Babylon 5: High Sierra

[fajrdrako_fic]

Title: High Sierra
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: Babylon 5
Genre: Slash
Characters: Garibaldi/Sinclair
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of the J. Michael Straczynski and his producers.
Notes: Written for the fanzine Variations on the Theme of B and D, published by Keynote Press, October 1997.


High Sierra

Waking was not a good experience. I'd been dreaming of fear and pain and chasms of darkness, so you'd think waking would be a relief, but it wasn't. The light hurt my eyes and breathing hurt my stomach and there was a jackhammer noise going on in my head that I didn't like at all. I tried to bury my head in the pillow, but I'd lost the pillow. I looked around blearily, and saw it on the floor. As I leaned over to reach for it, I almost upchucked the remains of what I had been drinking.

I lay back, groaning. The noise was like a shooting range where I was the target. Damn good shots, too.

I got myself up and crossed to the refrigerator. Luckily, my live-in cottage, or hovel, as the case may be, wasn't large. I pulled out a can of beer, opened it, and took a drink. That felt better.

The noise didn't stop.

I considered that noise. It seemed to be intermittent. There was a voice associated with it. It was calling my name, along with a few other colourful expressions I'd mostly heard before. "Garibaldi, you old dog, I know you're in there." Bam, bam, bam. "I can wait all day if I have to. I can break down your door. Is that what you want?"

The voice was familiar. I wondered who I owed money to now. Couldn't think of anyone. I hadn't been socializing lately.

"Open up!" shouted the voice and it hit me in the pit of my stomach who was at my door. I didn't know why, and I didn't know how, but it was the voice I wanted to hear more than any other, and the voice I never wanted to hear again. It was the voice which haunted my dreams both waking and sleeping. I'd been running from it for years.

I thought of hiding, but there was nowhere to go. Not in this room. And there was only one door. I didn't fancy getting stuck in the one small window, which was near the ceiling and filthy with birdshit and desert dust.

So I did the only thing that would stop the hammering. I opened the door.

Jeff Sinclair smiled at me as if we'd met by chance somewhere. "Hello, old friend," he said.

I stared at him like a dummy.

He hadn't changed a bit. He might be in an encyclopedia under "the model soldier". They could have put him in the fashion magazines. His back was as straight as a plumb line and his stomach as flat as ever. He was wearing durable natural fibres and expensive hiking boots. Age had touched him lightly, but I knew that already. I'd watched him in news reports.

"May I come in?"

So there I was, barefoot, uncombed, wearing nothing but my Daffy Duck boxers and a mindless expression. I stood back and let him come in. I didn't want to, but what else could I do?

It was a mark of his self-control that he didn't make a face at the smell of my place. I'm used to it. Mind you, I'm used to the smell of the air everywhere here, and that's bad enough. He moved a pile of clothes off my only wooden chair, put them on the floor, and sat down. "Guess I don't need to ask how you've been keeping yourself," he said.

"No."

"I lost track of you after we met on Earth for dinner that day."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, maybe I wanted to be lost track of."

He nodded. "Could be. You have anything for supper?"

"Supper?" I said. I'm often disoriented as to time when I wake up; it comes of doing too much shiftwork. I rummaged under the socks on the floor for my watch, and checked it. "Shit! I overslept. I should have been at work an hour ago."

"No, you shouldn't," said Sinclair. "I talked to your boss."

"Think again, Einstein. He doesn't give days off."

"You think there's no advantage to being the hero of the Minbari wars? I have clout. I used it."

I always said he was a miracle worker. "This is a first. This calls for a celebration," I said, and got him a beer. He thanked me, took a drink from the can, and said, "Got any food to go with it?"

"Don't think so," I said, and looked into the refrigerator again. Except for the brown stuff on the walls - spilled or growing, I wasnt sure - there wasn't much that wasn't liquid. "Nope," I confirmed.

"Good," he said. "I brought some food. Why don't you put some clothes on while I prepare it?"

It wasn't much of a kitchen, just a card table with a microwave and a hot plate for coffee. I was out of coffee. He set to work with my pot, his own knife and small wrapped packets that within a few minutes began to smell like fine cuisine even to my battered nose. I pulled on trousers and a T-shirt. I tried to find clean socks in my drawer, but only found one white and one brown one, with a hole in it. I used the ones on the floor.

By the time I was ready, so was supper. I got another beer. Sinclair said, "Let's go outside."

Since I only had one chair, that seemed a good idea. We went outside, where the air smelled better and the evening breeze was cool.

I was living on Jellicoe Junc that year. "Junc" stands for Junction, but of course we all called the place Junkyard. It was a hell-hole of a planet, inhabited mostly by carnivorous gnats and miners who are there to make a quick buck or two and then leave as soon as possible. I was there to make sure they didn't make their buck illegally. I wasn't doing a hell of a job. Junkyard has three seasons, they say: Bearable, Unbearable, and Even Worse. We were now late in Bearable, when the days are hot and the evenings cool and the nights cold.

If Junkyard can ever be called beautiful, which it can't, this was the best time of year there. Clouds drifted on the horizon, making the sky pink and orange as the sun set behind the mountains. Jellicoe City is in the foothills of the Sierras. My fine dwelling was on the outskirts of the town, as far as I could get from humanity and still have survival options, like a source of water and food. Not that I drank much water, but you need civilization to find alcohol.

