BSG ficlet: Safety (Anastasia Dualla; Dualla/Billy, Dualla/Lee)
Title: Safety
Character: Anastasia Dualla (Dualla/Billy, Dualla/Lee)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Post-"Sacrifice," Dualla sits at Lee's bedside, thinking. 650 words.
Safety
She says a lot of things when she's at his bedside, keeping him company. Most of them are of no consequence, even when he's asleep and can't hear her. Because there are other things she could say, but she doesn't.
She thinks about Billy. Not the good times; not yet. Not now. Instead, for no good reason she thinks about the bewildering day centurions invaded Galactica. She used to like to hear him tell the story, breath coming faster and tripping over words, about where they'd been and what they'd done before they found her. Some of the after, too; she was still a little dazed. But of course she'd known he was there with her, even before she really came back to herself. She just couldn't seem to get to him, like it was all a dream.
She's always been amazed that the President knew enough to have him use her rank to get her to snap back to reality. It only occurs to her now, clutching Lee's hand, to be amazed that he knew it and could remember it in the crisis, just as shocked as she was to see that he was holding a gun.
The boy didn't belong on a battlestar. None of them belonged in this world they were trying to live in, but perhaps least of all him. Maybe that was it, she thinks. There had been a kind of wall separating the two of them: no matter how deeply she curled into his arms, he couldn't cross over to her experiences of war and her knowledge of military discipline, and she couldn't step back into a world of things that ought to be true but aren't, especially not just because you want them to be.
But that's not exactly right, she thinks. Actually, he could have eventually learned to see things the way everyone on Galactica did, but she can't bring herself to have wanted it for him. It might've prevented what happened today, yes; but then he wouldn't have been Billy.
If he hadn't been Billy, though, she probably wouldn't have run from him.
Because they weren't so different, not in some deep down human part of them. They would watch the stars through the windows on Colonial One and talk about the same things, only in different words. The same but different, like humanity was still humanity after the Cylons, but what it meant to be human was changed.
War, too, was changed. Even she saw that. Lee had been no more prepared for the terrorist standoff than Billy was. Both shot. Both sacrificed. Chance making the bullets strike where they did, one fatal and the other merely (merely?) threatening.
She'd like to tell these things to Lee. She thinks he'd understand. Isn't that why she made her choice? But she knows that Billy probably would've understood, too, or at least he would've made her know he was trying. She could just as easily be holding his hand here. Maybe then she would've loved him.
But, no-the shock was not enough. She's sorry he's gone, but no amount of gut-punch sorrow and guilt can make it something it wasn't. It wasn't really a choice; she can't keep turning the same answerless question over in her mind. And she can't ask Lee what she really wants to, another answerless question, or perhaps one with an answer she doesn't want to accept. No dawning memory and flash-point anger can make Billy's death fall on anyone's shoulders, squarely.
It was not, after all, Lee's fault that once upon a time, he had needed to put that gun in Billy's hands. A gun he didn't have the first clue how to carry.
Her hand flies to her mouth suddenly; choking laughter pours out around her fingers.
"He didn't even have on the-"
Her throat trembles as she swallows it all down, as she takes Lee's hand again.
~
Character: Anastasia Dualla (Dualla/Billy, Dualla/Lee)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Post-"Sacrifice," Dualla sits at Lee's bedside, thinking. 650 words.
Safety
She says a lot of things when she's at his bedside, keeping him company. Most of them are of no consequence, even when he's asleep and can't hear her. Because there are other things she could say, but she doesn't.
She thinks about Billy. Not the good times; not yet. Not now. Instead, for no good reason she thinks about the bewildering day centurions invaded Galactica. She used to like to hear him tell the story, breath coming faster and tripping over words, about where they'd been and what they'd done before they found her. Some of the after, too; she was still a little dazed. But of course she'd known he was there with her, even before she really came back to herself. She just couldn't seem to get to him, like it was all a dream.
She's always been amazed that the President knew enough to have him use her rank to get her to snap back to reality. It only occurs to her now, clutching Lee's hand, to be amazed that he knew it and could remember it in the crisis, just as shocked as she was to see that he was holding a gun.
The boy didn't belong on a battlestar. None of them belonged in this world they were trying to live in, but perhaps least of all him. Maybe that was it, she thinks. There had been a kind of wall separating the two of them: no matter how deeply she curled into his arms, he couldn't cross over to her experiences of war and her knowledge of military discipline, and she couldn't step back into a world of things that ought to be true but aren't, especially not just because you want them to be.
But that's not exactly right, she thinks. Actually, he could have eventually learned to see things the way everyone on Galactica did, but she can't bring herself to have wanted it for him. It might've prevented what happened today, yes; but then he wouldn't have been Billy.
If he hadn't been Billy, though, she probably wouldn't have run from him.
Because they weren't so different, not in some deep down human part of them. They would watch the stars through the windows on Colonial One and talk about the same things, only in different words. The same but different, like humanity was still humanity after the Cylons, but what it meant to be human was changed.
War, too, was changed. Even she saw that. Lee had been no more prepared for the terrorist standoff than Billy was. Both shot. Both sacrificed. Chance making the bullets strike where they did, one fatal and the other merely (merely?) threatening.
She'd like to tell these things to Lee. She thinks he'd understand. Isn't that why she made her choice? But she knows that Billy probably would've understood, too, or at least he would've made her know he was trying. She could just as easily be holding his hand here. Maybe then she would've loved him.
But, no-the shock was not enough. She's sorry he's gone, but no amount of gut-punch sorrow and guilt can make it something it wasn't. It wasn't really a choice; she can't keep turning the same answerless question over in her mind. And she can't ask Lee what she really wants to, another answerless question, or perhaps one with an answer she doesn't want to accept. No dawning memory and flash-point anger can make Billy's death fall on anyone's shoulders, squarely.
It was not, after all, Lee's fault that once upon a time, he had needed to put that gun in Billy's hands. A gun he didn't have the first clue how to carry.
Her hand flies to her mouth suddenly; choking laughter pours out around her fingers.
"He didn't even have on the-"
Her throat trembles as she swallows it all down, as she takes Lee's hand again.
~