Work Text:
Before
It was a truth of the universe that all things eventually must die, but Delenn grew very tired of funerals. It seemed, as she aged, that she saw more deaths than births. The latest, Susan Ivanova, had lived well into her nineties, and everyone assured Delenn this was an admirable age for a Human. At the end, her old friend had sworn with much colorful language that she was ready to be done with life. EarthForce had seemed somewhat bemused by Delenn’s insistence that her funeral be held on Minbar, but they had relented easily - Susan had been retired from their service for many years, and her tenure on Minbar had put her somewhat out of the mind of the military bureaucracy. The ceremony, per the practical instructions Susan had left, was a simple and straightforward mixture of traditions from her Human religion, a few Minbari practices that she had adopted during her time with the Rangers, and the pure pragmatism that Delenn recognized as unique to her friend. Susan had been very efficient in the settling of her affairs - everything that was hers had a destination assigned to it, and soon enough there was little left to be said or done but prayer and contemplation.
And yet, something lingered at the edge of Delenn’s mind. The words during the brief ceremony and the subsequent mourning within the anla’shok reminded Delenn of another life, finished but not yet released.
"The file says ‘indefinite hold,’" the EarthForce nurse said, her voice full of doubt. "I don’t think--"
"Simply transfer him to Minbar, please," Delenn said firmly. "He was a Ranger. He deserves to be held in honor here. It was," she added with the smoothness of a lifetime in diplomacy, "one of General Ivanova’s final requests, and as it was she who ordered the indefinite hold, you can have no reason to deny her request."
The wait was long, but in time a cargo ship brought the strange silver pod that held Marcus Cole’s worldly remains to Tuzanor, and from there it was transported to the temple where the Rangers prayed and studied and trained. The silver casket looked, to Delenn, much like those used by her own people to carry the dead - like the the one from which she’d freed her dear friend Branmer so long ago. That made the weight in her heart lighter, and her next course of action easier.
Delenn accompanied the funeral cortege into the temple, watched the priests and acolytes recite the ancient blessings, and then joined the assembled Rangers and Religious caste in prayer.
After a few hours, one of the youngest came over to her, looking worried. "The Humans say that they may revive him someday, Entil’zha. They say that he is frozen in time, that he is being held for a time in the future when his wounds may be healed. But he is dead."
"They believed that he might yet be saved," Delenn agreed. "It was done--" For what reason? Love? Pity? Shame? "Out of hope," she finished.
The young acolyte bowed, but still looked troubled. "If it is their way, it is not our place to question, but... it sits ill with me, Entil’zha. If he were one of us, I would say it is wrong to hold his soul captive this way. As he is Human..."
"It bothers me, as well," Delenn told him gently. "More than he was Human, Marcus Cole was anla’shok. He died young, and gave himself wholly to the calling of his heart. It seems...cruel to trap him like this, unable to move on, to have another chance in a new life." Staring at the silver box, she tried to picture Marcus as she had known him in life so very long ago, and found she could no longer quite remember the details of him. Her memories flashed in moments like the flickering of a candle - the way he had made jokes to hide his pain, the quick brighness of his smile and the dark smoke of hair around his face. "Life stops, but the spirit lingers, unable to pass on," she murmured. "It is as bad, almost, as the soul hunters."
"Entil’zha, forgive me, but if that is the truth--"
With an effort, she shook the thought away. "It was the will of one who cared for him that he be held like this until such time as medical technology might bring him back to full life. It cannot be undone by us now. We may only hope that Minbari physicians will have an answer for him where the Humans did not. Take care of him, and say prayers for the peace of his soul."
The young priest bowed deeply to her, and she left quickly, trying to give no sign that she was haunted by the cold grey box.
