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"Any news on my test results?"
Sheridan could feel the Medlab temperature drop by several degrees as Stephen looked up at him, deliberately avoiding his eyes.
"Yeah. Look, why don't you just go ahead to my office, I'll be there in a minute so we can talk in private, alright?" The doctor was already halfway across the examination room, typing hectically on a datapad while walking, when he suddenly seemed to reconsider and halted. In a much quieter voice, he added, "You might want to have someone with you."
The nagging feeling that something was definitely wrong hardened into a block of ice in the Captain's gut. His jaw settled tightly, he took a decisive breath, then shook his head. "No. Let's just get this over with, okay?"
"Alright." Stephen waved him into the office, closed the door and turned the glass walls to opaque so they would not be disturbed. When he had sat down in his rolling chair, he pulled himself towards the desk and gestured at Sheridan to take the opposite seat while he fished for another datapad.
"Look at this," he commented while he opened a table full of acronyms and codes that seemed like chemical formulas, but could just as well have been the abbreviations of Centauri administrative provinces. "These are the results of your regular scans and blood screening last year. And these…" He switched to another table that at first glance looked pretty much identical. "These are those from two days ago. Now, most of the changes were to be expected after the ordeal you've gone through - deficiencies in several minerals, inflammatory markers are up a little but still within safe parameters, leucocytes are through the roof while your immune system is trying to get rid of several foreign particles and toxins especially in your lungs. That's consistent with exposure to an alien but not directly dangerous atmosphere, and also explains why your lung function was significantly reduced at first, but then started recovering quite quickly. The effects should be temporary if you get enough rest and continue to take your medications as I prescribed them-"
"Stephen." John interrupted his friend's monologue. "I know none of this is why you're looking like you're about to sign my death certificate. Could you please just get to the damn point?" He kept tapping his foot under the table while digging the nails of his interlaced fingers into the palms of the other hand.
Without reacting to his little outburst, Stephen scrolled down the table to point at a row marked in dark blue. "This should not be here. It's an alien chemical from what I can tell, inconsistent with both Human biology as well as those of the species I've studied before. It seems to be involved in providing the energy to repair extensive damage to your cells though."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Sheridan interjected carefully, almost as a question.
"Not at first," Stephen confirmed before turning the datapad around so that John could read the figures. "But their count is dropping, and fast."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that, unless the compound is naturally producing in your body or wholly unnecessary, which I don't believe at this point in time… You will eventually run out of it. Your cells will, over time, lose their ability to regenerate."
"And that is going to kill me." The Captain sat up straight, forcing his shoulders down as his hands clasped around the seat of the chair.
The doctor raised a hand. "Not immediately," he amended. "The effects should be consistent with normal aging processes. What worries me is their speed. I can't tell you what exactly is going on, and I hope that Lorien might be able to tell us a little more. Assuming the chemicals are something he has seen before. Maybe they are related to Z'Ha'Dum in some way. But to break it down to the bare bones… I think your life expectancy may have just been shortened by at least a decade or two. Probably more. You are already dying, John. Slowly, but inexorably."
John nodded, inwardly frozen while he buried his trembling hands in his lap. Stephen suddenly seemed to decide to tidy up his workspace, as he began shifting papers, instruments, scribbled notes and datapads around on the desk. Finally, he let his eyes meet the Captain's, and John saw the anguish painted across his whole face. "I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do."
Something had to be horribly wrong with the station's gravity, or else John had no rational explanation for why he felt his chair was about to leave the ground any second. He grabbed the table and pulled himself upwards, trying to hide how it made him sway. "It's not your fault," he forced out. "I knew what I was doing. I knew this might happen. It's okay."
It was not, not even close to, but if he admitted that even to himself he would probably break down right here in Medlab, and he couldn't - not now, not when everyone expected him to lead them to victory against the Shadows. And if they didn't achieve that victory, then it wouldn't matter anyways whether he had a hundred years or ten left to live.
"I'll have to... think about this for a while. If that's alright?" His own voice sounded strange to his ears, and he had to keep his gaze fixed on the door to not lose his balance as he made his way towards it. At the edge of his vision he saw Stephen getting up and walking towards him, though his body did not recognize the touch when the doctor laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Of course. Take your time, think this over, maybe talk to Lorien if you feel up for it. Otherwise I wouldn't mind doing it. And if there's anyone else you want me to tell, just say the word. You're not alone in this. We're all still with you."
