BSG fic: Almost Like Home (not quite NC-17)
Title: Almost Like Home
Author: sabaceanbabe
Rating: just this side of NC-17
Word count: 2,000+
Pairing: Helo/Maggie, mention of Helo/Sharon
Warnings: spoilers through Final Cut
Summary: If a man is the sum of his experiences, then Thetis Agathon wouldn't recognize her little boy now.
Author's note: Written for romanticalgirl for the 2nd annual Helo Shagathon. I couldn't decide between the prompts (Helo/Maggie, dress blues. Can be sex, can be not. I'm easy and Helo gen, alone in a crowd), so I wrote 'em both. Thank you, lizardbeth_j for the beta and lyssie for the commiseration and hand-holding. And I gotta say, Sharon has really messed up this boy's head! I had to get him drunk and depressed for him to even think about anyone else. :P
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He stands at the back of the crowd, a part of it, but not. Isolated. Alone. Surrounded by men and women just like him, except… Except that there is no one like him. Not anymore. Or to be more accurate, he isn't like them. If a man is the sum of his experiences, then Thetis Agathon wouldn't recognize her little boy now.
Helo hears the words spoken by Commander Adama, followed by Laura Roslin, President of the Colonies by default. He doesn't know her, doesn't want to know her. He knows enough, knows that she is ruthless and has no qualms about lying to him, to Sharon, to further her own ends. At least those ends are apparently for the good of the human race, but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow that she was so recently willing to toss Sharon out an airlock. Or Helo himself, for that matter, just to gain Sharon's cooperation. And the worst part was that Sharon was cooperating. There had been no coercion needed.
Gods. For weeks, months, all he'd wanted was to return home and now he's here and it's not home anymore. It's just a place. Most of the people he knew and worked with every day, they're dead now. Killed by the Cylons, if not in the initial attack, the one that left him stranded on Caprica, then later, during the war of attrition the human race has fought ever since. He doesn't know how those who remain will act around him, but if the way things were on the Astral Queen was any indication, things won't be easy. Not for the man who lived when everyone else died and then had the balls to return to Galactica with a Cylon in tow.
Roslin's voice continues on and on, but Helo isn't listening. He can't keep his mind off that Cylon, where she is now, if she's all right, if the baby is all right. A baby that's still little more than a concept to him, for all that Sharon says it's a girl. A baby that can't possibly exist and yet one he has faith does exist. Kara says Sharon is lying about the pregnancy, but Helo believed her from the very first. And even now, he doesn't know why, but he still believes her. More than that; he believes in her.
Applause fills the air, interrupting his reverie. Helo glances at the men and women near him as they clap with varying degrees of enthusiasm. At least they don't all seem to be enamored of President Roslin. He tries to catch the eye of one of Chief Tyrol's deck crew, but her gaze slides quickly away. He's disappointed, but not surprised. The few short hours he's been back, just long enough for a quick shower and to change into a dress uniform that he's not even sure is his, most people have either stared or avoided looking at him directly.
The crowd begins to break up, people drifting off to return to duty or rack time or whatever. For a moment, Helo thinks that maybe he'll look for Kara, but as he turns, a man bumps into him on the way past. Rather than apologizing to Helo, he turns to the man next to him and whispers loudly enough for Helo to hear, "Think he's frakkin' her?"
The taller man frowns. "Who?"
Nodding toward Helo, the first man says, "That Cylon he brought with him."
Not needing to hear more, Helo turns away, no longer interested in finding Kara. Instead, he just wants to be alone. The second man's voice fades as the distance between them grows, but still Helo hears, "I know I would."
***
When Helo arrives at Galactica's forward observation deck, not long after the President's speech, he's surprised to find it deserted. Not that he's disappointed. Helo walks over to the large window and, back against the bulkhead, slides down, stretches his legs out in front of him. There is only a minor twinge of discomfort from the scar on his thigh to remind him yet again that things are different now.
He leans his head back against the cool metal, faces the window, and watches the CAP fly in the distance, small and bright against the velvet black. He sits there who knows how long, just looking out that window, letting the unsettled feeling he's had for days now slip away. Finally, he twists the cap off the bottle and takes a swig, the sharp taste familiar on his tongue. The label on the bottle reads Elysian Meadow Distillery, the reflection in the window beyond the bottle tells him that he's no longer alone.