We sat on two ends of the log that marks the edge of my property. There's no lawn, just my hut and a square of dirt, then a log and a square of dirt on the other side of it, which might be called part of the road, if you were inclined to call it a road. Sometimes vehicles went along it. Mostly not.

The aching in my head had stopped. The beer was cold and good, and I could tell Sinclair was enjoying it too. I hadn't much appetite and I didn't taste well any more, but it was the best meal I'd had in a long time. That instant stuff costs a fortune here, and everywhere else - but I suppose the hero of the Minbari wars can afford it. I ate his food with a clear conscience while the sun set.

In the near dark he said wistfully, "Look at the stars. You can see so many here. I forget sometimes how many there are."

I looked up. They were there, all right. "Aren't you out there all the time?" I asked. "Aren't you a hotshot pilot?"

"I'm many things," said Sinclair, "but I dont think 'hotshot' is in the job description."

I laughed. It felt good to laugh again, with him. Like before. I'd tried to forget what his laugh had been like, but like his dark velvet voice, it had stayed with me all these years.

"This is a hell of a job," I said. "My boss - the mine supervisor - has a filthy mind and a bad temper. He takes out his frustrations on his workers. Rumour has it he can't get it up, but I think his problem is being stuck on this planet. God knows why. Most people leave."

"You're still here," Sinclair pointed out.

"Sure. Glutton for punishment, I guess."

He nodded, and we sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.

Then I said, "Hell, thats a lie. Im here because I can't get work anywhere else. My career is a wreck. Maybe you noticed."

"I noticed a wreck. I thought it was you, not your work."

"Thats honest," I said bitterly.

"Are you trying to destroy yourself? Why?"

"It seemed a good idea once."

"Why?"

"I forget."

He shook his head, and took another swig of beer. It was almost dark now, and I could hear the whine of insects building. There was a canopy of stars above us. This majestical canopy... "We'd better go in," I said. Gnat time.

He followed me inside. I shut and bolted the door, and lit one of the lamps. Throwing the blanket over the bed made the place look almost hospitable. He sat in the chair, I lounged on the bed with my boots on, and I opened up the bourbon. "It isn't every day I have a visitor," I said, happily filling his glass.

"You're not in touch with any of your old friends."

"No." It came to me belatedly that this was a statement, not a question. "How'd you know?"

"I've been talking to them. They're worried about you."

"Liar."

"All right, then, some of them are. One of them."

"Let me guess. Lise."

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Fuck her."

"I wouldn't," said Sinclair mildly. "She's yours."

"Nope. Never was. I was hers for a while... maybe."

Sinclair looked at the flame of the lamp. The light reflected in his deep, dark eyes. "It's been a long path, that brought you here. What are you running from?"

"Dunno. Ask my shrink."

"He doesn't know either. You walked out on him."

"Did I pay his bill?"

Sinclair chuckled. "I didn't ask."

"Well fuck him, too."

"Not my type," said Sinclair, and this time we both laughed.

"What about you? And whatsername, are you still together?"

"Catherine. Sometimes we're together. Not now, though. These days we're more often apart." He took another drink. "It's tough, Michael. I travel too much. Our careers are going different directions. She doesn't like the way my career is headed, and I don't understand why she doesn't want to keep up with me. I can't live with her, can't live without her."

"She'll come round."

"Would that be fair to her?"

"Life isn't fair."

"Why?" he said. "When did your life became unfair?"

"Don't want to talk about it," I said. "Especially with you."

"Oh," he said.

The hell of it was, he was my best friend ever, and I knew it. He knew it. I'd felt safe, in a way, when I thought I'd never see him again. "I guess you weren't just passing by."

He smiled at that. "Had to commandeer a special plane to get here. There are no passenger flights, and the only private freight is owned by the Corporation."

"It isn't exactly a tourist spot."

"I see that."

"So it isn't coincidence, you turning up here."

"Did you think it was?"

"Stranger things have happened."

"Its a big universe."

Not big enough, obviously. "How did you track me down?"

"Crystal balls and table-rapping." For a grown man and a war hero at that, he can look damned impish when he wants to. Smug as well, to think of the fighter pilot out-sleuthing the detective.

"What's that mean?"

"I went to a technomage."

"They dont know everything."

"No," agreed Sinclair, with one of those charming smiles. So smug. I wished I could have stopped myself from smiling in return, from responding to him the way I always did. We both knew the technomages didn't know everything, but he was here, wasnt he? If they'd failed him, he would have found another way.

"What've you been doing with yourself out here?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Work. Drink. Sleep. You know."

He didn't answer.

"I know what you want to say," I said. "That isn't much of a life. You're right." I took another drink. I was feeling quite cheerful now. "So what have you been doing, you hotshot ace pilot? No, wait, I'm out of date there. You're squadron leader now."

"Not any more. I quit."

"What? You left EarthFleet?"

"Not exactly. I got promoted."

I looked him over. Unfamiliar aftershave, high buckled boots (the kind that cost a couple month's salary to buy), designer travelwear - nothing gave any clues. "To what? General? Rear Admiral? Cabin boy?"

"Commander."

I thought about that. To be a Commander, one must have something to command. Which meant, probably, that we were fighting another war somewhere. They always need commanders when wars come along, and he was prime material. It wasn't hard to guess where a war might be brewing. The Outer Colonies were spoiling for a fight - and independence - and everyone said sooner or later EarthGov would have to do something about it. Which would mean attacking our own people. I didn't like the idea.

