he had a moment to really stop and miss her.
Much to his shock and consternation, he discovered he…didn’t. Or at least, not the way he’d expected to, like a part of himself was missing. He missed her as a friend, as a colleague, but not as the object of his affection, the better part of himself. It was rather appalling: he’d been determined to prove her wrong and here he was doing just the opposite.
It troubled him enough that he found he had difficulty sleeping that night. So, after tossing and turning for several hours, Marcus finally gave up and threw his clothes back on. He wandered out into the station, not entirely sure where he was going until he found himself outside Stephen’s door, his finger on the chime before he had entirely thought it through. But if there was anyone on board the station who could help him work this out, it had to be the one man he could confidently call a friend.
“Stephen. Stephen, it’s Marcus. Let me in, I need to talk to you. Stephen!”
The door slid open and Stephen stood there, looking alarmed, with a robe thrown on hastily over a pair of pajama pants and…a surprisingly muscular chest. Marcus couldn’t help but do a double take. He’d had no idea the physique his friend was hiding under his uniform, probably because their hotel on Mars had been blown up before they’d ever actually spent a night in their honeymoon suite.
“What, what’s going on?” Stephen demanded.
Marcus pushed past him into the room and began to pace it. “I’m not in love with Ivanova!” he blurted out, his own disbelief still apparent in his voice.
Stephen’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms over his chest. “You woke me up in the middle of the night just to tell me that?” he asked, his voice bordering on dangerous.
“Yes!” Marcus exclaimed in genuine distress. “Because I was in love with her a month ago. I was ready to die for her a month ago. Am I really so bloody fickle that I can go from that to barely noticing she’s gone in only a matter of weeks?”
Stephen groaned and dropped his face into his hands. “Marcus, I am really not the person you should be talking to about this–”
“You’re the only person I can talk to about it,” Marcus insisted. He turned a pleading look on him. “Please, Stephen. You said you were my friend, and I need a friend right now.”
Something indecipherable flickered across Stephen’s face before he reluctantly nodded. “Fine. Just…give me a moment to get dressed.”
“Not necessary,” Marcus answered distractedly. “I only need a moment.”
“Good for you,” was the wry response. “I am still not going to sit around discussing your love life in my pajamas. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the bathroom with a change of clothes. Marcus continued to pace, and was still pacing when Stephen came out again. This time he was wearing a pair of casual trousers and a form-fitting t-shirt, his feet still bare. It was a good look for him, one he ought to wear more often, though admittedly the job probably didn’t allow much opportunity for casual civilian wear.
“All right,” Stephen said with a sigh before sitting down on the sofa. “So what’s the problem again?”
“Stephen!” Marcus nearly whined. “I’ve just discovered that my eternal devotion to the woman of my dreams is apparently a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. What do you suppose the problem is?”
“That you’re being too hard on yourself?” Stephen retorted. “Look, Marcus, no one is going to hold it against you if you get over a woman who was never going to return your feelings anyway. Spending your whole life pining away unrequited is only romantic in the movies.”
“But it’s only been a month. A month!” He kept pacing, his cloak swirling around him every time he hit one side of the room and turned. “What does that say about me?”
Stephen opened his mouth to answer, but hesitated.
“What?” Marcus demanded.
“I’m not sure you’re gonna like it,” Stephen warned.
“I already don’t like it,” Marcus retorted. “What could possibly be worse?”
Stephen shrugged as if to say it was his funeral. “Well…maybe you weren’t really in love with her to begin with. Maybe you just thought you were.”
That suggestion stung surprisingly less than it had when Susan herself had made it, although that in itself was painful. “That I was only in love with an idealized version of her I had put on a pedestal,” Marcus echoed her words woodenly, wondering if he looked nearly as unhappy as he felt.
“Pretty much, yes,” Stephen agreed. He looked up at him and frowned. “Look, Marcus, I’m sorry, but you did ask.”
A self-deprecating laugh escaped before Marcus could catch it. “She said the same thing, you know. And that I was wasting my passion and my life on her when there was someone else who deserved it. Odd that she used that particular phrasing,” he ruminated. “Almost as if she were referring to someone in particular.”
Stephen looked away, probably embarrassed at how blatantly Marcus was spilling his heart out.
Marcus’ shoulders slumped, and he flung himself onto the sofa beside Stephen, who flinched, but didn’t move away. “I don’t understand it. I felt everything I was supposed to feel for her. If that isn’t love, what is?”
