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Phoenix Ascendant ~*~ "From The Ashes" Part One

"And there he was up to his ears in blue slime, and I couldn't even do anything but laugh," She finished, chuckling along with her companion.

"I'd pay for pictures of that," he said, as he stopped laughing, still grinning wide and took a sip of his drink. He looked over the people, as was habit after working security so long, and then back to her. "I guess it was a good thing you two traveled together. No one was quite sure whether the two of you would do well together."

"We didn't get along for the first year, at all. Even a while after that." Lyta said looking very hard at the table, like she might be taking it apart, or do some hard equation in her head. She looked up again, liked she snapped out of being dazed and half smiled, one side of her lips curling slightly.

"Traveling with G'Kar..." she said pursing her lips, thinking for a second, the effect scrunching small lines on her forehead even though she didn't realize it. "Was rather like traveling with an eccentric, noble uncle."

Taking another bite, she moved the fork in the air for a second and swallowed her food. "It wasn't always easy and sometimes it was only slightly better than the prison cell, being stuck in that small craft with no one but the two of us, but somehow it got better."

"It sounds like you had an interesting time," he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, and folding it to put it on the edge of the table. "What was your favorite part?"

"Favorite?" Lyta echoed for a moment, leaning back in her chair and lacing her gloved fingers together. "Probably learning over a hundred languages."

"Over a hundred?" He asked, astonishment written all over his face, trying to figure out how she could even say it. That would take so much time in many ways. Even with years, it couldn't be over a hundred. Could it?

"Yes; over. I seem to have a knack for just picking them up." She said, smiling just slightly. "The first time it amused G'Kar, the second time it amused me, a few time after it was actually rather useful, too, more than amusing."

"You just picked up a hundred languages?" Zack asked incredulously.

"I learned the first one while I was sleeping. We had arrived at this planet and the next morning I could speak their language fluently. As if I'd been raised there all my life," she replied, smiling just barely from where she was leaned back in her chair.

"From then on it just got easier and easier each time we came to a planet. I took up a study of most known ones at that point, to overcome the more than occasional travel boredom, too. I learned all of them with a spectacular speed."

"Whew," he laughed, slightly amazed, but at the same time somewhere in the back of his mind he regretted hearing all the little things. They all added up more and more things to a file on her. A worry about her on the station. What could be done by her and how easily. Her file was so thin and sporatic as was. "What a favorite. What was least favorite then?"

Lyta might as well have felt her skin turn to ice at the memory that it brought to mind. A cold shiver ran straight down her spine and she could see it in the back of her mind. That fight. That silly, stupid, child's fight. The explosion of that beautiful star.

"I'd rather not-"

Beep-Beep.

Zack tapped the communicator on his wrist, trying to figure how bad could be with how crestfallen Lyta's expression had gotten suddenly. Cold and very alone, like no one might be near her for miles. He wondered how much better she truly was suddenly, too.

"Allan here."

The communicator answered faster than Lyta's halfhearted and faltering smile at his mouthing of an apologetic 'sorry'.

**Chief, you might want to get down here. We found another body in Brown Sector. Same as the last two.**

He let out a breathless sigh, before tapping the wrist communicator again. "I'll be right there." Letting go, his expression torn, he said helplessly, the way he didn't usually seem. "Sorry about this, but I better get down there."

"Understandable," Lyta said, having not yet moved from sitting back in her chair, looking much too understanding for the way she felt, one hand resting on the anchored bottom of a necklace chain under her shirt. "You go. I'll get the bill."

"Thanks," Zack replied, giving her a grateful smile. He strode off a few steps, before turning back toward her. She hadn't moved yet he noticed and then she did, but only to pull her napkin off her lap and toss it on the table near her.

"Hey, Lyta?"

"Yes?" She asked, turning sideways to look at her with a curiously concerned expression.

"There's a dinner tomorrow night, a celebration for one the new ambassador's," he said, trying to breathe at the same time he spoke, gathering some courage. Why did some things never change no matter how much time passed? "I was wondering, if you don't have other plans, if you'd like to come?"

"I wouldn't mind, no," she said, wondering if he was okay. He was supposed to be going to investigate this murder already. To leave her to her shaken up thoughts about that star system. She never did try to think of that day often.