Sinclair would be a brilliant Commander, of course. He wouldn't like it much more than I would, that he was being sent against people like me and him who thought they'd been mistreated by EarthGov. It was true. Our policies were slipshod and out of date, with never enough money for the technology we truly needed to help them. Earthside, it was only too easy to forget about them.

"So? We're attacking Labyrinth?" It was a guess, but if I were a Commander, I'd move in on Labyrinth first. It was close, relatively speaking; small, defenseless, and the centre of trouble.

"If we are," said Sinclair, "it's classified information and you can stop prying." Then he started telling me about a visit he'd made to the Centauri Ambassador, and soon we were both laughing like kids. He was drinking heavily, too, but he held it well. He got onto the topic of a party for a young pilot in training, that a group of Centauri had crashed - that was characteristically funny, too.

After a while I hardly noticed what he was talking about. I was busy watching him, watching the changes in his expression as he talked, the way his lips moved. He had strong, mobile lips. I thought about how I'd like those lips to move on my body. I knew him well enough to know he'd be good in bed, and no wonder Catherine couldn't just let him go.

But it was dangerous to think about that.

Hell - danger is my middle name.

His stories came to an end, and we lapsed into silence. I tried to stop staring at him, and took another drink. Didn't feel like drinking, though. Felt more like touching. It was odd, because I hadn't wanted anything or anyone for a long time. Now all I could think of was the wanting.

He said gently, "Old Friend - why are you here?" If he'd known where my thoughts were going, he wouldn't have needed to ask.

I waved my arm to indicate my shack. "Have to pay the rent."

"I meant, why did you run away? From me - from all your friends - from civilization."

"I'm not very civilized."

"Michael?"

"Don't want to talk about it," I said.

"No." For the first time, a note of weariness, or perhaps even anger, crept into his voice. "You just want to drink yourself into oblivion."

"That's not all I want," I said rashly. It was true, of course. Had been true for a long time now, whether I'd been admitting it out loud or not.

"What else are you looking for?"

"Wanna touch you." I was staring at the side of his neck, where a lock of hair curled invitingly under his ear. "Wanna fuck you." I got up. I stumbled a little, but the good thing about living in a tiny space is that you never have far to go. I lurched against him. He stood up, fast, holding me steady. "Jeff, want you so bad." I kissed his chest, through his shirt, thrilled by the feel of him. My cock had been hard before I even touched him. I tried to rub it against his leg, but he moved away, and I realized he was shouting at me.

"Michael, stop it. For God's sake -- Get your hands off me!"

"Don't you like it?" I asked, one hand finding his firm, strong ass. I pressed my face against his neck. He smelled good. He smelled a hell of a lot better than I did. "Don't you wanna fuck your Old Friend?"

"Stop!" It was the Commander's voice, the voice that directs armies.

I fell back, ashamed and, I admit, frightened.

"Didn't mean any harm," I murmured. "Just wanted to fuck you. Wanted you to want me." I was swaying. I couldn't see very well. That was probably because I had started to cry, big, wet, bulky tears running down my face. "Love you. Always have. Ever since Mars. Dreamed of you coming here.... coming to me... coming...."

I must have fallen, because I was on the floor next, and Sinclair was lifting me up. I could not stop crying. I wanted to apologize, though I wasn't sure what for any more. For making a pass? For crying? For my whole life?

Not very soldier-like, but then, I'd put all that behind me. I was a free man. Free to do whatever I wanted. But not free to have whoever I wanted.

He held me in his arms, sitting us both on the bed. Just held me. He didn't speak. After a while.... Hell, I don't know what happened. I guess I passed out. Content to be in his arms, I slipped into the oblivion I craved.

When I awoke, my head was clear again and it was daylight. He was standing over my bed with a cup of coffee. Perhaps the good smell had wakened me, since I don't usually do mornings. He was wearing the same trousers as the night before, with bare feet and no shirt. I was wearing only my Daffy Ducks, which means he must have undressed me last night, and washed me, too.

"Good morning," he said. "I brought you something."

"Coffee?"

"Laced with bourbon." He sat on the end of the bed, as I sat up. It tasted as good as it smelled. "Bless you, my son," I said. "St. Peter will smile on you for this."

"Care for breakfast?"

I shuddered.

"I thought not. I've had mine. Soon as youre through the coffee there, we can get going."

"Going? Where?"

"That way." He waved his hand in a northerly direction. "Up."

"Into the mountains? You're going hiking in the Sierra?"

"Why not?"

"You're crazy. No one's ever gone up there and come back alive."

"No one has ever gone up there. Period. I like the idea of being a trail-blazer."

"Thought you'd done enough of this. The first man on Kwinqtl. The first man to survive capture by the Minbari. The first man on Narn. ...There are no trails up there."

"I checked it out yesterday. Shouldn't be a problem. I have equipment, if we need it."

"Uh-uh. None of this 'we' business. You go up there, you're going alone."

"You don't want to be my trusty native guide?"

"I have to be at work today, in case you didn't notice."

"No. I told you, I talked to your boss. Told him you were coming with me."

"Bloody high-handed of you."

"Thank you."

"You think we'd survive up there?"

"Of course. It's no worse than down here. Probably better."

"You know the way?"

"I have a compass and notes. I think I can muddle along."

"I'm not going, you know."

"Yes, you are."

"Give me one good reason why."

