Fic: Everyone Knows
So ... I haven't written much of anything, particularly fanfic, in a loooooong time, and I'd kind of like to try again. This one hit me on the head a few weeks ago, and I figured I'd see if I could make anything of it. I don't know that it's come out all that well, and I'm sure it's cliched to hell and back and similar things have been seen all over previously, but, you know, it's a first attempt, eh?
Please, if you read it, critique it and pull it to pieces. Tell me what works and what really doesn't. Tell me if you think I've got Laura completely out of character. I don't get offended by things like that, honestly! And I'd much rather know when things don't work so that I can figure out a better way for next time.
Title: Everyone Knows
Rating: G
Words: approx 1650
Spoilers: It's set somewhere late S3, after The Eye of Jupiter and probably before Maelstrom, but there's no exact dating for it.
Disclaimer: Wish very much she was my character. She's not. She's RDM's.
Everyone knows about President Roslin's whiteboard.
It's hard to miss, sitting there above her left shoulder as she works, transmitting its precious figure at all who walk through the door. That figure that changes weekly, daily, sometimes hourly or minute by minute; mostly down, far too rarely up. President Roslin is only interested in numbers, they say. She loves them. It sits there so she knows how many people she rules over, how many people she has in her little fiefdom, how many people she controls.
President Roslin can only afford to be interested in numbers. President Roslin can't afford to get sentimental, to get personal, because sentimentality, personal feelings cause that number to go down and down and down. President Roslin keeps that whiteboard there as a reminder of where she stands; a mama bear, a mother goddess, a sentinel, between that number and the dark, black nothingness, silently screaming her defiance into it, daring it to scream back.
Far fewer people know about the box in President Roslin's desk. Even President Roslin herself doesn't look at it. Billy knew about it; was the one to procure it, four weeks, three days after the attacks; was under strict instructions regarding it when it looked like President Roslin was dying. Tory knows about it; walked into the office one evening, later than usual, with an urgent report to sign while the ritual was taking place; kept it safe as she could on New Caprica while President Roslin was in cylon detention. Lee would have known about it, once, if he'd stuck around; might know about it again one day. Gaius Baltar would never have had the chance to touch it. Bill knows nothing of it. It's not his to share.
It's a little thing, really. Ten or so inches across, carved from some dark wood, polished and buffed and with a gold inlay pattern on the lid. It was probably someone's jewellery box once, she muses occasionally, running her fingers lightly over the intricacies of the gold, wondering if the person it belonged to is still alive.
Such a little thing to hold what it holds.
Guilt.
Rememberence.
Life and death and President Roslin's soul.
It's become a ritual now, in an evening, in the precious few hours when President Roslin has been tucked away and Laura can sit at the desk with a steaming mug of tea. Her shoes are usually off by this point, sometimes she's in a robe, her hair up, her neck aching as she slowly massages it with her fingertips. Whatever the circumstances, she's alone when the desk drawer is opened, and the box is placed in the centre of her desk. The other sacred tools of this sacrosanct ceremony are gathered; a pad, the pens, her small supply of paperclips that is dwindling to an alarming degree. It's not likely she'll get more of those. Who in their right mind would spend time making paperclips now, of all things? The tools are not always used, but they're part of the rite now. It'd be sacriligious not to have them there, just in case.
Laura's a teacher. She's organised. Disciplined. Black is for ships. Red is for civilians. Green for military. Name, rank and ship where known. Descriptions if that's all she has. Details when she knows them. Sometimes just a word. A few times, only a number. Paperclips for pairings, families, so they won't be apart, won't be lost.
Black. The first. The one Lee knew about. 'Olympic Carrier' it says, in Laura's beautiful, looping handwriting. The oldest, it's starting to fade a little. She thinks, sometimes, she should rewrite it, but there's something important about this piece of paper. So she keeps it.
Every day, she does this.
A paperclip here. 'Tucker “Duck” Clellan' is clipped to 'Nora Farmer'. Underneath each is marked 'Viper pilot', 'wanted a baby', 'New Caprica'. The brass of the paperclip has indented the paper, and Duck's name is creased in the centre, where the slip has been folded back on itself to read the name beneath it. These two pieces of paper haven't been apart for a long time, and it shows.
Sips her tea, opens the box, takes out a slip of paper.
Laura's writing is shaky, less elegant than usual. The ink is etched so deeply into the paper that it's almost torn. No description. None needed for this name. 'Billy Keikeya' won't be forgotten. She doesn't need to note down that his family had moved to Picon, that his dog was named Jake, that he died on Cloud Nine, that he loved her.
Reads the name. Closes her eyes. Summons up a face.
