Battlestar Galactica - Evolution & Assimilation Ch10
Title: Evolution & Assimilation Ch10
Character/s: Caprica Six, Laura Roslin
Rating: M
Summary: Alternate Universe. Caprica Six, a child of war, vies to find her place in the Universe after betraying her kin and helping Athena return to Galactica. While Laura Roslin finds herself becoming the Dying Leader all over again and coming to terms with her defined place in history.
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CHAPTER TEN: RATTLING THE CAGE
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“Since this all began I’ve been having dreams, or visions - I’m not sure, where I’m running through the woods and I always just assumed it was just an interpretation of what was happening when I was awake,” Laura spoke offhandedly as she slowly flipped through the journal that lay in her lap. “There was one dream where I was clearly being chased and Leoben pulled me from the path, hiding me as they passed. I always found that odd, to be protected by a Cylon, but maybe there’s more to it than I thought...” She paused on a page that depicted a growing foetus and sighed heavily.
It was the third time she’d studied the pages of the old journal - though on the second read-through she had merely looked at the pictures. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t come up with a decent memory of the child she was seeing, even when there were images of the two of them together to act as a prompt. Nothing came to mind except blurred figures and random sounds.
“You don’t remember her at all?” Kate asked quietly as they sat together in the Hybrids Chamber.
“You know what...” Laura leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, surprising herself at how comfortable she had become with the Six sitting beside her. “I can hear her laughing.”
“Laughing,” The Cylon nodded slowly as she tried to imagine it, a smile creeping across her lips. “Can you describe it for me?” She asked curiously.
There was a long pause. Laura searched for the right words, holding onto the sound that flooded her mind for as long as she could. “After living with such a set concept of Cylons for so long it’s hard to believe that my mind’s not playing tricks on me. But when I look at this photo...” Her fingers worked quickly through the pages until she came to the one she wanted. It was one she could vaguely remember, captured as she’d picked up the lively five year-old around the waist and begun spinning around. She’d done it to her younger sisters so often that she could easily see it play out in the photo. “She had this beautiful bright laugh that little children always have. It’s full of hope and innocence. I loved working with the smaller children when I was teaching purely because they had that wonderfully melodious laughter. It was uplifting to hear it every day, that laughter that comes from minds that are yet to be touched by the seriousness of the Universe. Even on New Caprica, once we got the children into a routine and protected them from the reality of life they would laugh and play as if nothing had ever happened. During the occupation there was a small group I saw showing a Leoben and a Six how to play Pyramid, the older children and the parents kept a close eye on them but those few young children saw nothing wrong with the interaction.”
Kate considered what she was saying, the depth to her answer. She had never experienced any interaction with children but had shared her sister’s memories on more than one occasion. But studying children didn’t make her an expert, nor did it help her to understand them in any way. “Do you mean to say that you’ve lost faith in the current generation of humans because they have been affected by reality and lost their sense of innocence?” She asked, genuinely perplexed by Laura’s words.
“No...” Laura shook her head and smiled, mostly to herself. “Maybe I had before the attacks, but now? Now I have nothing but faith in them because of their strength and determination to survive. And they will survive long after I’m gone because they’ve come this far. Things could have been so much worse, however for the most part they’re all achieving a state of peace in this chaos. I admire them...the majority of them. There are always a few bad eggs.” She looked at her companion then, studying her.
While there were similarities that made it clear she was like every other Six, there were also differences that set Kate apart from the rest. The fact that she wore thick rimmed glasses was a glaringly obvious change from the others although Laura suspected, as she studied her closely, that it was to draw away from the scar on the side of her face. Between the hair that escaped her ponytail to frame her face and her glasses, the scar was almost invisible.
“How did that happen?” Laura asked when it seemed like the Cylon no longer had questions for her. Her suspicions about attempts to hide it were confirmed as Kate quickly lifted a hand to her face.
