Fic for the BSG Fic Exchange: "Gnothi Seauton" ("Know Thyself")
Title: Gnothi Seauton (“Know Thyself”)
bsgficexchange gift for skieswideopen
Author: kappamaki33
Pairing(s)/Characters: Lee, Laura, Billy, Athena, Dee, Gaeta, Hoshi, Kara, Baltar, Hotdog; mostly gen, with a very little bit of Lee/Dee and Gaeta/Hoshi
Summary: Five times Lee questioned his non-existent faith, and one time he realized what he’d believed in all along.
Rating & Warnings:PG-13 for language.
Author's Notes: Spoilers through series finale. Many thanks to lls_mutant for beta’ing and to safenthecity for idea-bouncing and encouragement. "Gnothi Seauton," Greek for “Know Thyself”: These were the words inscribed above the portico at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Gnothi Seauton
1: Gemenese Prayer Beads
When they broke atmo, the roar of the Raptor’s engines subsided enough so that Lee could hear the clacking of the prayer beads between Laura’s fingers. He watched the string of perfect, pearly blue globes slide under her thumb. Gemenese, most likely. He wondered if they had been Elosha’s.
Normally, something like that wouldn’t have caught Lee’s attention, but it did in this silence. He wanted to join in whatever quiet conversation he knew his father and Kara were having as they piloted the Raptor, but he was in the backmost jump seat, too far away to hear their words. Laura sat in the ECO’s chair, eyes closed and lips moving, and Billy sat in the jump seat across from him, watching Laura as if he was afraid she was about to keel over any minute.
“Madam President,” Billy finally interrupted. Laura’s eyes opened slowly. “I brought your medication along.”
He held out a pill bottle. Laura contemplated it for a long moment, then stretched out her hand to take it.
“Thank you, Billy,” she said, still staring at the bottle.
Billy looked warily at Lee out of the corner of his eye. Lee could sense that Billy was not his biggest fan at the moment. He’d never noticed any jealousy from Billy before his father had thrown him and Laura in the brig, but since Billy met up with them on Kobol, Lee could feel the mistrust radiating from Billy.
Lee supposed it was justified. From Billy’s perspective, Lee had stolen Laura away from him, fed her messiah complex, and taken her on an absurd, blood-soaked mission with a terrorist who would probably like to see her dead. Lee himself still couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. Everything that had happened since he pulled the gun on Tigh seemed like a long, strange dream he couldn’t wake from.
“When we get back, I have a job for you. Both of you,” Laura said, splitting her attention evenly between Billy and Lee. “I know from experience that you are both excellent at giving advice to a stubborn person who thinks they know best.” She smiled self-deprecatingly. “What I need you to do is to start shifting some of your advising efforts to the Vice President.”
Billy and Lee both started protesting, but she silenced them with her upturned hand. “He’s far from an ideal next president, but he’s what we have to work with, gentlemen. The transition is not going to be an easy one, but it is going to happen. Now that we’ve found the way to Earth, my guess is it will come sooner rather than later. You need to accept that, now that my work is essentially done…”
She gave them that sad, disarming smile that brooked no argument. Lee looked out the window in a lame attempt to escape this conversation he so desperately didn’t want to have.
The subject was obviously making Billy uncomfortable, too. Billy shifted to dig in the bag under his seat. “Uh, if you need water to take your pills, I think I have some left in my canteen-”
“No, don’t bother, Billy,” Laura said calmly. “I’m not sure if I’m going to take them anymore.”
“What?” Lee and Billy said at the same time.
Laura shrugged, still smiling serenely. “I never exactly enjoyed the visions, and now that we’ve found a map…but you said it was a long ways away, didn’t you, Lee? Maybe I should. Maybe the Dying Leader is supposed to see more, uncover more details. Maybe the Gods aren’t quite done with me yet.”
Billy didn’t reach for the water again. He looked as close to angry at Laura as Lee had ever seen him. “I’m sorry, Madam President. I brought the pills because I know they help with the pain, but frankly, I don’t understand the rest of this at all.”
“Understand what?” Laura asked patiently.
“Why you’re so enamored with this prophecy,” Billy said. “Following the Sacred Scrolls because they seem to have some historical basis, and because, what else do we have to go on? That I understand. Even believing in them…I don’t, but I understand it. But you act like you want it to be true.”
“Yeah,” Lee added. “Why are you so happy about some musty old prophecy essentially sentencing you to death?”
Billy looked at him, and the jealousy and anger fell away. He recognized Lee as an ally, and as being just as confused and dubious as he was.
“No. Dr. Cottle handed me my death sentence. Stage Four breast cancer handed me my death sentence,” Laura said, shaking her head, eyes dry but brimming with emotion. “This prophecy, being the Dying Leader, that has given my death purpose. Has given what’s left of my life purpose. And honestly, I’m tired. I’m so tired.”
Billy babbled, “Of course you’re tired. Nobody can get a good night’s sleep camping. Plus with all the Cylons stomping around…” All of them knew that wasn’t what she was talking about.
Laura choked on a laugh. “That’s true. Don’t worry too much. I’m not quite done, yet.” She took Billy’s hand in one of hers and patted it with the other, and she nodded reassuringly at Lee.
As he’d told her before, Lee didn’t break Laura out of prison because he believed in the Dying Leader. He didn’t, or at least no more than Billy did. Lee did it because he believed in democracy, in the rule of law, and, if he were perfectly honest, in her. He could understand wanting to have a purpose. He just didn’t understand why Laura had to search so hard to find it, when it was right here beside her.
2: A Cylon Hymn
Lee didn’t realize he’d been staring until Boomer-Sharon-Athena, he finally corrected in his head-stopped singing and looked up at him. She set the clipboard with her post-flight checklist down and leaned against the Raptor.
“What, sir?” she asked, a fair amount of steel in her voice. Lee kept expecting Boomer’s soft grins, but it was finally sinking in that the two women had very little in common beyond looks.
She added, “I didn’t think taking the Oath meant converting to polytheism, too.”
“It doesn’t,” Lee said. He scooted out of the way as a deckhand sped past him, nearly knocking him over. “Otherwise, I’d be violating it, too.”
Athena raised an incredulous eyebrow. “No, no way you’re a Soldier of the One, or even a member of one of the less fanatical off-shoots.”
“No. I meant I’m not a believer. More agnostic, I think.”
“You think you’re agnostic?” Athena smirked. She did remind him of Boomer when she smirked. “That’s like being undecided about being undecided, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” he joked back. “But seriously, what was that about the Oath and polytheism?”
“You were staring at me because I was singing the Hymn to the Great-oh, wait, of course. How could you know anything about Cylon religion? Sorry, sir. Being out in the world among the crew again-or for the first time-it’s got me a bit defensive.”
“That makes sense.”
Lee shoved his hands in the pockets of his BDUs and rocked up on the balls of his feet. Even knowing how much she’d done for the Fleet, especially on New Caprica, Lee still found working with Athena uncomfortable. He couldn’t help but remember Boomer emptying her gun into his father’s chest every time he saw her. And yet, Athena had a cool prickliness that prevented him from associating many of the things he’d liked about Boomer with her. The crew needed to get to know her if they were ever going to accept her. As her CAG, Lee knew it was probably his job to cross that line of salt first.
“So, tell me more about this hymn,” he finally said. “Was it a favorite of yours?”
Athena looked surprised at the question, but Lee could tell she recognized it for what it was: an attempt to reach out. “I guess you could say that. Yes, it is. I like it because it’s almost a lullaby rather than a hymn. And there’s a projection that goes with it-it’s hard to explain.”
Lee sat down beside her on the Raptor wing. “I don’t have anywhere I particularly need to be. If I’m not keeping you from anything...”
Athena paused, then slipped out of the top half of her flight suit so it was slung around her waist. “Okay.”
They talked for a long time. There were a lot of things Athena simply couldn’t explain to a human, because they involved projection or the way Cylons accessed data, but even knowing what was unknowable taught Lee something about her. He learned that the Cylon faith, or at least Athena’s interpretation of it, was a strange mix of mystical and practical. They believed the entities that piloted their ships, the Hybrids, uttered prophecy. But the Cylons had also altered the Hybrids’ brains to take in and process more information than they were capable of communicating, which really did sound like what a prophet was supposed to be. They believed in immortal souls, but they had a way of catching the thoughts and feelings and quirks of the dead and reviving them in new bodies, and what else was a soul?
“When it comes to the question of one God or many,” Athena said, “I don’t think there’s any way of knowing, or how much of a difference it makes. With many gods, nothing you do is going to satisfy all of them. But no one God can have created everything in the universe, and set out rules for us to live by, without contradicting Itself. There’s just something in me that I can’t explain or describe that pulls me toward the concept of one God rather than many.”
