Fic: Thus Shall it Come to Pass - Chapter 2
Title: Thus Shall it Come to Pass
Author: L145
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (RDM)
Character Focus: Kara Thrace (primary), Cylon Model #7, Ellen Tigh, Lee Adama (secondaries)
Flags: Gen
Spoilers: Through 415: No Exit. Diverges from the main series there, although this may include some aspects of future episodes that I accurately predicted.
Summary: When Ellen returns to the Galactica, she brings many revelations - and Kara Thrace is at the center of them all.
Sorry this took so long, guys! RL caught up with me with my parents being gone. This chapter was actually written entirely on notecards at work. So... it might not be up to my usual standards, seeing as anything I write by hand is never as good as what I write by computer. But here it is, anyway!
Chapter Two
The two weeks after Sam's death were surprisingly easy for Kara.
There were times, of course, difficult times when she'd reach up to tug at the bullet hanging from her dog tags, when she'd picture his face in her mind. Times when she'd roll over in her bunk and be jerked awake at the surprise of hitting air instead of a warm body. Times when she found herself walking to sickbay and making it halfway there before realizing her reason for making that trip no longer existed in this world.
But most of the time, she forgot. Her job was taxing, weighing down on her as she waded through report after report, each one coming up negative on either the proper atmospheric makeup or the wildlife necessities or the water content or some other slight detail that made that specific chunk of rock uninhabitable.
It was neverending.
Four hours of sleep had become normal, routine for her, with double CAPs every other day, pilot briefings every day, and pilot refresher classes three times a week, all in addition to the already heavy task of paperwork. Her eyes were crawling, her attention wavering, yet she pushed on and forced her way forward, believing there had to be something waiting.
She had died and she had come back, and she had found her burnt and decayed body on a desolate excuse for a planet. That had to mean something.
But she was clueless to what that something was.
--
During the mutiny, Roslin had stepped back into her Presidential role, seemingly doing better, regaining that spark of life she had lost after learning the truth about Earth and the Scrolls of Pythia.
But it couldn't be denied that she was deathly ill still, even after all the mental rejuvenation she had just experienced. Her physical health was rapidly declining, and by the end of that second week after Sam's death, she had been placed in his old cot in sickbay, tubes connected to her nose and wrist, monitors beeping continuously around her.
Her eyes fluttered now and then, but she was rarely awake now for more than a few minutes at a time to make necessary political decisions. The cancer was rapidly spreading, painful and relentless, and she was kept sedated for long blocks, hours, to try to help the diloxin work. However, the time had come to accept that it was just too late for her. Doc Cottle estimated only another week before her body would protest and simply cease to function.
Morale in the fleet was already at its lowest point since the Cylon occupation on New Caprica, and elections would only aggrivate the masses further. No, President Laura Roslin insisted on appointing her replacement, between hoarse gasps, a plea whispered to Doc Cottle desperately at 0218: "I - I would like to speak with Lee."
Even though the time was early, he, Admiral Adama, and a priest were all huddled around her hospital bed within the next half hour. Lee repeated the Presidential Oath solemnly, and then Adama held Roslin's hand until she fell under again.
--
Kara had finally managed to sort through all of her paperwork and drift off to sleep in her bunk at 0330. Revile was at 0600 and her first briefing wasn't until 0730, so she was thinking that she was doing fairly well.
Until her phone rang at 0520.
"CAG," she muttered into the handset, her eyes still squinted shut from the exhaustion, trying to ignore their itching protest to waking up.
Adama's grumbling voice boomed through the receiver, waking her up better than any call of revile ever did. "Kara. I'd like to have a chat. 0630."
Her eyes slowly opened and she sighed, her brain processing this information. Any chance of getting more sleep was completely gone at this point.
"I'll be there. 0630," she repeated, before setting the handset back in its holder.
Another long day ahead.
--
Ellen Tigh sat in the back of Boomer's Raptor, legs crossed, hands folded, shoulders back, the epitome of calm, of wisdom, of understanding the next step on the pattern of fate before it was even taken.
"How do you know where the fleet is?" she asked with a saccharine tone, fake and coy.
Boomer didn't even glance back as she responded, "I saw it in Cavil's documents."
It was a fair response, short and quick and to the point. Yet, Ellen picked out a small detail in the wording, one that made her chuckle and sigh.
"Don't you think it's odd," she began. "I gave him the name 'John' and he discards it because it is a Human name. But then the name he chooses for himself is also a Human name."
"I think it's that he chose it himself," Boomer replied. "That's what matters."
Ellen stood then and walked to the front of the Raptor, picking up a small slip of paper from atop the computers lining the side wall on her way. "And you - I gave you the name Sharon, also a Human name. And the Humans gave you the name Boomer, to make you feel less Human, more capable for fighting. Yet you keep both, you will answer to both. Why is that?"
Pressing her lips tight into a frown, Boomer roughly swiveled her seat over to face her superior. "It's none of your business."
"As your Creator, I'd say it is entirely my business," Ellen smirked in response.