“When I found this journal, and others like it, I was in an area I shouldn’t have been,” She told her honestly, there was no reason to lie. Her finger gently traced the white line down the side of her face. “The Ones were destroying all the information, so I stole the journal and ran before they saw me. I ran the wrong way, too busy racing to get away, and the only way out was through a glass wall. It’s not the only scar I received from that decision.”
“And you didn’t download into a new body?”
“Should I have?” Kate asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked at Laura. She was used to the fact that she looked different to the rest of her line, but she was curious as to why a Human would ask such a question.
“You could have,” Laura pointed out as if the humanoid Cylon wasn’t aware of that particular point. “It looks like it would have hurt quite a bit, but you stayed in the same body.”
“It hurt but it wasn’t life threatening,” She shrugged her shoulders slightly. It seemed as though she thought very little of the pain that would have been inflicted on her. “I saw no need. Downloading would have hurt far more than the glass did.”
Moving her lips to respond Laura thought better of it and closed her mouth, processing what she’d just been told. It hadn’t occurred to her that the downloading process would be painful, but to an extent it made sense. She turned her attention back to the girl in the photo that sat beneath her fingertips. How many times had she downloaded and was that the reason she had forgotten? There was still a sea of questions to be answered. Even though Kate had explained everything to the best of her ability there were still things neither of them knew. Though one thing she was painfully aware of was the fact that D’Anna clearly had no idea of the connection between herself and the Sixes. There was no telling what the mischievously manipulative Three would do with such knowledge - there was no telling what anyone would do with such knowledge. Then again Laura didn’t even know what she was going to do with it. All she knew was that the less D’Anna knew, the better. So she closed the book, letting her hands run over it one last time, and handed it to Kate. “I think we both know that no good could come of D’Anna, or anyone else, knowing about this for now...”
“The originals of each model grew up together,” Kate said, nodding her understanding. “If D’Anna doesn’t know there must be some reason for it and if she found out she’d use it to her advantage. That’s the way she works.”
“You need to keep hiding this for now,” Laura told her as she watched Kate cradle the journal in her arms. Part of her wanted to snatch it back, look at the photos once more. But she knew she was doing the right thing. Whatever they’d found themselves caught up in it was too fragile to risk anyone else finding out.
“What are you going to do Laura?” Kate asked as she stood up, turning to look down at the Human she was hiding secrets with. “Now that you know, what are you going to do with these facts?”
Laura considered carefully what she was being asked. There was no easy solution - no straight and narrow path laid out before her. The decision she had to make would change everything. “I can’t ignore it I know that much,” She replied honestly, staring up at the copy of the child she tried desperately to remember. “I need some more time to think about it and I need to speak with Caprica... that’s all I know for sure.”
The solitary Cylon nodded her head slowly, holding the journal tightly against her. She looked at the dying woman still seated on the floor of the Hybrids Chamber and frowned. “You know...” As Laura looked up at her she paused, searching for the right words to convey her thoughts. She looked into the dark green eyes of Caprica’s mother - essentially her own mother - and smiled softly. “For what it’s worth, the Sixes have always admired you.” Satisfied with her chosen remark, Kate nodded as if to declare the conversation over and left the chamber without another word.
Left alone with her thoughts, Laura’s eyes trailed across the floor to the Hybrid laying silent in the centre of the room. It didn’t speak a word, which turned out to be more unnerving then when it wouldn’t stop talking. Laura bit her lip and tried to relax, but the silence was deafening. “You’re strangely quiet,” She said almost as if she expected a response.
As if on cue the Hybrid’s chest rose up from the goo it lay in, “Jump!”
Her stomach seemed to pull in every direction as the jump took place. Though thankfully the only direction it seemed to avoid was up. As the feeling subsided she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall once more. “I don’t mind if you talk,” She sighed as the silence began to gnaw at her. Her dark eyes opened again and she leaned forward, hugging her knees as she watched the Hybrid. “Really, I don’t mind at all.” She promised.
And so it began again.
“FTL system check, diagnostic functions within parameters, neuronal network run forty-three percent of heat exchanger cross-collateralized with hyper-dimensional matrix, upper senses, resources high, reboot lower senses... loading, loading, loading... increase oxygen twelve percent through lower senses...”