Normally he would probably have found his friend's words touching and encouraging, but now they just brought home even more what this all meant. He had to tell his parents, eventually... The thought drove a stake through his heart. They were prepared for him to get killed in combat, yes, but were they ready at all to watch him waste away?
He nodded numbly, sure that any attempt to speak would end in tears, and began to slip through the door. Stephen called after him, "Call me any time you need to, okay?," but he didn’t let on that he had heard. He felt as if he had just gotten off a carousel, the surroundings still spinning and his stomach churning with nausea. The station, everyone and everything on it whizzed by like behind frosted glass as he mechanically made his way to Blue Sector.
* * *
When Susan entered her quarters, John had tried to settle on the sofa, but could not decide whether he wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep or restlessly pace the room. Her eyebrows shot up as she took note of him. "How did you even get in here? You said in five minutes, that was three minutes ago."
"Guess you should change your lock code more often." He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it got stuck halfway in his throat and he had to clear it to get the hoarseness out of his voice. How was he ever going to get through this?
She mustered him up and down, as if she was about to launch into a critique of his outfit. Then she sat down on the other side of the sofa, turned towards him but with enough space between them. Her voice was gentler when she spoke again. "Want to tell me what this is about? I can pick up something's wrong, so it must be bad."
"Yeah." He knew he should grab the line she was throwing him, but every thought dragged out like walking in a spacesuit. It took a few more moments of silence until he swallowed and firmly fixed his gaze onto his shoes. Then: "Stephen was just talking to me. He… had some news." John felt his own shoulders sag, so unlike the military strength he had been learning almost his entire life. He didn't have that strength right now.
"Bad news, I take it."
Susan's voice came from closer than last time, and he risked a glance to the side. She had moved closer, still far away enough where he wasn't trapped between her and the side of the sofa, but close enough where she could reach him with an outstretched arm. He nodded. "Yeah. Can't yet say how bad exactly, but-" This was it, now or never. He could already feel the wall inside him that refused to break the topic. If he did not jump it now, he never would. "It'll probably take more than a decade or something, but my days are counted."
She rested her hand on his thigh, and he put his own on top. If he didn't anchor himself somewhere in the real world, he would almost certainly start spiralling out of control again. The static sounds were already returning, and he only noticed that Susan must have said something when she was almost yelling - as calmly as one could possibly yell - his name at him.
"You still here?"
Her voice was calm, too calm, just the sort of calm he had been in Stephen's office, but right now he was grateful for that. He needed her to calm him now, so that he could be calm when telling Delenn… never mind the game of emotional domino this could turn into. He nodded. "Yeah." The single word broke his voice, and when he tried to swallow the lump in his throat it resulted in a sob. "I just- sorry, I just need a moment to-"
Then he was beyond help, and suddenly rocking with sobs as he lost to the tears that flowed too fast to simply wipe away.
An arm wrapped around John's shoulder, and through the fog he could barely make out Susan whispering, "It's alright, take your time…" A small part of him was embarrassed. He rarely ever cried, and then mostly when he was alone with his father. Yet here he was, Commander of Babylon 5, leader of the Army of Light, the one that all hope against the Shadows - and Vorlons - rested on, sobbing on the sofa of his second in command.
But that wasn't all of it, of course. She was also one of, if not his best friend. They had been through fire and hell over the past two years, and he knew he could trust her with his life. Perhaps borrowing a shoulder to cry on wasn't asking too much after all.
It could have been two minutes or forty, but finally he was able to catch his hitching breath again and inhale deeply. He kept his eyes closed for a moment, trying to regain his balance through his still swimming head. Accepting the tissue he was handed, he wiped the remaining tears away and blew his nose. It's a good thing I'm not expected anywhere right now, he mused drily. Bet I look like a mess. On closer examination, obviously, he was a mess too.
With a tired exhale, he let his head fall sideward until it rested fully on Susan's shoulder. "Thank you," he murmured. "Guess I needed that."
"All part of the job," she commented nonchalantly. Then, softer again: "What do you want me to know?"