Fic: Through the Winter chapter 11 (Cain/Gina)
Title: Through the Winter (11/?)
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: PG-13
Warning: A smidge of violence, vaguely implied rape.
Word Count: 4,275
Summary: What if Gina were a sleeper agent cylon?
Author note: Okay, so over the last week or so I've tweaked the ending of the story which basically scrapped the main reason I'd made it a multi-parter. Without that I realised that the whole thing was confusing, and ridiculous since part 1 was nine chapters and the rest were going to only be two or three each. No more changing, I promise, just the one darn fic from now on.
It's so mentally draining writing Gina in these last few chapters. Got to be a big storm before the calm though, right? (Is what I keep telling myself...)
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Chapter Eleven
“I’m a cylon.”
Physically, nothing changed in the cell. The floor was still hard, Gina’s shoulder still bled, the cuffs were still cold and chafed around her wrists and ankles. Nothing changed, but with those three words Gina’s world was turned more upside down than all of the events of the last week.
It was difficult to comprehend, let alone believe. How could her beloved be one of the machines that had wiped out almost all of humanity? It didn’t make any sense, and yet, a part of Gina knew that cylons were capable of taking human form. Almost as if she’d already been told...
No... of course she hadn’t been told.
“How is that possible?” She asked, her eyes darting all over Helena’s body as if she’d suddenly discover buttons or something to tell her that the woman in front of her wasn’t human.
Helena looked down at a hand and flexed the fingers several times. She was silent for a short time, but Gina didn’t try to press her for a response.
Finally she spoke. “Forty years of research, and this is the latest model of cylon, that’s all. Most are aware of their nature, but they programmed me to truly believe that I was human. They just wanted me to be here at this point in time, thinking they’d be able to simply ‘switch me on’ and have me destroy the Battlestar. What they didn’t count on was the fact that they can’t switch off everything that’s happened to me. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve felt... the start of the story may be a lie but everything that’s happened since is real. They can program me to think I’m human, but they can’t program in anything that happens because of that. There is no command for ‘get frustrated by rookie incompetence’ just as there isn’t for ‘develop feelings for the network administrator.’”
She slowly, almost timidly, reached around Gina’s back so that she could place a hand on Gina’s own cuffed ones.
“I may not be physically human, but what the frak does that mean anyway? I’ve spent my entire existence believing with every fibre of my body that I was one.”
Gina looked into Helena’s eyes and saw so many emotions there, and wondered what exactly it meant to be human. Sure, it would be simple enough to tell a computer ‘you are human’, but you could never program in everything that came with that. How would that go, exactly? ‘If you are human and you see someone wish them a good day unless you are in a bad mood in which case yell at them until guilt is achieved and then apologise...’
Gina could almost feel a headache coming on as she tried to comprehend that appalling code. Even the best programmers in the twelve colonies with four decades at their disposal to create a reaction for every possible action still wouldn’t be able to create the fundamental difference between humans and machines: the ability to make decisions based on emotion. The ability to feel things. The ability to think outside the pre-programmed perimeters and come up with entirely new and different ideas.
What makes one human? If it were the act of a male having sex with and impregnating a female who then gives birth, then dogs, cats, every animal would be human. If it were the human body itself then nobody would have a problem with these new human-cylons. Surely, surely it had to be mind that separated humankind from everything else, and if Helena had acted for all these months or years on emotions based on the belief that she was human, shouldn’t that make her human? Couldn’t she only act this way if she were, in some way, in the most important way, human?
She’d seen far too much of Helena to believe that she could be an unemotional machine running on programming. So however her existence had begun, Gina realised that how she saw Helena hadn’t changed, not really.
She was still Helena. She was still the woman who pretended to be such a strict grouch while hiding a wonderfully adorable streak. Gina had always known that there was a dark side to her; something Helena kept hidden even from her, but she didn’t believe for a second that a machine was capable of being as sweet and loving at Helena was. It couldn’t act that way without understanding what it was doing, and if it understood then it had to be capable of really having those feelings.
It was all a very confusing situation, and Gina was sure that she could spend months going around in circles as she debated the ethics and tried to determine where machine left off and human began. She blinked as she came out of her thoughts and noticed Helena looking at her with a worried expression on her face. Despite her time with Thorne earlier the sight of Helena’s moist eyes caused her face to break out into a smile so big her cheekbones hurt, and she leaned across so that she could kiss Helena more fiercely than she’d thought was capable. Because her wrists were cuffed behind her back she couldn’t wrap her arms around the woman the way she so desperately wanted to, so instead she nuzzled against Helena’s cheek after they slowly pulled apart.
“You don’t mind?” Helena asked her, returning Gina’s nuzzle as the blonde felt tears start to slide down her cheeks.
“How could I mind?” Gina replied, “I don’t care where you came from. The Helena Cain I met on Scorpia was real, the Helena Cain I spent the last two months with was real, and the Helena Cain I fell in love with was more real than anything. You said yourself; you thought you were human. Who’s to say that belief doesn’t make you human? Belief itself is a human concept after all.”
Helena sighed deeply. “I was so certain you’d condemn me because of this.”
