COMMENTARY- OotB Ch 3
DVD Commentary for OOTB CHAPTER 3
Settling the fleet had been no easy task. Inconspicuous routes to a planet had to be plotted for each ship, and travel had to be done at sublight so as not to arouse the suspicions of the Alliance. Ships’ captains were briefed on their destinations and given information on some shadier characters that could forge papers for the passengers of their ships, citizens were educated about the basics of the planets that were to be their new homes. They would be able to move later if they so desired, but the primary goal was to get everyone down to the planets.
The Virgon Express was sent to Verbena. The Astral Queen took refugee on the rim planet Whittier. The Thera Sita made a landing on Salisbury. So on and so forth the number of ships dipped, and once they were gone they could no longer maintain contact with the fleet. To do so would be to put them all in jeopardy.
I love what Aria said in her beta file about this. So I’m just going to quote her here:
This works really well, the naming specific BSG ships paired with specific Firefly-verse planets. It melds the two worlds differently than the characters hanging out together does, and it's very effective.
Life aboard Galactica had become drastically different.
---
To say that Zoë had been apprehensive on her first trip to Galactica would be a grave understatement. It had been Mal’s idea. One week after they had made initial contact with Galactica, travel between the two ships was becoming more common. There were days when Zoë would come to see her husband, to find him teaching Captain Thrace the finer points of flying a transport ship. She would often find Laura Roslin aboard Serenity as well, as she began undergoing treatment under Simon’s care. And it wasn’t an incredibly rare sight for Lee Adama in the dining room with Book engaged in civilized but clearly impassioned conversation. Mal insisted it was time that they pay a visit to their new allies.
Just little details about what’s been going on. Zoë was never keen on this joining of forces happening in the first place so not wanting to spend time aboard Galactica felt very… true. And I think in terms of first steps of “making things work” this had to be the first step.
Her first icy appearance at the entry of the mess hall had drawn all eyes towards her. She was fully aware of the soft chorus of whispers that bounced around the room, even though everyone was trying so hard not to appear to be gawking outright. Helo was the first one to speak up as he shuffled the deck of octagonal cards, “Want to be dealt in?”
“What is this game?” Zoë asked, as she took up residence in a seat Sharon dragged over.
“Triad,” Kara replied.
“Never heard of it.”
Honestly, no better way to ingratiate yourself with this crew than playing cards with them. I don’t think for a second Kara would’ve slept with Baltar if they hadn’t been playing cards throughout Season 1. Wow… wow wow that was a loooong long time ago.
Helo began to deal out the cards. “We’ll go easy on you this round so we can show you how it works, but after that all bets are off.”
With a raised eyebrow Zoë picked up the five cards in front of her. Sharon, who was sitting this particular hand out, leaned over and began to explain the basics of the game.
Zoë won the first hand, at which point Helo called off going easy on her.
She won the second hand too.
“Beginner’s luck,” Kara insisted.
After the third hand, Zoë decided to quit while she was ahead and left Galactica with a smile on her face.
She’s practical like that. Plus I think she wanted to leave an impression on these new people. That she’s a force to be reckoned with and if she started losing, well, not the same impression.
Within a few weeks, Zoë’s presence at the card games was not only routine, but expected. She and the pilots engaged in boisterous laughter and swapped war stories, ship stories.
She had missed the company of soldiers.
It took some digging but I found out she was a corporal in the Unification War, where’s Venner when you need him. I didn’t start actively thinking about Venner until the second time I saw season 2 and I actually really liked him. Not that he was really that important to bring up in this fic, but I have thoughts of them hanging out now. Which is nice. Also, tidbit, Zoë’s been on ships more or less her whole life, she has no homeworld, she was born “vessleside” so her home is with the people she knows, and meeting these guys, it’s like making a bigger home for her.
---
No one batted an eye nowadays when they found Kaylee Frye wandering the deck, checking out the Mark IIs. She’d become something of a fixture on deck. In three days' worth of visits to Galactica, she could practically take apart a Raptor and put it back together; she’d also taken two Vipers, which were out of commission and had them back in working order.
Because yes, she’s just that good. No really, she is. I’m being totally serious.