Stephen looked at him. “And where, pray tell, did you get this idea of what you were supposed to feel?”
Marcus looked sheepish, staring down at his toes. “Well…there wasn’t a great deal to do on Arisia colony before one was old enough to help with the mining efforts…”
“So you read a lot.”
“All the classics,” Marcus admitted with a little shrug. “They were free to download. Vids, music, and more recent works were not.”
Stephen sighed, remembering how Marcus had responded to David McIntyre and his claim to be Arthur. “Why does that not surprise me?” he muttered under his breath. He looked back up at Marcus and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Susan is a very attractive woman, and I don’t mean just physically. For someone who wanted to fall in love as much as you obviously do, it makes sense that you latched onto her. And the fact that she didn’t feel the same fit so well into your romantic ideal that I’m guessing you just figured it was part of the deal.”
“Perhaps,” Marcus answered miserably. “Do you really think that’s all it was? That I wanted to be in love, so I made myself believe that I was?”
“It’s possible.” He shifted a little, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation though Marcus couldn’t imagine why. Maybe because he wasn’t behaving in a properly masculine fashion: refusing to talk about his feelings. “Look, Marcus, it’s like that vow you told me that you take when you become a Ranger: ‘We live for the One, we die for the One.’ Dying for someone is relatively easy, if you ask me. I think when you really love someone is when you’re willing to live for them. To live with them, no matter what.” His voice turned dry as he added, “Even if there are days–and nights–when you want to kill them instead.”
“Sounds rather dull, if you ask me,” Marcus answered almost scornfully.
Stephen flinched again, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, well, maybe it is. Which is probably why books and movies have romanticized a more passionate, fleeting idea of love for so long, a kind that can’t last no matter how much they try to claim otherwise. Me, I’d rather have the dull, steady kind of love any day. I’ve had the other, and while it has its charms in the short term…” He grimaced. “Well, let’s just say there’s a reason I didn’t set up house on Mars.”
“Is it too much to want both?” Marcus asked as he slouched deeper into the sofa cushions, now thoroughly depressed.
“Hey, I didn’t say that kind of love can’t have passion,” Stephen corrected quickly. “Just that it doesn’t depend on it, so it doesn’t just…go away when the passion fades for a while.”
“And how would you know so much about it?” Marcus demanded.
Stephen stood abruptly and walked away. “Look, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m tired. Can we talk about this some other time?”
Marcus raised his eyebrows. “Touchy, aren’t we?” He sighed and stood as well. “Very well. I suppose there wasn’t much more to say on the matter anyway. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Stephen turned back to him, closing his eyes for a moment in obvious frustration at the petulance in Marcus’ voice. Even so, his voice when he spoke was placating, even gentle. “It’s not a bother, I just…I need to sleep. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow and if I’m not alert when I’m on duty, people die. And I can’t…” I can’t take stims, he pointedly didn’t add, falling back instead onto, “I need to sleep.”
“Right.” Marcus felt suddenly sheepish. “Of course. I’ll just be on my way.” He started to leave, but paused and turned back in the doorway. “Thank you. For listening.”
Stephen smiled ruefully. “Any time, Marcus. Any time.”
The Universe was a sneaky bastard. When Delenn informed Marcus that she’d invited Sech Durhan and Sech Turval to the station to brief her on the latest goings on with the Rangers, and that as senior Ranger on the station, he was expected to attend, the first words out of his mouth had been, “Don’t suppose there’s any way I could find myself demoted, is there?”
Truth be told, Marcus had rather been avoiding his old teachers ever since the incident with the alien healing machine. Deserting in the midst of battle, even in the name of love, was almost certainly considered conduct unbecoming in a Ranger. Any one of them would no doubt seize the opportunity to have his head for it, Durhan in particular. That it was Durhan and Turval both was even worse. As much as they twitted each other about caste differences, underneath the bluster they were quite good friends and therefore were almost certain to tag-team him.
Entil’zha Delenn had willfully misunderstood his reaction and cheerfully reminded him that he required no further training, neither in the denn’bok nor in meditation.
He would, however, she informed him–as if to reinforce the pleasure she clearly took in his discomfort–be required to accompany her to receive the Sechs’ ship when it arrived at the station.
