Entry tags:

babylon 5, garibaldi/bester

[FIC] Where Loyalties Lie
Title: Where Loyalties Lie
Author: Shirahime
Rating: eventual NC-17
Pairing: Garibaldi/Bester
Summary: Early Season 3-ish fic. Wherein Bester becomes an unwanted new fixture to the station, and circumstances are more than they initially appear.



Part One


A flash of light, and the area between the struts of the jumpgate shifted in shades of blue, a portal opening from the depths of hyperspace. Four figures sat in the darkly painted shuttle, the telltale bronze and silver emblem on the craft’s side displayed proudly on a field of black. His mouth a grim line, Alfred Bester gazed at the space station looming ever larger in his field of view, turning slowly on its axis in what were the early evening hours. Duty once again brought him to Babylon 5, a place seen by many as holding a promise of new beginnings and harmony among varied species. It was this very thing that made the place one of the hubs of an underground railroad for unregistered telepaths being shuffled out of the grasp of the Corps, the situation allowed by the complicit command staff of the station.

Alfred’s expression darkened. The debriefing that the former commercial telepath on the station had undergone back on Mars had largely confirmed what that Bester had suspected the last time that he’d left the station, the fact that the combined psi of the rogues that the station had harbored was enough for them to cause him to have a false vision of events. His pride was still wounded by that knowledge, as well as the fact that a once loyal servant of the Corps had been led astray by the group. He shook his head. Unfortunate, though, that Talia’s personality had ended up replaced by the sleeper. He had liked the blonde despite what she’d done, after a fashion.

“Is something wrong, sir?” a young psi cop asked from beside him. The older telepath always kept his blocks up fairly high, even around other psi cops, but the young man didn’t need his talent to tell him that his superior was fairly annoyed.

Bester sighed. “Coming to this place always puts me in a bad mood, Evan,” he replied. “You might have the displeasure of meeting a few of the people responsible for that.”

The shuttle announced itself, moving into the docking bay after obtaining the required clearances. It wasn’t long after the psi cops and the two bloodhounds that had accompanied them made their way out of the docking bay past the security checkpoint before a voice rang out nearby that was all too familiar.

“Well, look what crawled out of the docking bay,” the voice remarked, making Bester halt, a pained expression on his face before turning around. Garibaldi, of course. The security chief approached the group, his mood darkening with every step forward that he took. What was he doing back on Babylon 5? “So what brings you here to my humble station?”

“Psi Corps business, Mr. Garibaldi,” Alfred answered with a pleasantness that he certainly didn’t feel. “Nothing that will get in the way of the command staff or interfere with you.”

Garibaldi shot the man a look. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

Bester sighed. “If you must know, we’re on the trail of several telepaths with ties to rogue terrorist cells on Mars.”

“Sounds like something that’s going to make you cross paths with security”

Bester gave a faint and unkind smile. “We already have several leads as to their whereabouts. I doubt that we’ll be needing your… expertise, but thank you for offering.” The less that normals interfered with Psi Corps matters, the better.

As the man turned to walk away with the rest of the telepaths, Garibaldi had a few choice thoughts for the psi cop that he hoped the telepath had been listening in on.

___________________________________________


During the impromptu command staff meeting a little later in the evening, Ivanova was livid, as Garibaldi had expected her to be.

“You mean that man was allowed onto the station, to roam as he pleases? Don’t you realize what he’s responsible for?” Susan leaned over the table toward Sheridan, her face animated with anger. She’d been away from C & C when the Psi Corps shuttle had docked, unable to make any protest of their request to board the station beforehand. “Who knows what his real purpose is!”

Sheridan raised his hands in what was a placating gesture. “I understand your concerns, Susan, but we can’t interfere with Psi Corps business without drawing unneeded attention to ourselves.”

“But what if this is a ruse to scout out information on the command staff?” Ivanova insisted.

“We don’t have any proof of that,” Sheridan answered. “Besides, it’s not like they can do any unlawful scans on anyone without repercussions. And we still have some leverage on Bester regarding what went down the last time he was here. We still have some tricks up our sleeves as far as information the Corps doesn’t want to see the light of day.”

Franklin chimed in with, “But is that really the case?” He frowned, not wanting to speak of it, but the words had to be said. “After what happened with Talia,” he started, continuing despite Susan’s look of discomfort, “we don’t know what kind of information that the Corps was able to obtain. It’s not clear how much the latent personality was able to find out before it was exposed.”

Considering, Michael remarked, “Well, if they really had anything concrete and had told Earth Gov about it, the powers that be would have gone after us already-”

“Unless, they’re biding their time,” Susan interjected.

“Whatever the case may be,” Sheridan said, “only time is going to show the truth of it. For now, all we can do is behave as we usually would. Don’t give them a reason to think that anything other than the usual business of the station is going on.” The captain looked around the table as the others nodded in agreement.