Less than a week after first contact with Serenity, she was flying in on a shuttle almost every day. After two weeks, she was spending the nights aboard Galactica as well. Some of the knuckle draggers began to joke that Chief and the strange mechanic girl were getting it on.
Anyone start a pool?
Well, they were jokes until the morning a few of the deck hands saw the pair attempting to sneak out of the engine room unnoticed, glowing the tell-tale glow of two people who had just had the best frak of their lives.
Of course they were doing it in the engine room. Where else would they do it? It’s… THEM. And if you take Coin-Operated Boy into account, this is where they would be going to ask Tightpants if Chief could stay aboard Serenity with them
---
In a place like Dogsville, a little beauty and elegance stood out like a nova. Among the ragged, the forgotten, the starving, the ones waiting for transport off the ship, Inara Serra looked like a goddess dressed in gold silks. To Gaius’s mind, she looked like the sun, brightening the room. Well, let’s face it, he always had a weak spot for beautiful women.
Um… yes, I think this is one of my favorite paragraphs I’ve ever written. I really do like writing Gaius, it’s just something I don’t really do. His brain works… very interestingly. And I have fun things planned for Inara and Gaius in the future. I know he’s grown so much yadda yadda yadda, but deep down he’s still Gaius and while he’s a genius he still does quite a bit of thinking with what’s between his legs.
“Excuse me, Miss,” he began as he brushed past a mother and her child, “You seem quite lost.”
She gave a soft and elegant laugh. “Well ‘lost’ implies that I have somewhere to be. I’m wandering.”
Inara really does want to explore, to experience life. It’s implied that was why she joined up with Mal and co. But they never got to the “why” of it in the series.
As the pair conversed, he led her around the encampment and - partially as a joke, partially to show off - decided to show her Deck 8 where his cultists had resided; they were among the first people to be sent to planets from Galactica.
YES. GOODBYE HARPIES.
“I understand Serenity has aboard… a mechanic, a doctor, several soldiers, a mercenary, which all makes fine sense,” Gaius began, “but how does a woman like yourself come to travel with these people?”
“A mutual business arrangement. Being aboard Serenity has given me the chance to expand my client base, and for M-… Captain Reynolds, having a Companion aboard allows him access to some more… elite locations. Though the past few weeks have not been so good for business.” Inara adjusted the shawl that draped so elegantly across her shoulders.
I’m not a shipper of Mal/Inara, but I don't have anything against it. In fact if ship anything on Firefly it’s Inara/Kaylee (WTF self?) But I’m being nice, and playing mostly-canon with this fic. So I gave her the little slip-up of almost calling him by his name.
It gave him a bit of a shiver just watching the grace of her movements. “Terribly sorry for that.”
And probably a boner too.
She gave a light shrug and a bit of a distance entered her eyes, “It’s also giving me the chance to see the universe.” He was about to press on for further information when she spoke again, “How does someone considered to be such a great mind of his time end up with both a religious cult and a hand in caring for the destitute?”
Inara’s probably intrigued on some level by the cultists. Not because she’d want to join up with them, but the afterlife or reincarnation because she is Buddhist, is something I’m sure she’s also wanting to explore because (as it was revealed in interviews after the fact) Inara was dying.
“Ah well that is a long story that involves my impoverished childhood, clawing my way up from nothing, eventually becoming president and you know this story is just far too long, suffice it to say, I feel that this is something I am meant to be doing. Something in God’s plan and… would you excuse me for one moment?”
A little throwback to early-Gaius and even through he’s not hallucinating (or having an angel appear to him, whatever) his tendency to trail and flow very quickly and crazily from one thing to the next was always my favorite thing about him.
He’d practically given himself whiplash at the change of pace in the conversation. After all this time, just the bare glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye was enough to derail him completely. “Caprica!”
And I totally ship it. I really do. I don’t think I even realized how much I shipped it until the finale. I mean I always liked a lot of couples, Kara/Lee being my OTP for the show and Helo/Athena coming in second, but all of a sudden my adoration of Gaius/Caprica went through the roof, as well as Ellen/Saul (THEIR LOVE IS TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF EPIC).
