Babylon 5 1. Chapter 1

"You _what_?!" Susan Ivanova whirled around in the pilot's chair to send her passenger the death glare.

"I didn't think we'd need them!" Marcus Cole, who was bent over his own consol and had missed her stare, responded. "How was I supposed to know that we'd be encountering an oxygen-rich atmosphere? I thought you said all the planets in this system were uninhabitable! Why are we in the atmosphere anyway? Can this shuttle even handle atmospheres?"

"Not anymore it can't," Susan muttered, struggling to pull her ship out of the steep dive it had gotten itself into. No, the ship hadn't gotten itself into it, _Marcus_ had gotten it into it. He'd rerouted power from the oxygen shields to boost scanner range; they'd been sent to search for traces of a certain chemical with an unpronounceable name—Susan just called it A2. But then they'd encountered some sort of extreme gravity well, probably some type of singularity that hadn't shown up on the preliminary scans of the region, coming from one of the planets. And so now they were rapidly and unwillingly descending into an oxygen-rich atmosphere inside a shuttle whose hull was made with a metal that reacted explosively with oxygen when heated and combined with carbon dioxide, without any shields. Brilliant, brilliant Marcus.

She fixed her eyes on the display screen, fingers flying on the control keys. The engine warning light blinked on inconspicuously, and she slapped it in annoyance. Yes, alright! She knew there was something wrong! How in all hell could she _not_ know that there was something wrong?! The computer beeped at her, signalling another malfunction, and then suddenly, everything went black. Silence descended along with the darkness, leaving only the sounds of the distant roaring of burning air on their hull and the beginnings of small explosions. The engines had died.

She leaned back in her chair, banging her head against it, eyes closed. Bugger bugger bugger. She was going to die, with only _that_ idiot for company. At least, she thought optimistically, if she exploded, it would be pretty painless.

She heard Marcus stand and sit beside her in the co-pilot's seat. She didn't look at him, but peripherally, she could see him watching her silently. She was strangely happy that he didn't speak, didn't apologize for taking away the shields. After all, it wasn't really his fault they were in this predicament. The oxygen shields, or lack thereof, hadn't caused the singularity, whatever it was.

He did, however, cautiously set a hand on her upper arm, offering non-invasive comfort. As the windows were consumed by flames, she reasoned that maybe having him there wasn't so bad. It was, at least, better than dying alone and unnoticed. She slipped her fingers through his and squeezed.

* * *

The first thing Susan noticed as she awoke was, interestingly, not the very heavy weight on top of her. It was that she was, in fact, awake, and this triggered a strange sort of surprise. As her eyes opened, she was greeted with another layer of blackness, and for one dreadful moment thought she'd gone blind. Then, she registered something distinctly icky in her mouth and recognized it as hair, and shook her head and spat to get it away. Even once that was gone, it was still dark. However, way far above, there were tiny pricks of light and a large silver moon. A very familiar large silver moon.

She sat up and the weight fell off to one side, into the long grass. She looked down at it and found that it was Marcus, his eyes closed and mouth half-open in a goofy, dreaming smile.

She stared around at her surroundings. She was sitting in a large meadow, at the base of a small hill. In the distance, there were lights that lit up the sky with a dull purplish glow, probably a city. She wondered belatedly if this was all a dream, being as a) she shouldn't still be breathing, and b) this planet was uninhabitable.

Beside her, Marcus stirred. With a combination of a yawn and a groan, he stretched and opened his eyes. She watched as he registered first the starry sky and then her face. He snapped into alertness, sitting bolt upright and staring around.

"Sweet dreams?" she asked casually. She loved how she could do that, just ask a question or make a remark so calmly, when truthfully she was terrified.

"Rather, actually," he replied. She scowled internally. He had the same ability. "Where are we?"

"In a field," she stated, "Where else?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I thought you said this planet was uninhabitable."

"It is," she said, serious now.

He took a moment before responding, "You suppose we're dead, then? Maybe this is heaven?" He looked around. "Not quite how I pictured it, though, what with the whole 'place where no shadows fall' thing and all. Still, it's rather pretty, don't you think?"

Susan rubbed her forehead, trying to think. _Were_ they dead? It certainly seemed the most likely scenario as it would have been nearly impossible to survive the shuttle's explosion, let alone be on an inhabited planet where there should have been a singularity. Her eyes fell on the moon again. What was it doing way out here?

"Is it possible that the gravity well we fell into was actually a wormhole?" she asked, another possible (and far more preferable) solution popping into her mind.

Marcus shut himself up and thought for a moment. "Yes, I suppose so. But a wormhole with a singularity within it?"

"True," she nodded. "Besides, someone would've noticed it before now, and it would've shown up on sensors."

"Could it be some sort of jumpgate?" he suggested. "Granted, the immense gravity well isn't exactly standard, but maybe something went wrong in the formation."

"That's possible," she agreed, latching onto the idea, "Maybe it was a species experimenting with jumpgate technology. I'm not very familiar with the theories involved, but isn't the basic principle for making the opening in normal space to create a tiny but extremely powerful gravity well? Maybe whoever was experimenting didn't figure out how to counter it."

"Perfect!" he exclaimed, clambering to his feet. "That would explain how we ended up on a habitable planet. The rift into hyperspace probably wasn't stable, and so once the shuttle went in, it fell out again soon after in a random location."

"Exactly!" she grinned, but then paused, looking around. "But then, where's the shuttle now?"

"Might it have burned up in the atmostphe—"

Ivanova interrupted him, "No, our jumpgate theory doesn't work."

"Why not?" he asked, surprised, "It sounded fine to me."

"Because we were in an oxygen-rich atmosphere as soon as we came within the singularity's reach," she reminded him. "The jumpgate would have had to be at the singularity's centre, but we kept falling even after we were in the atmosphere. Also, to come all the way to Earth, we would have had to be in hyperspace for at least six hours."

"But this wasn't normal hyperspace," Marcus pointed out, "And couldn't the singularity have shifted somehow to be beyond the jumpgate itself?"

