Through the Winter: Intermission
Title: Through the Winter: Intermission
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,543
Notes: Takes place part way through chapter 12 of Through the Winter
Summary: Cain finds the journal Gina had been keeping during her stay on the Pegasus.
Author note: themis24 was right on the ball. =) I was originally going to save this for after the fic had finished, but I think it works better just beforehand instead.
Intermission:
Just like that, it was over. Thorne saluted again and took his leave, but Cain barely noticed as she kept her arms crossed and her gaze lowered, though she didn’t stare at anything in particular.
Gina...no, it was dead. It had suffered countless times over the last few days, and it had known the shame of dying alone in a cell, beaten, broken and completely helpless.
It was exactly what Cain had wanted, and yet the pain refused to stop. This wasn’t right; she’d thrown herself so completely into her work and making sure that the thing was suffering that she’d managed to keep a lid on her own pain, but now that she’d finally stopped and taken a breath it was there more strongly than she’d anticipated.
The revenge tasted bitter in her mouth, and she took small satisfaction from the fact that it had sampled her hurt. Even if she’d managed to spend the rest of her life torturing the thing, Cain still didn’t think that she’d be able to get the thing to properly understand the pain it had caused her.
Her face hardened as she forced back the inner turmoil that threatened to overcome her, and decided that she needed to put the thing behind her now if she had any hope of keeping control of her ship. Even though she was a woman who had suffered the ultimate betrayal, what her crew needed now was a strong admiral. And so the woman withdrew into herself, and the admiral took charge. The woman Helena sat in the darkness and wept, but you’d never see her behind Admiral Cain’s determined mask.
There was just one last thing that she needed to do to turn the pain into a weapon she could use. She had to face her demons.
Cain walked through the corridors of her ship, and nodded at all of the crew members that she passed. They were still working hard to fix the damages that had been done to the Pegasus, and from the reports Lieutenant Shaw had been giving her it sounded as if they would only just recover. Each negative report was a slap in the face, and she blamed herself for every failure. Cain wasn’t the kind of woman who would crumble under thoughts of ‘if only’, but she knew that trusting the thing had been her downfall, and she swore to herself that she’d never make that kind of mistake again.
Eventually she reached her destination: the quarters of the thing posing as Gina Inviere. She nodded at the guard stationed outside, and he opened the door for her with a salute.
Cain stepped in and looked around the small room, and sighed in frustration and disappointment. She didn’t know why she’d thought this would help. It was just the room of, if she didn’t know better, a normal woman. There were clothes hanging up neatly in the locker, small boxes with some jewellery and several books. One of the books she recognised as her own, and a piece of paper marked one of the pages. She pulled out the paper, hating that a cylon had been reading one of her books, and had turned to throw it in the rubbish bin when she spotted another book in there. It had a blank cover, and curiosity got the better of her as she bent to pull it out.
Sitting down on the bed Cain opened the cover, and was surprised to see handwritten pages within. Her eyes widened as she realised that this might contain information on the cylons, and so she started to read.
Her brow furrowed as she reached the third paragraph.
Still, Helena’s encouraging me to let go of that habit, a little. She says that the best plans for tomorrow incorporate what happened yesterday, and the most successful people learn to find a balance between the past, present and future without focusing on any one more than the other.
Cain remembered having that conversation. Or rather, she remembered the feel of Gina’s arms wrapped around her as the delicate fingers played with her hair.
With a violent shake of her head Cain returned her attention to the book, only to be confused moments later as she reached a recount of a ‘childhood.’
What was the point of that? Had Gina intended to show this to her earlier, in order to further solidify her human identity? Was this text used as practise to make sure she knew her back story? What possible use could it serve?
Cain was even more confused when a few entries on there were talks of ‘lost time’, and how Gina was afraid to tell her about them. As she turned more pages she found more stories about a ‘childhood’, though her eyes narrowed as she found descriptions of her officers in one particular entry. They were worded as if Gina had been a normal human, but Cain was sure she could see through the code. Several other entries just reinforced her suspicions that they were just information about the ship being disguised as a woman’s journal - one about how cylons couldn’t be evil would have practically confirmed that Gina was a cylon if Cain had seen it earlier - but then there were several more that just outright confused her.
One thing she noticed was that every entry bar one mentioned her. While that in itself wasn’t confusing - it was obvious that Gina's plan had been to get close to her after all - it was the way that they were worded that felt so strange.
