Chapter Text
"They say he's dead. Why rescue a dead man?"
The line is flat but Lyta feels the weight of it. It's heavy and uncomfortable, rests awkwardly in the room between them.
The nursery rhymes deaden the sound of Susan's thoughts but the pulse of anger is there. A bloom of color under the skin, whether Lyta wills it or not. It's just-- there, the energy of the emotion spinning up, meeting resistance, and dissipating with conversation.
She sees it in everyone lately. She's not sure when it started, but she's not found a way to control it yet. Sees it in Susan most often. That anger is acute and immediate every time they lock eyes, like an electric shock moving from belly to heart. There one moment, bitten back the next, caught in clenched teeth.
Lyta feels the visceral urge to shy from it. Makes herself smaller in Susan's presence, head down, posture low.
There is an animal volatility to the commander's energy, spurred by drink and by grief, and she's beginning to realize that it might be best to remove herself from the situation entirely.
So, of course, that's when Susan catches her with a look, more pointed than usual.
The question is there, forming.
Lyta doesn't have to wonder which one.
"Any chance you were ever this concerned about Ms. Winters?" Susan asks her finally.
Lyta doesn't flinch, but something inside her does. It makes her hesitate a beat too long, and longer, reaching for words she knows better than to say.
In the end, "You don't-- really have any right to ask me that," is the nicest thing that comes to mind.
Susan's brows arch; she wasn't expecting that. "I don't?"
Lyta shakes her head. Finds it in herself to look up again. "I probably knew her better than you did."
"Better how?"
"Does that matter?"
"I'd say it does."
Lyta catches the hesitance; sees the vibrance in Susan's skin cool and shift. It's an advantage she moves to press: "Why?"
Susan doesn't speak. She gives Lyta a look that would've been baleful with just a little less restraint in play.
"Speaking of questions you have no right to ask," Susan says mildly.
Lyta shrugs, looking down at her own hands. "If that's where we're at," she says, as gently as she can, "then it sort of seems to me like it's not a conversation we should be having right now."
"Maybe not now," Susan replies, getting to her feet, commlink - and drink - in hand, "but we will. Eventually."
Lyta gets up as well. Feels the weight of the commander's gaze on her; thinks maybe she even senses something like intention behind it. Mindfully, she holds herself back from acknowledging it at all, and leaves, instead, with as gracious a goodbye as she can muster.
Of course, they'd reach Z'Ha'Dum, and find nothing. Of course, it'd give her the headache to end all headaches.
And of course, Susan refuses look at her when they resume course for home.
It's for the better, Lyta thinks. She doesn't know what she'd say.
They'd all held out hope for a Hail Mary. Them, for the man; her, for what the man might contain.
The cold sweat she'd built pushing back the razor-wire scrape, the sound and fury of the planet's sensor array still lingers, heightened by the knowledge of what's waiting for her back at the station. Brings on a dizzy spell that sees her ushered off the bridge, and into sleeping quarters.
Delenn's doing, of course. Ever observant; ever determined to turn her anxieties to little acts of service.
Even now, the enormity of her grief vast enough to create the impression of a third looming presence in the room, she still has enough energy left in her to note, "You didn't say what you heard."
Lyta tries to smile. She knows she doesn't sell it well-- so she doesn't bother trying to deflect. "A man I knew, sort of," she says. "I'm not sure it'd make sense to you."
"You looked at this man like a father?"
"Whatever that was out there sure seemed to think so."
"That doesn't sound very persuasive," Delenn says.
"The only voice that would've been is the one they can't mimic," Lyta says.
Delenn doesn't have to ask who, regarding Lyta with a quiet, thoughtful look instead.
"You don't know what it was?" she asks.
Lyta shakes her head. "No," she says. "But the ambassador might."
Delenn looks at her for several long moments. She weighs those words, and how to respond. And in moments there is a visible flush of frustration that needs no color coding to come through in her expression.
In the end, she doesn't ask whatever it is she wants to ask. She instead takes Lyta's hand, and offers it a light squeeze.
It always feels like too much when Delenn does that. The ambassador is well aware of how touch amplifies thought, and uses it with intention, flooding Lyta's senses with a knowing warmth that makes her eyes sting just enough to warrant closing them.
"I'd like a chance to speak to you later," Delenn says, "when you're feeling better."
"You know where to find me," Lyta replies.
A which point Delenn leaves her to her own mourning, searching quietly for the song Kosh left inside her.
Anything to get her ready for her inevitable return to Ulkesh.
Ulkesh's survey of her memory that week pays only some attention to her trip to Z'Ha'Dum.
