Fic: Guide (G)

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Hi, everyone! Some short fic here (spoilers for S1/early S2 and a Significant Moment in S3). It's gen, the rating's G, and as ever all rights/characters/settings belong to JMS and various networks. Enjoy :)


Guide

If you asked Greta McCarthy - or if you didn't, but found yourself at the next barstool over at Durica's on a quiet night, where the seats are squeezed in too tightly for escape and the barstaff won't rescue you - Santiago's re-election was the worst thing that ever happened to the tourist industry. Bad enough that new license idea went through, and she'd had to pay out hand over fist to get eveerything sorted out, but then he'd gone and got himself killed and we'd ended up with Clark instead. And not that she'd ever talk bad of the dead, she'd got the black ribbons same as every other stall on the Zocalo, and it was a tragedy, all right, a real tragedy - but ship explosions didn't exactly encourage tourists to come travelling. (And then she'd sigh, and mutter something about politicians, and you - because, let's face it, you probably wouldn't have asked in the first place - could go back to your drink in peace.)

Things weren't so bad the first few years, after everyone decided the station wasn't going to blow itself up or go missing this time. Rich tourists, mostly - the business people didn't do too much looking around, and the aliens kept themselves to themselves back then - and she'd take them past all the construction work and show them the gardens and the best parts of Red sector. Used to be she could take them through Green, too, but they stopped all that when they closed it to the public. (She'd complained, but no luck.) Then Santiago got re-elected, and she'd stopped thinking about going back to Earth and started thinking about getting out somewhere else. But even in the worst of it, there were always tourists.

True enough, there were times when there weren't many tourists. The travel restrictions saw to that. You always got the aliens, though, because they didn't care about any of that and they still wanted to look round when they got here, and it didn't take Greta long to become the best person to show them. She prized herself each tour being tailored to the individual anyway - talk a bit more about the Centuari's war of agression when she was with Narn, a bit more about the glories of the Empire when she was with the Centauri, and everyone got a good tour.

When the man in the suit came along, though, she was surprised. First, because he was human and there hadn't been any human tourists for a long time - not since the Captain declared independence, and she had enough to say about that to anyone who asked her, too - and second, because he was obviously here on business and business people weren't usually looking for tours. She was even more surprised when he said that he'd been here before, several times, and only now had the time to get to know the place properly. She wondered at first if he was some kind of Nightwatch thing, and felt a cold shiver of fear as she tried to remember what she'd said about Santiago and Clark and who she'd said it to, but this wasn't their style. And he could pay, so she agreed.

He didn't do much talking. Polite enough, and smiled a lot, even if there was something not quite right about that smile - something cold, deep inside it. She gave him the basic tour, and he was happy enough with that - some tourists were a nighmare, asking to see this and that and be taken into the command areas, and she'd had more than a few offer her money extra if she'd get them a sight of the Minbari ambassador now she looked all human. And he didn't. Just smiled, and nodded, and walked on to the next thing with her.

"It's an interesting place," he said, when they were back in the Zocalo. "You must see so many things." And that smile, again. "Can I ask you a question?"

She said yes, which she always did, and hoped it wasn't anything about the President, which she didn't, usually, but things had changed.

"What do you want?" he said.

She thought a long time about that. Asked him what he meant, and got the same question in reply, over and over again, and he was almost laughing, and there was no reason not to tell him, so she did. "I want to stay here," she said. "I want the transport restrictions to stop. I want to keep doing my job. I want tourists back."

He nodded, at that. "Oh, that won't be a problem," he said. "There are more people interested in this place than you'll ever know."

She never did find out if he was Nightwatch, although nobody ever came to arrest her and she was grateful enough for that. She kept her job, and things got better. And some nights, when Durica's was closing and she was half-drunk and nostalgic and talking about Santiago and Clark and the bad years like it was yesterday, she thought about the man in the suit, too, and thought about telling whoever she was talking to about him.

Somehow, though, she never did.