Laura listened to the strange concoction of sentences contentedly, watching the Hybrid with interest and yet looking straight through her. She smiled as the now familiar drone continued and looked away. Her mind whirred through everything she had learned since she stepped onto the Basestar. So many things had happened, so many things that she wasn’t sure she entirely understood. When she considered it all, she didn’t know if she was more concerned with the fact that she’d had a baby without knowing or that her child had been raised and cloned to become the poster girl for the holocaust. Her stomach turned at the very thought of it.
“The Six waits, counting the flowers in memories long dead...”
But then there was Caprica... Lucy... alone in her cell, looking every bit like the scared child she had been so long ago. Every time they spoke there was a look of fear in her surprisingly emotional grey eyes. Though what else was there for her to do with her time but fear what was to come and question what she didn’t know. She was just a scared little girl trying to find where she fit in with the rest of the Universe. Laura could remember being exactly the same for the first year after she’d returned to her family.
“To remove the pump with the attached hose and wiring, simultaneously release the three tangs while pulling the pump out of the retained along with the line and wiring...”
They jumped again and Laura didn’t have to look to know Elosha had joined her once more. “...You lied to me.”
“Did I?” Elosha asked, watching her with amusement in her eyes and a sly smirk on her lips.
“I thought I was earning humanity’s right to survive,” Laura said slowly, finally turning her head to look at her friend.
Elosha laughed at her naivety. “Oh!” For a teacher she certainly had a way of refusing to think outside the box. “It’s not a vending machine, Laura. You don’t save a life, and then - cue the celestial trumpets - here’s the way to Earth...”
Laura grinned. “...I know,” She nodded her head slightly.
“Jump!”
They both turned their attention to the Hybrid that lay before them and Elosha sighed heavily. “Disorientating, isn’t it? All these little limping steps back?”
Laura looked at her an smiled as she realised just how wrong her friend’s assessment was. “I like it,” She said quietly, almost embarrassed to be admitting it. At some point, years ago, she had hated the constant jumping. Yet at that moment, sitting on the Basestar as it slowly made its way back to the Fleet, she felt as though she was at peace to an extent. “I’m used to it...” She added after a moment. “Every jump brings us a little bit closer to home. Galactica. ...My home.”
As the words left her lips she couldn’t help but think of Bill. Though she wasn’t sure when she had started to think of Galactica as her home, she was well aware that he was the reason behind it. Wherever he happened to be... that was her home, with him. It was clear to her as though it had been that way from the very beginning. And it wasn’t just him. Somewhere along the way she’d become a part of his family and she relished it. The tiniest moments when they were simply a family and their roles were stripped away, it was just like her family used to be.
“Maybe there’s something there for me,” She added quietly as unshed tears glistened in her eyes.
“Maybe... even closer,” Elosha whispered to her with a knowing smile.
“Jump!”
Elosha was gone in a flash but her words remained and Laura could feel an odd sensation running through her. Her heart ached and she quickly pressed her fingertips beneath her eyes to try and stop the tears that threatened. “Bill...” She whispered, unable to describe what she was feeling any further than his name.
“Colonial Raptor approaching ...do not jump, do not jump, communication channels open... they speak...”
The voice of an Eight could be heard throughout the ship as they requested identification from the small vessel approaching them. At first she’d wondered where on in the Worlds the sound was coming from when she couldn’t see a single speaker on the walls, but then all thought seemed to stop as she waited. Beneath her breast her heart pounded violently, she didn’t even realise she’d been holding her breath until that amazingly deep voice resonated around her.
“Basestar this is Husker, requesting permission to board.” Though there was no one else in the room with her she could almost feel the atmosphere change on the ship at the sound of his voice.
“He’s here,” She bit her lip as a bright grin began to spread and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. But one thing she knew was that she had to see him, she couldn’t wait another moment. Carefully she pushed herself up onto her feet as she listened to the Eight approve the Admiral’s request. Part of her wondered if she was hallucinating until Leoben rushed into the room to confirm what was happening.