"Because you don't get paid till Tuesday, so you can't buy anything. I packed all your beer and bourbon in my pack and it's going uphill with me. If you want it, you'll have to come along."

He knew I'd go, and not because of the beer. He had this knack of making people fall in with his plans, whether it was for military strategy or finding the right night clubs. There was no point in resisting. I'd follow him anywhere, just like I did on Mars.

So I trudged up the trail after him. He wore a military-issue packsack so large I couldn't believe he could carry it - Junkyard is a gravity-normal planet. He wore several boxes on his belt, as crammed with utilities as Batman.

I didn't have anything to carry. At first, I considered offering to share some of the load, but I didn't, because I didn't have enough breath left to speak after the first twenty yards. After that I knew I'd be doing well if I just kept going. He probably would have thought I was after the bourbon. True.

He may have been moderating his pace for my sake. I couldn't tell. All I could tell was that the damned route he'd found through the scrub and over the rocks led steadily uphill. When he started to get out of sight, which could be anything from a few feet ahead to a few miles, depending on the configuration of the hills, he would slow down or wait without impatience for me to catch up. My legs ached and my breath was laboured. I wanted to stop before I fell over, but I wasn't about to shame myself further by crying uncle this early in the game. We kept on going. He was sprightly as a fucking goat and I was dead weight on my own feet.

After a long time he stopped abruptly, and said, "Time for a rest. This is a good spot."

It looked like all the rest of the land up here to me, but what did I know? Looking more carefully, I saw that he'd found a flat rock like a bench or a table, good for sitting on, which he did. He pulled a cold beer out of his pack and tossed it to me. Then he took another for himself.

It tasted great. I sat beside him and said, "Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea." I didn't add that my legs hurt and I had blisters on my toes and heels.

"Good day for hiking," he conceded. "You all right in those shoes?"

"No," I admitted.

He rummaged in his pack again, and pulled out a pair of boots. "Here. Try these."

I looked at them. EarthFleet issue. "I'm not in EarthFleet."

"So? I wont tell."

"Will they fit me?"

"Unless you've done something stupid like shrink your feet."

They fit. He'd remembered my size, of course. He'd come prepared. I tried to sort out the implications of that, and failed. The blisters stopped hurting as we sat, the breeze from the canyon in our faces. From up here, my shack looked like a doghouse - of course, it looked that way close up, too, except for the chimney. You could only see a bit of the city in the haze to the east. To the south, there was nothing. Nothing as far as the eye could see. Desert. Rock. Sky. Nothing. It was like looking at the ocean. After a while, the eyes weren't sure what they were seeing, and started throwing up optical illusions, forcing matter that wasn't there into the picture.

In its own odd way, it was beautiful. I hadnt noticed that before.

Up here, the midday heat wasn't bad, and our jackets were protection enough against the wind. "We'll have to watch our step, of course," he said, "but we should be safe enough. There are no large predators here. The gnats don't come this high. There may be snakes, or some form of proto-snake, and they might be poisonous, so keep your boots on."

"There used to be rattlesnakes on Earth," I said.

"Not to mention dinosaurs."

We smiled at each other. My heart reacted, as if it didn't know when it wasn't wanted. I felt like a teenager with a crush on a celebrity.

"Shouldn't we be heading back?"

"Not yet." He rose, stretched, and picked up his pack again. "Ready to go on?"

"Jeff... about last night." I didn't move.

"It doesn't matter."

"I want to apologize."

He looked at me, not evading the issue. "No need. You've been alone a long time, old friend. Consider the incident forgotten."

That dismissed me, neatly enough. I'd asked for it, and I got it right between the eyes. What had I expected? A valentine?

He started to hike, and I followed.

Later in the afternoon, I stopped him with a shout. "Sinclair!"

He turned and walked back towards me. "Yeah?"

I had to squint against the sun behind him. "It's getting late. Time to turn around."

"Not yet."

"We'll be hiking in the dark if we keep on going."

"We'll stop at sunset and I'll pitch the tent."

"Tent?" He started walking again, and I caught up with him, too alarmed to bother that my legs hurt. "What the hell did you say?"

"I have a tent."

"And your boy scout knife?"

"A good imitation."

There wasn't much else to say. I didn't say anything for the rest of the afternoon because I was sulking, and he didn't say anything because he was always ahead of me. At one point he stopped, and pointed at something on a plant. "Look at that!" he said, and I saw a flutter of wings as a butterfly flew off.

So Jeff had become a fucking nature-lover. Just my luck.

True to his word, he stopped at sunset, and put up the tent while I drank beer and watched him. I'd been too sober for my own good all day, and I resented it. On the other hand, my head wasn't aching any more and the fresh air smelled good and my exhaustion was surprisingly pleasant.

Sinclair made a fire as it got colder, and cooked his little packets as we talked. He told me what had happened on Mars Colony since I'd left. We'd met there, in a trek something like this, except that it was the red Martian desert we were in, not the Junkyard hills. And we'd encountered Psycorps, not my favourite thing. At least there were no damned 'Paths up here.

"Lets go to bed," he said, as the last of the fire went out. I thought ironically how much I might have wanted him to say that in other circumstances. Given my embarrassing display of last night, it was a wonder he wanted to be in the same tent with me, but he showed no hesitation in undressing, wrapping himself in a Fleet issue blanket, and closing his eyes.

