Through the Winter chapter 13 (Cain/Gina)
Title: Through the Winter (13/?)
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,711
Summary: What if Gina had been a sleeper agent cylon? From Gina's POV.
( Summary page here if you're new to the fic.)
Author note: Ooookay, I only got through four of my eleven dot points for this chapter, and I was already at just under 5,000 words. So, not too much happens this time, but there was no way I was getting to all eleven. XD;
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Chapter Thirteen:
It was unnerving the way the cylons kept smiling at her, but when this man smiled Gina found herself caught between wanting to go to him and wanting to run from him. She stood in place for a moment while caught under those hypnotic eyes, but then one foot moved and one step after another she walked towards him.
”Come, Gina, we can go chat in my quarters.” He held out an arm politely to guide her out of the door, and she was pleased to hear him calling her by her name. The way Eight had referred to Gina and herself had made it seem as if it weren’t standard practice for cylons to have names, and Gina didn’t think she could ever answer to ‘Six’. As her aunt used to say, a name was the first gift you’d...
Gina’s thought trailed off as she realised that her aunt, the woman she had thought responsible for so many of her beliefs and personality traits had never actually existed. The realisation was like a slap to the face and a part of her wanted to break down then and there, but with iron determination she managed to keep following the man in front of her without missing a beat. She had cried far too much in the last few days already, and she didn’t want to give in to the despair again. She’d gone somewhat insane the last time that had happened, and even though the insanity was helped along by cylon technology, well...madness was still madness at the end of the day. She couldn’t afford to lose her wits in a place like this when she was certain everyone would be watching her for even the slightest sign of weakness, of humanity. She’d already made a potentially dangerous mistake by losing her cool with Simon earlier, but hopefully that could be chalked up to the resurrection process. Eight had mentioned that after three times she still wasn’t used to the process, and she’d probably known what would happen even before the first time she resurrected. Gina on the other hand had taken that bullet to her lung expecting it to end her, permanently. To say waking up moments later in a tub full of goo was a surprise would have been the understatement of the century.
“One of the Eights tells me you’ve had the resurrection process explained to you by now.” The man spoke casually over his shoulder, seemingly reading Gina’s mind.
“That’s right,” she replied, seeing her chance to excuse her earlier slip, “but I had no idea about the process beforehand, so I was rather shocked to suddenly find myself alive in a tub when moments ago I’d been chained to the ground and dying from a gunshot wound. I panicked a little, and may have worried Simon, ah, the Four who was waiting for me there.”
“They say each cylon experiences resurrection a little differently.” The man’s response was cryptic, as the way he said left Gina wondering whether he was accepting or rejecting her explanation. She cursed herself for getting so emotional earlier, and made the decision that from here on the cylons would believe she was entirely on their side. After all, who knew what they’d do if she didn’t fit in with those other girls, the Sixes. Would they be able to erase her memories? Could they do that?
Despite her distress only moments earlier upon realising that all of her childhood memories weren’t real she also knew that she didn’t want them taken away from her. She was different from the other women in those showers, and if she had the false memories to thank for that, then...did that make it okay?
Ironically her ‘aunt’ also had an answer for that one as well. Gina had a memory of being fifteen and completely obsessed with a character in a television show. The character had always stood up for being morally strong, doing the right thing and believing in yourself. At the time Gina, who had lost her ‘parents’ only a year earlier, had withdrawn into herself and become somewhat of an outcast at school. She’d completely shut everyone out during the grieving process, and because of the one selfish drunk man who had run the red light and taken her parents from her, Gina had given up on humanity in general. Even if she hadn’t the year of anti-social behaviour had stripped her of the confidence she needed to talk to other people again.
It wasn’t until this character and this television show that Gina had begun to realise that she couldn’t condemn everyone for one man’s mistake. She couldn’t just let her life end and hurt the people who still cared about her. It gave her the courage to start talking to people at school again, and to laugh and forgive and try to focus on doing the right thing to inspire other people rather than simply punishing people who did the wrong thing.
She owed it all to this character, and by extension the actress who played the character. Then several months later she saw a story on the news that had almost broken her again. The actress had been arrested for taking drugs and then beating a pregnant woman whom she’d thought had stolen her bag. It almost completely shattered Gina, who had thought that the woman could do no wrong. She was falling back into her old habits when her aunt finally sat her down and said “listen to me Gina. I know you’ve just found out that your hero is flawed and weak, and you’re asking yourself why you should believe anything she’s ever had to say. What you have to realise is that that’s not important. She’s not important. It doesn’t matter who helped you come out of your shell and get back into life, only that something did. Regardless of who said it, a good message is still something you should hold onto and treasure, and then eventually it becomes your own message. You’ll do what you have to do because you know it’s right. That’s what’s important.”
Gina smiled to herself. The cylons had probably given her that message so that, when switched on, she wouldn’t see the cylons as just the drugged up actress who hurt people, but could see past that to understand that their cause was right. Either that or it was a memory that was supposed to help her through her humans days and then be forgotten once she switched on. Her smile grew predatory as she realised that whatever the reason the cylons had given her the best weapon she could have hoped for to defeat them. She had belief in herself, no matter what her origins were and no matter what she was made of. The aunt who had told her that might not exist, but it had stopped being her ‘aunt’s’ message a long time ago, and was now purely her own. She would fight against these machines simply because she wanted to and she knew it was the right thing to do.