He saw her draw back slightly at the sound of his voice, but steadied herself as he drew nearer. She swallowed hard, as though fighting the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach, or possibly bats. “Gaius. I came here looking for you.”
“You have?” his voice clocked in about an octave higher than normal, before returning to it’s normal pitch, “You have?”
“Yes, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” It seemed to take a lot of courage, but she reached out, taking his hand in hers.
“Of course, anything,” he urged, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
Her free hand rested softly against her stomach. Gaius caught this out of the corner of his eye and the light clicked on in his mind. He began to shake his head and withdrew his hand from her grip.
I love silent communication. Words are seriously overrated a lot of the time. I learned that one from Joss Whedon. Thank you, Hush.
That look in his eyes, sheer panic, the same one that filled his face when the bombs went off three years ago. “Who?” was the only thing he could bring himself to ask.
---
She was sitting at a table scribbling cautiously with a blue crayon when the big girl walked into the daycare center. Hera had seen many children about her own age and they were small, like her; she had seen her mommy and her daddy and their friends, and they were all big. This girl was not big and she was not small.
Trying to write inside the head of a two-year-old. Not something I’ve ever really tried to do before. But it was an interesting (and oddly not simple) thing to do. I mean, Hera’s never really seen any teenagers Dee’d hit her 20s by the time Hera was born (if you go by the script for the Mini where it said she was 19. I buy it.) There are quite a few babies, and tons of adults. But no teens, so I think Hera would be kind of confused.
She moved prettily, Hera concluded, watching her walk around the daycare, and she looked like she needed a friend. Hera pushed herself up from her seat, taking her paper with her. She crossed to where the big girl was sitting, playing with a set of blocks.
River does move very gracefully, she is an exquisite dancer after all. (And, guys, her name is RIVER. That making you think of anything? Because it totally should. Also, the planet Serenity Valley is on… is called Hera. I love how I came to all these conclusions AFTER I wrote this. Needless to say the connections are something I’m gonna be playing with later on)
She turned them over in her hands, examining the edges, and the lack of corners. “One, two, three, four… teen.”
I mis-counted the first time I wrote it. The number of sides if you cut the corners off a block… I thought it was 16… so I had this little line at the end where River says “Two times Eight” which I thought would be kinda… well… cool. But alas, it’s 14 not 16.
It was then that Hera tapped her on the shoulder. The big girl held up the block, “This is incomplete.”
And just something River would say.
Extending a token of friendship, Hera held out the paper to the big girl, expecting a smile. The other big people smiled when she gave them drawings. The big girl didn’t. She began to shake and screamed before she fled the room.
Hera frowned. She had thought they were beautiful blue hands.
Two by two, hands of blue. Way to be creepy, Hera!
---
“You know what?” Gaius shouted to himself alone in the privacy of the abandoned temple. After his conversation with Caprica threatened to turn into a fight, he excused himself from her, then from Inara, and took off to find himself some solitude. “I am so, so tired of hearing about God’s plan.” He threw his arms into the air in protest.
Solitude was not something he was allowed to have.
I was distressed by the major lack of head!Six for most of season 4. :(
She reclined against the cushions wearing the red dress. “Surprising considering how this place was built on your words of God’s love for every person.” He liked the red dress. She rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, “You’re just saying that out of grief.”
And she’s right, of course. She’s always right. Maybe Gaius should start looking into Buddhism. All suffering comes from desire and all that. (Some guy at my work is trying to convert me to Buddhism, he walked up to me and gave me a pamphlet. It was really strange.)
“I should just be glad for her, then.” It wasn’t a statement, a question, or a conclusion. Just a string of words. “Well of course. It’s a miracle isn’t it?” Gaius pulled out of her grip, “First pure cylon child conceived in the entire universe! She should feel so blessed,” he practically spat the word as a sneer began to decorate his lips, “And I’m sure Saul Tigh will be the most fantastic father. In fact-”
I love Gaius-babble. That’s pretty much all there is to that.
“Gaius Baltar?” a voice asked. Gaius spun so quickly to face the voice that it nearly knocked him off his feet to see the unfamiliar man in grey religious garb.
“Yes? Hello.” He replied.