I lay beside him, abysmally aware of his breathing presence a few inches from my left arm. Even asleep, or half-asleep, his personality filled the tent and my consciousness as clearly as if he were speaking.

I stared into the dark. I wanted to touch him. I'd get nowhere, of course. He'd fight me off. But oh, the temptation. How could I possibly fall asleep, with him beside me?

On that thought, I fell asleep.

I awoke in the middle of the night to find my arm touching his. Sound asleep, he did not seem to mind. I carefully moved my arm away and turned my back to him. The sense of contact lingered.

We got going soon after dawn. I'd forgotten that time of day. He gave me coffee with bourbon again, strong the way I like it, and some ration-bar that tasted better than most. He didnt give me much time to enjoy it, though.

My muscles ached all the way.

Nightfall came, and he still had not turned back. I finished a bottle of bourbon, and passed out.

I said only one thing to him that next day. "Where the hell are we going?"

"Up," he said.

And that we did. We didn't take steep slopes, or climb any cliffs. We just kept going up by slow, gradual stages. My hips were in agony and my legs on fire. I wanted a drink badly, and he'd only let me carry water in my hip-flask. Every few hours he let me have a beer, but it never lasted long enough. I was starting to get the hang of the breathing, though. The high-altitude air seemed fresh and clear after the stink of the city and the lowlands.

At last we stopped for the night. Our second night. He opened his pack and I pulled out a cold beer and took a long, deep swig. Then I coughed, spluttered, and almost dropped the bottle. "What the fuck is this?" I said.

"Don't shout," he said mildly. "You know what it is. Its water. Pure-as-a-mountain-stream Earth-type water."

"Where's my beer?"

"I poured it out."

"When?"

"Before we left your place."

I took a swing at him. He stepped aside easily and said, "If you want me to fight you, I'm willing. It would be more productive to talk, and make plans."

I was breathing hard. "What gives you the right? What gives you the fucking right to mess with my life?"

"You gave me the right when you decided to discard your life."

"Fuck that! Its none of your business."

"It is my business! As your -"

"As your what?"

"As your best friend."

Wearily, I sat on the ground. My legs were hurting. He was my best friend. I loved and hated him. I said, "What am I going to do? I suppose there's water in the bourbon bottles, too?"

"We need it all," he said. "When we use it up, I have a water-generator in my pack. Well be drinking a lot. You, particularly. We need to get the poison out of you."

"I like the poison," I said flatly.

"I know. That's the trouble."

We sat. When I began to shiver, he put a blanket around me, without a word. As the fire burned down he said, "You see why I had to get you up here, away from the drink. You had to be well away from anywhere you could buy or beg the booze, and near as I can tell, Junkyard is one big saloon."

"That's why I liked it."

"Don't people here do anything but drink?"

"They gamble."

"You're wasted here." He shook his head. "I knew that, but I didn't know how bad it was."

The breeze was cool and I lifted my face to it. I could feel the cold on my wet cheeks.

I had survived worse than this before. I could do it again. I wasnt sure I could do it with Sinclair watching me.

The days went by in walking. The mountains became more and more beautiful. The brush became trees whose leaves whistled and rustled in the mountain air. The pain in my heart and head and legs and soul waxed and waned and returned again.

We did not talk. I had nothing to say. I did not think about anything. I just walked.

We were going uphill much less now, spending more of our time hiking along the plateau. There were some downhill sections. I liked that. I liked my boots, too. I didn't like much of anything else, least of all myself.

Sometimes I was lulled into a sense almost of pleasure, walking along with him over the crest of a hill or through a pass. As we went further into the mountains, there were streams among the rocks and trees, and the sky overhead bright and clear. A man might even find it beautiful.

Then I would remember myself, and sink back into my fugue.

Our trek across the Martian desert had taken fifty days. I was more clear-headed then, and less cantankerous. This time, I didn't keep track of days. It might have been twenty, it might have been thirty. Was he trying to recreate our other journey? Or was it that forty days is the proper length of time to stay in the wilderness for spiritual regrowth?

I'd been in my own wilderness for much longer than forty days.

Awareness of my surroundings returned by stages before I realized it had gone. It had become such a habit to avoid thought or responsibility that I didn't recognize them when they came back. Sinclair could tell, I think. I awoke one morning to find him awake and staring at me. In my post-dawn sleepiness, I didn't notice how strange that was.

Another morning, shaving with the Fleet kit he had given me by the side of a trickling stream, I noticed a snake. It was orange and black, quite distinctive. It was lying beside a rock. My first thought was to kill it; my second was that it was oblivious to me, and might not even be dangerous.

"Michael?" said Sinclair. He knew something had caught my attention.

"Shhh," I said, and pointed. He came closer, and saw the snake.

"It's asleep," I said.

"Biggest life-form I've seen around here," he said. "Except for us."

When we packed up and started to hike, the snake was gone.

Somehow the snake had put me in another state of mind. For weeks, I had been aware only of my crushing need - my desire - for drink; and of my rejection of any hope of recovery.

It seemed that I might have survived, no thanks to myself. I remembered that Sinclair had badgered and bullied me into eating, sleeping, and moving at the necessary times. Occasionally he used his Commander's voice to make me obey. At other times he had talked to me. I hadn't listened and didn't know what he had said, but I had been aware of the sound of his voice.

