BSG: The Unforgiven Ones, Part 4: The Accession of Claudius
Back to Part III: A Mean God
IV: The Accession of Claudius
Some time later, John saw a food cart coming out of one of the doors on Deck A, and found out that GALLEY meant kitchen.
It was three more days before John managed to get inside. The carts always came out with two people, a server in uniform and a second soldier with a gun, and someone else was watching from the doorway every time. On the third day, the door man was missing, and the two with the cart struggled to get it through the hatch on their own. John slipped inside as the door swung shut behind them.
Inside, the galley was noisy and hot. The air was full of steam, and there were a lot of people in there, bustling to and fro in drab green uniforms. John hid behind a crate so they wouldn't see him, pressing himself against it.
"We need more hands," one of the workers was saying. "We can't keep up, sir."
John looked out around the edge of the crate. A thin young man with dark hair was talking to a big man in a blue uniform which was much more elaborate than the ones everyone else wore. The big man's jaw was set in a determined expression.
"I know it's hard," he told the smaller man, "but you have to handle it, Jaffee. The old man can't spare anybody else, not with the Cylons on our ass. I've been back a month, and already we've had two riots over food. I told him I'd take it on myself to clear this up, and I meant it."
"But sir--"
"No buts," the big man said, in a surprisingly gentle voice. "Look, me and the other Raptor wranglers will come down and help whenever we're off shift. I promise. But you gotta keep the food coming, Jaffee, all right? Now that the Pegasus is with us, we need twice the rations. The whole fleet's counting on you." The big man reached out and put his hand on Jaffee's shoulder, and Jaffee finally smiled.
"Yes, sir," he said. "Thanks, Captain Agathon."
"Don't mention it," Agathon said. "We're all just doing our duty."
He turned away, toward where John was hiding, and John made himself smaller against the crate. His hand pressed against something inside it, something round and hard. John closed his hand around it, just as Agathon passed by.
The hatch swung open, Agathon stepped out, and John dashed out after him, keeping his step light.
He wasn't fast enough. Agathon saw him out of the corner of his eye. Given half a second more, Agathon would have turned, would have caught him. Everything would have been different, if not for the voice that sounded up the hall.
"Helo!"
Agathon turned away with a sudden smile. A small, dark-haired woman in a leather flight-suit ran up to him. As John turned the corner, he heard them greet each other.
"Hey, babe," Agathon said, his voice rich with love. "Did you get yourself added to the schedule?"
"Not yet," she said. "They don't trust me, Helo. They won't trust a Cylon." She smacked her fist against his shoulder in frustration. "I helped them, Karl. I betrayed my own people for them, yet they won't even trust me to drive a frakkin' Viper. When is this going to change? When is it going to get better?"
A Cylon? John thought. He paused, safely out of sight around the corner, and listened.
"It will, Sharon," Helo sighed. "It will get better. It just takes time, that's all."
John peeked around the corner. The two were nestled in each other's arms, standing alone in the middle of the corridor. The woman -- the Cylon, Sharon -- seemed blissful, but Karl Agathon had a look of quiet trepidation on his face.
"It will get better," he repeated, with that same look of doubt on his face. "It will."
"It's a special temple on Gemenon. You can be redeemed there."
"Liar," John muttered, shaking his head. "Frakking liars."
As he walked away from Agathon and the Cylon, John looked down at his hand. The thing he'd grabbed from the crate was a red apple, like the ones his mother used to put in his lunch bag. He hadn't seen one like it since the end of the worlds. He slipped it into his pocket, determined not to lose it.
Now he could pay the priest back.
---
When John came in, the priest was reading a book in bed. John pushed through the heavy curtain which separated the priests' personal quarters from the rest of the chapel, and extended the apple without a word.
The priest closed his book with one hand, and accepted the apple with the other. John sat down beside him -- beside him, for the very first time -- and watched as he took a black-handled knife from the table. The priest laid the apple on top of the book and cut it in half with one stroke. Then he gave John the bigger half.
"What's your name?" the priest asked, as John took his first bite.
"John."
The word seemed to drop onto the floor between them. John wasn't sure why, but his name changed something in the priest's manner, made his face go cold and hard like a stone. I shouldn't be here, John thought suddenly. This is a bad idea.
