Borrowed Time (2/5)
Title: Borrowed Time
Author: Raina
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Spoilers: up to the end of “Home” Part 2
Summary: Every night Lee dies in his dreams…or are they much more than just dreams?
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters; I just enjoy making them suffer
Notes: Takes place during “Home” Parts 1 and 2, but I’ve played around with the timeline.
Thanks to Ysrith for providing beta duties.
I have italicized both flashbacks and internal thoughts (as that’s what gramatically correct), but if you can’t tell which is which, please let me know and I’ll figure out a way to differentiate the two for following parts.
So it looks like this is expanding into a 5-parter instead of the originally intended four.
Feedback makes me happy. ;)
--------------------
Part1
“There must be a mistake, or someone tampered with the results.”
“Madam President, I ran the test against a control over fifty times. And a mass spectrometry as sensitive as this one takes a considerable amount of time and resources, I might add,” Dr. Baltar explains as he stands at the head of the long table in Galactica’s conference room, “and I also did a blind test, so I didn’t even know which sample was whose and was even supervised to make sure that I didn’t tamper with the results, not that I would…and quite frankly I’m insulted that you would even consider it, considering that...”
“I supervised the procedures, and there’s no doubt about it, the man that we thought was Lee Adama is a Cylon,” Dr. Cottle interjects sombrely, before Dr. Baltar can continue.
“That’s frakking bullshit and you know it. He’s saved our asses more times than I can count, and he’s your son for fraks sake!” Kara looks pointedly at Adama, who just sits there, staring into space with the vacant look of a man who has lost everything.
“Sir?”
“We need to find out what vital information he’s given the Cylons. Sgt. Hadrian will conduct the interrogation,” Adama finally says, nodding at the woman seated at the end of the table.
“I must stress the need for secrecy here,” President Roslin calmly points out as she quickly comes to terms with this revelation. “It would be shattering to the morale of the fleet if they find out that yet another member of the Galactica’s crew is a Cylon agent, especially one held in such high regard as this one.”
“Agreed. That’s why the knowledge will be limited to the people in this room, a few marines, and the few deckhands who will build him a cell next to the other Cylon. Dismissed.”
***
No! It can’t be true. I’m Lee Adama, son of William and Caroline Adama. I was raised on Caprica. I’m a loyal member of the Colonial Fleet. I can’t be one of them.
He resists when they come for him, struggling as they attempt to put the cuffs on him. Then something cold and metal hits the back of his head and the word goes black.
Kara hides in the shadows of the deserted hallway and watches the guards drag him past.
Then she slumps down in the shadow of the bulkhead and finds herself thinking about everything that they’ve been through together since the end of the world and wonders how a toaster could have been right under her nose, so close to her, without her knowing or even suspecting a thing.
I’m such a frakking idiot. Gods I am such a frakking idiot! Two toasters right under my nose and I never suspected either of them. Are there still toasters who are close to me, preying on the fact that Kara Thrace is a chump?
Could Zak have been one of them too?
She slowly stands and wanders back to her locker and stash of ambrosia. She had been saving it for a special occasion, and she figures that this is “special” enough; just not the kind of special that she’d been intending. But alcohol can numb all the pain and wash away all the fears and questions circling through her mind. And that is what Kara needs right now, if only for a few hours.
Oblivion has never looked so welcoming.
***
He sits in a void, unsure of his fate and his very identity itself.
He sits on the cold, dirty floor of the brig, cradling his broken hand.
He sits bloody and beaten, dried blood caked on the side of his head, nose and fingers broken: those had been the results of Sgt. Hadrian’s attempts to get him to reveal his mission. But he couldn’t tell her what he didn’t know. She had first tried punching his face repeatedly, and when that hadn’t worked, she had resorted to dunking his head underwater. Then she had broken all of the fingers on his left hand, slowly and agonizingly, a method which would have worked if he’d actually known anything. But he didn’t, and still doesn’t, know anything. As far as he knows, he’s the real Lee Adama. But that doesn’t stop his rational mind from considering the possibilities that he still can’t accept.
Why do I get these memories that aren’t mine? These memories that are more like flashbacks than anything else? Are they the memories of another copy of me that died and downloaded into my consciousness? No! It can’t be true. I am the only one, the only human known as Lee Adama. I can’t be a Cylon; I couldn’t betray my people like that.
He finds himself analyzing everything he’s done, searching for any signs of betrayal, anything that might be tucked away in a distant corner of his memory. He feels his heart beat, his human heart, and can’t help but wonder if it’s actually a machine like the rest of him.
I killed over 1000 people. Cylons kill people.
I had to for the survival of the human race. I saved tens of thousands of people by doing that.
Beat.
Boomer found the Tylium, and she’s a Cylon. Then I was the one who blew up the mining operation. The Cylons wanted us to have the Tylium, and they used me and Boomer to get it.
No. Boomer wasn’t active then. The Cylons didn’t want us to find the Tylium. We acted of our own free will, as humans.
Beat.
I committed mutiny, escaped, and sowed dissension in the fleet. That’s something that Cylons do.
No. I had to, because the principles which hold the human race together in harmony were being violated. I did it for the fleet because it was the right thing to do.