In her dreams that night, Delenn was trapped. Endless black hallways surrounded her, but she could find no door that was open. She walked and walked, finding first one, then another. She could hear voices, but whenever she called out no one answered. Just as she felt ready to give up hope, another presence joined Delenn in the darkness. She could not quite see his face, but she remembered his voice, his spirit, and the feeling of him by her side. "Branmer?" she whispered
"Do not let them make of my body a monument to war, Delenn. The flesh that remains is but an empty shell. For Dukhat - for memory of him, our greatest leader - I became a warrior. But in my blood and my soul I have always been Religious. I trust you, old friend, to do what is needed."
Delenn awoke suddenly sure of what must be done.
* * *
Cloaked in the plainest garb of the Religious caste she walked back to the temple and slipped in by a side door used for deliveries and domestic chores. No one noticed another slender figure in white and gold, her face hooded like any acolyte going about her business. No one noticed as she stole back to the contemplation room alone, and through there around again to the chamber where Marcus’ body had been left, its silver coffin quietly humming and giving off the faintest glow in the darkness. Despite herself - despite all that had passed in her long years - Delenn felt a shiver rise through her spine.
It is only Marcus, and a bit of machinery. There is nothing here to fear. But of course that was not really true. Ever since she had seen it, the box raised in her the same horror she had felt looking at the secret cache of the Soul Hunter’s captives, and the quiet rage that had stirred her blood when Neroon and the other Warriors brought their cortege to Babylon 5 so long ago, carrying Branmer’s body like a trophy.
"There is blood already on my hands," she whispered against the darkness and fear that wrapped itself around her soul. "So much that it will never wash away. One more life, this time taken in mercy, will not change the balance for the worse."
It would have been easy - perhaps even better - to just shut off the power to the machine and leave, but that would deny her own responsibility in a way. Curiosity, too, called to her. She carefully lifted the lid of the box with gloved hands, and raised a small lamp to look within.
The machine had served its purpose. Although his flesh was pale and faintly greyish, and frost stuck lightly to his beard, eyebrows, and hair, the body within the box was assuredly Marcus, exactly as Delenn had last seen him so long ago. He looked almost as if he might wake at any moment and make a joking complaint about the cold, or tease her about the indecorousness of his being unclothed before the anla’shok’na. As far as visible injury was concerned, he had appeared far closer to death on that distant afternoon when he had challenged Neroon to fight him, protecting her and allowing her to be sworn in as leader of the Rangers. He had nearly died that day, Delenn remembered. For her.
Leaning down, she brushed the hair from his forehead with a gentle hand. "I am sorry, Marcus. Sorry that this must be done, and that you have waited so long. As long as Susan lived... I think she hoped that a way would be found to revive you. In the end, she missed you very dearly."
Silence. Delenn sighed. She had prayed for guidance, and now could only hope that she was doing the right thing. He looked so young, as she leaned over him - younger by far than David had looked the last time she’d seen him home from his duties among the Rangers. On impulse, Delenn bent and kissed his cold forehead as she had done to David every night of his childhood.
"Goodnight, Marcus Cole. I will see you again - if not in the next life, then in the end, in the place where no shadows fall."
She closed the lid of the box, then, and very carefully removed a panel and inserted a bit of crystal into the wiring of the cryo-box, breaking the circuit. The soft hum of the machinery sputtered, whined for an instant, and then went silent. The glow of the box faded quickly, and Delenn slipped away into the night.
In the morning she would visit her friend’s body. They would have discovered the fault by then. There would be confusion and consternation, and she would have to walk carefully to prevent some poor acolyte from being blamed for what was clearly a malfunction of a machine that was never intended to interface with Minbari technology. No one was to blame. Perhaps it was simply the will of the universe that Marcus Cole be at last allowed to die completely, to move on and, perhaps, to be reborn into another life in the coming generation. Perhaps he would be born Minbari. In whatever case, there was no use dwelling on what had happened. The universe, after all, was full of mysteries.