She blinked and returned her attention to the man when she realised he was speaking again.
“I just realised I haven’t introduced myself,” he commented, and Gina was glad to hear him say so as it was irritating simply thinking of him as ‘the man.’
“I’m a One, though if you wish to call me by a name you may use Cavil. I have a brother going by that name in one of the human fleets at the moment.”
How many cylons were hidden out there, Gina wondered, and how many of them were asleep as she had been? She wouldn’t wish the shock of awakening on her worst enemy.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cavil” she replied sweetly, biting back the questions on her tongue.
He stopped at another door and directed her inside with his arm again. “It must be a relief to be back among your own people again.” His tone was a little strange and Gina struggled for a believable but correct response.
“It’s certainly a change from what I’m used to, but I feel...comfortable here, the way I never was while living amongst the humans. I was always missing something, but I never knew what it was.”
Cavil nodded, seemingly pleased with her answer. “Take a seat, please.”
Gina quickly took in the modest surroundings, and was surprised by the lack of furniture considering how spacious the room was. It was many times larger than the room she’d had on the Pegasus, and yet only barely had more furniture. There was a bed, a small cupboard for storage, a desk and a couch. As with everywhere else on the resurrection ship it was dark with small but bright lights piercing through the middle of the wall and ceiling. Gina walked across to the couch that was against the wall and sat, and Cavil walked over to the desk and pulled the chair back with him so that he was sitting in front of her.
“So, Gina,” he started, and Gina smiled pleasantly at him, “tell me about Admiral Cain. You said she was still in love with you.”
Gina chose her words carefully. “She is...or was. Perhaps it’s most accurate to say she’s on her way out of loving me, but isn’t quite there yet.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just...ah, just a feeling I have.” Gina remembered the words of her false Helena.
Cavil paused and seemed to think about this, and then asked his next question. “Can you tell me everything significant that happened since we attacked the colonies?” He put the smallest stress on the word ‘we’, and Gina’s smile dropped just a fraction upon his inclusion of her in that mention of the attack. She hid it by putting on a thoughtful expression.
“Nothing significant happened initially.” She paused to think about her story, and realised that she should try to claim credit for whatever she could. A pessimistic voice in her head commented that she wouldn’t be taking credit where it wasn’t due, but she stubbornly ignored it. She hadn’t had any control over that!
“I managed to upload the network that would have allowed our kind to access the computer systems of the Pegasus, but unfortunately I couldn’t get it online before the attack. I was knocked out by one of the explosions during the attack itself, so unfortunately I can’t provide you with any more details there. Hel...Admiral Cain later told me that we did a blind jump.”
She sent a silent prayer to the gods, because she was about to take a bit of a gamble with the next part.
“After the attack I convinced, ah, Admiral Cain that it would be a good idea to attack one of our relay stations. I managed to alert them of the upcoming attack so that they would be able to prepare suitable countermeasures.”
When Cavil didn’t respond to that at all she mentally breathed a sigh of relief, as that must have actually been the case while she was experiencing one of her moments of lost time. Encouraged by the success of that bluff she decided to see if she could get away with another.
“I didn’t actually know I was a cylon at this point, but it just felt right doing what I did. I never questioned it. I also managed to get the security codes out of one of the lieutenants which shut down the weapons of the Pegasus and allowed the centurions to board during the attack. It wasn’t until I met a Six, another Six during that attack that I completely realised what I was. It scared me at first, but I think deep down I’d known for a while and when I had a chance to calm down I was pleased by the idea. Unfortunately by the time I had calmed down the humans had managed to sneak up on me and I was thrown into the brig.”
Cavil clucked sympathetically and shook his head.
“Heladmiral Cain was informed about the Six onboard and realised that Gina plus Gina equalled Six, and so she gave the order to have me arrested. She then...um...she ordered one of her lieutenants to...to...”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to force herself to speak about what had happened. She felt a hand on her shoulder and pulled back quickly from the touch, staring wide-eyed at Cavil.
”It must have been horrible,” he said, pulling his hand back, “but you have to tell me what happened.”
“Torture. Rape.” Gina forced the words out quickly as she placed a hand on her forehead and tried to keep out too many of the memories. Although she had been in her fantasy world for a lot of it her body still knew what had happened, and it was trying its best to tell her all of this now.
She heard a creak and looked up to see Cavil leaning forward in his chair, his fingers intertwined as he stared at her intently.
“Now, I may not be an expert on humans and some of their strange customs, but it doesn’t seem to me as if someone should do something like that to the one they love. That’s just me, though.”
“I’d betrayed her.” Gina blurted the words out before she could stop herself, but Cavil didn’t seem too phased by this.
“Again, if I loved someone I’d want to speak to them and find out why they did what they did. I’d be certain there was a reason or a misunderstanding of some kind.”
Gina opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. She’d been trying to ignore that thought as much as possible, but every now and then a part of her mind would question Helena’s quick and seemingly easy decision to inflict those horrors upon her. It had been easier to ignore when Gina had just thought that she herself was being unreasonable, but now that someone else had expressed those exact same thoughts she couldn’t keep that seed of doubt from growing just a little. Helena really should have talked to her. She should have demanded an explanation which Gina would have been only too happy to give. Helena should have done a lot of things, but didn’t. Was it that she couldn’t, or was it that she chose not to?
