In those days, Na'Toth would've given anything to feel Narn's warm sun on her skin once more. It was something she had taken for granted, even in her days dodging Centauri soldiers and bombings. They had not yet shattered her will, then. She did not think they ever could.

Years of her life were lost to a Centauri jail cell, and for what? The war had ceased. The Centauri simply did not want to rid themselves of their toy. If they could retain control in even one cold, dark corner, they would close their ravenous fists around it, around her, and never let go.

All she could do was claw at the bricks of her prison until her nails had become bloodied nubs. What she would've done for a chisel to pass the time, to dig her way out, to stab a guard in the eye. But for the first time in her life, she was powerless to do anything of the sort.

A rotation of guards provided her with meager portions of food and water. Such things forced her survival, but of course, at a cost.

She had tried to tell her keepers apart at first, learning the weight of footsteps and pattern of duty. It was all she could do to brace herself for what was to come. But eventually, in the haze of groping and bruising and filth… they might as well have all been the same man.

In the beginning, she still had enough spirit to fight back. But when her teeth rotted, she could no longer bite their foul flesh. When her muscles atrophied, she could only lie there and let them take the only thing she had left.

In response to the brutality of her isolation, she had become numb. And with such numbness, her anger atrophied, too. What point was there to anger when she could hardly spare the energy to breathe beneath her chains? What point was there to anything when Narn had certainly been reduced to ash?

No one was left to save her; not even herself.

By the time she had been proven wrong, it was too late. In the place between her ribs where the hunger of vengeance once burned, she had simply wasted away. And in its place sprouted something she refused to examine too closely, but something that felt almost like fear. It took root deep in the pit of her decaying stomach, and curled into chasm left behind by the Narn she used to be.

As Na'Toth stepped into the shade of her new property in Moxtoke, the heavy gates clanged shut behind.

She would never be their prisoner again.

It had been far too long since he had last stepped foot on the fertile, crimson soil of Narn. Such soil had been ashen and dry his last visit, and it was a relief to see the resilience of Narn wildlife after Centauri occupation. If he listened closely, he thought he could even hear a jurra crowing from the twisted branches above. 

In days past, he had only had the Centauri to fear. Now, he needed to look in every direction for those who would kiss the ground at his feet. He had established a certain normalcy during his time with Lyta Alexander to which he had perhaps become too accustomed. She had been a breath of fresh air as someone who spoke her mind rather than praising him blindly. Na’Toth was the same, however, the same could not be said for his followers. Word of his arrival would no doubt spread, though he hoped he would have time with his old attache before the winds betrayed him and lured the crowds to her door.

Na’Toth’s home in Moxtoke was one of luxury; perhaps more than he would think necessary, though he could not fault her after all she had endured.  At the very least, the gates and security measures allowed them both to avoid his acolytes, and likely afford her some peace of mind. Although he only wanted to escape the effects of his book, at least her role in its narrative allowed her some compensation for what the Centauri had done.

He barely had to speak through the intercom for the gates to swing open. Once up the steps, a Narn he did not recognize opened the door. His eyes widened before G’Kar cut in.

“No, please,” G’Kar begged. “None of that. I am here to see Na’Toth. Surely she informed you of my arrival?” 

When the servant regained his composure he replied, “Yes, she did. This way.”  

“What is your name?” G’Kar asked as the servant led him through the tall, mudbrick halls. 

“D’Lorn.” His response was so quiet G’Kar almost missed it. Frowning, he did not bother to correct his volume.

“G’Kar!” 

He turned and saw Na’Toth, red earthen tones draped over her form. She was standing in the center of a spacious kitchen and beaming, arms outstretched. 

“Na’Toth!” He hugged her tightly before yielding, remembering how frail she had been their last encounter. However, she hugged him back so tightly he thought he might snap in two. At least her strength had returned, even if something was missing from her gaze. “You look well.” 

“As do you. Travelling around the universe must do wonders for one’s health.” 

“Quite the opposite! Stuck in a spaceship with processed food and no sunlight makes one long for anything else.” 

