We used to wait. (Chapter 21/?)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 21/?)
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 3,420
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
Caprica: Eighteen Years Before the Fall
Dreilide lingered outside the coffee shop, one hand stuffed into a pocket of his overcoat, the other cradling half of a cigarette between index and middle finger. He drew it to his lips and inhaled, though the nicotine provided him no comfort. In fact, it had the opposite effect, the taste of it on his tongue reminding him of the wife he’d left behind in Delphi to come here. He’d promised her months ago that he would be around considerably more, and for the most part he held true to it. They’d been happy, at least more so than before the blow out between he and Socrata, and all of it counted as an improvement to him. This, though, was something he was unable to avoid and even the familiar smell of the smoke reminded him that when he got home, there’d be hell to pay for his disappearance.
His back was to the glass of the store’s windows, eyes shifting between far out things in the distance to pass the time. A glance to his left with another drag of the cigarette and his vision caught on the face of a man he hadn’t seen in over a decade, but would forever be familiar to him nonetheless. The dark haired man nodded to Dreilide in acknowledgement and he returned it. Once the other man disappeared inside, he dropped his cigarette with great reluctance, his shoe grinding the butt into the sidewalk to extinguish what embers remained burning inside the paper. Not a single part of him wanted to step inside the place they’d arranged to meet, but with a great intake and release of breath, he managed it just the same.
Dreilide moved inward of the main room, tables and chairs running along the windows while the counter and line of customers were towards the back of the establishment. He let his eyes linger on the people going about their business, buying coffee to get them jumpstarted for their day, desperately wanting to be just one of them. When he finally focused on the mess of tables around him, he found his destination almost immediately. He pushed through the chairs not tucked into the tables, apologizing to the few people he managed to bump into on his way over. Without a word, Dreilide sat down at one of the larger tables his group had taken to call their own, the other three members eyeing him as he did.
“Didn’t think you’d ever come in,” the woman across from him said, her red hair pulled loosely from her face. Like the other man he’d seen enter the store who now sat beside him, he would know her anywhere, even with the age that now read over her features. All of them were far older than when he’d last seen them, himself included, lines on their faces detailing how much time had passed.
He forced a weak smile as he slid his coat off. “Didn’t really want to come in, Eugenia.” His hand reached for the mug of coffee that was set at his spot, presumably bought for him by one of the others.
Beside him, the dark haired man set his cup down. “None of us did.”
The fourth occupant of the table, a woman with similar features to the other, though with blonde hair, kept quiet.
The woman known as Eugenia started up again, taking charge for the other three more somber individuals. “As you all know, Dreilide got in touch with me a few months ago about what he saw, or rather who he saw planet side.” Both her hands cupped around the warm mug of whatever she was drinking. “My sister here has been looking into it since then, while I got started on other matters.” She didn’t specify, but the expression on the faces of the rest of the group indicated they understood. “Cleo?” Her voice raised, head turning towards her sister beside her.
Cleo had already drawn a folder from the bag beside her chair. She reached for a napkin and cleaned the table of any stray droplets of their beverages and then pushed her cup aside. The folder was placed down on the flat surface and opened, a few sheets of paper tucked inside. “Saul Tigh, as the Colonies know him, first appeared on any system twelve years ago. At least, twelve verifiable years ago. He has a past, but what I found was all very one dimensional. Said he enlisted in the Colonial Fleet, starting out as a deckhand, fought in the first Cylon War, worked his way up to a Viper Pilot.”
The other man interrupted her, “I don’t really see where you’re going with this. You’re saying he only appeared twelve years ago, but then what you found goes back further than that. You’re contradicting yourself.”
Cleo’s eyes rose, face stern at being cut off mid-thought. Her palms pressed over the papers to channel out some of her irritation. “What I’m saying is there are all these bullet points of his life. The important facts, but I can’t find the other details anywhere. The systems here should have records of other things in his life. Where he lived when off duty as a deckhand. Things he bought. Credit purchases at his favorite restaurants from twenty years ago. There should be transcripts and grades from his schooling, but instead all I have is that he graduated. I looked up his parents and they’re just dead ends. Said they died on Aerilon and there’s absolutely nothing there about them. Even the most backwater areas on the worst planets here have some records.”
