"Nothing's the same anymore."

---- Commander Jeffrey Sinclair

The small spider-like ships held the long, cylindrical fusion bomb between them, matching the image Delenn had shown them of the transmission from Epsilon Three.

"Distance to target?" Sheridan demanded. Like a restless lion, it seemed that he couldn't remain in his command chair and sprang up again.

Marcus only needed a glance at his console to confirm what he already knew. "Still outside optimum firing range."

Susan put in, "If that thing gets any closer to Babylon 4, we risk damaging the station when it blows."

Sheridan mulled that over for a second and turned his head toward Ivanova. "Can you hit it from here?"

She looked down at her readouts. "I can try."

"Do so."

Fire streamed from the forward guns. Most of the volleys missed, as she adjusted manually for range and distance, but then one struck a small Shadow ship shepherding the bomb and the ship exploded in a puff of brilliance. The others continued on toward the station.

"Within estimated blast range," Marcus reported and looked up. "But then, so are we." From the corner of his eye he spied the serene, brown-robed figure of Entil'Zha and drew strength from it. Entil'Zha watched the actions of the officers, remaining quietly in the rear of the command deck, but Marcus knew that those keen amber eyes were analyzing everything.

"In that case," Susan said, "hold on to your socks."

Again brilliant fire trailed out of the ship as the tracers lit up the space in between. A volley struck the bomb.

White light, equal to a sun, streamed through the forward port, turning everything into a negative of itself. They all held up their hands to shield their eyes.

"Lennier, get us out of here!" Sheridan yelled.

Helpless, Lennier's hands ordered the ship to turn around. "It's too late!"

The brilliant light died away, leaving a blue-white snake of energy that crept through the bridge like something living looking for prey. For a moment, destiny teetered on the edge of a blade.... and then chose. The stream settled on Entil'Zha and before their eyes, a brilliant corona flashed around him, too bright to look at.

Ivanova saw it. "His stabilizer! It's hit!"

Delenn lunged toward him. "Jeffrey!"

"No!" Throwing an arm around her waist, Lennier caught her from plunging into the swirling energies.

Delenn struggled to free herself and reached out a hand toward the tall figure limned in light. "Jeffrey! No!"

Marcus leaped, his heart in his throat. His hand swept through the energy field -- through Entil'Zha's suddenly intangible robe-- catching nothing. In an eye blink, the man he had sworn to protect with his life vanished. One moment there-- the next, gone.

The time stabilizer crashed to the floor.

As it fragmented, it seemed to take their hopes with it. A heavy silence fell. Marcus looked up at Delenn, hoping for guidance. Delenn hung limply in Lennier's hands, staring back at Marcus -- or rather, staring at the spot where Entil'Zha had last stood. Marcus doubted she saw much of anything. Lennier didn't seem in much better shape, nor did Zathras, who blinked rapidly at the emptiness as if the entire universe had just been pulled out from under him.

"Wha -- What happened to him?" Ivanova demanded.

The sound of her voice shook Zathras into motion. The being knelt down and picked up the pieces of the stabilizer. "Time stabilizer damaged. He is unstuck in time." Zathras clicked his tongue and sighed. "Zathras warn, but no one listen to Zathras."

"What do you mean, "unstuck in time"?" Marcus demanded, anxiety making his voice high and tight. "Where is he? In the past, in the future?"

Zathras looked at him and shook his head sorrowfully. "Cannot say. Saying, I would know. Do not know, so cannot say." He looked down at the pieces in his hand and tried to fit them together. "Very damaged. Zathras cannot have anything nice."

Delenn took an urgent step forward. "We must find him."

"Later." They all looked at Sheridan as if he had gone insane. "Babylon 4--"

"-- can wait!" Marcus found that his hand was on his Minbari pike, though there were no enemies here to fight. He desperately wished for a platoon of Wind Swords or Shadows or anything he could battle to bring back Entil'Zha.

"No, it can't," Sheridan answered with the steady calm of someone who didn't know the stakes, who was outside their concerns. "The explosion sent out enough EMP to blow out their scanners for a while. We have one chance to get on board -- if we wait too long, we'll lose it."

"No," Delenn whispered. She straightened slowly and freed herself from Lennier's grasp. "You do not understand, John. We must find him."

"Sinclair understood the importance of the mission -- he'd want us to continue."

Delenn shook her head once. "We cannot continue without him."

"Why? What do you mean? Delenn, what's going on?"

"If we do not have Jeffrey, we fail." She answered heavily, and she gazed up into his eyes as if she spoke to him alone.