“You should consider coming home, now that…” She cleared her throat as something tugged at his heartstrings. “So you won’t be alone.” 

“I have thought of it,” he said, glancing to D’Lorn who was preparing a meal over at the opposite counter. “But I do not think home is quite ready for me yet… And there is still so much to see, I have hardly filled half a book.” 

“Knowing your writing habits, I highly doubt that.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You’ve written enough to fill ten books, I’d guess. Most of the pages simply ended up in the trash. You know, if I were you, I’d publish everything I could before your fans grow tired.” 

“Oh? And who would I be if I sacrificed authenticity?” 

“Someone with far more wealth, but… that never really was your concern, was it?” 

“No. It was not.” 

Several plates clinked as D’Lorn cooked. 

“I should get back to work,” Na’Toth finally said. “Come.” 

He furrowed his brow. What work could she need to do at this point? But his question was answered when he walked into her studio, an open room of pillars covered in carvings and bricks waiting to be chiseled.

“I did not know you practiced Da’Quana.”

A stool scraped against the floor as she sat down. “I needed something to keep me busy after growing accustomed to the havoc of being your aide.” Although their time together had been short-lived, his final years on Babylon 5 had been difficult without her by his side. It had been especially difficult not knowing her fate.

He walked through the room as though at a museum studying artifacts. One brick demonstrated the Tenz Festival, bonfires seeming to glow despite the flat coloration. Another showcased the Jeksel Mountains, the main peak now broken from Centauri bombings. The last he caught sight of depicted something familiar: the inside of a prison cell.

“Well?” she asked. She motioned to the second untouched brick beside her own, holding out a tool with her other hand.  

“I’m afraid I am not very skilled in these arts,” he admitted, staring at the tool curiously. Hand him a pen and he could write for hours, but… this was no pen. 

“Humor me...” She chiseled away at an in-progress creation, one just beginning to take form. “And tell me about your travels.” 

“Oh, where to begin…” He pulled up a chair beside her, not quite knowing what to do with the tool, so he watched her technique. Her skill was impressive, with a precision he should have guessed given the nature of her quips. All he could do was dig at the block with little progress or vision. “There’s far more to the universe than I ever would have imagined. My heart still races from the time Lyta and I were chased by gigantic creatures in the middle of the Relshian desert. And there was a time we were trapped in a storm with hail larger than these bricks,” he said, looking down to the empty block in front of him. He would have to stay far longer to get anywhere with it. “We also came across a living planet! Not living in the sense of you or I, but alive nonetheless.”

“Sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure.” 

“I only wish you had come along. My offer to visit the Birnoz homeworld still stands.”

“And lose time I could be making art? Da’Quana requires more supplies than a book and pen. Besides, you weren’t alone. You didn’t need me.”  

“Need was of no concern. I wanted you to come along, whether I was alone or not.” 

“And now that you are?” 

The red sun fell beyond the desert city’s horizon, as it did on Mars when he left Lyta behind. 

Na’Toth’s hand against his arm brought him back to the present. “I’m sorry, G’Kar. That was… insensitive, even for me.” 

“No, you only speak the truth.” 

“Then believe me when I say you did all that you could.” 

She could have been talking about anything - Lyta and her decision to fight; Londo’s sudden isolation; and maybe even it was in regards to herself and her imprisonment, though he was now realizing how optimistic such an implication would be. 

“And yet there is always more to do,” he replied. “How have rebuilding efforts been? It has been hard to catch news signals from so far away.” 

“Better than expected, though it certainly could be better. Are you sure you can’t stay longer? Your guidance could, I don’t know… inspire people to keep going.” 

“My presence is still a distraction,” he explained. “If our people are to absorb the lessons I strive to teach, I cannot be a part of the picture.” 

“But what if you just…” Na’Toth flattened a tool against the table. “Really, G’Kar, don’t make me say it.”

“What?” 

“As strange as it is, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed working with you, and saving your hide from whatever trouble you’d gotten yourself into any given week. I don’t miss the parade of human women I’d have to escort from your quarters every day, but--” 

“Na’Toth…” 

“I just wish you’d call more often, or visit every once in a while… It gets lonely here, too.”

