Caprican Liberation (the hope springs eternal remix), for fragrantwoods
Title: Caprican Liberation (the hope springs eternal remix)
Characters: Laura Roslin, Bill Adama
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: T
Summary: “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Original Story: Caprican Occupation by fragrantwoods
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta-readers. All mistakes are the author’s.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Their days are long. It takes too much effort to untangle their limbs in the morning and leave the gray cocoon that passes for home.
Better the sudden loss of warmth and dull throb of fear in the pit of her stomach than what she had known before he showed up. Cold nights, an ache to connect with another person. The constant rains pass easier with him curled behind her.
There’s so much to be done. She’d give almost anything to be able to say frak it all and stop showing up at her bullshit remediation jobs, never leave their subversive lair at all. But then they’d have no food, no anti-rads, and she wouldn’t be any good to him-or anyone.
She stretches and slowly pushes herself up and away from him, grabbing her glasses off the floor first so that his sleeping form comes into focus.
Frak. They’d fallen asleep with Dark Day carelessly flopped open, spine up, in the bed next to Bill. Such a thing once would have merely offended her bibliophile sensibilities. Now, it’s open treason.
The Cylons banned the Sacred Scrolls first. Any trappings of polytheism or the Lords of Kobol that had survived the initial attacks were scrubbed from existence, collected in exchange for food rations and burned in theatrical conflagrations. Humanity was apathetic, for the most part. Where were those gods while the Cylons rained destruction upon the Colonies?
Laura had gone to the blazes, dutifully handing over the Athena figurine and small prayer scroll that she’d collected from her old apartment before the Cylons had cracked down on the survivors’ movements. But non-religious texts had been next in the Cylons’ list of things to eliminate from the former order. She had gone hungry during that time rather than betray her dearest friends. The Cylons had no use for written words, apparently; Laura had heard of a mysterious trench that the Cylons would put their hands into when they wanted to communicate en masse, though she’d never seen it herself.
Bill shifts onto his side, his graying hair falling over his eyes. Laura resists the urge to crawl back into his arms and instead leans over and nuzzles his cheek softly. “Time to get up.”
He mumbles incoherently as she gently removes the book from the bed and caresses the spine in apology before tucking it away beneath the loose floorboard. The secret space is shared by all their treasures: a photograph of Bill with his boys, two other contraband tomes. The souvenir pin of the Colonial seal, surrounded by the words “Galactica - BSG 75,” had been among the detritus at the bottom of Laura’s purse after the attacks and now serves as a totem of their alternate reality, one in which they’d escaped on Bill’s ship and continued the fight against the Cylons. And consistent with that dream: a sidearm and a small box of ammunition.
By the time she’s replaced the board and rearranged the small square of carpet over it, Bill is out of bed and pulling on a pair of gray coveralls. “Back to the mine?” she asks.
“Yeah.” His feeling on the matter is expressed in the sigh that follows. Caprica’s tylium reserves were thought to have been exhausted two generations ago, but the Cylons in their infinite wisdom have reopened the mines. It’s where they send men like Bill: ex-military, too ill to be co-opted, still hale enough to pose a threat.
It’s backbreaking work, she knows from being the one to work out the knots that form in his shoulders and lower back. But it also serves a useful purpose: a place full of enough remote spaces amid ear-splitting explosions that men can nearly speak freely. More so than here, anyway.
“Same gang as usual today?”
“Far as I know.” He finishes buttoning his coverall and turns to pull the rough sheets and military-issue blanket up over their bed. When he does this, she likes to imagine they’re back in her old light-filled apartment, and he’s making her bed with the nine-hundred-thread-count sheets and sumptuous silk duvet.
She goes back even further: making love without a mandate to procreate, but finding themselves happily expectant nonetheless. Their babies could be keeping each other company in the space beneath the floorboard instead of just Bill’s. She shudders and says a silent prayer of thanks to nearly-forgotten gods for at least sparing her a loss that never was.