She slid a photo of the man in question across to the dark haired man. “What I’m getting to, Jacob, is that someone doctored this all up. They gave just enough information into the right systems so there wouldn’t be a red flag about his existence, but didn’t flesh out the details thats someone would expect to see if they took a hard look. It was a rush job by someone who didn’t have anything at stake in this. That picture there, that’s the earliest one of him on record. He would have had one taken the year he first enlisted, and yet, all I’ve got is one a little more than a decade old.”
Adam looked at the picture before him, a photo of the man he knew as Saul. There was no coincidence in this, no mistaken identity like he had hoped and prayed for. He slid the picture over to Dreilide, who looked at it for half a second and pushed it back towards the middle of the table. “How do we know,” Jacob started, “that Saul didn’t just decide to acclimate himself?”
The red haired sister spoke up this time. “Even if he did create a false history to cover his tracks, for what reason would he have wiped out certain parts of his memory? To protect himself? From what?” She posed the question, her eyes on Dreilide across from her.
“He wasn’t just lying either,” Dreilide said. “He didn’t know who I was. No idea.”
Eugenia nodded and leaned back in her chair, arms across her chest. “Cleo says Ellen’s history was much the same. Any true, verifiable information started around twelve years ago. All the rest goes back in circles or leads to dead ends.”
Jacob’s shoulders slumped as he leaned into the table, elbows on the edge. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that something happened out there,” said Eugenia.
“What about the rest?” Dreilide asked. “Tory and Galen? Were you able to find them anywhere? And Sam?” He was fearful and hopeful at the same time.
Cleo’s head shook and she closed the folder until the contents were hidden away. “Nothing on them. I searched for their names and similar spellings, but I got nothing. I even searched all the databases with their images and nothing even close turned up. I’m not sure why Saul and Ellen would be here and the other three not, but that raises another red flag to me. They wouldn’t have come here and left three of them behind, that wasn’t how it worked. They made decisions as a group, just as we do.”
The entire table quieted down, silence between them all. Jacob’s eyes were distant and trained on the photo in the center of the table. “The question isn’t did something happen, it’s what happened? And what do we do?”
“We can’t exactly go out there and knock,” Eugenia said with a bit of humor to her voice despite the dire situation. “We have to assume the worst, that what we said would happen, has happened. Last time we all saw each other, we agreed to what we’d do and now unfortunately, the time has come where we have to follow through.”
Dreilide sighed the loudest, his head shaking. “I can’t go. When I agreed to it all back then, things were different.” He raised his eyes to Eugenia. “You know I have a daughter now.”
“A daughter?” Jacob asked and watched as Dreilide nodded. “My God, Eugenia you didn’t tell me he had a daughter when you called.”
Her head jerked towards her sister, who had her own look of astonishment on her face. “I didn’t even tell Cleo, it wasn’t my secret to tell.”
Cleo’s harsh demeanor from earlier disappeared, her hand reaching across the table to take one of Dreilide’s. She squeezed it in a showing of solidarity. “Then you’ve done something none of us ever thought possible. You should bring her with you. We need her, Dreilide.”
His head shook stronger than it did before, his hand pulling away from Cleo’s own. His chair moved away from them just an inch or two, arms crossing his chest. “No. What if this is all a mistake? I can’t take her away from the life she has here. My wife,” he paused, thinking about Socrata. “She fought in the cylon war, she wouldn’t ever understand. I couldn’t take my daughter from her mother.” It pained him greatly as he came to a few realizations in that instant. Tears barely coated over his eyes, but he tried to push them away.
“And what if it does happen?” Cleo asked. “This has all happened before, this will all happen again.” Her words were delivered with an ominous kind of foreboding.
He refused to think about what that would mean for his daughter and for his wife, as well as the rest of the people of the Twelve Colonies. He couldn’t consider that the girl who just celebrated her seventh birthday would ever possibly meet her end. “She’ll know where to go.”
The others didn’t ask what he meant by it, or even how he could know such a thing. The conversation was over with, even though the rest had a multitude of questions to ask about his daughter and the circumstances that led to her birth. Eugenia broke up the silence.
“We leave in a month. I made the preparations.” Her final words were specifically directed towards Dreilide. “Say your goodbyes.”
-
Dreilide lay beside Socrata, spent and lungs finally restored back to a normal breathing rate. Next to him, his wife curled into his side, her head resting to his shoulder in the familiar way their bodies fit together. While one arm curled around her, his other stretched across his chest and gently brushed through the strands of hair nearest her face.