* * *
Later
Silthenn stood by the riverside, her new armor a comforting weight on her shoulders and her new black gloves stiff and still somewhat awkward on her fingers. They changed her grip on her denn’bok - she would have to practice diligently for the next weeks in order to once more get used to the feeling of the weapon in her hands. Her training had prepared her, though - weeks of carrying heavy burdens and practicing bare-handed outside in the cold and the rain and the frost ensured that even when she couldn’t properly feel the staff in her hands, her hold on it hardly faltered at all. Her teachers had been very proud of her first, brief display after her initiation.
Now, the teachers sat quietly outside the training house, talking with a very old and honored woman who had come from far away to attend the initiation ceremonies. She had once been Anla’shok’na, the leader of the Rangers, and some even whispered that she was Entil’zha, the One, a figure of great legend and importance. With all of that, Silthenn had at first been eager to meet her, but when she saw the elder who arrived, she was disappointed. Only a frail old woman, cloaked in the white and gold of the religious caste. Hardly the hero out of legends that she had expected.
And yet, when it came her turn to stand before the old woman and bow in the manner of the warrior caste, fist into palm, she felt... something. A presence, greater than she would expect from so fragile a body. To her surprise, she found that strength and force of spirit had not yet abandoned the old woman, after all. Just as she began to move toward the next examiner, a thin hand snapped out of the white robes and caught her elbow. The other then touched her jaw lightly, tilting her head upward. Embarrassed, but sure of her training, Silthenn cast her eyes further down to avoid the elder’s gaze.
"No. Look up. Look at me." The woman’s voice was low, and soft as the wind through ice crystals.
Silthenn swallowed. Was this a test of some kind? Or was the old woman simply being petulant, trying to cause trouble or prove a point in some obscure way? She was religious caste, after all, and Silthenn had heard stories from the elders in her clan about their trickery and dishonorable ways. The other guests and dignitaries seated around the old woman quieted, shifting their attention nervously to her, waiting to see what would happen. Slowly, as it appeared she had no other choice, Silthenn dragged her eyes upward. The gaze she met was the pale green of grasses on the mountainside, and sharp as the stones beneath.
"What is your name, young warrior?"
"Silthenn, Honored One. Silthenn of the Star Riders."
"Star Riders?" The old woman’s eyes faded into the distance, as the eyes of elders often seemed to, and Silthenn thought she saw a little smile touch her lips. "Indeed. I had a... friend, once, long ago, who was of the Star Rider clan. A very noble and proud clan."
"Thank you, Honored One." Silthenn bowed again, awkwardly. What did the woman mean by this? Could she go now? Should she stay until she was dismissed directly, or was she already being seen as rude for standing there as long as she had, while other initiates waited their turn to bow before the old woman?
"Forgive me, Silthenn of the Star Riders," the woman continued in her low, soft voice. "I am very old, and sometimes I find myself believing for an instant that I see the faces of old friends long gone from me. Be at peace. I am sure you will bring your clan honor in whatever you do."
Silthenn bowed again, more deeply, and backed away a little before moving onward. The rest of the line of dignitaries passed in a blur of faces and voices, and she'd begun to feel that it was all too much, to want to disappear out of the crowd and find a way to slip out into the mountains for a breath of air, when a familiar voice at her elbow stopped her.
"What did she say to you?" Rathell, a few years older than Silthenn, stood with the quiet watchfulness that had first attracted her attention to him. Even when he was still, there was an intensity to Rathell that Silthenn felt sure was the reason he had gone into the anla’shok rather than into temple training or diplomacy or some other, more normal field for the Religious caste. He could be as still as stone, but there was always something about him that implied energy closely restrained. Just then, all that energy was focused on Silthenn... and she was forced to admit that she did not find it distasteful.
It was a pity, then, that he would ask about the old Religious caste woman, rather than something that might lead to a more personal conversation. Silthenn shrugged, disinterested in the event now that the dread of shame had passed her. "She said she thought for a moment that she knew me, that’s all. I reminded her of someone."
"It must have been someone special for her to pull you out of the line like that." Rathell shook his head.
"I suppose. She’s old, and the old see the past everywhere."
