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The vehicle designated as Anna Sheridan peers into her eyes — Delenn, she was told. The lights flicker around them in a pattern that almost feels like a coded message, on and off, dim and dimmer, as Delenn recognizes her. John Sheridan is "asleep", and for him it is different than any sleep Anna has ever experienced; human beings value sleep, form their societies around it, but Anna knows sleep and it is an awful nothingness. She was asleep, for so long, and then she was awakened by the Machine, capital-M, in what the lower creatures would call a saving. John Sheridan is asleep until Delenn drops the glass globe, and then Anna's mission truly begins.
Delenn goes to wake him up, and Anna listens to the sound of her footsteps raining across the station floor. Are the younger races always this noisy, this annoying, this overwhelming? Once upon a time, she was told, Anna Sheridan was—
Anna Sheridan wasn't. She has no memory of—
"Anna?"
At one point she loved him.
She thinks only of John as she pours her second glass of dark Vree wine, thinks only of John as she checks her missed messages from beneath the blankets of her bed, thinks only of John when she gets the offer.
She finds herself considering John at all moments, even in his year-long, shattering absence. John loves when she wears green - she prefers sage, he adores emerald. John loves that shampoo she uses, the one that smells like crisp cinnamon apples, so she falls asleep to the scent of herself every night; some part of her is still hoping that he'll burst through the door, his dumb smile plastered wide, and hold her close again, as if no time has passed at all. As if time is a meaningless, obsolete entity. The core of Anna Sheridan is an inextricable hope. She just can’t stop hoping. Hoping for John, hoping for…. more.
She is composed of interlocking pasts -- her own, John's, Liz's, the histories of every ancient society she analyzes. Every dead, forgotten world will eventually be found by someone. Every little bit of hope inside of Anna Sheridan will eventually heal someone somewhere.
She wants to heal John, but she can't do that from where they're going. She pictures his face when she drops the news: a dejected frown, his lips curling downward and quivering. She rehearses their call for what feels like centuries, even though the commission came on terribly short notice. The Agamemnon is patrolling a League world during diplomatic talks on the surface, so he'll be too busy to pick up for a while. They're supposed to be going on vacation. How is she going to tell him? How can she possibly tell him that for their anniversary this year, she's going literally as far away from him in the universe as she can get?
It's comical, if you think about it.
She considers him at every possible moment of her life. Even now, as she signs the first of many digital contracts for the Icarus mission, she is considering him.
He would want her to do this. He would understand.
It's simply too good to pass up. Too fascinating, too mysterious, too thrilling to deny. Somehow she can feel it, she tells herself that it is true, it must be true--her finds on this mission could change things. She could go places.
Most importantly, she could learn.
She's been craving extensive experience with more distant worlds since her undergraduate years. She's had a few close scrapes, but nothing this massive. A lot of funding is being poured into this mission, and she can understand why; the potential finds and discoveries are far too lucrative for most of Earth's government and elite to resist. Everyone wants a piece of what they can't have, and everyone wants to find a way to weaponize the unknown.
It's pitiful.
Anna loves the job because she loves the job. Because she can view the universe in all of its layers - past, present, and future - and she loves every single thread of it. Anna devours all the knowledge around her and keeps swimming around for more. The career advancement is nice, of course. The publications and respect are appreciated. But it's the meat of studying that truly gives Anna purpose.
She gets a message from Liz almost every day. She'd bought a house near the old family home a few years ago, raised her kids there. Three kids, a constantly-working husband, and she still makes time to talk to Anna through every bit of chaos.
John doesn't.
John can't.
John tries.
It's been a year since they've seen each other in person. Over a year, now, maybe. It all just blurs together. She knows that John tries, that his duty as the mighty soldier must take precedence, that he talks to her as much as he possibly can between tasks. It's just - sometimes it's not enough. Sometimes---
She holds the device up, balancing it on her palm. A projected holographic image of Liz flickers on over her hand. She watches as Liz stands in front of the camera holding her youngest child, asking Anna if she's going to any events soon, and she just went to this one Minbari War history museum and it was so fascinating, and when is Anna going to start having any fun anyway? Liz informs her that she never goes out, not even to work-adjacent things like that, and she could really use some recreation. She's completely right, but Anna would rather be brain-wiped than admit that someone else is right about her allegedly unhealthy habits.
She's working on that.
Anna sighs, discards her throw blanket, and walks over to her monitor. John had left her a sticky note on the bottom of the screen the last time he was able to visit. His handwriting has smudged and slightly faded, but she keeps it there.
"Computer, scan for and report on recreational events in my current city of residence."
"Scanning."
Moments later, it spits out a long output. Nightclub events. Political events. Vigils and funerals. Outdoor festivals. Events for kids. Events for parents tired of taking care of their kids. Animal adoption events. The list goes on and on. It sometimes overwhelms her to have so much information readily available with a simple command. Useful? Definitely. Disconcerting? At times.
"Give me more information on the festival you mentioned."
"Line Memorial Bird & Wildlife Sanctuary. 1100 hours to 1500 hours. Event will include food trucks, informational guides, and live animal handling. Annual festival."
She could go. She could. She could prove to Liz that her life isn't consumed by either work or hoping she gets more work soon. And it's at a wildlife sanctuary; it might be nice to dissolve into nature, to close her eyes and embrace the world around her. Calming.
She had rehearsed it with Morden, who looked at her with the same annoyance she initially felt around John. Come with me to Z'ha'dum. Let me show you what you're missing. Let me explain to you what this is really all about.
