Where bullets can no longer wound us (3/3)
Synopsis: A three-part hauntings fic. Dee recieves a visit from Billy before her suicide. Felix recieves a visit from Dee before his mutiny. Boomer recieves a visit from Felix while she is locked in the Brig. They reach out towards their respective ghosts. They reach for a place where bullets can no longer wound them.
Characters: Dee, Billy, Felix and Boomer, with mentions of others.
Rating: PG-13 (warnings for dark themes)
Spoilers: up to an including 4x17.
Links to other parts: Chapter One - Chapter Two
Author's Note: My first time writing Boomer! Girlfriend is frakked in the head.
Where bullets can no longer wound us
From her place in the cell, Boomer could hear everything.
Cavil had made the upgrades to her ears. There were still limits to their capacity. There were basic design flaws that couldn’t be overcome. But her hearing could still stretch beyond the confines of the brig, through the walls and ceilings, to listen in on conversations in nearby rooms. Boomer could choose which sounds to focus on; she could turn their volume up or down. She could even fade them all out if she wanted some rest. Not that she slept anymore. Cavil had erased that function too. But lying down and closing her eyes was still the best way to project. It was almost like dreaming, though she would never call it that. Dreaming was for humans.
Boomer had decided to leave the house on Picon for a while. There was only so much time she could spend there. She didn’t want to lapse into sentimentality and lose her nerve. So for now Boomer was projecting into a dusty candlelit tent on New Caprica. This tent wasn’t one of her own imaginary realms of escape. She had downloaded this memory from another Number Eight. She often stole memories from her model. It expanded her faculties and perceptions. Boomer had never downloaded from Athena though, even while she knew Athena had stolen all of her old memories before she proceeded to steal her life. No, the Eights who accessed Athena’s memories always ended up weak and lovesick. Boomer had no use for those emotions. There were other things she could steal from Athena.
Felix Gaeta was sitting across from her in the tent. His skin looked rich and warm in the candlelight. He was dressed in a black suit like a guest at a funeral. He stared at her through the shadows, tipping his head in a respectful nod. Felix took a cigar from his front pocket, blazed it up and handed it over to her.
“Welcome home, Sharon,” he said, his smile soft and nostalgic.
“Thanks Felix,” she muttered. “Looks like I missed all the excitement, huh?”
He nodded. “You could say that. There’s a lot that’s been happening.”
Boomer winced. She had heard about it. She had listened into the chatter in the rooms closest to her. It seemed like the fleet had fallen apart since their discovery of Earth. Many were disturbed and upset by the sudden alliance with the rebel cylons. There had been an uprising onboard the Galactica and now their ranks were thin. Many of the mutineers were still locked down here in the brig and the rest of them had been shipped off to the Astral Queen. For the most part Boomer had ceased to care about the troubles of her old crewmates, but there were two pieces of news that had caused her to catch her breath.
“I…I heard about Dee’s suicide and your execution,” said Boomer, shaking her head. “I can’t even believe I’m saying those words. I always liked you kids. Everyone liked you. In the old days…me and Helo used to call you the sweethearts of the CIC. If we ever got called up to the bridge we knew that the Colonel and Old Man would most likely bust our asses…but we could always be sure Felix and Dee would give us a bright smile and tell us we were doing a great job.” She took a drag on the cigar; tasting the ashes in her mouth and sighing smoke into the tent. “I guess that’s another happy memory of mine that’s gone to hell. Don’t worry; I’ve got plenty of them.”
“The world is frakked,” said Felix with a tight frown. “I tried to put it right, but it just became more broken.”
Boomer snorted. “I know the feeling. We learned our lessons here on New Caprica, Felix. We learned the hard way. You were right to resist the alliance. Humans and cylons aren’t meant to be together. Why not leave those old wounds behind and exist in separate corners of the universe? Nothing else works. The Old Man’s making a mistake if he thinks he can trust those lying machines. Someone had to rebel against it. I’ll bet they never thought it would be you.”
