BSG Drabble: The Choice (Helo/Athena)
Title: The Choice
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairings: Helo/Athena
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 for sexuality
Format & Word Count: drabble, 317 words
Summary: Sharon's got what the Cylons want from Helo, so now it's time to kill him. But what about what Sharon wants? [1x7, Six Degrees of Separation]
Author's Notes: Written for roh_wyn for International Women's Day 2011.
Now that Helo has impregnated her (and as soon as the embryo forms, and then implants in her womb, she knows--one of the many advantages of Cylon physiology), she's supposed to kill him. She fully intends to--once he is asleep.
It's not that she couldn't kill him handily in combat. Despite his having the advantage of size, she's still got the strength of a machine and the brain of a computer. Helo is no match for her. At least not in that way.
But if Eights are anything, it's not cold-blooded killers (she feels her sister Eight's--Boomer's--daily struggle against her self-realization and programming to assassinate Adama). Nor are they detached lovers, a trait they share with the Sixes, for which they are mercilessly mocked by the Ones. Sharon has enjoyed sex--no, intimacy--with Helo too much to look him in the eyes as she betrays him. Especially now that that act has created another being. A weakness, no doubt, but one she has come to accept, even embrace.
In the back seat of a jeep in an abandoned parking garage, they make love (one last time, for nostalgia), and afterward he holds her.
Then, waiting for sleep to claim him, she looks around at the crumbling concrete structure and asks the question that is their undoing: "How do you see all this destruction and not give up? Why do you fight to stay alive when you've--we've--" she amends "--lost everything?"
Helo doesn't even miss a beat. "It sounds really selfish," he says, sleepily, nuzzling her neck, his fingers sliding innocently over the belly he doesn't know carries his child, "but somehow I've gotten the only thing I've ever wanted."
"You're such a hopeless romantic," she says, flippantly, though she swallows hard and closes her eyes as her mind is barraged by the shared consciousness of her sister Eight--Boomer--after whom Helo has silently pined for years, never acting on his feelings because he respects her too much, is too loyal to his friend Gaelen, is too good a man to degrade himself by giving in to the sin of envy.
And Sharon knows, then, that she won't--can't--kill him.
Because he's the only thing she's ever wanted, too.
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairings: Helo/Athena
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 for sexuality
Format & Word Count: drabble, 317 words
Summary: Sharon's got what the Cylons want from Helo, so now it's time to kill him. But what about what Sharon wants? [1x7, Six Degrees of Separation]
Author's Notes: Written for roh_wyn for International Women's Day 2011.
Now that Helo has impregnated her (and as soon as the embryo forms, and then implants in her womb, she knows--one of the many advantages of Cylon physiology), she's supposed to kill him. She fully intends to--once he is asleep.
It's not that she couldn't kill him handily in combat. Despite his having the advantage of size, she's still got the strength of a machine and the brain of a computer. Helo is no match for her. At least not in that way.
But if Eights are anything, it's not cold-blooded killers (she feels her sister Eight's--Boomer's--daily struggle against her self-realization and programming to assassinate Adama). Nor are they detached lovers, a trait they share with the Sixes, for which they are mercilessly mocked by the Ones. Sharon has enjoyed sex--no, intimacy--with Helo too much to look him in the eyes as she betrays him. Especially now that that act has created another being. A weakness, no doubt, but one she has come to accept, even embrace.
In the back seat of a jeep in an abandoned parking garage, they make love (one last time, for nostalgia), and afterward he holds her.
Then, waiting for sleep to claim him, she looks around at the crumbling concrete structure and asks the question that is their undoing: "How do you see all this destruction and not give up? Why do you fight to stay alive when you've--we've--" she amends "--lost everything?"
Helo doesn't even miss a beat. "It sounds really selfish," he says, sleepily, nuzzling her neck, his fingers sliding innocently over the belly he doesn't know carries his child, "but somehow I've gotten the only thing I've ever wanted."
"You're such a hopeless romantic," she says, flippantly, though she swallows hard and closes her eyes as her mind is barraged by the shared consciousness of her sister Eight--Boomer--after whom Helo has silently pined for years, never acting on his feelings because he respects her too much, is too loyal to his friend Gaelen, is too good a man to degrade himself by giving in to the sin of envy.
And Sharon knows, then, that she won't--can't--kill him.
Because he's the only thing she's ever wanted, too.