Fic: The truth you need (More Joy Day Prompt)
Yay! asta77's prompt is here. I even posted it on the day you requested! :p I was gonna try and make myself write something romantic and happy but instead this happened because I kept trying to imagine what their first real interaction, not-in-public-exactly, would have been like.
Title: The truth you need
Word Count: Approx 1,000
Spoilers: Through 4x18 for, um, political shenanigans.
Pairing: pre-Lee/Sonja, references to Lee/Dee.
Summary: Sometimes you lie.
The truth you need.
Lee stood in the middle of the enormous chamber, trying to ignore the thrum of the basestar.
“Those lights,” he said, watching as a red pulse swung back and forth across a wall panel like a sluggish metronome. “Can they be switched off? I feel like I'm being watched.”
Sonja arched an eyebrow. “I suppose,” she said. “I'll have a Two look into it. Did you have any more thoughts on the seating arrangements?”
“I still like roundtable best, but with thirty-five,” he paused, “I'm sorry, thirty-six ship captains I don't think it will be feasible, so we'll need some kind of tiered seating and a podium.”
“Just like the pilot's briefing room we're already using,” Sonja smiled in a way Lee thought was ironic, but he could never tell.
“Bit late for a fresh start now,” he said. “Anyway, this place is gonna dwarf us. Reminds me of my frakking high school mock quorum.”
Lee pushed his hands into his pockets and turned to leave.
Sonja said, “That's not what you said after Earth.”
Lee stopped, turned back to face her. “I'm sorry?”
“That's not what you said after Earth.”
He didn't remember the speech he had given, not clearly. He hadn't meant any of it. But he remembered every word he repeated to Dee as she hung on his arm, ambling through Galactica toward quarters he thought, as she kissed him, might not be hers for much longer.
Well. He'd been right about that.
“What's wrong?”
Sonja seemed genuinely concerned. Lee realised he hadn't answered her; that he was standing, staring at her. Lords only knew what he must look like.
“I'm fine,” he said. When she didn't respond, he added, “I didn't really mean what I said after Earth. I didn't mean any of it.”
“So you lied?”
Lee found himself thrown by her tone. It was sharp, but there was something more complicated than judgement in it. If Lee trusted himself to read her, he might have said it was need. The idea exhausted him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because if I didn't, my species would have finished the job yours started.”
It sounded harder, out loud, than it had in his head. He wasn't ready for the cold shape it left in his stomach - acknowledging, aloud, that they had been one step from racial suicide. He wasn't ready for the quiet devastation on Sonja's face.
He wasn't ready to feel sorry for her either. His mother was dead. Every one of his cousins was dead. Duck and Nora and Krys Johnston his best friend from second grade and James Juventis, the Picon Panthers' forward guard. Absolutely everyone on Cloud Nine and five thousand, one hundred and ninety seven people on New Caprica. The last shreds of Felix Gaeta's sanity and Tom Zarek's decency. Dee. Cylons killed them all.
He closed his eyes so he wouldn't need to see Sonja's beautiful face apologise for something he couldn't forgive.
“After Earth,” Sonja said, in a voice softer than he'd heard her use before. “Thirty-three of my brothers and sisters killed themselves. It's still happening.”
“Yeah, well, it's a way out,” Lee muttered, pulling himself together, opening his eyes but refusing to meet hers. “Go see all those dead people who went before you. Never be hungry again, or hurt, or tired.”
“Mr. Adama, you don't understand. For you, maybe that is true, but not for us. Suicide is a sin. My siblings are dead. They're just dead, they didn't go anywhere, their souls weren't received by God.”
“Frak, and you think any of ours were? You think the gods are real? Or your god is real? You want to know what Earth did, Sonja? It killed God. It told us no one up there loved us, or was looking out for us and if they were real, they didn't care. They took our prayers and drank our hopes and left us on a godsdamned radioactive beach. And then my wife,” he felt his voice crack. He closed his eyes and was ashamed to feel tears escape. He swallowed. He meant to stop, turn around, leave. Never talk about any of this again. He kept talking. “My wife,” he said. “Put her sidearm to her temple and pulled the trigger and I think the point was that she wasn't going anywhere. And frak, maybe I understand that, somehow. If I have a soul, you think I want it going to a god who let us come to this?”
Sonja stared at him, with another of those godsdamned expressions he couldn't read for the longest time before she whispered, “So you lie.”
“Yeah,” Lee swallowed. “I lie.”
“Natalie was a good leader,” Sonja said. “I try to emulate her. Be brave, lead by example. She never lied to us. And Cavil, it turns out Cavil lied all the time.”
“Yeah, well, sorry I can't make it nice and neat for you.”
“Maybe it doesn't need to be,” she said. “Maybe I understand. Thank you, Lee Adama.”
She walked up to him, put her warm, slender fingers against his arm and said, “I'm so sorry for your loss.”
She left.
Lee had heard those words so many times, from so many people since Dee died, they had ceased functioning as a meaningful sentence and had become a perfunctory collection of sounds. The absolute sincerity in Sonja's voice caught him so offguard, he felt physically unstable. It wasn't until he had returned to the Galactica, and the impression of her fingers had finally faded from his arm, that he realised, she had wanted absolutely nothing from him in that moment.