“Madame President,” He greeted cordially and held out his arm to her. “Allow me to escort you to the Admiral’s Raptor?”
“That would be greatly appreciated,” She smiled, reasoning that it would be a chance to have a quick word with him. He’d been strangely absent since they’d last spoken and she could only conclude that he was aware Kate had spoken to her. “This is one time I don’t want to get lost on this intricate ship of yours.”
Leoben smirked, wondering how long it would have taken her to find the right hangar if he hadn’t have shown up. Though, of course, he did have an ulterior motive. The corridors were being cleared so that she would have direct and uninterrupted passage to the Admiral, which would give him a chance to speak with her. “Would you like help locating your shoes?” He asked curiously, noticing her bare feet for the first time.
Glancing down at her toes, Laura shrugged and looked back up at Leoben with a glint in her eyes. “Do you think anyone will notice if I leave them just for now?” She asked with a mischievous smile. Excitement at the prospect of seeing Bill was getting the better of her. “It’s not like it’s an official ceremony or anything...”
“If anyone was to notice, Laura...” He emphasised her name as he spoke, drawing her in. “I doubt they’ll care.”
She smiled and rested her hand lightly in the crook of his arm as he guided her from the room. Her bare feet against the surprisingly warm metal helped her relax a little, seemingly soothing the butterflies in her stomach. Focusing on something other than the fact that Bill was landing on the Basestar at that very moment would be all too helpful. Her fingers tightened on Leoben’s arm slightly to get his attention. “Tell me about Lucy,” She said, not sure herself whether it was supposed to be an order or a request.
He looked at her curiously, though she refused to look at him. The problem was he wasn’t sure what to expect from her now that she knew, and particularly since she hadn’t known for very long. But the fact that she was asking questions appeared to be a good sign and he decided to go along with it. “She was almost as Caprica is now,” He offered, unsure really how he could begin to describe the sister he had grown up with. “Curious, emotional... but she was full of light. It was like it radiated from her. Everything excited her - everything was a game. And there were the flowers...”
“The purple flowers?” Laura asked, finally looking up at him with interest. “They were in almost every photo of her.”
“Those flowers grew by the river and she was always sneaking down there to pick them,” He explained as he helped her up a small flight of stairs slowly.
“She wore them in her hair...” The words slipped out of her mouth before she even thought about it. Laura’s step faltered and she frowned for a moment. Something was there on the edge of her mind all she had to do was find a way to grasp onto it. “After she’d chain a few of them together they’d be braided into her hair... she always tried to do it herself first but she’d get so upset when the flowers would fall out...”
Leoben listened patiently waiting for her to say more, but there was nothing else. He searched for something he should say but found nothing there either. The woman standing beside him was beginning to remember a life she’d been forced to forget. She was remembering a life with his sister and he had no idea how to respond to that. “The Admiral’s Raptor should be docking now. It’s just around here...” He said quietly as she looked up at him. They walked around the last corner and he pointed towards a sealed off doorway. “Once it’s safe to enter the door will open for you.” He explained and slipped his arm free of her grasp.
“Leoben...” She said quickly as he began to walk away. When he turned back to look at her she smiled sadly. “Thank you.”
Her simple words caught him off guard and he took the few steps back to her. Before she could say any more he had wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “She loved you,” He told her softly and stepped back, pleased that this time his action wasn’t going to end with him being airlocked. “She still loves you. All the time something’s been missing... it was you all along.”
With those words he left her standing in the corridor, more confused about the situation than she’d already been in the first place. There was no simple path for her to take. But as the entrance to the hangar slid open she knew there was one part of her journey that was certain.
Her eyes were on the Raptor before she’d even stepped through the doorway. She could see him in the cockpit as the engine powered down. Seeing him there so close... she could feel her heart racing as he moved to the back of the Raptor and the hatch began to slowly open. With her hands clasped behind her, as she tried to stop them from shaking, she drew in a deep breath. Finally their eyes met and she knew exactly what Elosha had been telling her, she understood it all. As long as he was with her everything was going to be okay.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
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Character/s: Caprica Six, Laura Roslin
Rating: M
Summary: Alternate Universe. Caprica Six, a child of war, vies to find her place in the Universe after betraying her kin and helping Athena return to Galactica. While Laura Roslin finds herself becoming the Dying Leader all over again and coming to terms with her defined place in history.