"You suppose?" Rathell snorted. "Silthenn, that was Delenn of Mir - Entil’zha, one of the greatest leaders the anla’shok have had since Valen, and she pulled you aside to talk to you. She did you great honor, to speak with you like that!"
"Only because she thought I was someone else, Rathenn. If I’d known you’d be so jealous, I would have suggested she talk to you instead," she teased. "You’re of her caste. I’m sure you’d have much more to discuss with her than I would. I leave the past to the capable hands of Religious scholars - my mind is bent on the future," Silthenn told her friend, reaching for the lofty, confident tone of the great warriors who had taught her.
She should have known it would not impress Rathell, now that he was off thinking of the mystical stories of the elders. He always was easily distracted by children’s tales like that. "Maybe she did recognize you," he insisted. "It’s possible, you know. Maybe you were someone important in your last life. Delenn of Mir is very old--"
"I could tell," Silthenn remarked, annoyed. This was her initiation day - the day she finally became an adult and a true warrior after all her training. How could her best friend so easily make the day instead about this old woman?
"--And she was friends with some of the greatest Minbari of the last generation," Rathenn continued, giving her a superior look. He liked the chance to show off all his education - to talk about his knowledge of history and tease her for being the younger and less knowledgeable of the two of them. "She knew everyone - Shaal Mayan, Shai Alyt Branmer, Shai Alyt Neroon, even Satai Dukhat."
"Are you trying to say you think I’m the reincarnation of Shai Alyt Neroon?" Silthenn suggested with a wry grin. She could tolerate that. Despite his conversion just before death, Neroon was one of the great heroes of recent history among the Warrior caste - the brave martyr who stood before all of Minbar and died in order to bring about the rebirth the Grey Council.
"Well, the histories say that Delenn was closer with Shaal Mayan..." Rathell gave her a speculative look.
Silthenn’s lip curled. "I’m not much of a poet."
"Not in this life, maybe..." Rathell grinned back. "Aren’t you at all excited by this, Sil? Don’t you see what it could mean?"
"That my teachers will push me even harder because they know that one of the most famous leaders the anla’shok have ever had is keeping an eye on me?"
"Cynic." Rathell pulled a teasing scowl at her. "What I mean is, it could be you’re a great soul, destined for great things."
"It could be. It could also be that I’m the reincarnation of the acolyte who made her tea every day of her life and never did a single thing of note. Or it could be just what she said - that she’s very old and lonely, and sometimes she imagines that she sees people who used to be around her all the time, but who have now passed on. It happens when people get old. My grandfather did the same thing. When he got confused, he used to call me by my mother’s sister’s name, even though she died in the holy war, almost a century before I was born."
"But aren’t you the least bit curious--"
"No, Rathell," Silthenn snapped. "I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. That life is over, now."
"And this one is just beginning, yes." Rathell grinned, his serious mood forgotten. "Maybe I was someone important back then, too. Maybe we knew each other."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well..." He looked oddly shy, suddenly, and when he continued his voice was low and a little rough. "Just think how fast we became friends, after we met. Maybe we were looking for each other."
"Religious caste and their superstitions," Silthenn snorted. "It’s just like you to defend that old woman’s delusions, and mix them up with your own."
"Even the staunchest Warriors believe that our souls are reborn in each generation. You and I... well." Rathell looked suddenly a bit embarrassed. "It’s a possibility, don’t you think?"
"Maybe." As much as she hated to admit it, he did have a point about how quickly they’d become close. She remembered the moment she met Rathell, when he came with an older ranger to the training grounds looking for potential recruits for the anla’shok - she’d thought he looked dull, so calm and steady and pious as he stood beside his teacher. They had been paired together for sparring, and she’d gone into the match scoffing to her friends about how she would show this confused little priest what a real warrior could do with a pike. He’d knocked her onto her back in less than three minutes, and to the ground again five more times before the teachers called the match completed. But she’d scrambled back to her feet each time, and at the last he'd given her a hand up, making a quiet joke for her ears alone as he helped her out of the circle.