"Great, it's-" he stopped short of finishing the sentence, flushing slightly as his cheek warmed in reaction, and he started again. "Ah-I'll see you then. I'll come by around nineteen hundred."

Lyta watched him head off in hurry. Almost in more of a rush than he'd needed, like he was fleeing her presence. She took a deep breath in and released it slowly, trying to release her mind from the images of the star, telling herself she was over reacting. If he hadn't wanted to be near her, he wouldn't have asked her to come out tomorrow. He wouldn't be even trying to make sure she was doing well while she was here.

He was rather a good friend considering.

Probably the only one she had here.

Not that she needed to have one.

She learned that long ago.

~*~*~

( About the same time )

The world around him lurched, swaying in consistency from steel to water. His grasp on the world was the ebb and flow of existence and he was only a speck inside it all. Slowly it came back to him, ever so slowly, and yet so much faster than the first times.

The first times involved entire hours of black out, incredibly painful migraines, and a sense like the entire world was completely wrong everytime he opened his eyes. He hated it, but that hate only drove his reasons further into him.

The way was right. Anything, everything, they did was for the good of the future. The right ways. The right out come. Nothing else mattered.

He moved his arms slowly; adjusting to the fact he felt like he was swinging his arms through gravity times four from his normal. He moved his fingers aligning his fingers to the feeling of sludge. He opened his eyelids several times feeling the cement that raised over eyes of a bright hue.

Yes.

To the future.

~*~*~

( Fifteen hours later )

Lillian stared at the computer screen like it had a life of it's own. It was running through static's programs and tests of all kinds on samples from the three latest men brought in.

She'd manage just in time to neutralize a sudden and very surprising outbreak of the Banta Flu before it could spread. Surprisingly convinced Captain Lockley to stay in bed, even though the woman was quite against recuperation from the Banta Flu, swearing she was fine even when she couldn't walk straight or stand without leaning to a direction. She'd managed to give Vir Cotto one more lecture, this afternoon, on how fast food wasn't good for his dietary tract and his esophagus.

She even settled a few dozen other small problems, too, so why couldn't she find the missing link in these cases?

They were identical almost exactly. All of them middle aged men in the primes of their lives. All of them Lurkers from DownBelow. All of them in perfect health it seemed until they had a brain aneurysm out of the blue. There was no cause and effect to question even after a dozen tests. She was looking for a needle in a haystack. She had at least one or two person in each different staff working on it, and still nothing.

"Dr. Hobbs?"

She looked up after a second, to see one of her newer male nurses staring at her a bit concerned. She wondered how many times he might have said her name before she looked up. The computer was still moving below her line of vision in her peripheral, but she knew it was getting nowhere.

"Something new?" she asked giving the room a glance around, and noticing it was rather quiet.

"No, ma'am. You told me to remind you when it was a few hours from the dinner, so you wouldn't miss it," Jeffery Stewart said with a slightly hurried sound to his voice.

He was new and nervous to be here. This was Babylon 5 after all. The central hub of the most widely known galaxy spanning news and largest changes in the past ten years. He was fresh from Earth and it was much like being country boy all over again. There was no past to stand on in this busy world in the middle of neutral space. No way to know exactly who he was supposed to be impressing or helping, so he just did what he signed up to do really.

And, for the most part, that was just fine with him.

"Thanks," Lilian said giving him a reassuring smile. She blew a deep sigh up of annoyance at her hair around her face and shrugged. "I'll have to continue on this after I get back. Make sure to keep me informed if anything comes up. Anything at all."

"Yes, ma'am."

~*~*~

( Give or take a few hours )

Lyta couldn't even remember the last time she'd gone to a dinner very clearly. Not something up to the scale of what she had been invited to. So sitting there in a dress that cost more than her normal suites, she couldn't help but feel already out of place, even by herself.

Somewhere in the back of her head she could still G'Kar's nagging about it not hurting to spend a few credits here and there on herself when there was so much. She rarely spent anything on herself. Food, shelter, clothing and the rest went where it was supposed to, because she didn't need frivolities. He forced the issue a few times and she ended up with things.