I'd given him no leave to be responsible for me. I had, in fact, walked out on him on Mars without so much as saying good-bye, let alone sending a forwarding address or a Christmas card. He knew I didn't want him to find me. Hell, I could have found him any day - he was on just about every current-events vid there was for a year or two. He was big news. I was a drunken bum.

I'd liked it that way.

Perhaps he thought I could now resume my life. He'd forgotten that I had no life to resume.

I shied away from that train of thought, and concentrated on walking. The air was fresh with the scent of something like pine. I remembered hiking among the Ponderosa Pines when I was on Earth, a good experience. I found myself humming a tune, and then singing aloud.

Too bad I can't sing.

Sinclair was looking at me. "So I'm not Pavarotti," I said. "Live with it."

"Who's Pavarotti?" he said.

I shrugged. It wasn't exactly a momentous conversation for a turning point, but I seemed to be able to converse again. As I walked, I began to realize a few other thing. My trousers hung loosely under a tightened belt. My legs did not hurt, though Id been walking steadily for many hours. I was able to keep up with Sinclair for at least part of the time. His long legs made the terrain seem easy. Sweat had plastered his cotton shirt to his muscular back. That made me want to put my arms around him, which made me think of the feel of him at my place when he had put his arms around me.

The thought was troubling.

"Since when," I asked, "does a hotshot commander get to wander around in the hills for a month?"

"I have clout," he said, as he had before. This time he added: "I need time to think through my strategy, get myself back into shape." As if he wasn't already in the best shape I could imagine. "They know where I am. They know I'll be back when they want me."

I said sourly, "I suppose you'll expect me to thank you for this someday."

"Never," he said. "I would fall over in surprise if you did."

That evening, I helped him to make the fire and pitch the tent. We worked together well, as we had on Mars, once we got used to each other. Truce had become friendship, back then. I was beginning to feel it was the same this time. He cared - maybe not as much as I wished, and not the way I hoped for, but enough to give up a month of his life to bring me back to life and health and civilization whether I wanted it or not.

I pulled my courage together enough to think about my future. I'd thought at first he'd asked the boss for a one-day holiday for me, but no, he must have asked for weeks or months. At least I had a way of making a living, even if it was on a nowhere place like Junkyard, even if I had no friends here, even if you couldn't drink the water or escape the gnats, except way up here. Gnats on Junkyard dont like high altitudes. Trust Sinclair to know that.

"When am I supposed to go back to work?" I asked.

"Why? Do you want to go back now?"

I had to tell him the truth. "No. I'd rather walk with you forever."

"Thats not an option," he said, "except for the time being."

"I only get two weeks leave in a year," I said. "I must have used that up twice over by now."

There was a short silence. Was that a guilty look on his face?

"What aren't you saying?"

He poked the ashes around the fire idly with a stick. "You read me too well."

"I know you."

"You know me better than anyone else in the world. I think I know you just as well."

It was true, he probably did. "So?"

"I misled you a little."

"How much?"

"Maybe more than a little."

"Oh?"

"I implied I got you leave from work. I didn't."

"What?" I stood up, staring at him in shock and anger. Visions of unemployment flowed through my mind. I'd been there before, and didn't like it. "You mean, they think I just walked off the job? A security job?"

"No. I said I'd talked to your boss, and I did. I gave him your resignation."

Shit. He was a high-handed bastard, though I have to admit I'd have liked to have seen the look on old spindleshanks face.

"So I don't have a job to go back to."

"It's been be long since filled by someone else," he admitted.

"Why the hell are you meddling in my life?" I was shouting at him. He stood to face me. "My life is none of your fucking business --"

"I have every right. As your prospective employer --"

"My what?"

"Sit down. I want to offer you a job."

I didn't sit. "You're bullshitting me again."

"No. I need you, Garibaldi. But I also need you to be clear-headed for this discussion of your career - and mine."

"Fuck that," I said. "I dont have a future. Just a past."

"You tried to throw your future away. Im trying to give it back to you."

"Why?"

"Self-interest."

"I trust you least when you look sincere," I said. But this time, I sat. "I'm as clear-headed as I'll ever be."

He said, "You're afraid you won't be able to find work?"

"I know I can't. It was bad enough last time. My drinking is no secret. I'm blackballed from here to Centauri Prime. I'm unemployable."

He looked into the fire. For a moment he seemed like a man from another time: a prophet, or a technomage, or a shaman. I don't believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo, and I shook off the illusion.

He said, "What do you want to be?"

"Dead."

He took a long time to answer. Then he said, "That's the most bold-faced lie I've ever heard. Stop playing the martyr. You're tough. Youre in good shape, after a month of exercise and good food. Your brain is first-class. It always was. I don't know why you gave up on yourself, but I haven't given up on you, not for a minute."

I couldn't argue with a madman. I looked at my feet and said, "More fool you."

"Remember when you were a young boy, say, eight years old. Remember how adults would come to you and ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? What did you say to them? Did you say you wanted to be dead? Or did you give them a real answer?"

"Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy.... For a long time I thought I wanted to be a fighter pilot."

"You could be. You have the skill, and the courage."

"Not the reflexes, though. I couldn't make the grade. It didn't matter. What I really wanted to be was.... I wanted to be the best cop in EarthGov jurisdiction."

"And in your personal life?"

"Never wanted to marry, really. Wanted to travel. I wanted to see everything. I wanted excitement. Didn't want to be alone, but with someone who'd share it all, and have my same taste for adventure." I laughed bitterly. "That sure isn't Lise."

