Title: “Passacaglia”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Timeline: New Caprica
Summary: Caprica Six arrives to New Caprica looking for the man she loves. What she finds is a ruin. [Gaius Baltar/Caprica Six]
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to Ronald D. Moore, Glen A. Larson and Sci-Fi.
A/N: for the prompt “BSG; Baltar/Six (any version); we won't know until we get there” by
dune_master as prompted in
this post.
PASSACAGLIA
She doesn’t recognize him when she looks at him. He is the same Gaius Baltar she had been sent to seduce on Caprica, but he is broken now beyond repair, and all she sees in him is desperation. Her kisses all but bruise him. She tastes salt in his mouth, the poison of her visage cropping up here and there. He recognizes her, he even calls her by the name they have given her, but she cannot be sure how long it will last. He falls into her like he would fall back into a detrimental habit. The part he has played in her demise is no less destructive than the part she had played in his.
She knows people are curious. The other models watch her sometimes with vague fascination. She is easily used, a bait that President Baltar cannot balk. Time and again Gaeta who lurks in the shadowy rooms of the presidential shuttle glances at her with a vague mixture of disgust and resignation as if she is a given that he has learned to accept. She likes that viewpoint, even though it makes her realize she is a given that she has yet to accept.
Gaius talks to her about God once. He asks if God would let him die, if God would let him perish on this cold, inhospitable planet overrun by things one might view as evil. A year ago, two years ago evil was a very definitive concept. Today all she can say is that there is evil in Cylons as well as in humans and that God’s plan is no longer as clear to her as it used to be.
She feels lonely, named after a dead planet and loving a damaged man because that is all she knows. He caves in so easily. He could never say no to her when she trailed her tongue down the side of his neck or grazed his navel with her nails; he can’t say no to her entire race when they guide his hand to take aim and fire at his own foolish electorate. They hollow him out until there is nothing left, and she takes it all in when he spills into her at night. There was a time when she had dreams. She wanted to have children with him. Impossible dreams, really. They frighten her now as she understands that was never God’s plan. Not for the two of them.
But a single voice tells her it’s not over. Her own Gaius, the one nobody else can see, the one that has brought her on this fruitless quest. He brushes his fingers over her shoulder and tells her to cross that bridge when she gets there. He is not the Gaius she loves and neither is President Baltar - but maybe that Gaius is waiting for her somewhere around the corner.
We won’t know until we get there, whispers the Gaius in her head. We can’t know until it’s too late.
March 9, 2012