Boomer shook her head and stood then, placing her hands on her waist before turning to walk towards the back of the Raptor herself. "That doesn't matter anymore."
Ellen watched the younger Cylon move to the back of the Raptor where she had previously been calmly sitting, Boomer's hands trailing over the keys on one of the input terminals, hesitating slightly, not typing any numbers in yet.
Before Boomer could enter any data, Ellen held out the slip of paper she had been clutching. "Here are the jump coordinates."
Confused, Boomer took the paper from Ellen's hands and studied the numbers carefully. Then, she looked up. "These aren't the coordinates back to the fleet."
"I know," Ellen nodded. "We need to stop someplace else, first."
--
At 0630, promptly on time, Kara Thrace knocked on Admiral Adama's hatch and was quietly led inside by a man that looked ten years older than the last time she had seen him.
"Admiral," she stated in surprise, her eyes widening at seeing the large bags under his eyes.
His only response was to motion to the chair opposite his desk, which she quickly moved to sit in. He took the chair behind the desk, himself, and took out a small black felt covered box from a drawer, keeping it hidden the best he could from Kara's sight.
"What's going on?" she asked. "Did something happen?"
He looked up at her, then, a small and sad smile crossing his face. "Roslin's... not doing too good."
Nodding in response, she focused her eyes down to the floor.
"Last night, she..." he choked on his words a moment and had to cough to clear his throat before he could continue. "She realized she couldn't be the kind of President we need anymore. She called for a few people and now Lee's the President. Seeing my son being sworn in... it made me think about a lot of things. Roslin's very sick, and she's going to die. I'm older than she is, and there's no saying I won't just fall over and die any moment, either. I can't have Saul be Admiral, there's enough hostility with him being my XO."
"A-are you looking for a recommendation, sir?" Kara finally managed to ask after a moment of silence, watching her surrogate father struggle with the difficulty of the situation.
Shaking his head, he pushed the box into her sight now and opened it.
"No, I've made up my mind. Congratulations, Admiral Thrace."
Her eyes widened and shot up to meet his. "No, sir, I - I can't accept this -"
"You've handled being CAG after Sam's death better than anyone I've seen handle a position after a loved one has died," he stated. "That's enough for me to know you'll do me proud."
He reached out and took the two Admiral pins out of the case and handed them to her.
Staring down at the shiny pieces of bronze in her hands, she rolled them over and over with her fingers, watching the light glint off of the metal. Finally, after a moment of contemplation - of knowing there were really too many unknowns for her to be able to adequately be the Admiral of the fleet, but also knowing that there was no changing Adama's mind - she stood up from the chair and saluted.
"It will be an honor... Sir."
Author: L145
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (RDM)
Character Focus: Kara Thrace (primary), Cylon Model #7, Ellen Tigh, Lee Adama (secondaries)
Flags: Gen
Spoilers: Through 415: No Exit. Diverges from the main series there, although this may include some aspects of future episodes that I accurately predicted.
Summary: When Ellen returns to the Galactica, she brings many revelations - and Kara Thrace is at the center of them all.
Sorry this took so long, guys! RL caught up with me with my parents being gone. This chapter was actually written entirely on notecards at work. So... it might not be up to my usual standards, seeing as anything I write by hand is never as good as what I write by computer. But here it is, anyway!
Chapter Two
The two weeks after Sam's death were surprisingly easy for Kara.
There were times, of course, difficult times when she'd reach up to tug at the bullet hanging from her dog tags, when she'd picture his face in her mind. Times when she'd roll over in her bunk and be jerked awake at the surprise of hitting air instead of a warm body. Times when she found herself walking to sickbay and making it halfway there before realizing her reason for making that trip no longer existed in this world.
But most of the time, she forgot. Her job was taxing, weighing down on her as she waded through report after report, each one coming up negative on either the proper atmospheric makeup or the wildlife necessities or the water content or some other slight detail that made that specific chunk of rock uninhabitable.
It was neverending.
Four hours of sleep had become normal, routine for her, with double CAPs every other day, pilot briefings every day, and pilot refresher classes three times a week, all in addition to the already heavy task of paperwork. Her eyes were crawling, her attention wavering, yet she pushed on and forced her way forward, believing there had to be something waiting.
She had died and she had come back, and she had found her burnt and decayed body on a desolate excuse for a planet. That had to mean something.
But she was clueless to what that something was.
--
During the mutiny, Roslin had stepped back into her Presidential role, seemingly doing better, regaining that spark of life she had lost after learning the truth about Earth and the Scrolls of Pythia.
But it couldn't be denied that she was deathly ill still, even after all the mental rejuvenation she had just experienced. Her physical health was rapidly declining, and by the end of that second week after Sam's death, she had been placed in his old cot in sickbay, tubes connected to her nose and wrist, monitors beeping continuously around her.
Her eyes fluttered now and then, but she was rarely awake now for more than a few minutes at a time to make necessary political decisions. The cancer was rapidly spreading, painful and relentless, and she was kept sedated for long blocks, hours, to try to help the diloxin work. However, the time had come to accept that it was just too late for her. Doc Cottle estimated only another week before her body would protest and simply cease to function.
