Eating from the Tree of Knowledge, for rodlox
Title: Eating from the Tree of Knowledge
Author: kappamaki33
Characters/Pairings: Caprica, Head!Baltar, Baltar; Baltar/Caprica
Rating: PG
Summary: The man in Caprica’s mind knows her well.
Original Story: She Knows Me Well by rodlox
He knows her well.
He knows what she loved in those two years of being human. The park (“It’s a memorial. Do you know how many people died in this park during the attack? How many people in this park alone?”), the house (“Magical. Too bad you nuked it.”), the people.
“Moving Julius closer to the epicenter of the attack-was that what you were thinking, when you selected the nursing home with the garden? An act of mercy, like with the baby? It didn’t work, you know. He suffered. He lived long enough to know who murdered him.”
(The man in her mind was right about her story of going to the house on the bluff being a lie. She had gone to Julius’s nursing home, though. The bodies had been cleared away by then, but she had found the trowel she had bought Julius. It was in the garden, stuck in the dirt beside one of so many dead flowers.)
She was used to others knowing about her thoughts, whether or not she gave voice to them. That was the way of the Cylon, living in a stream of data, reaching tendrils out to others in the stream until you were cradled in a web, unsure where you ended and your sister began.
There had been such comfort in it, before Gaius. She would reach out to a sister and find the same opinions, same thoughts, same feelings. Then it had been warm, safe. Now it was like living in an echo chamber, all the murmured thoughts building and feeding and roiling into a single chant so loud she could barely hear herself.
She’s learned how to hide certain thoughts from her sisters, though. She would have been boxed as soon as she took her first breath in her new body if she hadn’t.
She can’t hide anything from the him inside her mind. He preys on the contradiction at the core of her existence. To justify what they’ve done, the Cylon must be better than human. (“Why not kill him? You've already killed billions of people. Do you honestly believe o ne more body's going to weigh any heavier o n your conscience, which is something that you don't have, do you?”) He never lets her forget that she can’t believe that anymore.
Once she arrives on New Caprica, she has to admit that he knows her so much better than the real Gaius ever did, ever will, ever could. Her logic tells her that this is a good thing-that love, no matter how strong, could never survive that onslaught of intimacy.
And yet, as she lies here beside Gaius in their bed, listening to him breathe, searching for the outline of his body in such deep, deep dark because there are no lights in the settlement to twinkle through the windows of Colonial One, she hears it. Another voice, an all too familiar voice, whispering in her mind-
It should be a good thing. And yet, it hurts, doesn’t it?
Author: kappamaki33
Characters/Pairings: Caprica, Head!Baltar, Baltar; Baltar/Caprica
Rating: PG
Summary: The man in Caprica’s mind knows her well.
Original Story: She Knows Me Well by rodlox
He knows her well.
He knows what she loved in those two years of being human. The park (“It’s a memorial. Do you know how many people died in this park during the attack? How many people in this park alone?”), the house (“Magical. Too bad you nuked it.”), the people.
“Moving Julius closer to the epicenter of the attack-was that what you were thinking, when you selected the nursing home with the garden? An act of mercy, like with the baby? It didn’t work, you know. He suffered. He lived long enough to know who murdered him.”
(The man in her mind was right about her story of going to the house on the bluff being a lie. She had gone to Julius’s nursing home, though. The bodies had been cleared away by then, but she had found the trowel she had bought Julius. It was in the garden, stuck in the dirt beside one of so many dead flowers.)
She was used to others knowing about her thoughts, whether or not she gave voice to them. That was the way of the Cylon, living in a stream of data, reaching tendrils out to others in the stream until you were cradled in a web, unsure where you ended and your sister began.
There had been such comfort in it, before Gaius. She would reach out to a sister and find the same opinions, same thoughts, same feelings. Then it had been warm, safe. Now it was like living in an echo chamber, all the murmured thoughts building and feeding and roiling into a single chant so loud she could barely hear herself.
She’s learned how to hide certain thoughts from her sisters, though. She would have been boxed as soon as she took her first breath in her new body if she hadn’t.
She can’t hide anything from the him inside her mind. He preys on the contradiction at the core of her existence. To justify what they’ve done, the Cylon must be better than human. (“Why not kill him? You've already killed billions of people. Do you honestly believe o ne more body's going to weigh any heavier o n your conscience, which is something that you don't have, do you?”) He never lets her forget that she can’t believe that anymore.
Once she arrives on New Caprica, she has to admit that he knows her so much better than the real Gaius ever did, ever will, ever could. Her logic tells her that this is a good thing-that love, no matter how strong, could never survive that onslaught of intimacy.
And yet, as she lies here beside Gaius in their bed, listening to him breathe, searching for the outline of his body in such deep, deep dark because there are no lights in the settlement to twinkle through the windows of Colonial One, she hears it. Another voice, an all too familiar voice, whispering in her mind-
It should be a good thing. And yet, it hurts, doesn’t it?