But he didn't leave. Instead, he took another bite.
"We've become friends, huh?" the priest asked.
John shrugged his assent, half-nodding around his mouthful of apple.
"Friends are dangerous things."
"You're not dangerous," John said. The words came out without hesitation, without conscious thought, and John never knew that his speed was the only thing that saved him. "Just honest."
"Honest," the priest repeated. His voice was as flat and smooth as paper, as though he felt no emotion whatsoever. His hand tightened around the hilt of the knife. "You think I'm honest."
"Yeah."
For a long moment, the priest lay frozen on the bed. Then he snorted. "Honest is dangerous, kid."
The priest put the book down on the table. He kept the knife in his hand, though, turning the hilt beneath his fingers.
"My name is Cavil," he said, still looking down at the knife. "Just Cavil. And if we're going to be... friends, then you need a new name, because I frakking hate 'John'." The priest's face twisted in anger.
"A name?" John asked. The priest looked over at him, fixing him with fierce eyes. "Claudius," John blurted. "I want Claudius."
The priest snorted again, and folded his arms over his chest. His right hand wagged the knife at John. "That's a big name for such a little kid."
"How about Staikos?" John ventured, after a while.
"I didn't say you couldn't have Claudius."
For a while, neither of them spoke. Then the priest put his knife down on the table, on top of his book. "You stole this apple, didn't you, kid?" he asked, taking his half of the fruit up from the table.
John nodded.
"Good, but I hate apples. Go and steal us some meat, Claudius."
---
John -- Claudius -- walked the long way back to the galley, swinging his arms with every step.
I wish my parents could see me now, he thought. Serves them right.
Somebody wanted him. The thought filled him with joy; it made him feel much bigger and better than he'd been just hours before. When he got to the galley, the door was shut, and he knew it would be locked. John would have waited; John would have snuck in.
Claudius knocked on the door.
After a moment, it opened, and Jaffee stuck his head out. He was wearing the same green uniform, and Claudius noticed that it had his name embroidered over the chest pocket. He pointed to it, pretending as though he was unsure of the name.
"Mr., um, Jaffee?" he asked.
"What, kid?"
"I'm supposed to get some meat," he said, glancing up and down the hall. "For the priest in Section Two."
Jaffee raised his eyebrows. "For a priest?" he asked.
"Yeah. For Brother Cavil. It's for a sacrifice."
Jaffee hesitated, and for a second Claudius thought he was going to get in trouble. Then Jaffee shook his head, and ushered him in.
"All right, sure," Jaffee said, as Claudius trailed after him. They passed a wide pot full of bubbling stew, like the stuff the Marines had given out to the people on the lower decks. "Gods know we can use all the help we can get. Which of the Lords is he gonna offer it to?"
"Ares," Claudius said.
Jaffee smiled grimly. "Yeah. To help us smite our enemies in battle. That's a great idea."
"It is. Do you have steak?" Claudius dared to ask.
Jaffee laughed. "Frak, no, kid! We got frozen chicken and dried pork, take your pick."
"The chicken," Claudius said, thinking quickly. The priest had said good meat, and frozen was better than dried.
"Hey, Racetrack, could you get this kid a pack of chicken?" Jaffee called. "It's for the Gods."
"For the Gods, huh?" a woman in a blue uniform laughed. "Well, what have they done for us lately?"
"You're a heathen, sir," Jaffee said, not unkindly. He grinned down at Claudius. Claudius smiled back at him. He felt as though he belonged. He felt as if Cavil's friendship had opened doors for him, had sparked whole new worlds of warmth and acceptance.
As he watched, Racetrack opened up a steel freezer nearby. She leaned all the way inside, until all he could see was her legs, and then came back up again with a thick plastic packet. It had RATIONS, CHICKEN written on it.
She wrapped it in a bit of discarded cardboard for him, so the cold wouldn't burn his hands. Then she handed it over, with an air of faux solemnity. "There you go, Brother Kidlet," she said. "One sacrifice, comin' up."
"Thanks," Claudius said. "Gods be with you," he added, as an afterthought. Then he turned and walked out the door, back toward the chapel.
Back toward home.