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CHAPTER TEN: RATTLING THE CAGE
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“Since this all began I’ve been having dreams, or visions - I’m not sure, where I’m running through the woods and I always just assumed it was just an interpretation of what was happening when I was awake,” Laura spoke offhandedly as she slowly flipped through the journal that lay in her lap. “There was one dream where I was clearly being chased and Leoben pulled me from the path, hiding me as they passed. I always found that odd, to be protected by a Cylon, but maybe there’s more to it than I thought...” She paused on a page that depicted a growing foetus and sighed heavily.
It was the third time she’d studied the pages of the old journal - though on the second read-through she had merely looked at the pictures. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t come up with a decent memory of the child she was seeing, even when there were images of the two of them together to act as a prompt. Nothing came to mind except blurred figures and random sounds.
“You don’t remember her at all?” Kate asked quietly as they sat together in the Hybrids Chamber.
“You know what...” Laura leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, surprising herself at how comfortable she had become with the Six sitting beside her. “I can hear her laughing.”
“Laughing,” The Cylon nodded slowly as she tried to imagine it, a smile creeping across her lips. “Can you describe it for me?” She asked curiously.
There was a long pause. Laura searched for the right words, holding onto the sound that flooded her mind for as long as she could. “After living with such a set concept of Cylons for so long it’s hard to believe that my mind’s not playing tricks on me. But when I look at this photo...” Her fingers worked quickly through the pages until she came to the one she wanted. It was one she could vaguely remember, captured as she’d picked up the lively five year-old around the waist and begun spinning around. She’d done it to her younger sisters so often that she could easily see it play out in the photo. “She had this beautiful bright laugh that little children always have. It’s full of hope and innocence. I loved working with the smaller children when I was teaching purely because they had that wonderfully melodious laughter. It was uplifting to hear it every day, that laughter that comes from minds that are yet to be touched by the seriousness of the Universe. Even on New Caprica, once we got the children into a routine and protected them from the reality of life they would laugh and play as if nothing had ever happened. During the occupation there was a small group I saw showing a Leoben and a Six how to play Pyramid, the older children and the parents kept a close eye on them but those few young children saw nothing wrong with the interaction.”
Kate considered what she was saying, the depth to her answer. She had never experienced any interaction with children but had shared her sister’s memories on more than one occasion. But studying children didn’t make her an expert, nor did it help her to understand them in any way. “Do you mean to say that you’ve lost faith in the current generation of humans because they have been affected by reality and lost their sense of innocence?” She asked, genuinely perplexed by Laura’s words.
“No...” Laura shook her head and smiled, mostly to herself. “Maybe I had before the attacks, but now? Now I have nothing but faith in them because of their strength and determination to survive. And they will survive long after I’m gone because they’ve come this far. Things could have been so much worse, however for the most part they’re all achieving a state of peace in this chaos. I admire them...the majority of them. There are always a few bad eggs.” She looked at her companion then, studying her.
While there were similarities that made it clear she was like every other Six, there were also differences that set Kate apart from the rest. The fact that she wore thick rimmed glasses was a glaringly obvious change from the others although Laura suspected, as she studied her closely, that it was to draw away from the scar on the side of her face. Between the hair that escaped her ponytail to frame her face and her glasses, the scar was almost invisible.
“How did that happen?” Laura asked when it seemed like the Cylon no longer had questions for her. Her suspicions about attempts to hide it were confirmed as Kate quickly lifted a hand to her face.
“When I found this journal, and others like it, I was in an area I shouldn’t have been,” She told her honestly, there was no reason to lie. Her finger gently traced the white line down the side of her face. “The Ones were destroying all the information, so I stole the journal and ran before they saw me. I ran the wrong way, too busy racing to get away, and the only way out was through a glass wall. It’s not the only scar I received from that decision.”
