TIME IN A BOTTLE
JIM CROCE
If I could save Time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
'Til Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you
If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you
CHORUS:
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with
*******************************
John Sheridan had gone. He said goodbye to all his friends and flew off for a Sunday afternoon drive that lasted forever. The galaxy mourned. But on Minbar, life went on. Delenn had chosen Susan Ivanova to be Ranger One at John’s passing, and Susan had accepted. Marcus Cole had known this was going to happen. Delenn and John had asked him if he approved. He could think of no one better than Susan.
Marcus was, however, terrified that Susan would ask him to step down and leave Minbar once she found out he was still alive. Stephen had stayed on to support Marcus and to see the ceremony that made Susan Ranger One. The ceremony itself would be attended by only Rangers, but there would be a small gathering after for friends. Marcus dressed in his formal Rangers dress and went to the ceremony. He knew the very second that Susan saw him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her all evening. She was still so very beautiful. She had a few wrinkles and a little gray hair, but she was still the same. He saw her look his way and then look back again. He saw her falter, and her smile froze for just a second and then Delenn put a hand to her back and said something. Susan smiled his way and continued with the ceremony.
**
Later, at the gathering, Marcus saw her again. She was talking to Delenn and Franklin. Oh no! They were headed this way! He wondered if he might duck out…. But no, they were looking right at him.
"Marcus, there you are!" Delenn said as if she hadn’t know all along.
"Hello, Delenn, Stephen." He hadn’t taken his eyes from Susan’s. "Hello, Susan."
She smiled her warmest smile. Even those eyes that could reflect steel seemed warm. "Hello, Marcus." It came out a whisper. She cleared her throat, and finally managed to say hello in an almost normal voice. He was never able to remember later a single word that was said after she said hello.
The evening was almost over, and it was getting late when Susan came up to Marcus. " I like the braid. It looks good on you." Marcus wore his hair in a single braid down his back, but some of the hair in the front always managed to slide out and fall in his face like it always had. His hair, like Susan’s, had a streak or two of gray also.
He turned quickly at the sound of her voice.
"Hello again." Man, that was smart! But, then she always did inspire him to say stupid things!
"This has been almost too much to take in, but the one thing I’m glad about is that you are here. I never imagined I’d see you again, Marcus. I don’t even know what to say."
"I know. It is rather awkward, isn’t it?"
Susan laughed out loud. Heads turned but then turned back. "That’s not even close. I should be furious with you! You’ve been here for all these years….. and you never told me."
"I didn’t know how, Susan. Was I supposed to show up and say here I am….?"
"I’m not angry…. I SHOULD be but I’m not! I’m just glad you are alive."
"I’m glad I’m alive too. Being dead for a dozen years makes you appreciate every day you are alive."
___________________________________
Susan looked at him, but she wasn’t really seeing him. She was seeing him in the past. Seeing the dashing Ranger making a fool out of himself over her, seeing herself ignore him again and again. She saw the love in his eyes when he’d confessed his own inexperience to her. She remembered how she blew him off like he was a fool. Unrequited love…. She had learned after so many years, that his love had not gone unrequited. She had loved him when it was too late, when she had truly realized what he had sacrificed for her.
Here he was, still behaving like an idiot over her! She reached out a hand to touch his face. He went still.
"Marcus, come back to my quarters with me. We have twenty years, well ten for you, to catch up on. I don’t feel like being alone tonight."
_____________________________________
Marcus walked beside her. She still had the same purposeful stride she had always had, back straight and head held high like the good soldier she was. He knew that he loved her still, had never stopped. She would make a good Ranger One. She would dedicate herself to being the best. That was his Susan.
When they reached her door, he prepared to beg off, but Susan practically shoved him in the door. She found a bottle of vodka she’d brought with her from Earth and some glasses and poured them both a healthy glassful. She sat on the sofa at the opposite end of Marcus.
"You know, it’s hard to believe that Jeffrey Sinclair once lived in these very quarters." Susan looked around at the fairly plain little house.
"I met him when I came here to become a Ranger after William’s death. I had no desire to be a Ranger, but I had foolishly promised William I’d look into it. When he died, I felt compelled to come here. Jeffrey Sinclair made me want to be a Ranger. I never met another man like him, not even John Sheridan."
They talked about the others they had known: Londo, G’kar, Lennier, and too many others to remember after all these years. They drank to the memory of Jeffrey Sinclair and John Sheridan.
The night passed in a blur of conversation and memories. Both of them had cried and laughed over the old days. Marcus noticed that the sky was getting a little light outside. It would be dawn soon. Marcus loved the dawn here on Minbar. He rose from the sofa and started to go back to his own quarters.
Susan rose and took his hand. She lead him back to the back of the little house and into her small bedroom. She moved close to him, after she closed the door. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. For a second, Marcus was taken aback but this was Susan, the woman he’d loved since he first saw her 20 years before. He returned her kiss.
She lead him across the room to a bed that had been fixed so it was flat instead of tilted in the Minbari fashion. He smiled and joined her.
As the dawn broke and a new day began in the City of Sorrows, Marcus was finally able to give Susan the love he’d saved for her. It was everything he had ever hoped and more.
Marcus nor Susan ever had to face another dawn alone.
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