Glitch
Title: Glitch
Series: Downloaded
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sex
Summary: Next part in the Downloaded series, which is a crossover with BSG 2003. You don't need to be familiar with BSG to read this, but at this point you should be familiar with what's happened so far in the series.
Thanks go to Delphi for the lovely beta!
"We should have at least warned them."
Daniel's voice is scarcely more than a whisper but it sounds loud in the deep hush that has descended on the basestar in wake of the attacks. The Cylons are silent when they pass each other in the corridors, and when it is necessary to speak they say as little as possible. The deaths of their siblings - permanent in more than a few cases - and loss of their homeworld are weighing heavily on all of them, even if they know it will benefit their side in the long run.
Seven glances over at him with an annoyed expression, and Daniel amends his earlier thought: most of them are troubled. Some of his Brothers - the hazel-eyes ones - don't seem all that concerned.
"Don't be so sentimental," snaps Seven. "The only reason they didn't get out of the way fast enough is because they were too focused on planning their own attack against us. That's what we were counting on. The Ones took the brunt of the strike, and now they'll be too busy trying to recover from their own losses to try and do anything about our side. We should be considering this a win." His eyes narrow. "It's unfortunate that they still have control of the Colony, though," he adds, almost to himself. "If they lost that as well, they might never be able to rebuild."
"I know! I know. But tactical justifications aside, we're still responsible for the deaths of our siblings - real deaths, without the chance for resurrection..." Daniel's voice trails off and he closes his eyes, trying not to think about it. They'd all known for months that the Klingons and Romulans would turn on them, but the Sixes had been the ones to get the exact details of a planned attack on the Cylon Fleet and Kobol itself. They'd shared that information with Daniel and his supporters, and then they - Sevens, Sixes, Twos, Eights, and some of the Fours and Fives - had planned their escape route. Except their plans encompassed more than simple survival.
They hadn't told the Ones what was coming. They continued to distract them with neverending arguments over the split between the Numbers, over the Unboxing of Leonard, over whether they should pursue the last remnants of humanity, and thereby prevented the Ones and their allies from putting the pieces of Klingon and Romulan intelligence together until it was too late. When the Klingons and Romulans finally made their move, Daniel's faction was able to jump away in the loyal basestars they'd covertly put into place, leaving the Ones to bear the brunt of the attack. The only habitable continent on Kobol was blasted, and over half of the Cylon ships orbiting the occupied worlds were destroyed. A significant portion of their entire civilization, wiped out - and largely because they had allowed it to be.
They'd abandoned their homeworld, abandoned their siblings, and turned their backs on the last pillars of Cylon unity. They were lost now. Adrift.
Before Daniel can let himself wander too far down that particular avenue of thought Seven grabs his arms and shakes him. "Look at me, Brother. Look at me."
Daniel slowly opens his eyes so that he's staring directly into Seven's intense hazel gaze. His Brother's voice is low and hypnotic. "This was inevitable. You know that. Sooner or later the Klingons and Romulans would have attacked, and sooner or later we would have had to deal with the Ones." Seven's hands slide upward until they're framing Daniel's face. "This is the choice we made. Think about it. We can start over again now, with no ties to the past. We're free."
There's something almost manic in Seven's eyes, and Daniel wonders yet again about the nature of the connection that exists between the Ones and the hazel-eyed Sevens. It runs deep, whatever it is, twisting his Brothers from inside. The Ones might be authoritarian and arrogant, but they are still Cylons, still their siblings, and to casually dismiss their deaths without a second thought is...disturbing.
Daniel takes a deep breath and steps back. He trusts Seven. He does. He'd helped him retrieve Leonard from the Hub, and persuaded most of his Brothers to join their side. He's brilliant and charismatic and a powerful asset. But he's also flawed; deeply, deeply flawed, and Daniel doesn't know how to heal him.
He looks at his Brother in silence for a moment, studying him. Each individual within a Number is biologically alike - a human wouldn't be able to tell Daniel apart from Seven, or Seven from Leonard, unless they'd spent enough time with each of them to be able to pick up on the subtle differences that result from their own unique experiences. Variations in speech patterns, different ways of carrying themselves, all of the particular mannerisms that make someone who they are. Cylons don't need to rely on those slight discrepancies, however. They can tell at a glance who is who as easily as though they were all wearing nametags stamped with their own individual serial number.
When Daniel looks at Seven now, he can tell that receiving Leonard's memories has altered something in his Brother's core. He is no longer quite the same as he was before the download, when he was all jagged edges and confused impulses. He can see a reflection of Leonard in Seven's eyes, dim now but growing stronger, as if the lines are blurring, Leonard's memories fusing with Seven's to create a new personality that's a hybrid of both individual copies.
Daniel wonders if having Leonard's memories will help him move past whatever it is that's left him so hollow and unsatisfied, or if the struggle between his two sides will tear Seven apart completely.
"We need to contact the Enterprise," he says finally. "We're too vulnerable on our own. If the Klingons or Romulans decide to pursue us, we won't last very long."
Seven raises his eyebrows. "You don't think that's going a little fast? It's one thing to realize that we need to break away from the Ones' dominance, but it's quite another to just go running to the humans. We should find a world of our own to settle on. We still have enough resources that we could mount an attack on the Colony in a few years if we just find a base -"
"No," says Daniel firmly, cutting him off. "No. Our path is with the humans now. We're stronger together than apart." If there's any one thing Daniel is sure of, it's that the way forward lies in learning how to live with their creators. They had tried a purely Cylon society, and it had crumbled from within. If they tried to recreate Kobol now, what was to guarantee they wouldn't make the same mistakes? Over and over and over again...
Seven makes a small, choked sound, and his expression twists into something between a grimace and a laugh. "So tell me, do you have some kind of understanding with Kirk that's going to persuade him to see our point of view? Were you his lover for a time, is that it?"
It's supposed to be insulting, supposed to be a dig at him, but Daniel can hear the underlying wistfulness in Seven's voice. Seven wants a connection like the one between Jim and Leonard. He wants to feel a love that strong, whether he'll admit it or not.
Daniel doesn't give into the goading. "No. He never touched me." I kissed him once, but that was just to give him comfort. Nothing else. "He'll listen to us because he's a good enough tactician to realize that the Klingons and Romulans are uneasy bedfellows at best, and even our reduced Fleet has enough technological resources to give a combined Cylon-Federation alliance some weight in a fragmented power structure. We need to look to the future, toward rebuilding, and if we combine forces we'll have more of a chance to do just that."
"How poetic." Seven's voice is once again cool and cynical, his mask falling back into place. "I just hope you're right."
"You were there with me in the Hybrid's chamber. You heard what it said - we're meant to create something different, something new. You believed it. That's why you helped me save Leonard, and that's why you came with us."
"Oh, I believe it." Seven's eyes flash with some unknown emotion, and his hands clench into fists. "I'm just saying that we should be prepared for a struggle. We need to look after our own well being before anything else. Just keep that in mind."
Seven's shoulder brushes against his as he leaves, and Daniel is alone except for the low, ever-present throbbing of the basestar itself. When he closes his eyes he feels utterly abandoned, as if he is the last surviving member of the Cylon race. The guilt sits low in his stomach, gnawing away at him.