They’d brought a pair of new recruits with them, both Minbari. Tannier of the religious caste and Rastenn of the warrior caste, both young and eager in a way Marcus couldn’t remember ever being. He hoped for a moment this might serve to distract them, but that hope was short lived. Turval singled him out almost as soon as they left the docking area.
“Anla’shok Cole,” he said in that same pleasant voice that almost always forewarned trouble, folding his hands in front of him and looking at Marcus with that ever-present twinkle in his eyes. “It is a pleasure to see you alive and well.”
“Why, were you expecting otherwise?” Marcus quipped.
Turval only looked at him steadily, eyes still dancing.
Marcus sighed as his last hope of escaping judgment withered. “Heard about that, did you?”
Turval inclined his head. “It was most upsetting. Though not, perhaps, unexpected.”
“You’re not going to tell me I have a death wish, are you?” Marcus asked tiredly. “I’ve got that from far too many people of late.”
He realized only after he said it that he’d walked rather neatly into one of the Sech’s expert little traps. If Turval had eyebrows, they would have climbed into his equally nonexistent hairline. “Indeed?” he asked in a voice that almost shook with amusement. “Surely something that is seen by so many must be quite apparent, and you would not need to be told of it.”
Marcus looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Hang on. Do you mean that if it were true, I would already know and wouldn’t need to be told–and so therefore it must not be–or that if it’s so obvious to everyone else, I must be incredibly blind not to see it myself?”
Turval smiled. “What do you think?”
“I think I’ve been had,” Marcus answered with a sigh. “Entil’zha Delenn specifically promised me that I was done with my training, but no one ever stops being your student, do they?”
“Learning is a lifelong process,” Turval answered serenely. “Learning to understand oneself, even more so. What have you learned about yourself of late, Marcus?”
That his heart was a more fickle thing than he liked to believe? That he wasn’t the man he’d always wanted to be? That, having made up his mind to die, he’d no idea what to do with himself now that he was still alive? That he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the answer should be as plain as day and he was just too blind or too stupid to see it?
He sighed. “I’m still working that out, I think.”
Turval smiled again and gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “A very good reason to live, don’t you agree?”
“I…I’m not sure.” Marcus frowned. “I don’t think anyone dies knowing all the answers.”
“No,” Turval answered with another smile. “But so long as you still desire to know more than you do, you will not seek out death.”
“Yes, Sech Turval,” Marcus agreed meekly. If having questions in need of answers was all it took, then he ought to be safe until the ripe old age of one hundred. But that answer still felt strangely unsatisfying. Maybe it wasn’t so much a matter of finding all the answers or even trying to, but merely of finding the right answer. Well, if so, that still ought to sustain him for a good few years yet, since he felt no closer to whatever the right answer was.
Marcus pondered that all through the meeting with Delenn, Durhan and Turval, and even after it when Turval pulled Delenn aside to speak with her privately. So absorbed was he in his own thoughts that it didn’t occur to him to offer to shepherd Tannier and Rastenn when Turval suggested they explore.
He might have known something was bound to go wrong. This was Babylon 5, after all. Which was how he found himself racing to Medlab only a few short hours later, cursing his own inattention all the way there. Rangers or no, the two young men he’d met weren’t ready for Down Below, not on their own, and one of them had nearly got himself killed as a result.
He burst in just as Durhan was announcing Mora’dum and leaving, followed by Rastenn and Turval. Delenn remained, but Stephen glanced at Marcus before approaching her. “What the hell is Mora’dum?” he demanded.
Marcus wondered idly if Stephen would have used slightly more diplomatic language if he’d been addressing that question to Delenn alone. The thought made him smile.
“It is a part of Ranger training,” Delenn answered, her eyes never leaving Tannier. “It means…’the application of terror.'”
It could also mean ‘the end of terror,’ but that was a meaning that was rarely applied until after the ritual had been completed successfully.
“A Ranger can’t afford to be paralyzed by fear, in any situation,” Marcus explained when Stephen glanced his way again. “So as part of our training, we’re asked to confront anything we fear, to take away its power over us. As soon as Tannier is well enough to stand, he will confront his attacker.”
“Are you–?” Stephen started to shout, then cut himself off abruptly when he realized Delenn was still in the room. He threw her an apologetic smile, then pulled Marcus aside and whispered fiercely at him, “Are you serious? You’re going to make that kid face down the people who beat him up while he’s still recovering from the injuries he sustained the first time?” There was a tightly contained fury in his voice.