"A black hole in hyperspace?" she questioned. "That's not possible."

"Wait." Marcus frowned again. "Did you say this is Earth?"

"Yeah, of course," she replied, raising an eyebrow.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes… you've never been to Earth?" she stared up at him.

"Nope," he shook his head, "but, since we're here, couldn't we just take a transport back to Babylon 5? I mean, that's a city over there, isn't it?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Marcus," she remarked, "we're not on friendly terms with EarthGov."

"EarthGov doesn't have to know, does it?" he inquired lightly.

"Fine," she agreed easily. "Then let's go. It's a long walk."

* * *

"How much further do you think it is?" Susan asked, still trekking though open fields toward the city. "We've been walking for what, three hours?"

"Two hours and thirty-two minutes," Marcus corrected. "I would estimate that we've already walked twenty kilometres, and judging from the size of the city lights, I'd say we have another ten or so to go." At his companion's heavy sigh, he continued brightly, "Oh, it's not that far! Why, in Ranger training, all recruits are expected to take a one hundred kilometre walk at least once a week. You get used to it after a while and—"

"Is that a path?" Susan asked, all too happy for an excuse to silence him.

"Where?" he asked, scanning the field around them.

"There." She pointed. "See that gap in the grass? Let's head for it—it'll make walking a lot easier."

"Sure," he consented, and followed half a step behind as she led the way. The path wasn't far, and it turned out to be paved in a crude form of asphalt, which, though horrible for the environment, provided an excellent walking surface. Though it was presently deserted, the pathway was obviously very busy during the day even though it seemed a little strange that enough people would want to walk so far out of town to warrant a painted lane divider.

Though tired, Susan picked up her pace, setting her goal as reaching the city before sunrise, which didn't seem to be too far away as the edge of the sky were beginning to light up. Marcus trotted gamely alongside her, chattering away so much she almost didn't hear the rumbling noise that was steadily—and quickly!—growing louder. She stopped walking abruptly to listen and Marcus continued a few more steps before he noticed the lack of her presence. Stopping his constant nonsense brigade, he turned, about to question, but she held up a finger.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

"Of course I hear—" he cut himself off as a pair of blindingly bright lights rounded the corner. They raced towards the two people, and then a very loud noise that reminded Susan strongly of a goose assaulted their ears.

Whatever it was that the lights were attached to screamed to a stop, leaving Susan and Marcus shielding their eyes and reaching for their weapons. There was a noise like an old-fashioned hinge-door slamming and a person—a Human, they saw as he came closer—approached. By this time, Susan had deduced that they thing with the lights was actually an automobile, a _car_, an early internal combustion vehicle, probably from the twentieth or twenty-first century. Why this man could possible want or need to drive such a slow, clunky machine was beyond her.

"You two look lost," the man said, "You need a lift? Where're you goin'?"

"We're going to that city," Susan replied, pointing behind her.

"Ah, perfect luck," he said, and though his face was completely shadowed by the automobile's lights, she could hear a grin in his voice, "So am I."

"Lovely," said Marcus, subtly (or, at least, as subtly as he could under such blinding spotlights) slipping a hand onto Susan's elbow. "Thank you for the offer, but we really should be on our way again." He tugged gently on her arm, already turning to leave.

"Marcus," she warned quietly, pulling herself out of his grasp. If this man was kind enough to offer them a ride for the next ten kilometres, by god she was going to take him up on it, slow clunky machine or no. Besides, Marcus's worries were unfounded—she felt no malintent from the man, to whom she was returning her attention and granting an apologetic smile. "Ignore him. He's always so overprotective." She put an affectionate arm around the Ranger's waist. Marcus was surprised, she could tell, but he caught on quickly as she knew he would and grinned self-deprecatingly as though acknowledging Susan's words.

The man's tone didn't change at the display of romantic feelings between the two, making Susan even more certain that he had no intentions towards them other than delivering them to the city. "So, you two comin'? I do want to get a _little_ bit of sleep tonight."

"Yes," she said with a nod and a pinch to nip any protests Marcus might have in the bud. "Thank you."

The automobile turned out to be a lot larger than Susan's mental image of the outdated vehicle. It had a sort of cabin that seated five, two in front and three in the back on a bench-type chair. Behind the back seats was a wall, on the other side of which was a large open area, probably for storage. She worried only faintly about exploding as she sat down in the back seat and searched for her seatbelt.

Once they were moving, the stranger made idle conversation. "You two from the anime convention? You did a great job on those outfits, by the way."

"Er," said Marcus, shooting a questioning glance at Susan, "Yes. Thank you."

"My niece went to it," the man informed them as they turned a corner at a speed that seemed awfully dangerous in such a rickety hunk of metal, "She dressed up as something from that show… oh I can never remember the name. Inisha? Ah, you know the one, right?"

"Yes," said Susan.

"I do remember who she was goin' as, though," the stranger said helpfully, "She wouldn' stop talkin' about it. Always 'Kagome this', 'Kagome that'!" He chuckled, "Sorry. I'm just not much of an anime fan—I'm not meanin' to offend you. She's a cute kid."

"What's her name?" Marcus inquired politely.

"Annie," he replied. After that, the vehicle's interior descended into silence for perhaps a minute, until the driver spoke again. "I'm George, by the way."

"Lucy," Susan lied smoothly.

Marcus, failing miserably to come up with a name that could suit his appearance, said "Joe", and Susan tried not to groan.

"Nice to meet you," George said, "You two live in Renfrew?"

"Ah," hesitated 'Lucy', "No. We're just visiting for the… anime convention."

"Why not stay in Ottawa?" George asked.

"We have friends in Renfrew," Susan replied, "We're staying with them."

By this time, they were driving down another, smaller road, between old buildings and antique street lights. As they came into a residential neighbourhood, Susan began to wonder if this was some sort of historical village. Each house had an automobile in an asphalt driveway, and there was no sign of the towering apartment buildings that had been present in every city she'd seen last time she'd been on Earth. As they reached what seemed to be the main street, Marcus caught sight of a flickering neon sign that said 'HOTEL' and nudged Susan, lifting a finger to discreetly point.