“Haven’t done that in awhile,” Socrata said.
His lips pulled into a well controlled smile, eyes set on the ceiling above them both. “It was too long,” he insisted.
Socrata didn’t say a word, but the sound that left the back of her throat agreed with him softly. They laid there like that for untold moments, his hand stroking through her hair, and her content to let him do so. It brought back memories of the first years of their relationship, when they’d spent nearly all their time together like this. Age, work, and a child between them had acted together to push them slightly apart. Moments like these had the effect of reminding both of them why ended up together in the first place.
“Socrata?” Dreilide asked in the veil of darkness of the room. “Are you happy? I mean, have you been happy with me?” The question seemed to be important to him, the answer even more so.
She lifted her head and reached for the light on the nearby end table, her hand switching it on. The bulb illuminated the room just barely enough to lift the haze so she could see him with clearer eyes. Socrata returned to his side, this time to her own pillow, but let her hand reach to his bare chest, stroking over his skin and the hair there. “You know I have been,” she said without a hint of doubt. “What’s going on with you?” Her brows furrowed and forehead creased as she watched him.
Dreilide’s head shook back and forth shallowly on the pillow before he turned to look at her. “Nothing. I was just curious. Sometimes we fight…” He laughed. “We fight a lot and I just wanted to know if it was worth it to you, the things we have in exchange for how much we don’t get along sometimes.”
“We get along,” she insisted, “Maybe too well, and that’s why we fight.” Her hand on his chest stopped as she focused all her energy on him. “I know I’m not easy to be with,” she was remorseful for herself, apologetic without saying so explicitly. “But I can’t imagine you not being here, I don’t know who I’d be if you weren’t.”
Those words both warmed and scared him. She loved him, he had always been sure of it. Their life together had meant something to her, although he knew what he shared with Socrata was far bigger than just the two of them in that room. It scared him because he knew what he would have to do and feared just how broken she would become. She’d been in pieces when they met, just as he had been to some degree, but they’d managed to pull each other together. He couldn’t bear the idea of knowing she could fall so far from who she was now. “If something ever happened to me, you and Kara would be okay, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t,” she said with a shake of her head. “Don’t even make me think about that. Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Socrata insisted and moved her nude form back in closer to him, burying her face into his neck. “You’ll never leave me.” He had become a crutch for her, a crutch of the best kind. Her husband kept her level headed and reminded of the things that were important to her. He had changed her and it was far for the better.
Guilt stabbed at him but he didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. “Marrying you was the best decision I ever made and Kara was the best mistake.”
She smiled at his choice of words, her eyes shut. “Mm, a mistake all right.”
His chest hummed with his quiet laughter. “Sorry, surprise?”
“She’s not here, we can call her whatever we want.” They could tease each other outwardly because they both knew the truth of it all. Kara really had been the best thing to happen to them since they’d married. She regretted those weeks of indecision she had after she learned she was pregnant, hating how close she’d been to giving it all up out of a pang of fear of the unknown. What mattered, she told herself, was that she hadn’t let it slip through her fingers.
“Do you ever think we should have had more?”
Her own laughter echoed then. “With how much she hurt, you’re lucky you got one. Besides, I couldn’t take another nine months of you watching over my every move. I know some partners are concerned for the health of their child, but you were ridiculous.” Her finger prodded his side.
He breathed a sigh, recalling how distraught with worry he’d been, though he knew he had good reason. “Everyone says the second’s easier.”
“I’m not everyone,” she said and kissed his chest as she picked her head up. “I’m getting too old now anyway. Besides, what is it you always say? Kara’s special. Let her be special enough on her own.”
He nodded and looked to her. “I love you.”
Socrata smiled. “I love you too.”
Sometime later, his wife fell asleep on his arm. He laid and watched her most of the night, preserving this sight of her in his memory. If he had to remember her, he didn’t want to recall the fights and arguments, her accusing words and the mistakes they both made. Dreilide wanted to remember her at peace and happy, their life perfect together.
When it was nearly morning, he made careful work to slide his arm out from underneath her and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I love you,” he whispered again. With as much silence as he could pull together, he moved to the closet they shared, opening it and pulling down the military duffel bag that had been in his wife’s possession since the night they first had together. He emptied half his drawers with as much as he could take, lifting the bag and taking it with him from the room. Dreilide shut the door behind him and abandoned his bag in the living room.