Just like now, when he wasn't forcing the issue except in a memory and somehow she ended up sitting there in a jeweled gown waiting for her door to ring, wondering just how stupid of a scene it would really appear to be. The dress was beautiful. That was a given, but she still wasn't sure she should have bought it. It was just one lousy dinner. What else would she ever wear this to? It was already ostentatious enough that she'd gotten this room when a smaller one would have done just as well.

A glance at the screen of the Bab-Com reminded her she needed to listen to and return a few messages that had been waiting earlier this afternoon even as she continued to run her hands lightly over the material of the dress. A pair of matching gloves and a sheer black over jacket still lay over the side of the chair next to her, but for the moment she could enjoy a small amount of freedom.

Very, very far within her she could admit to small amount of silly, childish joy at just sitting there in the dress, at just knowing it was hers, and knowing she would get to show it off. Of course, most of these thoughts were dismissed the moment they were found, but every once and while they continued to pop up.

The dress was a soft cream shade, which accented the color of her skin perfectly, with a thin black shear running over the entirety of it. In the black sheer was an intricate pattern design of small black beads that glinted in the light. It was made to have a skirt that poofed out around her, a style from years past on Earth, that had surprisingly looked good when she tried it on.

At least the storeowner had said so. It just reminded her of how thin and how pale she seemed to herself in the mirror. Sometimes she could almost forget looking into the mirror that she wasn't still that girl from so many years ago, but the haunted eyes and the million unseen scars would never let her believe that for long.

Even dressed up like someone's toy princess, with delicate ribbons in her hair, she was still just a demented creation of the Vorlon's. A doomsday device wrapped in silk and satin, like a bomb wrapped in a shiny paper with a pretty bow. Pulling on the jacket and the gloves, she truly wondered, whom she thought this was really fooling, because it was working in reverse on her.

In fact -- Of course, the door ring would come now, she thought half glumly. Right at a good point of self-analysis. She stood up slowly, willing her subconscious to be a little quieter than it had a habit of being over the last few years.

"Open," she called out to the door as she picked up the gloves off the arm of the chair and started slipping them on, not looking up to see Zack's completely stunned expression.

"You-" Zack's words faltered when she looked up from tugging at her first glove. She looked like she'd step straight out one of his dreams. She looked so beautiful it hurt to breathe. She looked perfect, if a bit awkward in the way her expression sat waiting for him to finish. "You look wonderful."

"Thank you," Lyta replied, sheepishly, taking it as a good heart compliment. She gave a moment to way he looked, dressed up in a more formal version of his uniform. "You look nice, as well."

Everyone complimented everyone dressed up, it was after all protocol, so she really didn't think about either compliment all too seriously. It just made her realize how many people might stare at her. It also made her reexamine once more, as she finished with the second glove, just how many people who'd seen her years ago, would suddenly realize she was there before their eyes once again.

"Why thank you, Miss Alexander," Zack said starting to smile. He'd taken forever to get ready. To feel ready. To think that he wasn't out of place in every way, shape and form. "Ready?"

That was the dangerous part of the game, but she wasn't anymore afraid now than she was then.

"I suppose we should be going, shouldn't we?" she said, picking up a small black purse on the coffee table in the center of the room and giving into the fact this was all actually happening for or against her better judgement. "I wouldn't want to make you late."

~*~*~

( Twenty or Thirty Minutes Later )

"It's such a lovely celebration," Vir Cotto said, pressing his fingers together at the tips. He tapped them every few seconds like a silent applause, though he had decided it was more of a nervous habit for the young Centauri years ago during many dinners. "Don't you think?"

"It is-" The Minbari said slowly. "-quite a learning experience."

"Is a learning experience?" Vir asked sounding affronted, turning to look at the man at his left. "Is that all you have to say? At the dancing? And the clothing? And the ceremony?"

"It's new and different, the entire thing is very-" he shifted slightly to look at the performers in front of him. "Enlightening."

"Enlightening. A Learning experience," the Centauri said the words like they were small curses, even as his lips quivered to a vague and amused smile. "Maybe one day I'll understand how you can use such words looking at such overwhelming beauty."

It was all of those things though. A learning experience, an enlightening new spectacle, a ceremony of light and color, a brand new world sharing with them all it had to show. The two continued on in quiet conversational comment every few minutes, but mostly enjoying each others company and the show before them.

