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Tuzanor’s spaceport had grown immensely in the past twenty-four years. When Marcus first saw it as a young man, newly arrived on Minbar and full of his own guilt, sorrow, and aloneness in the universe, it had already been ancient. The Minbari, he learned in those days, had been a spacefaring people while his own long-ago ancestors had only just learned the magic of small sailing craft to take them from one close, rocky shore to another. The ships of the Minbari, beautiful and terrible things with smooth, elegant lines, bright colors, and technology beyond the understanding of Human science, coexisted there with buildings made of graceful, if slightly crumbling, ancient stone and crystal, their floors slick with the footsteps of more than a thousand years.
But the Rangers in those days were tolerated and left to their own devices - a fondly-regarded anachronism to some, and a waste of resources to others. He’d understood little of that in those days, but in times since the old, worn stones had been cared for and the faded crystal polished back to its former shine and clarity, and new technology, on par with the most advanced of what the Warrior caste’s shipwrights and weapons designers could provide, had been brought in to replace ships and technology nearly as old as the memory of Valen. Tuzanor now was a bustling city, central to the life of Minbar, if not quite yet as important to the minds of the people as the eternal city of Yedor. To walk through its space-ports meant not only passing among the hurried conferences and friendly reunions of some ninety-odd other Rangers of five or six different species, but also the many dozen workers, engineers, mechanics, support staff, merchants, and craftspeople who supported the Anla’shok in their city.
Almost all of them had a smile or a bow for Marcus. He was well-known and generally liked among the citizens of the city of sorrows - a long-time familiar face, a veteran of all the great wars that the Rangers had fought in the past two and a half decades, and generally regarded as a personable and reliable fellow, a good person to know. But none of that was why they smiled today. They smiled because they knew the errand that had brought him to the port that morning, and because even at the rather grand old age of fifty-four, Marcus Cole couldn’t be bothered to hide his joy at the thought of the reunion he was about to be blessed with.
His wife was coming home.
For almost twenty years, General Susan Ivanova - the question of her taking his name had never come up, he couldn’t imagine it of her - had come and gone from Minbar with as much regularity as active military service could allow. Even when they were younger and Marcus had been sent away on frequent missions, there had always been Delenn and John and her god-son David to visit, and her key to the cozy apartment in Tuzanor had seen plenty of use, just as her command quarters on Babylon 5 had been a frequent resting place for a tired Ranger. That had been one of the first agreements they came to about their relationship, in the early days when Susan was still hesitant to designate it with even that vague title - that neither of them would allow the other’s career to limit or change their own. But Susan had commanded Babylon 5 to its end, and, rather than being sent back to Earth after its destruction to become a desk jockey, a few months before she had taken Delenn’s offer to replace the now-departed John Sheridan as Anla’shok Na, Ranger One.
Marcus, for his part, was grateful for the Minbari’s tacit acceptance of fraternization within the ranks, and even within the chain of command, provided it didn’t cause problems. He wasn’t quite ready for retirement yet.
“Will it trouble you?” Delenn had asked him quietly, the day before Susan arrived on Minbar for John Sheridan’s last dinner party.
“What? To be commanded by her?” Marcus grinned. “She’s always commanded me.”
“I meant for her to be Anla’shok Na when she has never officially been anla’shok. You should know that we considered you, Marcus. John regarded you as a very fine possible choice for the position, and I agreed with him. But in the end, the question was less one of ability and experience among the Rangers themselves, and more one of command ability. You have never shown great interest in leadership.”
“Believe me, I know.” Marcus sipped his tea thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s for me. Some of the decisions I’ve made in the last fifty-four years...” He shook his head. “Well. I hardly think they’re the choices of a born leader. I don’t think anyone wants the head of the Rangers to, for instance, abandon his ship in the middle of a war because of a personal consideration. I’ve done what I can to make up for that choice, but the fact is... I made it. And I would do it again, in a heartbeat.”
Delenn smiled a little, though the warmth did not entirely reach her eyes. “And as a friend, I am grateful to you for that decision.”
Marcus nodded, and supplied the words that Delenn had left off: “Even if, as a leader, you cannot condone it.”
“Precisely.”