"But we've done the first part," Sheridan said. "All we have to do is set up the equipment on the station and let it go. Right?" When she didn't answer immediately, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "There's more to this. More than what you said."

"The station cannot go back on automatic," Delenn admitted. "Someone must take it. The one who goes..." she hesitated and finished in a voice little stronger than a whisper, "... cannot return to this time."

Ivanova squeezed her eyes shut in pained realization. "Of course. Jeff volunteered. That's so typical of him. He's never been one to let others make the sacrifices. But why can't one of us take it?"

"I will take his place," Marcus offered, right on top of her question.

Delenn shook her head, desperation giving her expression a frantic cast they had never seen before. "No, no. Jeffrey must take it back. He must." Her voice faded again, and she cast her eyes, despairing, at the site he had last stood. "Or we are all lost."

"Why?" Sheridan demanded, fed up with more riddles. "Why don't you, for once, just tell us what you know."

Delenn did not move or speak for a full minute, while the others waited. Marcus was reminded forcibly in that instant that she had once been Satai, as she coolly weighed her options. Finally she straightened her shoulders proudly. "We know little. As I have said, until I came to Babylon 5, my people did not know that it was Babylon 4 which came to our rescue. But I have known for some time that Jeffrey has a great destiny. His soul is Minbari -- it is why he was chosen Entil'Zha. It is right and necessary that he take the station back."

"And Sinclair's bought into this, too?" Sheridan asked skeptically.

"John," Delenn gave him a chiding glance. "How often does the universe give us a chance to save billions of lives and a thousand years of history? Of course Jeffrey agrees."

Sheridan suddenly turned and skewered Lennier with a glare. "And you, Lennier? Would you take it, if we can't get Sinclair back?"

Lennier blinked rapidly and seemed so horrified by the question that he couldn't speak for a moment. "Captain. I -- that is, no, Captain, I cannot. It is not my place."

"But you're Minbari," Sheridan countered. "Presumably you have a Minbari soul, and as Delenn said, it's not every day that you get the chance to sacrifice yourself for the whole universe."

Lennier drew himself up proudly. "Captain, if it were my destiny, naturally I would accept. But it is not. Ambassador Sinclair has been chosen and so he must go."

Marcus realized, with a chill, that neither Delenn nor Lennier seemed eager to say anything about what would happen after Entil'Zha took the station back.

"Isn't this all rather beside the point?" Ivanova interjected. "I mean, we've got to get Jeff back first. Then we can all argue about who gets to go."

"Exactly," Marcus added. "Spout all you like about destiny, but we've got to get him back. Somehow, there must be a way. Zathras, you can do it, can't you?" He heard his voice, pleading and urgent, and tried to gather himself together. Why had the Rangers never trained him for the loss of Entil'Zha? The answer to that was simple: it wasn't supposed to happen. He had sworn to stand between Entil'Zha and all danger.

"Babylon 4 is focus," Zathras said slowly, but thinking furiously. "And he is focus now, of time. There he will appear, if anywhere."

"All right," Sheridan's command tone rang through the bridge. "We're going in. We're going to get everything ready on the assumption that Sinclair will come back to B4 and Zathras can keep him there. And then we'll talk more about this. Mr. Lennier, take us in."

Lennier exchanged a glance with Delenn, who nodded. "Yes, Captain."

* * * *

Jeffrey Sinclair came back to himself with a groan. It took a minute to separate the pounding in his head from the noise in his ears, and a longer time to realize the noise was of people speaking. Even before he opened his eyes, he grasped enough to know that the language was Minbari Adronato, ahil dialect, and that the unfamiliar voices were talking to him.

"Master? Entil'Zha?" A hand gingerly rested on his shoulder and shook him once. White lances of pain shot through him, and Sinclair couldn't help another groan. The hand withdrew and Sinclair forced his eyes open, before they shook him again. He saw a young, concerned female Minbari face very near his before she withdrew respectfully.

"Are you all right, Master? Gauthenn, send for a healer at once."

Sinclair looked at the gathering of the six Minbari and knew at once that he had time shifted to the distant past. To his future. The bonecrests had been filed to points in a style long since visible only in museums and temples.

"No," he raised a hand. "No healer is necessary. I'm well."

"But, Master," the young acolyte hovered near him, her face marred by worry. "you lost consciousness."

Sinclair presumed that physically he looked all right, because they were not staring at him as if he were a stranger. But he needed to see for himself, which meant he had to get rid of them all without arousing concern. "I had a vision," he announced. He was stunned by the immediate reaction. All six Minbari, including the two dressed in warrior caste robes, became expectant, even reverential.

The eldest female finally asked, "Of what, Entil'Zha?"