“Never trust the quiet ones...” said Felix, tapping the side of his head, his eyes dancing with amusement. “I had my chance. I could have shot him in the CIC just like you. But I never wanted to see him die. I always loved the Old Man.”
“I loved him too. Do you think Adama remembers that we loved him?”
Felix shook his head, regretfully. “No...I think he remembers our betrayals. I think he feels our bullets in his chest and he forgets the people we were. He forgets that we were his kids.”
Boomer shared a bitter smile with Felix. At least he was being honest with her, even though it hurt to hear. She passed the cigar back to him and reclined on the mattress.
“So how did they do it?” she asked in morbid curiosity. “How did they execute the Officer of the Watch? I’m just wondering, Felix, because I’m sure Adama and Roslin are drawing up my own death warrant as we speak.”
Felix inhaled deeply from the cigar and then released a shaky laugh.
“It was the firing squad at dawn, Sharon. Don’t you love the old traditions?”
“Yeah, I used to. I hope they aimed for your heart. I hope they didn’t shoot you in the gut and leave you to bleed out on the floor.” She grimaced, rubbing her belly. It still pained her sometimes, even in this new body free of scars. “Did we deserve our deaths, Felix? It was those other cylons that slaughtered mankind, not me. Those cylons are walking around free on this ship. What did we do that was so much worse? Do they think this is justice?”
“Justice?” Felix rolled his eyes, smiling cynically. “This fleet has no time for justice, Sharon. But revenge? They’ll always make time for revenge.”
“Of course. What does it matter what the others did? I’ll always be the cylon who shot the Old Man. They’ll never stop hating me for that.”
Felix nodded. “Right…even though it wasn’t your fault.”
Boomer squinted at him. “What did you say?”
“When you shot the Old Man in the CIC. You yelled that you didn’t know what was happening. I was there, Sharon. I remember. I could see you had no control. I knew it must have been your programming.”
Boomer felt her eyes filling with tears. She swallowed, forcing them back. Nobody had ever told her it wasn’t her fault. They had all pointed their fingers and accused her until she had come to believe she was as guilty as they assumed. Now she wanted to believe what Felix was telling her, but it was too hard.
“No, I knew it,” she hissed. “I knew I was going to hurt someone. I tried to force myself not to think about it. I didn’t want to believe it. Then I saw all those other Sharons on that baseship. I couldn’t fight it anymore. The Old Man reached out to shake my hand and the feeling took over me. Was it my programming? I...I don’t know. I still felt human then. Maybe I just went crazy like humans do? Like when you went crazy in the CIC, Felix...”
He shifted in his chair. “What makes you think I was crazy?”
“Because I know what your Eight did,” she said, ignoring his discomfort. “I was a little shocked when I found this memory, Felix. I didn’t think that you liked women. Or cylons for that matter...”
He sighed, pinching his brow. “I liked you. I always liked you. I didn’t realise that the other Sharons weren’t the same. I was just...I was blind. And that Eight used it to kill people.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Felix. That is what machines do. When I brought them to New Caprica I thought we could live together with humans. I thought I could be human again. But machines aren’t meant to live. The purpose of machines is to experiment. That's what we ended up doing on that planet. That’s what the Eight did to you. She took all your innocence and all your weaknesses and she dissected you. She was fascinated by you, Felix. She wanted to know what made you hope, what made you love, what made you believe. She turned you into a weapon; into a sleeper agent like me. She could use you to hurt people without you even knowing it, even though you feared it deep inside. I know how that feels, Felix. But I also know how she felt. She wasn’t a monster. She was a machine. It’s what machines do.”
Felix raised his head and looked her in the eyes. A hint of animosity had crept into his stare. He stubbed out the cigar and crossed his arms.
“Is that how you'll justify what you’re planning to do to Helo and Athena's child?” he asked. “Is that what you’ll tell yourself when Cavil dissects her innocence?”
Boomer felt her heart trembling at his words. Then she remembered that she was a cylon and Felix was a human. Of course they would never agree on anything. They weren’t really friends. They never could be.