___________________________________________


Sitting a roughly a level and a half down from where he’d fallen, Garibaldi realized that things probably could have turned out worse. He tried not to move the leg that was twisted awkwardly, waves of increased pain assaulting him with the slightest movement. His hand was still sore from striking against the wall after he’d fallen, the pieces of his comlink nearby. They didn’t make those things like they used to.

After the meeting with the command staff, Garibaldi had gone to check on a few leads they had in an ongoing security investigation into a smuggling ring for illegal goods supposedly run out of an area of Down Below. He was supposed to be meeting up with his informant who allegedly had some information about the next shipment so that a bust could be staged. Unfortunately, things had turned out to be a little more than he’d expected. Instead of the man he was supposed to see there, several low-level suspected members of said smuggling ring were there to greet him. After a brief scuffle spilling over into a damaged area of Down Below undergoing construction, he’d ended up shoved backward and falling through an area of damaged flooring that had been sectioned off and was still undergoing repair, landing with a dull thud. While the criminals had hoped this fall was to the security chief’s death, the darkened area wasn’t quite deep enough to do the trick.

Garibaldi was only mildly comforted by the fact that, though he didn’t get the information he’d wanted, picking up his assailants later and leaning on them with attempted murder charges would likely get a few of them to speak up and implicate their bosses. However, with his comlink broken and no one in the area to answer his calls for help, Garibaldi was forced to wait for what could be 8 hours or more for the construction crew to return in the morning. He cursed himself that he hadn’t told Zack about the meeting with the informant. Being too much of a lone wolf didn’t help at times.

___________________________________________


After a brief telepathic battle in a different area of Down Below, the rogue telepath fell to the ground, stunned by Bester’s psi. The psi cop approached the fallen man. A mid-range teep, a P-7 at best, hardly a match for him, but the man had tried anyway. The bloodhounds hoisted the unconscious rogue up by an arm under each shoulder. Alfred was instructing them to take their captive to the impromptu interrogation area they had set up in one of the conference rooms levels above when he caught something nearly beyond the range of his psi. Frowning, the telepath turned to look behind him down a twisting corridor leading to another area of Down Below.

“Is something wrong, sir?” Evan asked his superior.

Alfred turned back to him. There was a strange familiarity to what he’d sensed. He supposed that he should check it out. “No, just a curiosity. Head back up with the bloodhounds and start questioning the rogue when he comes around. I’ll meet you up there shortly.”

Trying not to let his disappointment show, Evan did as instructed. Walking back toward where there was an elevator leading to the higher levels, he wondered why the psi cop always sought to accomplish many of his tasks alone.

With a mild degree of wariness, Bester headed down the long corridor. There didn’t seem to be anyone around that would be a threat to him, but a degree of caution never hurt. As the corridor led into a wider and open area with two exits, the impressions of pain and anger gained clarity. Choosing what appeared to be the more likely of the passages that held the source of the impressions, Bester traveled until he came upon an area of construction, signs warning of danger placed about. There was an area near the back where the floor had been damaged, a large section missing with telltale signs of unfinished repair. From what the images that appeared in Alfred’s mind told him, someone was down there, in pain from… a leg injury? And it seemed that the someone in question was Garibaldi.

Bester frowned. It seemed that the security chief was conscious, yet why hadn’t he called for help? Or maybe he had, yet they hadn’t arrived yet. Whatever the case, the telepath had half a mind to leave the other man there, but something made him do otherwise. Sighing, he headed over to crouch down near the aperture, leaning over to peer down.

Hearing footsteps, Garibaldi looked up hopefully only to see Bester’s head come into view, the last person that he wanted to see.

“What are you doing down there, Mr. Garibaldi?” the telepath asked him.

Rolling his eyes, Garibaldi snapped, “Isn’t it obvious? I fell – pushed actually. Comlink’s broken, so I couldn’t call anyone.” He picked up the broken object in annoyance, tossing it a distance away.

Scanning the area nearby with his eyes, Bester noticed a retracted sliding ladder on the other side of the rent in the floor on the wall leading downward. He supposed that the construction workers had attached it there to access the lower level. “You couldn’t climb up, I suppose.”

Garibaldi shot him a look. “No, because the ladder’s too high for me to reach, even if I managed to stand up somehow,” he snapped.

The security chief saw Bester disappear from view, but the footsteps told him that the man was circling around toward the area where the ladder was. A creaking sound, then metal sliding against metal as the ladder was extended downward until it was several inches off of the floor. The telepath descended, moving to stand near Garibaldi after he reached the ground.

Crouching nearby, Alfred eyed the man’s leg that was twisted at an awkward angle. “It seems to be broken.”

“That’s kind of obvious,” Garibaldi remarked, pain making him even more annoyed with the man than usual.