"I must meditate, privately, to find the meaning," he answered. They bowed to him and shortly were gone.

When Sinclair was alone, he rose from the low chair and looked around. The large room was furnished in what he had come to think of as standard Minbari design, a soft and simple elegance of cushions, spartan furniture, draping fabrics, crystals, and candles. Yet beneath the Minbari veneer he recognized the bulkheads of a Babylon 4 stateroom.

In the 'fresher he glanced at the green, flowering tendrils of the hanging plant in the unused water shower and smiled. Then he turned and faced the mirror. His smile slipped away. He had known what he would see, but it was still a shock.

Valen looked back at him.

* * * *

As he discussed the options of where to grapple onto the station with Ivanova and Lennier, Sheridan kept an eye on Delenn. She had gradually drifted forward, until she stood alone on the foredeck. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and the worry which radiated from her was almost palpable.

He shifted his gaze briefly to Susan, who had just suggested a spot. "Yes, there. Bring us in." He stood up and approached Delenn. It was hard to see her in such obvious pain. "Delenn?"

She kept her gaze on the viewscreen and her voice was distant and hollow. "This was not part of the plan. I did not expect this. We cannot even know where in time Jeffrey has gone."

Sheridan looked at her, so obviously bereft and knew he could only offer empty comforting words. "It'll be all right." He laid a hand gently on her shoulder, and fought a stab of jealousy. He hadn't known that Sinclair meant so much to her. "We'll get him back, Delenn. Somehow, I promise you."

She nodded, but said nothing more. He wished he had more to say, but in truth, he had less idea than she did about what would happen next. Sheridan squeezed her shoulder once and returned to the command seat. He caught Marcus' eyes on the way -- the Ranger looked almost as worried as Delenn. Even Ivanova, though she hid her concern better, was distressed.

He frowned as he sat down, noting Delenn had not moved.

He had barely recognized the cloaked stranger in the war room. How could someone change so much? John had tried to get reacquainted, but Sinclair was preoccupied, and his penchant for speaking like a Vorlon hadn't helped. Sheridan didn't think he was himself all that different from the Academy grunt who had harassed Jeff Sinclair the plebe, but Sinclair surely was. From the look Ivanova had given him when she saw him for the first time in almost two years, he'd obviously changed significantly in that brief time.

John had last encountered Sinclair on Mars, during the Food riots, when Sinclair had jumped into a brawl to save his fellow officer. Sheridan had been uncomfortable around him when they went to get a drink in the aftermath. He thought he'd covered it well, offering a sort of apology for Academy hazing, but it wasn't the Academy he thought of and felt guilty about when he'd looked at Sinclair. At lieutenant commander Sinclair.

Sheridan had been amply rewarded for his successes in the Earth-Minbari war, while Sinclair had been stuck with make-work, desk jobs, and duties fit for a junior lieutenant. Sinclair's colleagues had been promoted into captaincies in the rebuilt fleet, while he had not progressed in rank after the Line promotion to lieutenant commander. Years of marginalization had forced him into himself, duty-bound and over-controlled, so that none could read his feelings. It was shameful treatment for a hero of the Line and a brilliant squadron commander-- but it had also made Sheridan wonder what Sinclair had done to deserve it.

Along with most of Earth Force, Sheridan had heard the rumor that somehow Sinclair was responsible for the Minbari surrender. Earthdome didn't know what had happened and many people hadn't trusted him. Only the Minbari had rescued his career from obscurity -- and that had made Earthdome even more nervous. Clark and his lackeys had known that Sinclair would resist them so they had shuffled him to Minbar, not realizing they were fulfilling destiny.

Ranger One. Entil'Zha. Whichever title he used, he was, Sheridan had heard, one of the few Humans whom Neroon actually respected, not to mention Michael Garibaldi's best friend. He was so esteemed by his Rangers he was practically revered. And now, apparently, Sinclair had gone "native" enough that he was willing to sacrifice himself to save the Minbari by bringing them their station.

Hard to believe that someone who had nearly died in combat against the Minbari and seen hundreds, thousands, of his colleagues die at Minbari hands, could change so much that fifteen years later he was willing to give up his life to save that same race.

Sheridan didn't like it, not at all. Had the Minbari somehow twisted Ambassador Sinclair, with all their talk of Entil'Zha and destiny, into doing this for them? Or had he fallen so far under the spell of their culture that he was psychologically trying to become Minbari the only way he could?

Sheridan's hands tightened around the armrests of his chair. They'd get Sinclair back from the timestream. Damned if he knew how yet, but they would. And after that, he planned to have a talk with the ambassador.