"You can just let us off here," she said to George. He nodded and slowed the vehicle, pulling up beside the sidewalk. "Thanks."

"You're very welcome," he replied. "Oh, it's just beside the armrest."

"Pardon?" questioned Marcus, looking down at the armrest beside him.

"The door handle," George clarified, sounding vaguely amused.

"Ah," said Marcus, catching sight of what could be construed as a rudimentary hatch handle and pulling it. The door clicked and swung open. "Right. Thanks."

They clambered out of the automobile and Susan turned back. "Thanks," she said with a smile.

"Anytime," replied George, just as friendly, "See you around."

She nodded and smiled again, and began to walk away, but stopped when the door didn't close automatically. Not wanting to look like a complete idiot, she hastened back and shoved it shut. They waved as George drove away.

Immediately, Marcus spoke. "I feel it's necessary for me to point out that that guy could very easily have been a thief, a murderer, or any number of things that would make getting into a small, confined space with him a very bad idea. He could have even been working for Clark, for all we know!"

"I didn't feel anything like that from him," Susan replied evenly, "and it was an awfully long walk. I would like to point out, though, that I made sure to emphasize that you were protective of me, just in case I was wrong and he was some sort of criminal."

"Oh, wonderful," Marcus remarked sarcastically, "Thanks. In case you didn't notice, I'm not armed!"

"Oh, shut up," she snapped half-heartedly, "neither was he. Besides, admit it. You're glad we didn't have to walk the rest of the way." Marcus said nothing, and after trying and failing to stop the right corner of her mouth from quirking, she changed the topic to something more productive. "Let's find a communications terminal."

"To contact Babylon 5?" he questioned, "We'll have to find a way to access the secure channels, but even those may be being watching. It might be safer to see if we could use a private terminal."

"Good thinking." Susan nodded. "I doubt Clark's got eyes on them, too."

"Let's go, then, _Lucy_," he grinned, apparently not having forgotten that he'd lost their last argument and determined to at least poke a little fun at her.

Susan snorted, refusing to let him have his fun, "As if 'Joe' is any better."

"Hey!" Marcus put on an expression of extreme offence, "I happen to think Joe is a lovely name."

She raised an eyebrow and headed towards the nearest building that lacked a sign declaring it a hotel or shop, motioning over her shoulder him to follow. The chosen building, what they hoped was a house, had just one storey and was made of horizontal panels that appeared to be wood. They climbed the three steps onto the small, concrete front porch, and looked around for the signaller. The closest thing either of them could see was a small, round button, and so after glancing at Marcus, Susan pressed it with her forefinger and bent over to speak into the microphone that was presumably concealed under the decorated metal around the button.

"We would like to use your communications terminal," she said somewhat awkwardly. It occurred to her that it was still an ungodly hour of night, and added, "Sorry for the intrusion." That done, she straightened and waited. And waited.

"Do you think maybe they didn't hear it?" suggested Marcus.

Susan shrugged and pressed the button again, repeating her message into the invisible speaker. Just as she was finishing her apology for the odd timing, the door pulled open to reveal a bleary-looking Human in a bathrobe. "Yes?" he asked, running a hand through his messy hair absently as he struggled against a yawn.

Susan straightened and glanced at Marcus. Maybe the speaker was broken. Better repeat the message _again_, then.

"You want to use my what?" the sleepy man asked.

"Your communications terminal," Marcus piped up, sounding remarkably cheery in contrast to the stranger, who blinked dully. "You know, little screen in the wall, use it for talking to people who aren't really there…" he trailed off to give the man time to think, but then frowned and amended, "Well, they _are_ really there, but they're not _there_, as in they're in another place." Susan shot him a look out of the corner of her eye.

The man looked at each of them in turn. "The crazy house is down the road. Turn right at the train tracks and then right again at the stop sign." And he closed the door in their faces.

"Well," chirped Marcus. "That was helpful. Shall we try the next house?"

* * *

**Ah, yes. Right. Disclaimer. I don't own Babylon 5. There we are! Yay! Because **_**everyone **_**loves disclaimers!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The next house turned out to be more accommodating, though again, the door's speaker didn't seem to be working. A tired-eyed young woman carrying a crying baby and with a second small child holding the bottom of her pyjama pant leg finally answered the door. "Communications terminal?" she echoed, "You mean like a phone? Sure, just a sec. I'll grab it for you."

Cooing at the baby, she vanished briefly into the house and returned, holding a small, rectangular box. She held it out and Susan took it, turning it over in her hand sceptically. Her eyes met Marcus' and she shrugged helplessly. She'd never been any good at history in school, and all she could remember about telephones were that they were an early Earth communications device. "…operated by dialling the number of another phone in order to establish contact," she could practically hear her textbook droning on and on in her head, "Contact was established via satellites in the later years of their use, and by…" She cut her train of thought off before it got _too_ irrelevant and looked back up at the woman. "Is this the only thing you have? What about a wall terminal?"

"A wall terminal?" the woman asked, "No, sorry. Not many of those around here—maybe in Japan and China and stuff. The phone's not enough?"

"The phone's fine," Marcus cut in smoothly, "It's just that we can't remember the number. Thank you, though. Sorry to wake you."

With a polite bow, he took Susan by the arm and pulled her away from the house, down the front path, and onto the sidewalk. "What the hell is wrong with this place?" she demanded, glaring up and down the street, hands on hips. "Automobiles—"

"Cars," he supplemented.

"—telephones," she continued, unperturbed, "weird buildings... and no normal technology to speak of! It's like we're in the Stone Age!"

"That's a bit of an exaggeration," he said. "It could be just a settlement of people who've refused to advance beyond the twentieth century."

"Maybe," she considered it, "but wouldn't we still see a lot more satellites? I mean, where's the orbital defence grid? Or spacedock?"

"I don't know," he said, but then frowned. "Another possibility is that we've gone back in time somehow."