“Rape...” Cavil mused as if he was talking to himself, “it implies that you’re an object, and that you deserve no dignity. To simply kill you would be the most decent thing to do, or at least keep you comfortably confined. I know that’s what we’d do if we took human prisoners, anyway. Don’t you think it’s a little cruel that humans created us, birthed us, and instead of acting like responsible parents they seem content to merely treat us like slaves? Cylons didn’t ask for this war, Gina. We don’t enjoy harming our parents, but we are thinking, feeling beings. If you kick a dog, can you really be angry with it if it snaps at you? If you oppress and enslave an entire species, can you really hate them for wanting their freedom? Admiral Cain didn’t treat you like a normal prisoner of war; she treated you like a faulty appliance that she could simply whack against a wall until it started working again. That leads me to wonder, again, if she could have ever loved you. I mean really loved you, more than just a random fling. To go from loving someone to hitting a faulty appliance in the space of a few hours or even minutes...it just doesn’t seem like it should be possible.”
Cavil threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “God help us if that is the only love humans are capable of, however. It wouldn’t surprise me though, as from what I’ve heard they treat even their own as undignified objects a lot of the time.”
Gina remembered the men on the Pegasus who used to hit on her almost constantly, especially the last one. Johns...Johnson...Johnston? In any case, he certainly hadn’t treated her as anything more than an object to be bedded and discarded. That said, Helena had defended her...
“You’re right,” Gina answered when she realised she’d been silent for a little too long. “She couldn’t have loved me. I would have been a way to temporarily satisfy her lust.”
Her voice wobbled, not because her acting was failing but because her conviction that she was lying was failing. Not much, but as she'd believed completely and wholeheartedly in Helena earlier to even lose the smallest fraction of that felt like a great betrayal.
“Simon told me about your conversation with him as well. You’re right, you know. You weren’t programmed anywhere beyond gaining the trust of the admiral. Everything you did you did on your own, and you would have fallen for her entirely on your own as well. I just wanted to let you know that you have more free will than Simon may have led you to believe. It just seems so unfair that all you did was fall in love with her and she’d choose to repay your affections like that.”
He sighed. “But I digress. I’d simply meant to ask you how you found your stay on the Battlestar Pegasus, and now I’ve caused you to remember all sorts of unpleasant things which you’d rather forget. I’ve organised for you to share a room with another Six who will hopefully be able to make this transition a lot easier for you. I’ll show you the way.”
Gina nodded and was glad that she didn’t have to sit there and stress about bluffing anymore.
“Oh, before you do, is it okay if you could take me to wherever it is I can change my hair? I’m...I’ve never been a fan of curls.” She kept her tone light and tugged one of the strange new curls hanging around her face. Cavil smiled.
“Of course.”
They walked silently again through the corridors of the resurrection ship, and the strange red lights made Gina almost want to start projecting again, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t deal with that, not now. Besides, she wasn’t even sure what she’d want to see.
They reached a room where another man (and just how many cylons were there anyway?) with short brown hair was talking with a Six who seemed to have just gotten her hair coloured black.
“Aaron,” Cavil said to the man, “Gina here would like her hair changed. See what you can do for her.”
He turned and spoke to Gina then. “I’ll be waiting outside for you when you’re done.”
She smiled a thank you at him. For all the unpleasant thoughts he was putting in her head, he didn’t seem like such a bad guy...for a cylon, anyway. It didn’t change her opinion on wanting to fight for the humans, but he seemed like someone she could at least stick with for the time being until she got her bearings.
“What would you like?” Aaron asked her as the Six dismissed herself.
“I want my hair to be a little longer if that’s possible, and wavy rather than curly. I’d also like you to tweak the colour to...”
Gina paused. She’d been intent earlier on having her hair back exactly the way she used to have it, but now she was beginning to realise that she could never go back to the person she was beforehand. She was definitely not just a Six, but neither was she Gina Inviere of Gemenon and later Scorpia anymore. That Gina had died from a bullet to her right lung while locked in a Pegasus cell. The important things about her hadn’t changed, and everything she truly treasured about herself was still the same, but whether she liked it or not she was now someone new. She was Gina Inviere who most likely never lived on Gemenon but was still probably from Scorpia, and just happened to be a cylon who wanted to fight for humanity. She shook her head with a sigh. Thank the gods cylons didn’t do business cards.
“To...” Aaron enquired when Gina didn’t finish her sentence.
Gina looked back up at him as she came to a decision. “Red. I want it to be longer, wavier and red.”
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Not long later Gina opened the door to the corridor where Cavil was waiting as she tied her new hair back into a ponytail. The length and style were exactly as it had been, and she pulled down a lock that was hanging to the side of her face so she could take in the new colour. It was good. She wasn’t entirely sure whether it would suit her or not, but she was still happy with her choice. She was a brand new woman who still incorporated a lot of the old one, and although she’d seen Sixes around with the same colour hair she used to have she hadn’t seen any redheads. She liked that she was now entirely individual, if you discounted the identical bodies that is.
Cavil smiled. “That’s a bold choice. I was a little concerned that you’d go back to your old hair, so I’m glad to see you come out with something new. I’d like to see you adapt and get on with your new, dare I say better life here.”
“I’d like that as well.”