"You see it." Rathell watched her out of the corner of his eye. "You just don’t want to admit it."
"Well, what if it’s true, then? What if we say we were known to each other in another life. That doesn’t change anything in this life."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"I’ve applied to the anla’shok. If I’m accepted, I could be sent to any of a dozen training camps on a dozen worlds. And you already are anla’shok. At any moment you could be transferred to another camp, or sent on a mission that takes you anywhere in the universe. Even beyond the rim. What good are superstition and past lives against that?"
"Very true. And spoken like a true Warrior - pragmatic and pessimistic to the end." Rathell bowed deeply to Silthenn in the way of the Religious caste, and his eyes glittered with merriment. "You’re right, of course. Only the captains of the training camps can control what initiates are sent where, and no dispensation is made for friendship. Those bonds must be broken after training, anyway. It's a good thing that your heart is steeled against these trials."
She sighed. "If all you’ll do today is mock me, I should return to the others. There are celebrations for us, rites of adulthood that--"
"Yes, yes. And I'll let you go to them."
"Fine." Silthenn turned her back on him, lifting her head high as she could and straightening her shoulders under the increasingly heavy armour.
"Not even a farewell? I thought you said that I might be ordered away, even as far as the rim, at any moment. Would you not miss me, Silthenn? Or is your new warrior’s heart too hardened now to care about the friends of your youth?"
Something in his voice stopped Silthenn, then, as much as she wanted to keep walking, stalk away from him just to prove her point. She did not turn, though. "I would miss you, yes. My heart is not yet so hard as I might wish it to be. I am young. I ask that you forgive my faults and teach me to grow beyond them if I may," she added in a dry tone, the traditional plea of the student to the teacher in moments of failing.
"Silthenn. Won’t you even ask if I know anything of your application?"
Her heart seemed to still in her chest. "My..."
"Your application to the anla’shok. Perhaps you’re too distracted by the excitement of Warrior rituals, but I had been given to understand that the calling of your heart was to join us."
"It is. Always. But I have heard no news--"
"I came today straight from my work at the training council. I sneaked a look at your file before I left. You’ve been accepted.
Blood rushed in Silthenn’s ears and hands, a feeling of greater shock and awe than she’d felt at her first victory in sparring, or earlier in the day when she received her armour from her smiling teachers. "I... Is this true?"
"I wouldn’t lie to you, Silthenn. It’s true. And one thing more. You said that there was no knowing when I would next be called on a mission, or to what training center you might be assigned. That’s... not precisely true. Not to someone who has access to the files."
"Rathell! No one is supposed to see those!"
He shrugged, looking oddly unrepentant. "No one but the captains of the training camps and their functionaries. It’s perfectly acceptable for aides of the camp to examine the files of all accepted initiates of the anla’shok, in preparation for their training. I have to know who I might be tutoring in the coming years, after all."
After such a thrill of excitement, the feeling of a fall was inevitable. "But if you are one of the captain’s aides... if you’re to tutor initiates..."
"I can’t show partiality for any initiate under my tuition, no." Rathell was just behind her, then - she was sure she could feel the heat from his body, the movement in the air as he lifted his hand and set it on her shoulder. His breath against her cheek as he leaned very close.
Overcome with uncertainty and frustration, Silthenn bit her lip, forcing herself to keep her eyes on the peak of the nearest mountain ahead of them. "Of course not. That... would be highly inappropriate."
"Quite forbidden," Rathell agreed, so close to her ear that she more felt his words than heard them. "It’s very fortunate, then, that you were selected to be trained not by me, but by a good friend of mine."
Silthenn’s breath seemed to be caught in her throat. "A friend of yours?"
"Warrior caste, even. Her name is Liress. She’s quite skilled; I’m sure you’ll learn a great deal from her."
"I... have a lot to learn..." Silthenn offered faintly. It would be pretension of the highest order for a new initiate to reply in any other way.