She turned to stare at him. "You seriously believe that?"

"It was just a suggestion," he shrugged, "An idea."

She stayed silent, trying to think of other possible explanations. An alternate universe, maybe? But no, that was just as far-fetched as Marcus' time theory. A hallucination? That seemed reasonable enough to be mentioned.

"Perhaps," Marcus replied, seating himself on the edge of the concrete sidewalk. "It could have even included our expedition—we might be lying in medbay back on Babylon 5 right now." Susan nodded her agreement, sitting down beside him. "But," he continued ominously, "whose hallucination is it? Yours, or mine?"

She stared at him; that was a good point, but easily solved. It was obviously her hallucination, because she knew she was alive and she could think, just like normal.

"It's mine," they said in unison.

"No," said Susan, "it has to be mine. I'm… well, I'm me. I'm here."

"But so am I," Marcus pointed out. "And how do I know that you're really real?"

"How do I know that _you're_ really real?" she returned.

He paused, and then said something entirely unintelligible. "There, see? You can't speak Minbari. So that couldn't have come from your imagination."

"Yes, it could've," she countered, "I could just have thought up some random nonsense and made Imaginary Marcus say it and claim it's Minbari."

"Good point," he conceded, looking down at his knees in thought. "I can't think of anything else, though."

"No, neither can I," she agreed. There was a brief pause. "Well, let's proceed on the basis that it's a hallucination. Eventually, Stephen will find a way to get us out of it—yes, us, for the sake of our sanity. We could just wait, couldn't we? Let the dream play itself out?"

"We could," Marcus agreed, and then his face lit up with a sudden idea. "Maybe if we went back to the start of the hallucination, we'd wake up. You know the whole 'recreating the circumstances' thing?"

"Good idea," she said, pointing a finger at him in enthusiasm as she seized a hold of it. "We can head back to the field."

"Exactly," he grinned, standing and offering her a hand up. She ignored it and pushed herself to her feet in true Ivanova fashion—independently—and they were off.

* * *

Susan made no complaints about the distance for the whole of their walk back to the hill, even though they had some trouble finding it and had to backtrack once or twice for fear of missing it, but when a certain thought occurred to her, she complained long and hard.

Actually, perhaps 'swore' was a better word.

"What?" asked Marcus, startled by the sudden outburst of profanity as he lay peacefully in the grass.

"Remember how we thought that maybe the hallucination started while we were still in the shuttle?" she asked with a tight, angry smile. Marcus' face fell. "_Yeah_."

"Bugger," he muttered. "How are we supposed to recreate that? Build a shuttle and drive it to the location of the possibly non-existent Babylon 5?"

"I really don't want to say it," she groaned, "but yes, that's what it looks like."

"Do you even know how to build a shuttle?" he asked miserably, "Because the only ones I have the faintest idea about are Minbari flyers, and that's hardly what we were in."

"I think I could figure it out," Susan replied, "but it's finding the materials that I'm worried about. Plus, to top it all off, we have to walk all the way back to that stupid town. What was it called?"  
"Renfrew," he supplied.

"Wait," she held up a hand, "We're still operating under that idea that this is all in our minds. So, maybe we can imagine ourselves a shuttle. Heck, why not imagine ourselves back on Babylon 5?"

"Sounds good to me," he agree, and shut his eyes, brow furrowing in concentration. She did the same, focussing her mind on standing in C&C, willing herself to be there.

Nothing happened.

"Maybe we both have to imagine being in the same place," Marcus suggested.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"The docking bay," he answered. "What about you?"

"C&C," she told him. "It makes more sense to be in C&C because that's where I got the assignment."

"But I wasn't in C&C this morning," he reminded her, "For all we know, this whole day could be a hallucination, so maybe we should imagine ourselves in our quarters."

"But we decided we had to imagine ourselves in the same place," she reminded him.

"Your place or mine?" he asked jokingly and received a glare for his trouble. "Okay. I can't picture your quarters—have I ever been there?"

"Yes," she replied, "when you showed me that model-thing of the command structure."

"Oh, right," the remembrance dawning on him was audible in his voice. "Sorry."

"It's fine," she replied absently.

"Still don't remember what they look like, though."

"Never mind my quarters," she said, growing impatient, "I can picture yours. We'll focus on there, just inside the door."

"Alright," he agreed, shutting his eyes again.

She focussed as hard as she could on the memory of being in his room, picturing herself there again and begging whatever deities might happen to be listening to put her there.

They didn't, and her eyes opened to the now-sunny sky with a groan. "Come _on_," she cried, slamming a fist into the ground by her side, "You had your fun with us, now let us go home!" She was stuck either in a hallucination, an alternate universe, or she had been sucked two and a half centuries back in time and she was with _Marcus_ for company! It was kind of made her want to cry.

She didn't, of course. She ruthlessly shut down her self-pity and the sudden surge of homesickness that had washed over her and set her face into a stonily determined calm.

"Don't give up!" Marcus was insisting, "Try some place else! Maybe it didn't work because you weren't in my quarters today. Try yours! I'll try mine again!" He squeezed his eyes shut and hummed in concentration. Susan spared him a sad look as she slowly got to her feet.

"Let's go, Marcus," she said quietly, walking away towards the road, "It's not going to work."

He scrambled to his feet and chased after her like a puppy that had spent too long sniffing a tree and had fallen behind its master. "What are we doing, then?" he asked once he'd caught up. "Are we going to build a shuttle?"

"I don't see that we have a lot of choice," she replied.

"But if it's a hallucination—"

"I don't care," she said. "It doesn't make any difference. We can either go on hoping to just wake up eventually, or we can try to find a way back home, even if it means believing some… pretty crazy things, like that we're two hundred and some years in the past. I'm not going to sit around doing nothing, and…" She glanced away, hating to admit it, "I need you to be with me on this. Will you help me build the shuttle?"

Trying to convince herself that under normal circumstances, she would've kicked his ass right down to Epsilon 3, she let him turn her face back to him with three gentle fingers. He was smiling faintly as he nodded and told her 'yes'.

