(Babylon 5 and its characters were created by J. Michael Straczynski, and belong to Joe and Warner Bros., and are used without permission. The rest belongs to Cathy Faye Rudolph. Please do not repost.)

God didn't look like anything like he'd imagined. No halo of light, no flowing mane of beard. He'd heard that God would speak in one's own voice, just like the small voice of conscience. But no, God did not have an English accent.

God sounded -- and looked -- like an angry Stephen Franklin.

...

Stephen Franklin shouted a barrage of orders at his staff. He checked Marcus for pupil response, then pulled free Marcus' connection to the lifegiver machine, and angrily sent the small wheeled stand on which Marcus was perched skidding across to the far wall.

Lillian Hobbs and two medtechs caught Marcus' body as he began to fall from the stand, and the three of them muscled Marcus onto a gurney and out of the way of the team Franklin was assembling to attend to Susan Ivanova. Franklin had stripped the last of the cabling from Susan's arm, and replaced the lifegiver tethers with diagnostic strips. Enormous trauma was indicated in every display. The audible warnings ceased one by one as Franklin activated numerous life support systems, the last squeal dying away as the artificial respirator came online.

A single coherent thought passed within Marcus' grasp.

"At least she's alive."

Marcus caught hold of the thought, and it swam down into murky depths, towing Marcus into unconsciousness.

...

The continuous blur finally resolved itself enough for Marcus to notice that there were gaps in his perception of the activity around him. He realized that he was being kept sedated, the idea first coming to him as a isolated thought dancing on the surface of his awareness. Marcus acknowledged the thought, but its significance eluded him. Then more time and consciousness escaped, and the cycle would begin again.

He noticed it first as a minor key in the background hum in Medlab, the music in the everyday sounds of doctors and technicians and vital equipment. There was a tense hush, an ominous urgency that lent a sharp edge to the little he could see. The lights were dimmed in the isolab, and there was no great inward spill of light from the corridor outside. There were no doctors or techs in the corridor, no chatting, no rushing or clatter to herald an emergency.

His limbs were like lead, heavy and uncooperative. Breathing was a task in itself; movement seemed like a goal for another lifetime. Marcus tried to summon what little strength and will he still possessed and managed to move his arm slightly, ever so slightly.

But enough.

The footsteps surfaced from the symphony in that maddening minor key.

Marcus knew the silhouette, knew the man framed in the weak light from the corridor. Franklin stood in the doorway, then without words examined the monitor leads from Marcus' arm and the readings on the status panels. He turned to leave.

"Susan." Marcus choked her name out, and the sound that hung on the air was barely recognizable.

But it was enough.

Franklin stopped, but did not turn back. There was an eternity of silence, then "She's alive."

Marcus' plea consisted of one word, scratchy and just audible from parched lips.

"See."

...

She lay so still, so pale, and for all that, still so beautiful. Franklin had wheeled his bed out from the iso-unit and through MedLab, stopping at the window of the unit closest to Franklin's office. A softer, almost golden light spilled through the glass. Franklin elevated the headrest of Marcus' bed, so that he could see Susan through the window. The blinking lights of the monitors were reflected in the glass, as was a sad-faced Franklin and next to him a bed-ridden wizened patient with water-gray eyes.

Marcus saw a single tear course down the cheek of the reflected Franklin.

"She's fairly stable." Franklin's voice was distant and clinical. "Most of her physical injuries have healed." Franklin rested his hand against the glass, as if to touch Susan somehow. "But she's not conscious. I can't find a physical cause. There's some neural activity, but..." Franklin's voice broke, and it was a full minute before he continued. "We keep talking to her, hoping it might help, that it might reach her somehow."

She had been willing to give her life for the cause, Marcus thought. Perhaps John's voice...his words of encouragement...might pull her back to consciousness. He worked to rasp out "Sheridan."

Franklin continued to stare at Susan Ivanova.

Marcus pushed the name out again, more forcefully.

Franklin rested his forehead on the window. His breath fogged the glass slightly.

"Sheridan is dead."

...

A technician entered to log the readouts on Susan's monitors in the iso-unit, then looked at Franklin through the window for any indication of further instruction. Franklin shook his head in a single tight motion of dismissal. Franklin turned his face slightly in Marcus' direction, but did not meet his eyes. Sadness seemed to wash over him, then Stephen Franklin turned back to look at Susan.

"The Agamemnon rammed an orbital defense platform that Clark was going to use in a suicide strategy against Earth. The Agamemnon couldn't fire, it was heavily damaged.....and there weren't any more ships to help." Franklin's left hand was a tight fist against the glass. "Sheridan gave the order to ram the platform. The platform exploded...and took the Agamemnon with it." Franklin deliberately stood back from the window, and looked at his bloodless fist as if for the first time. He uncurled the fingers one at a time, composing himself before continuing.