"Perhaps. I suppose you could say that one of the advantages of taking a position as a captain’s aide is that I will have the opportunity to see you learn those things."
"Rathell..."
"There is time, Silthenn. There is all the time in the world for us, now." His lips brushed lightly against her ear, and even in her heavy armor and full sunlight, Silthenn shivered.
"I should go back..."
"I’ll walk with you as far as the Warriors’ gathering place," Rathell agreed. "You have a lot to celebrate. You shouldn’t be wasting your initiation day out in the cold with a superstitious Ranger."
Silthenn turned to him, deadly serious again. "You know that I didn’t mean all those things I said."
Rathell waved off her protest with a laugh. "I deliberately provoked you. I love to see the fire in your eyes when you're angry."
"That fire will burn you, the next time we spar," Silthenn scoffed, lifting her chin with pride. "I'm a qualified warrior, now. If I can’t drop you onto your back now, priest, my teachers will die of shame." Even as she spoke, fire of a very different sort kindled in her heart, and she wished devoutly that they might slip away further into the hills, perhaps, and go unmissed for hours yet.
"We shall see," Rathenn replied coolly, but his smile warmed the words, and he bent slightly, caught up her left hand, and laid it over his heart before resting his own hand squarely on her sternum. Silthenn lowered her face, embarrassed - no doubt he could feel how quickly her heart was beating - until she noticed that his beat no more slowly. For too short a time they stood there on the rocky field outside the Warrriors’ compound, just enjoying each others’ presence and touch, until, regretfully, Silthenn dropped her hand back to her side. Rathell nodded, did likewise, and they walked in silence back to the compound, where Rathell bowed deeply before leaving her to her caste’s celebrations.
* * *
As he walked down the path toward the lights of the city center, Rathell heard the crunch of light feet on gravel behind him. Silthenn, having changed her mind and following him? No, she would have called out. A rival for her affection, then, perhaps? A proud young warrior might well not take kindly to the idea of being pre-empted in courtship by a member of the Religious caste, even one of the anla’shok. Without betraying that he was aware of the presence behind him, Rathell slipped his denn’bok into his right hand, hiding it within his sleeve, and paused as if to enjoy the view from a little outcropping that also happened to afford him the high ground should he come under attack. Then, quick as a thought, he whirled on the source of the sound, extending his pike as he moved, until the end of it rested a scant breath from the jaw of--
The cloaked figure of Delenn of Mir, her hood fallen from her face as she stepped back to evade his strike.
Rathell dropped the pike immediately and bowed deeply, his eyes pinned to the ground. "Forgive me, Entil’zha! I heard footsteps - I would not have landed the blow unless I was attacked in return. I had no idea--"
To his surprise, the aged woman smiled. "A Ranger must always be on guard. Your training does you credit. And your name?"
"Rathell. Of the Fifth Fane of Alas’char, Entil’zha." He bowed again.
"A noble house, to which I’m sure you will do great honor," Delenn said, answering his bow with the casual inclination that was her right by age and reputation.
"Thank you, Entil’zha. I did not expect to see you out here so late. Darkness will fall in but a few hours, and it is cold in the mountains..." He trailed off. Of course she knew it was cold, she had grown up on Minbar just as he had, and probably seen five times as many winters.
"I am not yet so old that I don’t enjoy a quiet walk in the hills before sunset," she chided him gently. "And I spent many of my long years away from our world. I find now that I have returned home that I love the hills and mountains of it more than I could ever have imagined when I was young. They are one of the few things in life that have not changed in all the time I have been here and away. But that is not why I tried to meet you. Look up at me, Rathell of Alas’char. Let me see your eyes."
Rathell lifted his eyes slowly - he had heard before that the Entil’zha had picked up the Human preference for direct eye contact, but he had never imagined it might be demanded of him, and it was a struggle going against long years of training. He managed it, however, and met eyes the coolly examined his, then crinkled around the edges with fond amusement.