His last destination was his daughter’s bedroom and he slipped in quietly, sitting beside Kara on the edge of her bed. His hand stroked over his daughter’s fine white hair until he saw her eyes opening and blinking awake.
“Daddy?” Kara asked.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Mom’s still asleep.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” She questioned him, a yawn leaving her small mouth.
“I have to go somewhere.” Before she could fire off another question, he continued on. “You know I love you, right Kara?” She nodded to him from where she lay and tears filled his eyes. He thought saying goodbye to his wife had been hard enough, but the complete ache he felt at leaving his daughter behind was far worse than he ever imagined it could have been.
“Don’t cry,” she said as she sat up, unsure of how to comfort a parent when they crumbled a little. This was her father, he had always been the one to make her own tears go away and the role reversal confused her. “I love you, Daddy,” Kara said and her small arms hugged at him as best she could.
He pulled her into his lap, his arms wrapped around her and cradling her small body like he’d done since the day she was born. “You know that song we play together?” Kara nodded. “Remember it for your whole life. Someday, you’re going to need it. And those circles you paint for your mom and I, don’t forget them. They’ll keep you safe.”
Kara watched him from below, taking in his words, but unsure of the true meaning behind them. Still sleepy, she merely nodded to him again, feigning her understanding.
“You’re special, Kara. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Who you are, it’s more important than anyone knows. One day, though, I promise one day you’ll understand.” He leaned in and kissed his daughters head, not willing to pull back from her right away. Dreilide breathed in the smell of her laundry soap and shampoo, committing that, too, to his memory. He stood, his daughter still in his arms, and bent over the bed to lay her back down. She went without a fight and he pulled her sheet and blanket up to cover her.
“Tell your mother I love her, all right? You know it’s hard for her when I’m not here.” He kissed her forehead again and made move to leave.
“Is Mama taking me to school in the morning?”
He nodded, although the thought that he would never drop her off there again only returned the pain to him. “She is. I love you, Kara. Don’t forget what I said. Now go to sleep.” With that, he left her behind in her bed and his life behind in that apartment. Dreilide left them that night and the next day, he left Caprica.
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 3,420
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
Caprica: Eighteen Years Before the Fall
Dreilide lingered outside the coffee shop, one hand stuffed into a pocket of his overcoat, the other cradling half of a cigarette between index and middle finger. He drew it to his lips and inhaled, though the nicotine provided him no comfort. In fact, it had the opposite effect, the taste of it on his tongue reminding him of the wife he’d left behind in Delphi to come here. He’d promised her months ago that he would be around considerably more, and for the most part he held true to it. They’d been happy, at least more so than before the blow out between he and Socrata, and all of it counted as an improvement to him. This, though, was something he was unable to avoid and even the familiar smell of the smoke reminded him that when he got home, there’d be hell to pay for his disappearance.
His back was to the glass of the store’s windows, eyes shifting between far out things in the distance to pass the time. A glance to his left with another drag of the cigarette and his vision caught on the face of a man he hadn’t seen in over a decade, but would forever be familiar to him nonetheless. The dark haired man nodded to Dreilide in acknowledgement and he returned it. Once the other man disappeared inside, he dropped his cigarette with great reluctance, his shoe grinding the butt into the sidewalk to extinguish what embers remained burning inside the paper. Not a single part of him wanted to step inside the place they’d arranged to meet, but with a great intake and release of breath, he managed it just the same.
Dreilide moved inward of the main room, tables and chairs running along the windows while the counter and line of customers were towards the back of the establishment. He let his eyes linger on the people going about their business, buying coffee to get them jumpstarted for their day, desperately wanting to be just one of them. When he finally focused on the mess of tables around him, he found his destination almost immediately. He pushed through the chairs not tucked into the tables, apologizing to the few people he managed to bump into on his way over. Without a word, Dreilide sat down at one of the larger tables his group had taken to call their own, the other three members eyeing him as he did.
“Didn’t think you’d ever come in,” the woman across from him said, her red hair pulled loosely from her face. Like the other man he’d seen enter the store who now sat beside him, he would know her anywhere, even with the age that now read over her features. All of them were far older than when he’d last seen them, himself included, lines on their faces detailing how much time had passed.
