(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.)

She seemed always to be there, unremarkable in appearance and manner. Her arrival on the station had been the same as countless others, a blur of faces and numbers, a motion, a verification, then a merging with the masses.

Her life was one of unappreciated service, of kindnesses done and never returned. She took on menial labor because the doing of it was necessary, was a benefit to the whole, yet no one noticed her efforts or thanked her.

She acted as part of the housekeeping detail for the command staff. She spent extra effort on their quarters, cleaning and dusting, freshening the air with citrus oil, ensuring that order and comfort greeted the quarters' owners when they returned.

She visited the garden area, and spent some of her free time weeding and gently tilling the soil, and spot-watering the precious plants.

Several times each day she would haunt the fruit stand on the Zocalo to ask after the supply of rare Minbari flowers or succulent fruit. Sometimes she could manage enough credits to purchase one or two items, and those were then given to children in the free clinics in Down Below. So persistent were her daily efforts that the fruit vendor kept a supply of the rarities on hand, which delighted the Minbari on the station.

Much of her meager income she gave to pay for medical care for the indigent. She gave up her place in line for inoculations, for water allotments, for hot meals, to those who needed all those things sooner, or in greater measure.

She did not ask for thanks, or recognition, or remembrance. She received none.

The day she died, it was no different. She had gone to one of the poorest areas of Down Below, and had given her meal, wrapped in a bit of paper, to the first hungry children she had seen. When three male humans had sidled after her, and then blocked her way, she gave them all the valuables she had, her few credits, her metal hair clip, even her tiny religious medal strung on a wisp of black thread.

And then they asked her for her life, as a diversion, a release from their boredom, and she gave that too, as willingly as she had given all other things. Her blood drained out gracefully, quietly. Her last conscious act was to crawl to the side of the corridor, so as not to block the way of those who needed to pass.

None praised her in life, and now no one mourned her passing. Death in Down Below was not unusual, and Franklin's examinations showed nothing more than a routine stabbing. Cause of death noted, next case. Garibaldi and Sheridan saw her, but only as one more crime statistic, one less worker, less oxygen consumed, less water to be reclaimed. Garibaldi's quarters were not as pristine, the air not as crisp, the placement of beloved items no longer just so, but he could not name the reason. Weeds seemed to invade Ivanova's little coffee plot, weeds that never seemed to grow before, and the soil seemed drier and more compact, but Ivanova made a note to ask about irrigation schedules and thought no more about it. The fruit stand in the Zocalo no longer received thrice-daily inquiries about certain Minbari fruits and flowers, and in the absence of the inquiries, stopped making the effort to obtain the items.

In the end, as fulfillment of station procedure and protocol, her body was placed in a small casket fashioned from recycled metals and bits of casing, and launched toward the sun. She left the station as quietly as she had arrived.

And they saw, and watched. The ones who were called the First Ones, they who could trace back from the dead flesh to the story of her life, they saw, and witnessed the story, and, in their way, wept.

In the moments of her journey to the sun, the First Ones were decided. She who had worked tirelessly to help others, she who had lived and died unloved and unremarked, had obtained for the younger races, the ones from Earth and elsewhere, one last gift. The First Ones would give their help when the time came.

It would have pleased her, if she could have known, and understood. The Universe knew, and in its own way, understood. And watched, as a momentary flowering of flame at the sun's edge was all that marked her final passing.

She was gone...the one who had taught the First Ones to weep, the one who, in her way, had moved Heaven.

© 1997 Cathy Faye Rudolph