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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Spoilers: Quite a few spoilers for most of the series and some of the books, if you don't want to risk it then don't.
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A high pitched sound brought Michael back to the world of the living with a smile. He looked over to the side, his eyes still slightly gummy with sleep, and he watched silently as Lise, the most wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, funniest and most perfect lady in the entire human race, and the angel of heaven that had done him the utmost and most unbelievable honour of accepting his proposal, cradled the armful of life their love had created. Their daughter, their own child, their wriggling, giggling, smiling and loveable Mary.
He still couldn't believe it. He still woke up surprised that there was someone next to him. He still jumped in shock when a plaintive cry would sound out in the middle of the night. And his eyes would still threaten tears when he saw Lise, her eyes crinkling at the sides, as she looked down upon the child... Their child.
Wow. A child. A wife. Five years ago he'd been wondering which part of DownBelow he would wind up face down in with a knife sticking out of his back. He'd been imagining his funeral, a brief affair, a few words of wisdom and reflection from Sheridan, a hidden tear from Susan, maybe. A couple of funny stories from Stephen trying to remember the better days. Maybe a raised glass from Londo at his coffin, a curt nod of respect from G'Kar. God knows what from Delenn and Lennier. A sniff and shrugged shoulders from Zack. And then nothing.
No more Garibaldi. His belongings would wind up in some holdings somewhere, gathering dust. Or maybe they'd be sold. Either way, there wouldn't be anything left of Michael Garibaldi to tell others of his life, of his identity. Of him.
Now there was Mary. A piece of him, a part of him, his genes, his DNA, a little person who would learn from him, learn things that had made him who he was and would then pass it down. When he died, and he did still accept that would happen one day, he wouldn't be gone. He wouldn't be forgotten. He'd be there, in her eyes, in her chin, in her mind- and he'd life forever.
His family. He still couldn't believe he had one again.
His first family, like everyone's, was the most simple form of society found everywhere in the galaxy. The Father, the Mother, the Child. And while every family is different, that never changed with them. It hurt to think about it now, about how his father would come home from work, exhausted but proud of himself. He'd plonk himself on the sofa with a heave and a sigh ('Oh, Mickey, Mickey, never grow old! It's a sin against Humanity my boy!') and look down at him, at his Mickey, as the tow headed bratboy lay on the floor, pretending to do homework. The second Dada was settled, Mickey the Kid would jump on his lap and demand stories of valour and courage, which would hold him spellbound until his mother, until Mama, would come in, rolling her eyes at the spread of ignored school work, and demand her boys- her boys- to come feed themselves.
His family. His first family. He'd never thought of another, never wanted another. He had all he wanted in his Dada and his Mama and himself. It was perfection.
Then a bomb. Some cowardly bastard with an 'agenda' trying to 'make a point'. A late shopping trip, a forgotten loaf of bread, just a quick trip back Mickey, I'll just get it and I'll be right behind you, one boom... one big boom.
Then the sickness, the wearing away, the erosion of the big, strong, laughing man who had carried him on his back, taught him to throw, taught him to fight and to cook and to be who he was, whoever he was, and like a clay figurine under a waterfall he wasted away. Grief and Torg's Syndrome warred together until Alfredo Garibaldi, distinguished Security officer for 54 years, was lying on a hospital bed, eyes like a fish, mouth slack like a rubber band that had been stretched far too much and stick-like arms lying flat and unmoving, his chest rising and falling and rising and falling and then not rising, not falling, not moving because Dada was dead, Dada was dead and there was no more perfect family, laughing, smiling, bickering and being. There was just Mickey, who couldn't be Mickey because the Father and the Mother who made the Child Mickey were gone and now it was Michael. And two graves.
And pain and loss and rage and booze, lots of booze. Mistakes and regrets and an ocean of tears, most of them never shed because Michael had learned that tears didn't work, that no Mama was going to come running over and make all the pain go away ('my little boy, shh it's okay, don't cry, it's all fine') because it's not fine and it'll never be fine because Michael didn't have a family...