“Consider it the Minbari equivalent of getting right back on the horse,” Marcus quipped.
Stephen gave him a dirty look.
Right. Not a fan of him using humor as deflection. “If he waits until he’s fully recovered, by then the fear may be too deep-seated to root out,” Marcus explained more honestly. “Besides which, an enemy isn’t going to give you time to recover or gather your wits about you, so it behooves your instructors to do likewise. The Minbari believe that a warrior or an Anla’shok must be willing and able to fight through his or her terror at the moment it occurs, or as near to as physically possible, regardless of the personal consequences.” He paused a moment before adding, “If it helps, the ritual isn’t always this harsh. How each fear is faced and conquered varies according to the nature of that fear. And in any form, the Mora’dum is remarkably effective.”
Stephen still didn’t look pleased at the idea, but he looked at Marcus with…well, new respect wasn’t really accurate because he’d always had Stephen’s respect. It was more like sympathy. “And you did this?”
Marcus nodded. “It was part of my training. I wasn’t just away at Boy Scout camp, you know.”
“Well, I knew that,” Stephen answered defensively. “I just…” He waved a hand aimlessly before finally giving up and changing the subject. “Does he have to have this confrontation alone?”
“Yes and no,” Marcus hedged. “The other Rangers will be present, but not allowed to interfere in the fight itself. Only to provide moral support.”
Something almost like relief passed over Stephen’s face. “So then, you’ll be there.”
“I can be,” Marcus answered, his surprise almost certainly showing on his face. “Would that help? Even if the ritual forbids me to intervene, even if Tannier is at the point of death?”
“Yes,” Stephen answered plainly.
“Why?” Marcus asked, amazed.
“Because I know you, I trust you–”
“–and I trust them.”
“Still…” Stephen grimaced, as if this were hard to admit for some reason. “I’d just feel a lot better about it if I knew you were there. Looking out for the kid, in whatever sense possible.”
Marcus felt immeasurably touched that his presence, even with hands tied, would make such a difference to someone who cared as passionately about preserving life as Stephen did. “Then I’ll make sure of it.”
“Enter!”
Marcus reflected with a smile that his old teacher’s bellow likely could’ve been heard through the door even without the speaker. Said door slid open then and he stepped through into the Sech’s guest quarters.
“Marcus,” Durhan said, sounding pleased. “What can I do for you?”
Marcus bowed and asked politely, “I would like your blessing to participate in the Mora’dum for Tannier, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course!” Durhan boomed. “I expect to see all of my Rangers there.” He quickly added, “Excepting, of course, the Entil’zha, as she has other duties. I will inform you as soon as the time and place have been chosen.”
Marcus bowed again and turned to leave, but was stopped by Durhan’s voice: “And you, Marcus, have you finally faced your fear?”
He turned back, frowning. “Your pardon, Sech Durhan, but I don’t understand. I went through Mora’dum during my training just as any other.”
“Yes,” Durhan nodded briskly. “But there was one fear you never did admit to, and thus could not face.” He gave Marcus a shrewd look. “The one that brought you to us, seeking a new family to replace the one you had lost.”
It took Marcus a moment to realize what he was referring to, even though Durhan’s words had inspired a creeping chill in him the moment they were spoken. When he did realize, though, he tried to laugh it off. “You think I’m afraid of being alone?”
Durhan gave him the same knowing, skeptical look that all of the Sechs of the Anla’shok seemed to have perfected.
“I’m not alone,” Marcus defended himself. “I have Stephen.”
“And who is Stephen?” Durhan asked.
“A friend,” Marcus answered simply.
“Surely not your only friend,” Durhan suggested with a hint of a smile.
“No,” Marcus admitted. It was a bit odd that he’d singled out Stephen, of all people. Once he’d bothered to look, he’d realized he had many friends: among the command staff, the other Rangers, even the Lurkers. But Stephen…in a strange way, Stephen seemed to know him better than the others. He had a way of cutting to the heart of the matter that even Sech Durhan and Sech Turval could only approximate. “But he is my best friend, and you don’t get many of those.”
Durhan nodded thoughtfully. “So you have found a friend, but you still have not faced your fear. What if something were to happen to this ‘Stephen,’ to take him away?”
Marcus suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Durhan persisted as if he hadn’t noticed. “Would you throw your life after him, as you nearly did for this ‘Susan’?” he asked.
“Are you mad?” Marcus blurted out without thinking. “He’d murder me for even thinking about it.”