He nodded slowly. The occasional call hadn’t been enough for either of them, evidently, though coming home had been a risk at the height of his following. And he had not realized until now, after observing the quiet fears embedded in her art, why she had refused his offers of adventure. It seemed as though she had created a fortress against the outside world, unwittingly imprisoning herself once again. “I see...” 

“I understand why you ran away,” she began, red eyes looking up from the brick and making his heart race. “But don’t forget that you’re Narn, too.”

“I left so that I would not forget,” he explained, knowing that she remained to remember. “But you’re right. Perhaps,” he continued, glancing at her. “There is more for me here than I have let myself remember.” 

As the glimmer in her eyes returned for a flicker, he felt himself smile for the first time since the loneliness of Lyta’s departure first took hold. 

D’Lorn approached to tell them lunch was ready - breen. Although it had equivalents all over the universe, there was something comforting about eating on Narn plates, in a Narn home, on Narn itself. 

On their way to the kitchen, the call of the jurra prompted him to look out a passing window. Among the grass and firebugs, He noticed the roots of the ben’zah tree, proudly standing on the Narn soil from which it grew. A second jurra answered the song of the first, and perched on the branch beside it. 

It truly was good to be home.

It was not easy for Na’Toth to see another Centauri’s face after everything she had endured at their race’s hands; even the face of an old friend. This difficulty was not something she was ready to admit, however, so she was secretly grateful Vir only ever called her through voice channels when they spoke. He often claimed the video wasn’t working, or that it was a “bad hair day” (as though the Centauri ever had good hair days), but he also avoided talking of his people’s affairs wherever he could.

This was not a graceful process, as being able to describe Vir as “graceful” would be a sign that his mind had been taken over by a Joojrel parasite. So he stumbled quite a bit, over his words and, she imagined, over his own two feet as he scrambled to stay within the lines he’d drawn.

But the fact those lines were there at all helped stave off the spiral of isolation by allowing her to keep him in her life, even by such small means.  

“So,” said Vir, sounding breathless as he made it to the speaker. “How have you been?” 

“The usual.” It was a formality, of course, but he couldn’t honestly expect any other answer. In addition to conversational norms, she suspected he asked due to a misplaced feeling of guilt for what had happened to her. He was that way about all Narns. At least, unlike the vast majority of his kind, he had taken action to remedy his people’s cruelty as much as any single person could. That was something she could appreciate, even if answering small talk truthfully was still out of the bounds of comfort. “Where were you? The gym level?” 

He let out a quick wheeze of laughter. “Oh, sorry. I, uh, I’m still getting used to the whole ambassador thing. They haven’t sent over an aide yet so I’ve been running all over the station.”

As he rambled about how huge and complex the Babylon 5 was, a sigh escaped her. She turned her attention away from the station icon on the screen and looked to the red sunbeams streaking through the window, the shadows of which hung over her. If her life hadn’t taken such a violent detour, she would easily have remained in space alongside Vir. She would’ve been the one to replace G’Kar. 

“Anyway,” Vir started. “I’m glad you’re good. I’m sure Lennier would say the same if he were here to say it.” 

“What happened to Lennier?” She hardly gave him time to finish the sentence. Vir had often avoided the topic, but there was no hiding the nervousness lacing his words every time he blamed Ranger duties for losing touch with their old colleague. She had never tried further, perhaps because she was not ready to face the possibility of another person leaving her behind. But this time, the slip had been too obvious to ignore. There was a sadness, a worry in Vir’s tone that indicated one of several things; none of them good.

“Forget it,” he stuttered. “I-I shouldn’t have said anything, I--”

“Vir,” she said sternly, taking a shaky breath. “Tell me: Is he alive?”

“I… I believe so...” 

She was only half-relieved and that was far from good enough. “Then why do you speak of him as though he is dead?”

“I’m not supposed to say…”

“Honestly, Vir, who am I going to tell?”

After a deep breath, Vir lowered his voice. It became more hushed, but the fact it didn’t change in volume told her he’d leaned in toward the microphone. “He… He got into trouble with President Sheridan. No one’s seen him since.”

