babylon 5 ficlet

[avevale_intelligencer]

I went to the grave today.

They didn't like it. But then they never do. They prefer me to sit still, not exert myself, eat my greens, stay calm, think about puppies or something. But I had to. I made a promise.

Sheridan didn't live to see it, of course. Michael almost made it--his heart gave out two years ago. But he knew. Hell, he knew before anyone. He was the one who told me.

I don't know if it was a Russian who said that the best revenge you can take on your enemies is to outlive them. If it wasn't, it should have been. But you can do better, if you're lucky.

The amazing thing is that no-one realised. Well, almost no-one. The Vorlons created telepaths on a hundred worlds, including Earth, by tinkering with the genetic code. It was an ongoing process, requiring constant monitoring and adjustment. The Corps thought they were improving the breed with their eugenic marriages and experimental drugs. They weren't even close. It was the Vorlons all the way.

And once they were gone...

Lyta found out, god knows how. She told Michael, and he told me. I don't think I'd seen that man so happy in all the years I'd known him. We didn't have to do anything. We just had to watch, as year on year the realisation dawned on them, oh so slowly. Human beings were reverting to type. Telepaths were not being born. Five years after Sheridan's death, there were no more new stable P10s. Ten years after, no more P8s.

It was about now I started to take a particular interest in our friend's health. I had the Rangers watch out for him, protect him from dangers. I wanted him to live to see the end of it. And I made sure that he did. Last year was the year the birth rate for P1 and over finally went flatline. I made sure he knew it. And then I finally allowed him to take his own life.

And today I went to the grave. I forced myself out of the damn chair and I let them help me on to the slab of stone that was holding him down, and I managed a few faltering steps before I ran out of breath. For my mother. For Talia. For Michael. For Lyta. And for me.

The best revenge of all is to outlive your enemy's dreams.

Comments

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Superb.

[aryana-filker.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is great! Thank you for sharing!

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Oh. You're gooooood. Real good :-)

[ci5rod.livejournal.com]

Very nice. Thank you.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Wow! That should have been at the end of the series. Well done!

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Nice, even if it contradicts canon. :)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure it doesn't contradict anything in the actual series, because I've just read all the scripts all the way through. I didn't say the telepath war didn't happen. (It was just a bit of an anticlimax... :))

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Well, you're right - it doesn't contradict the actual televised series. I'm just being a smartarse. :)

(Debbie, or those who've not seen the whole series and want to be unspoiled, if you're out there, don't read any further. Spoilers!)

Reason being that the books that detail the fate of Bester (the Psi Corps trilogy), published after series end, are considered canon because their outlines were approved/written by JMS. As summarised in Wikipedia:

"He spent several years on the run before moving to Paris, France. He fell in love with a local businesswoman named Louise. But Michael Garibaldi eventually tracked him down. Bester was brought before the war crimes tribunal, and was tried in France for his crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison and subjected to the Sleeper drugs that deprived him of his telepathic abilities. During that time, a statue was even made of the lost child of Fiona. He then spent the next 10 years in a maximum-security prison, and died shortly after the death of John Sheridan in 2281."

The Telepath War did happen during the mid-2260s, after the end of the television series and before the start of the abominably handled Crusade (there's a flashback to the War in one of those episodes). The Telepath War wasn't what we thought it would be: it wasn't as much between normals and telepaths, as it was mainly a civil war among telepaths between free "rogue" telepaths and the Psi Corps which resulted in the Psi Corps' dissolution and the establishment of a new Psionic Monitoring Commission. Lyta died during the War.

We're supposed to get some coverage of the War's events in the new Lost Tales DVD series.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I still prefer my idea, which also accounts for the fact that there are no telepaths seen or mentioned in any of the flash-forwards in "Deconstruction," but obviously JMS has the final word on these things.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Ha-hah! Oh, *yes*. Nicely done, sir.

[gingicat]

That's awesome.