It focuses on much the same things she did. Looks past the fabric of physical space not to the Psi Corps' Cadre Prime propaganda she'd heard call to her, but the real telepathic signal the sensor array produced: the warring staccato notes of insect singing.
With the droning there forms a picture. She still isn't entirely sure what it is, what it's meant to represent. It's like the space around the planet is crowded with slick black filaments arcing between the backdrop of stars. It reminds her of a network of highways and skyways, surrounding a distant city of vast cathedrals.
She wonders passingly if that's what she's looking at. A living city, turning its head to shine eyes like countless glittering floodlights on unwanted guests.
But even as the thought crosses her mind, it's gone-- no explanations.
She resists the urge to think about what Kosh might have told her. How it might have explained what it was she'd been sent out to the planet to see. But she wanders there, anyway, as she inevitably does when Ulkesh pages through her head like this.
It's then it chooses to project, "The commander," into her thoughts, catching her off-guard. "Her approval. This matters to you?"
She wants to kick herself.
It's humiliating, getting suckered into that bait-and-switch again. Seems like it does this every time; waits until she's steeped in her thoughts, then hits her with a question designed to put her off-balance.
"I can't operate on this station without it," she says, seeing no reason to flinch from the question.
She feels its amusement in answer. "Deflection," it chides her. Then, with far less amusement, "She drives you to distraction."
She can't help but feel a little annoyed by that. "It matters if she hates me," she says.
"Then be content to earn her ambivalence," it says, that faint amusement returning again-- and again, there is a downshift, "and don't waste our time."
It dismisses her on that note, leaving her to stew over that word.
'Our.'
'Our' time. 'Our' living space. 'Our' body. Not hers. It makes that clear to her when she makes a laughable bid for respect.
Reminds her, in no uncertain terms - as it rips its way through her memory and nervous system alike, forcing on her all manner of vivid hallucinations - not of who she is, but *what*.
A vehicle. A means of conveyance. A beast of burden. At best, a beloved pet, kept and cared for by its too-indulgent predecessor. Nothing is truly hers.
--Well.
*Almost* nothing.
Like any tolerated pet that dares show its teeth, bite back, pain and punishment are hers to weather alone.
For however long her infuriated owner sees fit.
It's like something in her has switched off when the call comes in.
On the floor, half-collapsed on her mattress, she has the will to get up and turn off the maddening loop of noise coming from her comm unit, but nothing in her body wants to respond.
She doesn't know how long she's laid there anymore. She doesn't know how long she's heard the incoming alert. And sometimes, mercifully, she doesn't hear it at all, the beeps and robotic voices eclipsed by the whine between her ears. More than once, she slips off into a kind of tortured half-sleep-- and more than once, she dreams.
Of what, she can't say. But the sense of that unreality makes the appearance of Susan Ivanova at her door scan, initially, like more of the same. She can't see much more than blurs when they lay eyes on each other, but she doesn't need to; she'd recognize the angry imprint of the woman anywhere by now, like a distinct perfume.
She ought to be touched, she supposes, feeling Susan pull back on that knee-jerk hatred, and look instead on her with guarded sympathy.
She even asks, "Do you want me to call Stephen?"
Lyta doesn't laugh at that, but she wants to. "I'll survive," she says, instead.
"Long enough to confirm our findings to Delenn?"
Lyta looks over her shoulder, vision clearing just enough to see the subtle furrow on Susan's brow. "Look at you," she says; she can't help herself. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're concerned."
Susan does her best not to scowl, but she's never been good at tempering her expression. She tries, but--
"Can you walk?" she asks.
Lyta considers trying-- but she remembers that word again. 'Our.' *Don't waste 'our' time.* And she finds, through all the little electric shocks still lacing their way through her muscles, that she's in the mood to be petulant.
Besides, it's not a lie to say, "I don't think I can."
"I'll send someone in who can help," Susan says.
But before she can raise her commlink, Lyta presses her 'advantage': "You don't want to stay?" she says. "Take the opportunity to get in my face about Talia again?"
Susan goes very still, fixing her with a look that is as conflicted as she might've hoped. It's almost satisfying, seeing traces of that conflict play out under the commander's skin, even if she'll probably regret saying it later.
Or-- maybe she won't. She doesn't have much to lose, does she?
And besides-- it works. Susan grudgingly crosses the distance between them and reaches out a hand to pull Lyta up to her feet.
"You get one of those, Ms. Alexander," the commander warns. "I hope it's worth it."
"I suppose that's up to you, isn't it?" Lyta says.
