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Author's Notes:
This is the finale to my little story. It's set 13 years after the previous parts of Lost and Found, Trust, Passion and Peace (which you really want to read before you get into this! <end of shameless plug, 'cos I suppose this could be stand alone too *grin*>)

I'm gonna give this part a PG-13 rating for implied adult situations.
That's it, enjoy!

---

Susan stood in the door, overlooking the garden of her admiral's residence in St. Petersburg. It was a beautiful summer's day and her fiends were all gathered on the terrace, lounging in chairs and on the bench surrounding the table that held the remains of their tea.

Michael, Lise, Stephen and his wife Julia were talking and laughing. Delenn and John were sitting on the bench looking at the garden and the grass where their 12 year old son was wielding a Minbari fighting pike in a complicated fighting exercise. David was good, very good for a 12 year old. But his opponent and trainer for the day was the best. Susan smiled when she saw David attack and surprise him.

"Very good," she heard Marcus say. Then she saw him move to hit the boy on his left side. "But you really should cover that left side faster next time." David stomped his foot, annoyed. Marcus laughed at that and ruffled the boy's hair.

Susan smiled again. Marcus, her Marcus. Still annoying as hell, but she wouldn't want him any other way.
She knew he would have been an excellent father, but alas. They had tried for a while, but without success. It had turned out that Susan wasn't able to have children. They had sat down, talked about it, grieved the loss of their unborn children together, and had decided that they would be happy with just each other. And now, eight years later, they were still happily unmarried.

That was another one of those things they'd never quite gotten around to: getting married. When they'd first gotten together, 13 years ago, they'd had this unspoken mutual understanding: I can only thank whatever god is watching over us on my bare knees for giving me another day with you and pray that he'll give me tomorrow too. They had taken things by the day for the longest time and when they had finally let go of that a bit, they saw no reason to get married anymore.
And to this day, every day they got to spend together felt like a bit of a mystery anyway.

"A penny for your thoughts," she heard him whisper near her ear. She turned her head and looked into his green eyes. They smiled at her and she put her hand to his cheek. She kissed him, slowly and luxuriously, feeling his arms slide around her waist. She broke the kiss and turned in his arms to fully face him. She ran her fingers through his hair. His dark locks were laced with grey streaks.

"I was thinking of you," she said with a smile and kissed him again. Marcus wrapped his arms tightly around her and lifted her off the floor, still kissing her.

"Hey! Knock it off you two! There are kids in the room! Geez!" Garibaldi's voice came from the terrace.

Susan and Marcus broke their kiss, and Marcus put Susan down. Susan gave Michael her I'm-gonna-kill-you look. Michael turned to the rest of the group.

"Can you believe those two? Even after 13 years they're still acting like a bunch of newlyweds. Even John and Delenn lost that particular habit years ago."

"We never looked -that- mushy," John said indignantly.

"Oh yes you did," Stephen got into the ensuing argument, "you guys were even worse!"

John let out an insulted "Oh!"

"But you guys learned that enough is enough. These two," Garibaldi said, pointing over his shoulder then looking back and seeing Susan and Marcus kiss again. "Oh -man-!"

Susan laughed.

"Well, I think they're cute together," Lise said. Julia nodded in agreement.

"Pah! Women!" Michael said to Stephen, who agreed. That, of course, got them both the wrath of their wives.

"Say, do you think we could leave our friends to their bickering for 15 minutes and sneak away to some bickering of our own?" Marcus whispered in Susan's ear.

"Màrcus!"

"Oh come on, pretty please?"

"Is he propositioning you again, Susan?" Garibaldi's voice came from the terrace.

"Oh, leave them alone you big bully," Liz said, slapping her hubby on the shoulder.

Susan grinned at Michael and hissed between her teeth at Marcus, "So much for sneaking away quietly."

Before she could react, Marcus swept her off her feet and into his arms and declared in a loud voice, "See you all in a bit," and walked off.

The group of friends looked at the door in astonishment. Then looked at each other and started laughing.

"It is a good thing she loves him. If not, I doubt he would have survived doing something like that," Delenn stated between giggles.

===

Later that evening, after David had been put to bed, they were all enjoying the warm summer night on the terrace again with coffee, tea and cognac. Susan was refilling everyone's cups when John asked, "So, when are you guys leaving for Minbar?"

Susan finished filling Marcus' cup and put down the tea pot, just before Marcus pulled her into his lap.

"Three more days to pack up our things and then we will be gone," Marcus answered, stroking Susan's face before looking at John with a mournful smile.

"Will you sell this place or are you gonna keep it?" John asked, gesturing at the space around them.

"Sell this?" Susan said incredulously, "After we spent the past four years making it perfect? I don't think so!"

"Besides," Marcus added, "you know how much we both love St. Petersburg."

"Since when do -you- like St. Petersburg?" Stephen asked Marcus, "If I remember correctly, one of the two of you wasn't too happy about moving to Earth and I don;t think it was Susan."

"Yeah, well, that was -before- Susan brought me here," Marcus replied, hugging Susan closer to him and smiling at her. Memories of that day, almost five years ago, came to him.

===

Marcus paced their cabin on board the transport to Earth. He was not happy.

"Why can't they make an exception? Why can't they let us live on Babylon 5 or Minbar?" he said.

"Because," Susan explained for the umpteenth time, with a surprising amount of patience, "I am an admiral now and I need to be on Earth to be able to perform my duties. You know that Marcus."

"Yes, but I hate Earth! Big, overcrowded, busy, dirty cities. Everyone living past each other, no personal contact, everything superficial. I need to be around -people-, Susan, not working drones."

