"I have spoken to the Tuchanq. I did something so simple and so profound for them, and they worship me for it. They worship me for saving a handful of their people when countless others remain insane and trapped on a dead world, a world rendered barren by hatred and greed. What remains for them but more war under my command?"
The monologue stopped, and Susan looked at him. "So," she said. "What are you going to do now?"
"What I must," he said darkly. "I will do what I must."
"It's going to start soon, isn't it? Whatever's going to happen, it'll start soon."
"Yes," he replied. "Very soon. Indeed, it is already starting."
Because he felt something he had never felt before.
Guilt.
This was his fault. All of this. Had he been only a little more observant, had he focussed more of his attention on his world instead of on aliens, had he interfered less, always trying to change the views of his people....
Had he done or not done any one of a number of things, this fate might never have happened. The deaths of his people, of his world, were on his shoulders.
"I know that look," remarked Da'Kal dryly. He looked up to see her standing nearby, arms folded. "I know that look."
"What?"
"You are not to blame. Do not even dare to lay the blame for this on yourself. How could any of us know that the Vorlons would do this? If you had not arranged for them to find out, then they would have managed it another way."
"You do not understand. It is not that I informed them, however unwittingly. It is that I should have stopped this from ever happening. I should have...."
"G'Kar, stop it!" she cried. "How should you have seen this? What is it that gives you the blame for this?"
"Responsibility," he said simply. "I took responsibility for our people, and thus I must share the blame."
She looked at him silently for a few moments, and then, suddenly, she began to laugh. It was a sound he remembered from when they were younger; a girlish, mocking laugh that spoke of humour in the simplest of things combined with wonder at beauty in so many hidden places. It was the laugh that had made him fall in love with her.
"You have not changed," she said. "Not in a single way. You are still the same." She walked over to him and laid her hands on the side of his head. Her hands were warm and soft. "I am sorry," she whispered, kissing the empty shell where his eye had once been. "That is hard for me to say."
"Do not be sorry," he said softly. "In these last hours of my life, I have
seen more clearly with one eye than I ever did with two."
"Always the philosopher," she breathed, her breath so very hot.
There was a long silence, constructed from shared memories of good and bad, of joys and grief and separated paths. The years they had spent apart evaporated as water into air and they were young again, lying naked side by side beneath the moon, joyous in victory, weeping in defeat. She had been the last thing he had seen before the white liquid that dripped into his eyes had temporarily taken his sight. She had been his talisman during those terrible months of interrogation in the village.
"I never forgot you," he said.
"Sweet liar," she replied.
It was not the first time he had lied to her. They had lied countless times during the war, lies of certain victory, that they would return, that all would be well. This was the first time he had hated himself for it.
"You made me a promise once. Do you remember?"
"I made you many promises," he replied. "Which one are you referring to?"
"After Mu'Addibar. The night after the battle, in your chambers. Do you remember?"
"Yes," he said, with a heavy heart. "I remember."
"I was so afraid that day. I could never forget the lord's hands on my body. My heart was beating so loudly that I was afraid it would burst free from my chest. I could not let them do that to me again. Never." She touched his hand and gently guided it to her breast. "Feel my heart."
It was pounding, beating against her rib cage with a fast and passionate and terrified fury.
"You know what to do."
"I do," he said sorrowfully. He pulled back from her, and looked towards the corner of the room. The sword lay there. Not his, of course, but a sword all the same. He had never approved of paying undue reverence to a weapon. He had never believed in naming them, or treating them as if they were alive.
All a weapon ever was, truthfully, was a tool to end lives.
Da'Kal had dropped to her knees, head bowed, eyes closed. "I am sorry for what I did to you, beloved. But I am not sorry for what I did to the Centauri. They deserved to feel fear. They deserved to feel pain. They deserved so much more than I could ever give them."
G'Kar's throat was full and choked. He could say nothing in reply.
"You still think I am wrong. I know you. I loved you with everything I was, but I hated you too for being so weak. How is it possible to feel such conflicting emotions for one person?"
"I don't know," he said, balancing the sword in his hands.