Fic: "Shadowplay" (BSG)
For sionnain. Leoben and Kara, pre-s3. I hope you like it, darling. ::nervous::
Warning for, you know, psychological twistiness. Many thank-yous to likeadeuce for beta'ing.
"Hello, Kara," he says when they bring her in.
In the end it was a Six and a Four who found her, who contained her rage and stunned her body into bruised docility. It is unfortunate that he was not able to locate her himself. Her husband had proved unhelpful, and destiny ran another way. But the pattern is complete, and that is what matters. She is here.
She ignores his greeting, glaring with raw hatred and defiance from behind the blood and bruises. The disfigurements are likewise unfortunate, but will fade in time. Not so the ones on her arm and back--black ink marring God's creation, a blasphemy--but those can be forgiven. All will be forgiven when she comes to the truth, when she submits to God's light. He will even forgive her her anger.
The Six moves to untie Kara's hands, and Leoben shakes his head. "Leave it," he tells her, settling down in the single chair that furnishes the empty room. "Acceptance of her environment, of what is given by God, will be her first lesson."
"Frak you," Kara spits as the Six and Four turn and go, leaving her on the floor.
"Anger won't help you, Kara. Not here. Not anymore." He tilts his head and studies her for a moment. "Perhaps it never has."
"I don't know what game you think you're playing, but--"
"This is not a game." His voice rises to be heard above her anger, and he regrets it. Impatience serves no purpose. Returning her anger with his own is not what God wants from him. "Of all the things in all the worlds, Kara Thrace, this is not a game."
***
Three days pass before she asks him to untie her hands.
She has demanded, she has screamed, she has flung herself at him as if to kill him with teeth and fury, she has sat in numb and sulky silence for hours; but until now she has not asked.
Her muscles are tense and she bows her head when she says it, an exaggeration of submission. "Would you please untie me? Please." He knows that she means it as a subterfuge, a shadowplay, that she tells herself it is an act to serve her purpose and that she will never truly submit.
Let her believe as she will. It is the first step toward him.
***
She paces, she prowls, she finds peace and sense of self in movement. So on the seventh day he brings two Centurions in, and they force her to her knees so he can bind her hands again, and her ankles.
They lie her on her side on the floor, facing away from him. He sits in his chair, resting his elbows on the table that was provided when she humbled herself to ask, and he watches her.
Shudders run through her body with every breath, fear and anger and tension, and he thinks that the energy set free if she let those things go would burn bright as a sun.
"Please untie me," she says after only a few minutes, falling upon the first lesson.
"That's good," he replies softly, approvingly, wanting to give her praise. "You learned. But we've moved on to a new lesson, Kara."
"Yeah? And what's that? You going to come over here and rape me?"
"I'm not going to touch you, Kara." She expects nothing but violence from the world. He regrets that he had to use it on her at all, but she permits no other way past her defenses.
"Then what the frak are you going to do?"
"Be still," he says simply, answer and command at once. "The lesson is stillness, Kara. Of the body, and the mind, and the soul."
Her body still shakes, with rage and then with frustration and then with exhaustion and tears. He watches and he waits for her to learn.
***
On the eleventh day he tells her that her husband is dead.
Details come swiftly when she demands them: he attacked a Cylon outside a food-distribution site. His skull was crushed. His body was hung in the market as an example.
On the twelfth day he tells her that he lied, that her husband died of his illness.
On the thirteenth day, he tells her that her husband lives.
On the fourteenth day, that Galactica has been taken, that all of her former shipmates are in detention cells all around her.
On the fifteenth day, that Galactica was destroyed and all hands lost.
On the sixteenth day, that nothing has changed in the outside world, that all is exactly as she left it, that no one has noticed that she is gone.
On the seventeenth day, he tells her that her husband has been shot, and she cracks, throwing herself at him with a howl of rage.
"Stop lying to me, you bastard," she screams, closing her hands around his throat. "Everything you say is a lie."
He breaks her hold easily, pinning her hands at her sides until her anger spends itself and she stands shivering and half-sobbing before him.
"Tell me the truth," she begs, too shaken to know she does so. "Why won't you tell me the truth?"
"I will," he assures her gently, caressing her wrists with his thumbs. "As soon as you begin to believe me, Kara, I will."
***
On the twenty-first day, he goes out into the settlement and searches for a child.
It takes hours to find one that satisfies, but his faith is in God's will, and at last he comes around a corner and sees the little girl.
He assigns an Eight to keep an eye on her. It is not time to take her yet. Kara isn't ready.