* * *
He had been angry when he woke on that far-gone afternoon, on the floor of the med bay - infuriated, if he was honest, and his fear that they had unhooked him from the machine at the loss of Susan’s life had been, while the largest by far of his considerations, not the only one that enraged him. The thought of living without her, of surviving yet another disaster while someone he loved wasted and died for no reason, when he could have saved her, was pain enough. But there was a kernel deep in his heart that told him it was not all - at the root of it, he felt the anger and frustration, the sheer agony of realizing that he had wanted to die. He had been happy to finally, at last, die for someone he loved, and be done with the rest. No more failure. And then Lennier had bent over him, tears streaming down his face, and berated him in swift, angry Adronato, and he realized that he had very nearly cast off the mantle of self-destructive guilt from his own shoulders directly onto those of his friend. And that realization began a change.
Susan lived. Enough of his own life energy had been drained in the time before Stephen and Lennier arrived to stop the machine that she held on to life, and, with help from more conventional medical science, eventually made a full recovery. When she regained consciousness, she refused to speak to Marcus, turning her face away from where he lay on the next hospital bed over. Alive, but lost to him. He supposed it was a fair bargain. There had never been all that much hope of her accepting him to begin with.
It took months for him to recover his strength, though, and toward the end, Susan came to the med bay to visit him. Lennier was there when she arrived, reading through the old lessons with him, reciting the ancient texts he had brought with him from his home world. He fell silent when he saw Susan, bowed to both of them, and departed without a word.
“You’re an arrogant damned fool,” Susan told him as soon as Lennier was gone.
Marcus said nothing.
“Why in the hell would you do a thing like that? Who gave you the right? What in the hell gave you the idea that you could put that kind of debt on my shoulders? I’m a fucking soldier, Cole. I’ve known since I was seventeen that I would probably die like a soldier. I went in knowing that. I was ready to give up my life for the cause, not because I wanted to, but because it was worth it, and because that’s what soldiers do. Who the hell are you to try to take that away from me? And abandon your post to do it.”
A wince. “I’m sorry about that. I wouldn’t have left if it weren’t the only way.”
“I wish I thought the Minbari would court-martial you for it,” Susan snapped. “But I know Delenn. She won’t.”
“On Minbar,” Marcus said softly, “no one can interfere with the calling of a person’s heart.”
“Bullshit,” Susan growled. “How do you think Lennier feels about that? You almost made him an accessory to murder.”
Marcus shook his head. “No. Not murder. At worst, I would have involved him in assisted suicide. Which is legal in the Minbari Federation.”
“He sure as hell didn’t look happy about it.”
“He was angry. But he understands why I had to do it.”
“How do you know?”
Marcus was silent again, and after a long moment Susan snorted and walked out.
It was weeks before she spoke to him again, but when she did she was more calm. Less angry. More tired. She told him everything that was happening elsewhere on the station - about the new Interstellar Alliance and her stepping up as station commander now that Sheridan had retired from EarthForce to take its presidency. That Sheridan and Delenn were married, now - a quick ceremony on the station, no frills or very much ritual, but that Delenn had insisted on having Susan stand with her. That Lennier seemed not to be handling their marriage well, but that Sheridan and Delenn both seemed determined to help him through... and after all that news, Susan fell silent. After a long moment, she scooted her chair closer to his bed, and touched his hand lightly. “I wanted to thank you. For saving my life.”
“Susan, you don’t need--”
“I do. It’s not something I asked for, and it’s not something I wanted, but...” She closed her eyes, dark lashes overlaying the shadows under her eyes. “I’m alive. I got to see two of my best friends get married, and be there for them. I’ve got a promotion. The station is mine to run. If you hadn’t come back - and I’m not saying it wasn’t a totally stupid, asinine thing to do, don’t misunderstand me, here - but if you hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have any of those things. It would’ve been over.”
He smiled up at her. “I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Yeah, well... don’t do it again.”
“You know I can’t promise that.”
She made an aggravated noise and pushed back her chair. Then she took a deep breath, and seemed to calm herself. “When you’re back on your feet... I guess I really do owe you dinner, now. Just one dinner,” she added quickly. “One. And no promises about anything else.”
“Of course not.” His body still ached, and Stephen had warned him that he’d be more than usually susceptible to any infection or virus his body might encounter for a god while. But he had never felt so hopeful.
* * *
Twenty years later, Marcus watched as the passengers of the most recent civilian transport emerged onto the stone cobbles of Tuzanor’s spaceport, and felt the same hope lifting his heart as he saw a familiar figure, straight and proud despite the passing of years, step out onto the street. Her greying hair shone in the suns’ dim afternoon glow as she turned her head. When she saw him, her solemn face broke into a brilliant smile.
He might have been too old to run through a spaceport. He did it anyway, and pulled Susan into an enthusiastic embrace when he reached her. “Welcome home. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Susan tugged him down into a kiss he could never have even imagined twenty years before. Life was good.