'Maya Antioch', written in clear red ink. 'Teacher', 'mother', 'friend'. There's a dent in the name. Once, there was a paperclip here, but it's gone. This is a place for truth. There never was a slip of paper marked 'Isis Antioch'. Hera Agathon's name was removed, destroyed, burned, and Laura did it with a smile. The only name she's been able to remove from the box, and one that matters. Personal. Sentimental. Relief and love.
More often than not, there's no face, or too many faces, and she can't figure out the right one. Sometimes there's a ship. Sometimes a flash of hair, or the color of a jacket.
A surprising name, for anyone who knows President Roslin. 'Leoben Conoy'. But Laura remembers. The name is blue, for Cylon. One of the very few blue names. She remembers. She doesn't grieve. There's no guilt here. But President Roslin killed this name, in so much as this name could be killed. And this name must be remembered by Laura, because this name is important. 'Leoben Conoy'. That's all.
She hates it when the slip of paper in her fingers summons up nothing. That's why the description matters. That was Billy's job, Tory's job, to find out what they could. To make the paper mean something.
This one should have been first, but it wasn't. A subsequent addition, and an incomplete one that hurts. 'Cami'. Vividly etched across her memory. 'Bare legs', 'going to Caprica City', 'had a rag doll', 'Liked chicken pie'. Painful because for a moment she'd considered bringing her to Colonial One, and had decided against it, because of her grandparents. Painful because she was the future that never happened. Painful because she was the first.
It started as she told Lee. To remember mistakes. It became more than that. To make everyone count. To make every decision matter. To not let any one of her children go without her love. To keep Laura honest, even if President Roslin can't be.
The kind of slips she truly hates. '1685 unknown souls from New Caprica'. 'Cloud Nine - 2369 souls aboard'. The names who could be tracked down have their own slips of paper, but those who weren't are commemorated only here. No one remembers them now, except as a number, and Laura hates numbers. Worse still, the slips marked ' Caprica', 'Tauron', 'Gemenon' and the rest. It seems wrong not to remember. Not to add those fifty billion unknown names to her list. She once heard someone describe her as 'the mother of what's left of humanity'; one of those who viewed her as a religious figure, she assumes. That was the day she added those names. If she's the mother of humanity, that includes all of them, every one.
She wonders, sometimes, what people would think if they knew about this. Plenty would say it was a cynical political publicity stunt, most likely. Maybe people would laugh, or be offended. Bill claims not to navelgaze, and just to move on, but she's not entirely sure she believes him. Still, she's not going to tell him about it. She prefers to let as few people into her head as she can.
Sometimes she plucks out a name from before the fall. There aren't many of those, just the ones Laura cannot bear to let go of. 'Edward Roslin'. 'Judith Roslin'. 'Sandra Roslin-White'. 'Cheryl Roslin'. 'Baby Roslin-White'. She doesn't really know why she added them, their names and faces lodged deeper in her heart than anyone else's with no danger of being forgotten, except that their lives, their deaths, put her here, in this place, in this time, in this role. They made her who she is, they taught her to split herself, they brought President Roslin into being as much as they did Laura. And she loves them. And she wants to read their names and conjure up their faces. And she loves them.
It takes longer and longer to make her way through the box every day. Less and less time to sleep. Sometimes the names start to blur into each other, and she has to get up, make more tea, walk around for a few moments until her eyes are clearer. Sometimes she doesn't make it through the whole box before she can't keep her eyes open anymore, and she's forced to stop. It has to be done, though. She has to try. She went six days without the opportunity once, back when she was dying and Cottle had her hooked up to a dozen machines in sickbay, and she'd felt herself slipping, her anchorage breaking. It's got to be done.
Name after name after name. 'Ellen Tigh'. 'Blonde stallholder who sold fruit in the New Caprica marketplace'. 'Two souls aboard the 'Adriatic''. 'James “Jammer” Lyman'. 'stillborn boy born to Maria Kellis'. 'Admiral Helena Cain'. 'Louanne”Kat”KatraineBarryGarnersixsoulsaboardthe'Carina'JackFiskAlex”Crashdown”QuartararoAdamMeierwomaningreenjacketfromthreetentsdownDwight”FlatTop”SaundersSeshaAbinellEloshaMarioSocinusRichardAdarandmoreandmoreandmoreandmore...'
And when she's done, then she can sleep. The box goes back into the desk, at the back of the drawer, under a small stack of empty folders, hidden away from President Roslin and most of the rest of the human race.
Everyone in the fleet could end up in this box at some point, she knows. No one is safe, no matter how much she fights and endures and shreds her essence and divides her personality and compartmentalises everything so that she can take it, body blow after body blow. Everyone could end up here. Except one name. Billy knew to see to that. Tory knows. One name will never be in here, no matter what. One name doesn't matter.