“Hopefully, it hasn’t broken the skin,” Bester continued, choosing to ignore the man’s words along with the scathing tone.

Garibaldi watched the telepath, Bester’s face one of contemplation as he looked down at the twisted limb, his brows knitted together. Before Garibaldi could open lips to speak, Bester was looking up, eyes focused on him and his face a mask of concentration.

Garibaldi startled at the vague and strange feeling of pressure in his mind as the telepath gazed at him. “What are you-?”

Don’t fight it, came the words spoken into his mind, Bester’s ‘voice.’ It was almost as though it had a shape and feeling as well as a sound, like a shimmering wave inside of his head. I have to straighten this leg and I don’t feel like hearing you scream when I do it. Michael blinked at the strange sensation in his mind, realizing that his leg was starting to feel numb. Dark eyes stared into blue intently. Garibaldi noted absently that the man’s lips had parted slightly as he pushed at his mind.

“Are you-?”

Don’t distract me, that voice came again. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this. A moment more, and the pain in Michael’s leg was largely a memory, the limb feeling heavy and dull. He’d had no idea that telepaths were capable of this, selectively blocking pain centers in a mind. Garibaldi had seen telepaths inflict pain globally on a person with their minds, but never a controlled talent utilized to relieve it. As he watched Bester pull the limb back into alignment, the only sensation a dull feeling of pressure, Garibaldi wondered why the telepath was even doing this.

“I don’t enjoy watching people suffer as much as everyone here seems to believe,” Alfred said aloud. It was almost strange to hear the man speak aloud now, the physical sound of notes reverberating in air paling in comparison to the presence felt when the telepath had spoken into his mind. Garibaldi was more than mildly disturbed by the fact that Bester’s other voice had been oddly soothing.

Looking around for something he could use to brace the leg, Bester found two slats of material that had fallen from the damaged floor above that were roughly the right size for the job. There was, however, nothing around for him to tie them with.

He gazed up at Garibaldi intently. “Take off your shirt,” he ordered. The telepath made a motion as if he were going to unfasten the man’s uniform jacket for him.

Pulling away somewhat in mild alarm, Garibaldi couldn’t stop from uttering “What?” incredulously.

The telepath shook his head at the suspicions that rose in the normal’s mind. Really now. “I need something to tie this with,” Alfred told him, his tone saying that this should have been obvious to the other man. “You don’t think that I can sit here holding your leg in line and go for help at the same time, do you?”

“Fine,” Michael agreed reluctantly, annoyed at the man’s chastening tone of voice. He slipped off his jacket unaided, unbuttoning the white shirt. Handing it over, he watched the telepath rip it into large strips. “But you owe me another one,” Garibaldi added.

Alfred glanced at him briefly before turning back to focus on the task at hand. “It’s a sacrifice for your own comfort.”

Finished binding the security chief’s leg, the telepath rose, dusting off his pants before heading back to grasp the ladder. Bester looked back over his shoulder at Garibaldi. “Once I’m out of range, you’ll feel pain again, but it shouldn’t be as severe as before.” Michael’s eyes widened slightly. Was the man offering him reassurance?

“Just stating the facts, Mr. Garibaldi,” Alfred responded with his typical grin, picking up the thought. “You can interpret them as you see fit.” Then the man climbed up the ladder, an exasperated but surprised Garibaldi waiting below.

___________________________________________


A short time later, Garibaldi was lying on a stretcher, the medical team preparing to bring him back to Med Lab for treatment. Realizing that he hadn’t yet thanked the psi cop, he gestured for him to come closer.

Garibaldi looked up gratefully at the other man. “Hey, thanks for what you did back there, you spared me a lot of pain. Let me buy you a drink sometime.”

Bester gazed at him as he lay in the stretcher. “There’s really no need for you to thank me, Mr. Garibaldi. My motives weren’t entirely altruistic.”

“How so?”

Alfred sighed. “Being in the same room with you as you were would have been like being wirh a wounded animal. I did it for myself, actually. Less dangerous that way.”

Garibaldi’s gaze at the man darkened initially, until he realized what the other man was doing. The psi cop didn’t want to accept Garibaldi’s kind words to him, so he responded with his usual sarcastic routine to maintain the dynamic that existed between them. Was it such a bad thing to be on friendly terms with a normal? Well, he wasn’t going to play along with the telepath’s game this time.

Smirking slightly, Garibaldi answered, “Well, worse things have been said about me, usually by old girlfriends.”

With a less than kind smile, Bester answered, “With you, Mr. Garibaldi, I can believe it.”

Michael frowned. The telepath sure didn’t make it easy, did he? He watched the older man turn, pausing to call over his shoulder, “I’d have to take a rain check on that drink anyway. I doubt that I’ll be on the station much longer.” Then Alfred headed back to seek out his companions, a figure in black disappearing down the corridor and out of sight.


To Be Continued.