Disclaimer:Okay... Babylon 5 and its wonderful characters are not mine. They belong to J. Michael Straczynski and Babylonian Productions. No profits are intended, I just had to get this out of my head.

Comments, criticisms (and anything else that may go throught your head) are welcome at [email protected]. If this piece has bored you to death or made you cringe please tell me in order to stop my poisoning of the web with my writings...

This is my first attempt at writing something ... different. Did I succeed?

Warning: English is not my first language, and this ff was not beta read... so you may (and you will) meet some errors (especially grammatical ones, they’re the worst)

Help wanted! If you have a better idea for the title, please tell me? I just can’t find an adequate title to this one...

YOU
By CalR

I'm cold...

Normals have rarely the type of presence you have. Even non-telepaths can feel it when you use it to command attention.

You hate that I represent. You despise what I am. You can't stand beeing around me. Do you even guess that most of our encounters (well, in fact all of them) aren't as fortuitous as they seemed to be?

Somewhere I hate the way I impose myself to you. And I hate the way I keep swallowing my pride each time you rebuke me.

But I CAN'T help it. Your loneliness attract me like a black hole attract a mere star. Anyone with any ounce of emphaty and a heart cannot but respond to the cry of your soul.

I heard you pestering about MrGrey once. He has also intended to know you. But you rejected him as you rejected me. Can't you see that? Grey is a good man, and like me, you attracted him like a moth to a flame.

He has given up, but I keep going back and back and back and back.

Tonight I'm sleeping in your quarters. Well sleeping is a big word... in fact I'm merely laying on the couch, eyes wide open in the dark aware of your presence in the next room. And the irony of this is that none of this was my fault. I didn't intended to tell you about my quarters nor did expect your generous offer. But once you offered me a place for the night,well, let’s say that I didn't protested too much before saying yes.

So I'm here, in your quarters, reflecting on the past time and the progress on our relationship. How strange, I spent last year 'actively' pursuing but most of the progress our relashionship has developed are more a succession of accidents than careful planning.

You're so umpredictable.

Like tonight. You were preoccupied but strangely for someone as private as you, you opened to me and told me about your fears.

I can't say how this has touched me.

I know that your job is your life. Being Earthfore is as meaningful for you than me being Psy Corp. Except that you choose it to be that way.

Not me.

Earthforce is a much sweeter master than mine but it is eating you alive. You're like this colossus of Rhodes. Magnificent, gigantic, apparently indestructible, but the ground you're standing on is not stable. You feet are made in glass. Your outer hull is solid but inside there's nothing.

Please, I want so much to fill this void for you. Let me be your solid ground, let me anchor your legs, I ask nothing else in return.

You're moving on your bed. I know somehow that you can't sleep too. I heard you leaving your bed and walking in your room.

Dear Susan, only someone so private like you would restain herself to enter your own living room to preserve my privacy.

So I move, showing you that I'm unable to sleep to.

I hear the door leading to your room opening. And your voice, strangely soft, float to my ears.

"Can't sleep too?"

"No." I raise myself on my forearms. "Too many things on my mind."

You're so adorable in your dark blue blue robe, your hair slightly mussed, making you looking oh so human. You gave me a soft smile. The one you began to give to me only a short wile ago, since the night I came to you for comfort.

"Welcome to the club, then." you said. "Care for a drink? My father used to say it was the best thing to put you to sleep."

"No, thank you. I never drink something as strong as vodka."

"Oh, come on, Talia! Don't tell me you never tried it?" your smile is playful tonight. Strange as you have so many type of smiles. I don't think I've ever noticed. May be because I never saw you using them before.

You serve yourself a healthy dose of the clear liquid in a glass, and another, much more reasonable, for me. You hand that one to me.

"Here. Try it. I guarantee it won't kill you." and you add with a facetious grin: "Well, maybe tomorrow you would want me to achieve you, but I'm fairly sure that you will have a good chance of recovery."

I can't help but smile.

"And that's supposed to reassure me?" I sniff cautiously the drink. "Is it the new way you devised to eliminate naive telepaths? To drunk them to death?"

Your grin gets wider. I'm glad we're now comfortable enough with each other to joke a little around.

"No. The offer is only open to you. I would never drink with another telepath...I don’t like to waste good vodka." You frown. “Well except maybe with Bester after I have heavily laced his drink with cyanhydric acid. Make it only cyanure, vodka is enterely too good for him."

And I can't help but stifle a laugh at that. I like the way you use words, use threats and sarcasms so casually and almost never approval or compliments. That makes them all the more precious to my eyes.

You look at me, enticing. "Come on! Don't knock it 'til you’ve tried it!"

"No. Thank you. Acohol lowers my inhibitions and I would be tempted to overstep my bounds."