Even their right to innocuous daydreams has been compromised. She shakes her head, knocking the wistful images loose and back into the radiological ether where they belong.
Her hacking cough catches his attention, and he’s at her side in short order, patting her back in concern. “Easy, shhh. Try to relax.”
She glares at him between gasping breaths. “I’m fine,” she finally sputters. “And we’re both going to be late for work.”
Their kiss goodbye is as fear-filled as ever. They both know the risks: in this place and time, each farewell might be the last one.
"See you soon," he says.
"Have a good day," she replies, wondering why he's putting his meager belongings into a tired duffel bag.
It’s just as well not to ask. There are eyes and ears everywhere.
* * *
The sky is overcast in eerie yellow-gray. Caprica is sickly, like what’s left of her people, overcome with the oppression of heavy clouds and irradiated soil.
She looks down as she walks. It's easier to avoid their attention this way--the skinjobs, if not the centurions, at least. The skinjobs have learned that it’s frequently counterproductive to engage humans out here. The centurions don't care.
The grip on her shoulders is sudden, thin fingers digging into her skin beneath her cloak. "Get in the van," an urgent voice commands, soft but insistent.
Don’t scream don’t scream it won’t help
Oh gods not again I can’t
Bill will never know what happened. . .
Laura's stomach drops but her momentum carries her off the sidewalk and into the waiting vehicle. Her breath leaves her chest and the air is suddenly thin and noxious. The sliding door slams shut, and Laura gasps at her first sight of her abductor.
Boomer. One of these had been named Boomer. They are all Eight.
Bill had known her, once. Had loved her like a daughter.
He’s told her all about his crew, how he knows they would have stepped up and continued the fight if they’d had the chance. Maybe not this one, though. He’s struggled with that, too. How could someone he’d cared for, given so many second chances to, have turned out to be the enemy?
Other copies of this one have screamed at Laura at work, passed out rations at the end of her shift, checked under her cloak for contraband when she left the compound. Still more appeared on the vid, urging everyone to accept God's truth, report to work on time, expect another electricity outage.
This model frequently shows up with a Cavil, horrid little man. Laura discreetly tries to look over her shoulder to see who’s driving. Her worst fears are realized when she sees a flash of chrome instead of Cavil’s sneering visage.
“Stay calm,” the Cylon says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Laura purses her lips and waits, wondering if Bill is finding himself in a similar situation.
What have we done
What do they want
How long do I have?
Silence stretches out between them as Caprica City’s glass-and-steel skyscrapers with their blown-out windows recede into the horizon.
“Get on the floor,” it eventually says. “We have to get through this checkpoint.”
Laura lowers herself to the floorboard and holds her breath, straining not to cough.
* * *
The Cylon is not talkative; in fact she’s barely present, her eyes glassed over like she’s seeing something else, somewhere else. Laura sneaks a glance at her once in a while. Its cheek is bruised, its knuckles slightly bloody.
Laura still doesn’t know why she’s been picked up by the time the van turns down an unpaved road. Dusk has long since settled over the stone-studded landscape, from what she can tell through the dark-tinted window.
They bounce along for what feels like hours until the van slams to a halt. “You have to get out here and walk the rest of the way,” the Cylon says.
“Where am I supposed to go?” Laura asks. Her fear had subsided a bit, once they’d gotten through the third and final checkpoint; she’d never been beyond the perimeter of the occupied section of the planet since the Fall. If the Cylons were going to be Salvaging her, they would have taken her somewhere public like the Atlas Arena.
“Home.” The Cylon opens the door and looks expectantly at Laura.
Home. “Why?”
Boomer sighs. “Tell the Old Man I owed him one.”
* * *
Hope grows in Laura’s chest, consuming the infection she’s been battling for months, with each step up the rocky slope.
They’d heard of survivors getting out before, but barely dared to imagine as much for themselves.