“Programming?” Lee said without thinking.
To his surprise, Athena didn’t seem offended. “Hard-wired to believe in God? Maybe. If God is the programmer, I don’t see a problem with that.”
“But humans created the Cylons.”
Athena looked him square in the eye. “Apollo, I participated in the destruction of the human race. Then I tried to trick a human into falling in love with me and impregnating me, but I fell in love with him. But, I only swore my allegiance to protect humanity and fight against my people after my child, whom I’d left the Cylons to protect, died. The craziest human programmer ever to exist couldn’t have come up with that one.”
“So…divinity in the absurd?” Lee asked.
“Sort of,” Athena replied. “But more like…divinity in the possible. And, oddly enough, that is why that’s my favorite hymn. It’s ‘The Hymn to the Great Mystery,’ in praise of all the unknowable possibilities the future holds.”
It bothered Lee a little that the Cylon faith sounded closer to what he believed than any other religion he’d ever encountered. And yet, he found himself humming Athena’s favorite hymn as he shaved the next morning.
3: Sagittaron Scripture
“Oh my gods, Hoshi is so smashed,” Dee giggled under her breath, softly enough that only Lee could hear her. “Look at him! They’re holding hands.”
Lee was far more interested in the woman whose shoulders he had his arm around, but he did look, to humor her. “So? They’re sleeping together, aren’t they? And didn’t you set them up months ago?”
“Yes, and yes. But they’re holding hands in front of people,” Dee replied. Lee didn’t care enough to ask what that meant.
He, Dee, Hoshi, and Gaeta had met for drinks at Joe’s that night. Gaeta and Hoshi were good guys, but not Lee’s favorite drinking companions. They usually got Dee engrossed in talking about CIC drama, which left Lee out in the cold. He didn’t begrudge Dee those conversations, though. It was mild payback for all the times she had to put up with viper jock talk when they went out with pilots.
Now the four of them were heading back toward the officers’ quarters. The corridors were a little too narrow to comfortably walk four abreast, particularly with other people walking past them, most on their way to duty before the shift-change. So, Gaeta and Hoshi walked a few steps ahead of him and Dee. And yes, now that Dee mentioned it, Lee noticed that they were holding hands. Hoshi would lean in close every once in a while, murmur something in Gaeta’s ear, and Gaeta would laugh.
Lee whispered back, “Besides, it’s not as if there’s a competition and you earn extra points if Gaeta ends up with the guy you set him up with.”
“Oh yes, I do. If Louis works out, I’ll have the peace of mind of knowing that Felix won’t pick himself out another winner like Gaius frakking Baltar.”
Lee couldn’t argue with that one.
Ahead of them, Gaeta laughed and shook his head.
“Aw, come on!” Hoshi said, deliberately bumping into Gaeta’s shoulder. “Dee, help me out. Tell him he should come to temple service with me.”
Dee gaped at Hoshi. “You still go to temple? Not the Sagittaron service!”
Hoshi recoiled. “Ugh, no. The non-denominational service they have every Thursday on C-deck.” Hoshi turned back to Gaeta. “Please? You went with me that one time when we were on R&R on the Zephyr.”
“A moment of weakness,” Gaeta said, smiling. “You hadn’t shaved for a couple days. You with a bit of scruff was just too much of a temptation, even for a fervent atheist.”
Hoshi craned his neck around to look at Lee. “Major, you need to campaign to change the regs on professional appearance. This man’s soul depends on it.” He snickered at his own joke, muffling it against Gaeta’s shoulder. Gaeta laughed again, too. Lee had never seen Hoshi this drunk, or this happy.
“I don’t know,” Lee answered. “We’d run the risk of my father growing a mustache again.”
“What about weddings, Felix? Are you too adamantly against temples to have a priest officiate if you get married?” Dee asked.
If he hadn’t had his arm around her, Lee would have elbowed Dee for being so obvious. He had to settle with glaring at her instead, which she easily ignored.
Hoshi flushed. Much to Lee’s surprise, though, after throwing Dee a dirty look, Gaeta gazed directly at Hoshi as he spoke. “I’m an atheist, not allergic. Of course I’d have a priest, if it was important to my partner.”
“I only brought temple up because I like hearing you sing,” Hoshi said, still blushing. “You have such a beautiful voice.”
Gaeta said, “Hey, Lee, if you can’t change the regs, do you think you could get a karaoke night going at Joe’s? Because if you were impressed when I sang hymns,” he said, turning back to Hoshi, “just wait until you hear my drunken rendition of ‘The Piconian Fisherman’s Wife.’”
They arrived at the hatch to Hoshi’s bunkroom. Lee knew Gaeta had duty soon, since he hadn’t been drinking.
Gaeta said, “I’ll see you when my shift’s over. We’ll have a couple hours before you go on duty, right?”
Hoshi nodded, sighing. “I can’t wait until we’re back working the same shift again.”
“Me, too. Goodnight,” Gaeta said. They hugged, and then just as Gaeta started to pull away, Hoshi leaned in and pressed a soft, close-mouthed kiss to Gaeta’s lips. Judging from the look on Gaeta’s face, that was a very pleasant surprise.
Lee heard someone passing behind him mutter a word he couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t a question of audibility; the woman had said it rather loudly. It was slang from some other planet, and he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. He presumed it was Sagittaron when Dee clearly recognized it, slipping out from under his arm and grabbing the woman by the shoulder so hard she spun her around. But then he second-guessed himself when he saw that Gaeta was right beside her, seething.
“What the frak did you just call my friends?” Dee yelled, her fingernails still digging into the woman’s shoulder. Lee came up behind her and put his hand on her arm. Dee shrugged him off, but at least that made her let go of the woman, too.
“Hlevani,” the woman, a civilian, spat just as angrily as Dee. “They’re an abomination. An insult to the Gods!”
Gaeta laughed mirthlessly. “You seriously think that the Lords of Kobol rained destruction on the Colonies because I sleep with men? And, obviously, you skipped the chapter on Apollo and Hyacinth, too.”
Lee remembered where he’d heard the word before. After his father left, his mother had hired Brini, a Sagittaron woman, to help take care of him and Zak. Brini had been the closest thing Lee had had to a real mother, even if she’d only stayed with them for two years. One day, Brini had dragged his mother outside after she’d spent the previous three days in bed. Lee couldn’t tell if his mother was hung over or still drunk, but she hadn’t been steady enough on her feet to walk alone. Brini had wrapped her arm around his mother’s waist to help. Someone across the street had called out that word, hlevani, and made a gesture that Lee knew was rude.
When they got home, Lee had asked what the word meant. Brini had explained it, which was difficult, since Caprica and most of the other Colonies didn’t have an equivalent word. Later on, when Lee learned a little more about Sagittaron culture, he understood why Brini’s face had been so red as she’d talked, and he gave her even more credit for being willing to explain it at all.
“Honey, let’s go.” There was a man with the angry woman, and he tugged on her arm. She broke free of his grasp. That’s when Lee noticed the white mourning bands jangling on her wrists. He’d never seen one person wear so many.
“Hlevani!” the woman repeated, fire in her voice and tears in her eyes.
She was looking between Dee and Gaeta, over their shoulders. Lee turned and saw her target. Hoshi had backed up against the hatch, and his face was ashen. That took Lee aback. He’d worked with Hoshi in Pegasus’s CIC for over a year, long enough to know that the man was no coward or wilting violet.
The woman continued, “‘And so saith the Lords: he who lies with a man is an abomination in the eyes of the Gods. He is a disgrace to his father, and it would be better for his mother if he had died in her womb. The Gods-’”
Gaeta was in her face. “Don’t you dare speak to him like that!”
“I have rights!” the woman yelled. “If you can make a spectacle of yourselves like that, I can tell you you’re disgusting!”
“Not in a restricted area of a military vessel, you can’t,” Lee said. He wasn’t sure if this was a restricted area or not, but it was as good a story as any to shut this down. He looked pointedly at the man with her. “Leave quietly, or I’ll get that marine over there to help me escort you to the brig.”
The man grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her down the hallway.
Gaeta was at Hoshi’s side as soon as she was gone. “Louis? Are you okay?” Hoshi nodded, though the answer was clearly ‘no.’ Gaeta cupped Hoshi’s cheek. “You can’t let idiots like her get to you like this, baby.”
Hoshi muttered, “It’s nothing. I’m just really drunk. It was a nice evening. Sorry I-sorry.” He slid through the hatch and closed it before anyone had a chance to react.
Gaeta looked at his watch, then the hatch, clearly torn. “Frak.”