Gina turned her head. “How could I ever condemn you?” She whispered, her lips brushing against Helena’s cheek.
“Thank you,” Helena replied softly, then pulled away, back to business again. “This is the situation, from what I’ve been able to determine. Lieutenant Thorne is also a cylon, but he is an aware one who was placed on the Pegasus to keep an eye on me. He tried to switch me on during the last cylon attack, but although I realised that I was a cylon that didn’t change my desire to destroy them. Realising this he helped another of my model cylon to board - there are many copies - to take my place and end up destroying my Battlestar. You were dragged into the brig publicly, but I was knocked out and brought in by Thorne, and he assured me that nobody saw a thing. As far as the crew know the Cain out there is the real thing.”
“But wasn’t Lieutenant Shaw in here earlier as well?” Gina wondered out loud, but Helena shook her head firmly.
“No, she wasn’t. You must have hallucinated due to the mental stress of Thorne’s visit.”
Gina thought about that for a moment. “You’re right, of course. You’re always right.”
With a smile Helena reached over to stroke Gina’s head, and when her hand was cupping the back of it she pulled Gina in for another kiss. It was strange for Gina, kissing without the use of her arms at all. She felt like she might almost fall forward when Helena pulled her, but then there was the reassuring thought that her love was there to catch her and suddenly the cuffs didn’t seem so bad anymore.
She pulled away with a gasp as a sharp pain ran through her shoulder and her head began to ache.
He’s back in the cell again. He kicks me onto my side and my head hits the floor. My vision spins.
“Gina? Are you okay?” Helena placed her hands on Gina’s cheeks, and although she could feel them it was another moment until her vision focused again.
“I’m fine,” she told Helena, “I must still be sore from earlier, I suppose.”
Gina watched Helena’s eyes travel over to the entrance to their cell, and once again she looked sad. “I don’t think Thorne will be back for a while.”
”Where is the cylon fleet now? What are their weaknesses?” He asks questions as he backhands me, and his blows are so frequent that I can barely think straight.
“I...what? Why...why is that a bad thing?” Gina blinked and tried to focus, wondering why Helena was wearing that expression and vaguely curious as to why her cheeks stung so much.
“It’s not that,” Helena said with a shake of her head, “I’m just concerned about what will happen when he finally does come back. They need my knowledge about this Battlestar that Thorne was never able to gain, so they need me back on their side. Their plan, I’m sure, was to hurt you so that you’d completely lash out and utterly reject me. They probably thought that your hatred of me would be so strong that it would shatter my ‘humanity’, and then I’d be the human-hating machine they want me to be.”
“I could never!” Gina leapt in to reassure Helena, but the admiral’s eyes left hers and looked down at the floor. A fierce determination burned in them.
“They’re wrong. I’m not so simple. Even if you hated me I’d still exist.”
”Even though she hates me I still exist.” I say to him, and he grabs my jaw so tightly that the cry gets caught in my throat.
“You’re damn right you still exist, but that’s only because the admiral wants you to suffer for what you put us all through. You’re not going easily, but it’ll be a lot faster if you talk to me.”
He’s so close that droplets of his spit land on my face, but I can’t wipe them away. All I can do is clench my fists so tightly that the fingernails dig into my palms, and then try to concentrate on that pain instead. Gods, it feels like he’s about to snap my jaw!
This isn’t real. Why does it hurt so much? I’m here with Helena who loves me, and I’m still in shock from when he was here earlier. I’m hallucinating. I’m hallucinating. I’m hallucinating.
He lets go of my jaw and I fall, biting through my lip as my chin hits the floor. I can taste the blood in my mouth, but I dare not spit it out since he’s stood up and I’d probably hit his shoe.
I don’t want to do anything to provoke him.
(Even though he’s not really here.)
I hurt all over and I still don’t understand why.
(She’ll never give up on me she’ll never help you you won’t break her.)
I close my eyes and try to will myself out of this daydream. I can hear him walking around behind me and...
Oh no. Oh gods no. Not that noise again!
“Helena!” Gina cried out in sudden panic, and Helena was there to wrap her arms tightly around Gina’s shoulders and stroke her hair.
Gina didn’t know what had suddenly come over her, but she was terrified and sobbed loudly into the warm shoulder.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” She finally noticed Helena speaking to her. “I’m not going to let them hurt you anymore. Those motherfrakkers won’t lay a damn hand on you again.”
Gina focused entirely on Helena’s voice, and the terror started to fade just a little. “Keep talking, please,” she begged.
Helena complied. Gina couldn’t tell how long her love talked for, or even what she talked about. She was too busy keeping her entire attention focused on the sound of that voice and the feel of that body pressed up against hers. With ironclad determination she shoved down the thoughts that questioned, that screamed, that insisted that something, somewhere was happening to her.
Her head was a mess right now, she knew that, but as long as she ignored everything except the sound of Helena’s voice then the mess couldn’t hurt her. It was all about willpower. A familiar face with short blonde curls popped into her head for the smallest of moments, but it was pushed out again just as quickly as it appeared.