What if today is all we have? They’ve been living that way for months.
She sees the reflection of Gemenon’s planetshine, blue like it used to be, reflecting off the water first before she realizes what it is. It’s been so long since she was out in the open this late after curfew, longer still since she even daydreamed of something as banal as a lakeside stroll.
But this stroll has a destination, she slowly comes to realize. A small shack, barely visible along the water’s edge. Her pace quickens to a careful quick-stepping through the brush.
She’s breathless by the time she finds her way to the primitive wooden door.
A succession of raps against the door, short-long-long; ba-dum-bum; that’s what they always use for meetings. She bites her lip and waits.
The door swings open, slowly at first, then flies behind them as he wraps his arms around her.
“I had to believe you were going to make it,” he says, his voice rough against her ear. “Gods, Laura, we’re here.”
“Yes,” she says. Her hands reach behind his neck, clasping him close. She kisses him soundly before looking over his shoulder around the single-room cabin. They’ve talked about it, she’s seen it in her dreams, but she still doesn’t know: “Just...where is here, exactly?”
In the dim candlelight she can see a cot with two pillows atop a pink-and-gray plaid blanket. A small round table and two chairs, their three books stacked in a neat pile as a centerpiece. Out from beneath the floorboards and into the open, where they were meant to be.
“Well, that’s the Theoresos out front,” he says, gently turning her in his arms and leading her back to the threshold.
“North of Caprica City...the Martok Valley,” she muses. “The Cylons didn’t nuke the tributaries up this way.”
“Too remote,” he agrees. “Not worth nuking.”
“The others?”
“Getting out eventually. We’ve got a few neighbors over the ridge there.”
“So we’re gonna make a go of it?” She still remembers how to smile, its brightness amplified by the reflection of Gemenon’s glow across the water if Bill’s grin back at her is any indication.
“Don’t have much of a green thumb,” he says, squeezing her hand before dropping it briefly, only to return to place his ring--out from the floorboards, now into in the open--on her finger. “But I hope you do.”
Characters: Laura Roslin, Bill Adama
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: T
Summary: “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Original Story: Caprican Occupation by fragrantwoods
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta-readers. All mistakes are the author’s.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Their days are long. It takes too much effort to untangle their limbs in the morning and leave the gray cocoon that passes for home.
Better the sudden loss of warmth and dull throb of fear in the pit of her stomach than what she had known before he showed up. Cold nights, an ache to connect with another person. The constant rains pass easier with him curled behind her.
There’s so much to be done. She’d give almost anything to be able to say frak it all and stop showing up at her bullshit remediation jobs, never leave their subversive lair at all. But then they’d have no food, no anti-rads, and she wouldn’t be any good to him-or anyone.
She stretches and slowly pushes herself up and away from him, grabbing her glasses off the floor first so that his sleeping form comes into focus.
Frak. They’d fallen asleep with Dark Day carelessly flopped open, spine up, in the bed next to Bill. Such a thing once would have merely offended her bibliophile sensibilities. Now, it’s open treason.
The Cylons banned the Sacred Scrolls first. Any trappings of polytheism or the Lords of Kobol that had survived the initial attacks were scrubbed from existence, collected in exchange for food rations and burned in theatrical conflagrations. Humanity was apathetic, for the most part. Where were those gods while the Cylons rained destruction upon the Colonies?
Laura had gone to the blazes, dutifully handing over the Athena figurine and small prayer scroll that she’d collected from her old apartment before the Cylons had cracked down on the survivors’ movements. But non-religious texts had been next in the Cylons’ list of things to eliminate from the former order. She had gone hungry during that time rather than betray her dearest friends. The Cylons had no use for written words, apparently; Laura had heard of a mysterious trench that the Cylons would put their hands into when they wanted to communicate en masse, though she’d never seen it herself.