---
That night, Claudius had the nightmare again. Maybe it was the chicken.
The priest had chopped it up and fried it with some of his herbs, after mockingly offering it to Ares. It wasn't much more than edible -- Claudius' mother could have done better with no spices and five minutes' time -- but it was the best thing Claudius had eaten since the fall of the Colonies, just the same. Cavil had let him have almost all of it, same as with the apple, and he'd stuffed himself.
Now he lay between the pews, tossing and turning on his rucksack. In his dreams, he ran forever, but he could never escape the people chasing him. First it was just his mother and father, fierce and unimaginably tall. They towered over him like the colossi at the temple back home. He ran and ran, but he couldn't get out of their shadow. It grew deeper around him, swallowing him up, and then there were others all around him.
Helo. Sharon. Jaffee. Racetrack. The boy with the braid-lock and smashed skull, and the Marine who'd smashed it. They chased him, shouting their anger, the same word roaring from a hundred throats.
Taranad. Or something that sounded like that, anyway.
Maybe it was traitor.
Then his father caught him. He grabbed Claudius' shoulder, with far more force than he ever should have been able to use, and spun him around.
Claudius knew he couldn't look. He knew, with the sudden certainty one has in dreams, that he was lost if he looked into his father's eyes, ever again. He shut his eyes instead, but strange patterns began to dance behind his eyelids, and they began to burn from the effort of squeezing them shut.
His father shook him, hard. Much too hard for such an old man. He opened his eyes.
Cavil was there, looking down at him over the pew. He had Claudius by the shoulder. Their eyes locked.
"You all right, kid?"
"Y--yeah." Claudius shook his head, and the priest let him go. "I had a bad dream."
"No frakking kidding. I heard you screaming from there."
"I'm OK, I think."
"Well I think you better shut the frak up before you bring the whole place down around our ears," Cavil said, rolling his eyes. He turned away. "Get some sleep," he added, in a slightly softer voice. "See you in the morning."
John settled down again. He fluffed his pack beneath his head and lay there for a while, counting the bolts in the ceiling, until sleep overtook him.
The second dream was worse than the first. No one was there, not anywhere. Claudius -- John -- was alone, in the dark, surrounded by an emptiness deeper than space. He stumbled, thrusting his hands out in front of his face, but he could barely even see them. Out beyond them, there was nothing at all.
"Cavil?" he called. No one answered.
"Mom? Dad?"
There was no reply. He moved forward, haltingly, testing the nonexistent floor beneath his feet. He wandered forever like that, calling and calling, until he grew old and feeble. White hair curled around his ears, and his hands began to tremble with palsy.
"Wake up," the darkness told him. "Wake up, kid."
He did. Cavil was standing over him again, gripping the edge of the pew with age-spotted hands that shook not at all.
"You're determined to mess up my work, aren't you?" he growled.
"Sorry," Claudius gasped. The dream seemed to wisp around him still; it gave him the sudden, terrifying idea that Cavil intended to leave him.
"Come here," Cavil said instead. When Claudius didn't move, he added, "Now."
Claudius followed him into the private quarters. The priest hopped onto the bed, on top of the covers, and leaned against the headboard with his legs stretched out before him. He picked up his book again.
"Well?" he asked, when Claudius didn't move.
Claudius blinked at him.
"For frak's sake, get in bed and shut up, will you?" He paused, and then added, "C'mon. You won't have nightmares if there's somebody else in the bed. Sleeping next to somebody fixes it."
Claudius slid in next to him, beneath the covers. Cavil opened his book and began to read again. The soft sound of his breathing mingled with the whisper of each turned page.
"Do you ever have nightmares?" Claudius asked him, after a while.
"No. Not anymore. Now go to sleep."
Claudius turned onto his side, clutching the pillow. The bed was soft, and Cavil's side was warm against his back; the steady touch conjured vague, half-forgotten memories of being tiny, nestled in bed between his mother and father.
Before long, Claudius slept.
---
Deep in the night, he had another dream. He was in bed, somewhere between sleep and waking, and Cavil was beside him, reading still. The sound of the pages turning was impossibly loud within the small space, but there was no sound to go with them, no sound where sound should have been.
