Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time
Okay, Kurt Vonnegut it is this time, apparently, for an AU fic inspiration.
One of my personal top pet BSG 'what ifs' (go figure!): what if Lee Adama managed to make it in time to stop Dee from taking her own life? Could the experience factor as an angst source still, in keeping with the mood and plot framework of the show? Plot-wise, I do believe the mutiny arc, crucial to the latter half of season 4 would've been carried out regardless of Dee's demise, so no irrevocable harm to canon there.
Character-wise, Dee's choice was definitely a most fruitful angstorama and a potent vehicle to drive Lee's character to a new level of maturity and self-awareness. Yet, the choice part and its pending aftermath in keeping with canon, it's just too tempting not to try and fix the morbid fallout. Those two could definitely use a respite from all the devastating frustration and loss of hope.
Set through 'Sometimes a Great Notion' (season 4). AU, for an obvious reason, yet adhering to the episode overall outline.
Rating T
Disclaimer: None of the characters, plot-points, inherent to the show, belong to me.
So it goes*
He knew which way to go as soon as he heard the shot thunder a hushed echo through Galactica's now bleak hallways. Sound of his feet pounding on the metal floor made him wonder whether he would hear his heart beat, once halted to a stop. Stop he didn't, thus, speeding up the frenzied dash from just outside the hangar deck all the way back to the officers' quarters.
He might have actually knocked down a couple of brooding crewmates, hapless enough to get in the way. Not that his mind was apt to record that much at the moment, determined on making it to her barrack asap, before… Given the air swished most of coherent thoughts right out as he ran, he wasn't quite able to pin down what it was exactly he set out to prevent. From what he witnessed throughout the ship, sauntering to catch his shuttle to Colonial One, though, there was sure to be someone, devastated enough to take up violence to vent frustration. A whole bunch of likely suspects, complete with access to firearms, just so happened to inhabit the quarters he walked her to, not yet half an hour ago. That it might, in the remotest wayward plausibility, be her own self, responsible for recently audible gunfire, set him to flee in the first place.
A small crowd, swarming the hatch already, brought his heart to skip a good deal of thumps. She was nowhere to be detected among the assorted officers and crew, bustling outside, hence, he was quite possibly looking to a post-traumatic hostage situation, featuring Dee. Gods, what was it about their dates and hostage crises? He had to pry and elbow his way more than a tad unamiably to the entrance, wishing for the first time in a while he had the sidearm handy, instantly aware of the voices hushed to a laden rasp, as he shoved by.
Nothing in his extended experience, military and otherwise, of the past years managed to quite prepare him for what he observed inside. Backed against the opened locker, face contorted with silent weeping, eyes haunted by unspeakable desolation was Dee - such a far cry from the woman, vibrant with breathtaking delight and promise, who had kissed him goodnight earlier, that he could hardly bring himself to identify recognition. Leaned on the crutch nearby, not quite daring to inch closer, was a ghostly-pale Lt. Gaeta, repeatedly failing to reach for the gun, she was grasping convulsively, dangerously close to her bosom.
He'd been frozen in place for a moment, refusing to comprehend the reality of that particular nightmare, before his mind kick-started out of paralysis, scanning her head to toe with frantic precision for traces of possibly inflicted injury. He did hear one gunshot, after all. It wasn't before he spotted a bullet-hole right through the picture of her as a kid, taped inside the locker, that he risked revealing his presence, moving deliberately in between her and, by then, visibly aloof Gaeta.
Opting to ignore the daggers Felix's glare directed his way, he stepped closer yet. Voice hitching with fright, he called out the soft monosyllable of her name. His unexpected proximity appeared to snap her somewhat out of murky stupor, only to earn him an abrupt dismissal:
- Go away Lee! Please, just go away! It's all over.
She waved him off fiercely, easing the grip of one hand on the gun, turning away from his agonized stare to bury her face in the cool metal of the door. He was painfully aware of her slender shoulders shuddering with a new fit of sobs. Watching her implode and shutter, taking in how deeply was she broken, made his own tears threaten to break loose.
It took all the composure he could summon to willfully separate his private fright from what his training hinted. Namely, that a reaction like that was good. It would suggest she was taken aback by his presence. It would mean he might still matter enough to effectively defer her off the chosen course. It would mean he might still stand a chance to salvage their respective sanity.
He couldn't, however, plot any further at the moment, than relieving her of the Gods damned gun. Her undivided attention was crucial in that respect, as was his honesty. A limp hand, free of the hold on the weapon, was his most apparent opening, as he ventured finally to pry her away from the confines of the locker and to meet his earnest gaze. To shoo the quiver out of his words proved more difficult than he could recall for the world of him:
- It's not over, Dee. Not like that. To keep humanity going - that's our charge, remember? And I am - yours. That's the deal. I don't think I can ever make it, if you give up.
