by Elizabeth Johnson

John Sheridan sat in the command chair of the White Star and knew the end was coming. The sand was running swiftly through his hourglass.

He had felt his death approaching for the past several days, but now it was here. He had spent so long preparing for this moment and thinking about it, that he was not afraid. It had been a good life, full of love and adventure. His only regret was that he had not seen David again.

His limbs were now too heavy to move, as a soft, warm lassitude crept through his body. His eyes were open, but the bridge of the ship seemed far away and almost transparent, as if it were made of tissue that would soon dissolve into nothing.

Then, in gentle surprise, he heard voices. He didn't hear them with his ears, exactly, but he heard them, at first from a distance then closer. He didn't think they were speaking a language he knew, but he understood nevertheless.

"... I told you he would be here," the first voice was oddly familiar but too faint to identify.

"So you did," the second voice was older, more patient, and Sheridan recognized it at once.

As if the recognition was a key that unlocked and opened a door, the thick air between him and the nav station rippled. Bits of color sparkled and vanished like a corrupted holographic display, but gradually the fragments swirled together, and a familiar being walked into view.

Lorien.

The alien with the wispy beard and ornate robes smiled his greeting. "Hello, John. It's time."

Suddenly Sheridan could move. His body once again felt light and strong, as if he were young again. He looked down at himself and saw he was wearing his Army of Light uniform, and his hands were no longer aged and pale, but firm and strong. He stood up. "Lorien? What are you doing here?"

He blinked, realizing suddenly that the White Star was gone. He and Lorien stood in a long hallway, two crystal sides rising to a pointed arch ceiling overhead in a distinctly Minbari style. The blue and violet geometric patterns of the walls glowed with outside light, brightening in places where the crystal was clear. The hall reminded him of the corridor outside the Alliance council room. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere familiar, but no place in particular," he heard the other voice answer behind him, and he turned.

Sheridan had never seen the tall Minbari before, but he recognized him anyway. Valen. The towering bonecrest, pale skin, and low ears made him Minbari, but the deep eyes, mouth, and jaw were the same as the Human he had known as Jeffrey Sinclair.

John took a second look and had to reconsider. No-- he was not the same. Sinclair had been the seed, but the man standing before him was the soul in full flower. Power shone from the ageless amber eyes, and strength was marked on every angle and line of his body. He wore the formal robes of Entil'Zha with an ease Sheridan himself had never managed.

"Welcome, John," Valen smiled. It was not the ironic smile of Sinclair, but a fuller, more genuine expression of kindness. "We thought to greet you here, to guide you the rest of the way."

"You -- you both," he corrected himself glancing at Lorien, "came to guide me? I'm dead then, aren't I?"

Lorien cocked his head to the side, as if listening intently. "Not just yet. The tick-tock continues."

"This is a dream place," Valen explained, with a mild rebuking glance at Lorien. "Where you can hear us. A twilight realm, between daylight and darkness. It is here that you make a choice."

"What... sort of choice?" Sheridan asked warily. His gaze slid from Valen to Lorien and back again. Lorien he understood was ancient beyond comprehension, immortal-- but Valen had been born human. How could he possibly be here, more than a thousand years after he had lived? Was he some sort of ghost, or the last imaginings of Sheridan's own, failing mind?

"Life and death and in-between," Lorien answered. "To journey realms beyond. To go with me and mine beyond the Rim of the galaxy, to planes of existence as far from this one as imagination, and as close as a dream."

Sheridan swallowed nervously. This was real, he decided. Maybe it wasn't a "real" place and maybe Lorien and Valen weren't really here-- if the word "real" could be applied to these two mythic figures at all-- but the decision Lorien wanted him to make was real. Of that much, Sheridan was positive.

"Or?"

"To journey to the lands where all go when they perish. Perhaps to be reborn again, if some are right," Lorien glanced at Valen, then back to Sheridan, "or perhaps to wait until the end of time. Or perhaps they are all the same journey, with different routes." Lorien shrugged and held out a hand of invitation, "Come with me, John. It will be new adventure. This story is ended, and another begins."