Everyone knows about President Roslin's whiteboard.
Please, if you read it, critique it and pull it to pieces. Tell me what works and what really doesn't. Tell me if you think I've got Laura completely out of character. I don't get offended by things like that, honestly! And I'd much rather know when things don't work so that I can figure out a better way for next time.
Title: Everyone Knows
Rating: G
Words: approx 1650
Spoilers: It's set somewhere late S3, after The Eye of Jupiter and probably before Maelstrom, but there's no exact dating for it.
Disclaimer: Wish very much she was my character. She's not. She's RDM's.
Everyone knows about President Roslin's whiteboard.
It's hard to miss, sitting there above her left shoulder as she works, transmitting its precious figure at all who walk through the door. That figure that changes weekly, daily, sometimes hourly or minute by minute; mostly down, far too rarely up. President Roslin is only interested in numbers, they say. She loves them. It sits there so she knows how many people she rules over, how many people she has in her little fiefdom, how many people she controls.
President Roslin can only afford to be interested in numbers. President Roslin can't afford to get sentimental, to get personal, because sentimentality, personal feelings cause that number to go down and down and down. President Roslin keeps that whiteboard there as a reminder of where she stands; a mama bear, a mother goddess, a sentinel, between that number and the dark, black nothingness, silently screaming her defiance into it, daring it to scream back.
Far fewer people know about the box in President Roslin's desk. Even President Roslin herself doesn't look at it. Billy knew about it; was the one to procure it, four weeks, three days after the attacks; was under strict instructions regarding it when it looked like President Roslin was dying. Tory knows about it; walked into the office one evening, later than usual, with an urgent report to sign while the ritual was taking place; kept it safe as she could on New Caprica while President Roslin was in cylon detention. Lee would have known about it, once, if he'd stuck around; might know about it again one day. Gaius Baltar would never have had the chance to touch it. Bill knows nothing of it. It's not his to share.
It's a little thing, really. Ten or so inches across, carved from some dark wood, polished and buffed and with a gold inlay pattern on the lid. It was probably someone's jewellery box once, she muses occasionally, running her fingers lightly over the intricacies of the gold, wondering if the person it belonged to is still alive.
Such a little thing to hold what it holds.
Guilt.
Rememberence.
Life and death and President Roslin's soul.
It's become a ritual now, in an evening, in the precious few hours when President Roslin has been tucked away and Laura can sit at the desk with a steaming mug of tea. Her shoes are usually off by this point, sometimes she's in a robe, her hair up, her neck aching as she slowly massages it with her fingertips. Whatever the circumstances, she's alone when the desk drawer is opened, and the box is placed in the centre of her desk. The other sacred tools of this sacrosanct ceremony are gathered; a pad, the pens, her small supply of paperclips that is dwindling to an alarming degree. It's not likely she'll get more of those. Who in their right mind would spend time making paperclips now, of all things? The tools are not always used, but they're part of the rite now. It'd be sacriligious not to have them there, just in case.
Laura's a teacher. She's organised. Disciplined. Black is for ships. Red is for civilians. Green for military. Name, rank and ship where known. Descriptions if that's all she has. Details when she knows them. Sometimes just a word. A few times, only a number. Paperclips for pairings, families, so they won't be apart, won't be lost.
Black. The first. The one Lee knew about. 'Olympic Carrier' it says, in Laura's beautiful, looping handwriting. The oldest, it's starting to fade a little. She thinks, sometimes, she should rewrite it, but there's something important about this piece of paper. So she keeps it.
Every day, she does this.
A paperclip here. 'Tucker “Duck” Clellan' is clipped to 'Nora Farmer'. Underneath each is marked 'Viper pilot', 'wanted a baby', 'New Caprica'. The brass of the paperclip has indented the paper, and Duck's name is creased in the centre, where the slip has been folded back on itself to read the name beneath it. These two pieces of paper haven't been apart for a long time, and it shows.
Sips her tea, opens the box, takes out a slip of paper.
Laura's writing is shaky, less elegant than usual. The ink is etched so deeply into the paper that it's almost torn. No description. None needed for this name. 'Billy Keikeya' won't be forgotten. She doesn't need to note down that his family had moved to Picon, that his dog was named Jake, that he died on Cloud Nine, that he loved her.
Reads the name. Closes her eyes. Summons up a face.
