Thirdspace, p.24
Thirdspace, page 24
Vir hurried over to the bar, went up to the bartender, and said quickly, "Can I have a glass of milk?" The bartender stared at him. "Milk?"
"That's right."
"Would you like some cookies with that?" he asked derisively.
Vir considered it a moment, then leaned forward with interest and asked, "What kind have you got?"
In medlab, Franklin walked over to the man who sat hunched by the bed that his brother lay in. Alex Rosen, unconscious, lay hooked up to life-support systems. Leo sat nearby, staring off into space.
"Mr. Rosen, you've been here eighteen hours," Franklin said, not unkindly. "Perhaps you want to go back to your quarters, get some rest?"
"I'll stay here," Leo said quietly. "He's going to be all right, I've already told you that. He lost a lot of blood, and we had to rebuild his heart, but he's going to be fine. It will take a few weeks for him to fully recuperate, but..."
"And I will be here for him," Leo said quietly. "And if you want to have security drag me away, you do that, but otherwise, this is where I am."
"I'm not going to have security drag you away, Mr. Rosen," sighed Franklin. Then he looked up and saw Rosen's ex-wife, Sheila, approaching. "He hasn't budged, ma'am," he said. "You think you could talk some sense into him?"
"I haven't been able to talk sense into him in forty-two years," she said.
Realizing that trying to continue the conversation was pointless, Franklin turned away to find other patients to attend to. Considering the fighting that had been going on throughout the station, there was certainly an abundance of those.
Sheila stood there next to Leo for a time, and finally she said, "You're going to have to talk to me, sooner or later."
He couldn't even look at her.
"Leo ... from what I understand, it wasn't just you. The whole place went crazy. It was ... it was that thing that did it, that's what everyone is saying. Look, Leo, there's a lot of things that can be laid at your doorstep, but murderer... of your own brother, yet... that's just not one of them."
"If that alien thing did do it," Leo said softly, "all it did was... was open something up in me. Something that was already there, but buried. What kind of person am I to have something like that in me, even buried?"
"Leo," she said quietly, "you've spent most of your life doing nothing but blaming other people. Now you want to spend the rest of your life doing nothing but blaming yourself? When do you stop blaming and start living, Leo? Huh? When?"
He stared at Alex for a time without answering. "They said they rebuilt his heart, Sheila. Such an amazing thing that they can do that. Rebuilding his heart." "I know."
"I wish," he said unsteadily. "I wish ... they could rebuild mine."
And he started to sob.
She stood there for a long moment, and did not hold him, but did rest a hand on his shoulder as he cried in silence.
Sheridan sat in his office, on the couch, Delenn next to him, curled up in the crook of his shoulder. "I'm sure she didn't give me all the information," he said to Delenn, regarding Dr. Trent. "She just wanted out of here, and if a little lie got her out the door, that was fine with her. Fine with both of us, really. Because, as Mr. Garibaldi has been known to say from time to time, we all lie."
She looked up at him in silent reproval. "Almost all," he amended.
She nodded, smiling, and drew closer to him. "What are we going to tell the people, John?" she asked. "When the dust settles, they will want explanations. The terrifying knowledge of what waited beyond.... Do they truly need to know all of that?"
He shook his head. "People want explanations, we give them one. We say that the device was a weapon, a mousetrap, which is true. We tell them it used a telepathic trigger and caused an outbreak of fighting. And we tell them it was finally destroyed. It's all true. And, of course," he added ruefully, "it's all a lie. Because there are times we don't need the whole truth. The Vorlons made an error thousands of years ago ... and we paid the price for it today. Why encourage anyone else to do the same? We've got more than enough trouble of our own. We don't need to inherit anyone else's mistakes."
The room seemed a little colder to him. He drew her closer, suddenly feeling as if he needed her warmth. "We got through it alive," he said, as if needing to reaffirm it for himself, "at least most of us did. That's the important thing. And this isn't the kind of problem that's likely to ever happen again."
He liked the sound of the words.
But the room still felt chilled.
In the Sanctuary, Lyta Alexander stared off into space. And in a voice that was her own, but wasn't quite, she murmured, "One mistake ... one mistake ... out of so many ... so many others ...
"... so many others ...
Peter David, Thirdspace