* * *

Back in town, they assessed the shops for potential building materials. There were two that seemed alright: a large store with a red sign that read "Home Hardware", and another, smaller store labelled "Canadian Tire". They poked around both, receiving many odd looks for their out-of-the-apparent-norm appearances and found several things that could be useful. It certainly was not an easy task that lay before them, especially being as they had no money.

Standing outside Home Hardware with her hands on her hips, Susan surveyed the area. "We need jobs," she declared.

"I think I saw a sign awhile ago that said 'Now Hiring'," said Marcus.

"Where?" she asked, turning to him.

"On this road," he said, "back closer to the main part of town."

"Let's go," she said, starting off briskly despite how tired her legs were. They'd been walking all day without rest, from the field and back and then around to all the different stores, but Marcus wasn't showing any signs of fatigue, and so neither was she.

She let him lead the way to wherever he'd seen that sign, glad of the fact that he couldn't see her while she walked behind him. She allowed her face to relax into a grimace and her shoulders to sag.

"It's not too far," Marcus said cheerfully, turning half around to look at her. She straightened immediately, smoothing her features out. Once he was turned away again, she glared venomously at the back of his head. Suddenly, he turned back, "I—what's that look for?"

"Hm?" she strained her mouth into a smile. "What look?"

"You were glaring at me as if I were Londo," he informed her, unconvinced and undeterred.

"Nah," she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "I was just squinting a little; the sun's right in my eyes."

He raised his eyebrows but nodded, casting a glance over her shoulder at the setting sun and then opened his mouth to comment but she beat him to it. "Oh, look!" she pointed to a small building across a parking lot from them "There's that sign you were talking about." and breathed a short sigh of relief as he ceased paying attention to her.

The building with the sign was tiny in comparison to Home Hardware and had a jarringly red roof bearing a large, vaguely oval-shaped sign with 'DQ' written in large, plasticky letters.

"Nice place," Susan muttered sarcastically, looking disdainfully at the grimy concrete picnic tables that stood empty outside the door.

Marcus pulled on the door handle to no avail. "What day do you suppose it is?" he asked.

"What?" she frowned, joining him where he stood and peering over his shoulder at another sign posted in the window. "Why?"

He scrolled a finger down the sign. "Look. I think these are the store's hours. If today's a weekday (odds are, of course, that it is), it opened at eight o'clock and closed at… hm. Well, it's certainly not eleven at night, so I suppose it's not a weekday. Let's see… Saturdays are seven to midnight, so it must be Sunday—ten to seven."

"Seven?" Susan echoed, feigning surprise. It had been a _long_ day. "Wow. Already."

"Actually," said Marcus, lining a fist up with the horizon to measure, "Judging by the position of the sun, I'd say it's closer to eight." He eased himself down onto one of the picnic tables, his breath leaving him in a prolonged sigh. "Feels like later, though, doesn't it?"

She felt her eyes soften. Whether he was faking his fatigue or not, she was thankful. Sitting next to him, she agreed quietly. "Yes, it does." They sat in silence for a long moment until she forced herself to get her mind back in working gear. "We need to find someplace to sleep," she realized aloud.

"Yes," he agreed, "but all the hotels will certainly cost money." She resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment. "We could ask around, see if anyone has any beds to spare. Oh, what about that nice woman with the… the phone?"

"With the two screaming kids?" He nodded. "Marcus, somehow I don't think she's about to let us sleep in her house. I mean, for starters, you look…" she trailed off, eyeballing him, "Well, you look like a lurker!"

"Oh, thank _you_," he sniffed, "You look just lovely yourself."

She shook her head in annoyance. "Never mind. We can at least ask her if she knows any place we _could_ stay."

"That we could," he agreed, "And it's not too far from here."

She grinned and pushed herself tiredly to her feet. "What are we waiting for, then?"

**This one goes out to CapitanCatherine. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

As it turned out, the woman's uncle owned an inn down the street. She called him up while they stood on the front porch and returned a minute or so later to tell them that he would give them a room if they worked in his fields, picking strawberries. They readily agreed and set off following the map the woman had scribbled down for them on a scrap of paper.

They strolled along the main street as the sun dipped out of sight, leaving them in the warm evening air. Susan had to admit that it felt wonderful to have a breeze on her face again and to look up and see sky above her. If Marcus hadn't been there, she would've pulled her hair out of its braid to let the wind play with it. As it was, she eyed him appraisingly, wondering if he would comment, or even notice, if she just went ahead and did it. Yes, she decided as he looked down at her warmly, he would definitely notice, and quite likely make some ridiculously sweet comment about it.

_Sweet?_ she asked herself, _Sweet? What do you mean, 'sweet'?_

"Everything alright, Susan?" Marcus asked.

She jumped. "Yes, of course," she said shortly, putting a little more distance between herself and him. "Ah. Here we are." She stopped walking abruptly in front of an old, stone building. It wasn't huge, with three stories and an average width. On its front was written in glowing letters 'York Inn'.

They went in through the revolving door and into the small lobby, where they addressed the older man sitting behind a desk. He looked up at their arrival and smiled widely. "You must be the two Sarah was telling me about," he said, standing. "Come in, come in. I'll find you a room."

They followed him up several flights of stairs, all the way to the top of the building. There, they turned down a narrow, red-carpeted hallway with several doors bordering off it, and stopped in front of the last one. He handed Susan the key. "I'm afraid it's not much, but since you're not paying, it's the best I can do."

"That's fine," said Marcus, smiling back at the man. "It'll be lovely, I'm sure."

"Yes," Susan nodded, hoping she looked appropriately appreciative. "Thank you."

The man nodded to them and shuffled off towards the staircase. Marcus called out after him, "Sir? I don't suppose you know any restaurants around here? Someplace to grab a quick bite?"

"Marcus," Susan hissed, jabbing him in the ribs, "we have no money. We can't go to a restaurant!"