He took her to a room thankfully not far away, and knocked on the door. A Six with the default hairstyle opened the door and grinned at Gina. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you! Now, what were you calling yourself again...?”
“Gina” Gina supplied, and the Six nodded as she made a little ‘ahh’ noise of recognition.
“That’s right, somebody mentioned that. If you like you can call me, ah, Angela.” She seemed to just pick a name out of the blue, and Gina hid a disapproving frown. Names should be given after much consideration, not selected at random. Still, that was better than just calling her ‘Six.’
“I’ll leave her in your care then,” Cavil said to Angela, and then to Gina, “I’d love to speak with you again, Gina, when you’re properly rested. Angela will be able to direct you.”
He left the room and the door shut behind him, and then Angela nodded towards what Gina noticed was the only bed in the room. She walked over and took a seat on the side of it, and Angela sat next to her.
“I’m sure the One has interrogated you plenty about humanity, so I won’t ask you about that. Did you want to talk about anything though, or should I?”
“Tell me about yourself.” Gina had let Cavil do most of the talking earlier, but even that had managed to exhaust her and she was happy to see what she could pick up about cylons by letting this woman with her face speak.
“There’s not a lot to tell,” Angela admitted, “I was just a dancer at a night club on Vergon before the attack. No one ever asked my name, which is why I didn’t have to come up with one until now. I was only ever referred to by ‘sugar’, so that ended up becoming my dancer name. I probably should have chosen something different, really, as I never knew whether people were calling me ‘Sugar’ by name, or ‘sugar’ because I was someone that didn’t need a name. I’d gotten used to not having one, so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t always respond to ‘Angela.’ I certainly wasn’t going to continue with answering to ‘sugar’ once I got back here.
“Sorry, getting lost on a tangent. I didn’t contribute to anything the way a number of our model did, but I was one of the first sent into human society, to make sure we could pass ourselves off well enough before the more instrumental cylons were sent down. I thought that’d be my ticket out of there once we were fairly confident that we were integrating without incident, but they wanted me to stay down there and just keep an eye on things. Might as well since I was already there, right?”
“How did you find it?” Gina asked.
Angela lay down on her side and propped her chin up with a hand. “Honestly? I wasn’t upset when the colony was nuked.”
Gina knew she had to keep up her pretence of not caring about humanity, but she couldn’t resist finding out how someone could live among humans for all that time and then not care to see them all go. “Why?” She kept her voice casual as if she were just making conversation. She lay down and mirrored Angela’s position as the other woman spoke so that she could see her expressions properly.
“There was nothing for me to miss,” Angela explained, “not really. It was the same thing night after night. I’d dance and men and women would holler at me and try and grab what they could as I went past. Every now and then someone would get a little too drunk and a little too bold and the security guards would have to be involved, but otherwise it was fairly standard. Oh, there was a man once who decided that he was going to stalk me. He claimed it was love and I took pity on his persistence and let him sleep with me, but then the club got a new dancer and suddenly he wouldn’t look at me twice.”
Angela shrugged. “And then I just kept dancing until I was killed by the nuclear blasts and wound up back here.”
Gina refused to let her finish the story like that. “There wasn’t anything you liked? You didn’t enjoy going to a pyramid match or talking long walks through the markets or even just a nice dinner at sunset? You were happy to see all of that go?”
A sad look crossed Angela’s face for a moment. “I did until those places were ruined by my stalker, and then afterwards they weren’t the same without him. I realised, too, that I could love each and every one of them and they’d all probably toss me aside once they were done with me. How could I miss that?”
“You’re not telling me everything, are you?” Gina finally realised what Angela was holding back. “This thing with your stalker, you made it sound like it was one night, but it wasn’t, was it?”
Angela’s lips pulled back into a sad smile and she looked past Gina. “You’re the perceptive one, aren’t you? Months I’ve kept this to myself, and within minutes you’re pulling it out of me. Yes, we were together for the better part of a year. We moved in together, we went away together, we even got a frakking cat. I thought I was in love with him, but then Honey, or should I say ‘honey’ came along and suddenly I was out on the street with nothing but a bag and the frakking cat. That’s why I’ve learned, you see. You take comfort from people when you need it, but don’t let it pass lust. Lust is casual and has no ties that can be broken, and at the end of the day you’re just two people who’ve slept together.”
She placed a hand on Gina’s, but it was gentle and after a brief moment of panic she realised that Angela meant her no harm. The woman had been hurt when she’d done nothing wrong, and Gina didn’t bear any ill will towards her as she tried to remind herself that she couldn’t be the only cylon that shouldn’t be hated. She sympathised, but at the same time...didn't. That was what made the whole story so sad.
It was because of this that when Angela leaned across to brush her lips against Gina’s she didn’t flinch at all. They kissed slowly, sadly, and Gina knew that they both wished they were kissing the lips of another.
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Author note: =/ Not the best place to end this chapter, but yeah. The dot points! Gina comes to a Decision about things next chapter, and Stuff should happen and we may even get an Admiral back in the mix.
Also, 'Angela' is the name I decided at one point would be an amusing real name for Caprica, as it's terribly cliche and goes with the whole 'angels' thing. I couldn't resist actually naming a Six that.
Finally: With this chapter I've passed 50,000 words! =D The longest thing I've ever written was an attempted NaNo years back which got to about 35,000 before real life kept hitting me over the head with a shovel and I got bored with the story, so this is very exciting for me.