Durhan sat back with a look of surprised satisfaction on his face. “As my esteemed colleague Sech Turval would say…now you begin to understand.”
“Understand what?” Marcus demanded, bewildered.
Durhan didn’t answer, only smiled again. “I will see you at the Mora’dum.”
Knowing a dismissal when he heard one, Marcus bowed and departed. As he made his way back to his own quarters, however, he realized that between the two Sechs, he was in nearly as great a state of confusion as he’d been the day he realized his affection for Susan wasn’t what he’d thought it. Was it any wonder, Marcus reflected with no little rue, that he’d given them a wide berth until now?
Turval had told him once that the purpose of meditation was to allow a Ranger to truly know oneself, even in the quiet spaces. To “truly see and to see things as they truly are” in any given situation. He’d absorbed that lesson and he’d grown to appreciate it over the time of his training…but if he were being honest with himself, he hadn’t done a great deal of meditating since he’d finished his training. Once, when he’d faced Neroon to protect Delenn as she became Entil’zha, because he knew he would need every bit of centering it gave him even to hold out for long against such an experienced warrior. But not since.
Considering how the past few months had persuaded Marcus he knew himself a great deal less well than he’d thought, perhaps it was past time. It would have to wait until after the Mora’dum, however. The last thing he needed, after all, was to be interrupted on the verge of an epiphany.
If he’d had any doubt that he’d left this far too long, the fact that he had more difficulty settling into it than he’d had since his training would’ve convinced Marcus otherwise. First, he couldn’t get comfortable in a pose he’d assumed hundreds of times. Worse, though, was that his mind simply refused to shut up. All of the voices, all of the questions that had been plaguing him ever since his unexpected escape from death began to circle like vultures every time he closed his eyes.
Susan smiled sadly at him and told him again that there was someone who deserved his love more than her. Stephen alternately scolded him for nearly dying and waxed poetic about his decidedly un-poetic notions about love. Sech Durhan and Sech Turval taunted him with hints of an understanding he’d not yet achieved.
If his inner voice was even listening, it was likely going to have to shout to make itself heard.
Sighing, Marcus squirmed about until he wasn’t sitting quite so much on the bones of his ankles, then took a deep breath and tried again. As he’d been taught, he attempted to concentrate on his breath, making each one deliberate and holding both the intake and the exhale as long as he was able.
A Ranger must know how to truly see and to see things as they truly are in all situations, he echoed back Sech Turval’s words to himself. Or, as Entil’zha Sinclair had once suggested, he needed to “get out of his own way.”
Well, perhaps the best way to do that was to simply be honest for once. Marcus took another deep breath, and this time instead of fighting the questions and thoughts circling in his mind, allowed them to coalesce.
Did he have a death wish? Marcus forced himself to look back on his actions all the way back to Arisia. At the recklessness that Turval had chided him for during his training. Honesty demanded he admit to himself that it had never really gone away; he’d merely gained enough skill to mostly offset the worst of it. But the machine hadn’t been the first time of late that he’d gone into a situation fully not expecting to come out of it, and to his shame, not much caring if he did. Maybe he had taken “die for the One” a little too much to heart, and “live for the One” not enough. It made sense. He’d already known he blamed himself for William’s death, that he still missed his brother like a phantom limb. Maybe a part of him had wanted to end it all, even though he didn’t believe in an afterlife and therefore didn’t believe he would find his family waiting for him when he did.
As for Susan, if he hadn’t loved her, then what had he felt? She most assuredly would not ever have played the wilting damosel to his rescuing knight, so it couldn’t be that. He’d admired her from the first; her beauty, her fearlessness, her audacity in the face of ridiculous odds. And he’d wanted so much to make her smile, because her heart seemed as broken as his own, only less well hidden. Maybe that was it. Maybe he’d seen in her a kindred spirit and, despairing of ever healing his own heart, had made up his mind to heal hers instead, will she or nil she.
Something Delenn had said to him once, over a year ago, came suddenly back to him. He’d been trying to get out of having to attend the Rebirth Ceremony she was planning, and had insisted he had nothing left to give up as part of the ceremony. She had pointed out that he still had his grief and his solitude, and that until he let go of those, he would never truly heal. At the time, he’d resented the suggestion, but now he began to wonder. If Durhan was right and he truly feared being alone, why had he been so determined for so long to believe that he still was? So much so that the idea that anyone still cared about him had come as a shock?