Cavil wasn't breathing.
Forward to Part V: Parents Lie
IV: The Accession of Claudius
Some time later, John saw a food cart coming out of one of the doors on Deck A, and found out that GALLEY meant kitchen.
It was three more days before John managed to get inside. The carts always came out with two people, a server in uniform and a second soldier with a gun, and someone else was watching from the doorway every time. On the third day, the door man was missing, and the two with the cart struggled to get it through the hatch on their own. John slipped inside as the door swung shut behind them.
Inside, the galley was noisy and hot. The air was full of steam, and there were a lot of people in there, bustling to and fro in drab green uniforms. John hid behind a crate so they wouldn't see him, pressing himself against it.
"We need more hands," one of the workers was saying. "We can't keep up, sir."
John looked out around the edge of the crate. A thin young man with dark hair was talking to a big man in a blue uniform which was much more elaborate than the ones everyone else wore. The big man's jaw was set in a determined expression.
"I know it's hard," he told the smaller man, "but you have to handle it, Jaffee. The old man can't spare anybody else, not with the Cylons on our ass. I've been back a month, and already we've had two riots over food. I told him I'd take it on myself to clear this up, and I meant it."
"But sir--"
"No buts," the big man said, in a surprisingly gentle voice. "Look, me and the other Raptor wranglers will come down and help whenever we're off shift. I promise. But you gotta keep the food coming, Jaffee, all right? Now that the Pegasus is with us, we need twice the rations. The whole fleet's counting on you." The big man reached out and put his hand on Jaffee's shoulder, and Jaffee finally smiled.
"Yes, sir," he said. "Thanks, Captain Agathon."
"Don't mention it," Agathon said. "We're all just doing our duty."
He turned away, toward where John was hiding, and John made himself smaller against the crate. His hand pressed against something inside it, something round and hard. John closed his hand around it, just as Agathon passed by.
The hatch swung open, Agathon stepped out, and John dashed out after him, keeping his step light.
He wasn't fast enough. Agathon saw him out of the corner of his eye. Given half a second more, Agathon would have turned, would have caught him. Everything would have been different, if not for the voice that sounded up the hall.
"Helo!"
Agathon turned away with a sudden smile. A small, dark-haired woman in a leather flight-suit ran up to him. As John turned the corner, he heard them greet each other.
"Hey, babe," Agathon said, his voice rich with love. "Did you get yourself added to the schedule?"
"Not yet," she said. "They don't trust me, Helo. They won't trust a Cylon." She smacked her fist against his shoulder in frustration. "I helped them, Karl. I betrayed my own people for them, yet they won't even trust me to drive a frakkin' Viper. When is this going to change? When is it going to get better?"
A Cylon? John thought. He paused, safely out of sight around the corner, and listened.
"It will, Sharon," Helo sighed. "It will get better. It just takes time, that's all."
John peeked around the corner. The two were nestled in each other's arms, standing alone in the middle of the corridor. The woman -- the Cylon, Sharon -- seemed blissful, but Karl Agathon had a look of quiet trepidation on his face.
"It will get better," he repeated, with that same look of doubt on his face. "It will."
"It's a special temple on Gemenon. You can be redeemed there."
"Liar," John muttered, shaking his head. "Frakking liars."
As he walked away from Agathon and the Cylon, John looked down at his hand. The thing he'd grabbed from the crate was a red apple, like the ones his mother used to put in his lunch bag. He hadn't seen one like it since the end of the worlds. He slipped it into his pocket, determined not to lose it.
Now he could pay the priest back.
---
When John came in, the priest was reading a book in bed. John pushed through the heavy curtain which separated the priests' personal quarters from the rest of the chapel, and extended the apple without a word.
The priest closed his book with one hand, and accepted the apple with the other. John sat down beside him -- beside him, for the very first time -- and watched as he took a black-handled knife from the table. The priest laid the apple on top of the book and cut it in half with one stroke. Then he gave John the bigger half.
"What's your name?" the priest asked, as John took his first bite.
"John."
The word seemed to drop onto the floor between them. John wasn't sure why, but his name changed something in the priest's manner, made his face go cold and hard like a stone. I shouldn't be here, John thought suddenly. This is a bad idea.
