Chapter Text
"To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness will find banks full of roses under my cypresses." – Friedrich Nietzsche
"You're right, the Talia I knew is dead." Commander Susan Ivanova turned on her heel and stalked away. Even though the door slid closed behind her, she could swear the Alternate Personality's mocking laugher was following her down the corridor. She maintained her furious pace for a few moments, and then abruptly stopped.
No, she couldn't go back to her quarters. They would still be filled with memories of last night. Sights, sounds, Talia's smell... she couldn't face that yet.
The night before had redefined love, reconnecting her with the deepest parts of herself that no one had touched since her mother. Their minds merged as they'd made love, and Susan had reached out with her own latent abilities to bridge the final distance between them, unable to resist the desperate need to touch and be touched. For once in her life she had lowered her defenses completely, and had let Talia all the way in. Talia's surprise at her abilities had melted quickly into joy as she showed Susan how complete a true connection could be. It was the most profoundly intense fulfillment she had ever experienced.
Susan had awoken a short time later. Talia was still deeply asleep, the telepath's warmth draped across her. She hadn't realized before how hollow and one-dimensional her other relationships had been, all lacking that mental element that she subconsciously had always been searching for. Her mother's voice echoed through her mind. Tell no one. She felt suffocated suddenly, realizing what she had done, betraying her mother and revealing herself.
I’m sorry, Mama. She needed to get away, to think without the distraction of Talia's body next to hers, and the telepath's mind so tantalizingly close. She could reach out with her mind right now, just one caress to wake her... No! Slipping very carefully out from under the telepath, she dressed quietly and left her quarters. She had roamed aimlessly through the areas of Blue sector that she knew would be the emptiest, trying to come to terms with the conflicting loyalties of love and guilt. Because I do love her… Oh Mama, what do I do now?
And now after the activation of the alternate personality, Ivanova was wandering again. In less than twenty four hours her world had been turned upside down twice. Once in the finding, and then again in the losing. She headed towards the Zocalo, walking slower now, although she was no less agitated. Since the initial horror of that scene in Sheridan's office, she had been consumed by an entirely too-familiar agony. It was her mother's death all over. Yet again Psi-Corps, those bastards, had destroyed someone she loved.
But the Zocalo was too noisy and too crowded for her fragile nerves. She needed someplace where she could be completely alone. With some vague idea of taking her starfury out, she headed for the flight bays, lost in a fog of misery.
The fog broke when she found herself in Bay 13 staring at the subtly shifting patterns of Kosh's ship. Not surprisingly, no one else was in the bay. Ivanova was the only person on board the station that wasn't frightened away by it, and she sometimes came here to watch the hypnotic motions on its skin. What others found disturbing, she found beautiful and soothing. And if ever she needed a calming influence, it was now. She climbed up an access ladder to her favorite spot on one of the overhead catwalks and meditatively gazed down upon the ship. Always before she had let her mind go blank, but Talia had taught her a different awareness last night. Cautiously she opened her mind to the ship's psychic whispers.
At first there was nothing. Her thoughts were muddled and chaotic, and she struggled to focus, staring at the ship's ever-changing patterns to try and calm her mind. Gradually, the flowing designs entered and filled her thoughts, and she let everything else in her mind slide to one side, while her breathing calmed and her heartbeat slowed. She floated there for a long time before taking out her memories of the last day and looking at them dispassionately. She played them back and forth like a recording, her eidetic memory recalling every moment with perfect clarity, visiting and revisiting her every sense and interaction with Talia from the moment the telepath had surprised her with a kiss that ignited long-smoldering desires, to the point that Lyta Alexander had sent the password, right up to her last words to the Alternate Personality.
Briefly she felt a faint pull at the back of her mind. Something about the conversation with the Alternate Personality bothered her. One night of passion wasn't a lifelong commitment, but surely she and Talia were more than "good and dear friends." And Talia knew about her secret telepathic abilities, although the telepath hadn't spoken of them the next day. So why didn't the Alternate Personality know? The cold and twisted persona that the Psi-Corps had created would surely have enjoyed taunting her with that bit of knowledge and its implicit threat.
The mental hum from the ship intensified, and she felt the tug again, much stronger now. She concentrated on it, stretching her latent abilities to the utmost, trying to discover its source. It wasn't coming from the ship, but it was familiar. Its gentle golden warmth reminded her of Talia. The real Talia.
Ivanova followed that slender awareness back to older memories. Arguments, brief truces, polite if strained conversations; the whole of her uneven acquaintance with the telepath flowed forwards and backwards through her mind. Again the insistent pull came, and suddenly she remembered something Garibaldi had reported last year about Talia and Kosh. The Vorlon had recorded part or all of Talia's personality onto a data crystal. "Reflection, surprise, terror. For the future." What had that meant really? She rolled the thought around, trying to make sense of it.
Could the information on the data crystal overcome the artificial personality? She had no clue how to use it, but it was the only option that she could think of at the moment. Maybe a really strong telepath could help, but the only telepath that she knew on station was Lyta Alexander, and there was no way that she would seek help from that quarter, even if Lyta had been strong enough.
Lost in her musing, Ivanova was startled when a cascade of alien images from the sentient vessel surged through her mind. They were mostly incomprehensible, and she struggled to understand them, confused by their alienness. Only two stood out. A tall stand of some sort, shaped and patterned in a manner that could only be Vorlon, surrounded by billowing of white gas. She couldn't see the floor or the rest of the room, but the clouds parted briefly and she caught the faint gleam of a data crystal resting in it. As she strained to see more, the image shifted again. A group of Minbari stood silent and unmoving on a desolate plateau, their long white robes swirling in the wind. Although they wore no distinguishing mark, somehow she knew they were telepaths.
The images stopped as abruptly as they had begun, leaving her momentarily off balance. Wait, Minbari telepaths? The Minbari had them, she knew; Delenn had arranged for them to accept Alisa Beldon. If they could help, would they? What was her alternative? Give up now and lose Talia. Could she face that? A bolt of pain shot through her at the thought and anguish echoed through the warm connection at the back of her mind.
She would just have to proceed as if the Minbari could and would help, she decided. And she'd better have the crystal before she talked to Ambassador Delenn. The image had been of Kosh's quarters, she was sure. Is showing me the same as permission? But she couldn't risk Kosh saying no, so she'd have to break into his quarters. If Delenn would help Talia, maybe she'd give Ivanova asylum too.
"So how do I do it?" Ivanova jumped slightly at the sound of own voice, not realizing that she’d spoken aloud. She directed the question at the ship mentally, trying to reestablish the fleeting link she’d just shared with it.
Only silence from the ship. The patterns had resumed their faint motion, once again oblivious to her.
Ivanova stood and began to pace back and forth on the catwalk. "How?" she repeated to herself. It wasn’t just getting the crystal and convincing Delenn, there was finding and stealing a ship, evading Earth Force and the Psi-Corps, getting Talia off Babylon 5 without the Alternate Personality frying her brain; the list was endless. Like chess pieces, she moved various ideas around trying to create a coherent plan. The level detail necessary was overwhelming. But there was that itch again, that gentle tug at the back of her mind. Focus. She couldn't let Talia down.
She stopped pacing, her mind made up. The chances were remote at best but she had to take them. She'd never be able to live with herself if she didn't try. No matter the consequences — Psi-Corps would not take from her yet another person she cared about.
Not without a fight.