Bill shifts onto his side, his graying hair falling over his eyes. Laura resists the urge to crawl back into his arms and instead leans over and nuzzles his cheek softly. “Time to get up.”
He mumbles incoherently as she gently removes the book from the bed and caresses the spine in apology before tucking it away beneath the loose floorboard. The secret space is shared by all their treasures: a photograph of Bill with his boys, two other contraband tomes. The souvenir pin of the Colonial seal, surrounded by the words “Galactica - BSG 75,” had been among the detritus at the bottom of Laura’s purse after the attacks and now serves as a totem of their alternate reality, one in which they’d escaped on Bill’s ship and continued the fight against the Cylons. And consistent with that dream: a sidearm and a small box of ammunition.
By the time she’s replaced the board and rearranged the small square of carpet over it, Bill is out of bed and pulling on a pair of gray coveralls. “Back to the mine?” she asks.
“Yeah.” His feeling on the matter is expressed in the sigh that follows. Caprica’s tylium reserves were thought to have been exhausted two generations ago, but the Cylons in their infinite wisdom have reopened the mines. It’s where they send men like Bill: ex-military, too ill to be co-opted, still hale enough to pose a threat.
It’s backbreaking work, she knows from being the one to work out the knots that form in his shoulders and lower back. But it also serves a useful purpose: a place full of enough remote spaces amid ear-splitting explosions that men can nearly speak freely. More so than here, anyway.
“Same gang as usual today?”
“Far as I know.” He finishes buttoning his coverall and turns to pull the rough sheets and military-issue blanket up over their bed. When he does this, she likes to imagine they’re back in her old light-filled apartment, and he’s making her bed with the nine-hundred-thread-count sheets and sumptuous silk duvet.
She goes back even further: making love without a mandate to procreate, but finding themselves happily expectant nonetheless. Their babies could be keeping each other company in the space beneath the floorboard instead of just Bill’s. She shudders and says a silent prayer of thanks to nearly-forgotten gods for at least sparing her a loss that never was.
Even their right to innocuous daydreams has been compromised. She shakes her head, knocking the wistful images loose and back into the radiological ether where they belong.
Her hacking cough catches his attention, and he’s at her side in short order, patting her back in concern. “Easy, shhh. Try to relax.”
She glares at him between gasping breaths. “I’m fine,” she finally sputters. “And we’re both going to be late for work.”
Their kiss goodbye is as fear-filled as ever. They both know the risks: in this place and time, each farewell might be the last one.
"See you soon," he says.
"Have a good day," she replies, wondering why he's putting his meager belongings into a tired duffel bag.
It’s just as well not to ask. There are eyes and ears everywhere.
* * *
The sky is overcast in eerie yellow-gray. Caprica is sickly, like what’s left of her people, overcome with the oppression of heavy clouds and irradiated soil.
She looks down as she walks. It's easier to avoid their attention this way--the skinjobs, if not the centurions, at least. The skinjobs have learned that it’s frequently counterproductive to engage humans out here. The centurions don't care.
The grip on her shoulders is sudden, thin fingers digging into her skin beneath her cloak. "Get in the van," an urgent voice commands, soft but insistent.
Don’t scream don’t scream it won’t help
Oh gods not again I can’t
Bill will never know what happened. . .
Laura's stomach drops but her momentum carries her off the sidewalk and into the waiting vehicle. Her breath leaves her chest and the air is suddenly thin and noxious. The sliding door slams shut, and Laura gasps at her first sight of her abductor.
Boomer. One of these had been named Boomer. They are all Eight.
Bill had known her, once. Had loved her like a daughter.
He’s told her all about his crew, how he knows they would have stepped up and continued the fight if they’d had the chance. Maybe not this one, though. He’s struggled with that, too. How could someone he’d cared for, given so many second chances to, have turned out to be the enemy?
Other copies of this one have screamed at Laura at work, passed out rations at the end of her shift, checked under her cloak for contraband when she left the compound. Still more appeared on the vid, urging everyone to accept God's truth, report to work on time, expect another electricity outage.