William wouldn’t begrudge him going on to find a new family to cling to. For that matter, William had done so himself long before Marcus had even allowed himself to consider such a thing, when he’d been so obsessed with being honoring his parents’ legacy that he’d driven himself nearly into the ground doing a job he hated. He’d resented his brother for it for a long time, very nearly up to the time when he died. Because Marcus envied William’s freedom, his willingness to live his own life and not feel bound by the expectations of others.
His use of humor to deflect unwanted questions had begun that way, as a protection against how astutely William had always seen through him, as though he were the elder brother instead of the younger. Of course, it had always worked about as well on William as it did on Stephen.
Stephen. Who cared whether Marcus lived or died and took it personally when he came too close to the latter, and whose opinion Marcus cared enough for to be more careful with his own life. Who saw through Marcus as though he were a pane of glass, even when he himself all too often couldn’t see past the mirror. Stephen, who told him the truth when he asked for it, and even sometimes when he didn’t, whether it was what he wanted to hear or not. Who trusted him with a totality that Marcus wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before. Who spoke of the sort of steady, steadfast love he wanted in his life as though it were something he already experienced, at least in part.
Stephen. His best friend.
Who looked quite ridiculously attractive in nothing more than a pair of pajama pants and a hastily thrown-on robe over that magnificent chest of his.
Marcus’ eyes flew open and he stared across the room in shock. Two words in a hoarse whisper slipped past his lips: “Oh, bugger.”
He was in love with his best friend. Had been, most likely, since before he’d given up his hopeless infatuation with Susan. He’d just been so busy drowning in the noise of his own melodrama that he hadn’t been able to hear the too-quiet whisper of his heart.
It all made sense now. How Susan had seemed so certain that there was someone else, why Stephen had been so reluctant to contribute to his personal epiphany about his feelings–or lack thereof–for Susan, and yet also why he’d done it anyway. Why he’d singled out Stephen, rather than any of his other friends or acquaintances aboard the station, as the one who made him feel less alone. Why even the thought of something happening to Stephen put a greater pressure on his heart than the fact of Susan dying had done, and yet made him unwilling to act on it impulsively because he knew how Stephen would react.
Even, going all the way back to Mars, it explained why Stephen had seemed so uncomfortable with their cover as newlyweds, and yet at the same time been so reluctant to take up Number One on her quite obvious invitation.
There was just one problem.
While Stephen’s actions, and even Susan’s, seemed to strongly indicate that Stephen did indeed feel the same way, Marcus still didn’t know for certain. And it would be more than a little embarrassing to get himself mixed up in something unrequited again, now he’d escaped the gilded cage of the first time.
So, for the next few weeks, Marcus watched him. Carefully.
As the evidence mounted up, it seemed more and more to support the favored hypothesis, but the trouble was Stephen absolutely refused to be tricked, snookered, or otherwise bamboozled into an outright confession. Marcus had even tried taking him to one of the seediest bars in Down Below and attempting to get him drunk enough for a little in vino veritas, but Stephen had resolutely nursed one drink the entire night, the very soul of moderation.
By the time another month had passed, there was nothing left for it but to simply ask.
Marcus waited until Stephen had a day off. Being the senior medical officer there was still every probability that he might be called in at any moment to deal with some sort of emergency, but at least the likelihood of things being interrupted was reduced. And if there was one thing Marcus didn’t want, it was to get the answer he hoped for only to find himself stymied in the attempt to do anything about it.
He might be a virgin, but if Stephen truly did feel the same way about him, Marcus didn’t intend to remain one any longer than absolutely necessary.
So it was that he showed up at 0700 at Stephen’s quarters, dressed and pressed, perfectly groomed, and with fingers crossed behind his back. He pushed the chime and waited for an answer. When he got one, he leaned in and said, “Stephen, it’s Marcus. I need to talk to you.”
It took a moment, but finally Stephen opened the door. Fully dressed, much to Marcus’ disappointment, but still wearing that same wonderful look of pure exasperation. “What, again? Marcus, I haven’t even had my morning cup of tea yet. Can’t it wait?”
Marcus withdrew one hand from behind his back with a treasure in it. “I’ve got something better.”
Stephen’s eyes widened as he took in the plastic baggie full of already ground coffee. He nearly snatched it out of Marcus’ hands, and demanded, “Where did you get that?”