"Like I told you before, we're not going to be living in one of those metropoles. St. Petersburg isn't that big and you'll be surprised at how warm the people are."

"Russians? Warm? Hah!" Marcus blurted out. Then realising what he'd said, he added, "Sorry."

Susan smiled at him. "I was just about to ask you since when you've been cold in bed at night."

He walked over to the bed, where she was sitting against the headboard, book in her lap. He sat down next to her on the side of the bed. "I'm sorry."

She took his hands in hers and squeezed them gently. "It's okay. I know you don't like the thought of living on Earth, but I promise you: you will like St Petersburg."

"I hope so."

"I know so," she said, leaning over and kissing him gently. He leaned her back onto the bed and soon their discussion and her book were forgotten.

Two days later Susan showed Marcus into a big penthouse condo in the new centre of St Petersburg. Part of their things, books, furniture, clothes were already waiting for them. Marcus sighed.
His worst nightmare seemed to be coming true: living in a box with tons of other people you never really got to know. He walked through the empty rooms, through the kitchen and to the bedroom where Susan was putting her bag down. he sighed. Susan walked over to him and put her arms around his waist.

"It won't be so bad, I promise." He didn't answer her, but the miserable look on his face told her enough. She took his hand and pulled him to the front door. "Come on," she said, "we can unpack later."

"Where are we going now? You going to show me our extra storage space? Our designated parking spots?" Sarcasm was evident in his voice.

"Nope, you'll see."

She took him across town, to the suburbs of old St Petersburg. There was forest here and big mansions standing on big properties, far apart from one another. Susan turned onto the driveway of one of the mansions. There was a sign at the entrance that stated that 'Oslov Builders' were working on the house. Marcus looked at Susan, not understanding.
Susan pulled up in front of the house and got out. Marcus followed her to the door, where he saw her pull out a key and open it. They stepped into the big hall. Sunlight streamed in from the tall windows over the staircase, leaving coloured patterns on the floor. Marcus stepped into the hall carefully, looking around, still not understanding.

There was no furniture, no rug, and when he followed Susan into the kitchen he saw it was empty too apart from plastic sheets covering the floor for protection. The kitchen counter and all the machines under and above it were brand new. Marcus gaped. Susan smiled and took his hand. She drew him to the living room, which again was empty. She pulled him to the sun-lounge and pointed out the window at the garden.

"You like the view?" she said softly.

Marcus looked at the forest outside. "Like it? It's beautiful!"

Right in front of the house was a lawn, wide and spacious with a bush or tree springing from it every now and then. It ran into more trees in the back where a bench was sitting at the edge of the forest. Susan took Marcus' hand again.

"Come on," she said, pulling him towards the hall and the staircase, running up them, "The view is even better from up here!"

She threw open one of the many doors in the upstairs hallway and pulled him in. Marcus stopped dead in his tracks.
This was the master bedroom, decorated according to the age of the house. There was satin wallpaper in the lightest of greens and yellows. The furniture was all dark wood and heavy velvet curtains were hanging down the sides of the French doors. Susan pulled open the thin, white net curtains and threw open the French doors. She beckoned him to the balcony.

"Susan, what are we doing here?" Marcus asked when he was standing next to her.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"Yes, what is there not to like? It's absolutely beautiful! But why are you showing me this? I mean, it's obvious that someone is already living here or at least moving... in... soon..." Realisation was dawning on him. "Susan, do you happen to know who is going to be living here?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," she replied with a smile.

"Anyone we know? Friends? Family?"

"Something like that," Susan replied, wiggling her eyebrow. At his exasperated sigh she gave in. "It's ours."

"It's ours."

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Is there an echo in here or what?" Susan said smiling.

Marcus stared at Susan, blank look on his face. Susan laughed.

"Marcus, you didn't honestly think that that crummy condo, no matter how nice it is -for a condo- would be our permanent residence, did you?"

"Well, I... actually I did," he replied, a bit ashamed at his lack of confidence in her.

"Darling, I would =never= do that to you, you know that," she continued, smiling at him.

He looked into her steel blue eyes, which twinkled with excitement, and he smiled back at her. He felt a rush of heat go through him when he realised that she had found them.. him.. this house to make him feel at home as much as possible.
He took her hand and kissed it, never taking his eyes off of hers. He saw fire ignite in them and put his hand on her waist, pulling her close. He pressed his lips against hers for a passionate kiss. He felt her respond.

Susan pressed her body against Marcus' and returned the kiss. Oh how she loved this man. She simply couldn't resist him when he looked at her with that intense look in his beautiful eyes. The moment she'd laid eyes on this house she'd known: this was the house she would spend the rest of her life in, with Marcus.

===

Susan looked down at Marcus. She saw in his eyes that he was thinking the same thing: they had planned on spending the rest of their lives here. But now John and Delenn had asked her to become Ranger One. And that meant they had to go to Tuzanor for Susan to get properly trained.
Marcus saw the trace of regret in Susan's eyes and said, more to Susan than to anyone else, "We will be back here, I swear."

Susan hugged Marcus fiercely, ignoring the theatrical moans from Michael and Stephen. She didn't care anymore, she didn't care about moving to Minbar, she didn't care if they moved to the Rim. Marcus' promise to bring her back to St Petersburg someday, somehow was all she cared about.

=THE END=

This was my first attempt at writing any kind of fiction in over 10 years. I hope you enjoyed it, it has been quite a journey to get it finished.
I'd like to thank everyone on the B5RS list for their encouragement and especially Sharon G, Terri and Peggy for beta-reading.
Also many thanks to Frances, Cecilia, Erykah and Karin for giving me inspiration, most of the time even without knowing it. All you girls are great!! *HUGS*

Gwyhn

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