Dee stepped up. “I can cover for you in CIC.”
“Really? Thank you so much, Dee,” Felix said, visibly relieved. “I’ll be there in a half-hour-an hour at the most.”
“Take whatever time you need,” Dee said. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m furious that somebody would hurt Louis like that.”
“I know, but are you okay?”
Felix brushed the comment aside. “Oh, yeah. It’s rude and annoying, but I’m far more worried about Louis feeling like the gods are after him for kissing a man in public.” He sighed. “Things had been going so well.”
“Good luck,” Dee said. Lee nodded in silent support.
“Thanks.” Gaeta opened the hatch and muttered as he entered Hoshi’s bunkroom, “Frakking zealots.”
“What was all that about?” Lee asked when the hatch was shut. “Not the word, or the fight, but Hoshi.”
Dee sighed as they walked slowly down the corridor. “I didn’t set them up just because I thought Louis would be good for Felix. I knew Felix would be kind, and patient, and wasn’t a huge fan of big public displays of affection anyway.”
“I still don’t understand how someone who survived in Cain’s CIC could get that upset over a word, no matter how vile,” Lee said.
“It wasn’t the word-or at least, not just the word,” Dee answered. “Remember how, when we were on Pegasus and we looked through Hoshi’s personnel file, we thought it was strange he enlisted when he was only sixteen?”
“Yeah,” Lee said, “and then I asked my father about it, and he said Fleet Command would make exceptions to the age requirement for certain special needs cases.”
Dee nodded. “If anyone asks, you don’t know anything about this, because Louis told me in confidence. But…he enlisted when his parents-and his temple-kicked him out, after his mother caught him with another boy. So while someone damning you with scripture is painful, when it reminds you of the time your mother did it in front of the whole congregation…”
“My gods. No wonder.”
“At least Sagittarons are pacifists, but that part about wishing you’d never been born…” It took Dee a long time to form the next sentence, and she muttered it so quietly Lee almost didn’t hear. “The passages about being a warrior aren’t quite as bad, but they weren’t exactly fit for a greeting card, either.”
Dee never talked about her life back on Sagittaron. The look on her face told Lee all he needed to know, though.
They came to the split in the corridors where one way led to their quarters and the other led to CIC. “I’ll see you soon,” Dee said, kissing him on the cheek.
Lee wrapped his arm around her shoulders again. “I think I’ll walk with you to CIC, if you’d like.”
Dee smiled. “Thank you. I’d like that a lot.”
As he walked with his brave, strong, beautiful wife leaning her head against his shoulder as she tried not to cry, for some reason, Lee couldn’t help but think about the mourning bracelets on the civilian woman’s arms. He could understand, after so much loss, needing someone to blame. He supposed blaming a couple strangers in a hallway was easier than blaming the gods. But what he couldn’t imagine was how it would be easier to blame a son, or a daughter.
4: A Virgonese Icon
Kara was kneeling in front of her rack and facing away from him when Lee entered her bunkroom. He rapped on the open hatch with the hand that wasn’t holding his flight helmet to let her know he was there. She didn’t turn; she just held one finger up-and not even the rude one-to indicate for him to give her another minute.
He waited silently. In not too long, Kara pushed herself up to standing, then bent over the bunk to gather some items to her chest. When she turned to put them away in her locker, Lee got a good look.
“Artemis and Aphrodite?” Lee asked incredulously.
“And Athena, and Apollo,” she said as she held each figurine up before placing them in a lined box. It reminded Lee of when his little cousins had introduced their dolls to him. “And Persephone, and Mars, and Aurora-” She looked down at the littlest figurine, then slipped it in her flight suit pocket. “I think Aurora’s going to come with me for this ride.”
Kara cocked her head when she saw Lee’s face. “What? Have I got snot hanging out of my nose?”
Lee shook his head. “It’s-just-I guess I didn’t think… You still do that? Pray, I mean?”
Now it was Kara’s turn to look at Lee like he’d sprouted a third eye. “Uh, yeah. You know I’m a believer. You’ve known that for almost as long as you’ve known me.”
Lee squirmed, regretting having brought this up, since it was a conversation he’d hoped they’d never have to have. “I figured that after that Cylon, Leoben, did what he did to you, and all that shit he piled on you about the gods having a destiny for you... I guess I didn’t think the gods would be much of a comfort to you anymore.”
Kara’s jaw tightened, and her eyes looked far away but intense. “That frakker took way too much from me. I’m not going to let him take the Gods from me, too. A lot of people keep saying, ‘The Cylons destroying us, that proves the Gods aren’t there, or at least they’re not on our side.’ But me?” She slammed the locker door shut, then knocked her fist against it. “I’m not going to let the toasters take anything more away from me.”
She leaned her head against the locker door for a moment, eyes closed. Lee recognized this as one of those times when he loved Kara so fiercely for something in her that he didn’t understand at all, and for something he certainly didn’t have himself.
Kara stood upright abruptly. “Ready to go kick some ghostly toaster ass, Wingman?” She zipped up her flightsuit and grabbed her helmet.
“Don’t get too used to this wingman thing,” Lee kidded, elbowing Kara in the ribs as they left the bunkroom. “This is a one-time deal.”
“No, I’m thinking maybe I should have nervous breakdowns more often,” Kara joked back. She smiled at him.
It would forever haunt Lee, how that smile had been almost right. It was all he could see when he went through her personal effects a few days later, in preparation for the wake-auction.
He saved the box of icons for last. Six tiny faces looked up at him from their black velvet beds, a seventh spot for Aurora, who was now with his father, left empty. Aphrodite, Artemis, Apollo, and Athena were all traditional Caprican figurines made of soft metal, just like the ones the chaplain used at pilots’ funerals. Mars was Tauron, cut from smooth, red volcanic rock. It was Zak’s, Lee recognized instantly, a gift from their great uncle when Zak joined the military.
And then there was Persephone, holding a pomegranate in one hand, her face frozen in terror as she screamed for her mother to save her from Hades. She was made of light green glass, which meant she was from Virgon. The Virgonese made all their idols from glass, as a reminder of the fragility of human life.
Lee held Mars and Persephone, one in each hand, for a long time. Then he flung out one arm, and Persephone shattered in a brilliant, sparkling green burst against the locker door.
Finally, Lee wept.
5: Aerilon Communion
As Lee sat on the floor, sure his suit pants were getting extremely dirty, he came up with a list of all the people who would have been incredibly pissed at him if they’d known he was attending Baltar’s sermon that evening. Dee, Kara, the President. His father. Zarek, Gaeta. Everyone who had been on the Quorum during Baltar’s presidency. It wasn’t fair, how many of the people on that list were dead, or dying, or dead on the inside, and yet Gaius Baltar was not only still alive, but thriving.
He didn’t know why he was there. He’d told himself it was because he knew Laura’s days as President were numbered, and he needed to gather information about all the different factions in the Fleet that he could, so he’d know how to deal with them when it came time for him to lead. But deep down, he knew it was more because as that list of the dead and the dying grew, the drive and purpose he’d found creating a new Quorum from the ship’s captains ebbed away, leaving a deep, aching aimlessness and solitude in its wake.
Whatever he was there for, Lee knew he’d have to at least half-way pay attention to the service to get anything out of this trip. He blinked a few times and tuned his attention back on Baltar, who was pacing slowly at the front of the crowd, a microphone in his hand. It sounded like he’d just started his sermon.
“As you all know, I was originally from Aerilon. I cannot say that I had a particularly easy childhood, or a happy one. However, I did learn a few important lessons there, lessons that I’m only now realizing their worth.”
Lee fought back a snort of disbelief. Baltar was obviously pandering to the crowd with the ‘what a good, clean working-class background taught me’ routine. People bought it, too. The woman sitting next to him leaned forward in anticipation.
“I did not have the healthiest of relationships with my family,” Baltar continued. “We simply weren’t communicating on the same wavelength. With the exception of my mother’s mother, that is.”
Some in the audience tittered excitedly, including the woman seated next to Lee. “Oh, his stories about his grandmother are always my favorites,” the woman said to him before turning back to watch Baltar.
“In light of the recent troubling events here on Galactica and on Colonial One, two lessons my grandmother taught me have taken on new meaning for me. I would like to share them with you tonight. She taught me the first lesson one day when I was supposed to be watching my family’s flock of sheep. I not only took my textbooks out with me to where they were grazing, completely ignoring the flock the whole afternoon, but I also left the paddock gate open.”
A few people in the crowd made noises that meant they had some idea of how much trouble young Gauis was about to get into. Baltar smiled knowingly.
“Yes. My backside felt the sting of that thoughtlessness for days afterwards, let me tell you. But it was what my grandmother said that kept me from ever leaving the paddock gate open again.