"Oh! Oh, is that-" Vir said, suddenly, pointing towards a small group of people within the twenty feet of the door. "The -uh- Vorlon telepath? What was her name?"

"Lyta," he replied from the side, as his eyes surfaced across the ripples of people to find the one woman who could still look completely alone in a room of hundreds. "Lyta Alexander."

"Isn't she supposed to be dead?" Vir asked, leaning toward his companion, and talking quieter like he feared being overheard.

"Those who die at the same time have a habit of being reborn around the same time, too," Lennier said with just the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes.

"But you didn't-" Vir mumbled and then flushed, a soft, and mostly unnoticeable, pink to the edged of his hair black hair, as he got it. "Oh. You mean. So that's where you were during all those silent years?"

"For a few of them," Lennier replied, glancing back to the red haired woman nearer to the door than the party. It was very her, by retrospect. Closer to a route of escape, than a willingness to be too far from her safe retreat and experiencing brand new things.

{Nope.}

"If you'll excuse me," he said to the nodding, and very obviously curious, Ambassador of Centauri Prime. Though by leaving that moment he missed Vir's sudden facial confusion and his look around for a moment flounderingly.

~*~*~

Zack walked beside Lyta tentatively as a schoolboy.

He said his hello's and told those who asked questions all about how work was, whether things were going well, and about the fact no one was quite sure what was going on down below. He added, confidently, each time that he was sure they'd know soon though.

{Nope.}

Lyta shifted uncomfortably he noticed and looked around them, just as a few others were doing at that same moment. He thought he'd heard something but looking around he noticed he was wrong, too. He opened his mouth to tell her a joke he'd planned hours ago.

"Chief! Chief!"

A woman came rushing up to them. She was dark skinned and light eyed, with a look of astonishment and panic to her eyes, and her brain patterns. Her dress was dark blue and it hung off her shoulders accenting her bare skin quiet nice.

"You have to come with me now."

Zack looked from Lyta to Doctor Hobbs, wary expression taking his features, as one hand raised instinctively to his weapon. "Woah, what's happening?"

{Nope.}

"Hmm?" Lyta registered quietly and curiously, as Zack looked a touch confused and this time not because of the person in front of him.

"We've found something new about-" the woman gave an odd look to the woman next to him suddenly. A looked that changed into a queer look at her like someone trying to place her face. She didn't look away, but felt the subject dropped for something more important as she looked back at back Zack again. "Perhaps we should talk about this in private."

He cleared his throat, uncomfortably, and looked at Lyta, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Watching the two leave together she swayed slightly, trying to place what it was that was rubbing her the wrong way. It wasn't either of them and it didn't seem to be anything in the room. It seemed to be...in the air?

"Neech sak schneck, slem ba, Lyta."

She turned around surprised, the wash of feeling adrift softened by the face she met when she turned. It made her lips quiver and curl at the edge, even though it never made it to a smile. But he didn't need that smile. It was enough. Her eyes were lighter, more comfortable, too.

"Neech sak schneck, slem ba, Lennier," she replied to him softly.

So soft in fact that he thought it echoed in the sound of the air she expelled saying it. Or perhaps it only echoed in his mind. It was so rare for the woman standing before him to call anyone friend, and only after one seemed to banter it around and hit her with it first.

"You look," Lennier started watching her face change from comfortable back to looking withdrawn, so he finished with what he usually tried to finish with; honesty. "lonely and out of place."

It earned the very wisp of a smile that only made a one or two second dash across her face. She had place for the truth and after a few dozen compliments to her dress and her looking radiant, she felt more out of place than she knew what to do about. She was not a princess dressed up.

"I meant to stop by earlier," Lyta said, reluctantly.

"But things got in the way?" He asked queerly, like he was paraphrasing something and it got the another faint smile out of her.

"I hear you've been named liaison to Babylon 5 to speak with Delenn's voice, and to be her eyes and ears here, as well as the president's," she said, as she followed him inward a bit of the way to a table in buffet style. "You weren't as unwanted as you suspected originally."

"You sound pleased with this?"

"Yes." Lyta folded her hands together even as she eyed a small section of fruit on the table before looking back at his face. "You need something to be fighting for and, regardless of anything else, you'd rather be doing it in her name than anyone else's."