But he didn't leave. Instead, he took another bite.
"We've become friends, huh?" the priest asked.
John shrugged his assent, half-nodding around his mouthful of apple.
"Friends are dangerous things."
"You're not dangerous," John said. The words came out without hesitation, without conscious thought, and John never knew that his speed was the only thing that saved him. "Just honest."
"Honest," the priest repeated. His voice was as flat and smooth as paper, as though he felt no emotion whatsoever. His hand tightened around the hilt of the knife. "You think I'm honest."
"Yeah."
For a long moment, the priest lay frozen on the bed. Then he snorted. "Honest is dangerous, kid."
The priest put the book down on the table. He kept the knife in his hand, though, turning the hilt beneath his fingers.
"My name is Cavil," he said, still looking down at the knife. "Just Cavil. And if we're going to be... friends, then you need a new name, because I frakking hate 'John'." The priest's face twisted in anger.
"A name?" John asked. The priest looked over at him, fixing him with fierce eyes. "Claudius," John blurted. "I want Claudius."
The priest snorted again, and folded his arms over his chest. His right hand wagged the knife at John. "That's a big name for such a little kid."
"How about Staikos?" John ventured, after a while.
"I didn't say you couldn't have Claudius."
For a while, neither of them spoke. Then the priest put his knife down on the table, on top of his book. "You stole this apple, didn't you, kid?" he asked, taking his half of the fruit up from the table.
John nodded.
"Good, but I hate apples. Go and steal us some meat, Claudius."
---
John -- Claudius -- walked the long way back to the galley, swinging his arms with every step.
I wish my parents could see me now, he thought. Serves them right.
Somebody wanted him. The thought filled him with joy; it made him feel much bigger and better than he'd been just hours before. When he got to the galley, the door was shut, and he knew it would be locked. John would have waited; John would have snuck in.
Claudius knocked on the door.
After a moment, it opened, and Jaffee stuck his head out. He was wearing the same green uniform, and Claudius noticed that it had his name embroidered over the chest pocket. He pointed to it, pretending as though he was unsure of the name.
"Mr., um, Jaffee?" he asked.
"What, kid?"
"I'm supposed to get some meat," he said, glancing up and down the hall. "For the priest in Section Two."
Jaffee raised his eyebrows. "For a priest?" he asked.
"Yeah. For Brother Cavil. It's for a sacrifice."
Jaffee hesitated, and for a second Claudius thought he was going to get in trouble. Then Jaffee shook his head, and ushered him in.
"All right, sure," Jaffee said, as Claudius trailed after him. They passed a wide pot full of bubbling stew, like the stuff the Marines had given out to the people on the lower decks. "Gods know we can use all the help we can get. Which of the Lords is he gonna offer it to?"
"Ares," Claudius said.
Jaffee smiled grimly. "Yeah. To help us smite our enemies in battle. That's a great idea."
"It is. Do you have steak?" Claudius dared to ask.
Jaffee laughed. "Frak, no, kid! We got frozen chicken and dried pork, take your pick."
"The chicken," Claudius said, thinking quickly. The priest had said good meat, and frozen was better than dried.
"Hey, Racetrack, could you get this kid a pack of chicken?" Jaffee called. "It's for the Gods."
"For the Gods, huh?" a woman in a blue uniform laughed. "Well, what have they done for us lately?"
"You're a heathen, sir," Jaffee said, not unkindly. He grinned down at Claudius. Claudius smiled back at him. He felt as though he belonged. He felt as if Cavil's friendship had opened doors for him, had sparked whole new worlds of warmth and acceptance.
As he watched, Racetrack opened up a steel freezer nearby. She leaned all the way inside, until all he could see was her legs, and then came back up again with a thick plastic packet. It had RATIONS, CHICKEN written on it.
She wrapped it in a bit of discarded cardboard for him, so the cold wouldn't burn his hands. Then she handed it over, with an air of faux solemnity. "There you go, Brother Kidlet," she said. "One sacrifice, comin' up."
"Thanks," Claudius said. "Gods be with you," he added, as an afterthought. Then he turned and walked out the door, back toward the chapel.
Back toward home.
---
That night, Claudius had the nightmare again. Maybe it was the chicken.