“My name is Derrial Book.” He introduced himself. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you from Laura Roslin.” Gaius could feel a fountain of dread bubbling up inside him. Something the other man must have seen because his tone switched to a calming one. “She’s been aboard Serenity seeing Doctor Tam, and we have been discussing religion to keep her mind off treatments, and your name came up,” he paused for a moment, “several times in fact. I hope this isn’t too much of an intrusion.”
Gaius shook his head, “No, no, not at all. You just,” he paused feeling her hands on his shoulders, “caught me in a bit of a crisis of faith.”
“Oh?” the preacher asked.
“God’s plan… it doesn’t always go as you would hope,” he replied, the sound of her satisfied sigh brushing against his ear.
Book merely smiled, “That’s often the nature of these things.”
I really should make them have more deep interesting religious conversations. But I didn’t. And damn would that be a sight.
---
“I’ve almost got it, sir,” Dee’s voice echoed slightly through CIC. The room, which had once been the nerve center of the entire ship, was now abandoned save for a few souls. The last civilian ship had left to settle just an hour before. All that remained of the Colonial Fleet was Galactica herself, with Serenity docked on the starboard landing bay.
Oh secret projects. One of three, I think, that I put into this fic. I left it subtle so I don’t know if anyone actually picked up on it right here. But yes, that little bit at the top of this section makes well… the rest of the fic happen the way it’s supposed to.
“Good, let me know when it’s done,” Adama said, just as he heard the clomping of boots entering the room. He turned to see the tall form of Malcolm Reynolds. “Good morning, Captain.”
“Mornin’,” he replied. “Lookin’ a bit bare in here.”
And we’re getting ready to leave Galactica behind. And… um… ow. It hurts my soul a little bit.
Adama couldn’t do much beyond nod in agreement as he surveyed the space. “That’s part of the reason I asked to meet with you this morning. As you know, the settling mission is winding to close, and…”
“And a ship like Galactica don’t have a place in the ‘verse, does she?” Mal finished for him so he wouldn’t have to utter those words.
Um, I sort of love their dynamic a bit.
Aria: DO I KIND OF SHIP IT DESPITE ALL REASON? YEAH A BIT. HEH.
Adama’s eyes focused on committing every surface, every scratch to memory, because soon…
“She’s a good ship,” Mal concluded.
“That she is,” he replied with a heartbroken laugh. It echoed around the room before the silence settled.
There really are no words for Galactica. I think it was the TWOP awards (but don’t quote me on that) that nominated it for best performance by an inanimate object. It’s so true.
“Sir,” Dee’s voice broke the silence, Adama turned to see the officer beaming with a kind of smile he hadn’t seen in a long time, “I’ve got it.”
“Get the word out,” he said. “Dismissed.” She saluted before leaving the room with a bit of a bounce to her step.
And here’s more of Secret Project #1 just in case you missed that bit at the beginning. :)
Without preamble of any kind, Mal spoke up, “There’s a moon.” Adama turned to face him. “Orbitin’ around a planet on the farthest edge of the rim. Not a soul ventures out there. Lots of mountains, valleys. If you want somethin’ to stay lost, I reckon it’d be the best place to hide her. We got plenty of room in the cargo hold right now, can take you all aboard, drop you off wherever you wanna go.”
Blah, blah, logistics blah. Let’s wrap this up.
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.” Adama turned to him.
“Don’ mention it.” Mal replied, “I’ve never been fond of leavin’ a man behind.”
Mostly because he would want people coming back for him. I never finished the entire book, but The Psychology of Joss Whedon is a REALLY fascinating read and the first chapter (I think) was called “Evolutionary Pornography” and it was all about Mal. Basically it was talking about why we love to watch people fail and succeed as part of the psychological process of natural selection, and how Mal and his own code of ethics plays into that. There was also an excellent essay on Buffy’s relationship with Spike as an embodiment of narcissistic personality disorder.
Adama extended his hand, “You’re a good man, Captain Reynolds.”
I have “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” stuck in my head now.
A firm shake greeted his, “Just Mal, Admiral.”
“I think, under the circumstances, it’s just Bill from now on.”
And now that we’ve left the ships behind and are leaving the titles behind… we’ve really entered a new world. In the original version of this fic, this was the end of “Part 1.” Time to start a new life in the ‘Verse.