One entry talked about her as the admiral, but every other one talked about her as the woman. What’s more, they were all worded as if the writer had been honest to the gods in love with this woman. Cain was angered to see her own emotions almost parodied there, but she couldn’t help constantly asking herself why Gina had written such things to begin with. Most of them contained no actual information about her, and seemed to be happily talking about a perfect new relationship. Try as she might Cain couldn’t stop herself from remembering the things Gina talked about. Their showers together, their discussions about the shore leave, and how distressed Gina had seemed when Cain mentioned that she might be leaving. She couldn’t help but smile as she read: Okay, so maybe it wasn’t entirely professional to hit her in the rear with my clipboard as she walked past earlier today.
She quickly caught herself and flicked back to the last page with writing. It was strange; it was only a few sentences long, and then cut out with the pen jarring up onto the text above it. There was blood on it, too. Cain touched her fingertips to the three spots at the bottom, and with a gasp of horror she pulled back, slammed the book shut and threw it back into the bin.
The sight of her own fingers upon the bloody fingerprints there had caused her to realise that she’d started thinking of Gina, no, it, frak it all, it as something other than a machine. It was practically a toaster. A machine who could mimic. A machine that had studied humans, and knew just how to pull on their heartstrings.
Cain rested the sides of her head on the base of her palms, and pulled at her hair so hard that her scalp hurt. She wanted to scream her outrage and her fury and her need for the bloodiest revenge possible. She wanted to take the thing’s body and step on its neck until it broke.
She just wanted something, anything to drown out the tears of Helena, who despite her best efforts was still crying over a broken heart.
Cain let go of her hair and covered her eyes, breathing deeply as she tried to keep all of those emotions tucked deep down where they couldn’t hurt her. As long as she didn’t think too long and hard over the fact that she was still in love with the Gina Inviere she’d known, then she could survive this. She could turn her sorrow back into anger. She could make a vow that she would never again let the enemy exploit her emotions, and if they were machines then she would be the weapon to bring them down.
Pulling her pocket knife out Cain flipped up the blade, and stared hard at the steel in front of her. A razor didn’t fall in love, and a razor couldn’t be betrayed. A razor was cold, efficient, and would keep tearing and slashing until every last cylon had been wiped out of existence. It would never break.
Cain stood up from the bed and retrieved the journal from the bin again. She stared at it for a moment before pressing her lips to the cover, and then held it at arm’s length with one hand and slashed down the front with her knife.
Dropping it back into the bin Admiral Cain walked from the room, and she hoped that she’d left all traces of Helena in there with it.
One day Helena would leave that room, and the razor would be sheathed once again. But not today.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Fifteen (final)
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,543
Notes: Takes place part way through chapter 12 of Through the Winter
Summary: Cain finds the journal Gina had been keeping during her stay on the Pegasus.
Author note: themis24 was right on the ball. =) I was originally going to save this for after the fic had finished, but I think it works better just beforehand instead.
Intermission:
Just like that, it was over. Thorne saluted again and took his leave, but Cain barely noticed as she kept her arms crossed and her gaze lowered, though she didn’t stare at anything in particular.
Gina...no, it was dead. It had suffered countless times over the last few days, and it had known the shame of dying alone in a cell, beaten, broken and completely helpless.
It was exactly what Cain had wanted, and yet the pain refused to stop. This wasn’t right; she’d thrown herself so completely into her work and making sure that the thing was suffering that she’d managed to keep a lid on her own pain, but now that she’d finally stopped and taken a breath it was there more strongly than she’d anticipated.
The revenge tasted bitter in her mouth, and she took small satisfaction from the fact that it had sampled her hurt. Even if she’d managed to spend the rest of her life torturing the thing, Cain still didn’t think that she’d be able to get the thing to properly understand the pain it had caused her.
Her face hardened as she forced back the inner turmoil that threatened to overcome her, and decided that she needed to put the thing behind her now if she had any hope of keeping control of her ship. Even though she was a woman who had suffered the ultimate betrayal, what her crew needed now was a strong admiral. And so the woman withdrew into herself, and the admiral took charge. The woman Helena sat in the darkness and wept, but you’d never see her behind Admiral Cain’s determined mask.
There was just one last thing that she needed to do to turn the pain into a weapon she could use. She had to face her demons.
Cain walked through the corridors of her ship, and nodded at all of the crew members that she passed. They were still working hard to fix the damages that had been done to the Pegasus, and from the reports Lieutenant Shaw had been giving her it sounded as if they would only just recover. Each negative report was a slap in the face, and she blamed herself for every failure. Cain wasn’t the kind of woman who would crumble under thoughts of ‘if only’, but she knew that trusting the thing had been her downfall, and she swore to herself that she’d never make that kind of mistake again.
Eventually she reached her destination: the quarters of the thing posing as Gina Inviere. She nodded at the guard stationed outside, and he opened the door for her with a salute.