It hadn't just been Ones who died. Fours and Fives who had been too uncertain to leave what they'd always known no matter how dangerous the Ones had become, some of the Sevens (my Brothers, oh, my Brothers) who had chosen to stay with the Ones (and why is that, what am I not seeing), and then those Threes, Twos, Sixes, and Eights who had simply been unlucky, unable to get to the basestars in time, the inevitable casualties of war. Gone forever now that their Resurrection Ships were destroyed, sacrificed in favor of some amorphous, uncertain future.
Daniel raises his hands in supplication and moves his lips in a quiet prayer. He hopes that those lost souls have been granted some measure of peace. All of them, even the Ones.
Forgive me, my siblings. We did what we had to, for the sake of our future.
Heavenly father, grant us the strength, the wisdom, and above all, a measure of acceptance, however small.
* * *
McCoy is in the science labs on New Vulcan when he feels it. The Vulcan scientists have been developing a vaccine for one of the colony's native viruses that had managed to jump from an indigenous avian species to the settlers (you'd think they'd appreciate something that can induce pon farr in a milder form, but apparently not), and they're happy enough to accept his help in that quiet, dignified way they have. McCoy likes the work, likes keeping himself busy, and the Vulcans don't eye him with lingering fear and suspicion the way some of the humans still do. While it's true that a fair number of the refugees follow their hosts' lead and treat him and Ruth with polite if distant respect, there are still those who ignore them...and those who barely tolerate them. Their distrust hurts McCoy more than he cares to admit. He won't deny that the Cylon race has committed a great wrong, but he and Ruth are not the entire collective. They made a deliberate choice to help the humans, have stood by them even when it would have been easier not to, and it's tiring to still have to contend with the sideways looks and not-quite-whispers that follow them whenever they step off the Enterprise.
Things have been especially tense recently. They've been in orbit for almost two weeks while the refugees from the Odyssey settle in with the other human survivors, and during that time Jack Fisk has been brought before a jury of Vulcans and humans to answer for the Poseidon incident (and there's something in McCoy that snarls at how clinical that description is; it wasn't an incident, it was horrific abuse of a sentient being). The trial hasn't been as much of a firestorm as Jim had feared - largely because Daniel himself is gone, unable to testify - but emotions are still running high. The jury was predictably cautious and gave Fisk a far lighter sentence than would have been the case if the Federation were still in existence (or if Daniel had been human), just taken his ship and stuck him out in the agricultural fields, but there's been grumbling. The Poseidon's former crew still supports their former Captain and are whispering to anyone who will listen that Jim Kirk and his crew are delusional, that they don't understand the Cylon threat, that they're endangering everyone in their refusal to take offensive action and the remaining humans are going to be wiped out by the Cylons or kept in bondage by the Vulcans. So far they've only influenced a minority of the population, but McCoy worries. Sedition has a way of taking on a life of its own.
He sighs and puts his latest sample in the centrifuge. All he and Ruth can do is show through their actions that Cylons need to be judged as individuals, not by the actions of the race as a whole, and that when they and humans work together it is to the greater good.
"T'Pura," he says distractedly, waving at the scientist in charge of New Vulcan's medical research division, "I think this might be it? I tried splicing in some of the avian genomes -"
That's when it strikes, suddenly and with no warning, like a lightning bolt cracking his skull in half. The pain is so intense he can't even see, and he grabs the edge of the counter as he reels in shock. His mind is being scraped raw, his thoughts resonating with a thousand screams of agony, and he just wants it to stop -
It cuts off abruptly and he staggers backward, breathing heavily. He feels curiously hollow, as though something vital has been sucked out of him. That low thrumming in the back of his mind that he's come to take for granted is almost completely silent; the connection with his Brother Sevens faint, so faint -
He realizes all at once what must have happened, and it's as if the ground has suddenly vanished from beneath his feet.
Gone. All gone.
"Doctor McCoy?" T'Pura is gazing at him with what passes for concern in these parts. "Doctor McCoy, are you well?"
"No," he says, and his voice sounds like it's been abraded by sandpaper. He stares at her and wonders, Is this how it felt when Vulcan was destroyed?
He focuses on breathes slowly, in and out, aware that everyone in the lab is looking at him. He activates the centrifuge and nods at T'Pura. "It needs to spin for five minutes."
"Doctor McCoy," she says again, but he's not listening. He turns away from her and makes his way out of the lab, conscious of putting one foot carefully in front of the other. Everything feels so fragile and unreal, like if he takes a wrong step everything will come crashing down around him.
The New Vulcan sunlight hurts his eyes, and his head throbs sickeningly. He manages to take a few steps before his legs suddenly give out and he falls to the dusty ground. He doesn't feel much like trying to get up again, even when a small crowd begins to gather around him.
He's never felt fully Cylon. Even when he'd been on Kobol itself he'd felt isolated from the others; the Seven who had fallen in love with a human and could no longer live in harmony with his own people. He willingly left the collective to stand with the humans, has given the humans specifications on Cylon tech, and thinks of himself more as Leonard McCoy than as a Seven. He's always been just a little bit wary of his Cylon nature - it's convenient at times, like when he'd networked into the ship or helped install the FTL - but on the whole he prefers to push it away, keep that aspect of himself at arm's length.
But it's also true that no matter how closely he's come to identify with the humans, he has always taken a certain amount of comfort from being able to sense his Brothers. They've always been there, a gentle reassuring presence that lets him know he's not alone, and feeling so many of them vanish so suddenly fills him with a wild, unspeakable grief, an indescribable sense of loss. It's wrong, all wrong.
He isn't sure how long he's been crouched down in the dirt when he senses someone kneel down next to him. He feels cool fingers run through his hair and thinks it might be his vision of Jim come to comfort him, but when he looks up he sees platinum blonde hair and haunted blue eyes. Ruth. His Sister.
"Leonard," she says, and her voice is thick with the same agony that's making his chest tight and stealing his breath. "Leonard. The others..."
Her voice trails off, and McCoy can see tears sparkling on her cheeks. He reaches up to pull her against him and they rest their foreheads against each other, so close that their breath mingles. They are closer in this moment than they've ever been, two Cylons mourning the loss of their homeworld and their siblings.
On some level he can hear the people gathered around them mumbling among themselves - look at them, why are they crying, didn't think Cylons could cry - and then Scotty's there, his hand resting gently on Ruth's arm.
"You just went runnin', lass, took off with no warnin'. What's the matter?"
Ruth lifts her head and gazes up at her lover. "Something terrible has happened, Scotty," she says, her voice trembling. "So many of them, so suddenly..."
"Ruth?"
She leans against him and closes her eyes. Scotty brushes her hair behind her ear and looks over to McCoy.
"Doctor?"
McCoy shakes his head. He still hasn't found his voice, but the blinding pain of the headache is starting to fade. He wraps his arms around himself, feeling small and fragile and lost.
"Right," says Scotty to himself, and helps Ruth to her feet before reaching down to grasp McCoy's wrist and pull him up. "Best get you two out of here. Seems like everyone on th' Colony's coming to gawk, and you don't need that."
He's right. The three of them make their way toward the central Citadel where Jim and Spock are stuck in conference with the New Vulcan leadership, ignoring the few people who stop to stare at them. McCoy is grateful when they get inside, where it's cool and dim and his eyes don't hurt so much.
"Wait here. I'll go get Jim," says Scotty, and leaves them in one of the empty conference chambers. McCoy sinks into one of the chairs and closes his eyes, his hand reaching out to entwine with Ruth's.