As he started at her levelly, about to look away, she continued to speak, and her words ensured that he didn't look away or lock her out either. She realized in speaking that it had been too long, and, as weird as it felt that she had missed.

"Even if it is a another way for you to repent, to her," Lyta said picking up a plate from the end of the table and floating it two inches to her hand, a thing few people noticed. "For what you've let haunt you all these years. It's commendable, but it's also, inspiring."

For someone so controlled, he seemed rather unsuited suddenly, even when he spoke to change subject. "And what was it that inspired your sudden return to Babylon 5?"

Lyta looked down this time, a habit still ingrained in her from so long ago. She looked down, almost passively, even after years of being anything but passive. It was the same question that had troubled her for each of the nights she'd been here. That same question that echoed into the darkness of her thoughts on and on into that screaming silence in her mind.

"I'm still learning what I came here for." Lyta stopped mid sentence, her lips forming an "o" and that happened to be the next sound that came out.

{No- Ah ha! There you are! I was sure you were here and now I've found you!}

{Melissa?}

{The one and only! Were you expecting someone else?}

"Lyta?" Lennier asked, concern lacing into his voice, as he reached out to lay a hand on her arm gently. She waved him off, only speaking softly to ask for a second and he watched her.

{What are you doing here?}

{Well, not partying it up the way you are. That food looks delicious.}

{What- Why? Where are you exactly?}

{Remember where the show down was? Remember where the strike was staged?}

Lyta's face seemed to fall and all he could do was watch and wonder what it was. The obviousness that he was missing something was plain as the air between them. He didn't wish to know what it was that made her face fall, but he wondered what it could be to make her go through so many reactions simultaneously.

{Yes. I remember.}

"Lyta," the touch at her shoulder grabbed her attention. Sudden and pressure wise, spinning her to one side. Her eyes raised to see Zack standing there, and shifted between him to Lennier to back to him. "Sorry about that. I didn't think anything would come up this time. Stations been quiet most of the morning."

She touched her temple for a moment and realized the girl was done speaking. It was quiet, too quiet almost. Too quiet for the shock that was still having repercussions in her thoughts. How many? And why? And why there? No. No, she couldn't. And Zack was talking about his apologies once again. He never failed to be sincere but sometimes he could overstate too well with the dripping sincerity that wafted from him without words.

But Melissa, here...now...and not just here and now, but there, too. That place she had avoided so well these few days no matter how many times she thought about it.

"I need to go," Lyta said abruptly, and both of them looked at her suddenly for her words in-between others speaking. Zack's expression relayed shock, but Lennier didn't seem even surprised, almost expectant.

"Now?" Zack asked.

"Yes. It's important." Lyta held out a hand to Lennier that he took. She squeezed it and nodded. "I'll see you again soon. I promise."

"Be safe," he said, holding her hand a second longer than perhaps was needed, till she tightened her lips a small bit and nodded in response, too. After that he did a turn and walked his way back to the table where Vir sat talking to the Ambassador on the other side of him.

"Zack, I'm sorry," She said shaking her head. "But I have to go. Now. Something's come up." And then suddenly it hit her, she knew she shouldn't, but maybe, just maybe, she should. There would be less trouble later and it already had the possibilities of exploding in her face.

"Actually," she stopped and looked at him warily suddenly, "On second thought you should probably come with me."

~*~*~

"Where have you been?"

A young woman launched at them suddenly from a doorway. She had soft red hair in a flip style, bright eyes and a completely animate face. She was all movement and enthusiasm, as she seemed to explode from the doorway with the kind of energy you wished for at this time of the night doing all nighters.

"What took you so long?"

Zack couldn't help but smile at the girls' liveliness, but it was Lyta's demeanor that kept him from a full-blown smile. She'd gone for looking shocked to looking almost too displeased. The air was tense just walking with her while she wouldn't explain what was wrong except to say that something had come up and that it wasn't a good something either.

"Wow. That dress is so cool."

She definitely was very energetic though, but he didn't understand really what it was she needed him here for. There was a small group of people here so far as he could tell, who didn't look that much different from much of the people in down below. He knew he was missing a few things, but what he had didn't amount of much so far.