I'm afraid that this reminder of my gift, my doom, will break your mood but tonight, your smile doesn't falter.

"I see. That's thoughtful of you to do that."

I want to tell you that most of telepaths are like myself, but I don't want to argue with you tonight so I say nothing.

You give me again this wonderfully soft smile: "I don't think that even drunk, you would forget yourself to this point Talia."

And you look intensely in my eyes. So intensely that I want to turn my head and look behind me because it can't be me you're looking that way.

But I'm caught in your gaze.

"I would never have thought I would say that but I trust you. I've finally understood that you're an individual. And an individual doesn't always reflects its group’s motto."

"It took you a long time to realize that." I say softly.

" It did, didn't it?" and you deliver me an half-embarassed smile.

I'm caught again by your gaze and only your voice, hesitant and so soft it is almost a whisper. "I trust you, Talia." You repeat, looking at your hands linked on your knees. "I want you to know that. So far, I've never looked behind the badge, but..." Your gaze meet mine and your voice become stronger. "But something in you make me to want to look beyond it. You are not like the others. You are special, you see what I mean?"

Oh Susan. You are the special one here.

Your eyes are locked on my face, and I can't escape them. Nor do I want to. You lean toward me, your face so close that I can feel your breath.

"Would it be okay if I..." You sound so hesitant.

"If you what?" I barely dare to ask, struggling with myself not to reach out to you mentally. Our bond would be so easily shattered. You seem to suffer yourself from you own internal struggle "If I... herr... I.... oh hell. Never mind..."

You try to raise but I catch your hands, and as our skins touch for the first time, I feel an electric shock. Sensations, bribes of thoughts, emotions tumble on my mind, so confusing and yet so much like my own state of mind.

"Talia?" and in your voice, there is the core of solitude of your soul. So I do the only thing possible.

I close the distance separating us slowly, still holding your hands in mine, but not enought to restain you if you want to escape.

And I let my lips softly brush yours.

"I... I... I don't think it's a good idea to do that, Talia." You tell me in an altered voice. And I percieve the question in your voice. Oh Susan, how I want to touch your mind and show you how I feel for you...

Instead I kiss you one more time.

"...We can't. What about regulations? Telepaths are suppos..."

"I don't care." and at that point, Psi Corp and all their rules could go and f... I must watch my language, I'm starting to talk like you, Susan.

But for now, the only this important is you and the way your lips feel on mine. I kiss you to cut your next objection.

"And... and your job? Surely a relationship would be..."

"I don't care about my job." And I steal a new kiss.

"And mine? I... mean.." You give an undignified squeal. "Talia, stop doing that. Please, I'm trying to think here. I have duties..." My sweet, dear Susan, you're beginning to babble here.

"I don't care about your duties as well." my tone bears no discussion. And I kiss you again, more forcefully this time, tracing your lower lip with my tongue. I feel your body quiver against mine.

"God....Talia. We can't do this. I mean, I mean... " As I trace the outline of your ear, your voice become a strangled squeak. "Please I beg you."

"To stop or to do that again?" I whisper into your ear. "Please, be more precise, Commander. So far, I'm getting mixed signals..."

"I... I have responsabilities. The station, the captain and my staff. I'm always on call and frankly I suck at this relationship thing. Not to mention that I'm cranky in the mornings."

I look squarely into your eyes, trying to convey my level of seriousness: _"Listen Susan. I don't care about the station, the staff, of your captain. You must be also informed that you are ALWAYS cranky at whatever time of the day and I happen to think that I can help you on this point." I smiled devishly to her, appreciating the blush adorning your cheekbones.

"I just want to s...I..." My voice is faltering too. And to think I was doing so well. "and I...you..." I'm in love with you. "I... care for you."

Your eyes widen. "I... I care for you , as well." you whisper back, as if it was the greatest secret of the univere. And to me, it was.

I can’t stop the goofy smile coming to my lips "I'm glad we've got that settled."

I notice briefly that my smile is mirrored by your own before loosing myself in your gaze. You to touch my hair tenderly,

“I must be crazy.” You mutter and yet you keep smiling.

Your hand slide from my hairs to my nape, guiding my lips to yours.

“Totally crazy.” You whisper after a brief kiss. And then you return for more, deepening our contact with a tenderness I’ve never suspected from you.

“Bojemoi! What am I doing?”

“You really want an answer, commander?” I ask, Seeing you so at loss is endearing and pulls string deep inside me.

A stern “No” is your answer and you take me in your arms, embracing me in a firm grip, burying you face in my neck. I hug you back, and we stay like this for a long time.

When you release me, your gaze is dark and full of promises. You take my hand, kiss it softly and lead me to your bedroom...

What happen after is ours and ours alone. I won’t tell about that. Suffice to say that it was the most profound and joyful experience of my life. And...

... I’m no longer cold anymore.

End.