Beat.
Author: Raina
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Spoilers: up to the end of “Home” Part 2
Summary: Every night Lee dies in his dreams…or are they much more than just dreams?
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters; I just enjoy making them suffer
Notes: Takes place during “Home” Parts 1 and 2, but I’ve played around with the timeline.
Thanks to Ysrith for providing beta duties.
I have italicized both flashbacks and internal thoughts (as that’s what gramatically correct), but if you can’t tell which is which, please let me know and I’ll figure out a way to differentiate the two for following parts.
So it looks like this is expanding into a 5-parter instead of the originally intended four.
Feedback makes me happy. ;)
--------------------
Part1
“There must be a mistake, or someone tampered with the results.”
“Madam President, I ran the test against a control over fifty times. And a mass spectrometry as sensitive as this one takes a considerable amount of time and resources, I might add,” Dr. Baltar explains as he stands at the head of the long table in Galactica’s conference room, “and I also did a blind test, so I didn’t even know which sample was whose and was even supervised to make sure that I didn’t tamper with the results, not that I would…and quite frankly I’m insulted that you would even consider it, considering that...”
“I supervised the procedures, and there’s no doubt about it, the man that we thought was Lee Adama is a Cylon,” Dr. Cottle interjects sombrely, before Dr. Baltar can continue.
“That’s frakking bullshit and you know it. He’s saved our asses more times than I can count, and he’s your son for fraks sake!” Kara looks pointedly at Adama, who just sits there, staring into space with the vacant look of a man who has lost everything.
“Sir?”
“We need to find out what vital information he’s given the Cylons. Sgt. Hadrian will conduct the interrogation,” Adama finally says, nodding at the woman seated at the end of the table.
“I must stress the need for secrecy here,” President Roslin calmly points out as she quickly comes to terms with this revelation. “It would be shattering to the morale of the fleet if they find out that yet another member of the Galactica’s crew is a Cylon agent, especially one held in such high regard as this one.”
“Agreed. That’s why the knowledge will be limited to the people in this room, a few marines, and the few deckhands who will build him a cell next to the other Cylon. Dismissed.”
***
No! It can’t be true. I’m Lee Adama, son of William and Caroline Adama. I was raised on Caprica. I’m a loyal member of the Colonial Fleet. I can’t be one of them.
He resists when they come for him, struggling as they attempt to put the cuffs on him. Then something cold and metal hits the back of his head and the word goes black.
Kara hides in the shadows of the deserted hallway and watches the guards drag him past.
Then she slumps down in the shadow of the bulkhead and finds herself thinking about everything that they’ve been through together since the end of the world and wonders how a toaster could have been right under her nose, so close to her, without her knowing or even suspecting a thing.
I’m such a frakking idiot. Gods I am such a frakking idiot! Two toasters right under my nose and I never suspected either of them. Are there still toasters who are close to me, preying on the fact that Kara Thrace is a chump?
Could Zak have been one of them too?
She slowly stands and wanders back to her locker and stash of ambrosia. She had been saving it for a special occasion, and she figures that this is “special” enough; just not the kind of special that she’d been intending. But alcohol can numb all the pain and wash away all the fears and questions circling through her mind. And that is what Kara needs right now, if only for a few hours.
Oblivion has never looked so welcoming.
***
He sits in a void, unsure of his fate and his very identity itself.
He sits on the cold, dirty floor of the brig, cradling his broken hand.
He sits bloody and beaten, dried blood caked on the side of his head, nose and fingers broken: those had been the results of Sgt. Hadrian’s attempts to get him to reveal his mission. But he couldn’t tell her what he didn’t know. She had first tried punching his face repeatedly, and when that hadn’t worked, she had resorted to dunking his head underwater. Then she had broken all of the fingers on his left hand, slowly and agonizingly, a method which would have worked if he’d actually known anything. But he didn’t, and still doesn’t, know anything. As far as he knows, he’s the real Lee Adama. But that doesn’t stop his rational mind from considering the possibilities that he still can’t accept.
Why do I get these memories that aren’t mine? These memories that are more like flashbacks than anything else? Are they the memories of another copy of me that died and downloaded into my consciousness? No! It can’t be true. I am the only one, the only human known as Lee Adama. I can’t be a Cylon; I couldn’t betray my people like that.
He finds himself analyzing everything he’s done, searching for any signs of betrayal, anything that might be tucked away in a distant corner of his memory. He feels his heart beat, his human heart, and can’t help but wonder if it’s actually a machine like the rest of him.
I killed over 1000 people. Cylons kill people.
I had to for the survival of the human race. I saved tens of thousands of people by doing that.
Beat.
Boomer found the Tylium, and she’s a Cylon. Then I was the one who blew up the mining operation. The Cylons wanted us to have the Tylium, and they used me and Boomer to get it.
No. Boomer wasn’t active then. The Cylons didn’t want us to find the Tylium. We acted of our own free will, as humans.
Beat.
I committed mutiny, escaped, and sowed dissension in the fleet. That’s something that Cylons do.
No. I had to, because the principles which hold the human race together in harmony were being violated. I did it for the fleet because it was the right thing to do.
Beat.