A single candle burned in John Sheridan’s quarters, the only real source of light other than the very faint glimmer of the indicator light on his com panel. The candle sat in a holder on his livingroom coffee table, while Sheridan sat on his couch, staring into the dancing glow as though he could see through it, into another time and place. In his mind he played the scene with the future Delenn in the Centauri prison over and over, struggling to divine the meanings behind her words and warnings and coming up with little more than he already knew.

"Don’t go to Z’Ha’Dhum," she'd told him as she clung to him.

He’d heard that one before, but he didn’t know whether she didn’t want him to go because he had and it turned out badly or whether she was telling him not to because he hadn’t, but needed the warning to keep him from making the wrong move. Damn time paradoxes. They could drive you nuts. In the end, he didn’t really feel like he’d learned a thing.

No. That wasn't true. He had learned one thing. He and Delenn would have a child. A son named David.

For his father...

He smiled at the thought.

He liked kids. He and Anna had always intended to have children, had even tried for a time, but it just never seemed to happen.

Now, if what he had seen was true and not some mad hallucination, he would have a child with a woman he’d once been at war with.

He tried to envision what a child of theirs would look like, wondered if the boy would be all human or if he would have some of his mother’s Minbari features as well. It seemed unlikely he would look completely Minbari since his father would be human and his mother at least looked mostly human.

Though as he thought about it, he realized he didn't really care what his son looked like so long as the boy was healthy and happy. He was still playing that mental game when he became aware of a slight figure watching him from the bedroom doorway.

"I woke up and realized you were no longer in bed," Delenn murmured, her softly accented voice washing over him as she padded across the room.

Candlelight reflected off the folds of her silk robe, highlighting her grace as she moved.

John reached up, hand meeting hers as she drew near. "How long had you been watching?"

"A minute or two," she admitted, allowing him to tug her down to sit on his thigh. She slipped an arm around the back of his neck, nestling against his chest, while he slipped a steadying hand around her waist. "It was as though you were somewhere else."

He nodded, and leaned forward to gently nuzzle the bare vee of pale flesh revealed by her robe. "Just thinking," he whispered against her skin.

"About what you said you saw in the future?"

He rested his chin on her sternum. "Mm," he confirmed. He'd told her some of what he’d seen, though not near all. For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, he hadn’t told her about their son. Perhaps he would one day soon, but not yet. Their relationship was too new. They were still finding their way through the minefield that surrounded them. He didn’t want to add any additional pressure. Or maybe he was just afraid to believe.

Delenn brushed a hand through his hair, enjoying the silky texture. It startled her to realize just how much she had come to enjoy the physical side of their relationship in the short time since they'd sworn themselves to each other. Such things were not considered proper for one of the religious caste, but she had accepted that she was fated to find her own way in the universe. Too many of the old Minbari rules no longer worked to guide her life.

As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, John tipped his head up, studying the cut crystal perfection of her features with just a hint of a frown. He reached up to brush a knuckle along the edge of her jaw. "It’s hard to believe sometimes, isn’t it?" he whispered, and they both knew exactly what he meant.

She nodded and leaned forward until their foreheads just touched. "We have both changed so much...both outcast by our own worlds..."

John slipped the hand at her jaw up into the silk streamers of her hair, fitting his fingers to the back of her head. "You’re the only world I need," he husked.

A smile ghosted across her lips before she ducked her head to taste his mouth. The hand at the back of her head tightened as his mouth opened against hers. She shuddered gently at the teasing brush of his tongue, tightening her hold on his neck as she leaned into the caress. The long slow kisses went on for several minutes until they were both breathing hard and lost in a pleasant haze. John slid a hand along the smooth flesh of her calf, lifting it up over his other thigh, so that she sat fully on his lap. He tasted her answering chuckle, then groaned softly as she slipped her hands under his robe, fingers gently teasing hair roughened flesh.

Minbari reserve and the tenets of the religious caste aside, Delenn had the soul of a sensualist. He trailed the hand on her calf back up her thigh and along the fine curve of her hip, pushing the silky robe aside as he explored. Breaking the kiss, John pulled away just enough to watch her expression as he outlined the curve of her ribs with gentle caresses. "I love you," he said very softly.

She smiled. "I know...I would not be here if you did not...nor would I be here if I didn’t love you as well. You know that, don’t you?"

He nodded. "I know." That was the one thing he had total faith in. Their love. Everything else was just a trick of the light...or perhaps, a trick of the dark...

John slipped the hand at her breast down, and under the back of her knees, lifting her high against his chest as he rose to his feet. She was so delicate and seemingly fragile in his arms that it was hard to remember that she was actually considerably stronger than he.

He lowered her feet to the floor next to the bed, pausing to peel her robe back off slender shoulders, tossing it over a nearby chair. She quickly returned the favor, fingers gliding under his robe to push it back off his shoulders, careless of the way it slipped to the floor at his feet. She ran her hands lightly up his chest, exploring the twining of muscle by touch.