'Maya Antioch', written in clear red ink. 'Teacher', 'mother', 'friend'. There's a dent in the name. Once, there was a paperclip here, but it's gone. This is a place for truth. There never was a slip of paper marked 'Isis Antioch'. Hera Agathon's name was removed, destroyed, burned, and Laura did it with a smile. The only name she's been able to remove from the box, and one that matters. Personal. Sentimental. Relief and love.
More often than not, there's no face, or too many faces, and she can't figure out the right one. Sometimes there's a ship. Sometimes a flash of hair, or the color of a jacket.
A surprising name, for anyone who knows President Roslin. 'Leoben Conoy'. But Laura remembers. The name is blue, for Cylon. One of the very few blue names. She remembers. She doesn't grieve. There's no guilt here. But President Roslin killed this name, in so much as this name could be killed. And this name must be remembered by Laura, because this name is important. 'Leoben Conoy'. That's all.
She hates it when the slip of paper in her fingers summons up nothing. That's why the description matters. That was Billy's job, Tory's job, to find out what they could. To make the paper mean something.
This one should have been first, but it wasn't. A subsequent addition, and an incomplete one that hurts. 'Cami'. Vividly etched across her memory. 'Bare legs', 'going to Caprica City', 'had a rag doll', 'Liked chicken pie'. Painful because for a moment she'd considered bringing her to Colonial One, and had decided against it, because of her grandparents. Painful because she was the future that never happened. Painful because she was the first.
It started as she told Lee. To remember mistakes. It became more than that. To make everyone count. To make every decision matter. To not let any one of her children go without her love. To keep Laura honest, even if President Roslin can't be.
The kind of slips she truly hates. '1685 unknown souls from New Caprica'. 'Cloud Nine - 2369 souls aboard'. The names who could be tracked down have their own slips of paper, but those who weren't are commemorated only here. No one remembers them now, except as a number, and Laura hates numbers. Worse still, the slips marked ' Caprica', 'Tauron', 'Gemenon' and the rest. It seems wrong not to remember. Not to add those fifty billion unknown names to her list. She once heard someone describe her as 'the mother of what's left of humanity'; one of those who viewed her as a religious figure, she assumes. That was the day she added those names. If she's the mother of humanity, that includes all of them, every one.
She wonders, sometimes, what people would think if they knew about this. Plenty would say it was a cynical political publicity stunt, most likely. Maybe people would laugh, or be offended. Bill claims not to navelgaze, and just to move on, but she's not entirely sure she believes him. Still, she's not going to tell him about it. She prefers to let as few people into her head as she can.
Sometimes she plucks out a name from before the fall. There aren't many of those, just the ones Laura cannot bear to let go of. 'Edward Roslin'. 'Judith Roslin'. 'Sandra Roslin-White'. 'Cheryl Roslin'. 'Baby Roslin-White'. She doesn't really know why she added them, their names and faces lodged deeper in her heart than anyone else's with no danger of being forgotten, except that their lives, their deaths, put her here, in this place, in this time, in this role. They made her who she is, they taught her to split herself, they brought President Roslin into being as much as they did Laura. And she loves them. And she wants to read their names and conjure up their faces. And she loves them.
It takes longer and longer to make her way through the box every day. Less and less time to sleep. Sometimes the names start to blur into each other, and she has to get up, make more tea, walk around for a few moments until her eyes are clearer. Sometimes she doesn't make it through the whole box before she can't keep her eyes open anymore, and she's forced to stop. It has to be done, though. She has to try. She went six days without the opportunity once, back when she was dying and Cottle had her hooked up to a dozen machines in sickbay, and she'd felt herself slipping, her anchorage breaking. It's got to be done.
Name after name after name. 'Ellen Tigh'. 'Blonde stallholder who sold fruit in the New Caprica marketplace'. 'Two souls aboard the 'Adriatic''. 'James “Jammer” Lyman'. 'stillborn boy born to Maria Kellis'. 'Admiral Helena Cain'. 'Louanne”Kat”KatraineBarryGarnersixsoulsaboardthe'Carina'JackFiskAlex”Crashdown”QuartararoAdamMeierwomaningreenjacketfromthreetentsdownDwight”FlatTop”SaundersSeshaAbinellEloshaMarioSocinusRichardAdarandmoreandmoreandmoreandmore...'
And when she's done, then she can sleep. The box goes back into the desk, at the back of the drawer, under a small stack of empty folders, hidden away from President Roslin and most of the rest of the human race.
Everyone in the fleet could end up in this box at some point, she knows. No one is safe, no matter how much she fights and endures and shreds her essence and divides her personality and compartmentalises everything so that she can take it, body blow after body blow. Everyone could end up here. Except one name. Billy knew to see to that. Tory knows. One name will never be in here, no matter what. One name doesn't matter.
Everyone knows about President Roslin's whiteboard.