Settling the fleet had been no easy task. Inconspicuous routes to a planet had to be plotted for each ship, and travel had to be done at sublight so as not to arouse the suspicions of the Alliance. Ships’ captains were briefed on their destinations and given information on some shadier characters that could forge papers for the passengers of their ships, citizens were educated about the basics of the planets that were to be their new homes. They would be able to move later if they so desired, but the primary goal was to get everyone down to the planets.
The Virgon Express was sent to Verbena. The Astral Queen took refugee on the rim planet Whittier. The Thera Sita made a landing on Salisbury. So on and so forth the number of ships dipped, and once they were gone they could no longer maintain contact with the fleet. To do so would be to put them all in jeopardy.
I love what Aria said in her beta file about this. So I’m just going to quote her here:
This works really well, the naming specific BSG ships paired with specific Firefly-verse planets. It melds the two worlds differently than the characters hanging out together does, and it's very effective.
Life aboard Galactica had become drastically different.
---
To say that Zoë had been apprehensive on her first trip to Galactica would be a grave understatement. It had been Mal’s idea. One week after they had made initial contact with Galactica, travel between the two ships was becoming more common. There were days when Zoë would come to see her husband, to find him teaching Captain Thrace the finer points of flying a transport ship. She would often find Laura Roslin aboard Serenity as well, as she began undergoing treatment under Simon’s care. And it wasn’t an incredibly rare sight for Lee Adama in the dining room with Book engaged in civilized but clearly impassioned conversation. Mal insisted it was time that they pay a visit to their new allies.
Just little details about what’s been going on. Zoë was never keen on this joining of forces happening in the first place so not wanting to spend time aboard Galactica felt very… true. And I think in terms of first steps of “making things work” this had to be the first step.
Her first icy appearance at the entry of the mess hall had drawn all eyes towards her. She was fully aware of the soft chorus of whispers that bounced around the room, even though everyone was trying so hard not to appear to be gawking outright. Helo was the first one to speak up as he shuffled the deck of octagonal cards, “Want to be dealt in?”
“What is this game?” Zoë asked, as she took up residence in a seat Sharon dragged over.
“Triad,” Kara replied.
“Never heard of it.”
Honestly, no better way to ingratiate yourself with this crew than playing cards with them. I don’t think for a second Kara would’ve slept with Baltar if they hadn’t been playing cards throughout Season 1. Wow… wow wow that was a loooong long time ago.
Helo began to deal out the cards. “We’ll go easy on you this round so we can show you how it works, but after that all bets are off.”
With a raised eyebrow Zoë picked up the five cards in front of her. Sharon, who was sitting this particular hand out, leaned over and began to explain the basics of the game.
Zoë won the first hand, at which point Helo called off going easy on her.
She won the second hand too.
“Beginner’s luck,” Kara insisted.
After the third hand, Zoë decided to quit while she was ahead and left Galactica with a smile on her face.
She’s practical like that. Plus I think she wanted to leave an impression on these new people. That she’s a force to be reckoned with and if she started losing, well, not the same impression.
Within a few weeks, Zoë’s presence at the card games was not only routine, but expected. She and the pilots engaged in boisterous laughter and swapped war stories, ship stories.
She had missed the company of soldiers.
It took some digging but I found out she was a corporal in the Unification War, where’s Venner when you need him. I didn’t start actively thinking about Venner until the second time I saw season 2 and I actually really liked him. Not that he was really that important to bring up in this fic, but I have thoughts of them hanging out now. Which is nice. Also, tidbit, Zoë’s been on ships more or less her whole life, she has no homeworld, she was born “vessleside” so her home is with the people she knows, and meeting these guys, it’s like making a bigger home for her.
---
No one batted an eye nowadays when they found Kaylee Frye wandering the deck, checking out the Mark IIs. She’d become something of a fixture on deck. In three days' worth of visits to Galactica, she could practically take apart a Raptor and put it back together; she’d also taken two Vipers, which were out of commission and had them back in working order.
Because yes, she’s just that good. No really, she is. I’m being totally serious.