"Delenn watched the Agamemnon explode. Then the Apollo jumped in. It broadcast an ultimatum about defending the Earth against all comers and demanding that the fleet leave immediately. A single Earthforce ship facing the Army of Light and the non-aligned worlds.....a single ship floating in the debris field left by the Agamemnon... a ship representing a planet of ungrateful, unworthy people." Franklin's voice dropped to a whisper. "Delenn gave the order to withdraw, to return home. The fleet turned and left Earth to itself."

Franklin looked directly at Marcus with empty eyes. "Earth fell to the Drakh two weeks ago. The Drakh must have been waiting for a chance, an opening. The defense platforms were gone, and those forces that had not been subverted by Clark and the Shadows didn't have the resources or the time to marshall a resistance. The groups still on Mars sent out frantic calls for help to the Minbari and the non-aligned worlds."

Franklin swallowed convulsively. His mouth moved, but no sounds came out, just an anguished gasp of pain. The words finally came.

"The last message....'help us'.....it was the last we heard before Mars was destroyed."

The memories of the worlds destroyed by the Shadow and Vorlon planet killers were all too clear in Marcus' mind. His eyes begged Franklin to take it back, to be wrong, to tell him that it hadn't happened.

Franklin gritted his teeth, wincing as if in pain. "Some of our people had left, had managed to get out in time and come back here. The Mars Resistance didn't--" he choked on the remainder of the sentence. Marcus could see him fighting for control, struggling to continue. "They didn't have a chance. All life on Mars was dead in four hours. Now there's nothing left but fragments...just pieces of a dead world."

The realization came suddenly to Marcus--the Drakh must be planning to attack the station--and he knew that most of the personnel and residents of Babylon 5 would have been evacuated to Epsilon 3. That would explain the eerie quiet, set with the harmonics of tension. There must be a skeleton crew on the station now, just enough to keep Babylon 5 in operation as a logistical center and operations base...for as long as they could hold it against the advancing Shadow ally.

Marcus looked again at Susan, still lying at peace in the iso-unit. He suddenly could see in her face a lost and broken look, and with a start watched as Delenn's reflection grew in the glass. The Entil'zha had the hopeless eyes of someone who could not bear to see more sadness and the careless air of one who was already dead. Lennier was at her side, but he looked through rather than at Marcus.

Franklin greeted her fondly while obviously studying her face for some trace of vitality. He found no animation of hope in her countenance, just the barest presence of self. Lennier did not touch her, but Marcus got the distinct impression of Lennier supporting Delenn and that without that support she would perhaps become insubstantial and disperse on the slightest breeze. There was no musical lilt in her voice; instead, her monotone phrases tread heavily on the air.

"We have brought the fleet from Minbar, and the other races should be arriving within the next 3 hours."

Franklin took her hands, squeezed them gently, and whispered his thanks. He started to ask after her well-being, but Lennier caught his eye, and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Franklin pursed his lips, and said nothing. Delenn, oblivious to their exchange, looked past Franklin and at Susan Ivanova in the iso-unit.

"She lives, Stephen." It didn't come out as a question, more like an observation.

"Yes, Delenn, but she is still...unconscious."

Marcus could not know what Delenn was thinking as she watched Susan through the glass. Perhaps she was remembering Sheridan and the times he'd spoken of Susan. Or maybe the times Delenn had spoken to Susan, seeking her counsel about things female and human. He was not prepared when Delenn turned suddenly and looked into his eyes.

The title came out slurred and almost beyond his capability to utter. "Entil'zha."

What he saw on her face -- hopelessness, grief, a very personal and deep terror -- was what he himself had felt, what had spurred him to forsake his post, his sworn Ranger duties, and rush to Babylon 5 to use the lifegiver machine. Marcus knew who Delenn saw before her: she saw someone who had taken away one ship from the battle, the ship that might have saved Sheridan. She saw someone who valued his personal comfort more than the pledge of honor and fealty to the cause. She saw someone who overruled Susan Ivanova's last brave act and its consequences because he was not strong enough to appreciate her sacrifice.

"You live, Marcus."

Her look did not condemn him for his egotism, for the arrogance of his decision. Her eyes were devoid of any sign of judgement or emotion. She was trying to continue her life without Sheridan. She was trying to do what he himself had refused to attempt. Marcus tried to tell himself that she would have done the same, that Delenn would have overridden Sheridan's wishes and sacrificed herself if she had had the chance.