"You aren't telling me the whole story."

He could read me like a book. It was like sitting next to Psycorps. Not that Michael was telepathic. He just knew me very, very well after those fifty days of bare survival on Mars.

"Tell me. In your heart of hearts, what do you really want?"

He had a way of making me reveal myself. Sometimes more than I wanted to. "I want a decent job."

"And?"

"I want my self-respect back."

"And?"

"I want to be with you."

He looked at his hands. He seemed to be thinking it over. I suppose he believed me, then. The truth has a way of fitting neatly into the larger puzzles. I hoped he wasn't going to ask more about that last statement - though he must by now realize what I meant, and how I meant it. Above all, how much I meant it. He wasnt naive.

He said quietly, "I can give you what you want."

I think I sneered.

He said, "Youv'e been punishing yourself for so long you think you shouldn't find any kind of fulfillment. Thats ridiculous. Its childish - you can't run from pain, you can only fight it. You wear your anger like a suit, and you're afraid to forgive yourself. The saddest thing - there's nothing to forgive."

"Easy for you to say."

"Your friend died. That doesn't mean everyone will leave you, or that you should feel guilty about surviving them."

I looked into the fire, and listened to the whistling of the trees.

That night, I didn't sleep so well.

We hiked without talking much. I pondered one scheme after another of finding work, discarding each. I began to be curious about what Sinclair had said about becoming my employer. Damned if I was going to ask. Let him say it; he obviously wanted to.

He didn't, until we stopped for supper. He said, "We need to talk."

"So talk," I said.

"If I offered you a job, could you work with me?"

"Maybe," I said. "Depends on the work." I wasn't going to go attacking the outer colonies, but I didn't say that. I had no intention of going into the military again, either. My experiences in that direction had been more than enough.

He thoughtfully put down his bowl of soup. "Garibaldi. Youve been down for a long time. Things didn't work out with Lise. You have a weakness that no one helped you to fight. But now, you can become what you were meant to be."

"Drunk?"

"No. Employed as a cop again .... With me."

"Wouldn't be possible," I said.

"Trust me."

The crazy thing was, I did. As soon as I said that I knew he had some insane scheme that no one else would think of, and it would work because he would make it work. "I don't know what youre talking about."

"I want you to work with me."

"Invading the colonies? No way."

"We're not invading anyone. I've been put in charge of a... Region. A place."

I waited. He was having trouble finding the words, so I prompted him. "What region? Not Junkyard, I take it."

"Babylon 5 Station."

"There is no Babylon 5."

He didn't answer.

"Babylon 4 disappeared," I said. "Even if we had the resources, whod' take on another project like that? Its too risky."

"EarthGov would. I would." He poured some tea into his cup, and mine, and handed it to me. "You will. So will a small multiplanetary group of sentients. Humans and aliens wrapped up together in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal .. all alone in the night. Learning to live together. Learning to understand each other and the universe around us. This is going to be a diplomatic station such as mankind has never seen."

"Can't be done," I said. "You couldn't even get construction men who'd be willing to work on it. You won't be able to persuade the Minbari or the Centauri or the Narn to show up together. You couldn't get EarthGov to agree, either."

"They agreed. By a narrow vote. They put money into it - big money. Not as much as I'd have wished, but enough. You don't know about it because its been top secret up to now, but soon it will be public knowledge. The ambassadors have agreed to participate. So have the work crews, the service industries, the Fleet representatives, the civil servants. Its all going to be done with great ceremony and cutting of ribbons. You'll see it on all the newsvids."

"Until it disappears," I said.

"It won't disappear. Not with you in charge of security."

"I couldn't."

"You could. You could do it blindfold. You know that."

The thing was, I could, if I were sober.

I wasn't used to being sober.

"I don't know what happened to Babylon 4. We may never know. Whatever it was, there is a rational explanation. Dont let it spook you."

"What do you mean by sentients of all types?"

"Just that. Minbari. Drazi. Narn. Centauri. Everyone."

"It'll be warfare in the corridors."

"Thats why I need you. You like a challenge. Anyway, these will be diplomats and ambassadors and their people - not belligerent schoolkids."

"No. Schoolkids are sane and reasonable."

"I know I can do this, but not without you. You understand things I dont. You see things I can't. I need someone at my back. You're the only one I can trust.

"I want you to be head of security for Babylon 5. I'm not going to pretend it will be easy. It won't. I can't even pretend I have any idea what to expect once things get going - I don't. I do know that I can't do it without you. I need you, Garibaldi."

I said, "I've wanted to hear you say that since Mars."

"Oh?"

"In a different context. You... overrate me. No one else would make that mistake."

"No one else knows what you are capable of. You don't even know yourself."

I needed to move about. "I could use a drink," I said.

He didn't answer or react. It was as if he accepted that drinking was part of my past, and that though I might refer to it, I wouldn't succumb. I wasn't so sure. "What will you do if I go on a bender when I should be taking care of the station?"

"You won't."

"What about the other thing?"

"What other thing?"

"You. You and me. Us."

"We'll be running the station together. I'll be answerable to EarthGov, you'll be answerable to me."

"Fuck that!" I said. I'd raised my voice again. I lowered it. "If we're being honest and trusting each other, let's be honest all the way. I ran away from you because I was in love with you and you were in love with Catherine. Is that clear?"

"Very."