“She said to me: ‘Gaius, I know you think that your problem is that you’re no good at guilt. You feel it in the moment, but like the sting from your father’s willow branch, it fades away quickly, and you slide back into your old ways. But I think you have a different problem. I think it’s that you’re no good at forgiving yourself.’”
Lee had to work extremely hard not to snort that time. Gaius Baltar was better at forgiving and forgetting when it came to his own transgressions than anyone Lee had ever met.
Baltar continued, “She said, ‘Because when you truly forgive yourself, you have to look at what you’ve done wrong up-close first, process it, turn it over and over in your hands until you’ve figured out why you did what you did. And when you can do that, and let the pain and shame go, that’s when the lesson of your failure becomes a part of you in a good way. In a way that doesn’t trap you in your old patterns.’ My problem was I so often forgot too quickly to forgive.
“I think we have all tried to forget too many things too quickly. Now, as you know, I am in full support of the current alliance. Unwavering support. And it uplifts my heart to see how warmly you’ve welcomed newcomers into our midst, both human and Cylon.”
Lee looked around. He wasn’t surprised to see Tyrol in the crowd, but the scattering of Twos and Eights and even one Six did take him aback.
“However, it is not healthy to forget our past failures before we have properly forgiven ourselves for them. I know this will not be a popular sentiment, but I think this lesson applies both to our alliance and to the recent violence on Galactica. We have all made horrible mistakes-mistakes that may have cost the person sitting next to you unimaginable loss. While we deserve forgiveness for those mistakes, we must truly understand what we have done, why we have done it, and what it has cost, before we can do so. Otherwise, we are simply forgetting our sins, and one day, they will return to haunt us.
“I had a dear friend, whom I have spoken of before, whom I lost to the violence on Galactica.” Lee didn’t think the room could become quieter, but it did. He also hadn’t thought of accusing Baltar of insincerity for quite a few minutes, but Baltar somehow looked even more earnest now.
“He remembered everything, felt everything so acutely, and he could never forgive himself for any of it. I will not say that that alone destroyed him, but it did aid in his destruction. My contribution to that list of things he could not forgive himself for shall forever haunt me now. But I examined my failures to him by facing him, and I hope I have learned something from the experience. If nothing else, I know that I have no desire to see any of you, any of my friends, endure the sort of fate he did.”
The room was hushed as Baltar bent his head, but his voice brightened a little when he lifted it again. “Which brings me to my grandmother’s second lesson. An easier lesson than the first, perhaps. Certainly a more pleasant one.
“As I said, I did not have a particularly happy childhood. I suffered the same indignities suffered by all awkward, scrawny boys on school playgrounds. Many days I would come home with a black eye, or worse, fighting back tears. On those days, my grandmother would brew a pot of black currant tea, then press a cup of it into my hands and take a seat in the rocking chair across from me. No matter how horrible a day or embarrassing a humiliation I’d endured, after a few sips of tea, I would always start to talk. Just…talk. Often about what had happened, but not always-sometimes it was about what I hoped for the future, or about one of my grandmother’s stories of when her parents emigrated. But the important thing was that after a day of no one listening to me or understanding me, I had someone that I could go to.
“My grandmother called the tea our little Aerilon communion. You see, none of the sects endemic to Aerilon had a communion ritual, but my grandmother’s family was originally from Leonis, where it was quite common. And when you think about it, what we did really was a communion. Because what does that word mean? An act of sharing, of fellowship. Communication. So, tonight, I would like you to join in taking a little Aerilon communion with me, would you?”
Baltar smiled magnanimously as three of his acolytes brought forward a large container with a spigot and dozens upon dozens of cups. “I’m afraid I couldn’t find any black currants, but Jeanne assures me that dried New Caprican tawa leaves make for an excellent tea as well. For the rest of this evening’s service, then, I encourage you to take communion, in all senses of the word. Fill your cup, and just talk to the people around you. It doesn’t matter about what. Just talk, and listen, and do your best to understand.”
A tray full of mugs of tea was handed down the aisle, and Lee took one before passing it on. The warm cup felt good in his hands, and the warm liquid felt even better in his throat. The woman beside him who loved Baltar’s stories about his grandmother turned toward him, as did a couple in the row ahead of him. Lee had never seen any of them before, but they talked.
Emma, the woman next to him, talked about the bookshop she’d owned on Canceron, and how the tea reminded her of rainy afternoons sitting in an overstuffed chair in the children’s section, reading a book aloud to a dozen kids as the shop cat prowled among them for attention. Jenny and Hank talked about how they’d fallen in love on New Caprica, and how Jenny had been in detention for most of the occupation. They’d never figured out why, or even why the Cylons had finally let her go.
And Lee talked about the bar he’d been planning on opening right before the attack on the Colonies. He talked about how he had been planning to muster out a couple months after his father retired. How even when he’d commanded the Pegasus, he’d thought about opening a bar on New Caprica when he retired from the Fleet. How it had taken him a long time after Kara’s surprise marriage, but that eventually, he’d settled happily on the picture of him tending bar while Dee did the bookkeeping, and the picture of Kara and Sam, and Helo and Athena, and Gaeta and Hoshi, and all his old Galactica pilots and Pegasus crewmates making his bar their regular meeting place, their home away from home. When New Caprica had fallen apart, he’d simply shifted the post-retirement fantasy to Earth, or to wherever they settled, and eventually added his fellow Quorum members to his list of future patrons.
Finally, Lee admitted to the three of them how many pieces of that image were lost now. None of them had anything to say that could make it better. But they listened, and they understood, and Lee understood them. By the time the last refill of the tea was gone, Lee had promised to ask his father if Emma could visit his quarters to look at his book collection, and Jenny and Hank had invited him to meet them for a drink at Joe’s next week.
As for Lee, he added the three of them to the picture in his head of the bar. They didn’t fill any of the empty spaces, and some of those holes still hurt like bullet wounds. But at least his imaginary bar wasn’t quite so lonely anymore.
6: Galactica’s Temple
“How are you doing, CAG?” Lee asked Hotdog, sliding into the seat beside him in the front row of the otherwise empty ready room.
It didn’t dawn on Lee that Hotdog had been praying, and that he’d interrupted, until Hotdog’s head shot up from its resting place on his folded hands.
“What? Oh. Uh, okay. Gotta be honest, I’m a little jittery about how we’re jumping into the heart of the Cylon Fleet and are probably all gonna die. But hey, at least if things go bad, it’s likely not all my fault, right?”
Lee smiled at Hotdog’s goofy, nervous grin. “You have a very unique perspective on life, Captain.”
“Sir,” Hotdog asked, “back when you were CAG, before a big mission, what did you do to get your brain in the right mode?”
Lee thought for a moment. “I don’t know that I did much of anything consciously. After a while, your body and brain train themselves to slip into the right patterns as soon as they get that first rush of adrenaline.”
Hotdog grimaced. “Considering we’re going to be at the Colony in, like, two hours, I don’t think I have time to train my brain like that. How about prayer, or meditating, or something?”
“I think you should do whatever works for you, but no, that kind of thing never worked for me.”
“So what did you do?”
A moment before Lee was going to say that he didn’t know, and that he’d already said he didn’t know, it dawned on him. “I looked around the ready room, or if I didn’t have time, the hangar deck. You see, I don’t really care whether the gods exist or not. If I had to guess, my gut tells me they don’t, though considering all the crazy things that have happened in the last few years, disbelief is probably less rational than belief at this point.
“But that’s beside the point. When I look around at the faces in the ready room, or on the deck, or even imagine them, remember them-that reminds me of how much I trust my people. How much I love them. How much they make me want to push myself to be a better person, so I can honor the amazing trust and love and loyalty I know they’re capable of as well.”
“To honor what the Gods gave them, and gave you,” Hotdog said. “To show thanks to Them for giving us the…I don’t know the right word…ability, I guess, to be who we are.”
“And that’s where you and I part ways,” Lee said with a shrug.
Hotdog smiled. “Or maybe it’s where we’re saying the same thing in a different way.”
Lee wasn’t so sure, but it didn’t matter now. “Maybe.”
“Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it,” Hotdog said after a long, silent moment. “If it’s all the same to you, though, I think I might go back to…” He folded his hands again and looked to Lee for permission.
“Hey, don’t let me stop you,” Lee said. “We need all the help we can get today.”
Hotdog grinned. “That’s kind of what I was thinking. Good hunting, Major.”
They nodded to each other. Hotdog rested his forehead against his conjoined hands again. Lee looked out over the seats and imagined the faces of all the pilots that had flown with him, all the people that had served with him, all the people that he’d loved, sitting in those chairs and looking back at him with clear eyes.