Lyta's first words were heralded by the entire silence of everyone there, so sudden that the silence was deafening, and the eyes on the two of them could have made it like they were center stage at the moment. An middle aged woman dressed in a ball gown and a young woman dressed in space aged stellar wear both staring at each other like no one else was even in the room.

"Why are you here?"

The girl seemed to almost begin to pout. She bit her bottom-lip for a second, fighting off the pout and her expression became more determined.

"Because I was tired of being left behind to wait?" The girl shifted warily, her spiral-bottomed coat shifting around her ankles with a rustling sound. "Besides you said you were thinking of stopping by here and I though what better place to show up and surprise you?"

"I told you that I would send word when it was safe," Lyta said stiffly, her arms crossed over her chest. The tension in the air seemed to be mounting by the moment.

"It doesn't help that when you say that you think at the same time that it's not safe now and it might not be safe anytime soon, if ever. It didn't help then, it doesn't help now," the girl said crossing her arms, almost mimicking the woman in front of her in perfect post. "I'm already here now. So the why's are mostly irrelevant anyway."

"And how did you do it this time? Jump ship? Hide as a stowaway? What were you thinking? What about Telepath Integration Laws? I thought you were going to follow them and not break waves," Lyta said, her voice starting to rise, and Zack noticed that the room seemed to be getting warmer, too.

"It's already done now," the girl repeated, stubbornly. "The how's and why's are irrelevant."

{Brat.}

{Assassin.}

{Insolent Child!}

{Cold hearted bitch!}

The edges of Lyta's lips twitched faintly for a second, as she remembered the original fight those words had all come from, and her lips screwed into a half smile, half smirk. "I've missed you, too."

The way they went from daggers shooting out of their eyes to the smiles he couldn't guess what exactly had passed between them, but he knew something had.

Zack wasn't chief of security because he the slowest of people, exactly the opposite. He'd been groomed for this job, almost literally, in ever sense except for formality by Garibaldi. He'd understood how hard it must have been for her to be taking him where she had been after all those years and everything that happened here, so he was kicking himself for not seeing it about fifteen minutes ago.

The shock took longer to adjust to than figuring out what that one thing he hadn't understood was. He was standing in a room full of telepath's. There was a collective of telepath's on Babylon 5 and they'd all gotten here without anyone realizing there were here, too.

The girl fell into Lyta's arms and he watched them hug. He couldn't be sure but in those few seconds before they parted she was probably the most relaxed he'd seen her face the entire time since she got here. He had only ever wished that he could be someone to create that in her, and somehow he felt sometime very akin to jealousy watching them.

He watched Lyta then go person by person. She said each of their names, hugged them, shook their hands or placed a hand on their shoulder, she asked them questions about their lives and how they were. She kneeled on the ground, regardless of the dress, to hug children, places kisses on their cheeks, and laugh about the little things they told her. She cooed over babies in arms and laughed at things that were obviously said only between two or three of them and all of it not aloud.

Standing somewhere inside the door but only by about fifteen to twenty feet, he was uneasy to even be there. He had no idea what was going on and whether what he'd suspected might be a minor problem having Lyta on the station had just blown completely out of proportion with this new turn of events. Even the fact that he wasn't alone in this surprise and she hadn't know as well, was comforting. They'd done it around her knowledge, which meant she was running nor controlling this group. It made him wonder if they were following the new regulations for telepath's at all.

"Zack!"

He looked up at the outburst of his name, flushing slightly in embarrassment for his thoughts on first coming back to looking at the person who'd called his name. Had she heard what he was thinking? Was she disgusted with all of the things that were running through his mind? She hadn't seemed to notice, he decided, as she was waving him to the back of the room.

"Uh- " he started, but he didn't have anywhere to go with the sentence, he was knee deep in speculation and possibilities that could blow wide open, the ways this could go were unlimited. "Yeah?"

"Melissa says she wants to show you her new trick," Lyta said, lacing an arm under his, as she felt slightly fatigued. Her head was filled with the blissful sounds of familiarity, family and the sensation of it all wore down her need to be strong, tall and independent. She felt safe, secure and, very suddenly, exhausted.