He could never understand, but she wants to make him understand it. She really does want him—he would make a perfect addition to the intricacies of their plan. He can learn to love her, and she can learn to love.
Around Anna, the crowd buzzes and chatters on. The sun beats down hard over her, unusually warm for November, her long-sleeved dress clinging to damp skin. It's exactly as described - food trucks, vendor booths, event guides - but more alive than she could have imagined. It's getting increasingly difficult to make the world feel alive, these days. The universe is greying out around her, flashbacks looped on repeat. She's just trying to get through it all.
She walks up to the food truck area. On one side there is a truck that seems to serve Earth fusion food, a large gathering of people gaggling around it. On the other side, a Narn-themed food truck, deserted and barren. She's heard of the owner before - a human woman who was abandoned as an infant on a transport vessel and discovered by a Narn pair who raised her to adulthood. A few years ago it was bustling with customers, and now...
It's sad, she thinks.
How out of place she looks here is almost sadder. Her clothing is too formal, her shoes unsuitable for the grassy terrain. An overwhelming flash of business. She finds herself folding her arms over her chest, curling inward, and when she realizes that her body language is faltering, she forces herself to spread out in an attempt to revitalize her confidence. "Stand wider, straighten your posture, look forward," her mother told her before her first day of college.
Confidence, Anna thinks, can always be sharpened.
She walks up to the Narn truck, but the owner must have stepped out, because it's empty. The lights are on, the stove behind her appears to be on, but it's just... empty.
"Hello?" she asks, peering in further.
There's a loud groan from behind the truck, a strained gasp. Anna, on her valiant, hope-driven instinct, darts to the sound, her short heels wobbling underneath her. Behind it, she sees the woman who, five or six years ago, danced over the covers of the local newspaper. She’s sitting on the ground, her jeans brushed with dirt. She looks tired, her expression entirely dead.
"Here, let me help you up," Anna says, leaning in - as she moves closer she spots a symbol painted on the side of the truck, a big, sloppy outline of Earth sprayed in white over the logo. It distracts her for too long.
"Don't bother," the woman replies. "We're closed."
"But---"
"Seriously," she continues, standing up, "just go. I'm fine. I just want to go home."
Delenn looks like a hybrid. She has Human hair and a Minbari crest. She gazes at John with concern, gazes at Anna with fury masked as terror, and Anna understands the nuance of expression now. She must suspect something, but that can be dealt with.
Morden had mentioned the Psi Corps breeding program to Justin once, when she was still connected to her vessel. Efforts to create stronger telepaths by making two already-strong telepaths reproduce. They needed telepaths from the program to block out telepathic enemy interference; they were going to plug them in to the same Machine that awakened her, and they didn't even deserve it. The telepaths didn't deserve the Machine's knowledge and strength, and they still don't.
Delenn looks like the result of a particularly bad Psi Corps experiment. Anna finds herself intrigued.
She finds a bench at the very edge of the central courtyard that is pocketed away from the rest of the festival. The crowd is too much, and Anna really should be going over the paper Liz's oldest daughter wanted her to proofread. She came, she went, she got out of her shell, and now she can go back to her daily routine of hunting for work opportunities, doing personal research to kill time, and missing her husband.
Maybe it's time to work on something. Maybe when she gets back from the Icarus, she'll tell John that she wants something more. That she misses him. That she needs, craves, requires. That being a soldier is brave, but so is putting down your work to spend time with your wife. The irony in that doesn't hit her quickly enough.
The sun ducks behind a cloud. Beneath a nearby tree, she sees a flash of bright white fur, and when she turns to look—
There's a white feral cat, tucked just behind a bush. At first only its ears and tail are visible, until it peers outside of the branches, notices Anna, hisses, and hides again. Anna can't blame it; she chases after the unknown, runs into the danger just to study what made it dangerous, but even she knows that sometimes the best parts of the universe are as harrowing as they are alluring. She doubts the cat has the capacity to understand this, though; a few moments later it occurs to her that maybe the cat is just terrified, full stop.
And then she hears a high, soft meow. An innocent mewl. Oh.
A kitten tries to chase an insect out from behind the hiding spot, but the mother picks it up by the back of its neck and drags it back to safety. A rustling in the twigs of the bush, and then - silence. The cat does everything for her children.
Could she do it? Could she do the same thing?
Could she give up everything for her child?
Could she ever have a child?
They have never discussed children; it's unspoken knowledge, she thinks, that they will be engrossed in their work until retirement age. Work - love - family. Anna loves John and archaeology an equal amount, knows that John is just as dedicated to being a soldier as he is to being a husband. She doesn’t know if he wants kids. She doesn’t think she wants to know.
It might be nice, though, to have a little life. To create something beautiful. She spends so much time studying the past that sometimes she forgets she will have a future.
As they travel back to the planet, Anna studies John. He doesn’t look anything like he did in the photographs Morden showed her to prepare. The face is the same, roughly, but aged. The expression is flattened and lifeless. It is such a noticeable difference that Anna feels hair begin to raise on her arms, sick human body betrayal.
He turns to look at her. They lock eyes. He’s testing her, and she has to pass.
In his eyes, she sees herself. Of course she does. She has nothing to compare it to.
But there’s a sparkle in the back of her thoughts, like something has been torched. She feels the twinge of a memory slither through her mind - just before the implant pulls it back, Anna sees kittens in her mind, trees and birds and human children. It should be more uncomfortable than it is.