“And you didn’t download into a new body?”
“Should I have?” Kate asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked at Laura. She was used to the fact that she looked different to the rest of her line, but she was curious as to why a Human would ask such a question.
“You could have,” Laura pointed out as if the humanoid Cylon wasn’t aware of that particular point. “It looks like it would have hurt quite a bit, but you stayed in the same body.”
“It hurt but it wasn’t life threatening,” She shrugged her shoulders slightly. It seemed as though she thought very little of the pain that would have been inflicted on her. “I saw no need. Downloading would have hurt far more than the glass did.”
Moving her lips to respond Laura thought better of it and closed her mouth, processing what she’d just been told. It hadn’t occurred to her that the downloading process would be painful, but to an extent it made sense. She turned her attention back to the girl in the photo that sat beneath her fingertips. How many times had she downloaded and was that the reason she had forgotten? There was still a sea of questions to be answered. Even though Kate had explained everything to the best of her ability there were still things neither of them knew. Though one thing she was painfully aware of was the fact that D’Anna clearly had no idea of the connection between herself and the Sixes. There was no telling what the mischievously manipulative Three would do with such knowledge - there was no telling what anyone would do with such knowledge. Then again Laura didn’t even know what she was going to do with it. All she knew was that the less D’Anna knew, the better. So she closed the book, letting her hands run over it one last time, and handed it to Kate. “I think we both know that no good could come of D’Anna, or anyone else, knowing about this for now...”
“The originals of each model grew up together,” Kate said, nodding her understanding. “If D’Anna doesn’t know there must be some reason for it and if she found out she’d use it to her advantage. That’s the way she works.”
“You need to keep hiding this for now,” Laura told her as she watched Kate cradle the journal in her arms. Part of her wanted to snatch it back, look at the photos once more. But she knew she was doing the right thing. Whatever they’d found themselves caught up in it was too fragile to risk anyone else finding out.
“What are you going to do Laura?” Kate asked as she stood up, turning to look down at the Human she was hiding secrets with. “Now that you know, what are you going to do with these facts?”
Laura considered carefully what she was being asked. There was no easy solution - no straight and narrow path laid out before her. The decision she had to make would change everything. “I can’t ignore it I know that much,” She replied honestly, staring up at the copy of the child she tried desperately to remember. “I need some more time to think about it and I need to speak with Caprica... that’s all I know for sure.”
The solitary Cylon nodded her head slowly, holding the journal tightly against her. She looked at the dying woman still seated on the floor of the Hybrids Chamber and frowned. “You know...” As Laura looked up at her she paused, searching for the right words to convey her thoughts. She looked into the dark green eyes of Caprica’s mother - essentially her own mother - and smiled softly. “For what it’s worth, the Sixes have always admired you.” Satisfied with her chosen remark, Kate nodded as if to declare the conversation over and left the chamber without another word.
Left alone with her thoughts, Laura’s eyes trailed across the floor to the Hybrid laying silent in the centre of the room. It didn’t speak a word, which turned out to be more unnerving then when it wouldn’t stop talking. Laura bit her lip and tried to relax, but the silence was deafening. “You’re strangely quiet,” She said almost as if she expected a response.
As if on cue the Hybrid’s chest rose up from the goo it lay in, “Jump!”
Her stomach seemed to pull in every direction as the jump took place. Though thankfully the only direction it seemed to avoid was up. As the feeling subsided she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall once more. “I don’t mind if you talk,” She sighed as the silence began to gnaw at her. Her dark eyes opened again and she leaned forward, hugging her knees as she watched the Hybrid. “Really, I don’t mind at all.” She promised.
And so it began again.
“FTL system check, diagnostic functions within parameters, neuronal network run forty-three percent of heat exchanger cross-collateralized with hyper-dimensional matrix, upper senses, resources high, reboot lower senses... loading, loading, loading... increase oxygen twelve percent through lower senses...”