“What a shame you lack the capacity for understanding, Felix..." she teased. "You used to be such a good little scientist too. If only they hadn’t shot you I could have taken you back with me and let Cavil look inside your defective human brain.”
He snorted. “Cavil. What is it you see in Cavil, Sharon? Do you love him?”
Felix said it like an accusation. Boomer was sick of being accused.
“Love is for humans,” she spat back at him. “I loved a man once...before I knew what I was. And the man I loved betrayed me. He hurt me more than the bullet did. But he let me die in his arms and that was the last time I felt love. The girl that was Sharon Valerii died. She went to a place where bullets can no longer wound her; a little house on Picon where the sun always shines through the windows. That’s the only place she lives now. They didn’t resurrect the girl, only a machine. Cavil is teaching me how to be a better machine. He accepts me when the rest of the world won’t. Cavil makes me feel safe. He says he is impressed of my progress. Sometimes I call him the Old Man...”
Boomer fell silent. She realised just how disturbed she was sounding. Felix was still staring at her. His eyes were wide and fearful in the shadows. She could remember Felix looking at her this way when she had asked him for more names, when she squeezed his hand, when she held him down in bed. Humans were such fragile creatures. Boomer rose to her feet, crossing the space between them. She stroked a hand through Felix’s soft dark curls. His hair felt like Hera’s hair to touch.
“She’s not a little girl,” she assured him. “She’s a thing.”
Neither the humans nor the cylons cared about the girl. Boomer knew this for sure, because she had been a girl herself once...a child of both races. She had been one of Adama's kids on the Galactica and the youngest daughter of the cylon nation. She had been used, wounded and betrayed by both of her families. They had dissected her innocence. They had left her to bleed. Why should Hera deserve any better? After all...she was just another experiment.
Felix caught her hand. “You need to remember who you are, Sharon. In the end...we all realise who we are.”
Boomer shivered as he placed a kiss on her knuckles. She let go of his hand, pulling back from her projection, returning to the confines of her cell. She wrapped her arms around her chest. She was trembling like a little girl.
“I…I’m a machine,” she said.
The End
Characters: Dee, Billy, Felix and Boomer, with mentions of others.
Rating: PG-13 (warnings for dark themes)
Spoilers: up to an including 4x17.
Links to other parts: Chapter One - Chapter Two
Author's Note: My first time writing Boomer! Girlfriend is frakked in the head.
Where bullets can no longer wound us
From her place in the cell, Boomer could hear everything.
Cavil had made the upgrades to her ears. There were still limits to their capacity. There were basic design flaws that couldn’t be overcome. But her hearing could still stretch beyond the confines of the brig, through the walls and ceilings, to listen in on conversations in nearby rooms. Boomer could choose which sounds to focus on; she could turn their volume up or down. She could even fade them all out if she wanted some rest. Not that she slept anymore. Cavil had erased that function too. But lying down and closing her eyes was still the best way to project. It was almost like dreaming, though she would never call it that. Dreaming was for humans.
Boomer had decided to leave the house on Picon for a while. There was only so much time she could spend there. She didn’t want to lapse into sentimentality and lose her nerve. So for now Boomer was projecting into a dusty candlelit tent on New Caprica. This tent wasn’t one of her own imaginary realms of escape. She had downloaded this memory from another Number Eight. She often stole memories from her model. It expanded her faculties and perceptions. Boomer had never downloaded from Athena though, even while she knew Athena had stolen all of her old memories before she proceeded to steal her life. No, the Eights who accessed Athena’s memories always ended up weak and lovesick. Boomer had no use for those emotions. There were other things she could steal from Athena.
Felix Gaeta was sitting across from her in the tent. His skin looked rich and warm in the candlelight. He was dressed in a black suit like a guest at a funeral. He stared at her through the shadows, tipping his head in a respectful nod. Felix took a cigar from his front pocket, blazed it up and handed it over to her.