Morale in the fleet was already at its lowest point since the Cylon occupation on New Caprica, and elections would only aggrivate the masses further. No, President Laura Roslin insisted on appointing her replacement, between hoarse gasps, a plea whispered to Doc Cottle desperately at 0218: "I - I would like to speak with Lee."
Even though the time was early, he, Admiral Adama, and a priest were all huddled around her hospital bed within the next half hour. Lee repeated the Presidential Oath solemnly, and then Adama held Roslin's hand until she fell under again.
--
Kara had finally managed to sort through all of her paperwork and drift off to sleep in her bunk at 0330. Revile was at 0600 and her first briefing wasn't until 0730, so she was thinking that she was doing fairly well.
Until her phone rang at 0520.
"CAG," she muttered into the handset, her eyes still squinted shut from the exhaustion, trying to ignore their itching protest to waking up.
Adama's grumbling voice boomed through the receiver, waking her up better than any call of revile ever did. "Kara. I'd like to have a chat. 0630."
Her eyes slowly opened and she sighed, her brain processing this information. Any chance of getting more sleep was completely gone at this point.
"I'll be there. 0630," she repeated, before setting the handset back in its holder.
Another long day ahead.
--
Ellen Tigh sat in the back of Boomer's Raptor, legs crossed, hands folded, shoulders back, the epitome of calm, of wisdom, of understanding the next step on the pattern of fate before it was even taken.
"How do you know where the fleet is?" she asked with a saccharine tone, fake and coy.
Boomer didn't even glance back as she responded, "I saw it in Cavil's documents."
It was a fair response, short and quick and to the point. Yet, Ellen picked out a small detail in the wording, one that made her chuckle and sigh.
"Don't you think it's odd," she began. "I gave him the name 'John' and he discards it because it is a Human name. But then the name he chooses for himself is also a Human name."
"I think it's that he chose it himself," Boomer replied. "That's what matters."
Ellen stood then and walked to the front of the Raptor, picking up a small slip of paper from atop the computers lining the side wall on her way. "And you - I gave you the name Sharon, also a Human name. And the Humans gave you the name Boomer, to make you feel less Human, more capable for fighting. Yet you keep both, you will answer to both. Why is that?"
Pressing her lips tight into a frown, Boomer roughly swiveled her seat over to face her superior. "It's none of your business."
"As your Creator, I'd say it is entirely my business," Ellen smirked in response.
Boomer shook her head and stood then, placing her hands on her waist before turning to walk towards the back of the Raptor herself. "That doesn't matter anymore."
Ellen watched the younger Cylon move to the back of the Raptor where she had previously been calmly sitting, Boomer's hands trailing over the keys on one of the input terminals, hesitating slightly, not typing any numbers in yet.
Before Boomer could enter any data, Ellen held out the slip of paper she had been clutching. "Here are the jump coordinates."
Confused, Boomer took the paper from Ellen's hands and studied the numbers carefully. Then, she looked up. "These aren't the coordinates back to the fleet."
"I know," Ellen nodded. "We need to stop someplace else, first."
--
At 0630, promptly on time, Kara Thrace knocked on Admiral Adama's hatch and was quietly led inside by a man that looked ten years older than the last time she had seen him.
"Admiral," she stated in surprise, her eyes widening at seeing the large bags under his eyes.
His only response was to motion to the chair opposite his desk, which she quickly moved to sit in. He took the chair behind the desk, himself, and took out a small black felt covered box from a drawer, keeping it hidden the best he could from Kara's sight.
"What's going on?" she asked. "Did something happen?"
He looked up at her, then, a small and sad smile crossing his face. "Roslin's... not doing too good."
Nodding in response, she focused her eyes down to the floor.
"Last night, she..." he choked on his words a moment and had to cough to clear his throat before he could continue. "She realized she couldn't be the kind of President we need anymore. She called for a few people and now Lee's the President. Seeing my son being sworn in... it made me think about a lot of things. Roslin's very sick, and she's going to die. I'm older than she is, and there's no saying I won't just fall over and die any moment, either. I can't have Saul be Admiral, there's enough hostility with him being my XO."
"A-are you looking for a recommendation, sir?" Kara finally managed to ask after a moment of silence, watching her surrogate father struggle with the difficulty of the situation.
Shaking his head, he pushed the box into her sight now and opened it.
"No, I've made up my mind. Congratulations, Admiral Thrace."
Her eyes widened and shot up to meet his. "No, sir, I - I can't accept this -"
"You've handled being CAG after Sam's death better than anyone I've seen handle a position after a loved one has died," he stated. "That's enough for me to know you'll do me proud."
He reached out and took the two Admiral pins out of the case and handed them to her.
Staring down at the shiny pieces of bronze in her hands, she rolled them over and over with her fingers, watching the light glint off of the metal. Finally, after a moment of contemplation - of knowing there were really too many unknowns for her to be able to adequately be the Admiral of the fleet, but also knowing that there was no changing Adama's mind - she stood up from the chair and saluted.
"It will be an honor... Sir."