"There's the Flamingo about a block down, and Coco Joe's a bit further," the innkeeper told them, "but you won't get much there without paying. I have some stuff down in the fridge. Since you'll be working tomorrow on the farm, I guess I could give you some."

"That would be really great," Marcus said empathetically.

"How is this work thing going to go?" Susan asked. "Is there any way we can make a bit of money for ourselves as well as paying for the room?"

"Well," the innkeeper said slowly, as if just mulling it over now, "it's berry picking, so let's say that the first seven baskets you pick—each of you, that is—go right to me to cover the room. After that, any more baskets you can fill I'll pay you half-wage for."

Susan opened her mouth to ask just how much half-wage would be, but Marcus pulled her back and kindly thanked the man, telling him that would be just fine. After bidding him goodnight, he plucked the key out of Susan's annoyed fingers and opened the door to their room.

And it was just their room. Room. Singular. There was really not much more to it than a bathroom, a tiny kitchenette, and a main room with a chair and a bed. There was a small desk in one corner, near one of the two windows.

"He wasn't kidding when he said it wasn't much," Susan muttered, stepping inside and flipping on the lights. Marcus slipped away into the bathroom and she sat on the bed, testing its comfort value. _Not bad,_ she thought, surprised. Standing again, she went to the window and pulled the thin curtains aside to gaze out at the street below.

At last given the chance to truly stop and think about it, their situation was staggering. There were _cars_ whizzing by on that street! Real, honest-to-god automobiles! The people were all dressed in twentieth-century clothes, carrying cellphones or cameras or wearing headphones blasting their eardrums six ways to Sunday.

She looked up at the sky, where the first stars were just starting to twinkle. God, they didn't even know there were aliens out there yet! She couldn't remember how many people they'd managed to send into space at this point in history, but she was fairly certain they'd only just gotten to the moon, and were still using rockets! She shuddered to think of riding on top of however many tonnes of hydrogen fuel, hurtling through air and then space. It was absurd! How did the few who went up actually survive? She couldn't imagine why anyone would even want to try.

A knock at the door interrupted her musing. She opened it to find the innkeeper with a tray of bread, cheese, and milk. "Again, it's not much," he said apologetically. "If it's really not enough, you can come down and get some more, but I'll have to take it out of your pay. Business hasn't been so great the past few weeks."

"This will be perfect," she said sincerely, taking the tray from him. "Thank you."

"Good night," he said, turning to leave. "Oh, I'm Steven by the way. Steven McKinnon."

"Er," Susan hesitated. Should she tell him her real name? They'd pretty much established that Clark was no threat here… it was probably safe… "I'm Susan."

"Well," said Steven, again leaving, "Good night, Susan. I'll expect you two down at the front desk at six o'clock sharp."

"We'll be there," she promised, "Good night."

She pushed the door closed with a hip and made her way into the main room. As she set the tray down on the table, Marcus emerged from the bathroom. "Was that the innkeeper?" he asked, coming to join her.

"Yes," she told him. "We have to be ready to go to work by 0600 tomorrow morning. Want some bread?"

"Thanks," he said, taking a piece and some cheese. "We should get to sleep early. I'd imagine berry picking can get rather tiring."

She nodded, chewing thoughtfully. The food, though scarce, wasn't bad. The bread tasted homemade, and the cheese was fresh and blessedly non-synthetic. They finished it quickly and Susan retreated into the bathroom to wash up a bit. "Marcus?" she called.

"Yes?" came his familiar voice through the closed door.

"I'm going to take a shower," she told him, "so if you need anything from the bathroom, you'd better take it now."

She waited a moment for his reply, reflecting on how amazingly comfortable it all felt. It was as if sharing a tiny apartment with him was the most natural thing in the world. "No," he said at last, "I'll be fine. He has some books out here, you know. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and… oh, my! Is this… oh, Susan, you have to see this! It's a 1920s collection of Gilbert and Sullivan plays!"

"Marcus," she sighed, peeling her uniform off, "I'm really not the kind of person who enjoys th—"

She was cut off as the door swung open and he bounced in, holding a leather-bound book and grinning wildly. His face froze as he registered what he'd just done. Swearing in surprise, she grabbed a towel from the rack and whipped it up to cover herself. "Oh, bloody _hell!_" he cried, turning swiftly away, "Sorry! I thought you'd still be decent!"

"Out!" she snapped, horrified to feel her cheeks heating up. With any luck, he wouldn't notice. He hurried away, leaving her to slam the door after him and wonder why the _hell_ she felt so giddy.

* * *

When she finished in the shower, she towelled off and brushed out her hair with her fingers, but dressed only in her underwear and the white tank top that lay beneath her uniform. She had nothing else to wear as pyjamas, after all. Wrapping the damp towel around herself, she padded out into the main room.

She didn't miss the way Marcus' eyes slid down her exposed legs, but made no comment. If anything, she resisted a smile. It had been _far_ too long since anyone had looked at her like that. "Are you going to shower?" she asked, a slight quirk of the lips slipping through. "It's real water."

He nodded and stood, heading for the bathroom. In the doorway, he paused. "Susan—" he hesitated. She turned to face him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude like that."

"It's fine," she said softly, offering him a small smile. He nodded and disappeared behind the door.

While he was showering, she took the thick comforter off the bed and laid it out on the floor, folding it over like a sleeping bag, and stuck a pillow in at the top. That done, she folded up her uniform for lack of better things to do and ran her hands through her hair again, trying to get as many tangles out as possible. When Marcus emerged again, he was wearing what she could only guess were the pants and under-shirt of his Ranger gear.

He set the rest of his clothes and his cloak on the side of the desk. "I'll take the floor," he said firmly.

"Don't be ridiculous," she protested. "I'm the senior officer here. I'll take it."

"Susan," he argued, "I've slept on the floor for more nights than I can count. I'm used to it. We both need to get a good night's sleep if we want to be fresh for work tomorrow, and the only place you're going to get it's in that bed."