"Sister," he says softly. He's never called her that before but right now the connection between them feels stronger than ever, tempered by their shared tragedy. "What happens now?"
"I don't know," she replies, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. "I don't know."
The sharp edge of grief has given way to numbness by the time McCoy hears the distinctive pattern of Jim's footsteps cross the room and stop in front of him. He doesn't open his eyes even when Jim takes his free hand and starts stroking the skin gently with his thumb, slow and soothing.
"Bones," he says softly. "Bones, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."
McCoy takes a deep breath and tries to gather his thoughts. "They're gone, Jim," he says finally. "Dead, really dead. So many..." The words get stuck in his throat and he just shakes his head, unable to continue. Jim's fingers slide up to McCoy's wrist and wrap around it, warm and solid and reassuring.
"Bones."
But McCoy can't explain, can't even begin to articulate the sense of loss running through his veins. Jim doesn't push further. He runs his fingers over McCoy's skin in one last caress before dropping his hand, and McCoy hears him move away and speak to Scotty in a low tone.
He takes a deep breath, trying to pull himself together, and feels gentle fingers brush against his nape. There's warm breath tickling his skin, and he hears Jim's voice (but no, not the real Jim, the real Jim is still over there talking to Scotty) whispering in his ear.
"Open your eyes, Leonard. Look around you."
When he does he's not on New Vulcan. It looks like Earth, before the Cylons nuked it, only McCoy can tell it's not - the sky is a shade too green, the trees look like nothing he's ever seen before, even in holovids, and even the air itself has a slightly different quality to it. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, trying to pinpoint it. He thinks it might be just a little thinner. Different smells, too. Sharper, spicier. Not like anything he's experienced before.
McCoy knows this is a projection. It has to be; there's no other explanation. It's not his, however - his visions are of Georgia, with the sun beaming down on him and the Blue Ridge Mountains hazy on the horizon. This is a world he's never seen before, a world that belongs to someone else.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Jim is smiling at him, the light of the strange sun making his hair shine like gold, and McCoy catches his breath at the sight. It's been too long since he's seen Jim like this in the real world, happy and carefree, and he can't help reaching out to touch his cheek. Jim turns his head so that he can press a kiss into McCoy's palm, and McCoy shivers.
If only this were real.
"This place," he says, and he's relieved that his voice doesn't shake. "What is it?"
"Earth." Jim moves away from McCoy, flinging his arms out as he turns in a circle. "Come on, enjoy it. You're not losing any time back in the real world."
"Earth?" McCoy raises his eyebrows in disbelief. "No, it's not. I used to live on Earth, you know. This is someplace different."
Jim glances back at him and shrugs. "Earth is Humanity's home, right? You'll find your way here and rebuild, humans and Cylons together. This is going to be your new home. That makes it Earth."
"Rebuild...?" McCoy stares at him in astonishment. "We haven't found any remotely habitable planets yet, much less one that looks like this. This place might not even exist in the real world. This is a projection, just some vision you brought me into -"
Jim moves back to him, rests his fingers lightly on Leonard's lips. "Oh, it exists." His smile turns sly. "It's been here for a long, long time, waiting. It's been waiting for thousands of years. And you're the one who's going to lead them here, Leonard; you're the one who's going to show them the way."
Leonard stares at him. "That's impossible. I don't even know where this is."
"Just trust me." Jim catches McCoy's wrist and gives a sharp tug, not letting go until they're sprawled out side by side on the grass. They're surrounded by its sweet, earthy smell, and McCoy breathes deep. New Vulcan is all desert, hot and dry; he's missed being surrounded by this kind of rich, verdant greenery.
Jim shifts until he's half sprawled over McCoy's chest and can run his fingers gently through his hair, learning down to whisper in McCoy's ear.
"Everything is changing. You can feel it, can't you? You've shown your Brothers that it's possible to love, that humans and Cylons can come together in peace. They no longer believe what the Ones have been telling them all along."
"But we still have such a long way to go," murmurs McCoy, his eyelids fluttering shut as Jim's fingers trail along his jaw. "Such a long way."
"Just believe," whispers Jim and presses his lips against McCoy's. "Everything will fall into place, I promise you."
McCoy opens his mouth to deepen this kiss, and Jim -
"Bones!"
McCoy opens his eyes with a gasp. He's back in the conference room on New Vulcan, with Jim's hands on his shoulders and Ruth and Scotty staring at him in concern. The vision of a planet with a blue-green sky and grass blowing in the soft breeze is gone, but he can still feel Jim's lingering kiss. He reaches up to press his fingers against his lips.
"Bones?" Jim's hands slide up to frame his face. "Bones, what happened? It's like you were just gone..."
McCoy blinks stupidly at him, still a bit disoriented. "Jim?"
"Yeah, it's me." Jim's fingers drop away from his face and takes a half-step back. "Bones, are you okay?"
McCoy glances at Ruth, wondering if she's ever had any of these visions, but all he sees in her eyes is worry and confusion. He takes a deep breath, then another, and gets to his feet.
"Jim," he says, enunciating carefully, "I think I'd like to go back to the Enterprise?"
"Yeah," says Jim. "Yeah, whatever you want. There's nothing urgent we need to be doing down here at the moment." He gets to his feet and reaches out to squeeze McCoy's shoulders, as though reassuring himself of his presence. "Let's go."
The four of them make their way outside in silence, avoiding everyone's eyes until Jim flips his communicator open and gives the order for them to be beamed up.
"Captain?" asks the tech on duty as they materialize on the pad. "Is everything all right? We were under the impression that you would be on the planet until tomorrow..."
"Something came up," says Jim shortly. "Everything's fine, we just need some privacy."
"Of course, sir."
They leave the transporter room together, Scotty's hand resting protectively in the small of Ruth's back and Jim letting his shoulder bump lightly against McCoy's as they make their way back to their quarters. Before their paths diverge McCoy reaches out to brush his fingers against Ruth's. Their eyes meet for a long moment, and for a second McCoy doesn't want to leave her, wants to stay here in the presence of one of his siblings, someone who can understand the loss still rippling through his mind.
He still has Jim, though, pulling him onward through the corridors toward the Captain's quarters. He's not alone. Once the door slides shut behind them he pulls Jim into his arms, holding him so tight that Jim can barely move.
"Be here with me," he whispers harshly. "Be here with me, now."
Because Jim is still alive, still real, still warm and breathing, and McCoy wants to feel that, sink into Jim's heat and energy and bask in it. And Jim is more than willing, fisting his hands into Bones' hair and biting at his lips, gasping breathily into his mouth when McCoy bends down to nip at his earlobe. They tumble onto the bed as they pull at each others' clothes, eager to feel skin on skin, and McCoy moans when he feels Jim's weight on top of him. This is what he needs. He needs to know that even though there's a jagged hole at the edge of his consciousness he's not lost; he still has Jim; they're still together.
They curl up together in the aftermath, McCoy with his head on Jim's chest and Jim tracing soothing patterns on every bit of skin he can reach.
"Things are changing, Jim," says McCoy softly into the darkness. "And you're going to have to be ready for it." The words come from somewhere deep inside him, spilling out from some dark, secret place and taking form as they leave his lips. "We're at the brink of something new."
