Challenge #1, Prompt #15
Author: Bookwormsarah
Rating: U (is this G in the US?)
Genre: Gen/vignettes
Character/Pairing: Helo
Warnings: none
Spoilers: vague and general to late series 3
Prompt: Ten things Helo thinks but never says
Summary: Wot it says in the prompt
Sometimes, when he is too tired, or hungry, or wired to sleep, Helo wonders whether it would have been easier to die on Caprica. This is a thought that only comes in the blackness of his lowest points, and he pushes it away as soon as it sneaks up in his mind. It is always there, bubbling under the surface. He doesn’t mean it, he is forever thankful that he survived, he fought onwards, he returned to the fleet and he fought for Sharon. But a part of him will always be tired now, and he wonders what it would have been like to fade away from it all.
Once upon a time everybody called him Karl. Then, at school, he was known as Aggie. He hated it. Nobody remembers Aggie, who was kind of skinny and used to get beat up a lot. He was glad to put Aggie in the past when he got to flight school, having spent a summer working on a farm and bulking out. Sometimes Helo marvels that the skinny, lonely kid has friends and a wife and a daughter and a home.
Sometimes Helo wonders whether he will ever grow old with Sharon. Will she age? Will she ever get sick and die? Will there be a time when she looks at him and all she sees is an old man?
There was a big crowd in the field on the last day. Sharon - Boomer - took a few of them away, and he had stood there in the field, gun outstretched, until they had gone. He never saw another person until Sharon, his Sharon, came back to him. He remembers the despair in their faces, the panic, the tearing sobs of the families who had sent their children on the Raptor. Now he has Hera he thinks mostly of the parents. Did the women end their days in the Farms? Had any of them been gunned down by the Centurions? Were the kids being looked after, or did they wish they’d been left behind too? Did the littlest ones still remember their parents?
Never much of a reader, Helo sometimes feels bad about all the books people told him to read but he never did. His cousin Amber, three years older, was always buying him books, but he never read them. Books they said were amazing and now were all gone. There are three books in his possession, and now he cannot bear to part with them. He bartered for them, giving away things that made Sharon sigh with exasperation, but he wanted to feel the well thumbed paper so badly. Maybe one day he will have time to sit down and read them.
After the Galactica had picked up the pyramid team, the murmur had gone round the fleet “are any of the others still alive?” Should Galactica have gone back right at the start to pick up the people in that field? In all his time on Caprica, he had only seen Sharon, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t up in the hills. What about some of the other colonies, particularly the more rural ones? The main continent of Libris was almost all mountains, surely people could have survived there? Were they waiting for rescue? Did they think that they were the only ones left? Were the cylons sweeping them out? Where they rebuilding their lives?
Helo knows he is one of the luckiest ones. Lots of his friends are still here, and although they are in some of the most dangerous jobs in the fleet, so many people lost everything. His home was on Galactica, so he has all of his stuff. Or at least all the stuff he could get back after he returned to the ship. They’d held the usual auction when they thought he was dead. He sits in the ready room looking around and seeing friends, seeing family.
Helo has to keep telling himself that he trusts the Commander. This man he has admired for as long as he can remember, but who let him down so badly over the baby. The man who supported Sharon, and seemed to be the only one who knew that Athena and Boomer were very different people. Helo worries about this, but he tries to stop the thoughts so he can restore his trust in the Commander that once was unshakable.
When he looks at Hera, he sometimes daydreams about having more kids. It would be wonderful to have another tiny person who was part of them. With another child they could enjoy the babyhood they missed, and she would make a wonderful big sister. He holds a picture of three kids, Hera playing with a little boy, while he and Sharon tickle their baby girl. Hera would be a little bossy, wanting to look after the baby, telling her brother what to do. Helo usually sighs at this point, because his fantasies always include sunshine and green grass and trees for the kids to climb.
There is a spot on the memorial wall that Helo has all picked out for himself. Starbuck is there already, and Kat, and Crashdown and Duck and Lanky. Three panels have become the place to put the pilots, and Helo likes the idea that someday he will be up there with his friends. He can’t say this to anybody. If you talk about where you want to go, they think you have given up.
