Chapter Text
"Captain what do you think happened last night? Did you have any of these ghostly encounters?" President Sheridan attracted attention wherever he went, and more than one head turned towards him as he shouted over the murmur of whispered alien voices. A half dozen Brakiri glanced over at him and smiled, before their ambassador cast a disapproving glance in their direction and did his best to disperse the crowd of his people who had gathered to discuss what had happened.
Glancing over at the crowd, Susan lowered her voice as to not be overheard, "Yes--"
"So, would you like to tell me about it?"
"No." The word hung in the air for a second, as Sheridan blinked in surprise at the intensity in that refusal before Captain Ivanova continued perfunctorily. "I'll have a full report on your desk by Oh-Six-hundred tonight. As I wrote in my report from yesterday, I sold the Brakiri ambassador a section of the station for the night for a religious ceremony. A mistake I won't make again."
"Susan--" Sheridan's tone switched to the slightly mollifying voice he always got right before launching in a lecture about anything to do with The Alliance.
"--Yes. Religious tolerance. Principles of the Alliance. I'll make sure to apply that to finding a religion that let's me throw ambassadors out of airlocks when they pull stunts like this in the future." Her voice rose just enough that the Brakiri ambassador winced, although before he could approach to explain, Ambassador Mollari swept through and grasped his hand in an overly vigorous handshake.
Even from a distance down the corridor everybody could hear, "Yes, yes, The Day of the Dead is a marvelous tradition! Is there any way we could do this on Centauri Prime--"
Susan and the Captain continued walking through the hallway, checking to make sure that everybody was emerging from their rooms. She nodded at Garibaldi as they passed, and waved him over. It took Garibaldi no time at all to read the situation and start up a conversation to pull President Sheridan away. "I wonder who Londo saw last night to be in such a good mood this morning? I think the whole station can hear him fawning over the Brakiri ambassador. Last I heard he wanted to see the First Emperor, have a little heart to heart about genocide."
Sheridan laughed, and turned towards Michael. "Ah, you heard his excitement even from this far away did you? I've never seen him get this excited about anything outside of a winning hard of cards! But, enough about Londo. Who did you see last night Michael? I'd have liked to have arranged quarters in the zone if I'd known--" Garibaldi nodded sympathetically at Susan as she kept walking down the corridor, launching into a very dramatic retelling of how a beautiful woman had just appeared in his shower and making sure to stand in just a way to keep John from continuing down the hallway after her.
President Sheridan sometimes wanted to be Captain Sheridan again, and while he'd been getting better about it, it wasn't his job to make sure everybody on the station was safe any more. It was hers. Well, hers and the rest of the Earth Force staff that ran the station. It was tough having The Alliance headquartered on the station, and even though Sheridan wasn't Captain of Babylon Five anymore, it could feel like most of the Alien ambassadors still defaulted to acting like he was.