Chapter Fourteen
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,711
Summary: What if Gina had been a sleeper agent cylon? From Gina's POV.
( Summary page here if you're new to the fic.)
Author note: Ooookay, I only got through four of my eleven dot points for this chapter, and I was already at just under 5,000 words. So, not too much happens this time, but there was no way I was getting to all eleven. XD;
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Chapter Thirteen:
It was unnerving the way the cylons kept smiling at her, but when this man smiled Gina found herself caught between wanting to go to him and wanting to run from him. She stood in place for a moment while caught under those hypnotic eyes, but then one foot moved and one step after another she walked towards him.
”Come, Gina, we can go chat in my quarters.” He held out an arm politely to guide her out of the door, and she was pleased to hear him calling her by her name. The way Eight had referred to Gina and herself had made it seem as if it weren’t standard practice for cylons to have names, and Gina didn’t think she could ever answer to ‘Six’. As her aunt used to say, a name was the first gift you’d...
Gina’s thought trailed off as she realised that her aunt, the woman she had thought responsible for so many of her beliefs and personality traits had never actually existed. The realisation was like a slap to the face and a part of her wanted to break down then and there, but with iron determination she managed to keep following the man in front of her without missing a beat. She had cried far too much in the last few days already, and she didn’t want to give in to the despair again. She’d gone somewhat insane the last time that had happened, and even though the insanity was helped along by cylon technology, well...madness was still madness at the end of the day. She couldn’t afford to lose her wits in a place like this when she was certain everyone would be watching her for even the slightest sign of weakness, of humanity. She’d already made a potentially dangerous mistake by losing her cool with Simon earlier, but hopefully that could be chalked up to the resurrection process. Eight had mentioned that after three times she still wasn’t used to the process, and she’d probably known what would happen even before the first time she resurrected. Gina on the other hand had taken that bullet to her lung expecting it to end her, permanently. To say waking up moments later in a tub full of goo was a surprise would have been the understatement of the century.
“One of the Eights tells me you’ve had the resurrection process explained to you by now.” The man spoke casually over his shoulder, seemingly reading Gina’s mind.
“That’s right,” she replied, seeing her chance to excuse her earlier slip, “but I had no idea about the process beforehand, so I was rather shocked to suddenly find myself alive in a tub when moments ago I’d been chained to the ground and dying from a gunshot wound. I panicked a little, and may have worried Simon, ah, the Four who was waiting for me there.”
“They say each cylon experiences resurrection a little differently.” The man’s response was cryptic, as the way he said left Gina wondering whether he was accepting or rejecting her explanation. She cursed herself for getting so emotional earlier, and made the decision that from here on the cylons would believe she was entirely on their side. After all, who knew what they’d do if she didn’t fit in with those other girls, the Sixes. Would they be able to erase her memories? Could they do that?
Despite her distress only moments earlier upon realising that all of her childhood memories weren’t real she also knew that she didn’t want them taken away from her. She was different from the other women in those showers, and if she had the false memories to thank for that, then...did that make it okay?
Ironically her ‘aunt’ also had an answer for that one as well. Gina had a memory of being fifteen and completely obsessed with a character in a television show. The character had always stood up for being morally strong, doing the right thing and believing in yourself. At the time Gina, who had lost her ‘parents’ only a year earlier, had withdrawn into herself and become somewhat of an outcast at school. She’d completely shut everyone out during the grieving process, and because of the one selfish drunk man who had run the red light and taken her parents from her, Gina had given up on humanity in general. Even if she hadn’t the year of anti-social behaviour had stripped her of the confidence she needed to talk to other people again.
It wasn’t until this character and this television show that Gina had begun to realise that she couldn’t condemn everyone for one man’s mistake. She couldn’t just let her life end and hurt the people who still cared about her. It gave her the courage to start talking to people at school again, and to laugh and forgive and try to focus on doing the right thing to inspire other people rather than simply punishing people who did the wrong thing.
She owed it all to this character, and by extension the actress who played the character. Then several months later she saw a story on the news that had almost broken her again. The actress had been arrested for taking drugs and then beating a pregnant woman whom she’d thought had stolen her bag. It almost completely shattered Gina, who had thought that the woman could do no wrong. She was falling back into her old habits when her aunt finally sat her down and said “listen to me Gina. I know you’ve just found out that your hero is flawed and weak, and you’re asking yourself why you should believe anything she’s ever had to say. What you have to realise is that that’s not important. She’s not important. It doesn’t matter who helped you come out of your shell and get back into life, only that something did. Regardless of who said it, a good message is still something you should hold onto and treasure, and then eventually it becomes your own message. You’ll do what you have to do because you know it’s right. That’s what’s important.”
Gina smiled to herself. The cylons had probably given her that message so that, when switched on, she wouldn’t see the cylons as just the drugged up actress who hurt people, but could see past that to understand that their cause was right. Either that or it was a memory that was supposed to help her through her humans days and then be forgotten once she switched on. Her smile grew predatory as she realised that whatever the reason the cylons had given her the best weapon she could have hoped for to defeat them. She had belief in herself, no matter what her origins were and no matter what she was made of. The aunt who had told her that might not exist, but it had stopped being her ‘aunt’s’ message a long time ago, and was now purely her own. She would fight against these machines simply because she wanted to and she knew it was the right thing to do.