He forced a weak smile as he slid his coat off. “Didn’t really want to come in, Eugenia.” His hand reached for the mug of coffee that was set at his spot, presumably bought for him by one of the others.
Beside him, the dark haired man set his cup down. “None of us did.”
The fourth occupant of the table, a woman with similar features to the other, though with blonde hair, kept quiet.
The woman known as Eugenia started up again, taking charge for the other three more somber individuals. “As you all know, Dreilide got in touch with me a few months ago about what he saw, or rather who he saw planet side.” Both her hands cupped around the warm mug of whatever she was drinking. “My sister here has been looking into it since then, while I got started on other matters.” She didn’t specify, but the expression on the faces of the rest of the group indicated they understood. “Cleo?” Her voice raised, head turning towards her sister beside her.
Cleo had already drawn a folder from the bag beside her chair. She reached for a napkin and cleaned the table of any stray droplets of their beverages and then pushed her cup aside. The folder was placed down on the flat surface and opened, a few sheets of paper tucked inside. “Saul Tigh, as the Colonies know him, first appeared on any system twelve years ago. At least, twelve verifiable years ago. He has a past, but what I found was all very one dimensional. Said he enlisted in the Colonial Fleet, starting out as a deckhand, fought in the first Cylon War, worked his way up to a Viper Pilot.”
The other man interrupted her, “I don’t really see where you’re going with this. You’re saying he only appeared twelve years ago, but then what you found goes back further than that. You’re contradicting yourself.”
Cleo’s eyes rose, face stern at being cut off mid-thought. Her palms pressed over the papers to channel out some of her irritation. “What I’m saying is there are all these bullet points of his life. The important facts, but I can’t find the other details anywhere. The systems here should have records of other things in his life. Where he lived when off duty as a deckhand. Things he bought. Credit purchases at his favorite restaurants from twenty years ago. There should be transcripts and grades from his schooling, but instead all I have is that he graduated. I looked up his parents and they’re just dead ends. Said they died on Aerilon and there’s absolutely nothing there about them. Even the most backwater areas on the worst planets here have some records.”
She slid a photo of the man in question across to the dark haired man. “What I’m getting to, Jacob, is that someone doctored this all up. They gave just enough information into the right systems so there wouldn’t be a red flag about his existence, but didn’t flesh out the details thats someone would expect to see if they took a hard look. It was a rush job by someone who didn’t have anything at stake in this. That picture there, that’s the earliest one of him on record. He would have had one taken the year he first enlisted, and yet, all I’ve got is one a little more than a decade old.”
Adam looked at the picture before him, a photo of the man he knew as Saul. There was no coincidence in this, no mistaken identity like he had hoped and prayed for. He slid the picture over to Dreilide, who looked at it for half a second and pushed it back towards the middle of the table. “How do we know,” Jacob started, “that Saul didn’t just decide to acclimate himself?”
The red haired sister spoke up this time. “Even if he did create a false history to cover his tracks, for what reason would he have wiped out certain parts of his memory? To protect himself? From what?” She posed the question, her eyes on Dreilide across from her.
“He wasn’t just lying either,” Dreilide said. “He didn’t know who I was. No idea.”
Eugenia nodded and leaned back in her chair, arms across her chest. “Cleo says Ellen’s history was much the same. Any true, verifiable information started around twelve years ago. All the rest goes back in circles or leads to dead ends.”
Jacob’s shoulders slumped as he leaned into the table, elbows on the edge. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that something happened out there,” said Eugenia.
“What about the rest?” Dreilide asked. “Tory and Galen? Were you able to find them anywhere? And Sam?” He was fearful and hopeful at the same time.
Cleo’s head shook and she closed the folder until the contents were hidden away. “Nothing on them. I searched for their names and similar spellings, but I got nothing. I even searched all the databases with their images and nothing even close turned up. I’m not sure why Saul and Ellen would be here and the other three not, but that raises another red flag to me. They wouldn’t have come here and left three of them behind, that wasn’t how it worked. They made decisions as a group, just as we do.”
The entire table quieted down, silence between them all. Jacob’s eyes were distant and trained on the photo in the center of the table. “The question isn’t did something happen, it’s what happened? And what do we do?”
“We can’t exactly go out there and knock,” Eugenia said with a bit of humor to her voice despite the dire situation. “We have to assume the worst, that what we said would happen, has happened. Last time we all saw each other, we agreed to what we’d do and now unfortunately, the time has come where we have to follow through.”