Jim must be half-asleep already because he doesn't say anything other than a soft, "Just go to sleep, Bones, things'll be better in the morning," and tightens his arms around McCoy's shoulders as his breathing evens out.
McCoy closes his eyes and listens to Jim's heartbeat, slow and steady under his ear. The sound of it lulls him to sleep.
* * *
Two days later a Cylon basestar jumps into orbit around New Vulcan, sending the Enterprise into high alert and causing waves of panic on the planet's surface. Jim is up on the bridge snapping out orders to raise shields and prepare to fire when Bones comes running out of the turbolift, Ruth hard on his heels. Jim glares at them.
"I distinctly recall ordering all personnel to action stations. That means you should be in Sickbay and Engineering."
"We know that Jim - Captain," amends Bones quickly, "but give it a minute. Hold your fire."
"Doctor McCoy," says Jim, laying deliberate emphasis on the title. "Return to your post. That's an order."
Bones' hands clench into fists, but Jim can see him waver. There's always been an understanding between them that no matter what else they might be to each other, when they're on duty Jim is the Captain and Bones will abide by his decisions. He's pushing the line by abandoning his post when there's a red alert, and Bones knows it.
"Captain," says Ruth, low and urgent, just as Uhura reports that they're being hailed. The bridge is silent and tense as everyone waits to see what Jim will do.
"Captain," repeats Ruth. "I - we - think that they're not a threat. They're not here to attack."
Jim locks eyes with her, weighing her words, then glances over at Bones. Bones nods his affirmation.
"They haven't fired on us," he points out. "Haven't spooled up their weapons or launched the Raiders."
That's true. They haven't. "All right," says Jim. "Put them on viewscreen." He turns back to the main viewscreen as Spock takes his position behind the command chair. Bones and Ruth are there, too, their eyes fixed straight ahead.
The screen flickers and then resolves into Bones' face. No, not Bones. A Seven. Jim has to take a deep breath to try and steel himself against the confused flood of emotion that seeing this particular Number always evokes, and barely even notices Ruth's soft gasp of recognition or the way Bones steps forward.
"It's good to see you again," says Bones to the Seven, and Jim frowns.
"You know him?"
"So do you," answers Bones. "It's Daniel."
Daniel. Jim looks a little closer, and now that he's looking for it he can see the ever-present shadow of sadness in those blue eyes and recognize the cadence in the Seven's voice when he speaks.
"Captain Kirk. Jim. Please believe me when I say that we have no intention of attacking you."
"Yeah," says Jim, still staring at him. He remembers the hours he spent on the observation deck gazing out at the stars while Daniel sketched and spoke to him of Kobol, remembers the pain of going to his room that morning and seeing a limp body hanging from the ceiling. But here he is, whole and alive and looking right at him.
Jim has never believed that Daniel is a threat to humanity, never believed that he went back to the Cylons in order to tell them where exactly the remnants of humanity were hiding. If Daniel says now that they're not going to attack, Jim isn't going to be the one to open fire.
"Yeah, I believe you." And then, because he can't help himself, "You look better than the last time I saw you."
A small smile flutters across Daniel's face. "A lot of things have changed." His eyes shift from Kirk to Bones and Ruth. "You know what's happened?"
"We sensed something," replies Ruth. "Thousands of Cylons flickering out at once. Kobol's gone?"
"Kobol's gone," repeats Daniel, and Jim has to look away from the grief in his face even as something inside him whispers that it's only fair that the Cylons should know the loss of a homeworld.
Daniel's still speaking. "That's what we want to talk to you about. What you felt was a series of attacks launched against us by the Klingon and Romulan Empires, but there has also been a...split within the Cylon collective. A disagreement over the path we should pursue in the future." Jim notices the way he shifts slightly, his eyes flickering restlessly from Bones to Ruth to Jim. Whatever's happened with the Cylons, it's big. His mind is already calculating what that might mean for them, how they can use it to their advantage. If the current power structure is destabilized...
"Our faction believes that the Cylon hostilities were misguided, and continuing down that path would be disastrous. The reason we're here now is to try and find a new way forward, for both of us."
Jim hears someone snort in derision. He frowns a little in irritation; he can understand how ridiculous this proposition sounds, but... he trusts Daniel. More than that, this might be the chance humanity's been waiting for, the chance to reclaim a place in the universe for themselves, and he's not sure that they can afford to let it pass them by.
Jim has always been willing to play for high stakes. He'll gamble on this.
"All right," he says slowly, deliberately ignoring the shocked murmurs that rise up behind him. "All right, I'm willing to listen to you. You can come aboard the Enterprise -"
"No," says Daniel, shaking his head. "We came here to you, without the rest of our Fleet, and that includes the Resurrection Ships. You understand?"
Jim does. He can see the gesture for what it is, a sign of trust and good faith - if the Enterprise had opened fire, the Cylons killed in the attack would have died permanent deaths out of downloading range. Now Daniel is waiting to see if he'll validate their trust. He looks a little closer, sees the wariness lurking in Daniel's eyes. It has to be difficult for him, Jim realizes - his experience on the Poseidon has to have left him with a knee-jerk reaction against leaving himself vulnerable in the presence of humans. He's trying, though. Because he trusts Jim.
"Fair enough," he says finally. "We'll go to you. You can expect us within the hour."
Something in Daniel's face relaxes, and Jim sees a small smile flash across his face. "Thank you."
"See you soon."
The screen goes dark, and Jim turns around to see his crew looking at him with expressions ranging from concern to outright disbelief. "Captain," begins Spock, his features even more rigid than usual, clearly ready to begin a diatribe on how illogical this course of action is.
Jim cuts him off. "You have the conn, Mister Spock. Doctor McCoy, you're with me." He glances at Ruth. "You, too. Get Scotty and meet us in the transporter room."
"Captain," repeats Spock. "As Science Officer, I believe my presence will also be necessary. I have no doubt the Cylon basestar will yield an abundance of data that will serve to enhance our understanding of them, and I will need to be on hand in order to collate the data."
Bones snorts. "Logical as ever, huh Mister Spock?"
Spock looks slightly affronted. "Indeed."
Jim leans back in his chair and gazes up at his First. "And leave the ship without any of her senior officers on board? Somehow I don't see you endorsing that."
Spock's spine is ramrod straight. "I would...prefer to accompany you, Captain," he says stiffly, and this time Jim hears the unspoken words: Spock wants to make sure nothing happens. He's no happier with sending his friends into a potentially complicated situation than Jim would be, and accompanying them will at least give him some sense of control.
Jim can certainly understand that. He smiles wryly. "Why Spock, I never thought I'd see you so sentimental."
Spock doesn't bother dignifying that with a response, and Jim gets to his feet. "So, Mister Sulu, think you can handle things while we're gone?"
"Aye, sir." Sulu's face is as earnest as ever as he moves toward the Command Chair, and Jim heads for the turbolift with the other three close on his heels. He knows he should be worried. This could be a trap. The Cylons could be waiting to kill the senior officers and cripple the Enterprise, then order the rest of their Fleet to jump into orbit and destroy New Vulcan. They could be planning to hold them hostage, conduct biological experiments on them. There are a myriad of reasons why this is stupid.
But Jim didn't become the youngest Captain in Starfleet history by playing it safe. He has a feel for when to trust to instinct, and everything in him is telling him this is one of those times when it's better to leap.
Sometimes the biggest risks yield the greatest rewards.