She gazed at him, hands on hips. She really should insist that she take it, she knew. It was her duty. But it wasn't exactly as if she _wanted_ to sleep on the hard ground…

"I'm not giving in on this," he said, making up her mind for her.

"Fine," she shrugged, sitting down on the bed, "Go ahead." As he settled into the makeshift sleeping bag, she swiftly dropped her towel, tossed it into a faraway corner, and slipped under the covers of the bed. No sense in giving him _another_ peep show…

"Good night," he wished her.

She smiled despite herself, snuggling a little further down beneath the thin blankets. "Good night."

**Okay, fluff and no action. So sue me. Or kiss me. ;)**

**Or maybe just review me.**


	4. Chapter 4

She slept surprisingly soundly, stirring only once. When early daylight coming through the gauzy curtains woke her, she stretched leisurely and rolled over. The sight of Marcus on the floor next to the bed startled her briefly until she remembered what had happened. She groaned.

"What's wrong?" Marcus asked, apparently having been awake already.

She shook her head, flopping onto her back again. "I was hoping we'd wake up back on Babylon 5. We're still stuck here."

"Oh, bugger!" Marcus shot to his feet, looking comically dishevelled and flustered. "Not to add to your pile of miseries, but we have to go to work!"

_Right._ Muttering a few choice words of her own, she swung her legs off the bed and hurried to her pile of clothes. Halfway there, she caught him staring and froze. Glancing down at her scantily clad figure, she grinned ruefully. "Sorry. You get used to living alone, you know?"

He just nodded. "I'll um…" he motioned indistinctly at the opposite wall, "I'll just go over there, give you some privacy to get changed?"

She smiled and nodded at him, enjoying the teasing. He could be so cute sometimes—

_Cute? _Inwardly cursing herself, she yanked her pants on with gusto and pulled the tank top off over her head to fasten on her bra. Putting the top back on, she reached for her uniform jacket but hesitated. She was going to be picking strawberries… would she really want to wear that stuffy thing? Deciding that she didn't, she left it alone and wryly told Marcus that he could look now.

"I thought this would make most sense to wear," he said, motioning at what he'd slept in, "What do you think?"

"Looks good," she replied, "I'm going like this." She glanced around for a clock. "I wonder what time it is."

Marcus stepped quickly to the window and peered out. "It's still fairly early," he informed her, "The sun's not above the houses yet. We should head downstairs, nonetheless."

Grabbing her boots and tugging them on, she glanced wistfully at the previous day's empty dishes. "Maybe Steven will have some breakfast for us." She sighed. "But I suppose it would come out of our pay."

"Probably," Marcus agreed, finishing tying his boots and straightening. "Shall we?"

She led the way, but halfway down the hallway she paused. "Forgot the key. Just a second." She jogged back, grabbed the key off where it lay on the desk and hurried out again, struggling briefly with the archaic lock, and then rejoined Marcus. When they got to the lobby, they found Steven talking with an older woman who was sitting at—was that a computer?

He looked up at their arrival. "Ah! Here they are! Ready to go?"

Marcus chirped an excited affirmative.

Steven said a few more things to the woman and then beckoned them to follow him. They proceeded out the front door and around to a single-car garage, where a small truck waited. The man who'd driven them into town had had the same type, Susan noted, but this one seemed to have an even smaller passenger compartment. This became an even more prominent feature when Steven told them that they'd have to sit in the back. The open, unsheltered back.

Susan clambered up and sat down with her back against an edge. Marcus settled beside her, and with a loud revving noise and disturbingly large vibrations, the vehicle began to move. They backed out of the garage and onto the main street, and then zoomed away with alarming speed.

It didn't take long to get outside the edge of the town, and soon they were turning off the highway onto a short dirt lane marked by a cheerful 'U Pick' sign. They pulled into the grassy parking lot and hopped down onto the ground, and then followed Steven to a large shed built in the shadow of a towering maple. He opened it up and handed them each two plastic baskets.

"Go down to row 14 and start at the flag," he commanded. "When you fill these up, bring them back and I'll give you new ones. Put a tally mark down on this sheet for each one you fill. And, most importantly, _don't pick the berries off the ground. _Got it?"

Susan and Marcus nodded and headed out along the main path beside the field. Each row was numbered, decreasing as they went along from 43. At last, when they came to 14, they turned right and strode toward the bright orange flag that waved idly about halfway down.

"I'll go a little further down," Marcus said, continuing on and leaving her alone with the flag. She glanced around at the few other workers arriving and crouched down on the hay-covered ground, peering under the leaves of the stout bushes to find bright red berries peeking out in small clusters.

She set her baskets out around her and reached out to pull several of the berries off and deposited them into the first container. The second bunch she tugged on was soft and rotten, leaving her fingertips covered in lumpy pink juice. Her loose hair tumbled over her shoulder to drag on the dusty hay and she sighed, looking around for a place to wipe her hands so she could tie it back up. She ended up wiping them on the ground, and to her surprise they came back quite clean. That done, she dug into her pocket for an elastic and looped it into her hair, holding it back in a loose bun at the base of her neck. At last, she returned her attention to the berries.

When she had reached where she thought Marcus began, she had filled one and a half baskets. She marched ahead quickly, passed Marcus by an estimated five meters, and plunked herself down again. It didn't take long to fill the second basket to the brim, and she headed back to hand them in.

The day, having begun a bit chilly, gradually warmed up. Come noon, the sun was directly overhead and the air had to be at least thirty five degrees. At long last, a bell sounded, startling Susan enough to nearly spill the basket she was carrying. She approached a fellow worker. "What's the bell for?" she asked.

The worker, a teenaged boy with sandy hair and glasses, looked over at her tiredly. "Lunch," he said. "You new here?"

"Just started today," Susan admitted. "How long a break do we get?"

"However long it takes us to eat," the kid told her. "No more than half an hour, though." He made a face. "It's too short, if you ask me."

Susan nodded. "Thanks."

"Remember not to pick the berries off the ground!" the kid called over his shoulder. She gave him a wave to acknowledge she'd heard him, hoping that at that distance he couldn't see the confusion on her face. Why was that so important?