Dreilide sighed the loudest, his head shaking. “I can’t go. When I agreed to it all back then, things were different.” He raised his eyes to Eugenia. “You know I have a daughter now.”
“A daughter?” Jacob asked and watched as Dreilide nodded. “My God, Eugenia you didn’t tell me he had a daughter when you called.”
Her head jerked towards her sister, who had her own look of astonishment on her face. “I didn’t even tell Cleo, it wasn’t my secret to tell.”
Cleo’s harsh demeanor from earlier disappeared, her hand reaching across the table to take one of Dreilide’s. She squeezed it in a showing of solidarity. “Then you’ve done something none of us ever thought possible. You should bring her with you. We need her, Dreilide.”
His head shook stronger than it did before, his hand pulling away from Cleo’s own. His chair moved away from them just an inch or two, arms crossing his chest. “No. What if this is all a mistake? I can’t take her away from the life she has here. My wife,” he paused, thinking about Socrata. “She fought in the cylon war, she wouldn’t ever understand. I couldn’t take my daughter from her mother.” It pained him greatly as he came to a few realizations in that instant. Tears barely coated over his eyes, but he tried to push them away.
“And what if it does happen?” Cleo asked. “This has all happened before, this will all happen again.” Her words were delivered with an ominous kind of foreboding.
He refused to think about what that would mean for his daughter and for his wife, as well as the rest of the people of the Twelve Colonies. He couldn’t consider that the girl who just celebrated her seventh birthday would ever possibly meet her end. “She’ll know where to go.”
The others didn’t ask what he meant by it, or even how he could know such a thing. The conversation was over with, even though the rest had a multitude of questions to ask about his daughter and the circumstances that led to her birth. Eugenia broke up the silence.
“We leave in a month. I made the preparations.” Her final words were specifically directed towards Dreilide. “Say your goodbyes.”
-
Dreilide lay beside Socrata, spent and lungs finally restored back to a normal breathing rate. Next to him, his wife curled into his side, her head resting to his shoulder in the familiar way their bodies fit together. While one arm curled around her, his other stretched across his chest and gently brushed through the strands of hair nearest her face.
“Haven’t done that in awhile,” Socrata said.
His lips pulled into a well controlled smile, eyes set on the ceiling above them both. “It was too long,” he insisted.
Socrata didn’t say a word, but the sound that left the back of her throat agreed with him softly. They laid there like that for untold moments, his hand stroking through her hair, and her content to let him do so. It brought back memories of the first years of their relationship, when they’d spent nearly all their time together like this. Age, work, and a child between them had acted together to push them slightly apart. Moments like these had the effect of reminding both of them why ended up together in the first place.
“Socrata?” Dreilide asked in the veil of darkness of the room. “Are you happy? I mean, have you been happy with me?” The question seemed to be important to him, the answer even more so.
She lifted her head and reached for the light on the nearby end table, her hand switching it on. The bulb illuminated the room just barely enough to lift the haze so she could see him with clearer eyes. Socrata returned to his side, this time to her own pillow, but let her hand reach to his bare chest, stroking over his skin and the hair there. “You know I have been,” she said without a hint of doubt. “What’s going on with you?” Her brows furrowed and forehead creased as she watched him.
Dreilide’s head shook back and forth shallowly on the pillow before he turned to look at her. “Nothing. I was just curious. Sometimes we fight…” He laughed. “We fight a lot and I just wanted to know if it was worth it to you, the things we have in exchange for how much we don’t get along sometimes.”
“We get along,” she insisted, “Maybe too well, and that’s why we fight.” Her hand on his chest stopped as she focused all her energy on him. “I know I’m not easy to be with,” she was remorseful for herself, apologetic without saying so explicitly. “But I can’t imagine you not being here, I don’t know who I’d be if you weren’t.”
Those words both warmed and scared him. She loved him, he had always been sure of it. Their life together had meant something to her, although he knew what he shared with Socrata was far bigger than just the two of them in that room. It scared him because he knew what he would have to do and feared just how broken she would become. She’d been in pieces when they met, just as he had been to some degree, but they’d managed to pull each other together. He couldn’t bear the idea of knowing she could fall so far from who she was now. “If something ever happened to me, you and Kara would be okay, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t,” she said with a shake of her head. “Don’t even make me think about that. Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Socrata insisted and moved her nude form back in closer to him, burying her face into his neck. “You’ll never leave me.” He had become a crutch for her, a crutch of the best kind. Her husband kept her level headed and reminded of the things that were important to her. He had changed her and it was far for the better.