She wanted to think of a way to escape, a way to save both Helena and herself from whatever those frakking toasters had planned for them both, but she couldn’t commit to any distinct thoughts. Words weren’t there, but as she listened to the murmur of Helena’s voice she knew, even without the words to describe it, she knew that Helena was going to make everything all right.
A while later she felt her body relax, and the need to hear Helena’s voice became less urgent. Her chest still felt tight and her breathing was still ragged, but for the time being the terror was past.
He leaves me. The door opens and I can see him walking out, though I can’t hear the footsteps over the sound of my gasping sobs. I cry, and I don’t bother to hide it. How could I hide it? Pride means nothing anymore. There’s nothing except the pain and the fear, and my head starts to ache again as I try to shut it all out. I look across and...and I see her there.
Why is she looking at me like that?
Gina pulled back and smiled through her tears at the woman sitting in front of her, trying to let her know that she was all right even though the rest of her body contradicted this.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Helena sighed, and then there was an expression on her face that Gina had never seen before. It was almost as if she were uncertain about something, and Gina’s eyebrows furrowed in surprised curiosity. What was the matter?
Helena kept her eyes averted as Gina found she was too speechless to ask what was wrong, and just as she thought she’d found her voice again Helena looked her straight in the eyes and spoke.
“I’ve never told you this in so many words as I always value action over mere talk...or maybe that’s just what I told myself. Maybe I was a little scared about how much you’d affected me, and voicing this would only make it absolute concrete truth.”
Gina tilted her head slightly, now just confused.
“Gina Inviere...” Helena paused and then inhaled sharply. “I love you.”
”I love you, too” I whisper as I stare into the cold brown eyes that watch me. I hold her gaze, begging, pleading for some form of response.
Icy silence stretches out and I can feel the tears again, but then my breath catches in my throat. Her lips are starting to move!
My elation quickly plummets, however, and my throat feels as if it’s closing off.
I can’t hear her, but she’s speaking slowly enough for me to read her lips.
She’s saying “Lieutenant, you may resume.”
---
Gina’s eyes slowly opened as she woke up from a troubled sleep, and for just a moment she couldn’t see Helena and began to panic, but then she blinked and realised that the admiral was right there in front of her, sleeping soundly.
She decided not to disturb the woman, as Helena had had more than enough stress to deal with in the last day or so. She’d found out that she was a cylon, that most of her memories were fake and was being forced to watch her lover be tortured in an attempt to break her. On top of that, Gina realised as she flushed a little with embarrassment, she’d had to deal with a very stressed and panicking network administrator who’d selfishly just demanded support without offering any of her own.
Gina curled up, guilt suddenly eating away at her stomach. What kind of partner was she, demanding that all the attention should be on her? She couldn’t even remember what had gotten her so upset earlier now.
When he-
NO not even the slightest clue where that unnatural panic had come from. She resolved to stop being so pathetic and useless and start thinking of ways to get the both of them out of their mess.
Helena was the soldier. She also had unbound hands which allowed her to stand up, even if she couldn’t walk very far. The cylons wanted her alive, too, because they needed the information she possessed about the Battlestar and human military conduct. For some reason they didn’t seem to want to simply destroy the Pegasus anymore. Perhaps they thought there were more survivors out there, and only Cain would be able to find them. This was all good news. If only they could exploit that somehow.
Gina was quick to decide on Helena jumping up and grabbing a sidearm from Thorne’s holster, but she wasn’t sure about the actual practicalities of performing a move like that. She’d have to discuss it with Helena when she woke up.
When her thoughts started to wander again she noticed that she was still throbbing in areas around her body, and when she inspected what she could see of herself she spotted cuts and bruises where she didn’t think there had been any before. The areas of her ankles under the cuffs were rubbed red raw and were bleeding, and her legs were bruised almost all the way up and down. She couldn’t see her arms of course, though she could feel how tender her wrists were when they leaned up against the cuffs, and the lack of hands meant that she couldn’t look under the dress to check how the rest of her body was faring.
It was entirely bizarre, as she was certain she hadn’t received these injuries from the one time Thorne had been in the room with her.
No, he’s been in many times, he’s been in-
She must have been struggling against the cuffs in her sleep, and the bruises must have been slow to develop. They didn’t worry her so much; it was mostly the cramps in her legs that had developed from being in the same position for so many hours now. Gina worried that she wouldn’t be able to run when the time came for them to escape, and that she’d slow Helena down even if she could. She started to move her legs around as much as the cables would allow, trying to keep the blood flowing in them.
The sound of the cables sliding against the floor must have woken Helena, as moments later Gina heard her stir. She sat up, her hair a little scruffy from lying on the floor, but otherwise her uniform was still immaculate and she didn’t look like she was being inconvenienced in her current position at all. Gina on the other hand was looking much worse for wear with her bruises, the blood and the dirty and itchy dress that she’d been forced into. Apparently it paid to be a cylon, even a rebellious one.
“Gina, how are you?” Helena asked as she flexed her shoulders, her tone full of warmth and concern.