Rating: U (is this G in the US?)
Genre: Gen/vignettes
Character/Pairing: Helo
Warnings: none
Spoilers: vague and general to late series 3
Prompt: Ten things Helo thinks but never says
Summary: Wot it says in the prompt
Sometimes, when he is too tired, or hungry, or wired to sleep, Helo wonders whether it would have been easier to die on Caprica. This is a thought that only comes in the blackness of his lowest points, and he pushes it away as soon as it sneaks up in his mind. It is always there, bubbling under the surface. He doesn’t mean it, he is forever thankful that he survived, he fought onwards, he returned to the fleet and he fought for Sharon. But a part of him will always be tired now, and he wonders what it would have been like to fade away from it all.
Once upon a time everybody called him Karl. Then, at school, he was known as Aggie. He hated it. Nobody remembers Aggie, who was kind of skinny and used to get beat up a lot. He was glad to put Aggie in the past when he got to flight school, having spent a summer working on a farm and bulking out. Sometimes Helo marvels that the skinny, lonely kid has friends and a wife and a daughter and a home.
Sometimes Helo wonders whether he will ever grow old with Sharon. Will she age? Will she ever get sick and die? Will there be a time when she looks at him and all she sees is an old man?
There was a big crowd in the field on the last day. Sharon - Boomer - took a few of them away, and he had stood there in the field, gun outstretched, until they had gone. He never saw another person until Sharon, his Sharon, came back to him. He remembers the despair in their faces, the panic, the tearing sobs of the families who had sent their children on the Raptor. Now he has Hera he thinks mostly of the parents. Did the women end their days in the Farms? Had any of them been gunned down by the Centurions? Were the kids being looked after, or did they wish they’d been left behind too? Did the littlest ones still remember their parents?
Never much of a reader, Helo sometimes feels bad about all the books people told him to read but he never did. His cousin Amber, three years older, was always buying him books, but he never read them. Books they said were amazing and now were all gone. There are three books in his possession, and now he cannot bear to part with them. He bartered for them, giving away things that made Sharon sigh with exasperation, but he wanted to feel the well thumbed paper so badly. Maybe one day he will have time to sit down and read them.
After the Galactica had picked up the pyramid team, the murmur had gone round the fleet “are any of the others still alive?” Should Galactica have gone back right at the start to pick up the people in that field? In all his time on Caprica, he had only seen Sharon, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t up in the hills. What about some of the other colonies, particularly the more rural ones? The main continent of Libris was almost all mountains, surely people could have survived there? Were they waiting for rescue? Did they think that they were the only ones left? Were the cylons sweeping them out? Where they rebuilding their lives?
Helo knows he is one of the luckiest ones. Lots of his friends are still here, and although they are in some of the most dangerous jobs in the fleet, so many people lost everything. His home was on Galactica, so he has all of his stuff. Or at least all the stuff he could get back after he returned to the ship. They’d held the usual auction when they thought he was dead. He sits in the ready room looking around and seeing friends, seeing family.
Helo has to keep telling himself that he trusts the Commander. This man he has admired for as long as he can remember, but who let him down so badly over the baby. The man who supported Sharon, and seemed to be the only one who knew that Athena and Boomer were very different people. Helo worries about this, but he tries to stop the thoughts so he can restore his trust in the Commander that once was unshakable.
When he looks at Hera, he sometimes daydreams about having more kids. It would be wonderful to have another tiny person who was part of them. With another child they could enjoy the babyhood they missed, and she would make a wonderful big sister. He holds a picture of three kids, Hera playing with a little boy, while he and Sharon tickle their baby girl. Hera would be a little bossy, wanting to look after the baby, telling her brother what to do. Helo usually sighs at this point, because his fantasies always include sunshine and green grass and trees for the kids to climb.
There is a spot on the memorial wall that Helo has all picked out for himself. Starbuck is there already, and Kat, and Crashdown and Duck and Lanky. Three panels have become the place to put the pilots, and Helo likes the idea that someday he will be up there with his friends. He can’t say this to anybody. If you talk about where you want to go, they think you have given up.