FIC: Photographs (BSG, G)
Title: Photographs
Author: Danahid (danahid)
Summary: A picture is worth a thousand words.
Genre: Gen. Linked drabbles.
Spoilers: Mini-series. Series up to Episode 1.04 (“Act of Contrition”). Maybe a hint of “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down.”
Pairings (if any): None. Maybe L/K if you squint.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica (2003) is owned by NBC/Universal, SciFi, SkyOne, Ron Moore, David Eick, and many people who are decidedly not me. No infringement intended.
Archive/Distribution: Please ask.
Date: February 7, 2005 (Rev. 3/1/2005)
PHOTOGRAPHS
A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.
-- Diane Arbus
1
All of the pilots touched the photo whenever they left the briefing room. It was slightly out of focus, hazy at the edges. It had been taken on the roof of the capitol building on Aerilon on the day the world ended: One soldier alone, surrounded by utter devastation, shadowed by the solitary snap of a Colonial flag, fallen to his knees in despair.
Anyone going in or out of the briefing room touched it, not just the pilots.
Hot Dog didn’t want to touch it.
Even though the Captain himself had pinned on his wings, he didn’t feel like he had the right.
2
Dualla clutched the lifeline in her hand, the picture of her mother and her father and her brothers that had been taken on her last leave, the last time she saw them before the end of the world. It was the only picture she had of her family: Her teenage brothers had been goofing around as usual, teasing and chiding her, refusing to sit still while her parents looked on indulgently. Now when she looked at the photo, she was mesmerized by their faces, their smiles so wide and bright and full of life that it hurt to look at them.
In the corridor after leaving the communications office, she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of souls lost: Photographs of babies and children and men and women covered the walls of the corridor from floor to ceiling. There were flowers and candles interspersed between the photographs, as if it were an official memorial instead of just snapshots pinned to the wall.
Surrounded by this gallery of the dead, she couldn’t breathe. It felt as if the walls of the corridor were folding inwards.
Bowing her head, she clutched her lifeline close to her heart. It was all she had left. It would have to be her anchor.
3
Colonel Tigh set his bottle aside to smooth the wrinkles out of the photograph. It was an old picture, one from the early years of his marriage. In it, his wife was holding a glass of wine and smiling seductively at someone just out of frame. She was wearing a form-fitting, low-cut dress. Her blond hair glimmered in the candlelight. He traced his fingers over her features and thought about how many fingers of alcohol he had left.
His fingers paused over the small cigar burn, and all thought of alcohol evaporated. All he could think about was the number of times he had tried to burn Ellen’s photograph. All he could think about was her smile for someone else.
He had lost her long before the end of the world.
4
Commander Adama treasured the framed photograph the deck crew had given him. When Tyrol had first handed it to him, he had been so surprised by the gift that for a moment he had not recognized himself. He had stared at the three people in the photo as if they were someone else’s family: A dark-haired man with an unlined face and two smiling boys, one fair-haired and open-faced, the other dark, slight, and reserved, all three standing in front of a 20-year-old Viper.
Back in the familiar book-clutter of his office, Adama took his time studying the photograph. Caroline had taken it the day he was promoted to CAG on the Galactica. He remembered the golden warmth of the day, the infinite blue of sky, the elegant lines of his old Mark II. He remembered Caroline’s soft voice herding the boys into the picture, getting them to stand proudly in front of him, miniature versions of the Colonial warriors they would one day become.
Only one of his sons had lived long enough to become a Colonial warrior.
For Adama, the world ended two years before the Cylons nuked the Twelve Colonies. The first time his world ended was when Zak died and Lee retreated behind a wall of silent fury and recrimination.
He had no delusions about himself as a father, but he knew that no father, even an absent, demanding, difficult one like himself, should have to suffer such loss.
5
Whenever Kara looked at the picture in her locker, her eyes got caught in the fold, the ragged line that divided her and Zak from Lee.
The photograph had been taken three months before Zak’s death. Lee had managed to coordinate his rare leave so that he could make it back to Caprica to see them for a day. Zak had almost been vibrating with excited hero worship.
Zak spent the day regaling his big brother with stories about his pilot training, his antics at the academy, his opinion of Kara’s abilities as a flight instructor, his relationship with Kara. Kara spent the day watching Lee’s guarded face as he nodded and inserted comments edgewise into the conversation, wishing the world would end so that she didn’t have to face her oldest friend when he finally stopped this farce and demanded to know why of all the people in the world she had decided to corrupt his little brother.
In the middle of this growing tension, they had run into one of her instructor colleagues from the academy. He had been trying out a new camera and asked to take their picture. Zak had tugged her into his arms, which made the photographer waggle his eyebrows suggestively. She and Zak had laughed, their bodies flowing together like water, the tension evaporating as if it had never been there in the first place. Lee stood to the side, his face impassive, his bearing stiff and self-conscious.
When she had first arrived on the Galactica after Zak’s death, she kept the picture in her locker to remind her of the person she had been: young, passionate, in love, and so incredibly, criminally stupid. She folded the picture in half, hid Lee’s half under the mirror frame, because she couldn’t stand to look into Lee’s calm, accusing eyes.
On the day the world ended, she unfolded the photograph for the first time in two years. It was like tearing the scab off a festered wound. She stared at Lee standing apart from her and Zak, separated by much more than space, separated in the way he had always been so frustratingly separate from her--
When Zak died, Kara had missed him. She missed his sweetness, his humor, his love. She missed being part of a couple. But her guilt didn’t let her miss him too much. It was her fault, after all, that he was dead.
What Kara didn’t admit to herself was that when Zak died, she had missed Lee more.