He tried to convince himself of that. Tried, and failed.

Lennier led her away, his guiding hand at her elbow, and Franklin trailed the pair, out of Marcus' field of vision. He saw their ghostly reflections on the glass and heard them discussing the transfer of essential medical supplies to Epsilon 3. Marcus closed his eyes, knowing it would not block out the accusations he felt, that he himself made.

The discussion of supplies ended, and Marcus heard footsteps returning. Three people, by the sound of it. Marcus didn't open his eyes. He didn't think he could face Delenn again.

"Any luck, Stephen?"

Marcus' eyes flew open. Incongruously, the speaker wore a Captain's bar on the Army of Light uniform, but the voice could not be mistaken.

Stephen Franklin shook his head sadly in response to Michael Garibaldi's question.

"No. No, I'm sorry. Her physical injuries are healed, for the most part, but..." Franklin's eyes slid past Garibaldi to the person peering in at Susan. The redhead turned, as if in response to a question. Lyta looked weary, and much thinner than Marcus had remembered.

Garibaldi sighed, and knit his eyebrows together at Franklin's surprise at seeing Lyta. "The Gaim home world is under Drakh blockade. It took five of the White Stars, but we got her out. I think Lyta is our best chance to bring Susan out of this."

Lyta seemed to already know what was being asked of her. There was a resigned air about her and yet Marcus could see her natural reluctance to invade someone's mind, especially someone who abhorred and resented the Corps in all its manifestations. Marcus struggled to persuade her, investing himself in a flood of emotions that he hoped somehow she could sense.

"Please." It was the only spoken word he could manage.

...

Lyta had gone in alone. She'd handed her gloves to Franklin, and after an encouraging nod from Garibaldi, Lyta had entered the iso-unit and stood near Susan Ivanova's bed. Lyta took Susan's hand, limp and white, in hers and closed her own eyes in concentration. A shudder passed over her slender body, and she squeezed her eyes tightly. Her breath came in gasps, and with a sobbing scream Lyta released Susan's hand and backed away from the bed. Garibaldi and Franklin ushered Lyta out of the iso-unit, Franklin grabbing a hand-held monitor on the way out and using it to monitor Lyta's vital signs while Garibaldi kept telling her that it was over, she was safe, she wasn't in Susan's mind anymore.

Tears welled out from under Lyta's eyelashes. Garibaldi and Franklin traded glances, Franklin indicating that Lyta hadn't suffered any physical damage. Stephen Franklin set the hand-held aside, and reluctantly put the question to her.

"Did you...make contact with Susan?"

Lyta didn't address her answer to Franklin, or Garibaldi. With pity in her voice, and her mascara flooded in rings under her eyes, she whispered as she looked at Marcus.

"Susan isn't there."

Garibaldi's shoulders slumped, and Franklin looked back at the silent form in the iso-unit.

"What's there isn't even a personality. There are....fragments, like screams echoing in an empty room. Like...desperation and fear, concentrated in one small space." Lyta's eyes became unfocused, and she began to speak more quickly, haunted as the psi images played back in her mind. "I think Susan's personality lost the link to the outside, and when the lifegiver machine brought her back, the link never got made again. She was trapped...somewhere, no sensation, no contact, no certainty that she had ever existed. I think she tried, really tried to hold on, but....."

Lyta's voice trailed into silence. Marcus spoke her name--"Susan"--as tears coursed down his cheeks.

...

The last of the salvageable equipment was gone, shipped out on the shuttles. The last of the medical and support personnel were gone, off to the fleet or to the masses huddled in the caves and galleries of Epsilon 3. All that remained were companioned beds, an equipment cart, and the two who were about to die.

It was a mark of the rightness of the decision, Marcus thought, that neither Franklin nor Garibaldi had protested. He bade them goodbye partly as apology, partly as thanks. Franklin had attached one end of the lifegiver cables to Marcus and Susan, and the other cable to a sort of energy sink. When Marcus made the final connection, the last of their energies would drain away. "Susan will be free, finally free," Marcus thought, "and so will I."

Franklin had left the switch at Marcus' hand, and with a last look of farewell, left Medlab. The minutes counted away on the timer taped to the side of the cart. Marcus knew the shuttle would be away now, Franklin turned from the window, knowing that he'd helped end two lives.

It took Marcus long minutes to position his thumb above the switch, an eternity to move only millimeters. He drew upon all his courage, and strength, and finally, his love for Susan Ivanova to press down on the levered button. The pressure on the switch was pathetically light, scarcely anything at all.

But it was enough.

Greater Love © 1997 Cathy Faye Rudolph