John slipped his hands into her hair, wishing there was more light. He loved watching her while they made love, seeing the complex flow of expressions that formed a fascinating mix of love, need and curiosity. He ran a thumb lightly along the underside ridge of the curve of bone that was the most noticeable physical reminder of her Minbari heritage, and felt her tip her head back into the caress. Contrary to what he’d expected, it was surprisingly sensitive.

"Lights, thirty percent," she whispered as though she’d read his mind.

Almost instantly they were wrapped in soft illumination.

"I want to see you," she husked, then pressed a light kiss over the center of his breastbone. Her lips trailed up, and he shivered slightly as she brushed her tongue along the underside of his chin. She leaned back enough to stare up at him, a satisfied grin turning her mouth upward. She reached up to outline his mouth with the tip of her finger. He nipped lightly at the delicate digit, drawing a soft laugh. "I enjoy watching you when we make love," she admitted breathlessly, her cheeks flushing with a trace of embarrassment.

John chuckled softly, sitting on the edge of the bed as he drew her forward, mouth ranging over her torso until she was almost purring. Finally, he curved his fingers to her narrow hips, lifting and guiding until she straddled his hips, knees resting on the mattress, arms draped around the back of neck. They traded another fast kiss that only broke when she leaned in to nibble on his ear.

He started to lean back into the bed, but she tightened her hold, keeping them both upright. "John," she murmured in a voice full of sensual promise. "I’ve heard the humans...um..." she trailed off uncertainly, still a little shy about expressing some things. They'd been physically intimate for a short while and she was still learning.

Warm hands trailed up her ribs. "What?"

She whispered near his ear, and he smiled.

"That can be arranged," he murmured, "if you think you'd enjoy it."

Delenn swallowed hard, nodding as she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

Unable to contain a grin, he tightened his hold. There was something fundamentally appealing about the mix of innocence and eroticism in her eager embrace of all things sensual. "Then I guess we'll just have to experiment a little," he told her as he twisted and lowered her to the mattress.

"Mmhm," she moaned happily.

It was her first moan of the night, but not her last.

Later, they lay sprawled together, limbs still twined together, skin faintly glossed, both thoroughly and completely sated. One arm folded behind his head, John stared blearily into space as he petted dark hair with a tender hand, enjoying the pleasant, post coital lassitude. "Since you admitted that Minbari lovemaking is slower than the human variety," he asked as a thought occurred to him. "Do you meditate between each... bite?"

Lifting her head from the pillow of his chest, she blinked, momentarily uncertain she’d heard him right. "No," she laughed, deciding she had, and kissed to his chest. "You choose the strangest times to ask questions."

He shrugged. "Need I remind you exactly when you asked about oral sex?"

"It seemed appropriate at the time," she insisted defensively.

"Maybe," he allowed as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "But I still think it was redundant."

She shrugged, then resettled her head on his chest. "I just wanted to make certain."

Relaxing even deeper into the mattress, he grinned a little more broadly. "Just for future reference, the answer is yes...a very resounding yes."

"I’ll remember that," she chuckled, then slid back up the length of his body to stare down into his eyes, loving what she saw there. He was so open to her, so giving and so very caring. Sometimes when she looked at him like this, she could only shake her head in amazement at the distance she'd come and the things she'd discovered with this man.

He'd been her enemy. Now he was her love.

And the raw, addictive pleasure of making love never ceased to amaze her. She had wondered about the human obsession with the subject starting even before her transformation, but she was starting to understand it. The union of mind, body, and heart was beyond anything she had ever expected, and each encounter only seemed to leave her longing for more.

"Penny for your thoughts," he murmured the old saying though no one had minted a penny in hundreds of years.

He'd already explained the meaning of the strange suggestion, so she smiled happily. "I was thinking how amazing it is," she admitted as she settled against his side again, "that we have found one another."

"Amazing," he agreed as he looped his arms around her. Again the mental image of what their child might look like floated through his brain. Despite all of the difficulties ahead, he prayed it was true. He needed to believe that it all meant something, that a part of them both would live on.

Delenn snuggled into his side, a soft smile curving her lips. "I love you," she breathed.

He smiled and nodded, brushing his free hand down the elegant length of her side. "That’s all I ask," he admitted, cuddling her close as he felt sleep encroaching. "Lights out," he called to the ceiling.

A heartbeat later, the room was wrapped in shadow as together they slipped into Morpheus’ comforting embrace.

Not so many hours later, Delenn stood staring at John as he slept, watching him as she had done every night they spent together. She tried to sleep the night through, but she always woke, slipping out of bed to watch him, standing guard, waiting for the inevitable or praying to be proven wrong. She didn’t know which was the real reason, or perhaps they all were. She only knew that despite every obstacle life had thrown between them, she loved him with all her soul. She stood there for the longest time, then still following the nightly ritual that drove her to both accept fate and defy it, crossed to the counter where the snow globe sat, her bare feet silent on the carpet.

It was cool in her hands as she lifted it, losing herself in the glittering contents as she waited....