Without turning away from the view, he says, "Starbuck and I used to stock up on this stuff whenever we hit Libron." The woman standing in the doorway steps fully into the observatory, walks down the aisle past seating Helo has always thought too plush for a battlestar. He turns to look at her as Racetrack takes up the position opposite his in the window frame. "It's crap, but it works just as well as the good stuff." He can't read the expression in her eyes, but he and Maggie were always friendly with each other before the attacks and so he holds the bottle out to her.
She hesitates for only a moment before taking it from him. Her fingers as they brush against his are warm and he can't entirely suppress a shiver. A shiver that has nothing to do with being cold. He closes his eyes. Yeah. Friendly. He and Maggie could have been way more than just friendly if he hadn't been so wrapped up in Sharon, even as the Sharon he'd been wrapped up in had been wrapped up in the Chief.
A tap against his foot makes him open his eyes again. She offers the bottle back to him. Gesturing with it, she says, "I would've thought you'd have changed out of that monkey suit before coming up here."
He half smiles. "Didn't feel like changing." He's still wearing his dress uniform, most of it, anyway. He'd left the sash and baubles and belt on his rack. She's in greens, her hair loose around her shoulders and still damp from a shower. The look suits her, and it bothers him that he's noticed it. He takes another long pull from the bottle, dragging his gaze from her hair back to the view outside.
"I couldn't frakking wait to get out of that thing. It's like they make the damn things out of fiberglass."
Laughing at her sour tone, Helo looks at her again. She's smiling at him, the first time anyone who knew him before - other than Kara - has shown him the slightest shred of welcome. It's a little embarrassing, the gratitude he suddenly feels. He turns away, looks again out the window. "You know, I'm not even sure this one belongs to me?"
Unexpected movement and a whoosh of air and she's right there, still smiling, pushing aside the stiff collar of the dress tunic. Again he shivers at the heat of her fingers on his skin.
Just as quickly, she's back to leaning against the opposite side of the observation window. "Somebody wrote 'Agathon' on the tag inside."
"Well, I'll be damned. I really thought most of my issue gear would've been put back into the rotation."
She gives him a lopsided grin and holds her hand out for the ambrosia. "Starbuck was pretty scary when they tried. Besides, do you really think we'd let that happen? You were listed as missing in action, not dead." He watches the play of muscles in her throat as she swallows the cheap liquor. Handing the bottle back to him, she says, "What was it like? Back on Caprica?"
"Wet." And cold and uncomfortable and a little terrifying, but for all that, he wants to take Sharon and go back there. He doesn't want their child born in a cage. Nor does he want to talk about it with Racetrack. He drinks deeply, concentrating on the feel of the alcohol as it burns its way to his stomach.
"Fair enough, Helo, if you don't want to talk about it."
He meets her eyes. "I don't." They're beautiful eyes.
After a moment, she looks away and so does he. They sit in silence, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the CAP and the couple of ships of the fleet that are within view. The silence isn't easy, but neither is it objectionable. A pleasant fog, just enough to soften the edges, descends over him as the level of ambrosia in the bottle decreases. Helo's a bit surprised at how relaxed he feels, sitting here with her. He can almost pretend that none of it happened, that they're just a couple of Galactica's raptor pilots, taking a break after a rotation. That there are no Cylons, that their civilization hasn't been destroyed.
"Do you ever think about what might have been?" he asks. "What things'd be like now if the Cylons had never attacked?"
She doesn't answer him right away. But then she’s there, right there, her soft breath on his lips an instant before her mouth. Startled, reactions dulled by the same ambrosia he tastes on her tongue, Helo lets her kiss him, lets her push his tunic aside, arches into her hands as she smoothes them over his stomach beneath his tanks.
He thinks he should stop this, make her stop, lifts a hand to do just that, but instead of pushing Maggie away, he threads his fingers into her hair, strokes his thumb over her cheek, opens his mouth to drink her in. He can’t think straight, can’t think at all, only feel. He slides further down, taking her with him, tells himself he’s trying to stop her from unfastening his trousers, that he’s not helping her, not lifting her tanks over her head.