This model frequently shows up with a Cavil, horrid little man. Laura discreetly tries to look over her shoulder to see who’s driving. Her worst fears are realized when she sees a flash of chrome instead of Cavil’s sneering visage.
“Stay calm,” the Cylon says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Laura purses her lips and waits, wondering if Bill is finding himself in a similar situation.
What have we done
What do they want
How long do I have?
Silence stretches out between them as Caprica City’s glass-and-steel skyscrapers with their blown-out windows recede into the horizon.
“Get on the floor,” it eventually says. “We have to get through this checkpoint.”
Laura lowers herself to the floorboard and holds her breath, straining not to cough.
* * *
The Cylon is not talkative; in fact she’s barely present, her eyes glassed over like she’s seeing something else, somewhere else. Laura sneaks a glance at her once in a while. Its cheek is bruised, its knuckles slightly bloody.
Laura still doesn’t know why she’s been picked up by the time the van turns down an unpaved road. Dusk has long since settled over the stone-studded landscape, from what she can tell through the dark-tinted window.
They bounce along for what feels like hours until the van slams to a halt. “You have to get out here and walk the rest of the way,” the Cylon says.
“Where am I supposed to go?” Laura asks. Her fear had subsided a bit, once they’d gotten through the third and final checkpoint; she’d never been beyond the perimeter of the occupied section of the planet since the Fall. If the Cylons were going to be Salvaging her, they would have taken her somewhere public like the Atlas Arena.
“Home.” The Cylon opens the door and looks expectantly at Laura.
Home. “Why?”
Boomer sighs. “Tell the Old Man I owed him one.”
* * *
Hope grows in Laura’s chest, consuming the infection she’s been battling for months, with each step up the rocky slope.
They’d heard of survivors getting out before, but barely dared to imagine as much for themselves.
What if today is all we have? They’ve been living that way for months.
She sees the reflection of Gemenon’s planetshine, blue like it used to be, reflecting off the water first before she realizes what it is. It’s been so long since she was out in the open this late after curfew, longer still since she even daydreamed of something as banal as a lakeside stroll.
But this stroll has a destination, she slowly comes to realize. A small shack, barely visible along the water’s edge. Her pace quickens to a careful quick-stepping through the brush.
She’s breathless by the time she finds her way to the primitive wooden door.
A succession of raps against the door, short-long-long; ba-dum-bum; that’s what they always use for meetings. She bites her lip and waits.
The door swings open, slowly at first, then flies behind them as he wraps his arms around her.
“I had to believe you were going to make it,” he says, his voice rough against her ear. “Gods, Laura, we’re here.”
“Yes,” she says. Her hands reach behind his neck, clasping him close. She kisses him soundly before looking over his shoulder around the single-room cabin. They’ve talked about it, she’s seen it in her dreams, but she still doesn’t know: “Just...where is here, exactly?”
In the dim candlelight she can see a cot with two pillows atop a pink-and-gray plaid blanket. A small round table and two chairs, their three books stacked in a neat pile as a centerpiece. Out from beneath the floorboards and into the open, where they were meant to be.
“Well, that’s the Theoresos out front,” he says, gently turning her in his arms and leading her back to the threshold.
“North of Caprica City...the Martok Valley,” she muses. “The Cylons didn’t nuke the tributaries up this way.”
“Too remote,” he agrees. “Not worth nuking.”
“The others?”
“Getting out eventually. We’ve got a few neighbors over the ridge there.”
“So we’re gonna make a go of it?” She still remembers how to smile, its brightness amplified by the reflection of Gemenon’s glow across the water if Bill’s grin back at her is any indication.
“Don’t have much of a green thumb,” he says, squeezing her hand before dropping it briefly, only to return to place his ring--out from the floorboards, now into in the open--on her finger. “But I hope you do.”