The priest had chopped it up and fried it with some of his herbs, after mockingly offering it to Ares. It wasn't much more than edible -- Claudius' mother could have done better with no spices and five minutes' time -- but it was the best thing Claudius had eaten since the fall of the Colonies, just the same. Cavil had let him have almost all of it, same as with the apple, and he'd stuffed himself.
Now he lay between the pews, tossing and turning on his rucksack. In his dreams, he ran forever, but he could never escape the people chasing him. First it was just his mother and father, fierce and unimaginably tall. They towered over him like the colossi at the temple back home. He ran and ran, but he couldn't get out of their shadow. It grew deeper around him, swallowing him up, and then there were others all around him.
Helo. Sharon. Jaffee. Racetrack. The boy with the braid-lock and smashed skull, and the Marine who'd smashed it. They chased him, shouting their anger, the same word roaring from a hundred throats.
Taranad. Or something that sounded like that, anyway.
Maybe it was traitor.
Then his father caught him. He grabbed Claudius' shoulder, with far more force than he ever should have been able to use, and spun him around.
Claudius knew he couldn't look. He knew, with the sudden certainty one has in dreams, that he was lost if he looked into his father's eyes, ever again. He shut his eyes instead, but strange patterns began to dance behind his eyelids, and they began to burn from the effort of squeezing them shut.
His father shook him, hard. Much too hard for such an old man. He opened his eyes.
Cavil was there, looking down at him over the pew. He had Claudius by the shoulder. Their eyes locked.
"You all right, kid?"
"Y--yeah." Claudius shook his head, and the priest let him go. "I had a bad dream."
"No frakking kidding. I heard you screaming from there."
"I'm OK, I think."
"Well I think you better shut the frak up before you bring the whole place down around our ears," Cavil said, rolling his eyes. He turned away. "Get some sleep," he added, in a slightly softer voice. "See you in the morning."
John settled down again. He fluffed his pack beneath his head and lay there for a while, counting the bolts in the ceiling, until sleep overtook him.
The second dream was worse than the first. No one was there, not anywhere. Claudius -- John -- was alone, in the dark, surrounded by an emptiness deeper than space. He stumbled, thrusting his hands out in front of his face, but he could barely even see them. Out beyond them, there was nothing at all.
"Cavil?" he called. No one answered.
"Mom? Dad?"
There was no reply. He moved forward, haltingly, testing the nonexistent floor beneath his feet. He wandered forever like that, calling and calling, until he grew old and feeble. White hair curled around his ears, and his hands began to tremble with palsy.
"Wake up," the darkness told him. "Wake up, kid."
He did. Cavil was standing over him again, gripping the edge of the pew with age-spotted hands that shook not at all.
"You're determined to mess up my work, aren't you?" he growled.
"Sorry," Claudius gasped. The dream seemed to wisp around him still; it gave him the sudden, terrifying idea that Cavil intended to leave him.
"Come here," Cavil said instead. When Claudius didn't move, he added, "Now."
Claudius followed him into the private quarters. The priest hopped onto the bed, on top of the covers, and leaned against the headboard with his legs stretched out before him. He picked up his book again.
"Well?" he asked, when Claudius didn't move.
Claudius blinked at him.
"For frak's sake, get in bed and shut up, will you?" He paused, and then added, "C'mon. You won't have nightmares if there's somebody else in the bed. Sleeping next to somebody fixes it."
Claudius slid in next to him, beneath the covers. Cavil opened his book and began to read again. The soft sound of his breathing mingled with the whisper of each turned page.
"Do you ever have nightmares?" Claudius asked him, after a while.
"No. Not anymore. Now go to sleep."
Claudius turned onto his side, clutching the pillow. The bed was soft, and Cavil's side was warm against his back; the steady touch conjured vague, half-forgotten memories of being tiny, nestled in bed between his mother and father.
Before long, Claudius slept.
---
Deep in the night, he had another dream. He was in bed, somewhere between sleep and waking, and Cavil was beside him, reading still. The sound of the pages turning was impossibly loud within the small space, but there was no sound to go with them, no sound where sound should have been.
Cavil wasn't breathing.
Forward to Part V: Parents Lie