The bottle of ambrosia falls to the carpeted deck, empty and forgotten.
***
He steps into quarters with a towel wrapped around his hips, another over his shoulders, and heads for his locker.
“Hey, Poet!” Dragon calls from the other end of the room. “You hear about that reporter?”
Feeling for the first time a little like he’s come home, Helo reaches into his locker for a clean pair of underwear as Poet, a Viper nugget when he’d left but now a senior pilot, asks, “Reporter?”
“Yeah, man! D’Anna Biers. The Old Man’s letting her do a story on us.”
Someone else chimes in - “No shit!” - and Helo tunes out the chatter, not interested. Finished tucking his tanks into his green trousers, the first comfortable uniform he’s worn in months, he grabs his belt and closes his locker door. Maggie is standing on the other side.
“Maggie.” He feels the heat rush up his skin, quickly followed by guilt.
“Helo, what happened last night,” she begins but he cuts her off, maybe a little too sharply but he doesn’t care.
“Nothing happened.” He tries to brush past her but her hand on his arm stops him. His heart pounds in his chest.
“Wait a minute.” There is anger in her voice. “I wasn’t the only one on the observation deck.”
With effort, Helo unclenches his jaw. “It. Never. Happened.”
“You son of a bitch.” Dark anger in her eyes now as well as in her voice.
“Excuse me, Racetrack, but I have to report to Doc Cottle in ten minutes.”
“It’s because of her, isn’t it? Your little Cylon.”
Poet and Dragon are still trading quips about the reporter and Helo realizes he’s never heard Dragon talk so much in all the years he’s known him. He looks down at Maggie, who’s looking up at him with something very like loathing in her eyes, so very different from the night before. The one that hadn’t happened.
“I’m sorry,” he says. This time, she lets him push past her.
“Yeah, you are.”
Her words strike him like stones and he pauses for a moment, half in and half out of the room, but in the end, there's nothing he can do or say to make things right with her, and so he walks away.
~fin~
Holy frak. I just realized. I finished this not only on time but got it posted well before midnight. \o/
Author: sabaceanbabe
Rating: just this side of NC-17
Word count: 2,000+
Pairing: Helo/Maggie, mention of Helo/Sharon
Warnings: spoilers through Final Cut
Summary: If a man is the sum of his experiences, then Thetis Agathon wouldn't recognize her little boy now.
Author's note: Written for romanticalgirl for the 2nd annual Helo Shagathon. I couldn't decide between the prompts (Helo/Maggie, dress blues. Can be sex, can be not. I'm easy and Helo gen, alone in a crowd), so I wrote 'em both. Thank you, lizardbeth_j for the beta and lyssie for the commiseration and hand-holding. And I gotta say, Sharon has really messed up this boy's head! I had to get him drunk and depressed for him to even think about anyone else. :P
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He stands at the back of the crowd, a part of it, but not. Isolated. Alone. Surrounded by men and women just like him, except… Except that there is no one like him. Not anymore. Or to be more accurate, he isn't like them. If a man is the sum of his experiences, then Thetis Agathon wouldn't recognize her little boy now.
Helo hears the words spoken by Commander Adama, followed by Laura Roslin, President of the Colonies by default. He doesn't know her, doesn't want to know her. He knows enough, knows that she is ruthless and has no qualms about lying to him, to Sharon, to further her own ends. At least those ends are apparently for the good of the human race, but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow that she was so recently willing to toss Sharon out an airlock. Or Helo himself, for that matter, just to gain Sharon's cooperation. And the worst part was that Sharon was cooperating. There had been no coercion needed.
Gods. For weeks, months, all he'd wanted was to return home and now he's here and it's not home anymore. It's just a place. Most of the people he knew and worked with every day, they're dead now. Killed by the Cylons, if not in the initial attack, the one that left him stranded on Caprica, then later, during the war of attrition the human race has fought ever since. He doesn't know how those who remain will act around him, but if the way things were on the Astral Queen was any indication, things won't be easy. Not for the man who lived when everyone else died and then had the balls to return to Galactica with a Cylon in tow.