“Welcome home, Sharon,” he said, his smile soft and nostalgic.
“Thanks Felix,” she muttered. “Looks like I missed all the excitement, huh?”
He nodded. “You could say that. There’s a lot that’s been happening.”
Boomer winced. She had heard about it. She had listened into the chatter in the rooms closest to her. It seemed like the fleet had fallen apart since their discovery of Earth. Many were disturbed and upset by the sudden alliance with the rebel cylons. There had been an uprising onboard the Galactica and now their ranks were thin. Many of the mutineers were still locked down here in the brig and the rest of them had been shipped off to the Astral Queen. For the most part Boomer had ceased to care about the troubles of her old crewmates, but there were two pieces of news that had caused her to catch her breath.
“I…I heard about Dee’s suicide and your execution,” said Boomer, shaking her head. “I can’t even believe I’m saying those words. I always liked you kids. Everyone liked you. In the old days…me and Helo used to call you the sweethearts of the CIC. If we ever got called up to the bridge we knew that the Colonel and Old Man would most likely bust our asses…but we could always be sure Felix and Dee would give us a bright smile and tell us we were doing a great job.” She took a drag on the cigar; tasting the ashes in her mouth and sighing smoke into the tent. “I guess that’s another happy memory of mine that’s gone to hell. Don’t worry; I’ve got plenty of them.”
“The world is frakked,” said Felix with a tight frown. “I tried to put it right, but it just became more broken.”
Boomer snorted. “I know the feeling. We learned our lessons here on New Caprica, Felix. We learned the hard way. You were right to resist the alliance. Humans and cylons aren’t meant to be together. Why not leave those old wounds behind and exist in separate corners of the universe? Nothing else works. The Old Man’s making a mistake if he thinks he can trust those lying machines. Someone had to rebel against it. I’ll bet they never thought it would be you.”
“Never trust the quiet ones...” said Felix, tapping the side of his head, his eyes dancing with amusement. “I had my chance. I could have shot him in the CIC just like you. But I never wanted to see him die. I always loved the Old Man.”
“I loved him too. Do you think Adama remembers that we loved him?”
Felix shook his head, regretfully. “No...I think he remembers our betrayals. I think he feels our bullets in his chest and he forgets the people we were. He forgets that we were his kids.”
Boomer shared a bitter smile with Felix. At least he was being honest with her, even though it hurt to hear. She passed the cigar back to him and reclined on the mattress.
“So how did they do it?” she asked in morbid curiosity. “How did they execute the Officer of the Watch? I’m just wondering, Felix, because I’m sure Adama and Roslin are drawing up my own death warrant as we speak.”
Felix inhaled deeply from the cigar and then released a shaky laugh.
“It was the firing squad at dawn, Sharon. Don’t you love the old traditions?”
“Yeah, I used to. I hope they aimed for your heart. I hope they didn’t shoot you in the gut and leave you to bleed out on the floor.” She grimaced, rubbing her belly. It still pained her sometimes, even in this new body free of scars. “Did we deserve our deaths, Felix? It was those other cylons that slaughtered mankind, not me. Those cylons are walking around free on this ship. What did we do that was so much worse? Do they think this is justice?”
“Justice?” Felix rolled his eyes, smiling cynically. “This fleet has no time for justice, Sharon. But revenge? They’ll always make time for revenge.”
“Of course. What does it matter what the others did? I’ll always be the cylon who shot the Old Man. They’ll never stop hating me for that.”
Felix nodded. “Right…even though it wasn’t your fault.”
Boomer squinted at him. “What did you say?”
“When you shot the Old Man in the CIC. You yelled that you didn’t know what was happening. I was there, Sharon. I remember. I could see you had no control. I knew it must have been your programming.”
Boomer felt her eyes filling with tears. She swallowed, forcing them back. Nobody had ever told her it wasn’t her fault. They had all pointed their fingers and accused her until she had come to believe she was as guilty as they assumed. Now she wanted to believe what Felix was telling her, but it was too hard.