“Susan left me the location of her secret plant in hydroponics,” he answered with a cheeky grin. “One presumes as an apology of sorts. You know: a ‘sorry you nearly died for me’ sort of thing.”
Stephen shook his head at the bag of coffee, as if he couldn’t believe Marcus had kept it from him. “In that case, please, come in!” He bustled away into the kitchen area to find a coffee pot.
Marcus couldn’t help a small smile of self-satisfaction. And some men brought flowers–little did they know! He helped himself to a seat in the living area and waited patiently while Stephen brewed the nectar of the gods and poured two cups, one for each of them.
Finally, he returned with one cup in each hand, setting one down before Marcus before settling himself into the sofa with the other. “So. What did you want to talk to me about?”
Marcus very deliberately waited until he took a sip before asking, “Are you in love with me?”
Stephen nearly spat his coffee out all over the sofa. “What??”
“It’s a simple yes or no question,” Marcus persisted cheerfully with his cheekiest grin. “Are you in love with me?”
Stephen sputtered, looking as flustered and as flabbergasted as Marcus had ever seen him. He considered that an excellent point in his favor.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Stephen demanded, once he recovered his wits enough to speak.
“Little things, mostly,” Marcus admitted, beginning to tick off a list on his fingers. “Like how personally you took me nearly dying.”
“I told you already,” Stephen snapped. “You’re my patient and my friend. Of course I took it personally!”
Marcus continued undaunted. “Then there was the fact that you were clearly uncomfortable with me talking about my feelings for Ivanova.”
“It was the middle of the night. I was tired.”
“You couldn’t handle being in the same room with me whilst only half-dressed.”
“Excuse me, what?” Stephen’s eyebrows shot up.
Marcus didn’t give him a chance to find an excuse on that one, only plowed on. “You said love is living for–and living with–someone, even when you sometimes want to kill them. I can’t think of anyone you’ve sometimes wanted to kill more than me.”
Stephen choked a little. “Wait, now you think I’m in love with you because you annoy me? Marcus, cockroaches annoy me too, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry them!”
Marcus grinned, a little giddy by this point. The gentleman certainly did protest too much! “Speaking of marriage, there’s another thing. You always did take our marriage far more seriously than I, and you never liked when I made a joke of it.”
“That wasn’t a relationship! That was a farce,” Stephen pointed out.
“Ah, but that was the trouble, wasn’t it?” He smirked when Stephen glared at him. “You’re the one who brought up marriage.”
Stephen covered his face with his hands. “Marcus…”
And that was when it hit him. The one argument Stephen couldn’t possibly dispute. “Then there’s the fact that in going after me to stop me using the machine, you did the very thing you accused me of: deserting our friends in the midst of a battle to save one life, presumably that of someone you loved. So I have to ask again: are you in love with me?”
Clearly aware he was defeated, Stephen threw up his hands. “All right, all right, damn you!” He stood, not speaking again until he was standing on the other side of the room and pointedly not looking at Marcus. “Yes. Yes, I am. I have been ever since Mars, although I didn’t realize it until you pulled that…stunt with the machine.” His fists clenched at the memory. “It was the only thing that made any sense of why I wanted to strangle you when you were here, but missed you when you weren’t. Happy now?”
“Yes.”
Stephen turned around, eyeing him with equal parts suspicion and surprise. “Oh yeah, and why’s that?”
“Because,” Marcus answered, rising from his own seat and crossing the room to take Stephen’s face in his hands. He grinned again, and for the first time in years, that smile was as genuine as it was euphoric. “Pining your life away unrequited is only romantic in the movies.”
Then he kissed him.
It took Stephen a moment to catch up, no doubt a bit still in shock from the revelation. Once he did, though, his arms went around Marcus’ waist and pulled him closer and he kissed him back with a skill and passion Marcus had heretofore only dreamt of. Marcus in turn twined his arms around Stephen’s neck, and for a moment they lost themselves in each other.
When they finally came up for air, Stephen spoke first. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” he asked breathlessly. “Were you or were you not madly in love with someone else a grand total of three months ago?”
Marcus’ smile turned cheeky once more. “Not according to my doctor. And since he seems to know me better than I know myself, I took his word for it. I can get a note, if you like.”
Stephen gave Marcus another glare, but there was an unmistakable fondness in it this time: one might even say affection or adoration. “That won’t be necessary,” he declared, and kissed him again.