“I’m fine,” Gina reassured her with a smile. “I think a good rest was all I needed. More importantly, we need to talk about escaping. Do you think you’d get a chance to get hold of Thorne’s sidearm before he could stop you?”
Helena contemplated the idea. “It’s a possibility. Not an extremely high one, but a possibility nevertheless. The only problem is that Thorne will be hard to coerce into freeing us, even if he does have a gun pointed at his head.”
Kill him I’ll kill him-
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Gina smiled with a shrug of her shoulders, and Helena sighed in response though she didn’t offer any objections.
“Assuming,” she said instead, “that we do manage to get out of the cell it’s to our advantage that the crew think I’m still in command. I’ll be able to walk freely without arousing suspicion, though you on the other hand...”
She placed the knuckle of a curled finger against her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You will have been cleared of all charges.”
“Charges?” Gina asked, as she still didn’t know how Thorne and the false Helena had justified throwing her into the brig.
“The claim was that the cylons paid you off to allow them to board.” Helena explained, and Gina gasped. She wondered how many people had believed the claim, and if anyone would ever look at her the same again. Even if Helena cleared her name there would still always be that suspicion since that seed of doubt had been planted.
Or was she underestimating the influence Helena had on her ship? Would people believe she was innocent simply because their admiral told them so? Even if everyone accepted that it still left the question of exactly how the cylons had been able to access their security codes and board the ship.
Again, it was a bridge that would be crossed at another time. They hadn’t even gotten out of the brig yet, let alone tried to convince the ship that Thorne and Helena were cylons...
“Wait,” Gina said as she took Helena’s hand, “what are we going to do about...about you and the second Helena? I’m not bothered by it, but the rest of the ship may be.”
Helena’s expression hardened. “I want to destroy the pretender without any witnesses. As far as the crew know he will be the only inside source and the only cylon onboard.”
With a smile Gina leaned back as she went over what they’d just talked about. It was perfect, really. They could set Thorne up to take the fall, and if they told everyone that he was the cylon then everyone would believe...
Gina blinked and jerked her head in a sharp shake as she considered what she’d just been thinking. They wouldn’t be ‘setting Thorne up’; he legitimately was a cylon and he was the one who’d helped the centurions to board.
She boarded with them she said she was the sixth model she looked just like-
Gina shook her head sharply again. No, that was what they’d wanted her to believe and she’d only bought into it the first time because she was so scared at that point. She was calm now and wouldn’t fall for any more tricks.
Concentrate concentrate ignore the hurt ignore the despair just focus on Helena.
Concentrate!
“Helena?” she asked, rubbing a suddenly sore forehead, “I was thinking about this earlier. I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to run when you free us, so if you have to I want you to just leave me and get yourself out. You’ll always be able to come back for me later.”
Helena’s eyes were determined, and she reached across so that she could cup Gina’s face gently but with conviction. “This is not up for debate Gina, so I don’t want you to argue this with me. I will not be leaving you behind, even if I have to carry you out over my shoulder.”
Gina felt fresh tears start to slide down her face and she nodded once. “Sometimes I think you’re too wonderful to be real.”
I barely have the strength to move so I simply lie here and stare at the wall. It’s taking all of my energy to maintain this...
This what? I can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. I was certain that this was the false reality but the pain which I can feel in every inch of my body worries me.
No. This is the false place; I couldn’t bear it if this were real. I can see her so clearly when I focus and bring myself back to reality.
Helena pressed Gina’s head to her shoulder and wrapped her arms around the blonde, pulling their two bodies as closely together as the cables would allow. They could manage upper body contact when leaning in, and this was more than enough to calm Gina again and put a stop to the visions of the false world.
Helena held Gina for a long while, and Gina gave up fighting the cuffs that bound her wrists so that she could just enjoy the contact. She shifted so that she could place a kiss on Helena’s cheek, and then travelled down in a line of kisses to her mouth.
The kiss they shared was slow as they took the time to discover each other, almost as if it were their first time. It broke when a soft sob escaped from Gina’s lips, and she could see her own surprised mirrored on Helena’s face as she realised that she was crying.
“We will win” Helena told her, and Gina nodded fiercely several times.
“I know, of course we will. I don’t...I don’t know what came over me.”
She couldn’t wipe the tears away herself so Helena ran her thumbs down Gina’s cheeks instead, and then kissed them both.
Helena pulled back just in time, as the door to the brig opened and Thorne walked in.
No no no no no no!
Both Gina and Helena glanced at each other quickly out of the corner of their eyes, and Gina felt her stomach start to churn as she saw his face through the glass.
They’d only get one shot at this.
No no no no no!
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Author note: I decided right at the beginning of this fic that I didn't want there to be an omniscient sort of view for the reader. Nothing like "Gina didn't notice that she was being watched" or anything from anyone else's point of view. I always wanted Gina's view to be the only view, even if it's so completely off and insists that Cain's a cylon and somebody else put that code in and blah-dee-blah.
Basically what I'm trying to say is: Writing is spazzy and content is spazzy because Gina is spazzy right now, and I hope you're all enjoying a fun game of 'Call the bullshit!' (You have a shot every time you know Gina's wrong about something. =3)
Chapter 12
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: PG-13
Warning: A smidge of violence, vaguely implied rape.