“Good hunting.”
bsgficexchange gift for skieswideopen
Author: kappamaki33
Pairing(s)/Characters: Lee, Laura, Billy, Athena, Dee, Gaeta, Hoshi, Kara, Baltar, Hotdog; mostly gen, with a very little bit of Lee/Dee and Gaeta/Hoshi
Summary: Five times Lee questioned his non-existent faith, and one time he realized what he’d believed in all along.
Rating & Warnings:PG-13 for language.
Author's Notes: Spoilers through series finale. Many thanks to lls_mutant for beta’ing and to safenthecity for idea-bouncing and encouragement. "Gnothi Seauton," Greek for “Know Thyself”: These were the words inscribed above the portico at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Gnothi Seauton
1: Gemenese Prayer Beads
When they broke atmo, the roar of the Raptor’s engines subsided enough so that Lee could hear the clacking of the prayer beads between Laura’s fingers. He watched the string of perfect, pearly blue globes slide under her thumb. Gemenese, most likely. He wondered if they had been Elosha’s.
Normally, something like that wouldn’t have caught Lee’s attention, but it did in this silence. He wanted to join in whatever quiet conversation he knew his father and Kara were having as they piloted the Raptor, but he was in the backmost jump seat, too far away to hear their words. Laura sat in the ECO’s chair, eyes closed and lips moving, and Billy sat in the jump seat across from him, watching Laura as if he was afraid she was about to keel over any minute.
“Madam President,” Billy finally interrupted. Laura’s eyes opened slowly. “I brought your medication along.”
He held out a pill bottle. Laura contemplated it for a long moment, then stretched out her hand to take it.
“Thank you, Billy,” she said, still staring at the bottle.
Billy looked warily at Lee out of the corner of his eye. Lee could sense that Billy was not his biggest fan at the moment. He’d never noticed any jealousy from Billy before his father had thrown him and Laura in the brig, but since Billy met up with them on Kobol, Lee could feel the mistrust radiating from Billy.
Lee supposed it was justified. From Billy’s perspective, Lee had stolen Laura away from him, fed her messiah complex, and taken her on an absurd, blood-soaked mission with a terrorist who would probably like to see her dead. Lee himself still couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. Everything that had happened since he pulled the gun on Tigh seemed like a long, strange dream he couldn’t wake from.
“When we get back, I have a job for you. Both of you,” Laura said, splitting her attention evenly between Billy and Lee. “I know from experience that you are both excellent at giving advice to a stubborn person who thinks they know best.” She smiled self-deprecatingly. “What I need you to do is to start shifting some of your advising efforts to the Vice President.”
Billy and Lee both started protesting, but she silenced them with her upturned hand. “He’s far from an ideal next president, but he’s what we have to work with, gentlemen. The transition is not going to be an easy one, but it is going to happen. Now that we’ve found the way to Earth, my guess is it will come sooner rather than later. You need to accept that, now that my work is essentially done…”
She gave them that sad, disarming smile that brooked no argument. Lee looked out the window in a lame attempt to escape this conversation he so desperately didn’t want to have.
The subject was obviously making Billy uncomfortable, too. Billy shifted to dig in the bag under his seat. “Uh, if you need water to take your pills, I think I have some left in my canteen-”
“No, don’t bother, Billy,” Laura said calmly. “I’m not sure if I’m going to take them anymore.”
“What?” Lee and Billy said at the same time.
Laura shrugged, still smiling serenely. “I never exactly enjoyed the visions, and now that we’ve found a map…but you said it was a long ways away, didn’t you, Lee? Maybe I should. Maybe the Dying Leader is supposed to see more, uncover more details. Maybe the Gods aren’t quite done with me yet.”
Billy didn’t reach for the water again. He looked as close to angry at Laura as Lee had ever seen him. “I’m sorry, Madam President. I brought the pills because I know they help with the pain, but frankly, I don’t understand the rest of this at all.”
“Understand what?” Laura asked patiently.
“Why you’re so enamored with this prophecy,” Billy said. “Following the Sacred Scrolls because they seem to have some historical basis, and because, what else do we have to go on? That I understand. Even believing in them…I don’t, but I understand it. But you act like you want it to be true.”
“Yeah,” Lee added. “Why are you so happy about some musty old prophecy essentially sentencing you to death?”
Billy looked at him, and the jealousy and anger fell away. He recognized Lee as an ally, and as being just as confused and dubious as he was.
“No. Dr. Cottle handed me my death sentence. Stage Four breast cancer handed me my death sentence,” Laura said, shaking her head, eyes dry but brimming with emotion. “This prophecy, being the Dying Leader, that has given my death purpose. Has given what’s left of my life purpose. And honestly, I’m tired. I’m so tired.”
Billy babbled, “Of course you’re tired. Nobody can get a good night’s sleep camping. Plus with all the Cylons stomping around…” All of them knew that wasn’t what she was talking about.
Laura choked on a laugh. “That’s true. Don’t worry too much. I’m not quite done, yet.” She took Billy’s hand in one of hers and patted it with the other, and she nodded reassuringly at Lee.
As he’d told her before, Lee didn’t break Laura out of prison because he believed in the Dying Leader. He didn’t, or at least no more than Billy did. Lee did it because he believed in democracy, in the rule of law, and, if he were perfectly honest, in her. He could understand wanting to have a purpose. He just didn’t understand why Laura had to search so hard to find it, when it was right here beside her.
2: A Cylon Hymn
Lee didn’t realize he’d been staring until Boomer-Sharon-Athena, he finally corrected in his head-stopped singing and looked up at him. She set the clipboard with her post-flight checklist down and leaned against the Raptor.
“What, sir?” she asked, a fair amount of steel in her voice. Lee kept expecting Boomer’s soft grins, but it was finally sinking in that the two women had very little in common beyond looks.
She added, “I didn’t think taking the Oath meant converting to polytheism, too.”
“It doesn’t,” Lee said. He scooted out of the way as a deckhand sped past him, nearly knocking him over. “Otherwise, I’d be violating it, too.”
Athena raised an incredulous eyebrow. “No, no way you’re a Soldier of the One, or even a member of one of the less fanatical off-shoots.”
“No. I meant I’m not a believer. More agnostic, I think.”
“You think you’re agnostic?” Athena smirked. She did remind him of Boomer when she smirked. “That’s like being undecided about being undecided, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” he joked back. “But seriously, what was that about the Oath and polytheism?”
“You were staring at me because I was singing the Hymn to the Great-oh, wait, of course. How could you know anything about Cylon religion? Sorry, sir. Being out in the world among the crew again-or for the first time-it’s got me a bit defensive.”
“That makes sense.”
Lee shoved his hands in the pockets of his BDUs and rocked up on the balls of his feet. Even knowing how much she’d done for the Fleet, especially on New Caprica, Lee still found working with Athena uncomfortable. He couldn’t help but remember Boomer emptying her gun into his father’s chest every time he saw her. And yet, Athena had a cool prickliness that prevented him from associating many of the things he’d liked about Boomer with her. The crew needed to get to know her if they were ever going to accept her. As her CAG, Lee knew it was probably his job to cross that line of salt first.
“So, tell me more about this hymn,” he finally said. “Was it a favorite of yours?”
Athena looked surprised at the question, but Lee could tell she recognized it for what it was: an attempt to reach out. “I guess you could say that. Yes, it is. I like it because it’s almost a lullaby rather than a hymn. And there’s a projection that goes with it-it’s hard to explain.”
Lee sat down beside her on the Raptor wing. “I don’t have anywhere I particularly need to be. If I’m not keeping you from anything...”
Athena paused, then slipped out of the top half of her flight suit so it was slung around her waist. “Okay.”
They talked for a long time. There were a lot of things Athena simply couldn’t explain to a human, because they involved projection or the way Cylons accessed data, but even knowing what was unknowable taught Lee something about her. He learned that the Cylon faith, or at least Athena’s interpretation of it, was a strange mix of mystical and practical. They believed the entities that piloted their ships, the Hybrids, uttered prophecy. But the Cylons had also altered the Hybrids’ brains to take in and process more information than they were capable of communicating, which really did sound like what a prophet was supposed to be. They believed in immortal souls, but they had a way of catching the thoughts and feelings and quirks of the dead and reviving them in new bodies, and what else was a soul?
“When it comes to the question of one God or many,” Athena said, “I don’t think there’s any way of knowing, or how much of a difference it makes. With many gods, nothing you do is going to satisfy all of them. But no one God can have created everything in the universe, and set out rules for us to live by, without contradicting Itself. There’s just something in me that I can’t explain or describe that pulls me toward the concept of one God rather than many.”