Part Two
Series: Downloaded
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sex
Summary: Next part in the Downloaded series, which is a crossover with BSG 2003. You don't need to be familiar with BSG to read this, but at this point you should be familiar with what's happened so far in the series.
Thanks go to Delphi for the lovely beta!
"We should have at least warned them."
Daniel's voice is scarcely more than a whisper but it sounds loud in the deep hush that has descended on the basestar in wake of the attacks. The Cylons are silent when they pass each other in the corridors, and when it is necessary to speak they say as little as possible. The deaths of their siblings - permanent in more than a few cases - and loss of their homeworld are weighing heavily on all of them, even if they know it will benefit their side in the long run.
Seven glances over at him with an annoyed expression, and Daniel amends his earlier thought: most of them are troubled. Some of his Brothers - the hazel-eyes ones - don't seem all that concerned.
"Don't be so sentimental," snaps Seven. "The only reason they didn't get out of the way fast enough is because they were too focused on planning their own attack against us. That's what we were counting on. The Ones took the brunt of the strike, and now they'll be too busy trying to recover from their own losses to try and do anything about our side. We should be considering this a win." His eyes narrow. "It's unfortunate that they still have control of the Colony, though," he adds, almost to himself. "If they lost that as well, they might never be able to rebuild."
"I know! I know. But tactical justifications aside, we're still responsible for the deaths of our siblings - real deaths, without the chance for resurrection..." Daniel's voice trails off and he closes his eyes, trying not to think about it. They'd all known for months that the Klingons and Romulans would turn on them, but the Sixes had been the ones to get the exact details of a planned attack on the Cylon Fleet and Kobol itself. They'd shared that information with Daniel and his supporters, and then they - Sevens, Sixes, Twos, Eights, and some of the Fours and Fives - had planned their escape route. Except their plans encompassed more than simple survival.
They hadn't told the Ones what was coming. They continued to distract them with neverending arguments over the split between the Numbers, over the Unboxing of Leonard, over whether they should pursue the last remnants of humanity, and thereby prevented the Ones and their allies from putting the pieces of Klingon and Romulan intelligence together until it was too late. When the Klingons and Romulans finally made their move, Daniel's faction was able to jump away in the loyal basestars they'd covertly put into place, leaving the Ones to bear the brunt of the attack. The only habitable continent on Kobol was blasted, and over half of the Cylon ships orbiting the occupied worlds were destroyed. A significant portion of their entire civilization, wiped out - and largely because they had allowed it to be.
They'd abandoned their homeworld, abandoned their siblings, and turned their backs on the last pillars of Cylon unity. They were lost now. Adrift.
Before Daniel can let himself wander too far down that particular avenue of thought Seven grabs his arms and shakes him. "Look at me, Brother. Look at me."
Daniel slowly opens his eyes so that he's staring directly into Seven's intense hazel gaze. His Brother's voice is low and hypnotic. "This was inevitable. You know that. Sooner or later the Klingons and Romulans would have attacked, and sooner or later we would have had to deal with the Ones." Seven's hands slide upward until they're framing Daniel's face. "This is the choice we made. Think about it. We can start over again now, with no ties to the past. We're free."
There's something almost manic in Seven's eyes, and Daniel wonders yet again about the nature of the connection that exists between the Ones and the hazel-eyed Sevens. It runs deep, whatever it is, twisting his Brothers from inside. The Ones might be authoritarian and arrogant, but they are still Cylons, still their siblings, and to casually dismiss their deaths without a second thought is...disturbing.
Daniel takes a deep breath and steps back. He trusts Seven. He does. He'd helped him retrieve Leonard from the Hub, and persuaded most of his Brothers to join their side. He's brilliant and charismatic and a powerful asset. But he's also flawed; deeply, deeply flawed, and Daniel doesn't know how to heal him.
He looks at his Brother in silence for a moment, studying him. Each individual within a Number is biologically alike - a human wouldn't be able to tell Daniel apart from Seven, or Seven from Leonard, unless they'd spent enough time with each of them to be able to pick up on the subtle differences that result from their own unique experiences. Variations in speech patterns, different ways of carrying themselves, all of the particular mannerisms that make someone who they are. Cylons don't need to rely on those slight discrepancies, however. They can tell at a glance who is who as easily as though they were all wearing nametags stamped with their own individual serial number.
When Daniel looks at Seven now, he can tell that receiving Leonard's memories has altered something in his Brother's core. He is no longer quite the same as he was before the download, when he was all jagged edges and confused impulses. He can see a reflection of Leonard in Seven's eyes, dim now but growing stronger, as if the lines are blurring, Leonard's memories fusing with Seven's to create a new personality that's a hybrid of both individual copies.
Daniel wonders if having Leonard's memories will help him move past whatever it is that's left him so hollow and unsatisfied, or if the struggle between his two sides will tear Seven apart completely.
"We need to contact the Enterprise," he says finally. "We're too vulnerable on our own. If the Klingons or Romulans decide to pursue us, we won't last very long."
Seven raises his eyebrows. "You don't think that's going a little fast? It's one thing to realize that we need to break away from the Ones' dominance, but it's quite another to just go running to the humans. We should find a world of our own to settle on. We still have enough resources that we could mount an attack on the Colony in a few years if we just find a base -"
"No," says Daniel firmly, cutting him off. "No. Our path is with the humans now. We're stronger together than apart." If there's any one thing Daniel is sure of, it's that the way forward lies in learning how to live with their creators. They had tried a purely Cylon society, and it had crumbled from within. If they tried to recreate Kobol now, what was to guarantee they wouldn't make the same mistakes? Over and over and over again...
Seven makes a small, choked sound, and his expression twists into something between a grimace and a laugh. "So tell me, do you have some kind of understanding with Kirk that's going to persuade him to see our point of view? Were you his lover for a time, is that it?"
It's supposed to be insulting, supposed to be a dig at him, but Daniel can hear the underlying wistfulness in Seven's voice. Seven wants a connection like the one between Jim and Leonard. He wants to feel a love that strong, whether he'll admit it or not.
Daniel doesn't give into the goading. "No. He never touched me." I kissed him once, but that was just to give him comfort. Nothing else. "He'll listen to us because he's a good enough tactician to realize that the Klingons and Romulans are uneasy bedfellows at best, and even our reduced Fleet has enough technological resources to give a combined Cylon-Federation alliance some weight in a fragmented power structure. We need to look to the future, toward rebuilding, and if we combine forces we'll have more of a chance to do just that."
"How poetic." Seven's voice is once again cool and cynical, his mask falling back into place. "I just hope you're right."
"You were there with me in the Hybrid's chamber. You heard what it said - we're meant to create something different, something new. You believed it. That's why you helped me save Leonard, and that's why you came with us."
"Oh, I believe it." Seven's eyes flash with some unknown emotion, and his hands clench into fists. "I'm just saying that we should be prepared for a struggle. We need to look after our own well being before anything else. Just keep that in mind."
Seven's shoulder brushes against his as he leaves, and Daniel is alone except for the low, ever-present throbbing of the basestar itself. When he closes his eyes he feels utterly abandoned, as if he is the last surviving member of the Cylon race. The guilt sits low in his stomach, gnawing away at him.