Less than a week after first contact with Serenity, she was flying in on a shuttle almost every day. After two weeks, she was spending the nights aboard Galactica as well. Some of the knuckle draggers began to joke that Chief and the strange mechanic girl were getting it on.
Anyone start a pool?
Well, they were jokes until the morning a few of the deck hands saw the pair attempting to sneak out of the engine room unnoticed, glowing the tell-tale glow of two people who had just had the best frak of their lives.
Of course they were doing it in the engine room. Where else would they do it? It’s… THEM. And if you take Coin-Operated Boy into account, this is where they would be going to ask Tightpants if Chief could stay aboard Serenity with them
---
In a place like Dogsville, a little beauty and elegance stood out like a nova. Among the ragged, the forgotten, the starving, the ones waiting for transport off the ship, Inara Serra looked like a goddess dressed in gold silks. To Gaius’s mind, she looked like the sun, brightening the room. Well, let’s face it, he always had a weak spot for beautiful women.
Um… yes, I think this is one of my favorite paragraphs I’ve ever written. I really do like writing Gaius, it’s just something I don’t really do. His brain works… very interestingly. And I have fun things planned for Inara and Gaius in the future. I know he’s grown so much yadda yadda yadda, but deep down he’s still Gaius and while he’s a genius he still does quite a bit of thinking with what’s between his legs.
“Excuse me, Miss,” he began as he brushed past a mother and her child, “You seem quite lost.”
She gave a soft and elegant laugh. “Well ‘lost’ implies that I have somewhere to be. I’m wandering.”
Inara really does want to explore, to experience life. It’s implied that was why she joined up with Mal and co. But they never got to the “why” of it in the series.
As the pair conversed, he led her around the encampment and - partially as a joke, partially to show off - decided to show her Deck 8 where his cultists had resided; they were among the first people to be sent to planets from Galactica.
YES. GOODBYE HARPIES.
“I understand Serenity has aboard… a mechanic, a doctor, several soldiers, a mercenary, which all makes fine sense,” Gaius began, “but how does a woman like yourself come to travel with these people?”
“A mutual business arrangement. Being aboard Serenity has given me the chance to expand my client base, and for M-… Captain Reynolds, having a Companion aboard allows him access to some more… elite locations. Though the past few weeks have not been so good for business.” Inara adjusted the shawl that draped so elegantly across her shoulders.
I’m not a shipper of Mal/Inara, but I don't have anything against it. In fact if ship anything on Firefly it’s Inara/Kaylee (WTF self?) But I’m being nice, and playing mostly-canon with this fic. So I gave her the little slip-up of almost calling him by his name.
It gave him a bit of a shiver just watching the grace of her movements. “Terribly sorry for that.”
And probably a boner too.
She gave a light shrug and a bit of a distance entered her eyes, “It’s also giving me the chance to see the universe.” He was about to press on for further information when she spoke again, “How does someone considered to be such a great mind of his time end up with both a religious cult and a hand in caring for the destitute?”
Inara’s probably intrigued on some level by the cultists. Not because she’d want to join up with them, but the afterlife or reincarnation because she is Buddhist, is something I’m sure she’s also wanting to explore because (as it was revealed in interviews after the fact) Inara was dying.
“Ah well that is a long story that involves my impoverished childhood, clawing my way up from nothing, eventually becoming president and you know this story is just far too long, suffice it to say, I feel that this is something I am meant to be doing. Something in God’s plan and… would you excuse me for one moment?”
A little throwback to early-Gaius and even through he’s not hallucinating (or having an angel appear to him, whatever) his tendency to trail and flow very quickly and crazily from one thing to the next was always my favorite thing about him.
He’d practically given himself whiplash at the change of pace in the conversation. After all this time, just the bare glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye was enough to derail him completely. “Caprica!”
And I totally ship it. I really do. I don’t think I even realized how much I shipped it until the finale. I mean I always liked a lot of couples, Kara/Lee being my OTP for the show and Helo/Athena coming in second, but all of a sudden my adoration of Gaius/Caprica went through the roof, as well as Ellen/Saul (THEIR LOVE IS TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF EPIC).
He saw her draw back slightly at the sound of his voice, but steadied herself as he drew nearer. She swallowed hard, as though fighting the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach, or possibly bats. “Gaius. I came here looking for you.”