“Programming?” Lee said without thinking.
To his surprise, Athena didn’t seem offended. “Hard-wired to believe in God? Maybe. If God is the programmer, I don’t see a problem with that.”
“But humans created the Cylons.”
Athena looked him square in the eye. “Apollo, I participated in the destruction of the human race. Then I tried to trick a human into falling in love with me and impregnating me, but I fell in love with him. But, I only swore my allegiance to protect humanity and fight against my people after my child, whom I’d left the Cylons to protect, died. The craziest human programmer ever to exist couldn’t have come up with that one.”
“So…divinity in the absurd?” Lee asked.
“Sort of,” Athena replied. “But more like…divinity in the possible. And, oddly enough, that is why that’s my favorite hymn. It’s ‘The Hymn to the Great Mystery,’ in praise of all the unknowable possibilities the future holds.”
It bothered Lee a little that the Cylon faith sounded closer to what he believed than any other religion he’d ever encountered. And yet, he found himself humming Athena’s favorite hymn as he shaved the next morning.
3: Sagittaron Scripture
“Oh my gods, Hoshi is so smashed,” Dee giggled under her breath, softly enough that only Lee could hear her. “Look at him! They’re holding hands.”
Lee was far more interested in the woman whose shoulders he had his arm around, but he did look, to humor her. “So? They’re sleeping together, aren’t they? And didn’t you set them up months ago?”
“Yes, and yes. But they’re holding hands in front of people,” Dee replied. Lee didn’t care enough to ask what that meant.
He, Dee, Hoshi, and Gaeta had met for drinks at Joe’s that night. Gaeta and Hoshi were good guys, but not Lee’s favorite drinking companions. They usually got Dee engrossed in talking about CIC drama, which left Lee out in the cold. He didn’t begrudge Dee those conversations, though. It was mild payback for all the times she had to put up with viper jock talk when they went out with pilots.
Now the four of them were heading back toward the officers’ quarters. The corridors were a little too narrow to comfortably walk four abreast, particularly with other people walking past them, most on their way to duty before the shift-change. So, Gaeta and Hoshi walked a few steps ahead of him and Dee. And yes, now that Dee mentioned it, Lee noticed that they were holding hands. Hoshi would lean in close every once in a while, murmur something in Gaeta’s ear, and Gaeta would laugh.
Lee whispered back, “Besides, it’s not as if there’s a competition and you earn extra points if Gaeta ends up with the guy you set him up with.”
“Oh yes, I do. If Louis works out, I’ll have the peace of mind of knowing that Felix won’t pick himself out another winner like Gaius frakking Baltar.”
Lee couldn’t argue with that one.
Ahead of them, Gaeta laughed and shook his head.
“Aw, come on!” Hoshi said, deliberately bumping into Gaeta’s shoulder. “Dee, help me out. Tell him he should come to temple service with me.”
Dee gaped at Hoshi. “You still go to temple? Not the Sagittaron service!”
Hoshi recoiled. “Ugh, no. The non-denominational service they have every Thursday on C-deck.” Hoshi turned back to Gaeta. “Please? You went with me that one time when we were on R&R on the Zephyr.”
“A moment of weakness,” Gaeta said, smiling. “You hadn’t shaved for a couple days. You with a bit of scruff was just too much of a temptation, even for a fervent atheist.”
Hoshi craned his neck around to look at Lee. “Major, you need to campaign to change the regs on professional appearance. This man’s soul depends on it.” He snickered at his own joke, muffling it against Gaeta’s shoulder. Gaeta laughed again, too. Lee had never seen Hoshi this drunk, or this happy.
“I don’t know,” Lee answered. “We’d run the risk of my father growing a mustache again.”
“What about weddings, Felix? Are you too adamantly against temples to have a priest officiate if you get married?” Dee asked.
If he hadn’t had his arm around her, Lee would have elbowed Dee for being so obvious. He had to settle with glaring at her instead, which she easily ignored.
Hoshi flushed. Much to Lee’s surprise, though, after throwing Dee a dirty look, Gaeta gazed directly at Hoshi as he spoke. “I’m an atheist, not allergic. Of course I’d have a priest, if it was important to my partner.”
“I only brought temple up because I like hearing you sing,” Hoshi said, still blushing. “You have such a beautiful voice.”
Gaeta said, “Hey, Lee, if you can’t change the regs, do you think you could get a karaoke night going at Joe’s? Because if you were impressed when I sang hymns,” he said, turning back to Hoshi, “just wait until you hear my drunken rendition of ‘The Piconian Fisherman’s Wife.’”
They arrived at the hatch to Hoshi’s bunkroom. Lee knew Gaeta had duty soon, since he hadn’t been drinking.
Gaeta said, “I’ll see you when my shift’s over. We’ll have a couple hours before you go on duty, right?”
Hoshi nodded, sighing. “I can’t wait until we’re back working the same shift again.”
“Me, too. Goodnight,” Gaeta said. They hugged, and then just as Gaeta started to pull away, Hoshi leaned in and pressed a soft, close-mouthed kiss to Gaeta’s lips. Judging from the look on Gaeta’s face, that was a very pleasant surprise.
Lee heard someone passing behind him mutter a word he couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t a question of audibility; the woman had said it rather loudly. It was slang from some other planet, and he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. He presumed it was Sagittaron when Dee clearly recognized it, slipping out from under his arm and grabbing the woman by the shoulder so hard she spun her around. But then he second-guessed himself when he saw that Gaeta was right beside her, seething.
“What the frak did you just call my friends?” Dee yelled, her fingernails still digging into the woman’s shoulder. Lee came up behind her and put his hand on her arm. Dee shrugged him off, but at least that made her let go of the woman, too.
“Hlevani,” the woman, a civilian, spat just as angrily as Dee. “They’re an abomination. An insult to the Gods!”
Gaeta laughed mirthlessly. “You seriously think that the Lords of Kobol rained destruction on the Colonies because I sleep with men? And, obviously, you skipped the chapter on Apollo and Hyacinth, too.”
Lee remembered where he’d heard the word before. After his father left, his mother had hired Brini, a Sagittaron woman, to help take care of him and Zak. Brini had been the closest thing Lee had had to a real mother, even if she’d only stayed with them for two years. One day, Brini had dragged his mother outside after she’d spent the previous three days in bed. Lee couldn’t tell if his mother was hung over or still drunk, but she hadn’t been steady enough on her feet to walk alone. Brini had wrapped her arm around his mother’s waist to help. Someone across the street had called out that word, hlevani, and made a gesture that Lee knew was rude.
When they got home, Lee had asked what the word meant. Brini had explained it, which was difficult, since Caprica and most of the other Colonies didn’t have an equivalent word. Later on, when Lee learned a little more about Sagittaron culture, he understood why Brini’s face had been so red as she’d talked, and he gave her even more credit for being willing to explain it at all.
“Honey, let’s go.” There was a man with the angry woman, and he tugged on her arm. She broke free of his grasp. That’s when Lee noticed the white mourning bands jangling on her wrists. He’d never seen one person wear so many.
“Hlevani!” the woman repeated, fire in her voice and tears in her eyes.
She was looking between Dee and Gaeta, over their shoulders. Lee turned and saw her target. Hoshi had backed up against the hatch, and his face was ashen. That took Lee aback. He’d worked with Hoshi in Pegasus’s CIC for over a year, long enough to know that the man was no coward or wilting violet.
The woman continued, “‘And so saith the Lords: he who lies with a man is an abomination in the eyes of the Gods. He is a disgrace to his father, and it would be better for his mother if he had died in her womb. The Gods-’”
Gaeta was in her face. “Don’t you dare speak to him like that!”
“I have rights!” the woman yelled. “If you can make a spectacle of yourselves like that, I can tell you you’re disgusting!”
“Not in a restricted area of a military vessel, you can’t,” Lee said. He wasn’t sure if this was a restricted area or not, but it was as good a story as any to shut this down. He looked pointedly at the man with her. “Leave quietly, or I’ll get that marine over there to help me escort you to the brig.”
The man grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her down the hallway.
Gaeta was at Hoshi’s side as soon as she was gone. “Louis? Are you okay?” Hoshi nodded, though the answer was clearly ‘no.’ Gaeta cupped Hoshi’s cheek. “You can’t let idiots like her get to you like this, baby.”
Hoshi muttered, “It’s nothing. I’m just really drunk. It was a nice evening. Sorry I-sorry.” He slid through the hatch and closed it before anyone had a chance to react.
Gaeta looked at his watch, then the hatch, clearly torn. “Frak.”
Dee stepped up. “I can cover for you in CIC.”