Roslin's voice continues on and on, but Helo isn't listening. He can't keep his mind off that Cylon, where she is now, if she's all right, if the baby is all right. A baby that's still little more than a concept to him, for all that Sharon says it's a girl. A baby that can't possibly exist and yet one he has faith does exist. Kara says Sharon is lying about the pregnancy, but Helo believed her from the very first. And even now, he doesn't know why, but he still believes her. More than that; he believes in her.
Applause fills the air, interrupting his reverie. Helo glances at the men and women near him as they clap with varying degrees of enthusiasm. At least they don't all seem to be enamored of President Roslin. He tries to catch the eye of one of Chief Tyrol's deck crew, but her gaze slides quickly away. He's disappointed, but not surprised. The few short hours he's been back, just long enough for a quick shower and to change into a dress uniform that he's not even sure is his, most people have either stared or avoided looking at him directly.
The crowd begins to break up, people drifting off to return to duty or rack time or whatever. For a moment, Helo thinks that maybe he'll look for Kara, but as he turns, a man bumps into him on the way past. Rather than apologizing to Helo, he turns to the man next to him and whispers loudly enough for Helo to hear, "Think he's frakkin' her?"
The taller man frowns. "Who?"
Nodding toward Helo, the first man says, "That Cylon he brought with him."
Not needing to hear more, Helo turns away, no longer interested in finding Kara. Instead, he just wants to be alone. The second man's voice fades as the distance between them grows, but still Helo hears, "I know I would."
***
When Helo arrives at Galactica's forward observation deck, not long after the President's speech, he's surprised to find it deserted. Not that he's disappointed. Helo walks over to the large window and, back against the bulkhead, slides down, stretches his legs out in front of him. There is only a minor twinge of discomfort from the scar on his thigh to remind him yet again that things are different now.
He leans his head back against the cool metal, faces the window, and watches the CAP fly in the distance, small and bright against the velvet black. He sits there who knows how long, just looking out that window, letting the unsettled feeling he's had for days now slip away. Finally, he twists the cap off the bottle and takes a swig, the sharp taste familiar on his tongue. The label on the bottle reads Elysian Meadow Distillery, the reflection in the window beyond the bottle tells him that he's no longer alone.
Without turning away from the view, he says, "Starbuck and I used to stock up on this stuff whenever we hit Libron." The woman standing in the doorway steps fully into the observatory, walks down the aisle past seating Helo has always thought too plush for a battlestar. He turns to look at her as Racetrack takes up the position opposite his in the window frame. "It's crap, but it works just as well as the good stuff." He can't read the expression in her eyes, but he and Maggie were always friendly with each other before the attacks and so he holds the bottle out to her.
She hesitates for only a moment before taking it from him. Her fingers as they brush against his are warm and he can't entirely suppress a shiver. A shiver that has nothing to do with being cold. He closes his eyes. Yeah. Friendly. He and Maggie could have been way more than just friendly if he hadn't been so wrapped up in Sharon, even as the Sharon he'd been wrapped up in had been wrapped up in the Chief.
A tap against his foot makes him open his eyes again. She offers the bottle back to him. Gesturing with it, she says, "I would've thought you'd have changed out of that monkey suit before coming up here."
He half smiles. "Didn't feel like changing." He's still wearing his dress uniform, most of it, anyway. He'd left the sash and baubles and belt on his rack. She's in greens, her hair loose around her shoulders and still damp from a shower. The look suits her, and it bothers him that he's noticed it. He takes another long pull from the bottle, dragging his gaze from her hair back to the view outside.
"I couldn't frakking wait to get out of that thing. It's like they make the damn things out of fiberglass."
Laughing at her sour tone, Helo looks at her again. She's smiling at him, the first time anyone who knew him before - other than Kara - has shown him the slightest shred of welcome. It's a little embarrassing, the gratitude he suddenly feels. He turns away, looks again out the window. "You know, I'm not even sure this one belongs to me?"
Unexpected movement and a whoosh of air and she's right there, still smiling, pushing aside the stiff collar of the dress tunic. Again he shivers at the heat of her fingers on his skin.
Just as quickly, she's back to leaning against the opposite side of the observation window. "Somebody wrote 'Agathon' on the tag inside."