Cain stepped in and looked around the small room, and sighed in frustration and disappointment. She didn’t know why she’d thought this would help. It was just the room of, if she didn’t know better, a normal woman. There were clothes hanging up neatly in the locker, small boxes with some jewellery and several books. One of the books she recognised as her own, and a piece of paper marked one of the pages. She pulled out the paper, hating that a cylon had been reading one of her books, and had turned to throw it in the rubbish bin when she spotted another book in there. It had a blank cover, and curiosity got the better of her as she bent to pull it out.
Sitting down on the bed Cain opened the cover, and was surprised to see handwritten pages within. Her eyes widened as she realised that this might contain information on the cylons, and so she started to read.
Her brow furrowed as she reached the third paragraph.
Still, Helena’s encouraging me to let go of that habit, a little. She says that the best plans for tomorrow incorporate what happened yesterday, and the most successful people learn to find a balance between the past, present and future without focusing on any one more than the other.
Cain remembered having that conversation. Or rather, she remembered the feel of Gina’s arms wrapped around her as the delicate fingers played with her hair.
With a violent shake of her head Cain returned her attention to the book, only to be confused moments later as she reached a recount of a ‘childhood.’
What was the point of that? Had Gina intended to show this to her earlier, in order to further solidify her human identity? Was this text used as practise to make sure she knew her back story? What possible use could it serve?
Cain was even more confused when a few entries on there were talks of ‘lost time’, and how Gina was afraid to tell her about them. As she turned more pages she found more stories about a ‘childhood’, though her eyes narrowed as she found descriptions of her officers in one particular entry. They were worded as if Gina had been a normal human, but Cain was sure she could see through the code. Several other entries just reinforced her suspicions that they were just information about the ship being disguised as a woman’s journal - one about how cylons couldn’t be evil would have practically confirmed that Gina was a cylon if Cain had seen it earlier - but then there were several more that just outright confused her.
One thing she noticed was that every entry bar one mentioned her. While that in itself wasn’t confusing - it was obvious that Gina's plan had been to get close to her after all - it was the way that they were worded that felt so strange.
One entry talked about her as the admiral, but every other one talked about her as the woman. What’s more, they were all worded as if the writer had been honest to the gods in love with this woman. Cain was angered to see her own emotions almost parodied there, but she couldn’t help constantly asking herself why Gina had written such things to begin with. Most of them contained no actual information about her, and seemed to be happily talking about a perfect new relationship. Try as she might Cain couldn’t stop herself from remembering the things Gina talked about. Their showers together, their discussions about the shore leave, and how distressed Gina had seemed when Cain mentioned that she might be leaving. She couldn’t help but smile as she read: Okay, so maybe it wasn’t entirely professional to hit her in the rear with my clipboard as she walked past earlier today.
She quickly caught herself and flicked back to the last page with writing. It was strange; it was only a few sentences long, and then cut out with the pen jarring up onto the text above it. There was blood on it, too. Cain touched her fingertips to the three spots at the bottom, and with a gasp of horror she pulled back, slammed the book shut and threw it back into the bin.
The sight of her own fingers upon the bloody fingerprints there had caused her to realise that she’d started thinking of Gina, no, it, frak it all, it as something other than a machine. It was practically a toaster. A machine who could mimic. A machine that had studied humans, and knew just how to pull on their heartstrings.
Cain rested the sides of her head on the base of her palms, and pulled at her hair so hard that her scalp hurt. She wanted to scream her outrage and her fury and her need for the bloodiest revenge possible. She wanted to take the thing’s body and step on its neck until it broke.
She just wanted something, anything to drown out the tears of Helena, who despite her best efforts was still crying over a broken heart.
Cain let go of her hair and covered her eyes, breathing deeply as she tried to keep all of those emotions tucked deep down where they couldn’t hurt her. As long as she didn’t think too long and hard over the fact that she was still in love with the Gina Inviere she’d known, then she could survive this. She could turn her sorrow back into anger. She could make a vow that she would never again let the enemy exploit her emotions, and if they were machines then she would be the weapon to bring them down.
Pulling her pocket knife out Cain flipped up the blade, and stared hard at the steel in front of her. A razor didn’t fall in love, and a razor couldn’t be betrayed. A razor was cold, efficient, and would keep tearing and slashing until every last cylon had been wiped out of existence. It would never break.
Cain stood up from the bed and retrieved the journal from the bin again. She stared at it for a moment before pressing her lips to the cover, and then held it at arm’s length with one hand and slashed down the front with her knife.
Dropping it back into the bin Admiral Cain walked from the room, and she hoped that she’d left all traces of Helena in there with it.
One day Helena would leave that room, and the razor would be sheathed once again. But not today.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Fifteen (final)