“Really? Thank you so much, Dee,” Felix said, visibly relieved. “I’ll be there in a half-hour-an hour at the most.”
“Take whatever time you need,” Dee said. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m furious that somebody would hurt Louis like that.”
“I know, but are you okay?”
Felix brushed the comment aside. “Oh, yeah. It’s rude and annoying, but I’m far more worried about Louis feeling like the gods are after him for kissing a man in public.” He sighed. “Things had been going so well.”
“Good luck,” Dee said. Lee nodded in silent support.
“Thanks.” Gaeta opened the hatch and muttered as he entered Hoshi’s bunkroom, “Frakking zealots.”
“What was all that about?” Lee asked when the hatch was shut. “Not the word, or the fight, but Hoshi.”
Dee sighed as they walked slowly down the corridor. “I didn’t set them up just because I thought Louis would be good for Felix. I knew Felix would be kind, and patient, and wasn’t a huge fan of big public displays of affection anyway.”
“I still don’t understand how someone who survived in Cain’s CIC could get that upset over a word, no matter how vile,” Lee said.
“It wasn’t the word-or at least, not just the word,” Dee answered. “Remember how, when we were on Pegasus and we looked through Hoshi’s personnel file, we thought it was strange he enlisted when he was only sixteen?”
“Yeah,” Lee said, “and then I asked my father about it, and he said Fleet Command would make exceptions to the age requirement for certain special needs cases.”
Dee nodded. “If anyone asks, you don’t know anything about this, because Louis told me in confidence. But…he enlisted when his parents-and his temple-kicked him out, after his mother caught him with another boy. So while someone damning you with scripture is painful, when it reminds you of the time your mother did it in front of the whole congregation…”
“My gods. No wonder.”
“At least Sagittarons are pacifists, but that part about wishing you’d never been born…” It took Dee a long time to form the next sentence, and she muttered it so quietly Lee almost didn’t hear. “The passages about being a warrior aren’t quite as bad, but they weren’t exactly fit for a greeting card, either.”
Dee never talked about her life back on Sagittaron. The look on her face told Lee all he needed to know, though.
They came to the split in the corridors where one way led to their quarters and the other led to CIC. “I’ll see you soon,” Dee said, kissing him on the cheek.
Lee wrapped his arm around her shoulders again. “I think I’ll walk with you to CIC, if you’d like.”
Dee smiled. “Thank you. I’d like that a lot.”
As he walked with his brave, strong, beautiful wife leaning her head against his shoulder as she tried not to cry, for some reason, Lee couldn’t help but think about the mourning bracelets on the civilian woman’s arms. He could understand, after so much loss, needing someone to blame. He supposed blaming a couple strangers in a hallway was easier than blaming the gods. But what he couldn’t imagine was how it would be easier to blame a son, or a daughter.
4: A Virgonese Icon
Kara was kneeling in front of her rack and facing away from him when Lee entered her bunkroom. He rapped on the open hatch with the hand that wasn’t holding his flight helmet to let her know he was there. She didn’t turn; she just held one finger up-and not even the rude one-to indicate for him to give her another minute.
He waited silently. In not too long, Kara pushed herself up to standing, then bent over the bunk to gather some items to her chest. When she turned to put them away in her locker, Lee got a good look.
“Artemis and Aphrodite?” Lee asked incredulously.
“And Athena, and Apollo,” she said as she held each figurine up before placing them in a lined box. It reminded Lee of when his little cousins had introduced their dolls to him. “And Persephone, and Mars, and Aurora-” She looked down at the littlest figurine, then slipped it in her flight suit pocket. “I think Aurora’s going to come with me for this ride.”
Kara cocked her head when she saw Lee’s face. “What? Have I got snot hanging out of my nose?”
Lee shook his head. “It’s-just-I guess I didn’t think… You still do that? Pray, I mean?”
Now it was Kara’s turn to look at Lee like he’d sprouted a third eye. “Uh, yeah. You know I’m a believer. You’ve known that for almost as long as you’ve known me.”
Lee squirmed, regretting having brought this up, since it was a conversation he’d hoped they’d never have to have. “I figured that after that Cylon, Leoben, did what he did to you, and all that shit he piled on you about the gods having a destiny for you... I guess I didn’t think the gods would be much of a comfort to you anymore.”
Kara’s jaw tightened, and her eyes looked far away but intense. “That frakker took way too much from me. I’m not going to let him take the Gods from me, too. A lot of people keep saying, ‘The Cylons destroying us, that proves the Gods aren’t there, or at least they’re not on our side.’ But me?” She slammed the locker door shut, then knocked her fist against it. “I’m not going to let the toasters take anything more away from me.”
She leaned her head against the locker door for a moment, eyes closed. Lee recognized this as one of those times when he loved Kara so fiercely for something in her that he didn’t understand at all, and for something he certainly didn’t have himself.
Kara stood upright abruptly. “Ready to go kick some ghostly toaster ass, Wingman?” She zipped up her flightsuit and grabbed her helmet.
“Don’t get too used to this wingman thing,” Lee kidded, elbowing Kara in the ribs as they left the bunkroom. “This is a one-time deal.”
“No, I’m thinking maybe I should have nervous breakdowns more often,” Kara joked back. She smiled at him.
It would forever haunt Lee, how that smile had been almost right. It was all he could see when he went through her personal effects a few days later, in preparation for the wake-auction.
He saved the box of icons for last. Six tiny faces looked up at him from their black velvet beds, a seventh spot for Aurora, who was now with his father, left empty. Aphrodite, Artemis, Apollo, and Athena were all traditional Caprican figurines made of soft metal, just like the ones the chaplain used at pilots’ funerals. Mars was Tauron, cut from smooth, red volcanic rock. It was Zak’s, Lee recognized instantly, a gift from their great uncle when Zak joined the military.
And then there was Persephone, holding a pomegranate in one hand, her face frozen in terror as she screamed for her mother to save her from Hades. She was made of light green glass, which meant she was from Virgon. The Virgonese made all their idols from glass, as a reminder of the fragility of human life.
Lee held Mars and Persephone, one in each hand, for a long time. Then he flung out one arm, and Persephone shattered in a brilliant, sparkling green burst against the locker door.
Finally, Lee wept.
5: Aerilon Communion
As Lee sat on the floor, sure his suit pants were getting extremely dirty, he came up with a list of all the people who would have been incredibly pissed at him if they’d known he was attending Baltar’s sermon that evening. Dee, Kara, the President. His father. Zarek, Gaeta. Everyone who had been on the Quorum during Baltar’s presidency. It wasn’t fair, how many of the people on that list were dead, or dying, or dead on the inside, and yet Gaius Baltar was not only still alive, but thriving.
He didn’t know why he was there. He’d told himself it was because he knew Laura’s days as President were numbered, and he needed to gather information about all the different factions in the Fleet that he could, so he’d know how to deal with them when it came time for him to lead. But deep down, he knew it was more because as that list of the dead and the dying grew, the drive and purpose he’d found creating a new Quorum from the ship’s captains ebbed away, leaving a deep, aching aimlessness and solitude in its wake.
Whatever he was there for, Lee knew he’d have to at least half-way pay attention to the service to get anything out of this trip. He blinked a few times and tuned his attention back on Baltar, who was pacing slowly at the front of the crowd, a microphone in his hand. It sounded like he’d just started his sermon.
“As you all know, I was originally from Aerilon. I cannot say that I had a particularly easy childhood, or a happy one. However, I did learn a few important lessons there, lessons that I’m only now realizing their worth.”
Lee fought back a snort of disbelief. Baltar was obviously pandering to the crowd with the ‘what a good, clean working-class background taught me’ routine. People bought it, too. The woman sitting next to him leaned forward in anticipation.
“I did not have the healthiest of relationships with my family,” Baltar continued. “We simply weren’t communicating on the same wavelength. With the exception of my mother’s mother, that is.”
Some in the audience tittered excitedly, including the woman seated next to Lee. “Oh, his stories about his grandmother are always my favorites,” the woman said to him before turning back to watch Baltar.
“In light of the recent troubling events here on Galactica and on Colonial One, two lessons my grandmother taught me have taken on new meaning for me. I would like to share them with you tonight. She taught me the first lesson one day when I was supposed to be watching my family’s flock of sheep. I not only took my textbooks out with me to where they were grazing, completely ignoring the flock the whole afternoon, but I also left the paddock gate open.”
A few people in the crowd made noises that meant they had some idea of how much trouble young Gauis was about to get into. Baltar smiled knowingly.
“Yes. My backside felt the sting of that thoughtlessness for days afterwards, let me tell you. But it was what my grandmother said that kept me from ever leaving the paddock gate open again.