“You have?” his voice clocked in about an octave higher than normal, before returning to it’s normal pitch, “You have?”
“Yes, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” It seemed to take a lot of courage, but she reached out, taking his hand in hers.
“Of course, anything,” he urged, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
Her free hand rested softly against her stomach. Gaius caught this out of the corner of his eye and the light clicked on in his mind. He began to shake his head and withdrew his hand from her grip.
I love silent communication. Words are seriously overrated a lot of the time. I learned that one from Joss Whedon. Thank you, Hush.
That look in his eyes, sheer panic, the same one that filled his face when the bombs went off three years ago. “Who?” was the only thing he could bring himself to ask.
---
She was sitting at a table scribbling cautiously with a blue crayon when the big girl walked into the daycare center. Hera had seen many children about her own age and they were small, like her; she had seen her mommy and her daddy and their friends, and they were all big. This girl was not big and she was not small.
Trying to write inside the head of a two-year-old. Not something I’ve ever really tried to do before. But it was an interesting (and oddly not simple) thing to do. I mean, Hera’s never really seen any teenagers Dee’d hit her 20s by the time Hera was born (if you go by the script for the Mini where it said she was 19. I buy it.) There are quite a few babies, and tons of adults. But no teens, so I think Hera would be kind of confused.
She moved prettily, Hera concluded, watching her walk around the daycare, and she looked like she needed a friend. Hera pushed herself up from her seat, taking her paper with her. She crossed to where the big girl was sitting, playing with a set of blocks.
River does move very gracefully, she is an exquisite dancer after all. (And, guys, her name is RIVER. That making you think of anything? Because it totally should. Also, the planet Serenity Valley is on… is called Hera. I love how I came to all these conclusions AFTER I wrote this. Needless to say the connections are something I’m gonna be playing with later on)
She turned them over in her hands, examining the edges, and the lack of corners. “One, two, three, four… teen.”
I mis-counted the first time I wrote it. The number of sides if you cut the corners off a block… I thought it was 16… so I had this little line at the end where River says “Two times Eight” which I thought would be kinda… well… cool. But alas, it’s 14 not 16.
It was then that Hera tapped her on the shoulder. The big girl held up the block, “This is incomplete.”
And just something River would say.
Extending a token of friendship, Hera held out the paper to the big girl, expecting a smile. The other big people smiled when she gave them drawings. The big girl didn’t. She began to shake and screamed before she fled the room.
Hera frowned. She had thought they were beautiful blue hands.
Two by two, hands of blue. Way to be creepy, Hera!
---
“You know what?” Gaius shouted to himself alone in the privacy of the abandoned temple. After his conversation with Caprica threatened to turn into a fight, he excused himself from her, then from Inara, and took off to find himself some solitude. “I am so, so tired of hearing about God’s plan.” He threw his arms into the air in protest.
Solitude was not something he was allowed to have.
I was distressed by the major lack of head!Six for most of season 4. :(
She reclined against the cushions wearing the red dress. “Surprising considering how this place was built on your words of God’s love for every person.” He liked the red dress. She rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, “You’re just saying that out of grief.”
And she’s right, of course. She’s always right. Maybe Gaius should start looking into Buddhism. All suffering comes from desire and all that. (Some guy at my work is trying to convert me to Buddhism, he walked up to me and gave me a pamphlet. It was really strange.)
“I should just be glad for her, then.” It wasn’t a statement, a question, or a conclusion. Just a string of words. “Well of course. It’s a miracle isn’t it?” Gaius pulled out of her grip, “First pure cylon child conceived in the entire universe! She should feel so blessed,” he practically spat the word as a sneer began to decorate his lips, “And I’m sure Saul Tigh will be the most fantastic father. In fact-”
I love Gaius-babble. That’s pretty much all there is to that.
“Gaius Baltar?” a voice asked. Gaius spun so quickly to face the voice that it nearly knocked him off his feet to see the unfamiliar man in grey religious garb.
“Yes? Hello.” He replied.