Laura listened to the strange concoction of sentences contentedly, watching the Hybrid with interest and yet looking straight through her. She smiled as the now familiar drone continued and looked away. Her mind whirred through everything she had learned since she stepped onto the Basestar. So many things had happened, so many things that she wasn’t sure she entirely understood. When she considered it all, she didn’t know if she was more concerned with the fact that she’d had a baby without knowing or that her child had been raised and cloned to become the poster girl for the holocaust. Her stomach turned at the very thought of it.
“The Six waits, counting the flowers in memories long dead...”
But then there was Caprica... Lucy... alone in her cell, looking every bit like the scared child she had been so long ago. Every time they spoke there was a look of fear in her surprisingly emotional grey eyes. Though what else was there for her to do with her time but fear what was to come and question what she didn’t know. She was just a scared little girl trying to find where she fit in with the rest of the Universe. Laura could remember being exactly the same for the first year after she’d returned to her family.
“To remove the pump with the attached hose and wiring, simultaneously release the three tangs while pulling the pump out of the retained along with the line and wiring...”
They jumped again and Laura didn’t have to look to know Elosha had joined her once more. “...You lied to me.”
“Did I?” Elosha asked, watching her with amusement in her eyes and a sly smirk on her lips.
“I thought I was earning humanity’s right to survive,” Laura said slowly, finally turning her head to look at her friend.
Elosha laughed at her naivety. “Oh!” For a teacher she certainly had a way of refusing to think outside the box. “It’s not a vending machine, Laura. You don’t save a life, and then - cue the celestial trumpets - here’s the way to Earth...”
Laura grinned. “...I know,” She nodded her head slightly.
“Jump!”
They both turned their attention to the Hybrid that lay before them and Elosha sighed heavily. “Disorientating, isn’t it? All these little limping steps back?”
Laura looked at her an smiled as she realised just how wrong her friend’s assessment was. “I like it,” She said quietly, almost embarrassed to be admitting it. At some point, years ago, she had hated the constant jumping. Yet at that moment, sitting on the Basestar as it slowly made its way back to the Fleet, she felt as though she was at peace to an extent. “I’m used to it...” She added after a moment. “Every jump brings us a little bit closer to home. Galactica. ...My home.”
As the words left her lips she couldn’t help but think of Bill. Though she wasn’t sure when she had started to think of Galactica as her home, she was well aware that he was the reason behind it. Wherever he happened to be... that was her home, with him. It was clear to her as though it had been that way from the very beginning. And it wasn’t just him. Somewhere along the way she’d become a part of his family and she relished it. The tiniest moments when they were simply a family and their roles were stripped away, it was just like her family used to be.
“Maybe there’s something there for me,” She added quietly as unshed tears glistened in her eyes.
“Maybe... even closer,” Elosha whispered to her with a knowing smile.
“Jump!”
Elosha was gone in a flash but her words remained and Laura could feel an odd sensation running through her. Her heart ached and she quickly pressed her fingertips beneath her eyes to try and stop the tears that threatened. “Bill...” She whispered, unable to describe what she was feeling any further than his name.
“Colonial Raptor approaching ...do not jump, do not jump, communication channels open... they speak...”
The voice of an Eight could be heard throughout the ship as they requested identification from the small vessel approaching them. At first she’d wondered where on in the Worlds the sound was coming from when she couldn’t see a single speaker on the walls, but then all thought seemed to stop as she waited. Beneath her breast her heart pounded violently, she didn’t even realise she’d been holding her breath until that amazingly deep voice resonated around her.
“Basestar this is Husker, requesting permission to board.” Though there was no one else in the room with her she could almost feel the atmosphere change on the ship at the sound of his voice.
“He’s here,” She bit her lip as a bright grin began to spread and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. But one thing she knew was that she had to see him, she couldn’t wait another moment. Carefully she pushed herself up onto her feet as she listened to the Eight approve the Admiral’s request. Part of her wondered if she was hallucinating until Leoben rushed into the room to confirm what was happening.