Word Count: 4,275
Summary: What if Gina were a sleeper agent cylon?
Author note: Okay, so over the last week or so I've tweaked the ending of the story which basically scrapped the main reason I'd made it a multi-parter. Without that I realised that the whole thing was confusing, and ridiculous since part 1 was nine chapters and the rest were going to only be two or three each. No more changing, I promise, just the one darn fic from now on.
It's so mentally draining writing Gina in these last few chapters. Got to be a big storm before the calm though, right? (Is what I keep telling myself...)
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Chapter Eleven
“I’m a cylon.”
Physically, nothing changed in the cell. The floor was still hard, Gina’s shoulder still bled, the cuffs were still cold and chafed around her wrists and ankles. Nothing changed, but with those three words Gina’s world was turned more upside down than all of the events of the last week.
It was difficult to comprehend, let alone believe. How could her beloved be one of the machines that had wiped out almost all of humanity? It didn’t make any sense, and yet, a part of Gina knew that cylons were capable of taking human form. Almost as if she’d already been told...
No... of course she hadn’t been told.
“How is that possible?” She asked, her eyes darting all over Helena’s body as if she’d suddenly discover buttons or something to tell her that the woman in front of her wasn’t human.
Helena looked down at a hand and flexed the fingers several times. She was silent for a short time, but Gina didn’t try to press her for a response.
Finally she spoke. “Forty years of research, and this is the latest model of cylon, that’s all. Most are aware of their nature, but they programmed me to truly believe that I was human. They just wanted me to be here at this point in time, thinking they’d be able to simply ‘switch me on’ and have me destroy the Battlestar. What they didn’t count on was the fact that they can’t switch off everything that’s happened to me. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve felt... the start of the story may be a lie but everything that’s happened since is real. They can program me to think I’m human, but they can’t program in anything that happens because of that. There is no command for ‘get frustrated by rookie incompetence’ just as there isn’t for ‘develop feelings for the network administrator.’”
She slowly, almost timidly, reached around Gina’s back so that she could place a hand on Gina’s own cuffed ones.
“I may not be physically human, but what the frak does that mean anyway? I’ve spent my entire existence believing with every fibre of my body that I was one.”
Gina looked into Helena’s eyes and saw so many emotions there, and wondered what exactly it meant to be human. Sure, it would be simple enough to tell a computer ‘you are human’, but you could never program in everything that came with that. How would that go, exactly? ‘If you are human and you see someone wish them a good day unless you are in a bad mood in which case yell at them until guilt is achieved and then apologise...’
Gina could almost feel a headache coming on as she tried to comprehend that appalling code. Even the best programmers in the twelve colonies with four decades at their disposal to create a reaction for every possible action still wouldn’t be able to create the fundamental difference between humans and machines: the ability to make decisions based on emotion. The ability to feel things. The ability to think outside the pre-programmed perimeters and come up with entirely new and different ideas.
What makes one human? If it were the act of a male having sex with and impregnating a female who then gives birth, then dogs, cats, every animal would be human. If it were the human body itself then nobody would have a problem with these new human-cylons. Surely, surely it had to be mind that separated humankind from everything else, and if Helena had acted for all these months or years on emotions based on the belief that she was human, shouldn’t that make her human? Couldn’t she only act this way if she were, in some way, in the most important way, human?
She’d seen far too much of Helena to believe that she could be an unemotional machine running on programming. So however her existence had begun, Gina realised that how she saw Helena hadn’t changed, not really.
She was still Helena. She was still the woman who pretended to be such a strict grouch while hiding a wonderfully adorable streak. Gina had always known that there was a dark side to her; something Helena kept hidden even from her, but she didn’t believe for a second that a machine was capable of being as sweet and loving at Helena was. It couldn’t act that way without understanding what it was doing, and if it understood then it had to be capable of really having those feelings.
It was all a very confusing situation, and Gina was sure that she could spend months going around in circles as she debated the ethics and tried to determine where machine left off and human began. She blinked as she came out of her thoughts and noticed Helena looking at her with a worried expression on her face. Despite her time with Thorne earlier the sight of Helena’s moist eyes caused her face to break out into a smile so big her cheekbones hurt, and she leaned across so that she could kiss Helena more fiercely than she’d thought was capable. Because her wrists were cuffed behind her back she couldn’t wrap her arms around the woman the way she so desperately wanted to, so instead she nuzzled against Helena’s cheek after they slowly pulled apart.
“You don’t mind?” Helena asked her, returning Gina’s nuzzle as the blonde felt tears start to slide down her cheeks.
“How could I mind?” Gina replied, “I don’t care where you came from. The Helena Cain I met on Scorpia was real, the Helena Cain I spent the last two months with was real, and the Helena Cain I fell in love with was more real than anything. You said yourself; you thought you were human. Who’s to say that belief doesn’t make you human? Belief itself is a human concept after all.”
Helena sighed deeply. “I was so certain you’d condemn me because of this.”