Then Frank, Frank, Frank the joker, Frank the rock, Frank the Father of a different family, Frank the brother not of blood who dragged Michael the boozer out of a bottle and into his life and into his family and turned him into Uncle Mike. Then there was smiling and there was laughing and there also tears but these were the good tears, the nice tears, the tears that came from too much laughing until your sides were coming apart and too much happiness at the slice of perfection Uncle Mike was allowed when he held Lianna, when he kissed her mother on the cheek and winked and when he crushed Frank to his side in a one-armed hug, two men, like the pair of brothers Mickey the Kid had never been a part of, two men who could never misunderstand each other, who loved each other for each other and for no other reason...
Then another boom. Michael hated boom.
And it was Michael again, Michael the Boozer, Michael the unreliable, Michael the Coward who ran and ran and ran and cried and drank and tried to forget, prayed to forget, finally stopped praying because no one was there, no one was listening and no one cared about one heart that had broken into more pieces than there were grains of sand on the shores of Earth's seas to compare.
Then the tall, self righteous Commander, the EarthForce officer came (and what a sneer Michael the Boozer gave to that word), Jeffrey Sinclair, the presumptuous dick who had the audacity to hit Garibaldi and call him a failure, then turn around and tell him he had to fix it and then suddenly he did. Garibaldi the Pilot fixed the problem and the Officer, Sinclair, Jeff was smiling, his eyes crinkling at the sides and twinkling like little stars in the ocean of pitch that was the sky and Michael the Boozer went back to sleep and Garibaldi the Pilot, Garibaldi the Friend of Sinclair's, Garibaldi the Security Chief was walking around with Michael the Boozer's face and uniform and gun. And he was making a difference and he had reasons, so many reason, to get up in the mornings, to stay up in the days and to stay out of the bottle, away from the witches brew, because he didn't want to forget this, he didn't want to block it out, there wasn't any pain to numb. There was only his third family, family number three, the next group of people that were brothers and sisters and cousins and friends of his heart, people he loved and people who loved him. People who made their marks on his soul and who let him make marks of his own on theirs.
Jeff, who never failed him, who never turned away from him, who was always there, always there, never gone, who laughed and smiled and shouted and fought and was there in ways that could never be described; Susan the Strong, Susan the Russian, Susan the Pessimist who would yell and scream and even throw things at him a few times and yet would look at Garibaldi and look at him and see him, the real him, and didn't turn away in disgust, didn't snarl with revulsion, didn't simper with hollow likeness whilst searching for a tool to use, no, she saw him and she was a friend to him and she even opened up to him, let down her walls and let him close and no sister could have been closer, or more loved. Stephen the Doctor, the Pal and the Sympathetic Ear, who was flawed just like Michael the Boozer was, different crack, same flaw, who ranted and raved when Garibaldi confronted him and then did what Michael the Boozer had needed a punch round the face to do and fixed the flaw, mended the crack, went away and repaired himself and came back stronger from the damage, more aware and far more Stephen to Garibaldi because he knew, he saw when he looked at Stephen, he saw the true man with no walls and it scared him sometimes how open and idealistic one man could be, his brother in arms and colleague in space.
And more besides, more family joined up and Garibaldi was whole because of them, he was Garibaldi because they were there; Sheridan, who drank orange juice like other men breathed air and spoke of his childhood on a farm and smiled with everything, not just his mouth or his eyes but with everything he had and everything he was and he was a lot to Garibaldi, once he let him be, and he did because Sheridan didn't push, didn't force, didn't try to be something he wasn't, someone he wasn't, he was just him and that was enough. Zack Allan the Second, Zack Allan the trusted, his right arm and his most valued companion, the one person he could trust the station with, the only person because he come further back from his brink than Garibaldi had and he was whole and young and still in one piece and he fought and fought and Garibaldi couldn't have dreamed of a better brother in security. Talia, stunning Talia, with legs that went on forever and a voice that had no equal and a gaze like the softest yet most penetrating lasers that Garibaldi had ever felt on himself.