It hadn't just been Ones who died. Fours and Fives who had been too uncertain to leave what they'd always known no matter how dangerous the Ones had become, some of the Sevens (my Brothers, oh, my Brothers) who had chosen to stay with the Ones (and why is that, what am I not seeing), and then those Threes, Twos, Sixes, and Eights who had simply been unlucky, unable to get to the basestars in time, the inevitable casualties of war. Gone forever now that their Resurrection Ships were destroyed, sacrificed in favor of some amorphous, uncertain future.
Daniel raises his hands in supplication and moves his lips in a quiet prayer. He hopes that those lost souls have been granted some measure of peace. All of them, even the Ones.
Forgive me, my siblings. We did what we had to, for the sake of our future.
Heavenly father, grant us the strength, the wisdom, and above all, a measure of acceptance, however small.
* * *
McCoy is in the science labs on New Vulcan when he feels it. The Vulcan scientists have been developing a vaccine for one of the colony's native viruses that had managed to jump from an indigenous avian species to the settlers (you'd think they'd appreciate something that can induce pon farr in a milder form, but apparently not), and they're happy enough to accept his help in that quiet, dignified way they have. McCoy likes the work, likes keeping himself busy, and the Vulcans don't eye him with lingering fear and suspicion the way some of the humans still do. While it's true that a fair number of the refugees follow their hosts' lead and treat him and Ruth with polite if distant respect, there are still those who ignore them...and those who barely tolerate them. Their distrust hurts McCoy more than he cares to admit. He won't deny that the Cylon race has committed a great wrong, but he and Ruth are not the entire collective. They made a deliberate choice to help the humans, have stood by them even when it would have been easier not to, and it's tiring to still have to contend with the sideways looks and not-quite-whispers that follow them whenever they step off the Enterprise.
Things have been especially tense recently. They've been in orbit for almost two weeks while the refugees from the Odyssey settle in with the other human survivors, and during that time Jack Fisk has been brought before a jury of Vulcans and humans to answer for the Poseidon incident (and there's something in McCoy that snarls at how clinical that description is; it wasn't an incident, it was horrific abuse of a sentient being). The trial hasn't been as much of a firestorm as Jim had feared - largely because Daniel himself is gone, unable to testify - but emotions are still running high. The jury was predictably cautious and gave Fisk a far lighter sentence than would have been the case if the Federation were still in existence (or if Daniel had been human), just taken his ship and stuck him out in the agricultural fields, but there's been grumbling. The Poseidon's former crew still supports their former Captain and are whispering to anyone who will listen that Jim Kirk and his crew are delusional, that they don't understand the Cylon threat, that they're endangering everyone in their refusal to take offensive action and the remaining humans are going to be wiped out by the Cylons or kept in bondage by the Vulcans. So far they've only influenced a minority of the population, but McCoy worries. Sedition has a way of taking on a life of its own.
He sighs and puts his latest sample in the centrifuge. All he and Ruth can do is show through their actions that Cylons need to be judged as individuals, not by the actions of the race as a whole, and that when they and humans work together it is to the greater good.
"T'Pura," he says distractedly, waving at the scientist in charge of New Vulcan's medical research division, "I think this might be it? I tried splicing in some of the avian genomes -"
That's when it strikes, suddenly and with no warning, like a lightning bolt cracking his skull in half. The pain is so intense he can't even see, and he grabs the edge of the counter as he reels in shock. His mind is being scraped raw, his thoughts resonating with a thousand screams of agony, and he just wants it to stop -
It cuts off abruptly and he staggers backward, breathing heavily. He feels curiously hollow, as though something vital has been sucked out of him. That low thrumming in the back of his mind that he's come to take for granted is almost completely silent; the connection with his Brother Sevens faint, so faint -
He realizes all at once what must have happened, and it's as if the ground has suddenly vanished from beneath his feet.
Gone. All gone.
"Doctor McCoy?" T'Pura is gazing at him with what passes for concern in these parts. "Doctor McCoy, are you well?"
"No," he says, and his voice sounds like it's been abraded by sandpaper. He stares at her and wonders, Is this how it felt when Vulcan was destroyed?
He focuses on breathes slowly, in and out, aware that everyone in the lab is looking at him. He activates the centrifuge and nods at T'Pura. "It needs to spin for five minutes."
"Doctor McCoy," she says again, but he's not listening. He turns away from her and makes his way out of the lab, conscious of putting one foot carefully in front of the other. Everything feels so fragile and unreal, like if he takes a wrong step everything will come crashing down around him.
The New Vulcan sunlight hurts his eyes, and his head throbs sickeningly. He manages to take a few steps before his legs suddenly give out and he falls to the dusty ground. He doesn't feel much like trying to get up again, even when a small crowd begins to gather around him.
He's never felt fully Cylon. Even when he'd been on Kobol itself he'd felt isolated from the others; the Seven who had fallen in love with a human and could no longer live in harmony with his own people. He willingly left the collective to stand with the humans, has given the humans specifications on Cylon tech, and thinks of himself more as Leonard McCoy than as a Seven. He's always been just a little bit wary of his Cylon nature - it's convenient at times, like when he'd networked into the ship or helped install the FTL - but on the whole he prefers to push it away, keep that aspect of himself at arm's length.
But it's also true that no matter how closely he's come to identify with the humans, he has always taken a certain amount of comfort from being able to sense his Brothers. They've always been there, a gentle reassuring presence that lets him know he's not alone, and feeling so many of them vanish so suddenly fills him with a wild, unspeakable grief, an indescribable sense of loss. It's wrong, all wrong.
He isn't sure how long he's been crouched down in the dirt when he senses someone kneel down next to him. He feels cool fingers run through his hair and thinks it might be his vision of Jim come to comfort him, but when he looks up he sees platinum blonde hair and haunted blue eyes. Ruth. His Sister.
"Leonard," she says, and her voice is thick with the same agony that's making his chest tight and stealing his breath. "Leonard. The others..."
Her voice trails off, and McCoy can see tears sparkling on her cheeks. He reaches up to pull her against him and they rest their foreheads against each other, so close that their breath mingles. They are closer in this moment than they've ever been, two Cylons mourning the loss of their homeworld and their siblings.
On some level he can hear the people gathered around them mumbling among themselves - look at them, why are they crying, didn't think Cylons could cry - and then Scotty's there, his hand resting gently on Ruth's arm.
"You just went runnin', lass, took off with no warnin'. What's the matter?"
Ruth lifts her head and gazes up at her lover. "Something terrible has happened, Scotty," she says, her voice trembling. "So many of them, so suddenly..."
"Ruth?"
She leans against him and closes her eyes. Scotty brushes her hair behind her ear and looks over to McCoy.
"Doctor?"
McCoy shakes his head. He still hasn't found his voice, but the blinding pain of the headache is starting to fade. He wraps his arms around himself, feeling small and fragile and lost.
"Right," says Scotty to himself, and helps Ruth to her feet before reaching down to grasp McCoy's wrist and pull him up. "Best get you two out of here. Seems like everyone on th' Colony's coming to gawk, and you don't need that."
He's right. The three of them make their way toward the central Citadel where Jim and Spock are stuck in conference with the New Vulcan leadership, ignoring the few people who stop to stare at them. McCoy is grateful when they get inside, where it's cool and dim and his eyes don't hurt so much.
"Wait here. I'll go get Jim," says Scotty, and leaves them in one of the empty conference chambers. McCoy sinks into one of the chairs and closes his eyes, his hand reaching out to entwine with Ruth's.