She blinked and returned her attention to the man when she realised he was speaking again.
“I just realised I haven’t introduced myself,” he commented, and Gina was glad to hear him say so as it was irritating simply thinking of him as ‘the man.’
“I’m a One, though if you wish to call me by a name you may use Cavil. I have a brother going by that name in one of the human fleets at the moment.”
How many cylons were hidden out there, Gina wondered, and how many of them were asleep as she had been? She wouldn’t wish the shock of awakening on her worst enemy.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cavil” she replied sweetly, biting back the questions on her tongue.
He stopped at another door and directed her inside with his arm again. “It must be a relief to be back among your own people again.” His tone was a little strange and Gina struggled for a believable but correct response.
“It’s certainly a change from what I’m used to, but I feel...comfortable here, the way I never was while living amongst the humans. I was always missing something, but I never knew what it was.”
Cavil nodded, seemingly pleased with her answer. “Take a seat, please.”
Gina quickly took in the modest surroundings, and was surprised by the lack of furniture considering how spacious the room was. It was many times larger than the room she’d had on the Pegasus, and yet only barely had more furniture. There was a bed, a small cupboard for storage, a desk and a couch. As with everywhere else on the resurrection ship it was dark with small but bright lights piercing through the middle of the wall and ceiling. Gina walked across to the couch that was against the wall and sat, and Cavil walked over to the desk and pulled the chair back with him so that he was sitting in front of her.
“So, Gina,” he started, and Gina smiled pleasantly at him, “tell me about Admiral Cain. You said she was still in love with you.”
Gina chose her words carefully. “She is...or was. Perhaps it’s most accurate to say she’s on her way out of loving me, but isn’t quite there yet.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just...ah, just a feeling I have.” Gina remembered the words of her false Helena.
Cavil paused and seemed to think about this, and then asked his next question. “Can you tell me everything significant that happened since we attacked the colonies?” He put the smallest stress on the word ‘we’, and Gina’s smile dropped just a fraction upon his inclusion of her in that mention of the attack. She hid it by putting on a thoughtful expression.
“Nothing significant happened initially.” She paused to think about her story, and realised that she should try to claim credit for whatever she could. A pessimistic voice in her head commented that she wouldn’t be taking credit where it wasn’t due, but she stubbornly ignored it. She hadn’t had any control over that!
“I managed to upload the network that would have allowed our kind to access the computer systems of the Pegasus, but unfortunately I couldn’t get it online before the attack. I was knocked out by one of the explosions during the attack itself, so unfortunately I can’t provide you with any more details there. Hel...Admiral Cain later told me that we did a blind jump.”
She sent a silent prayer to the gods, because she was about to take a bit of a gamble with the next part.
“After the attack I convinced, ah, Admiral Cain that it would be a good idea to attack one of our relay stations. I managed to alert them of the upcoming attack so that they would be able to prepare suitable countermeasures.”
When Cavil didn’t respond to that at all she mentally breathed a sigh of relief, as that must have actually been the case while she was experiencing one of her moments of lost time. Encouraged by the success of that bluff she decided to see if she could get away with another.
“I didn’t actually know I was a cylon at this point, but it just felt right doing what I did. I never questioned it. I also managed to get the security codes out of one of the lieutenants which shut down the weapons of the Pegasus and allowed the centurions to board during the attack. It wasn’t until I met a Six, another Six during that attack that I completely realised what I was. It scared me at first, but I think deep down I’d known for a while and when I had a chance to calm down I was pleased by the idea. Unfortunately by the time I had calmed down the humans had managed to sneak up on me and I was thrown into the brig.”
Cavil clucked sympathetically and shook his head.
“Heladmiral Cain was informed about the Six onboard and realised that Gina plus Gina equalled Six, and so she gave the order to have me arrested. She then...um...she ordered one of her lieutenants to...to...”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to force herself to speak about what had happened. She felt a hand on her shoulder and pulled back quickly from the touch, staring wide-eyed at Cavil.
”It must have been horrible,” he said, pulling his hand back, “but you have to tell me what happened.”
“Torture. Rape.” Gina forced the words out quickly as she placed a hand on her forehead and tried to keep out too many of the memories. Although she had been in her fantasy world for a lot of it her body still knew what had happened, and it was trying its best to tell her all of this now.
She heard a creak and looked up to see Cavil leaning forward in his chair, his fingers intertwined as he stared at her intently.
“Now, I may not be an expert on humans and some of their strange customs, but it doesn’t seem to me as if someone should do something like that to the one they love. That’s just me, though.”
“I’d betrayed her.” Gina blurted the words out before she could stop herself, but Cavil didn’t seem too phased by this.
“Again, if I loved someone I’d want to speak to them and find out why they did what they did. I’d be certain there was a reason or a misunderstanding of some kind.”
Gina opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. She’d been trying to ignore that thought as much as possible, but every now and then a part of her mind would question Helena’s quick and seemingly easy decision to inflict those horrors upon her. It had been easier to ignore when Gina had just thought that she herself was being unreasonable, but now that someone else had expressed those exact same thoughts she couldn’t keep that seed of doubt from growing just a little. Helena really should have talked to her. She should have demanded an explanation which Gina would have been only too happy to give. Helena should have done a lot of things, but didn’t. Was it that she couldn’t, or was it that she chose not to?
