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Five Times Helo Had a Hell of a Hangover, and the One Time He Didn't.
Written for the Kindreds Five Times Project
By: rebelliousrose (My three parts)
Rated G
First Time
For a dead planet, Caprica was incredibly loud. The pounding in his skull added to the din, and if he didn’t find a head soon, he was in imminent danger of embarrassing himself. Helo tried to roll over, but found himself trapped under some kind of heavy weight. Opening his burning eyes, he risked a quick glimpse of the room he was in. The dim light seared into his retinas and he moaned and slammed his eyes back shut. This was the worst hangover he’d had in…ever. Apparently ambrosia, radiation meds, and campfire stew were bad companions.
The weight on his back shifted and whimpered, and for a moment Helo thought that Sharon was lying across him, but realized sadly that it was probably Starbuck. He thought he remembered carrying her into the room that the C-bucs had given them before he passed out. He put aside for later the guilt at his own failure to be watchful. Without Sharon, Starbuck was all he had.
His bladder throbbed for attention again, and Helo began slowly and very painfully extracting himself from under Starbuck, hoping she wasn’t going to throw up on him. She’d done it before. Of course, he’d thrown up in her helmet in flight school, too, but they’d been much younger then, and much more likely to be able to hold their liquor. Or he was lying to himself again, like when he told himself that Sharon was coming back.
The best way to get out of the bunk they were crammed in without braining himself on the upper bed was to slither out onto the floor, which Helo did, landing with a building-trembling thump on his side, holding his head. The floor was wretchedly chilly, and he was only wearing his briefs and tanks, but the coolness felt so nice on his face that Helo laid there limply for a moment, until the need to get rid of last night’s liquids overwhelmed him and the soldier ordered himself to his feet.
The hallway floor was equally cold underfoot, and Helo lurched down the hall, vaguely reasoning that a head would be generally where it might have been in his high school- at the end of the endless hallway. He hoped so, because the return trip might be too much for him in his weakened state.
An open door to his left caught his attention, and Helo looked in, and then stopped dead, personal needs forgotten as he looked into Sharon’s face. Only it wasn’t Sharon, he realized after a moment, or Boomer, but one of her look-alike Cylons, another one of the Eights. Pictures of Eights were posted on the walls, next to the blonde one, the woman who had kissed him, the one Sharon had shot when she rescued him. There were pictures of men, too, three of them, but no faces Helo recognized besides Sharon and the blonde woman. Unable to stop himself, Helo stepped inside the room.
Sharon’s face, but not Sharon. He hadn’t thought until now that he could tell her from the others, but it was easy. Something was missing in the eyes, in the expressions, or lack of expressions. Sharon laughed so easily.
“We take pictures of the ones we find, so we can identify them. We’ve got five now. No one knows if there are more.” Helo spun around. The redhead, Jean Barolay, was leaning on the doorframe behind him, looking both dangerous and almost as pained as he was himself. Nice to know that the C-bucs weren’t completely invulnerable, Helo thought.
“We had one for a while, captured one of this kind,” Barolay said, gesturing to the smaller man, “but he killed himself in the cell before we really got anything out of him. Bit off his tongue and drowned in his own blood.”
Helo’s stomach lurched violently at the thought, and he looked around in alarm for a wastebasket or a bucket. “Sorry…” Barolay said behind him as he crashed by her and out of the room. “Last door on the left!”
Helo stared at the running water and the remnants of his dinner in the sink as they swirled around the drain. Ten-point, a sympathy vomiter, had succumbed to the sounds of Helo being ill, and he was in a stall, kneeling and unhappy. At some point today, when his stomach settled, his head stopped hurting, and he’d shaved his tongue, Helo was going to have some very strong words with Samuel T. Anders on the topic of intoxicating strangers.
He stared at the drain. It wasn’t even the alcohol, really. It was the thought of the captured Cylon being Sharon, of Sharon killing herself to escape whatever had been done to the other prisoner. As horrible as the ambrosia was making him feel right now, it could never be as horrible as the thought of Sharon being hurt, and Helo hoped she’d stay far away, and stay safe, she and…his baby. Their baby.
Sighing, Helo rinsed his mouth and went to haul Ten-Point to his feet. Drunks and hangovers were familiar, safe things that he could deal with. Much safer than anything else this morning.
Fourth Time
Helo can feel the headache gnawing at the top of his spine. It's faint, but it's still there, the remnants of the still-brewed rotgut that he celebrated with after Sharon went back to her cell and Cottle chased him out. The hangover was worth the celebration of being a father, something he never thought he'd be, at least not this young. Fathers were older, more grown-up, although since the Cylons attacked, no one was a kid anymore.
He can't wait to see Hera again, and Sharon. Cottle told the Admiral that the baby needed contact with the mother to encourage her to thrive, and Helo intended to be there to see them together, to be there, to be a family, or as much as they could be with Hera still in the incubator. He can't wait to hold her.
He can't wait to hold Sharon.
Fifth Time
Helo can feel the rotgut still chewing at the base of his skull where the deckhands had broken into the Chief's solvent stash the night before. It had been a party the likes of which Galactica had never seen, officers, enlisted, CIC and mess drinking and hugging and crying in an orgy of relief and pride. All those jumps, all those miles, all those losses, and they were finished. They were home.
His helmet is too tight for the swelling in his brain, and Sharon doesn't look that much better. She, and Boomer, never could hold liquor particularly well, and last night's celebrations had left her olive skin with a decidedly pasty tinge. Her helmet's off, and Helo decides to join her; they haven't cleared for departure with a nauseous-sounding Hoshi, and they might as well be as comfortable as they can, crammed in a Raptor with a President, an Admiral, a deranged scientist, a member of the Quorum, and four armored Marines. Pity Matthias isn't here. She'd have liked this duty, advance team to Earth.
Racetrack was superbly pissed to be bumped from the flight as Sharon's ECO, but since she was still throwing up at the pre-flight, Helo had taken her slot and shifted her to one of the transports so she could puke in peace, but still make the first landing on Earth. She'd earned it. Everyone on Galactica had earned it, but some had declined the honor. Doc Cottle had announced, swigging his ground-algae coffee substitute, that he'd give it a miss. The betting pools had it that he had some secret stashes that he wanted to clean out with no one around. Helo thought the doctor probably just wanted some damned quiet.
Hoshi's voice crackled launch order through the speaker and Sharon picked her head up from the seat and flashed a half-smile at her husband. Helo reached across and squeezed her shoulder. "Let's go to Earth. Gently."