"Sister," he says softly. He's never called her that before but right now the connection between them feels stronger than ever, tempered by their shared tragedy. "What happens now?"
"I don't know," she replies, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. "I don't know."
The sharp edge of grief has given way to numbness by the time McCoy hears the distinctive pattern of Jim's footsteps cross the room and stop in front of him. He doesn't open his eyes even when Jim takes his free hand and starts stroking the skin gently with his thumb, slow and soothing.
"Bones," he says softly. "Bones, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."
McCoy takes a deep breath and tries to gather his thoughts. "They're gone, Jim," he says finally. "Dead, really dead. So many..." The words get stuck in his throat and he just shakes his head, unable to continue. Jim's fingers slide up to McCoy's wrist and wrap around it, warm and solid and reassuring.
"Bones."
But McCoy can't explain, can't even begin to articulate the sense of loss running through his veins. Jim doesn't push further. He runs his fingers over McCoy's skin in one last caress before dropping his hand, and McCoy hears him move away and speak to Scotty in a low tone.
He takes a deep breath, trying to pull himself together, and feels gentle fingers brush against his nape. There's warm breath tickling his skin, and he hears Jim's voice (but no, not the real Jim, the real Jim is still over there talking to Scotty) whispering in his ear.
"Open your eyes, Leonard. Look around you."
When he does he's not on New Vulcan. It looks like Earth, before the Cylons nuked it, only McCoy can tell it's not - the sky is a shade too green, the trees look like nothing he's ever seen before, even in holovids, and even the air itself has a slightly different quality to it. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, trying to pinpoint it. He thinks it might be just a little thinner. Different smells, too. Sharper, spicier. Not like anything he's experienced before.
McCoy knows this is a projection. It has to be; there's no other explanation. It's not his, however - his visions are of Georgia, with the sun beaming down on him and the Blue Ridge Mountains hazy on the horizon. This is a world he's never seen before, a world that belongs to someone else.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Jim is smiling at him, the light of the strange sun making his hair shine like gold, and McCoy catches his breath at the sight. It's been too long since he's seen Jim like this in the real world, happy and carefree, and he can't help reaching out to touch his cheek. Jim turns his head so that he can press a kiss into McCoy's palm, and McCoy shivers.
If only this were real.
"This place," he says, and he's relieved that his voice doesn't shake. "What is it?"
"Earth." Jim moves away from McCoy, flinging his arms out as he turns in a circle. "Come on, enjoy it. You're not losing any time back in the real world."
"Earth?" McCoy raises his eyebrows in disbelief. "No, it's not. I used to live on Earth, you know. This is someplace different."
Jim glances back at him and shrugs. "Earth is Humanity's home, right? You'll find your way here and rebuild, humans and Cylons together. This is going to be your new home. That makes it Earth."
"Rebuild...?" McCoy stares at him in astonishment. "We haven't found any remotely habitable planets yet, much less one that looks like this. This place might not even exist in the real world. This is a projection, just some vision you brought me into -"
Jim moves back to him, rests his fingers lightly on Leonard's lips. "Oh, it exists." His smile turns sly. "It's been here for a long, long time, waiting. It's been waiting for thousands of years. And you're the one who's going to lead them here, Leonard; you're the one who's going to show them the way."
Leonard stares at him. "That's impossible. I don't even know where this is."
"Just trust me." Jim catches McCoy's wrist and gives a sharp tug, not letting go until they're sprawled out side by side on the grass. They're surrounded by its sweet, earthy smell, and McCoy breathes deep. New Vulcan is all desert, hot and dry; he's missed being surrounded by this kind of rich, verdant greenery.
Jim shifts until he's half sprawled over McCoy's chest and can run his fingers gently through his hair, learning down to whisper in McCoy's ear.
"Everything is changing. You can feel it, can't you? You've shown your Brothers that it's possible to love, that humans and Cylons can come together in peace. They no longer believe what the Ones have been telling them all along."
"But we still have such a long way to go," murmurs McCoy, his eyelids fluttering shut as Jim's fingers trail along his jaw. "Such a long way."
"Just believe," whispers Jim and presses his lips against McCoy's. "Everything will fall into place, I promise you."
McCoy opens his mouth to deepen this kiss, and Jim -
"Bones!"
McCoy opens his eyes with a gasp. He's back in the conference room on New Vulcan, with Jim's hands on his shoulders and Ruth and Scotty staring at him in concern. The vision of a planet with a blue-green sky and grass blowing in the soft breeze is gone, but he can still feel Jim's lingering kiss. He reaches up to press his fingers against his lips.
"Bones?" Jim's hands slide up to frame his face. "Bones, what happened? It's like you were just gone..."
McCoy blinks stupidly at him, still a bit disoriented. "Jim?"
"Yeah, it's me." Jim's fingers drop away from his face and takes a half-step back. "Bones, are you okay?"
McCoy glances at Ruth, wondering if she's ever had any of these visions, but all he sees in her eyes is worry and confusion. He takes a deep breath, then another, and gets to his feet.
"Jim," he says, enunciating carefully, "I think I'd like to go back to the Enterprise?"
"Yeah," says Jim. "Yeah, whatever you want. There's nothing urgent we need to be doing down here at the moment." He gets to his feet and reaches out to squeeze McCoy's shoulders, as though reassuring himself of his presence. "Let's go."
The four of them make their way outside in silence, avoiding everyone's eyes until Jim flips his communicator open and gives the order for them to be beamed up.
"Captain?" asks the tech on duty as they materialize on the pad. "Is everything all right? We were under the impression that you would be on the planet until tomorrow..."
"Something came up," says Jim shortly. "Everything's fine, we just need some privacy."
"Of course, sir."
They leave the transporter room together, Scotty's hand resting protectively in the small of Ruth's back and Jim letting his shoulder bump lightly against McCoy's as they make their way back to their quarters. Before their paths diverge McCoy reaches out to brush his fingers against Ruth's. Their eyes meet for a long moment, and for a second McCoy doesn't want to leave her, wants to stay here in the presence of one of his siblings, someone who can understand the loss still rippling through his mind.
He still has Jim, though, pulling him onward through the corridors toward the Captain's quarters. He's not alone. Once the door slides shut behind them he pulls Jim into his arms, holding him so tight that Jim can barely move.
"Be here with me," he whispers harshly. "Be here with me, now."
Because Jim is still alive, still real, still warm and breathing, and McCoy wants to feel that, sink into Jim's heat and energy and bask in it. And Jim is more than willing, fisting his hands into Bones' hair and biting at his lips, gasping breathily into his mouth when McCoy bends down to nip at his earlobe. They tumble onto the bed as they pull at each others' clothes, eager to feel skin on skin, and McCoy moans when he feels Jim's weight on top of him. This is what he needs. He needs to know that even though there's a jagged hole at the edge of his consciousness he's not lost; he still has Jim; they're still together.
They curl up together in the aftermath, McCoy with his head on Jim's chest and Jim tracing soothing patterns on every bit of skin he can reach.
"Things are changing, Jim," says McCoy softly into the darkness. "And you're going to have to be ready for it." The words come from somewhere deep inside him, spilling out from some dark, secret place and taking form as they leave his lips. "We're at the brink of something new."