***
He doesn't return until day twenty-four, and she's desperate enough that she takes two eager steps toward him before she catches herself. "Where the frak have you been?" she demands, pacing from the table to the sofa that was her reward for the lesson of stillness. "I could've starved to death in here."
"You will not starve," he corrects gently. "God will provide for you."
"Yeah, well, God had a hell of a time getting past security, I guess, because he didn't provide shit."
"If you had faith, Kara, God would lay a table in the wilderness."
She licks her lips and looks at him uncertainly, her eyes bright and wild with defiance melting into hunger, and terror over all. "Are you the same one?" she asks abruptly. "Are you the Leoben I met before? The one Roslin put out the airlock. Were you close enough to download after all?"
He only smiles. If he gives her all the answers, she will never learn to love to learn.
She laughs sharply. "Gods, I prayed for your soul. Prayed you would find deliverance. I'm such a frakking idiot."
"Mercy is a step toward God, Kara," he tells her. "Mercy for others and for yourself as well."
***
On the twenty-sixth day he asks her to stand facing the wall, her palms against it at shoulder height.
"Do you know what this is?" he asks, standing behind her and holding a collection of leather straps and metal in front of her face.
"No."
"It's a device from your race's unpleasant and colorful past." He shifts it in his hands until her breath catches in understanding, as the shape of it comes clear. "It's called a scold's bridle."
"It's a frakking torture device," she says.
"The element of torture comes from the resistance, dear Kara." He turns it in his hands again. "You're going to wear it for a while. The lesson is silence."
"Leoben," she says, her voice shaking just a little. "That's really going to hurt."
"The way to God passes through fields of pain."
"I don't want to meet your God."
He shakes his head and slides the bit into her mouth, bringing the straps around and buckling them behind her head. "He wants to meet you."
***
On the thirtieth day, she kills him for the first time.
As he bleeds out on the floor, she stands over him and laughs in triumph, and he smiles.
***
On the thirty-second day, he returns to her, the pain of downloading a memory and a lesson learned, his faith soothed and renewed by the dream-thick words of the Hybrid.
She sees him and she curses, summoning all of her bravado to hide the dismay she cannot help. For all that in her mind she knows he cannot be destroyed, her humanity continues to tell her that death is eternal. His return makes another chink in her armor, another hole in her wall.
"Hello, Kara," he says, taking a seat at the table. "Did you miss me?"
"Frak, no," she snaps, chin high.
He smiles. "Today's lesson is truth."
Warning for, you know, psychological twistiness. Many thank-yous to likeadeuce for beta'ing.
"Hello, Kara," he says when they bring her in.
In the end it was a Six and a Four who found her, who contained her rage and stunned her body into bruised docility. It is unfortunate that he was not able to locate her himself. Her husband had proved unhelpful, and destiny ran another way. But the pattern is complete, and that is what matters. She is here.
She ignores his greeting, glaring with raw hatred and defiance from behind the blood and bruises. The disfigurements are likewise unfortunate, but will fade in time. Not so the ones on her arm and back--black ink marring God's creation, a blasphemy--but those can be forgiven. All will be forgiven when she comes to the truth, when she submits to God's light. He will even forgive her her anger.
The Six moves to untie Kara's hands, and Leoben shakes his head. "Leave it," he tells her, settling down in the single chair that furnishes the empty room. "Acceptance of her environment, of what is given by God, will be her first lesson."
"Frak you," Kara spits as the Six and Four turn and go, leaving her on the floor.
"Anger won't help you, Kara. Not here. Not anymore." He tilts his head and studies her for a moment. "Perhaps it never has."
"I don't know what game you think you're playing, but--"
"This is not a game." His voice rises to be heard above her anger, and he regrets it. Impatience serves no purpose. Returning her anger with his own is not what God wants from him. "Of all the things in all the worlds, Kara Thrace, this is not a game."
***
Three days pass before she asks him to untie her hands.
She has demanded, she has screamed, she has flung herself at him as if to kill him with teeth and fury, she has sat in numb and sulky silence for hours; but until now she has not asked.
Her muscles are tense and she bows her head when she says it, an exaggeration of submission. "Would you please untie me? Please." He knows that she means it as a subterfuge, a shadowplay, that she tells herself it is an act to serve her purpose and that she will never truly submit.
Let her believe as she will. It is the first step toward him.
***
She paces, she prowls, she finds peace and sense of self in movement. So on the seventh day he brings two Centurions in, and they force her to her knees so he can bind her hands again, and her ankles.
They lie her on her side on the floor, facing away from him. He sits in his chair, resting his elbows on the table that was provided when she humbled herself to ask, and he watches her.