END
Author: Danahid (danahid)
Summary: A picture is worth a thousand words.
Genre: Gen. Linked drabbles.
Spoilers: Mini-series. Series up to Episode 1.04 (“Act of Contrition”). Maybe a hint of “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down.”
Pairings (if any): None. Maybe L/K if you squint.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica (2003) is owned by NBC/Universal, SciFi, SkyOne, Ron Moore, David Eick, and many people who are decidedly not me. No infringement intended.
Archive/Distribution: Please ask.
Date: February 7, 2005 (Rev. 3/1/2005)
PHOTOGRAPHS
A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.
-- Diane Arbus
1
All of the pilots touched the photo whenever they left the briefing room. It was slightly out of focus, hazy at the edges. It had been taken on the roof of the capitol building on Aerilon on the day the world ended: One soldier alone, surrounded by utter devastation, shadowed by the solitary snap of a Colonial flag, fallen to his knees in despair.
Anyone going in or out of the briefing room touched it, not just the pilots.
Hot Dog didn’t want to touch it.
Even though the Captain himself had pinned on his wings, he didn’t feel like he had the right.
2
Dualla clutched the lifeline in her hand, the picture of her mother and her father and her brothers that had been taken on her last leave, the last time she saw them before the end of the world. It was the only picture she had of her family: Her teenage brothers had been goofing around as usual, teasing and chiding her, refusing to sit still while her parents looked on indulgently. Now when she looked at the photo, she was mesmerized by their faces, their smiles so wide and bright and full of life that it hurt to look at them.
In the corridor after leaving the communications office, she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of souls lost: Photographs of babies and children and men and women covered the walls of the corridor from floor to ceiling. There were flowers and candles interspersed between the photographs, as if it were an official memorial instead of just snapshots pinned to the wall.
Surrounded by this gallery of the dead, she couldn’t breathe. It felt as if the walls of the corridor were folding inwards.
Bowing her head, she clutched her lifeline close to her heart. It was all she had left. It would have to be her anchor.
3
Colonel Tigh set his bottle aside to smooth the wrinkles out of the photograph. It was an old picture, one from the early years of his marriage. In it, his wife was holding a glass of wine and smiling seductively at someone just out of frame. She was wearing a form-fitting, low-cut dress. Her blond hair glimmered in the candlelight. He traced his fingers over her features and thought about how many fingers of alcohol he had left.
His fingers paused over the small cigar burn, and all thought of alcohol evaporated. All he could think about was the number of times he had tried to burn Ellen’s photograph. All he could think about was her smile for someone else.
He had lost her long before the end of the world.
4
Commander Adama treasured the framed photograph the deck crew had given him. When Tyrol had first handed it to him, he had been so surprised by the gift that for a moment he had not recognized himself. He had stared at the three people in the photo as if they were someone else’s family: A dark-haired man with an unlined face and two smiling boys, one fair-haired and open-faced, the other dark, slight, and reserved, all three standing in front of a 20-year-old Viper.
Back in the familiar book-clutter of his office, Adama took his time studying the photograph. Caroline had taken it the day he was promoted to CAG on the Galactica. He remembered the golden warmth of the day, the infinite blue of sky, the elegant lines of his old Mark II. He remembered Caroline’s soft voice herding the boys into the picture, getting them to stand proudly in front of him, miniature versions of the Colonial warriors they would one day become.
Only one of his sons had lived long enough to become a Colonial warrior.
For Adama, the world ended two years before the Cylons nuked the Twelve Colonies. The first time his world ended was when Zak died and Lee retreated behind a wall of silent fury and recrimination.
He had no delusions about himself as a father, but he knew that no father, even an absent, demanding, difficult one like himself, should have to suffer such loss.
5
Whenever Kara looked at the picture in her locker, her eyes got caught in the fold, the ragged line that divided her and Zak from Lee.
The photograph had been taken three months before Zak’s death. Lee had managed to coordinate his rare leave so that he could make it back to Caprica to see them for a day. Zak had almost been vibrating with excited hero worship.
Zak spent the day regaling his big brother with stories about his pilot training, his antics at the academy, his opinion of Kara’s abilities as a flight instructor, his relationship with Kara. Kara spent the day watching Lee’s guarded face as he nodded and inserted comments edgewise into the conversation, wishing the world would end so that she didn’t have to face her oldest friend when he finally stopped this farce and demanded to know why of all the people in the world she had decided to corrupt his little brother.
In the middle of this growing tension, they had run into one of her instructor colleagues from the academy. He had been trying out a new camera and asked to take their picture. Zak had tugged her into his arms, which made the photographer waggle his eyebrows suggestively. She and Zak had laughed, their bodies flowing together like water, the tension evaporating as if it had never been there in the first place. Lee stood to the side, his face impassive, his bearing stiff and self-conscious.
When she had first arrived on the Galactica after Zak’s death, she kept the picture in her locker to remind her of the person she had been: young, passionate, in love, and so incredibly, criminally stupid. She folded the picture in half, hid Lee’s half under the mirror frame, because she couldn’t stand to look into Lee’s calm, accusing eyes.
On the day the world ended, she unfolded the photograph for the first time in two years. It was like tearing the scab off a festered wound. She stared at Lee standing apart from her and Zak, separated by much more than space, separated in the way he had always been so frustratingly separate from her--
When Zak died, Kara had missed him. She missed his sweetness, his humor, his love. She missed being part of a couple. But her guilt didn’t let her miss him too much. It was her fault, after all, that he was dead.
What Kara didn’t admit to herself was that when Zak died, she had missed Lee more.
END