Gina turned her head. “How could I ever condemn you?” She whispered, her lips brushing against Helena’s cheek.
“Thank you,” Helena replied softly, then pulled away, back to business again. “This is the situation, from what I’ve been able to determine. Lieutenant Thorne is also a cylon, but he is an aware one who was placed on the Pegasus to keep an eye on me. He tried to switch me on during the last cylon attack, but although I realised that I was a cylon that didn’t change my desire to destroy them. Realising this he helped another of my model cylon to board - there are many copies - to take my place and end up destroying my Battlestar. You were dragged into the brig publicly, but I was knocked out and brought in by Thorne, and he assured me that nobody saw a thing. As far as the crew know the Cain out there is the real thing.”
“But wasn’t Lieutenant Shaw in here earlier as well?” Gina wondered out loud, but Helena shook her head firmly.
“No, she wasn’t. You must have hallucinated due to the mental stress of Thorne’s visit.”
Gina thought about that for a moment. “You’re right, of course. You’re always right.”
With a smile Helena reached over to stroke Gina’s head, and when her hand was cupping the back of it she pulled Gina in for another kiss. It was strange for Gina, kissing without the use of her arms at all. She felt like she might almost fall forward when Helena pulled her, but then there was the reassuring thought that her love was there to catch her and suddenly the cuffs didn’t seem so bad anymore.
She pulled away with a gasp as a sharp pain ran through her shoulder and her head began to ache.
He’s back in the cell again. He kicks me onto my side and my head hits the floor. My vision spins.
“Gina? Are you okay?” Helena placed her hands on Gina’s cheeks, and although she could feel them it was another moment until her vision focused again.
“I’m fine,” she told Helena, “I must still be sore from earlier, I suppose.”
Gina watched Helena’s eyes travel over to the entrance to their cell, and once again she looked sad. “I don’t think Thorne will be back for a while.”
”Where is the cylon fleet now? What are their weaknesses?” He asks questions as he backhands me, and his blows are so frequent that I can barely think straight.
“I...what? Why...why is that a bad thing?” Gina blinked and tried to focus, wondering why Helena was wearing that expression and vaguely curious as to why her cheeks stung so much.
“It’s not that,” Helena said with a shake of her head, “I’m just concerned about what will happen when he finally does come back. They need my knowledge about this Battlestar that Thorne was never able to gain, so they need me back on their side. Their plan, I’m sure, was to hurt you so that you’d completely lash out and utterly reject me. They probably thought that your hatred of me would be so strong that it would shatter my ‘humanity’, and then I’d be the human-hating machine they want me to be.”
“I could never!” Gina leapt in to reassure Helena, but the admiral’s eyes left hers and looked down at the floor. A fierce determination burned in them.
“They’re wrong. I’m not so simple. Even if you hated me I’d still exist.”
”Even though she hates me I still exist.” I say to him, and he grabs my jaw so tightly that the cry gets caught in my throat.
“You’re damn right you still exist, but that’s only because the admiral wants you to suffer for what you put us all through. You’re not going easily, but it’ll be a lot faster if you talk to me.”
He’s so close that droplets of his spit land on my face, but I can’t wipe them away. All I can do is clench my fists so tightly that the fingernails dig into my palms, and then try to concentrate on that pain instead. Gods, it feels like he’s about to snap my jaw!
This isn’t real. Why does it hurt so much? I’m here with Helena who loves me, and I’m still in shock from when he was here earlier. I’m hallucinating. I’m hallucinating. I’m hallucinating.
He lets go of my jaw and I fall, biting through my lip as my chin hits the floor. I can taste the blood in my mouth, but I dare not spit it out since he’s stood up and I’d probably hit his shoe.
I don’t want to do anything to provoke him.
(Even though he’s not really here.)
I hurt all over and I still don’t understand why.
(She’ll never give up on me she’ll never help you you won’t break her.)
I close my eyes and try to will myself out of this daydream. I can hear him walking around behind me and...
Oh no. Oh gods no. Not that noise again!
“Helena!” Gina cried out in sudden panic, and Helena was there to wrap her arms tightly around Gina’s shoulders and stroke her hair.
Gina didn’t know what had suddenly come over her, but she was terrified and sobbed loudly into the warm shoulder.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” She finally noticed Helena speaking to her. “I’m not going to let them hurt you anymore. Those motherfrakkers won’t lay a damn hand on you again.”
Gina focused entirely on Helena’s voice, and the terror started to fade just a little. “Keep talking, please,” she begged.
Helena complied. Gina couldn’t tell how long her love talked for, or even what she talked about. She was too busy keeping her entire attention focused on the sound of that voice and the feel of that body pressed up against hers. With ironclad determination she shoved down the thoughts that questioned, that screamed, that insisted that something, somewhere was happening to her.
Her head was a mess right now, she knew that, but as long as she ignored everything except the sound of Helena’s voice then the mess couldn’t hurt her. It was all about willpower. A familiar face with short blonde curls popped into her head for the smallest of moments, but it was pushed out again just as quickly as it appeared.