“She said to me: ‘Gaius, I know you think that your problem is that you’re no good at guilt. You feel it in the moment, but like the sting from your father’s willow branch, it fades away quickly, and you slide back into your old ways. But I think you have a different problem. I think it’s that you’re no good at forgiving yourself.’”
Lee had to work extremely hard not to snort that time. Gaius Baltar was better at forgiving and forgetting when it came to his own transgressions than anyone Lee had ever met.
Baltar continued, “She said, ‘Because when you truly forgive yourself, you have to look at what you’ve done wrong up-close first, process it, turn it over and over in your hands until you’ve figured out why you did what you did. And when you can do that, and let the pain and shame go, that’s when the lesson of your failure becomes a part of you in a good way. In a way that doesn’t trap you in your old patterns.’ My problem was I so often forgot too quickly to forgive.
“I think we have all tried to forget too many things too quickly. Now, as you know, I am in full support of the current alliance. Unwavering support. And it uplifts my heart to see how warmly you’ve welcomed newcomers into our midst, both human and Cylon.”
Lee looked around. He wasn’t surprised to see Tyrol in the crowd, but the scattering of Twos and Eights and even one Six did take him aback.
“However, it is not healthy to forget our past failures before we have properly forgiven ourselves for them. I know this will not be a popular sentiment, but I think this lesson applies both to our alliance and to the recent violence on Galactica. We have all made horrible mistakes-mistakes that may have cost the person sitting next to you unimaginable loss. While we deserve forgiveness for those mistakes, we must truly understand what we have done, why we have done it, and what it has cost, before we can do so. Otherwise, we are simply forgetting our sins, and one day, they will return to haunt us.
“I had a dear friend, whom I have spoken of before, whom I lost to the violence on Galactica.” Lee didn’t think the room could become quieter, but it did. He also hadn’t thought of accusing Baltar of insincerity for quite a few minutes, but Baltar somehow looked even more earnest now.
“He remembered everything, felt everything so acutely, and he could never forgive himself for any of it. I will not say that that alone destroyed him, but it did aid in his destruction. My contribution to that list of things he could not forgive himself for shall forever haunt me now. But I examined my failures to him by facing him, and I hope I have learned something from the experience. If nothing else, I know that I have no desire to see any of you, any of my friends, endure the sort of fate he did.”
The room was hushed as Baltar bent his head, but his voice brightened a little when he lifted it again. “Which brings me to my grandmother’s second lesson. An easier lesson than the first, perhaps. Certainly a more pleasant one.
“As I said, I did not have a particularly happy childhood. I suffered the same indignities suffered by all awkward, scrawny boys on school playgrounds. Many days I would come home with a black eye, or worse, fighting back tears. On those days, my grandmother would brew a pot of black currant tea, then press a cup of it into my hands and take a seat in the rocking chair across from me. No matter how horrible a day or embarrassing a humiliation I’d endured, after a few sips of tea, I would always start to talk. Just…talk. Often about what had happened, but not always-sometimes it was about what I hoped for the future, or about one of my grandmother’s stories of when her parents emigrated. But the important thing was that after a day of no one listening to me or understanding me, I had someone that I could go to.
“My grandmother called the tea our little Aerilon communion. You see, none of the sects endemic to Aerilon had a communion ritual, but my grandmother’s family was originally from Leonis, where it was quite common. And when you think about it, what we did really was a communion. Because what does that word mean? An act of sharing, of fellowship. Communication. So, tonight, I would like you to join in taking a little Aerilon communion with me, would you?”
Baltar smiled magnanimously as three of his acolytes brought forward a large container with a spigot and dozens upon dozens of cups. “I’m afraid I couldn’t find any black currants, but Jeanne assures me that dried New Caprican tawa leaves make for an excellent tea as well. For the rest of this evening’s service, then, I encourage you to take communion, in all senses of the word. Fill your cup, and just talk to the people around you. It doesn’t matter about what. Just talk, and listen, and do your best to understand.”
A tray full of mugs of tea was handed down the aisle, and Lee took one before passing it on. The warm cup felt good in his hands, and the warm liquid felt even better in his throat. The woman beside him who loved Baltar’s stories about his grandmother turned toward him, as did a couple in the row ahead of him. Lee had never seen any of them before, but they talked.
Emma, the woman next to him, talked about the bookshop she’d owned on Canceron, and how the tea reminded her of rainy afternoons sitting in an overstuffed chair in the children’s section, reading a book aloud to a dozen kids as the shop cat prowled among them for attention. Jenny and Hank talked about how they’d fallen in love on New Caprica, and how Jenny had been in detention for most of the occupation. They’d never figured out why, or even why the Cylons had finally let her go.
And Lee talked about the bar he’d been planning on opening right before the attack on the Colonies. He talked about how he had been planning to muster out a couple months after his father retired. How even when he’d commanded the Pegasus, he’d thought about opening a bar on New Caprica when he retired from the Fleet. How it had taken him a long time after Kara’s surprise marriage, but that eventually, he’d settled happily on the picture of him tending bar while Dee did the bookkeeping, and the picture of Kara and Sam, and Helo and Athena, and Gaeta and Hoshi, and all his old Galactica pilots and Pegasus crewmates making his bar their regular meeting place, their home away from home. When New Caprica had fallen apart, he’d simply shifted the post-retirement fantasy to Earth, or to wherever they settled, and eventually added his fellow Quorum members to his list of future patrons.
Finally, Lee admitted to the three of them how many pieces of that image were lost now. None of them had anything to say that could make it better. But they listened, and they understood, and Lee understood them. By the time the last refill of the tea was gone, Lee had promised to ask his father if Emma could visit his quarters to look at his book collection, and Jenny and Hank had invited him to meet them for a drink at Joe’s next week.
As for Lee, he added the three of them to the picture in his head of the bar. They didn’t fill any of the empty spaces, and some of those holes still hurt like bullet wounds. But at least his imaginary bar wasn’t quite so lonely anymore.
6: Galactica’s Temple
“How are you doing, CAG?” Lee asked Hotdog, sliding into the seat beside him in the front row of the otherwise empty ready room.
It didn’t dawn on Lee that Hotdog had been praying, and that he’d interrupted, until Hotdog’s head shot up from its resting place on his folded hands.
“What? Oh. Uh, okay. Gotta be honest, I’m a little jittery about how we’re jumping into the heart of the Cylon Fleet and are probably all gonna die. But hey, at least if things go bad, it’s likely not all my fault, right?”
Lee smiled at Hotdog’s goofy, nervous grin. “You have a very unique perspective on life, Captain.”
“Sir,” Hotdog asked, “back when you were CAG, before a big mission, what did you do to get your brain in the right mode?”
Lee thought for a moment. “I don’t know that I did much of anything consciously. After a while, your body and brain train themselves to slip into the right patterns as soon as they get that first rush of adrenaline.”
Hotdog grimaced. “Considering we’re going to be at the Colony in, like, two hours, I don’t think I have time to train my brain like that. How about prayer, or meditating, or something?”
“I think you should do whatever works for you, but no, that kind of thing never worked for me.”
“So what did you do?”
A moment before Lee was going to say that he didn’t know, and that he’d already said he didn’t know, it dawned on him. “I looked around the ready room, or if I didn’t have time, the hangar deck. You see, I don’t really care whether the gods exist or not. If I had to guess, my gut tells me they don’t, though considering all the crazy things that have happened in the last few years, disbelief is probably less rational than belief at this point.
“But that’s beside the point. When I look around at the faces in the ready room, or on the deck, or even imagine them, remember them-that reminds me of how much I trust my people. How much I love them. How much they make me want to push myself to be a better person, so I can honor the amazing trust and love and loyalty I know they’re capable of as well.”
“To honor what the Gods gave them, and gave you,” Hotdog said. “To show thanks to Them for giving us the…I don’t know the right word…ability, I guess, to be who we are.”
“And that’s where you and I part ways,” Lee said with a shrug.
Hotdog smiled. “Or maybe it’s where we’re saying the same thing in a different way.”
Lee wasn’t so sure, but it didn’t matter now. “Maybe.”
“Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it,” Hotdog said after a long, silent moment. “If it’s all the same to you, though, I think I might go back to…” He folded his hands again and looked to Lee for permission.
“Hey, don’t let me stop you,” Lee said. “We need all the help we can get today.”
Hotdog grinned. “That’s kind of what I was thinking. Good hunting, Major.”
They nodded to each other. Hotdog rested his forehead against his conjoined hands again. Lee looked out over the seats and imagined the faces of all the pilots that had flown with him, all the people that had served with him, all the people that he’d loved, sitting in those chairs and looking back at him with clear eyes.
“Good hunting.”