“Rape...” Cavil mused as if he was talking to himself, “it implies that you’re an object, and that you deserve no dignity. To simply kill you would be the most decent thing to do, or at least keep you comfortably confined. I know that’s what we’d do if we took human prisoners, anyway. Don’t you think it’s a little cruel that humans created us, birthed us, and instead of acting like responsible parents they seem content to merely treat us like slaves? Cylons didn’t ask for this war, Gina. We don’t enjoy harming our parents, but we are thinking, feeling beings. If you kick a dog, can you really be angry with it if it snaps at you? If you oppress and enslave an entire species, can you really hate them for wanting their freedom? Admiral Cain didn’t treat you like a normal prisoner of war; she treated you like a faulty appliance that she could simply whack against a wall until it started working again. That leads me to wonder, again, if she could have ever loved you. I mean really loved you, more than just a random fling. To go from loving someone to hitting a faulty appliance in the space of a few hours or even minutes...it just doesn’t seem like it should be possible.”
Cavil threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “God help us if that is the only love humans are capable of, however. It wouldn’t surprise me though, as from what I’ve heard they treat even their own as undignified objects a lot of the time.”
Gina remembered the men on the Pegasus who used to hit on her almost constantly, especially the last one. Johns...Johnson...Johnston? In any case, he certainly hadn’t treated her as anything more than an object to be bedded and discarded. That said, Helena had defended her...
“You’re right,” Gina answered when she realised she’d been silent for a little too long. “She couldn’t have loved me. I would have been a way to temporarily satisfy her lust.”
Her voice wobbled, not because her acting was failing but because her conviction that she was lying was failing. Not much, but as she'd believed completely and wholeheartedly in Helena earlier to even lose the smallest fraction of that felt like a great betrayal.
“Simon told me about your conversation with him as well. You’re right, you know. You weren’t programmed anywhere beyond gaining the trust of the admiral. Everything you did you did on your own, and you would have fallen for her entirely on your own as well. I just wanted to let you know that you have more free will than Simon may have led you to believe. It just seems so unfair that all you did was fall in love with her and she’d choose to repay your affections like that.”
He sighed. “But I digress. I’d simply meant to ask you how you found your stay on the Battlestar Pegasus, and now I’ve caused you to remember all sorts of unpleasant things which you’d rather forget. I’ve organised for you to share a room with another Six who will hopefully be able to make this transition a lot easier for you. I’ll show you the way.”
Gina nodded and was glad that she didn’t have to sit there and stress about bluffing anymore.
“Oh, before you do, is it okay if you could take me to wherever it is I can change my hair? I’m...I’ve never been a fan of curls.” She kept her tone light and tugged one of the strange new curls hanging around her face. Cavil smiled.
“Of course.”
They walked silently again through the corridors of the resurrection ship, and the strange red lights made Gina almost want to start projecting again, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t deal with that, not now. Besides, she wasn’t even sure what she’d want to see.
They reached a room where another man (and just how many cylons were there anyway?) with short brown hair was talking with a Six who seemed to have just gotten her hair coloured black.
“Aaron,” Cavil said to the man, “Gina here would like her hair changed. See what you can do for her.”
He turned and spoke to Gina then. “I’ll be waiting outside for you when you’re done.”
She smiled a thank you at him. For all the unpleasant thoughts he was putting in her head, he didn’t seem like such a bad guy...for a cylon, anyway. It didn’t change her opinion on wanting to fight for the humans, but he seemed like someone she could at least stick with for the time being until she got her bearings.
“What would you like?” Aaron asked her as the Six dismissed herself.
“I want my hair to be a little longer if that’s possible, and wavy rather than curly. I’d also like you to tweak the colour to...”
Gina paused. She’d been intent earlier on having her hair back exactly the way she used to have it, but now she was beginning to realise that she could never go back to the person she was beforehand. She was definitely not just a Six, but neither was she Gina Inviere of Gemenon and later Scorpia anymore. That Gina had died from a bullet to her right lung while locked in a Pegasus cell. The important things about her hadn’t changed, and everything she truly treasured about herself was still the same, but whether she liked it or not she was now someone new. She was Gina Inviere who most likely never lived on Gemenon but was still probably from Scorpia, and just happened to be a cylon who wanted to fight for humanity. She shook her head with a sigh. Thank the gods cylons didn’t do business cards.
“To...” Aaron enquired when Gina didn’t finish her sentence.
Gina looked back up at him as she came to a decision. “Red. I want it to be longer, wavier and red.”
---
Not long later Gina opened the door to the corridor where Cavil was waiting as she tied her new hair back into a ponytail. The length and style were exactly as it had been, and she pulled down a lock that was hanging to the side of her face so she could take in the new colour. It was good. She wasn’t entirely sure whether it would suit her or not, but she was still happy with her choice. She was a brand new woman who still incorporated a lot of the old one, and although she’d seen Sixes around with the same colour hair she used to have she hadn’t seen any redheads. She liked that she was now entirely individual, if you discounted the identical bodies that is.
Cavil smiled. “That’s a bold choice. I was a little concerned that you’d go back to your old hair, so I’m glad to see you come out with something new. I’d like to see you adapt and get on with your new, dare I say better life here.”
“I’d like that as well.”
He took her to a room thankfully not far away, and knocked on the door. A Six with the default hairstyle opened the door and grinned at Gina. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you! Now, what were you calling yourself again...?”
