(no subject)
Title: In Restless Dreams I Walked Alone
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Pairing/Characters: Leoben/Kara
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The unstruck music vibrates within all of them. In the apartment on New Caprica, Kara helps him find it.
A/N: For a prompt from hearts_blood: Kara teaches Leoben (under duress or out of boredom) to play the piano. Title taken from Simon and Garfunkle's Sound of Silence. Because, y'know, the words of the prophet are written on the subway wall.
She surprises him one morning, stepping in lightly, and she may have been staring for a while before she speaks.
“What are you doing?”
He untilts his head and opens his eyes to find hers in time to answer. “Listening,” he says.
Kara chews doubtfully at her lower lip for a moment. “Oh,” she says, and she's gone again. But she's taking notice: when he taps his fingers on the table, she looks up from her careful disregard of the food he's set before her, and says, sharply, “Stop that.”
He drums his fingers more lightly, but doesn't stop. “I can't,” he says. “Don't tell me you can't hear it. I know you can. I can see you listening. You know nothing can make it stop.”
She doesn't say, one way or another. She doesn't admit what she knows, or what she doesn't. She seems to grow accustomed to finding him, every once in a while, sitting still, eyes closed, chin up; watches him--- he can feel her gaze, pointed, grim--- as he drifts sideways silent through time. Hours go by, or days, he's not sure, time only means something when he's counting. He never counts time when she's with him.
What does she think is happening? She's wary of him, or weary. Is he behaving more strangely than usual? He doesn't think so, but he does step in a silent round as he goes about making her breakfast, does count scars and siblings instead of numbers, to keep himself on-beat. She's in the doorway. She's about to ask him something, something important, but at the last minute she backs off.
She's curious enough that she's held off killing him for a while. Though the drumming doesn't help, if anything drives her to take out her murderous impulses on him it will be the drumming, he's sure of it. Can't help himself though. What he hears in his head is reverberating, shaking him down to his shoes, and the tips of his fingers dip down, slip sideways, move on, move on, then it's her hand over his, pressing his fingers flat. She leans close, and he tenses, chin lifted a little, waiting for the killing blow.
“Stop,” she hisses.
Leoben swallows deliberately, chin still up, and fixes his eyes on the unseen in the middle distance. “I can't,” he tells her, tells her again.
She waits an interminable moment before releasing his hand, standing up, turning, moving quickly away.
She finds him next sitting before the piano tucked in the corner on the lowest level of the apartment. She enters the room, he can hear and feel and everything but see her, but hovers only on the patch of carpet within a few feet of the room for a long, long time; while he doesn't move, eyes closed, head bent, and they listen, the two of them listen, and with his mind's eye he can see the river of light of the music running between them, clawed fingers in hearts, tugging, vicious and beautiful.
After a long moment she mutters something he can't quite make out, and moves away.
At night he dreams of Kara singing, and his fingers on her skin, orchestrating, and she finds the notes, and she finds him, and then the two of them get lost together, hands in hands. He wakes with scratches on his upper arms, his bare chest, and thinks of what came to him in the night: something bodiless, maybe, but not lacking in soul.
She strokes along the piano, in the morning, one long pass; then sits decisively next to him on the bench. She gives him a smile, that calm and hopeful smile that means she's planning his imminent demise. He doesn't mind, though. He likes her smile, any of her smiles, as long as it's directed at him.
“Listening?” she says. He nods. “To what?”
“The music.”
“I don't hear any music, Leoben.”
“Because you're not listening, Kara.”
“Or maybe because you're a delusional mechanical frak-up,” she suggests, her tone so impossibly light there are bubbles in it. “What music is it?”
He hesitates. “It has a name,” he says finally. “But I don't know what it is. Not yet.”
“Hm. Well.” She straightens her back, flings her long blonde hair behind her shoulders, purses her lips. “I know how to play. I used to know how to play. I'll make you a deal. I'll help you find the music if you'll set me free.”
He doesn't think twice. “Deal,” he says.
The sun's through the windows at their back and to the side, and they sit together. He's very careful with his breathing. He listens to the beat of his heart, cautious. He listens to hers, suddenly greedy, and watches the pulse in her wrist as she presses down a chord.
“So let me hear it,” she says.
“I don't know where it starts. It's always in the middle.”
She plays deliberately up the scale, one finger at a time, and her eyes flick over to his to watch his reaction. He stops her when it's right.
“That's it,” he says. “It starts there.”
She presses down again. “C,” she says. “This is a C. Put your finger here.”
She takes his hand, and guides him to be a twin of hers, eight keys down. Her hand curls around the inside of his wrist, and he can see her teeth clench. This is what she'll do, to try and get free. Control herself. Killing him doesn't work, or hasn't up till now--- he tilts his head and watches her. Try something else, Kara.
“Listen,” she says, and bites the rest of the sentence off, whatever it was going to be. Teeth through the words, and she fills the silence with breath, instead. Counting. “Tell me.”
She walks him through three keys more, and he finds the next, and the next, and his hand with her hand curled around it follows her through while he listens, and she listens to him listening, and the both of them hear. Six notes, now, all in order, and she reaches for the seventh before he can confirm it, then the eighth, and she follows the melody downwards, repeat, repeat, repent, and her hand drops away from his and she stands up suddenly, moving away.
“Got it, now?”
Both of his hands hover over the keys, and he looks up at her, watching the river of light, of the music, flashing and vibrating smooth between them.
“Good,” he says. “You're listening.”
He turns back to the keys and plays. Pieces, at first, hesitating, hovering, unsure, then firmer pressure, and he tells the instrument who he is and what it's expected to do. Fingertips on the white, smooth slow strokes, and the music moves out of him and into the world, quiet, but something deep within as strong and vibrant as Kara herself. She stands for a moment, watching him. Listening.
“That's enough,” she says. “Your turn.”
A solid middle C. He holds the note.
“Your turn,” she says, angry now. “Get up, get your frakking keys, and let me out. We had a deal, Leoben.”
He hesitates for the length of a breath, then moves on to the next.
“Leoben!” Her voice breaks. She's tired of listening. “You said you were going to set me free!”
He closes his eyes. Presses his fingers down. “And aren't you?” he says. “Listen, Kara. Aren't you free?”
She is, whether she knows it or not. She's out in the world, quiet, but something deep within strong and vibrant: she moves through the streets, she blesses humanity with a small calm smile, she lends her hands to hearts and her fingers to the beats. He can see her with his eyes closed, out there in the sun. He can hear the echoes, the patterns of her foot falls.
She stands and she listens. She listens, head cocked, to something more than the bare bones melody he's playing. Then, two soft quick steps and she's behind him, just behind him, and he raises his head and lets it fall back-- she plunges a hand in his thick shock of hair, turns his head sideways where it rests on her breast, and he looks up at her, and the music slides downwards, and her free hand slides breathlessly up the column of his throat.
She snaps his neck with an effortless twist, and throws him onto the piano. One last chord. One last mismatched chord.
He wakes with the music in his mind. He knows it now, knows the name. When he sees her next, it will look out of her eyes, and know him, and be glad.