She stopped under a tree along the path to wait for Marcus, who was walking wearily toward her. "How many've you picked?" she called.

"Individual berries or baskets?" he asked sarcastically. She set a hand on her hip as he joined her under the tree. "Eleven. Well, ten and a half. You?"

"Eleven?" she echoed disbelievingly, "How in _hell_ did you manage to pick eleven? You weren't picking them off the ground, were you?"

He shrugged, sinking down to the ground by the tree's trunk. "We used to pick as kids, back on Arisia Colony. You get better at it." He patted the grass next to him. "Have a seat. We can eat this basket for lunch."

"That's our pay!" she protested, leaning against the rough bark and wincing as it scratched against the oddly tender skin of her back.

"Your point?" he asked, popping a berry or two into his mouth with practiced ease.

She sighed but took a handful as her stomach grumbled at its lack of food. While the berry exploded into warm sweetness on her tongue, she grinned, "At least _you_ picked them."

* * *

Steven brought them back into town later that afternoon. He'd paid each of them for their baskets, and once they said their goodbyes out front of the hotel, Susan and Marcus compared their money. Marcus' final total had been nineteen, leaving him with twelve baskets for profit, and therefore twenty four dollars. Susan had filled fifteen baskets and received sixteen dollars. As she assessed the nearby shops, she toyed with the coins and paper money, liking their weight in her pocket. There was a store just across the street that looked like a grocer and she opened her mouth to point it out to Marcus. He was examining the paper bills carefully, seeming highly interested, but his face was grubby and looked exhausted. She suppressed a sigh and made her way up to their room, knowing he'd follow.

She went to the window to look out at the street. There was a steady stream of people going in and out of the grocery store, and she made up her mind to go there as soon as she could convince Marcus to take a nap.

She looked around as she heard the door open and close, admitting the object of her thoughts. "Why don't you lie down for a while?" she suggested. "You can't have slept very well on the floor, so go ahead and take the bed. I want to clean up a bit."

"No, no," he began to protest. Something in his face changed and he strode quickly toward her. He darted behind her, despite her efforts to stay facing him.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded irritably.

He finally stopped moving and she turned to glare at him with her hands on her hips. "Your back has the worst case of sunburn I have ever seen," he declared, looking worrisomely determined. "We're going over to that store and buying some cream for it."

Before she knew what was happening, he had grabbed her arm and was pulling her quite firmly out of the hotel room, down the stairs, and across the street into the store. Once he had her inside, he released his grip, assuming it a safe enough bet that she wouldn't flee.

"We may as well get some food while we're here," she grumbled, "but I don't need any cream."

"Yes, you do," he argued absently, peering around curiously.

"I'll be fine," she protested, "I've had worse."

"By tomorrow it'll have blistered and split," he told her, picking up a green plastic basket from the stack beside the door with a paper advertisement lying crumpled inside. "Oh, look!" He pointed at something on the flyer. "A dozen eggs for only two credits! Let's get some."

"Let me see that." She plucked it out of his hands. "That's dollars, not credits."

"Oh," he looked disappointed. "Is that a good price?"

"No idea," she admitted. "But if they're advertising it, it must be. I could do with some eggs. I don't think I've had a real one since you sent me that awf—" She cut herself off when she saw his face light up at the mention of his gift and rephrased the rest of her sentence, "that breakfast a while ago."

"Did you like it?" he asked, walking into the fruits and vegetables section of the store.

"Of course," she replied honestly, "it was the first real food I'd had in months." She knew better than to mention the teasing she'd received from John and Michael. He'd feel horrible if he knew about that.

_Since when do you care how he feels?_ she asked herself, but knew that she already had the answer. She'd always cared how he felt. She cared about how everyone felt. Not just him, of course. There was nothing special about him. Nothing.

They ended up buying eggs, oranges, readymade salad, milk, two bottles of water, pasta, a container of some sort of moisturizer a sales' boy promised would be just great for sunburns, a chocolate bar at Marcus's insistence, and a tub of ground coffee at Susan's. After a confusing run in with the cashier and their strange new money, they headed back 'home' with several heavy bags of food.

Susan stored the eggs, milk, water, and salad in their tiny refrigerator and put the oranges on the counter with the pasta while Marcus rummaged through the cupboards. "There are two pots and one bowl," he reported, "And up here we have… three plates and glasses to match. Oh, and a 'World's Greatest Grandma' mug." He brought it down and held it up pensively beside Susan. "Hm… perfect match."

"Right," she muttered, swatting his hand away and stuffing the plastic grocery bags into the garbage. He chuckled and put the mug away, and then picked up the moisturizer cream from the counter, where she'd tucked it discreetly out of sight behind the oranges. She caught sight of him holding it up and sighed. "Fine, fine. Let's get this over with."

She sat cross-legged on the bed and felt the mattress sink as he perched behind her. She listened to the wrapper being pulled off and the cap being unscrewed. There was brief silence, and then, softly "You'll have to take your shirt off."

She was fairly certain he was blushing as she pulled the tank top over her head. Then, as her fingers found the clasp to her bra, she heard him clear his throat awkwardly and suppressed a smirk as she folded her arms over her breasts.

The smile vanished and was replaced by a small gasp of pain as he smeared the cream over her back. "Sorry," he said.

"It's just cold," she lied, "Don't worry about it."

She relaxed slowly, actually beginning to enjoy the feeling of the cool substance on her burning skin, and hardly noticed when his hands crept up over her shoulders, turning the functional application into something closer to a massage. It was only when he gently pushed her hair out of the way to dig his thumbs into her neck that she realized how she'd given herself over to his hands. She jerked away from him suddenly, barely remembering to keep her arms up over her chest.

"Susan—" he began, but she was already gathering her clothes and heading for the bathroom.

"Thanks," she said offhandedly, closing and locking the door behind her. She sagged against it, wondering what had just happened. And, even more frightening, how he'd managed to break down enough of her barriers to let her like it so much.


End file.

Babylon 5, Romance