The gun snatched safely away and tossed to alert Gaeta, he could finally register the deafening roar in the ears for his own heartbeat. She all but collapsed into his embrace, trembling and seeking refuge from blazing lights. His legs not much steadier by then, he backed them both cautiously to the nearest bunk, pulling her into his lap, rocking slightly, as he would a child, raking fingers through her hair, shushing upcoming sniffles with comforting nonsense, enhanced by butterfly kisses all over he could reach without breaking maximum contact. He wasn't sure he'd be eager to let go anytime soon, for fear of losing the grip on certainty she was, in fact, there.
Escalating appreciative hustle made him instantly conscious of the random onlookers of their little drama. Not that he particularly gave a damn of what anyone might make of him, but Dee's reputation as an officer ought not to have been tarnished by a single act of despondency. He hissed for everyone, spell-bound around them, to go mind their frakking business, when a medic arrived.
It would only make sense someone had summoned medical help, seeing as they were clearly dealing with a case of break-down, yet the unbidden initiative profoundly irritated him. So much so he even snuggled her protectively deeper into his lap. Given Dee's long-standing disdain for Cottle's crew, checking her in Galactica's med-bay for examination didn't seem like a remotely welcome option. Besides, turning her in to the medics would mean pending separation, once he was summoned back on Colonial One (which was bound to happen any moment, given their current situation), while he was definitely done letting her out of sight for any extended period of time as of forty minutes ago.
That factored into consideration, a tactical solution began to acquire shape. The medic was taking her pulse and suggested to administer a mild sedative for the time being, all the while eyeing him suspiciously, as if assessing whether he might need one too. Ensuring she slept quietly through the worst of aftermath seemed agreeable and he murmured the plan into her ear. She was hardly coherent enough to respond adequately, but he needed her consent, if in form only, or else what he had in mind would tantamount to kidnapping a Colonial officer.
Dee relaxed almost instantly, as the medication hit, easing her head on his shoulder. He spotted a familiar face - Seelix - still lurking nearby, and asked for a check up on his Raptor, waiting patiently to take him off to Colonial One, upon making to stand up, an armful of her huddled securely in his hold. Weary of Gaeta's indignant demeanor, he went as far as to foreshadow his meddlesome brother-in-law's (or whatever it was Felix deemed himself to be) inevitable protests, assuring he would inform the Admiral promptly of Lt. Dualla's unscheduled leave due to personal circumstances. He could feel, however, Lieutenant's borderline hostile stare bore into his retreating back, as he carried her, sound asleep already, down the hallway, heading to the hangar deck.
***
Woefully abundant practice with his mom, in a different lifetime, made maneuvering Dee, still unresponsive under the sedative spell, out of the dress and under the covers easy enough. That was decidedly not how he might've fathomed it happening, though. And truth be told, he did give the matter thorough consideration over the span of their night out. Determination not to push his luck as well as not to let anything appear transpiring for the wrong reasons, that time around between them, the one thing deterring him from acting on fascination, being around her so close in such painful a while, evoked readily.
He bent down over her, inert and oh so serene now, sweeping away stray tears, still grazing her cheeks, with a tentative touch, setting compulsively to tuck her in, if only to keep his hands from shaking. Brushing her lips with the softest of kisses appeared a stabilizing enough venture for the moment, soon to be replaced with a renovated rush of panic.
Residual adrenaline jolted him up to his feet, to reach the drawer, housing the gun his father insisted he kept upon leaving the military, 'just in case', in a couple of swift strides. Out came the charges, to be locked up separately. He remembered to exhale no sooner than the key had been stashed securely away. Willing to pray to the whole Kobolian pantheon she wouldn't ever consider the issue again - once she'd slept on it and stress had worn off - he was, nonetheless, just not taking any chances.
The incoming phone dispatch on the loss of signal, picked up by Starbuck's Viper, landed him in front of the populace count. He wanted to be angry. Needed the energy, ire infallibly supplied, to effectively chase away stifling dread. But he wasn't anything, if not drained by then, exhaustion of the day worth a lifetime of promise and crashed dreams taking its toll eventually, so the fear lingered.
Choking on appalled torment, he regarded the figure on the white-board, nearly diminished by one tonight. The one, strongest of them both. The one, incessantly integral, to keep him whole and on track, to beacon home through arrogance, obstinacy and deprecation of his own making. The one he couldn't fool himself into denying owing the best in him to. What terrified him most, was that he couldn't be certain to be apt to plunge her out of the brewing shadows unscathed, once acute distress settled. Couldn't be certain anymore his nurture would be enough for that.
Kara showed up, disheveled from the hike through their obliterated homeworld-never-to-be, to report on the loss of signal in person, it would appear. She didn't volunteer to supply specifics, and he truly didn't have it in him to prod. There was no point, anyway. Their hopes had been buried under irradiated ashes long before they ever raided the Tomb of Athena. Loss of transmission didn't change that. He could imagine himself cursing the moment he managed to pry that sepulcher open all the way into the hottest bonfire of Hades.