Sheridan started to lift his hand and then lowered it again. He looked at Valen. "What about Delenn?"

Valen smiled gently, and moved closer, his cloak sweeping behind him gracefully. "Do not be afraid. She will find you, wherever you may go. But it is not yet her time."

"Where no shadows fall," Sheridan murmured, thinking of his love. How sad she was going to be, without him. It didn't seem right somehow that they couldn't go together. But he had no choice about leaving. He'd had no choice since Z'ha'dum.

Besides, wasn't this what he had half-expected? Why else had he taken the ship out here except because he'd felt this would happen?

He put out his hand and Lorien clasped it. His grip was warm and strong-- and not at all real, since Sheridan knew perfectly well that Lorien was a non-corporeal being. But it gave him a measure of comfort, which was why he supposed that Lorien did it.

Lorien turned and, hand in hand, they began walking to the end of the corridor, where a splash of light through the crystal windows sparkled brilliantly.

They'd gone a few steps when John realized that Valen wasn't there.

He turned back, to see Valen still standing where he had been. "Aren't you coming with us?"

Valen shook his head once. "I would walk with you in the other direction. I too was offered a choice-- a different one. I promised that I would stay as long as my people have need of me."

"I don't understand," John gazed at the legend, confused. But he knew one thing for certain: "You're not dead, are you?"

"No," Valen answered quietly. The golden accents of his cloak caught the light as he shifted slightly. Sheridan noticed, almost idly, that Valen cast no shadow on the floor. "Not in the way you mean."

"How? How is that possible?" he demanded.

Lorien answered instead. "Once or twice in each age, a spirit has the strength to refuse death and the will to remain between the tick and the tock."

John gazed into the topaz eyes of Valen, feeling the infinite compassion and indomitable will that overturned everything he had assumed about Valen. He had once been a mortal man, but he had somehow gone beyond that. Finally, Sheridan whispered, "Who are you?"

"I am all that I ever was," Valen answered, "and all the Minbari ever will be. Priest, warrior, worker, prophet-- whatever they need, I become. I am always there. In their dreams and meditations, I am the voice that tells them they are not alone."

Sheridan moved nearer to him, drawn by gentle strength of the voice. "Come with us," he urged. "Please."

Valen merely shook his head in sorrowful refusal.

"He will not journey with us, John," Lorien told him. "His work is not complete."

"Until the last Minbari goes to the sea," Valen agreed. "But yours is done, John. The time nears-- you must go now."

He took something metallic out from his robes, and Sheridan recognized it as a denn'bok. The pike made the normal metallic whispering noise as it opened, but it glowed with a silvery radiance that streamed out and filled the corridor. The light rose like a brilliant fog around them, until John could no longer see the walls or the crystalline ceiling.

Valen's face was visible in the glory, and the pallor of his skin made the clear amber of his eyes more vibrant. "You have made a difference, John," Valen reassured him, and John felt something in his own spirit ease with the words. It had been a shortened life, perhaps, but he had achieved something important. "You will be remembered as long as there are humans to remember. Go in peace."

Sheridan squinted into the light-- he saw the robed figure raise a hand to him in blessing and farewell-- but then it all grew too bright and Valen disappeared. John reached for him, wanting him to stay, but then he felt Lorien take his other hand.

"You will meet him again," Lorien murmured. "He is still young, and he has always taken much on himself. But he's right about one thing, we should go."

He tugged on John's hand, guiding him forward towards the heart of the brilliance. As they moved, he could feel his concerns fall away from him, as if shedding a skin he had grown too large to keep. They were not for him, not any longer. He thought he should have been afraid, but he wasn't. All things ended, so that other things could begin in their turn. This was simply the way of things.

The light enfolded him in a gentle, welcoming embrace, and John felt the brush of something soft on his cheek, like the touch of angel's wings...

he thought of David...

of Delenn...

as the last grain of sand fell....