"You made it clear you don't want sex with me. You make it plain at the same time that I matter to you. I'm your old friend, your closest friend. You hunted through the galaxy to find me, and here I am, a straw in a haystack, a grain of sand in a desert. Christ! I can't believe your perseverence. Why? To hire a man you don't even love, who can't even do his own job in a two-bit backwater, let alone police a fucking United Planets?"

"Do you need me to say it? Haven't you seen that I love you? I've wanted your body since Mars - wanted it even while you were giving me the devil of a time, fighting me. You didn't know me yet. I didn't know you, either. I just knew I desired you - and had never seen such a sense of honour. Or independence. Or cleverness."

He was making it up. No, he wouldn't do that. But....

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It might have saved a few sleepless nights. But I thought... It was clear you didn't like me, at first. Then... as we got to know each other... you told me you wouldn't do sex without love. We were talking about the women at Mars station at the time, but I thought you'd hate me in the morning. I could respect that. Admire it. I knew that if I could ever earn your consideration... your desire... your love, I would also have the kind of integrity I wanted."

"You always did," I said.

I would have touched him then, but he stood, stepping back, facing me. "Listen," he said. "The choice is yours. Maybe I didn't handle this so well. We can forget this whole conversation if you like, and carry on without thinking about it for another week or two. Then I have to take up command. I want to stay here with you longer, but I can't, Michael. I can't. Babylon 5 is too important."

"Why?" I asked.

"It will set the future. It will determine the path of relations between us and the others for millennia to come. We've already fallen into one stupid war with our neighbours, and it's just by good luck they haven't annihilated us. We need to understand this universe. Otherwise we're its victims.

"I don't believe that everything Humanity has accomplished will disappear. We are intended for some great purpose. I don't know what. I don't know when it will happen. I know we will not be prepared for it. Whatever it is, I know you have a role in it, and so do I. You can do it."

I said, "What do you want? In your personal life?"

"Peace," he said. "Sounds dumb, doesnt it? I've lived with war too long. The Minbari turn out to be friends. The Centauri turn out to be scoundrels. It's a big universe and we can't begin to understand it or the people in it. We can't survive another war - least of all against races like the Vorlon, whose society is eons ahead of ours. We're at a turning point, and if we're to survive, we need the best people we can get."

"That's not me."

"Yes, it is. I don't mean we need saints. We need intelligent men, with judgement and honesty."

"Fuck," I said. "You'd do better with a Psycorps spy."

"All right," he said. "Forget Babylon 5. Forget my offer. Forget the future, whatever it holds for either of us. I want to take you with me. I want to have you beside me. I don't want to have to be alone in this."

"Are you saying we can be lovers?"

"Yes."

"What will EarthGov say to that?"

"They'd sack you. We can't let them know."

"So if I go with you I get a clandestine relationship and a colony's-worth of trouble for EarthGov payscale and a good chance of losing you to Catherine."

He took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Which you see as a chance to redirect history, make peace in the universe, and have me too."

"Yes."

"Fuck. Who could resist an invitation like that?"

"Forgive me for this." He stepped closer to me, half of his face orange from the firelight, the other half in darkness. He reached up with the dark hand, and touched my cheek. "You thought you were the only one who loved?" He put his lips against mine - gently, softly, carefully. "Just once, forget everything but ourselves."

I pushed him away. He didn't resist. I said bitterly. "Are you trying to seduce me for your station?"

"You know better than that." The anger in his voice, dampened by his self-control, made me believe him. "If we have nothing else in life, we still share love. It killed me to turn you down at your place."

"Then why did you?" I was not relenting. This was too important, to be played lightly.

"You were drunk. You didn't know what you were doing. I was not ready to risk your friendship if you resented me, after. When you are... in your right mind... you only want people you love. The Garibaldi school of human relationships."

"Anything else is too complicated," I said. "So you believed I wanted to fuck you, but not that I loved you?"

"Did you?" he asked. "Do you?"

I said, "Do you know why I started to drink? You were in the hands of the enemy. I thought they were going to kill you. I thought I would have to outlive you, too. Lise was... It might have worked out with Lise, but I couldn't stop drinking, and I couldn't stop thinking of you."

"We have a lot to make up for, old friend."

I pulled him into my arms. We kissed. It was not gentle, this time. It was hungry. We started loosening clothes and touching skin. He spread out the blanket so we could lie on it, out there in the open air, on the windswept rock, with the sound of the wind and the nearby stream and the chirping of crickets.

The exploration of each other's body was intoxicating. Not like drink, that cuts the appetite. More like the lifting of pain. As we strained together like mindless animals, crying out with the thrill of it, kissing and biting, licking and sucking, something happened to change me forever. Surrender, perhaps. This was seduction of the highest order. From that time, I was his and his alone.

I climaxed first. It was the first time in a long, long while. It was like going into freefall in hyperspace: a jump-point with no turning back.

I held him in my arms as he came, his hard cock rubbing my belly, his fingers holding my shoulders in a grip of iron. "Michael," he said, dropping his head on my chest, his body on mine. I touched his hair, smoothing it, over and over, while I looked up at the stars.

He made me feel I could do anything.

It wouldn't always be smooth sailing. Maybe we'd disappear into the ether, the way Babylon 4 did. Maybe wed be slaughtered by Minbari fanatics or partied to death by Centauri.

I would follow him anywhere - to heaven, to hell, or into his crazy dream of Babylon Station. With this decision, I stepped into his life, and my own future.

- end -