Guilt stabbed at him but he didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. “Marrying you was the best decision I ever made and Kara was the best mistake.”
She smiled at his choice of words, her eyes shut. “Mm, a mistake all right.”
His chest hummed with his quiet laughter. “Sorry, surprise?”
“She’s not here, we can call her whatever we want.” They could tease each other outwardly because they both knew the truth of it all. Kara really had been the best thing to happen to them since they’d married. She regretted those weeks of indecision she had after she learned she was pregnant, hating how close she’d been to giving it all up out of a pang of fear of the unknown. What mattered, she told herself, was that she hadn’t let it slip through her fingers.
“Do you ever think we should have had more?”
Her own laughter echoed then. “With how much she hurt, you’re lucky you got one. Besides, I couldn’t take another nine months of you watching over my every move. I know some partners are concerned for the health of their child, but you were ridiculous.” Her finger prodded his side.
He breathed a sigh, recalling how distraught with worry he’d been, though he knew he had good reason. “Everyone says the second’s easier.”
“I’m not everyone,” she said and kissed his chest as she picked her head up. “I’m getting too old now anyway. Besides, what is it you always say? Kara’s special. Let her be special enough on her own.”
He nodded and looked to her. “I love you.”
Socrata smiled. “I love you too.”
Sometime later, his wife fell asleep on his arm. He laid and watched her most of the night, preserving this sight of her in his memory. If he had to remember her, he didn’t want to recall the fights and arguments, her accusing words and the mistakes they both made. Dreilide wanted to remember her at peace and happy, their life perfect together.
When it was nearly morning, he made careful work to slide his arm out from underneath her and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I love you,” he whispered again. With as much silence as he could pull together, he moved to the closet they shared, opening it and pulling down the military duffel bag that had been in his wife’s possession since the night they first had together. He emptied half his drawers with as much as he could take, lifting the bag and taking it with him from the room. Dreilide shut the door behind him and abandoned his bag in the living room.
His last destination was his daughter’s bedroom and he slipped in quietly, sitting beside Kara on the edge of her bed. His hand stroked over his daughter’s fine white hair until he saw her eyes opening and blinking awake.
“Daddy?” Kara asked.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Mom’s still asleep.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” She questioned him, a yawn leaving her small mouth.
“I have to go somewhere.” Before she could fire off another question, he continued on. “You know I love you, right Kara?” She nodded to him from where she lay and tears filled his eyes. He thought saying goodbye to his wife had been hard enough, but the complete ache he felt at leaving his daughter behind was far worse than he ever imagined it could have been.
“Don’t cry,” she said as she sat up, unsure of how to comfort a parent when they crumbled a little. This was her father, he had always been the one to make her own tears go away and the role reversal confused her. “I love you, Daddy,” Kara said and her small arms hugged at him as best she could.
He pulled her into his lap, his arms wrapped around her and cradling her small body like he’d done since the day she was born. “You know that song we play together?” Kara nodded. “Remember it for your whole life. Someday, you’re going to need it. And those circles you paint for your mom and I, don’t forget them. They’ll keep you safe.”
Kara watched him from below, taking in his words, but unsure of the true meaning behind them. Still sleepy, she merely nodded to him again, feigning her understanding.
“You’re special, Kara. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Who you are, it’s more important than anyone knows. One day, though, I promise one day you’ll understand.” He leaned in and kissed his daughters head, not willing to pull back from her right away. Dreilide breathed in the smell of her laundry soap and shampoo, committing that, too, to his memory. He stood, his daughter still in his arms, and bent over the bed to lay her back down. She went without a fight and he pulled her sheet and blanket up to cover her.
“Tell your mother I love her, all right? You know it’s hard for her when I’m not here.” He kissed her forehead again and made move to leave.
“Is Mama taking me to school in the morning?”
He nodded, although the thought that he would never drop her off there again only returned the pain to him. “She is. I love you, Kara. Don’t forget what I said. Now go to sleep.” With that, he left her behind in her bed and his life behind in that apartment. Dreilide left them that night and the next day, he left Caprica.