"I thought so. I had hoped, for so long..." She trailed off, touching his cheek with a papery-dry hand, then pulled away as though pulled unexpectedly from a memory.
"Earlier, you honored another, a friend of mine..." Rathell faltered in his eagerness, swallowed, and started again. "Silthenn of the Star Riders. You spoke with her earlier, and told her that you had thought when you first saw her that you knew her, that she reminded you of an old friend."
"Yes. A very old friend."
"Tell me--" he began, but Delenn stopped him with the gesture of a hand.
"That is an old tale," she told him gently, "and a sad one. It would be better for you, Rathell of Alas’char, and for your friend, to forget about these stories. Live, and be happy. Let the past stay in the past."
Rathell bowed a third time to Delenn, and watched after her as she walked away from him into the darkening hills. He was tempted briefly to run back, ask admittance to the Warriors’ compound even if the interruption earned him the ire of the whole caste, to tell Silthenn what the old woman had told him. Or perhaps, more wisely, simply to be with her. To tease her, maybe make her angry, maybe make her laugh, and always to look into her eyes and feel the calling of his heart. Then, his head full of the thought of many days to come, he continued his quiet walk back to the city. Delenn was right - the past was best left in the past... and a compound full of Warriors in the midst of a great celebration was best left unangered. In a few days, Silthenn would receive her official summons to the Ranger training camp. In a few days, they would be together as much as they liked. In a few days... He sighed. In a few days, what he hoped would be the next step on the path of their lives together would begin.
This time, it would be a good one. He would make sure of it.
* * *
Long Ago
"Have any big plans, now that we should be back on the station for a few days?" Marcus asked as he and Susan departed the White Star.
Susan could see the invitation coming already - he always tried something, it seemed, after they’d been out on a long patrol. "Paperwork, sleep and quiet," she replied firmly. "Not necessarily in that order," she added, feeling oddly compelled to soften her previous words in some way.
"All worthy pursuits, apart from the paperwork. What about food?"
The thought of food other than pressed nutrient bars made her stomach turn over on itself with the eager anticipation of a puppy showing off a new trick. "Maybe I’ll eat while I’m doing paperwork," she admitted, frowning slightly. She hated to give him an opening.
"Bad for the digestion," Marcus remarked. "A contact of mine tells me that a new Cajun-style Centauri grill just opened. I can't resist a mad combination of cuisines, and it's bound at least to be interesting. Why don't we try it?"
"Marcus--"
"You can go over the reports and briefings there, if you like. Or I'm sure I could convince them to do take-away for you. Although," he added, glancing both ways and stepping closer to prevent anyone overhearing. "I've heard from the same contact that the owner of this place might be running black market goods--"
"Them and everyone on the station who's still eating." Susan snorted.
"And not just edibles," Marcus finished. "I could look into it on my own, of course, but since you're in charge of dealing with contraband on the station, I thought you might want to be involved."
Susan sighed. "What kind of illegal items are we talking about? Weapons, drugs, what?"
"No weapons, and my contact didn't mention drugs. Though I've smelled the spices they use walking by, and I'm fairly certain Stephen could write them up for some kind of chemical warfare, based off that. Sounds like they might have access to equipment, though, along with food supplies, and I know the station is in pretty desperate need of both. If you and I were to stop by, have a little chat with him..."
Susan seemed to consider this for a moment, then shook her head. "I've got a lot of work to do, Marcus. Black market spices and kitchen parts really aren't a priority right now. Maybe another time--" Her link chimed. "It never stops," she muttered, rolling her eyes at the intrusive little piece of technology on the back of her hand. "Another damned life, more like. I’m sorry, Marcus, I just don’t have the time."
"Some other time, then," Marcus agreed firmly. She waved vaguely at him as she walked away, already arguing with whoever was on the other end of the link. "I’ll look for you," Marcus told the straight line of her back as she disappeared into the crowd. "A thousand lives, until the stars burn out, until I get it right. I’ll look for you, and make sure you’re not alone."