Susan looks at her sidelong before maneuvering her towards her own bathroom. She doesn't say anything at first; close contact makes it clear she's trying to determine if Lyta has a concussion. If she's drugged. If she drank.
Feels like it could be all of those things, really.
And she must look the part, too, because it doesn't take long for Susan to ask, "Am I allowed to ask what happened to you?"
"Depends on why you're asking," Lyta says, letting herself be settled onto the edge of her sink, hands careful to brace and steady herself on the lip of it.
"One lapse," Susan says, "and suddenly I'm not allowed to be concerned?"
"I'll be able to confirm your intel," Lyta says. "If that's what you're--" It actually surprises her, seeing Susan rummage around in her things, and for a moment, she doesn't honestly know what to say. "Commander, what do you think--"
"You look hammered," Susan says bluntly, procuring several items of makeup. "You won't be able to confirm squat if you're walking around with your face like that."
"Ah." Lyta pauses; she still doesn't know what to do with that. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Susan says, gaze meeting Lyta's own for a half-beat. "What happened?"
"I don't really want to talk about it."
Susan affords her a look. "What happened to 'that depends?'"
"That was gonna be my answer regardless," Lyta says. "It's just hard to string you along when you're being nice about it."
Susan frowns, getting out what Lyta only assumes is some foundation. "There's a lot I want to say to you," she says. "A lot that's probably more than a little unfair. But this isn't really the time for it."
"How much more time do you imagine yourself having?" Lyta says.
"Probably not enough," Susan allows, "but that doesn't change my answer," moving in to start applying. "Stay still. And more importantly: stop talking."
This time, Lyta acquiesces. Finds herself simmering in resentment-- but also gratitude, all things considered. She wasn't lying; there wasn't much chance she was going to do this on her own. And it *is* satisfying, having the station's second in command dote on her like this.
For the sake of their continued good relations, she doesn't make a show of it. Just watches the ebb and flow of color and light over skin, under cloth, telling stories she's perfectly happy to sit there and interpret, for as long as they're there to be seen.
Human. Comfortable. A wall, for now, between her and the bleak reality that waits for them outside of her quarters.
The next day, Susan is at her door again. And the kill order for Ulkesh comes with her.
"I thought I should be the one to tell you," she says.
"Because we have unfinished business," Lyta says. "And you don't like my odds of survival."
"I don't like anyone's odds of survival," Susan says. "And even if this goes well, this may be my last chance to talk to you for some time, so-- yes. We have some unfinished business. And I'd like to take care of it."
Lyta watches her for a few long moments. The anger is there but it's-- diffuse. Less bitten back and more just part of the ambiance. Susan allows it, watching her in turn, the two of them studying one another in relative silence.
Then, finally, Lyta says, "Fine. Say what you have to say."
Susan takes a beat; struggles with her expression. Then, "Do you know if she's alive?"
"No," Lyta says. "I don't."
She considers going on, saying more-- but she sees the flicker of agitation in Susan's gut and in her chest; sees that diffuse red pull together into something a little more solid.
"If she was," Susan continues grudgingly, "do you have any idea where she'd be?"
"Nowhere a rescue operation could reach her," Lyta replies. "If she's still out there-- and I don't want to kid you, commander," she adds, throwing out one small shred of mercy, "that's a big 'if.' But if she's out there, she'd be behind several layers of security, and more than a few Psi Cops besides."
"You don't think it's likely."
Lyta hesitates. Then, "One way or another she'd still be dead," she says; and for better or worse, allows herself to feel the gravity of that.
They both do, for a time, allowing the moment to pass in silence. A little acknowledgment of a mutually held absence that comes and goes, unguarded.
But only for so long.
"Who was she to you, anyway?" Susan asks, no longer able to resist that little bit of chum.
Though understated, the curiosity is genuine. So Lyta rewards it with a genuine answer: "That's not really something I can put into words for you."
"Can't you."
Lyta shakes her head. "Not with the kind of time we have."
She sees something like hurt in Susan's eyes, hearing that. A note of jealousy, maybe. She's doing her best not to pry.
"Try," Susan says.
"I just told you," Lyta says. "It's not a matter of *try*. It's a matter of time."
"Try anyway."
The insistence makes Lyta curious-- but she holds herself back from asking any probing questions. "If it matters that much to you," she says.
"It does."
"And *if*," Lyta continues, "you answer a question for me."
Susan knows what's coming; she's already unhappy about it. "What's that?"
"Who was she to you?" Lyta replies.
Susan's jaw tightens, but she keeps her expression in check, albeit just barely, indignity burning brighter in her chest.