"Melissa?" Zack barked, louder than he expected. It had come out louder because he was suddenly surprised to have Lyta lace her arm into his and rest her head against his shoulder. All she did, though, was raise a finger to her lips, say "shh" and point to the girl sitting on the floor in front of them. It got him all sorts of jittery though. Here she was middle of a telepath den laying her head on his shoulder and covering a yawn with gloved fingers.

Melissa apparently was the name of the young woman with the red hair and animate face who she'd been arguing with earlier. She was now sitting on the ground in an Indian style position, on her coat with parts of it spread around her by a hap hazard way of sitting on the ground. Her elbows rested on her knees and from behind she seemed to be focusing on a toy top laying on it's side in front of her.

He thought it was his imagination that it seemed to shiver every few seconds, until it rolled across the ground slightly. His breath caught in his chest and he realized that familiar thundering silence had returned to the room. It was like no one was breathing at all. The toy spun along the ground not getting off one of its side being on the ground. Melissa let out a huff of air and a stretched suddenly, tilting her head, like she was trying to doing something.

And just as suddenly it happened. The top jumped off its side. It was standing perfectly still and upright on its point. It began to spin slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room erupted with sound suddenly, among the many; laughter, applause and the sound of soft crying.

~*~*~

"And Trinity was the one with the new born twins," Lyta said counting off on her fingers, a smile on her lips that hadn't seemed to vanish for a few hours now. "Her husbands not here. Apparently he's on Earth training to be in Earth Force as part of the third wing of telepath's let in. He's always dreamed about being able to flying."

She was talking on and on about all of them since Zack had asked one question. It felt so marvelous once she'd gotten over being surprised by a small collective of them being here. It was only about twenty people, give or take the number of kids running around with them at the time.

"Oh, and Dorien, the one who stayed in corner with his book, he was freighter captains' right hand man for so long. He was born a space boomer to a pair of completely normal parents. They never wanted to let him go so they just hid it from everyone and told him he wasn't different until they couldn't hide it from him any longer. He is much happier knowing who and what he is, but I think he misses the life on the ship going new places and old places all the time."

While walking, her pointer finger balanced on her opposite hands ring finger, she said aimlessly. "I think that's all of them."

"Not quite," Zack replied. "You forgot to tell me about Melissa."

Lyta's smile quieted but it seemed to sit more inside her eyes now than in her lips. A calm, pleasant expression for the few seconds when she said nothing at all. She had, an undo novelty and adoration in Melissa, and it went both ways. After so long, after what had passed between them, it wasn't surprising they viewed each other almost exactly like true family, though to others they rarely let it show.

"Melissa," Lyta started hesitantly. "Is a tough case sometimes and not others. Her parents died during the Telepath War, which isn't too surprising, many of our people did. Melissa, though, has blocked all of her memories of her parents since the first time she ran away from Psi-Corps back when she was fourteen. It seems as though if she can't remember them she doesn't have to face the fact she was the one who found her parents."

"Poor kid," he remarked, shaking his head. No kid should have to go through that.

"She's special though," Lyta said immediately after, her voice harder and lower. "Gifted."

"Yeah, I had been meaning to ask you about that," Zack said, radiating more uncomfortably without even realizing it, adjusting one part of his collar. It was late, he'd be up early for a shift, and he still didn't know what he was going to do about all of this. He had to do something, of course, but what? "She's-"

"Telekinetic," she answered, nodding, as they continued to walk towards her room. "Psi-Corps used to test us, anyone who came out of the program whole, desperate to know, to learn how to control and use it to their advantage. Melissa was fourteen the first time she realized she could move something very small if she focus her entire being on it. The next week was the first time she ran from them."

He tried to find something to say but his words seemed flat in his mind. What could he say? That he was sorry she'd had a short and very hard life so far?

"She's been lucky though," Lyta continued on, as if she hadn't noticed his silence, turning the corner toward her quarters, her voice growing stiff. "Unlike others."

Zack looked from her to where she was looking at harder than he thought she could after this evening. His eyes followed to where he gaze was and the weapon at his side came out the next moment. The door to her room was hanging open, the room beyond it completely dark and ominous. He glanced at the woman next to him, lips pressed tight, fist balled, and he began wondering if it was his imagination or if it was getting warmer suddenly near her.