"Well, I'll be damned. I really thought most of my issue gear would've been put back into the rotation."
She gives him a lopsided grin and holds her hand out for the ambrosia. "Starbuck was pretty scary when they tried. Besides, do you really think we'd let that happen? You were listed as missing in action, not dead." He watches the play of muscles in her throat as she swallows the cheap liquor. Handing the bottle back to him, she says, "What was it like? Back on Caprica?"
"Wet." And cold and uncomfortable and a little terrifying, but for all that, he wants to take Sharon and go back there. He doesn't want their child born in a cage. Nor does he want to talk about it with Racetrack. He drinks deeply, concentrating on the feel of the alcohol as it burns its way to his stomach.
"Fair enough, Helo, if you don't want to talk about it."
He meets her eyes. "I don't." They're beautiful eyes.
After a moment, she looks away and so does he. They sit in silence, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the CAP and the couple of ships of the fleet that are within view. The silence isn't easy, but neither is it objectionable. A pleasant fog, just enough to soften the edges, descends over him as the level of ambrosia in the bottle decreases. Helo's a bit surprised at how relaxed he feels, sitting here with her. He can almost pretend that none of it happened, that they're just a couple of Galactica's raptor pilots, taking a break after a rotation. That there are no Cylons, that their civilization hasn't been destroyed.
"Do you ever think about what might have been?" he asks. "What things'd be like now if the Cylons had never attacked?"
She doesn't answer him right away. But then she’s there, right there, her soft breath on his lips an instant before her mouth. Startled, reactions dulled by the same ambrosia he tastes on her tongue, Helo lets her kiss him, lets her push his tunic aside, arches into her hands as she smoothes them over his stomach beneath his tanks.
He thinks he should stop this, make her stop, lifts a hand to do just that, but instead of pushing Maggie away, he threads his fingers into her hair, strokes his thumb over her cheek, opens his mouth to drink her in. He can’t think straight, can’t think at all, only feel. He slides further down, taking her with him, tells himself he’s trying to stop her from unfastening his trousers, that he’s not helping her, not lifting her tanks over her head.
The bottle of ambrosia falls to the carpeted deck, empty and forgotten.
***
He steps into quarters with a towel wrapped around his hips, another over his shoulders, and heads for his locker.
“Hey, Poet!” Dragon calls from the other end of the room. “You hear about that reporter?”
Feeling for the first time a little like he’s come home, Helo reaches into his locker for a clean pair of underwear as Poet, a Viper nugget when he’d left but now a senior pilot, asks, “Reporter?”
“Yeah, man! D’Anna Biers. The Old Man’s letting her do a story on us.”
Someone else chimes in - “No shit!” - and Helo tunes out the chatter, not interested. Finished tucking his tanks into his green trousers, the first comfortable uniform he’s worn in months, he grabs his belt and closes his locker door. Maggie is standing on the other side.
“Maggie.” He feels the heat rush up his skin, quickly followed by guilt.
“Helo, what happened last night,” she begins but he cuts her off, maybe a little too sharply but he doesn’t care.
“Nothing happened.” He tries to brush past her but her hand on his arm stops him. His heart pounds in his chest.
“Wait a minute.” There is anger in her voice. “I wasn’t the only one on the observation deck.”
With effort, Helo unclenches his jaw. “It. Never. Happened.”
“You son of a bitch.” Dark anger in her eyes now as well as in her voice.
“Excuse me, Racetrack, but I have to report to Doc Cottle in ten minutes.”
“It’s because of her, isn’t it? Your little Cylon.”
Poet and Dragon are still trading quips about the reporter and Helo realizes he’s never heard Dragon talk so much in all the years he’s known him. He looks down at Maggie, who’s looking up at him with something very like loathing in her eyes, so very different from the night before. The one that hadn’t happened.
“I’m sorry,” he says. This time, she lets him push past her.
“Yeah, you are.”
Her words strike him like stones and he pauses for a moment, half in and half out of the room, but in the end, there's nothing he can do or say to make things right with her, and so he walks away.
~fin~
Holy frak. I just realized. I finished this not only on time but got it posted well before midnight. \o/