"You're not a stupid person, Lyta," she says, the name dropped like a warning. "Don't act like one."
"Who said anything about stupid?" Lyta says, carefully meeting Susan's eyes. "Maybe I just want to hear you say it."
The flare-up of anger is an almost palpable thing, and this time, Susan isn't so successful at keeping it off her face. "Why?"
She doesn't bark the word but the desire is there; the intention.
Lyta sobers a touch. Opts, after a moment's thought, for blunt honesty: "There's a strong chance I'm gonna die out there, commander. This is about the only human connection I'm liable to make. Negative or positive-- I'd at least like it to be genuine."
That cools things off a little; Susan seems to remember why it is they're talking. What kind of timeline they're working with.
She thins her lips, frustrated. "Even if I wanted to answer you," she says, "I don't *talk* easy. About anything. Least of all--" She pauses; lets her gaze drop down again. "Least of all this," she says, voice softening.
Lyta can see something in her relent-- and gives the moment a few beats of silence. Then takes the opportunity for what it is, and puts her cards on the table.
"Well," she says, "if you can't *talk* about it-- why not show me?"
It's said so conversationally that Susan doesn't seem to fully register what's being asked, at first. And once she does--
"Show you," she says, visibly incredulous.
Lyta nods. "Yeah," she says. "Show me. Or maybe I should be the one show you." she says, heading renewed protest off at the pass. "You *did* ask first."
Susan fixes Lyta with a look-- but whatever it is she's about to say, that little moment of honesty seems to have gotten through to her.
"You're serious."
"Commander--" Lyta begins-- then opts to start again: "Susan." She makes sure to meet that conflicted stare again. "Look at me. I have never been more serious in my life."
The cloudburst of information that one point of clarity brings is, frankly, too much to parse. It's like standing beneath a PA bleating every announcement at once on full blast, and it's everywhere.
So Lyta focuses instead on what's right in front of her: the stunned expression Susan wears. The flush that's settled over her face. The opening and closing of her mouth as she tries, and fails, to form the right words.
And when she finds the right words are absent, she settles on what she can manage, instead.
"Lyta--" she says, "even if I wanted to--"
And then she trails off.
For long enough that Lyta can't help herself; she lets her gaze fall briefly, but meaningfully, on Susan's lips, and asks, "Do you?"
That trips Susan up even more for a second-- but she presses on. "Even if I wanted to," she tries again - the deepening of that stunning blush on her face giving away her reply - "I'm not stupid, either. I know the kind of information you can pick up by just--"
Lyta raises a hand and, surprisingly, it works, curbing the reply.
Susan doesn't insult her by looking confused. But she does take several long moments to handle the rush of adrenaline brought on by just those little hints of conversation. Actually makes it a point to look off to one side, at a far wall, pacing in that direction for a few beats, allowing for some space to exist between them.
"You already know," she says, finally, looking for verbal confirmation of something she'd long suspected.
"I felt it," Lyta says; she's careful not to name when, or how, but Susan's heart beats a little faster anyway, pushing the momentum of an already rapid beat. "It was subtle, but-- it was enough." There's a pause; then, rather than leave it up in the air, if she *really* knows or is just playing along, she adds, "For what it's worth-- even if I hated you enough to want to turn you in--" She gives a little shrug, as Susan turns to face her; look at her. "About the only thing in it for me is a pat on the back and a one-way ticket to being turned into someone's science experiment."
Lyta does what she did in Susan's own quarters, careful to hold the woman's gaze only peripherally.
Then, after (again) giving her answer some thought, Susan says, "You know what my first instinct is? In all this?"
"To kill me, probably," Lyta says.
Susan isn't caught off-guard by the bluntness this time; by now, she's starting to expect it. "Wouldn't be the first time it crossed my mind, either," she says, soberly. "You do know that, right?"
She doesn't sound proud of it-- but this isn't a confession, either. It's a statement of fact.
Lyta knows she should be a little more deterred by that. She glances down towards Susan's chest, where that fiery red knot is seated, watching tendrils snaking into every emotion the woman possesses.
That should worry her. It should alarm her.
Instead, she finds herself very aware of just how much it's turning her on.
"I had a feeling," she says, gaze flicking back up again.
"And that doesn't bother you?" Susan asks, giving voice to those thoughts.
Lyta can't help but smile. "It probably should," she says, carrying the echo through, one hand lifting to trail up along the edges of Susan's uniform, "but passion is passion."
"Negative or positive."
Lyta nods, noting that her hand has yet to be batted away. "Negative or positive," she echoes.