She wanted to think of a way to escape, a way to save both Helena and herself from whatever those frakking toasters had planned for them both, but she couldn’t commit to any distinct thoughts. Words weren’t there, but as she listened to the murmur of Helena’s voice she knew, even without the words to describe it, she knew that Helena was going to make everything all right.
A while later she felt her body relax, and the need to hear Helena’s voice became less urgent. Her chest still felt tight and her breathing was still ragged, but for the time being the terror was past.
He leaves me. The door opens and I can see him walking out, though I can’t hear the footsteps over the sound of my gasping sobs. I cry, and I don’t bother to hide it. How could I hide it? Pride means nothing anymore. There’s nothing except the pain and the fear, and my head starts to ache again as I try to shut it all out. I look across and...and I see her there.
Why is she looking at me like that?
Gina pulled back and smiled through her tears at the woman sitting in front of her, trying to let her know that she was all right even though the rest of her body contradicted this.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Helena sighed, and then there was an expression on her face that Gina had never seen before. It was almost as if she were uncertain about something, and Gina’s eyebrows furrowed in surprised curiosity. What was the matter?
Helena kept her eyes averted as Gina found she was too speechless to ask what was wrong, and just as she thought she’d found her voice again Helena looked her straight in the eyes and spoke.
“I’ve never told you this in so many words as I always value action over mere talk...or maybe that’s just what I told myself. Maybe I was a little scared about how much you’d affected me, and voicing this would only make it absolute concrete truth.”
Gina tilted her head slightly, now just confused.
“Gina Inviere...” Helena paused and then inhaled sharply. “I love you.”
”I love you, too” I whisper as I stare into the cold brown eyes that watch me. I hold her gaze, begging, pleading for some form of response.
Icy silence stretches out and I can feel the tears again, but then my breath catches in my throat. Her lips are starting to move!
My elation quickly plummets, however, and my throat feels as if it’s closing off.
I can’t hear her, but she’s speaking slowly enough for me to read her lips.
She’s saying “Lieutenant, you may resume.”
---
Gina’s eyes slowly opened as she woke up from a troubled sleep, and for just a moment she couldn’t see Helena and began to panic, but then she blinked and realised that the admiral was right there in front of her, sleeping soundly.
She decided not to disturb the woman, as Helena had had more than enough stress to deal with in the last day or so. She’d found out that she was a cylon, that most of her memories were fake and was being forced to watch her lover be tortured in an attempt to break her. On top of that, Gina realised as she flushed a little with embarrassment, she’d had to deal with a very stressed and panicking network administrator who’d selfishly just demanded support without offering any of her own.
Gina curled up, guilt suddenly eating away at her stomach. What kind of partner was she, demanding that all the attention should be on her? She couldn’t even remember what had gotten her so upset earlier now.
When he-
NO not even the slightest clue where that unnatural panic had come from. She resolved to stop being so pathetic and useless and start thinking of ways to get the both of them out of their mess.
Helena was the soldier. She also had unbound hands which allowed her to stand up, even if she couldn’t walk very far. The cylons wanted her alive, too, because they needed the information she possessed about the Battlestar and human military conduct. For some reason they didn’t seem to want to simply destroy the Pegasus anymore. Perhaps they thought there were more survivors out there, and only Cain would be able to find them. This was all good news. If only they could exploit that somehow.
Gina was quick to decide on Helena jumping up and grabbing a sidearm from Thorne’s holster, but she wasn’t sure about the actual practicalities of performing a move like that. She’d have to discuss it with Helena when she woke up.
When her thoughts started to wander again she noticed that she was still throbbing in areas around her body, and when she inspected what she could see of herself she spotted cuts and bruises where she didn’t think there had been any before. The areas of her ankles under the cuffs were rubbed red raw and were bleeding, and her legs were bruised almost all the way up and down. She couldn’t see her arms of course, though she could feel how tender her wrists were when they leaned up against the cuffs, and the lack of hands meant that she couldn’t look under the dress to check how the rest of her body was faring.
It was entirely bizarre, as she was certain she hadn’t received these injuries from the one time Thorne had been in the room with her.
No, he’s been in many times, he’s been in-
She must have been struggling against the cuffs in her sleep, and the bruises must have been slow to develop. They didn’t worry her so much; it was mostly the cramps in her legs that had developed from being in the same position for so many hours now. Gina worried that she wouldn’t be able to run when the time came for them to escape, and that she’d slow Helena down even if she could. She started to move her legs around as much as the cables would allow, trying to keep the blood flowing in them.
The sound of the cables sliding against the floor must have woken Helena, as moments later Gina heard her stir. She sat up, her hair a little scruffy from lying on the floor, but otherwise her uniform was still immaculate and she didn’t look like she was being inconvenienced in her current position at all. Gina on the other hand was looking much worse for wear with her bruises, the blood and the dirty and itchy dress that she’d been forced into. Apparently it paid to be a cylon, even a rebellious one.
“Gina, how are you?” Helena asked as she flexed her shoulders, her tone full of warmth and concern.
“I’m fine,” Gina reassured her with a smile. “I think a good rest was all I needed. More importantly, we need to talk about escaping. Do you think you’d get a chance to get hold of Thorne’s sidearm before he could stop you?”