Shudders run through her body with every breath, fear and anger and tension, and he thinks that the energy set free if she let those things go would burn bright as a sun.
"Please untie me," she says after only a few minutes, falling upon the first lesson.
"That's good," he replies softly, approvingly, wanting to give her praise. "You learned. But we've moved on to a new lesson, Kara."
"Yeah? And what's that? You going to come over here and rape me?"
"I'm not going to touch you, Kara." She expects nothing but violence from the world. He regrets that he had to use it on her at all, but she permits no other way past her defenses.
"Then what the frak are you going to do?"
"Be still," he says simply, answer and command at once. "The lesson is stillness, Kara. Of the body, and the mind, and the soul."
Her body still shakes, with rage and then with frustration and then with exhaustion and tears. He watches and he waits for her to learn.
***
On the eleventh day he tells her that her husband is dead.
Details come swiftly when she demands them: he attacked a Cylon outside a food-distribution site. His skull was crushed. His body was hung in the market as an example.
On the twelfth day he tells her that he lied, that her husband died of his illness.
On the thirteenth day, he tells her that her husband lives.
On the fourteenth day, that Galactica has been taken, that all of her former shipmates are in detention cells all around her.
On the fifteenth day, that Galactica was destroyed and all hands lost.
On the sixteenth day, that nothing has changed in the outside world, that all is exactly as she left it, that no one has noticed that she is gone.
On the seventeenth day, he tells her that her husband has been shot, and she cracks, throwing herself at him with a howl of rage.
"Stop lying to me, you bastard," she screams, closing her hands around his throat. "Everything you say is a lie."
He breaks her hold easily, pinning her hands at her sides until her anger spends itself and she stands shivering and half-sobbing before him.
"Tell me the truth," she begs, too shaken to know she does so. "Why won't you tell me the truth?"
"I will," he assures her gently, caressing her wrists with his thumbs. "As soon as you begin to believe me, Kara, I will."
***
On the twenty-first day, he goes out into the settlement and searches for a child.
It takes hours to find one that satisfies, but his faith is in God's will, and at last he comes around a corner and sees the little girl.
He assigns an Eight to keep an eye on her. It is not time to take her yet. Kara isn't ready.
***
He doesn't return until day twenty-four, and she's desperate enough that she takes two eager steps toward him before she catches herself. "Where the frak have you been?" she demands, pacing from the table to the sofa that was her reward for the lesson of stillness. "I could've starved to death in here."
"You will not starve," he corrects gently. "God will provide for you."
"Yeah, well, God had a hell of a time getting past security, I guess, because he didn't provide shit."
"If you had faith, Kara, God would lay a table in the wilderness."
She licks her lips and looks at him uncertainly, her eyes bright and wild with defiance melting into hunger, and terror over all. "Are you the same one?" she asks abruptly. "Are you the Leoben I met before? The one Roslin put out the airlock. Were you close enough to download after all?"
He only smiles. If he gives her all the answers, she will never learn to love to learn.
She laughs sharply. "Gods, I prayed for your soul. Prayed you would find deliverance. I'm such a frakking idiot."
"Mercy is a step toward God, Kara," he tells her. "Mercy for others and for yourself as well."
***
On the twenty-sixth day he asks her to stand facing the wall, her palms against it at shoulder height.
"Do you know what this is?" he asks, standing behind her and holding a collection of leather straps and metal in front of her face.
"No."
"It's a device from your race's unpleasant and colorful past." He shifts it in his hands until her breath catches in understanding, as the shape of it comes clear. "It's called a scold's bridle."
"It's a frakking torture device," she says.
"The element of torture comes from the resistance, dear Kara." He turns it in his hands again. "You're going to wear it for a while. The lesson is silence."
"Leoben," she says, her voice shaking just a little. "That's really going to hurt."
"The way to God passes through fields of pain."
"I don't want to meet your God."
He shakes his head and slides the bit into her mouth, bringing the straps around and buckling them behind her head. "He wants to meet you."
***
On the thirtieth day, she kills him for the first time.
As he bleeds out on the floor, she stands over him and laughs in triumph, and he smiles.
***
On the thirty-second day, he returns to her, the pain of downloading a memory and a lesson learned, his faith soothed and renewed by the dream-thick words of the Hybrid.
She sees him and she curses, summoning all of her bravado to hide the dismay she cannot help. For all that in her mind she knows he cannot be destroyed, her humanity continues to tell her that death is eternal. His return makes another chink in her armor, another hole in her wall.
"Hello, Kara," he says, taking a seat at the table. "Did you miss me?"
"Frak, no," she snaps, chin high.
He smiles. "Today's lesson is truth."