Title: The truth you need
Word Count: Approx 1,000
Spoilers: Through 4x18 for, um, political shenanigans.
Pairing: pre-Lee/Sonja, references to Lee/Dee.
Summary: Sometimes you lie.
The truth you need.
Lee stood in the middle of the enormous chamber, trying to ignore the thrum of the basestar.
“Those lights,” he said, watching as a red pulse swung back and forth across a wall panel like a sluggish metronome. “Can they be switched off? I feel like I'm being watched.”
Sonja arched an eyebrow. “I suppose,” she said. “I'll have a Two look into it. Did you have any more thoughts on the seating arrangements?”
“I still like roundtable best, but with thirty-five,” he paused, “I'm sorry, thirty-six ship captains I don't think it will be feasible, so we'll need some kind of tiered seating and a podium.”
“Just like the pilot's briefing room we're already using,” Sonja smiled in a way Lee thought was ironic, but he could never tell.
“Bit late for a fresh start now,” he said. “Anyway, this place is gonna dwarf us. Reminds me of my frakking high school mock quorum.”
Lee pushed his hands into his pockets and turned to leave.
Sonja said, “That's not what you said after Earth.”
Lee stopped, turned back to face her. “I'm sorry?”
“That's not what you said after Earth.”
He didn't remember the speech he had given, not clearly. He hadn't meant any of it. But he remembered every word he repeated to Dee as she hung on his arm, ambling through Galactica toward quarters he thought, as she kissed him, might not be hers for much longer.
Well. He'd been right about that.
“What's wrong?”
Sonja seemed genuinely concerned. Lee realised he hadn't answered her; that he was standing, staring at her. Lords only knew what he must look like.
“I'm fine,” he said. When she didn't respond, he added, “I didn't really mean what I said after Earth. I didn't mean any of it.”
“So you lied?”
Lee found himself thrown by her tone. It was sharp, but there was something more complicated than judgement in it. If Lee trusted himself to read her, he might have said it was need. The idea exhausted him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because if I didn't, my species would have finished the job yours started.”
It sounded harder, out loud, than it had in his head. He wasn't ready for the cold shape it left in his stomach - acknowledging, aloud, that they had been one step from racial suicide. He wasn't ready for the quiet devastation on Sonja's face.
He wasn't ready to feel sorry for her either. His mother was dead. Every one of his cousins was dead. Duck and Nora and Krys Johnston his best friend from second grade and James Juventis, the Picon Panthers' forward guard. Absolutely everyone on Cloud Nine and five thousand, one hundred and ninety seven people on New Caprica. The last shreds of Felix Gaeta's sanity and Tom Zarek's decency. Dee. Cylons killed them all.
He closed his eyes so he wouldn't need to see Sonja's beautiful face apologise for something he couldn't forgive.
“After Earth,” Sonja said, in a voice softer than he'd heard her use before. “Thirty-three of my brothers and sisters killed themselves. It's still happening.”
“Yeah, well, it's a way out,” Lee muttered, pulling himself together, opening his eyes but refusing to meet hers. “Go see all those dead people who went before you. Never be hungry again, or hurt, or tired.”
“Mr. Adama, you don't understand. For you, maybe that is true, but not for us. Suicide is a sin. My siblings are dead. They're just dead, they didn't go anywhere, their souls weren't received by God.”
“Frak, and you think any of ours were? You think the gods are real? Or your god is real? You want to know what Earth did, Sonja? It killed God. It told us no one up there loved us, or was looking out for us and if they were real, they didn't care. They took our prayers and drank our hopes and left us on a godsdamned radioactive beach. And then my wife,” he felt his voice crack. He closed his eyes and was ashamed to feel tears escape. He swallowed. He meant to stop, turn around, leave. Never talk about any of this again. He kept talking. “My wife,” he said. “Put her sidearm to her temple and pulled the trigger and I think the point was that she wasn't going anywhere. And frak, maybe I understand that, somehow. If I have a soul, you think I want it going to a god who let us come to this?”
Sonja stared at him, with another of those godsdamned expressions he couldn't read for the longest time before she whispered, “So you lie.”
“Yeah,” Lee swallowed. “I lie.”
“Natalie was a good leader,” Sonja said. “I try to emulate her. Be brave, lead by example. She never lied to us. And Cavil, it turns out Cavil lied all the time.”
“Yeah, well, sorry I can't make it nice and neat for you.”
“Maybe it doesn't need to be,” she said. “Maybe I understand. Thank you, Lee Adama.”
She walked up to him, put her warm, slender fingers against his arm and said, “I'm so sorry for your loss.”
She left.
Lee had heard those words so many times, from so many people since Dee died, they had ceased functioning as a meaningful sentence and had become a perfunctory collection of sounds. The absolute sincerity in Sonja's voice caught him so offguard, he felt physically unstable. It wasn't until he had returned to the Galactica, and the impression of her fingers had finally faded from his arm, that he realised, she had wanted absolutely nothing from him in that moment.