Helena contemplated the idea. “It’s a possibility. Not an extremely high one, but a possibility nevertheless. The only problem is that Thorne will be hard to coerce into freeing us, even if he does have a gun pointed at his head.”
Kill him I’ll kill him-
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Gina smiled with a shrug of her shoulders, and Helena sighed in response though she didn’t offer any objections.
“Assuming,” she said instead, “that we do manage to get out of the cell it’s to our advantage that the crew think I’m still in command. I’ll be able to walk freely without arousing suspicion, though you on the other hand...”
She placed the knuckle of a curled finger against her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You will have been cleared of all charges.”
“Charges?” Gina asked, as she still didn’t know how Thorne and the false Helena had justified throwing her into the brig.
“The claim was that the cylons paid you off to allow them to board.” Helena explained, and Gina gasped. She wondered how many people had believed the claim, and if anyone would ever look at her the same again. Even if Helena cleared her name there would still always be that suspicion since that seed of doubt had been planted.
Or was she underestimating the influence Helena had on her ship? Would people believe she was innocent simply because their admiral told them so? Even if everyone accepted that it still left the question of exactly how the cylons had been able to access their security codes and board the ship.
Again, it was a bridge that would be crossed at another time. They hadn’t even gotten out of the brig yet, let alone tried to convince the ship that Thorne and Helena were cylons...
“Wait,” Gina said as she took Helena’s hand, “what are we going to do about...about you and the second Helena? I’m not bothered by it, but the rest of the ship may be.”
Helena’s expression hardened. “I want to destroy the pretender without any witnesses. As far as the crew know he will be the only inside source and the only cylon onboard.”
With a smile Gina leaned back as she went over what they’d just talked about. It was perfect, really. They could set Thorne up to take the fall, and if they told everyone that he was the cylon then everyone would believe...
Gina blinked and jerked her head in a sharp shake as she considered what she’d just been thinking. They wouldn’t be ‘setting Thorne up’; he legitimately was a cylon and he was the one who’d helped the centurions to board.
She boarded with them she said she was the sixth model she looked just like-
Gina shook her head sharply again. No, that was what they’d wanted her to believe and she’d only bought into it the first time because she was so scared at that point. She was calm now and wouldn’t fall for any more tricks.
Concentrate concentrate ignore the hurt ignore the despair just focus on Helena.
Concentrate!
“Helena?” she asked, rubbing a suddenly sore forehead, “I was thinking about this earlier. I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to run when you free us, so if you have to I want you to just leave me and get yourself out. You’ll always be able to come back for me later.”
Helena’s eyes were determined, and she reached across so that she could cup Gina’s face gently but with conviction. “This is not up for debate Gina, so I don’t want you to argue this with me. I will not be leaving you behind, even if I have to carry you out over my shoulder.”
Gina felt fresh tears start to slide down her face and she nodded once. “Sometimes I think you’re too wonderful to be real.”
I barely have the strength to move so I simply lie here and stare at the wall. It’s taking all of my energy to maintain this...
This what? I can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. I was certain that this was the false reality but the pain which I can feel in every inch of my body worries me.
No. This is the false place; I couldn’t bear it if this were real. I can see her so clearly when I focus and bring myself back to reality.
Helena pressed Gina’s head to her shoulder and wrapped her arms around the blonde, pulling their two bodies as closely together as the cables would allow. They could manage upper body contact when leaning in, and this was more than enough to calm Gina again and put a stop to the visions of the false world.
Helena held Gina for a long while, and Gina gave up fighting the cuffs that bound her wrists so that she could just enjoy the contact. She shifted so that she could place a kiss on Helena’s cheek, and then travelled down in a line of kisses to her mouth.
The kiss they shared was slow as they took the time to discover each other, almost as if it were their first time. It broke when a soft sob escaped from Gina’s lips, and she could see her own surprised mirrored on Helena’s face as she realised that she was crying.
“We will win” Helena told her, and Gina nodded fiercely several times.
“I know, of course we will. I don’t...I don’t know what came over me.”
She couldn’t wipe the tears away herself so Helena ran her thumbs down Gina’s cheeks instead, and then kissed them both.
Helena pulled back just in time, as the door to the brig opened and Thorne walked in.
No no no no no no!
Both Gina and Helena glanced at each other quickly out of the corner of their eyes, and Gina felt her stomach start to churn as she saw his face through the glass.
They’d only get one shot at this.
No no no no no!
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Author note: I decided right at the beginning of this fic that I didn't want there to be an omniscient sort of view for the reader. Nothing like "Gina didn't notice that she was being watched" or anything from anyone else's point of view. I always wanted Gina's view to be the only view, even if it's so completely off and insists that Cain's a cylon and somebody else put that code in and blah-dee-blah.
Basically what I'm trying to say is: Writing is spazzy and content is spazzy because Gina is spazzy right now, and I hope you're all enjoying a fun game of 'Call the bullshit!' (You have a shot every time you know Gina's wrong about something. =3)
Chapter 12