He must've really looked like hell for Kara to change the subject abruptly. Going through your spouse's unaccomplished suicide over the fiasco of Promised Land would do that to a person, it figured. Starbuck seemed visibly shell-shocked, refusing to understand, and he claimed the same, though, deep down, he might've accounted quite a handful of credible 'whys', no stranger to which he'd been once. It was just, no range of explanations could effectively abolish the fact that he would have to live with the failure to shelter her from ultimate despair, in the first place. Relief of snatching her off the precipice could hardly ever completely alleviate that.
Starbuck had long since left for Galactica, uninclined to elaborate on her endeavors planetside further, when he ended up hovering over Dee again, watching her sleep in silent turmoil, before finally making his mind up to kick the shoes off and plop himself precariously on the edge of the bunk, pulling her close, blanket and all, caressing her exposed temple with lips and fingertips alike, careful not to disturb. Fatigue shrouded over, all too eager, lulling him into much needed, if barely restful, slumber by pacified rhythm of her breathing.
***
He startled up with a gasp, clutching a handful of thin air. Dee honed the art of slipping out of his grasp, without as much as ruffling the cover over his snoozing frame, to perfection back in the early days of Pegasus. His stare, darting unnerved around the room, finally spotted her, clad in his shirt for a robe and barefoot, by the porthole, looking out at the gossamer orb of their inhospitable destination, still visible from the ship. He found himself at an apprehensive loss, all of a sudden, not sure how to proceed now, that she was awake and aware. Not sure it was his place to intrude into her innermost angst, yet not in the least willing to abandon her one on one with demons of desperation that got her there, to begin with.
As if sensing his anguished indecision, she turned from the window, listless and seemingly tranquil, moving to walk back to the bunk.
- Looks better on you.
The quip dropped flat in tense stillness, as she landed carefully on the very rim, by his side, hands clutched on her lap, eyes downcast, avoiding his concern-stricken look with embarrassed tenacity. He could feel a dull throb spiral his heart into aching staccato, as her voice surfaced finally, subdued to a weary resignation.
- You don't need to be sorry for me. Please. If you have to be mad - go ahead.
- I will be. - he assured somberly, pushing up to sit by her side. - Maybe a bit later. You just watch me. I'll pull a Chief and be so livid you won't dare scare me like that again. Ever.
He was aware of a pleading smile finding its itinerary to the corners of his mouth by the phrase end and reached up tenderly to tuck a strand behind her ear. The smile faded halfway to his gaze, as she spoke again:
- I'm afraid, Lee. I'm so afraid. Of what this… Earth, despair… will do to us all. That's why… - She clasped her hands tighter, still refusing to look up, voice wavering with tears, welling anew.
Hot stinging surged up at the back of his own throat, as he motioned to hush her in a heartbeat, instantly superstitious the nightmare of actually losing her would turn real if spelled out loud. He was all too familiar with the unbearable darkness humanity's ugliest countenance stalked, making death seem a blissful release. He both encountered it and deemed himself complicit in carving its features at various points.
Pulling her hands in between his own, he took a moment to collect the thoughts, for he realized there might not be another chance to get the point across. He was running on borrowed time as it was.
- Me too. - he had to secure the gentle grip on her palms, as she started. - You know, there's something my father said once, after we took out the Guardian basestar. Remember? He told me then, he decided against choices Admiral Cain would make, because he had Tigh, Laura Roslin and me around, to keep him honest and grounded at all times, to face the next day.
She beheld him in amazed, attentive silence by then, eyes glazed with moisture. Words swollen with intent conviction, he ventured on, wishing vigorously she would only opt to accept his vow:
- Loss of hope can lead to dark places, so much is true, Dee. And there's no guarantee we won't arrive there soon. But there are things I've sworn not to allow happen to myself, to my father, to the fleet, or to go down trying, if I am ever to be able to face you again.
***
They were both shivering - overwhelmed by relief and need, anxiety and trust, affection and awe mingled into unanimous palpable charge - when forced to break the kiss for lack of breath. She pulled away slightly, following his notably darkened gaze, tracing the outline of her cheek, down to her collarbone and fairly scant attire with urgent, reverent focus, drinking in every crease and curve, making her fluster.
- Guess, I need some clothes. There are limits even to your laundry drawer, Mr. Adama. And shoes too…
Words combusted, half-born, by a flicker of wicked smirk, sending sparks dancing right to his eyes:
- I don't really think you do. Not if I'm to have a say in the matter… Mrs. Adama.
*Courtesy of 'Slaughterhouse Five or the Children's Crusade' by Kurt Vonnegut.