Jim must be half-asleep already because he doesn't say anything other than a soft, "Just go to sleep, Bones, things'll be better in the morning," and tightens his arms around McCoy's shoulders as his breathing evens out.
McCoy closes his eyes and listens to Jim's heartbeat, slow and steady under his ear. The sound of it lulls him to sleep.
* * *
Two days later a Cylon basestar jumps into orbit around New Vulcan, sending the Enterprise into high alert and causing waves of panic on the planet's surface. Jim is up on the bridge snapping out orders to raise shields and prepare to fire when Bones comes running out of the turbolift, Ruth hard on his heels. Jim glares at them.
"I distinctly recall ordering all personnel to action stations. That means you should be in Sickbay and Engineering."
"We know that Jim - Captain," amends Bones quickly, "but give it a minute. Hold your fire."
"Doctor McCoy," says Jim, laying deliberate emphasis on the title. "Return to your post. That's an order."
Bones' hands clench into fists, but Jim can see him waver. There's always been an understanding between them that no matter what else they might be to each other, when they're on duty Jim is the Captain and Bones will abide by his decisions. He's pushing the line by abandoning his post when there's a red alert, and Bones knows it.
"Captain," says Ruth, low and urgent, just as Uhura reports that they're being hailed. The bridge is silent and tense as everyone waits to see what Jim will do.
"Captain," repeats Ruth. "I - we - think that they're not a threat. They're not here to attack."
Jim locks eyes with her, weighing her words, then glances over at Bones. Bones nods his affirmation.
"They haven't fired on us," he points out. "Haven't spooled up their weapons or launched the Raiders."
That's true. They haven't. "All right," says Jim. "Put them on viewscreen." He turns back to the main viewscreen as Spock takes his position behind the command chair. Bones and Ruth are there, too, their eyes fixed straight ahead.
The screen flickers and then resolves into Bones' face. No, not Bones. A Seven. Jim has to take a deep breath to try and steel himself against the confused flood of emotion that seeing this particular Number always evokes, and barely even notices Ruth's soft gasp of recognition or the way Bones steps forward.
"It's good to see you again," says Bones to the Seven, and Jim frowns.
"You know him?"
"So do you," answers Bones. "It's Daniel."
Daniel. Jim looks a little closer, and now that he's looking for it he can see the ever-present shadow of sadness in those blue eyes and recognize the cadence in the Seven's voice when he speaks.
"Captain Kirk. Jim. Please believe me when I say that we have no intention of attacking you."
"Yeah," says Jim, still staring at him. He remembers the hours he spent on the observation deck gazing out at the stars while Daniel sketched and spoke to him of Kobol, remembers the pain of going to his room that morning and seeing a limp body hanging from the ceiling. But here he is, whole and alive and looking right at him.
Jim has never believed that Daniel is a threat to humanity, never believed that he went back to the Cylons in order to tell them where exactly the remnants of humanity were hiding. If Daniel says now that they're not going to attack, Jim isn't going to be the one to open fire.
"Yeah, I believe you." And then, because he can't help himself, "You look better than the last time I saw you."
A small smile flutters across Daniel's face. "A lot of things have changed." His eyes shift from Kirk to Bones and Ruth. "You know what's happened?"
"We sensed something," replies Ruth. "Thousands of Cylons flickering out at once. Kobol's gone?"
"Kobol's gone," repeats Daniel, and Jim has to look away from the grief in his face even as something inside him whispers that it's only fair that the Cylons should know the loss of a homeworld.
Daniel's still speaking. "That's what we want to talk to you about. What you felt was a series of attacks launched against us by the Klingon and Romulan Empires, but there has also been a...split within the Cylon collective. A disagreement over the path we should pursue in the future." Jim notices the way he shifts slightly, his eyes flickering restlessly from Bones to Ruth to Jim. Whatever's happened with the Cylons, it's big. His mind is already calculating what that might mean for them, how they can use it to their advantage. If the current power structure is destabilized...
"Our faction believes that the Cylon hostilities were misguided, and continuing down that path would be disastrous. The reason we're here now is to try and find a new way forward, for both of us."
Jim hears someone snort in derision. He frowns a little in irritation; he can understand how ridiculous this proposition sounds, but... he trusts Daniel. More than that, this might be the chance humanity's been waiting for, the chance to reclaim a place in the universe for themselves, and he's not sure that they can afford to let it pass them by.
Jim has always been willing to play for high stakes. He'll gamble on this.
"All right," he says slowly, deliberately ignoring the shocked murmurs that rise up behind him. "All right, I'm willing to listen to you. You can come aboard the Enterprise -"
"No," says Daniel, shaking his head. "We came here to you, without the rest of our Fleet, and that includes the Resurrection Ships. You understand?"
Jim does. He can see the gesture for what it is, a sign of trust and good faith - if the Enterprise had opened fire, the Cylons killed in the attack would have died permanent deaths out of downloading range. Now Daniel is waiting to see if he'll validate their trust. He looks a little closer, sees the wariness lurking in Daniel's eyes. It has to be difficult for him, Jim realizes - his experience on the Poseidon has to have left him with a knee-jerk reaction against leaving himself vulnerable in the presence of humans. He's trying, though. Because he trusts Jim.
"Fair enough," he says finally. "We'll go to you. You can expect us within the hour."
Something in Daniel's face relaxes, and Jim sees a small smile flash across his face. "Thank you."
"See you soon."
The screen goes dark, and Jim turns around to see his crew looking at him with expressions ranging from concern to outright disbelief. "Captain," begins Spock, his features even more rigid than usual, clearly ready to begin a diatribe on how illogical this course of action is.
Jim cuts him off. "You have the conn, Mister Spock. Doctor McCoy, you're with me." He glances at Ruth. "You, too. Get Scotty and meet us in the transporter room."
"Captain," repeats Spock. "As Science Officer, I believe my presence will also be necessary. I have no doubt the Cylon basestar will yield an abundance of data that will serve to enhance our understanding of them, and I will need to be on hand in order to collate the data."
Bones snorts. "Logical as ever, huh Mister Spock?"
Spock looks slightly affronted. "Indeed."
Jim leans back in his chair and gazes up at his First. "And leave the ship without any of her senior officers on board? Somehow I don't see you endorsing that."
Spock's spine is ramrod straight. "I would...prefer to accompany you, Captain," he says stiffly, and this time Jim hears the unspoken words: Spock wants to make sure nothing happens. He's no happier with sending his friends into a potentially complicated situation than Jim would be, and accompanying them will at least give him some sense of control.
Jim can certainly understand that. He smiles wryly. "Why Spock, I never thought I'd see you so sentimental."
Spock doesn't bother dignifying that with a response, and Jim gets to his feet. "So, Mister Sulu, think you can handle things while we're gone?"
"Aye, sir." Sulu's face is as earnest as ever as he moves toward the Command Chair, and Jim heads for the turbolift with the other three close on his heels. He knows he should be worried. This could be a trap. The Cylons could be waiting to kill the senior officers and cripple the Enterprise, then order the rest of their Fleet to jump into orbit and destroy New Vulcan. They could be planning to hold them hostage, conduct biological experiments on them. There are a myriad of reasons why this is stupid.
But Jim didn't become the youngest Captain in Starfleet history by playing it safe. He has a feel for when to trust to instinct, and everything in him is telling him this is one of those times when it's better to leap.
Sometimes the biggest risks yield the greatest rewards.
Part Two