I don't own Babylon 5.

Enjoy.


Watch your back, Michael.

Jeffrey Sinclair had never had a problem with floating in Zero-G.

Some people had problems with it and got sick in the weightless vacuum of space, but Sinclair was not among them. He had always enjoyed the weightlessness which came with being in space, looking out into the blackness of space while floating about without the use of a thruster pack and since he was used to being clad in a spacesuit which came from his fighter experience, he was not claustrophobic. The only problem he had with floating about in a vacuum was the limited air in the suit; it could only be recycled only so many times, and it was a pity. The beauty of space was awesome and staggering.

It still was, even despite the circumstances. As he looked into the vista of space, Sinclair found it relatively easy to push aside the desperate need to get Babylon 4 to safety and into the past. Sinclair had always known he was different and he had always been uncertain about who he was, where he was going, and despite his years of service to Earth both as an Earthforce officer and then commander of Babylon 5, and then being taken off of the station all of a sudden and then sent to Minbar as Ambassador to the Minbari Federation, Sinclair had still felt slightly lost.

When he received that letter from 900 years ago from Valen himself, Sinclair had felt as if he were suddenly a flower blossoming from a bud. The letter had described everything to him, reminding him of little events in his life which he had kept secret from everyone, even from his parents, Catherine, and even Michael. The letter had gone on to describe to him how, 900 years relative to the writing of the letter, Valen himself had received a letter telling himself that he would be travelling back into the past a thousand years and defeat the Shadows.

At first, he had not believed it, but after a few minutes, Sinclair realised that it was the truth.

He was Valen.

When he had arrived on Minbar, Sinclair had been nervous; the war might have been only a decade ago, but he still resented the Minbari despite his desires to ensure diplomatic ties between Earth and Minbar continued. But who could blame him? So many of his friends had been killed when the Minbari war had gone on, and at the Battle of the Line the Grey Council had scanned his mind and then erased their discovery he was Valen to ensure it didn't cause a massive amount of chaos in Minbari society.

But when he had been on Minbar, Sinclair had been surprised by how quickly he had adapted. He had learnt the language quickly, adapted to their traditions although he had spent a lot of time with Delenn to pick up on them. But now he knew why.

As he floated around Babylon 4 after leaving the fusion reactor, Sinclair kept as low a profile as he could; the tachyon distortion was blanketing the whole of space and the shuttles and fighters his younger self - Boy, that was hard for him to believe, that there were two versions of himself but it was true - had brought from Babylon 5 to rescue the crew of its short-lived predecessor while trying to discover more about what had caused the disappearance in the first place. Only to discover the mystery was more complicated than anything he, Michael, or Krantz the officer posted to supervise the final stages of Babylon 4's construction could have guessed.

Sinclair knew what his younger self had gone through having lived through the events himself, and as he watched the tell-tale white glow as the time jump equipment powered up and generated the time travel to shift Babylon 4 back in time, he knew his other self and a younger version of Michael was on one of the shuttles heading out of the field. Sinclair watched as the shuttles and fighters left Babylon 4, moving out of the time field to safety, the shuttles loaded down with the workers, security personnel, and Earthforce officers manning the station before B4 was towed into Epsilon 3's orbit where it would begin its duties as the last best hope for peace.

Only it would never happen. Sinclair remembered the shuttle flight back to Babylon 5, how Michael was sceptical of the station being taken into time and be the headquarters of a war. But they had assumed the station would be taken off into the future, not the past. Sinclair had been more positive; while he had been rendered cynical by his experiences in Earthforce and the ongoing mystery of what had happened at the Battle of the Line had weighed him down before Delenn approached him with the Trilluminary in his quarters before Santiago's assassination, he had still enough wonder of the universe to believe Zathras's story.

Struck by an impulse, Sinclair touched the commlink. "Babylon 4 to Garibaldi. Babylon 4 to shuttle 1. Garibaldi, can you read me? Watch your back, Michael. Watch your back!"

A part of him was glad when the computer built into his suit said the shuttle was out of communications range and was unable to make contact. He had sent off the message in a desperate plea without thinking. He knew his younger self was onboard that shuttle, sitting next to Garibaldi. He knew Michael and his younger self would react as if they'd headed for la-la land if they received a message from someone claiming to be, well him.

But Sinclair couldn't resist the urge. The horror that his younger self and the younger Michael would experience when Jack, Garibaldi's second in command in Security betrayed them and shot Michael in the back on the same day as President Santiago was assassinated. When Sinclair had heard, thanks to his Rangers that Sheridan, Ivanova, Franklin, and Michael conspired together to uncover the truth of Santiago's death, he had been surprised when Clark practically admitted his guilt in some kind of recording broadcasted on ISN a year after the assassination.

But there were other horrifying things he wanted to warn Michael and his younger self about; the threat of the Shadows which his younger self was unaware of, the attack on Quadrant 37 which eventually led to the Narn-Centauri war, Dr Jacobs being hunted down because Clark knew he was dangerous, Turhan's death and Malachi's own assassination, Talia's personality being overwritten, the Earth Alliance being ripped apart by Nightwatch, Clark's Martial Law commands, the bombing of Mars… His ranger had kept him more than aware of what was happening on the station, and he hadn't liked what he had heard even

And so many others.

His younger self was unaware of the Shadows, but it would have been good to inform himself of the dangers ahead so he'd have had a better time to prepare instead of waiting until his posting on Minbar where it all began.

But at the same time, Sinclair would have been delighted to hear Garibaldi's voice. It hurt him no end that he'd had to leave a message on Babylon 5 and persuade Sheridan to order Garibaldi's fighter to return to the station rather than let him come on board. But Michael had been slightly older than Sinclair, and now the time field was affecting him and accelerating his age the closer they came to their own time…

Michael deserved to live his life naturally. He didn't deserve to age to death. He wanted to remember his old friend the way he remembered.

"Michael," he whimpered.

It was all happening, exactly as he remembered it.