From what she was able to keep up with concerning the Interstellar Alliance, and from the little she did know of Sheridan during his time on Babylon 5, his demeanor certainly appeared to have taken a turn. The stress of politics would do that to anyone, but… “Did Sheridan do something to him?” 

“No, he… Lennier ran away.”

Her voice was caught in her throat, but the anger of being kept in the dark shot the words out like an arrow from a string: “And why am I only hearing about this now?” 

“V-very few people know the truth, I--”

“You say that as though I am too unimportant to be one of those few.” Her imprisonment stripped her of almost everything she had worked for beforehand, and she’d be damned if she let her few remaining friendships slip through the cracks too. 

Vir sighed. “I just… you’re already dealing with so much, I thought…” 

“You thought what?” she snapped. “That I am too weak to handle the truth?”

“No! I’m sorry, it’s just… Oh, what he did, Na’Toth… It wasn’t good.” 

“You are going to tell me what happened, aren’t you?” Silence. “Really, Vir, as though I’d stoop low enough to spread gossip about someone I actually cared for; let alone regarding something serious enough for you to have kept me uninformed.” 

“He…” There were a few more stutters. “Oh, you promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Yes, Vir, I swear.” The suspense may as well have been killing her. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Nothing could have prepared her for what Vir next said: “He left President Sheridan for dead.”

Na’Toth’s eyes widened. “Lennier? Our Lennier?” Maybe he had been taken over by a parasite.

“He changed a lot after you left. Not because you left, I’m not blaming you, I just…” She could picture him fumbling with his hands. “When he left to join the Rangers, he said he needed to get away. Whatever he was dealing with was obviously taking a toll on him.”

Something clicked in her head. “This was about Delenn, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t pick up on it. All the glances he’d steal in her direction, how enchanted he was when speaking of her even in the most mundane diplomatic affairs…” He was practically lovesick, but to one who didn’t know him as she did, or to one as socially inept as Vir, it might have come across as hopeless loyalty. “It was destined for disaster.”

Vir cleared his throat. “He didn’t give details in his message, but now that you mention it… That would make sense.” Vir paused. “I just… I wish I’d known sooner. Maybe… maybe I could’ve helped him deal with it instead.”  

“You could’ve spent every moment of the past few years prying and he still wouldn’t have cracked.” It’d been something she admired about him, actually. She prided herself in reading even the most obscured motivations behind the shifty eyes of conniving politicians, but Lennier? She could always tell he was hiding more. Figuring out what he was hiding was where the trouble lurked. Even now, essentially having confirmation of his infatuation with Delenn, she felt as though there were pieces she may never grasp. “Don’t blame yourself for his emotional constipation.” 

Vir didn’t laugh as she’d intended. Instead he was probably hunched over and looking at an ugly rug, as though there were eye contact he needed to avoid. “I just hope he’s okay.”

Hope wasn’t an easy thing to hold close these days, so she weighed the facts to keep herself calm. “Oh, please, it’s Lennier. Remember the time he got into a bar fight of all things, came into a meeting all bruised up?”

“Yeah…” Vir’s voice sounded lighter. “He took out what, six guys all on his own?” 

Na’Toth nodded, forgetting for a moment that they weren’t at the Zocalo eating together and filling out reports with Lennier, forgetting that Vir couldn’t see her because too much had happened since then to allow a visual connection. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“You’re probably right.” The chime of a doorbell mingled with the end of Vir’s sentence. “I have to take this. We’ll talk again later?” 

Suddenly she wasn’t missing diplomatic life as much. “Yes, and Vir? No more secrets. Don’t forget who it is you’re talking to.”

“You’re right, sorry. No more secrets.” 

“Good. You’re awful at hiding them.”

And with a click, she was alone with endless possibilities, trying to keep herself anchored to the only one she could handle like a tiny boat in a strong storm. Lennier had to be okay. No matter how long it’d been since they’d truly interacted, she still looked back on their time together fondly. To accept that they would never see one another again… She couldn’t do it. No, she refused to lose anything else.