“Madame President,” He greeted cordially and held out his arm to her. “Allow me to escort you to the Admiral’s Raptor?”
“That would be greatly appreciated,” She smiled, reasoning that it would be a chance to have a quick word with him. He’d been strangely absent since they’d last spoken and she could only conclude that he was aware Kate had spoken to her. “This is one time I don’t want to get lost on this intricate ship of yours.”
Leoben smirked, wondering how long it would have taken her to find the right hangar if he hadn’t have shown up. Though, of course, he did have an ulterior motive. The corridors were being cleared so that she would have direct and uninterrupted passage to the Admiral, which would give him a chance to speak with her. “Would you like help locating your shoes?” He asked curiously, noticing her bare feet for the first time.
Glancing down at her toes, Laura shrugged and looked back up at Leoben with a glint in her eyes. “Do you think anyone will notice if I leave them just for now?” She asked with a mischievous smile. Excitement at the prospect of seeing Bill was getting the better of her. “It’s not like it’s an official ceremony or anything...”
“If anyone was to notice, Laura...” He emphasised her name as he spoke, drawing her in. “I doubt they’ll care.”
She smiled and rested her hand lightly in the crook of his arm as he guided her from the room. Her bare feet against the surprisingly warm metal helped her relax a little, seemingly soothing the butterflies in her stomach. Focusing on something other than the fact that Bill was landing on the Basestar at that very moment would be all too helpful. Her fingers tightened on Leoben’s arm slightly to get his attention. “Tell me about Lucy,” She said, not sure herself whether it was supposed to be an order or a request.
He looked at her curiously, though she refused to look at him. The problem was he wasn’t sure what to expect from her now that she knew, and particularly since she hadn’t known for very long. But the fact that she was asking questions appeared to be a good sign and he decided to go along with it. “She was almost as Caprica is now,” He offered, unsure really how he could begin to describe the sister he had grown up with. “Curious, emotional... but she was full of light. It was like it radiated from her. Everything excited her - everything was a game. And there were the flowers...”
“The purple flowers?” Laura asked, finally looking up at him with interest. “They were in almost every photo of her.”
“Those flowers grew by the river and she was always sneaking down there to pick them,” He explained as he helped her up a small flight of stairs slowly.
“She wore them in her hair...” The words slipped out of her mouth before she even thought about it. Laura’s step faltered and she frowned for a moment. Something was there on the edge of her mind all she had to do was find a way to grasp onto it. “After she’d chain a few of them together they’d be braided into her hair... she always tried to do it herself first but she’d get so upset when the flowers would fall out...”
Leoben listened patiently waiting for her to say more, but there was nothing else. He searched for something he should say but found nothing there either. The woman standing beside him was beginning to remember a life she’d been forced to forget. She was remembering a life with his sister and he had no idea how to respond to that. “The Admiral’s Raptor should be docking now. It’s just around here...” He said quietly as she looked up at him. They walked around the last corner and he pointed towards a sealed off doorway. “Once it’s safe to enter the door will open for you.” He explained and slipped his arm free of her grasp.
“Leoben...” She said quickly as he began to walk away. When he turned back to look at her she smiled sadly. “Thank you.”
Her simple words caught him off guard and he took the few steps back to her. Before she could say any more he had wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “She loved you,” He told her softly and stepped back, pleased that this time his action wasn’t going to end with him being airlocked. “She still loves you. All the time something’s been missing... it was you all along.”
With those words he left her standing in the corridor, more confused about the situation than she’d already been in the first place. There was no simple path for her to take. But as the entrance to the hangar slid open she knew there was one part of her journey that was certain.
Her eyes were on the Raptor before she’d even stepped through the doorway. She could see him in the cockpit as the engine powered down. Seeing him there so close... she could feel her heart racing as he moved to the back of the Raptor and the hatch began to slowly open. With her hands clasped behind her, as she tried to stop them from shaking, she drew in a deep breath. Finally their eyes met and she knew exactly what Elosha had been telling her, she understood it all. As long as he was with her everything was going to be okay.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
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