“My name is Derrial Book.” He introduced himself. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you from Laura Roslin.” Gaius could feel a fountain of dread bubbling up inside him. Something the other man must have seen because his tone switched to a calming one. “She’s been aboard Serenity seeing Doctor Tam, and we have been discussing religion to keep her mind off treatments, and your name came up,” he paused for a moment, “several times in fact. I hope this isn’t too much of an intrusion.”
Gaius shook his head, “No, no, not at all. You just,” he paused feeling her hands on his shoulders, “caught me in a bit of a crisis of faith.”
“Oh?” the preacher asked.
“God’s plan… it doesn’t always go as you would hope,” he replied, the sound of her satisfied sigh brushing against his ear.
Book merely smiled, “That’s often the nature of these things.”
I really should make them have more deep interesting religious conversations. But I didn’t. And damn would that be a sight.
---
“I’ve almost got it, sir,” Dee’s voice echoed slightly through CIC. The room, which had once been the nerve center of the entire ship, was now abandoned save for a few souls. The last civilian ship had left to settle just an hour before. All that remained of the Colonial Fleet was Galactica herself, with Serenity docked on the starboard landing bay.
Oh secret projects. One of three, I think, that I put into this fic. I left it subtle so I don’t know if anyone actually picked up on it right here. But yes, that little bit at the top of this section makes well… the rest of the fic happen the way it’s supposed to.
“Good, let me know when it’s done,” Adama said, just as he heard the clomping of boots entering the room. He turned to see the tall form of Malcolm Reynolds. “Good morning, Captain.”
“Mornin’,” he replied. “Lookin’ a bit bare in here.”
And we’re getting ready to leave Galactica behind. And… um… ow. It hurts my soul a little bit.
Adama couldn’t do much beyond nod in agreement as he surveyed the space. “That’s part of the reason I asked to meet with you this morning. As you know, the settling mission is winding to close, and…”
“And a ship like Galactica don’t have a place in the ‘verse, does she?” Mal finished for him so he wouldn’t have to utter those words.
Um, I sort of love their dynamic a bit.
Aria: DO I KIND OF SHIP IT DESPITE ALL REASON? YEAH A BIT. HEH.
Adama’s eyes focused on committing every surface, every scratch to memory, because soon…
“She’s a good ship,” Mal concluded.
“That she is,” he replied with a heartbroken laugh. It echoed around the room before the silence settled.
There really are no words for Galactica. I think it was the TWOP awards (but don’t quote me on that) that nominated it for best performance by an inanimate object. It’s so true.
“Sir,” Dee’s voice broke the silence, Adama turned to see the officer beaming with a kind of smile he hadn’t seen in a long time, “I’ve got it.”
“Get the word out,” he said. “Dismissed.” She saluted before leaving the room with a bit of a bounce to her step.
And here’s more of Secret Project #1 just in case you missed that bit at the beginning. :)
Without preamble of any kind, Mal spoke up, “There’s a moon.” Adama turned to face him. “Orbitin’ around a planet on the farthest edge of the rim. Not a soul ventures out there. Lots of mountains, valleys. If you want somethin’ to stay lost, I reckon it’d be the best place to hide her. We got plenty of room in the cargo hold right now, can take you all aboard, drop you off wherever you wanna go.”
Blah, blah, logistics blah. Let’s wrap this up.
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.” Adama turned to him.
“Don’ mention it.” Mal replied, “I’ve never been fond of leavin’ a man behind.”
Mostly because he would want people coming back for him. I never finished the entire book, but The Psychology of Joss Whedon is a REALLY fascinating read and the first chapter (I think) was called “Evolutionary Pornography” and it was all about Mal. Basically it was talking about why we love to watch people fail and succeed as part of the psychological process of natural selection, and how Mal and his own code of ethics plays into that. There was also an excellent essay on Buffy’s relationship with Spike as an embodiment of narcissistic personality disorder.
Adama extended his hand, “You’re a good man, Captain Reynolds.”
I have “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” stuck in my head now.
A firm shake greeted his, “Just Mal, Admiral.”
“I think, under the circumstances, it’s just Bill from now on.”
And now that we’ve left the ships behind and are leaving the titles behind… we’ve really entered a new world. In the original version of this fic, this was the end of “Part 1.” Time to start a new life in the ‘Verse.