For the first time, his family included people from places so far away that Garibaldi hadn't thought they could understand a human, be friends with a human, be a humans family and yet they were; Lennier who had built a motorcycle with him and had ridden it with him and had understood so much about him with a glance, and yet had always kept glancing, kept understanding; Vir the twitcher whose nerves had made Garibaldi want to protect him one moment and slap him the next; Londo the drinker, the gambler, the womanizer, a well of sin with hidden depths of wisdom and sincerity and surprising generosity if you only knew how to look, how to see, which slowly, slowly, Garibaldi did; Delenn and her gentle wisdom coupled with a childlike curiosity that never died, that led her to sitting through an episode of Duck Rogers with him and to changing everything her body was to try and change the world around her; G'Kar and his anger that morphed like a caterpillar of hatred and loathing into a beautiful butterfly of understanding and tolerance that spelt the slow demise of the bitterness of the Narns.
And more beside who were there and stayed there and helped Garibaldi be Garibaldi, for better or worse- Marcus Cole the Ranger who had lived for a love that could never be and whose death finally unleashed the dammed river of emotion that Susan had always tried to hide; Lyta Alexander the Telepath whose innocence and open willingness to help turned into a hard shell of determination to save and protect her people, whose gentleness was gone and who frankly scared the hell out of Garibaldi now; Warren Keffer who died far before his time on a quest he could never have truly fulfilled; Dodger the Marine who had lived, had died and come to him, to him, for one more night; Lochley the Bitch, Lochley the Icicle, Lochley the Friends Ex-Wife, who had had the audacity to say she understood what he was going through and then the cruelty to prove it, to show him who and what he was, and who had the kindness to stick with him, not to say her piece and run but to stick it out and drag him, kicking and screaming, out of the bottle one more time...
So many people. Such a big family.
But like all families, for Michael Alfredo Garibaldi anyway, it had broken. Work and stress and booze and drugs and heartbreak and love and death and guilt and distance and time and duty had worked their ways into the core of Garibaldi's family, slowly stripping away each brother, each sister, each cousin and each friend, until it stripped him away and he no longer had that family around him. Jeff had vanished to another time and another place and another war, other people who needed him. Who he had to be there for. Sheridan and Delenn, on Minbar, having forgiven him for the betrayal from the PsiCorps and the failure from the booze but his eyes, John's eyes, when they looked at him had shadows of pain and rage and abandonment that had started when Garibaldi had said those awful words ('I'm resigning as head of Security') and had grown a million fold when Garibaldi had sat and watched fists and boots hit Sheridan's drugged and defenceless body while he sat and did nothing, nothing nothing nothing but watch and sit as Sheridan was dragged off to see hell. They told him they forgave him, they understood, but those shadows had never dimmed and Garibaldi knew it. Sometimes he thought Sheridan did too.
Susan, her heart in as many pieces as Michael the Coward's had been, running away from B5 and from her memories, his sister bleeding her soul into the heartless, uncaring vacuum of space. Stephen the work-freak, the ex stim addict, working with people who didn't know him far away from the people who did know him. Talia dead. Dissected. Gone in every way. Dodger gone. For good this time. Zack on B5, staying there when Garibaldi couldn't, being there in a way he had always failed at being. Marcus, dead to love and to the world and to his causes with the Rangers. Lyta the nice girl gone, Lyta the harpy running for cover and no way to reach her, to thank her for everything she had been, no way to know if such words would mean anything to her anymore. Lochley on B5, being Lochley and so very far away from Garibaldi in every sense.
Lennier, who had vanished, whose devotion to Delenn should have been obvious to everyone as something far more than duty but all had been unable to decipher the clues until he left and now, now he was gone and Garibaldi couldn't tell him he knew, that he wanted to help even if he knew how to say it. Vir, thrown into the very heart of darkness, still shining with his own light somehow, Londo surrounded by worse darkness and with no light left, not Londo the well of hidden depths but Londo the Ocean of secrets and lies. G'Kar was gone so far that no message of friendship and thanks could ever reach him.
Security Chief Garibaldi's family was no longer a family.
But for once there was no ocean of pain and booze and tears to swim. Because he had his girls.
Oh, oh... his girls. His Girls. As Alfredo and Mickey had been Mama's Boys, so Lise and Mary were Garibaldi's Girls. Michael Alfredo Garibaldi had lived and lost and kept living and had wished he could stop once or twice but that was all okay now. It was OK.
"Michael. Come and hold Mary, I think she wants her Daddy."
Because that's who he was now. Here. With them. He was Daddy and they were his Giggling Girls.