“No, I knew it,” she hissed. “I knew I was going to hurt someone. I tried to force myself not to think about it. I didn’t want to believe it. Then I saw all those other Sharons on that baseship. I couldn’t fight it anymore. The Old Man reached out to shake my hand and the feeling took over me. Was it my programming? I...I don’t know. I still felt human then. Maybe I just went crazy like humans do? Like when you went crazy in the CIC, Felix...”
He shifted in his chair. “What makes you think I was crazy?”
“Because I know what your Eight did,” she said, ignoring his discomfort. “I was a little shocked when I found this memory, Felix. I didn’t think that you liked women. Or cylons for that matter...”
He sighed, pinching his brow. “I liked you. I always liked you. I didn’t realise that the other Sharons weren’t the same. I was just...I was blind. And that Eight used it to kill people.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Felix. That is what machines do. When I brought them to New Caprica I thought we could live together with humans. I thought I could be human again. But machines aren’t meant to live. The purpose of machines is to experiment. That's what we ended up doing on that planet. That’s what the Eight did to you. She took all your innocence and all your weaknesses and she dissected you. She was fascinated by you, Felix. She wanted to know what made you hope, what made you love, what made you believe. She turned you into a weapon; into a sleeper agent like me. She could use you to hurt people without you even knowing it, even though you feared it deep inside. I know how that feels, Felix. But I also know how she felt. She wasn’t a monster. She was a machine. It’s what machines do.”
Felix raised his head and looked her in the eyes. A hint of animosity had crept into his stare. He stubbed out the cigar and crossed his arms.
“Is that how you'll justify what you’re planning to do to Helo and Athena's child?” he asked. “Is that what you’ll tell yourself when Cavil dissects her innocence?”
Boomer felt her heart trembling at his words. Then she remembered that she was a cylon and Felix was a human. Of course they would never agree on anything. They weren’t really friends. They never could be.
“What a shame you lack the capacity for understanding, Felix..." she teased. "You used to be such a good little scientist too. If only they hadn’t shot you I could have taken you back with me and let Cavil look inside your defective human brain.”
He snorted. “Cavil. What is it you see in Cavil, Sharon? Do you love him?”
Felix said it like an accusation. Boomer was sick of being accused.
“Love is for humans,” she spat back at him. “I loved a man once...before I knew what I was. And the man I loved betrayed me. He hurt me more than the bullet did. But he let me die in his arms and that was the last time I felt love. The girl that was Sharon Valerii died. She went to a place where bullets can no longer wound her; a little house on Picon where the sun always shines through the windows. That’s the only place she lives now. They didn’t resurrect the girl, only a machine. Cavil is teaching me how to be a better machine. He accepts me when the rest of the world won’t. Cavil makes me feel safe. He says he is impressed of my progress. Sometimes I call him the Old Man...”
Boomer fell silent. She realised just how disturbed she was sounding. Felix was still staring at her. His eyes were wide and fearful in the shadows. She could remember Felix looking at her this way when she had asked him for more names, when she squeezed his hand, when she held him down in bed. Humans were such fragile creatures. Boomer rose to her feet, crossing the space between them. She stroked a hand through Felix’s soft dark curls. His hair felt like Hera’s hair to touch.
“She’s not a little girl,” she assured him. “She’s a thing.”
Neither the humans nor the cylons cared about the girl. Boomer knew this for sure, because she had been a girl herself once...a child of both races. She had been one of Adama's kids on the Galactica and the youngest daughter of the cylon nation. She had been used, wounded and betrayed by both of her families. They had dissected her innocence. They had left her to bleed. Why should Hera deserve any better? After all...she was just another experiment.
Felix caught her hand. “You need to remember who you are, Sharon. In the end...we all realise who we are.”
Boomer shivered as he placed a kiss on her knuckles. She let go of his hand, pulling back from her projection, returning to the confines of her cell. She wrapped her arms around her chest. She was trembling like a little girl.
“I…I’m a machine,” she said.
The End