She watched him slide up to the door and tell her to wait, but she didn't. She went right past him, and even as he exclaimed for her to wait, moved into the room. It became lit immediately, simply by her will of it. The light was blinding and then went to normal. If she had been mad, it changed in an instant. There was no one here, she knew that on entering, but it was the scene around her the got her even further mad. Her entire main room was a wreck, she knew the two side rooms would be the same.

"Damn," she heard Zack swear behind her, gun still in held upward in his hand.

"It's not here," Lyta whispered softly. It was the sound of rage, like the coming of a storm spoken in thunder.

"It's not here," she said louder and the room did suddenly feel warmer, as her hand clutched through the fabric of her gown to whatever hung at the bottom of that necklace chain, yanking at it. A crash sounded a room away, then three or four simultaneously small crashes sounded from the back of the room they stood in as glasses exploded in the kitchenette.

"Lyta?" Zack asked hesitantly moving to touch her shoulder, as he noticed she was beginning to shake.

She sidestepped him the second before his hand could touch her shoulder. He watched her storm toward the wall and slap her hand on to the Bab-Com.

**Two Messages Waiting**

**First Message Now**

"Lyta, its Susan. What do you think your doing-"

"Stop message," Lyta said, tersely, seeming to forget the fact Zack was even there in the room with her. "Create connection to General Ivanova personal channel."

**Access Code Required**

"Alpha Nine Three Seven Eight Teep," Lyta said through almost locked teeth. She was getting worse and worse by the moment. Her mind was a black cloud that was only growing darker and darker and darker. It blanketed any thought and emotion around her senses, making them easier to hear, easier to ignore, easier to use as fodder to the fire that was building inside of her.

"General Ivanova." The voice came but the screen was dark.

"It's Lyta. Get a secure channel." The Bab Com beeped, disconnected and went blank.

"Look, Lyta, I should call this-" Zack started up.

"Don't even think about it," she replied almost too quickly, without even looking at him where he stood behind her. She'd stop him if she had to and, though she hoped she wouldn't, the best hope and possibilities of her people's future rested on the fact she would if she had to. "If you try-"

"Secure channel. Lyta, what's-" The Bab-Com jumped back to life and the picture came with it this time. It showed a weary, long worked Susan Ivanova dressed in normal regulation uniform with her hair pulled back tight. Her eyes had bags from not getting enough sleep and her expression was drawn in concern. Her eyes brows arched getting a look at the two people in view. "Nice duds. Is there something the two of you need to tell me?"

"Save it for another day," Lyta spat at the screen moving out of the way to let her see the ruins of her room. Furniture torn and tossed, tables up turned, the contents of shelves in piles next to the shelves on the floors. "We have a bigger problem. They've taken TEEP!"

Susan's face radiated in reaction from bad to worse across the entire spectrum, then it blanked; all of it almost too fast to be seen, barely a few registered seconds. She moved from sitting up straight to learning back in her chair. "What do you want me to do?"

"Susan Ivanova, don't play games with me," Lyta started, sounding more irrational and outraged. "You worked to get TEEP just as hard as I did. If we loose it now -to them of all people!- you'll feel the loss the same as they will. Their your people and it's you future, too!"

"Lyta," Susan said gently, though her expression was suddenly drawn very tight, angling her line of sight from her to Zack and back to her. "Perhaps we should discuss this alone."

Zack wasn't sure at all what was going on. This night had become so much more involved than he'd ever imagined early that day just over joyed. He'd imagined dancing, food, and just lighthearted conversation. He hadn't imagined a colony of telepath's, a sudden upturned room, a missing something and sudden spiral downward into something he hadn't the vaguest idea of that seemed to have just blown wide open on his station...but he did know one thing.

"Mr. Allan won't be revealing any of our secrets."

He was positive it wasn't what he knew so far the worried him most. It was Lyta. The way she was standing there in front of him dressed up like a queen, her arms leisure but strict at her sides, her face drawn tight, hair almost seeming to float around her head and shoulders, eyes wide and black with a ring of white light around them.

"Right, Zack?"

To Be Continued....

"Neech sak schneck, slem ba" means "I am your friend, in peace."

It's one of many traditional hello's in Minbari.

~~~~

On to Smoldering Embers