“Gina” Gina supplied, and the Six nodded as she made a little ‘ahh’ noise of recognition.
“That’s right, somebody mentioned that. If you like you can call me, ah, Angela.” She seemed to just pick a name out of the blue, and Gina hid a disapproving frown. Names should be given after much consideration, not selected at random. Still, that was better than just calling her ‘Six.’
“I’ll leave her in your care then,” Cavil said to Angela, and then to Gina, “I’d love to speak with you again, Gina, when you’re properly rested. Angela will be able to direct you.”
He left the room and the door shut behind him, and then Angela nodded towards what Gina noticed was the only bed in the room. She walked over and took a seat on the side of it, and Angela sat next to her.
“I’m sure the One has interrogated you plenty about humanity, so I won’t ask you about that. Did you want to talk about anything though, or should I?”
“Tell me about yourself.” Gina had let Cavil do most of the talking earlier, but even that had managed to exhaust her and she was happy to see what she could pick up about cylons by letting this woman with her face speak.
“There’s not a lot to tell,” Angela admitted, “I was just a dancer at a night club on Vergon before the attack. No one ever asked my name, which is why I didn’t have to come up with one until now. I was only ever referred to by ‘sugar’, so that ended up becoming my dancer name. I probably should have chosen something different, really, as I never knew whether people were calling me ‘Sugar’ by name, or ‘sugar’ because I was someone that didn’t need a name. I’d gotten used to not having one, so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t always respond to ‘Angela.’ I certainly wasn’t going to continue with answering to ‘sugar’ once I got back here.
“Sorry, getting lost on a tangent. I didn’t contribute to anything the way a number of our model did, but I was one of the first sent into human society, to make sure we could pass ourselves off well enough before the more instrumental cylons were sent down. I thought that’d be my ticket out of there once we were fairly confident that we were integrating without incident, but they wanted me to stay down there and just keep an eye on things. Might as well since I was already there, right?”
“How did you find it?” Gina asked.
Angela lay down on her side and propped her chin up with a hand. “Honestly? I wasn’t upset when the colony was nuked.”
Gina knew she had to keep up her pretence of not caring about humanity, but she couldn’t resist finding out how someone could live among humans for all that time and then not care to see them all go. “Why?” She kept her voice casual as if she were just making conversation. She lay down and mirrored Angela’s position as the other woman spoke so that she could see her expressions properly.
“There was nothing for me to miss,” Angela explained, “not really. It was the same thing night after night. I’d dance and men and women would holler at me and try and grab what they could as I went past. Every now and then someone would get a little too drunk and a little too bold and the security guards would have to be involved, but otherwise it was fairly standard. Oh, there was a man once who decided that he was going to stalk me. He claimed it was love and I took pity on his persistence and let him sleep with me, but then the club got a new dancer and suddenly he wouldn’t look at me twice.”
Angela shrugged. “And then I just kept dancing until I was killed by the nuclear blasts and wound up back here.”
Gina refused to let her finish the story like that. “There wasn’t anything you liked? You didn’t enjoy going to a pyramid match or talking long walks through the markets or even just a nice dinner at sunset? You were happy to see all of that go?”
A sad look crossed Angela’s face for a moment. “I did until those places were ruined by my stalker, and then afterwards they weren’t the same without him. I realised, too, that I could love each and every one of them and they’d all probably toss me aside once they were done with me. How could I miss that?”
“You’re not telling me everything, are you?” Gina finally realised what Angela was holding back. “This thing with your stalker, you made it sound like it was one night, but it wasn’t, was it?”
Angela’s lips pulled back into a sad smile and she looked past Gina. “You’re the perceptive one, aren’t you? Months I’ve kept this to myself, and within minutes you’re pulling it out of me. Yes, we were together for the better part of a year. We moved in together, we went away together, we even got a frakking cat. I thought I was in love with him, but then Honey, or should I say ‘honey’ came along and suddenly I was out on the street with nothing but a bag and the frakking cat. That’s why I’ve learned, you see. You take comfort from people when you need it, but don’t let it pass lust. Lust is casual and has no ties that can be broken, and at the end of the day you’re just two people who’ve slept together.”
She placed a hand on Gina’s, but it was gentle and after a brief moment of panic she realised that Angela meant her no harm. The woman had been hurt when she’d done nothing wrong, and Gina didn’t bear any ill will towards her as she tried to remind herself that she couldn’t be the only cylon that shouldn’t be hated. She sympathised, but at the same time...didn't. That was what made the whole story so sad.
It was because of this that when Angela leaned across to brush her lips against Gina’s she didn’t flinch at all. They kissed slowly, sadly, and Gina knew that they both wished they were kissing the lips of another.
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Author note: =/ Not the best place to end this chapter, but yeah. The dot points! Gina comes to a Decision about things next chapter, and Stuff should happen and we may even get an Admiral back in the mix.
Also, 'Angela' is the name I decided at one point would be an amusing real name for Caprica, as it's terribly cliche and goes with the whole 'angels' thing. I couldn't resist actually naming a Six that.
Finally: With this chapter I've passed 50,000 words! =D The longest thing I've ever written was an attempted NaNo years back which got to about 35,000 before real life kept hitting me over the head with a shovel and I got bored with the story, so this is very exciting for me.
Chapter Fourteen