[Fic] Phantasm 1/4
Title: Phantasm [PG-13]
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Spoilers: From 3x19 Crossroads Part 1 forward.
Characters: Bill Adama, Laura Roslin, Kara Thrace, Saul Tigh
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Warnings: Mild Language, Character Death
Category: Angst, Romance
Summary: If she is insanity, then he welcomes it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing from the world of Galactica, nor do I profit from this.
Author’s Note: Went with the A Day In The Life kind of thing, because it’s an interesting view on how Bill grieves. I didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand, but I’m not really complaining. I was loathe to break it up, but it was necessary. Also, a note, the quotes from Colonial books and such, are all me.
Phantasm
Part 1
I couldn’t possibly be insane, if only because I was standing in the bowels of Caprica City’s most notorious mental institution and readily admitting to being just that. As the shadowy Doctor Grey had mentioned, the crazy rarely realize they are such.
- excerpt from Jayson P. Grant’s Adonis Hills Hotel
He wakes wrapped around her; legs tangled together, his hand somehow having found her breast all on its own, her hair, her hair, in all its gloriousness, tickling his nose. As he crawls from the fog of sleep, his senses are all but overwhelmed by her presence.
She shifts in his arms, rolling onto her back and looking at him askance with bleary eyes. A soft smile, a sigh, and then she hums, “Good morning,” and rolls into him, burying her face in his chest. Deep breaths flood him with her scent and his arms tighten around her, molding their bodies together.
The banging on the hatch makes him groan and she giggles in response, pushing herself away from him, snuggling deeper into the blankets as he gets up, throwing his legs over the edge of his rack and rubbing at the sleep in his eyes.
Saul lets himself in as he’s stretching out kinked muscles and he can feel his old friend (his one-eyed Cylon friend) appraising his appearance. He nods, seemingly satisfied by whatever he’s found, which could be anything since Bill has no idea what the man’s looking for.
“Evidence of an appropriate breakdown?”
“Morning, Bill.” Tigh greets.
Adama acknowledges him with a grunt and rises, grabbing his robe and slipping it over his shoulders, making his way into the head to briefly wash up. When he comes back out, Tigh is sitting on the coffee table inspecting the half-empty bottle that helped the admiral sleep so well the night before.
“This is good stuff,” the XO comments as Bill drops onto the couch. “Where’d you find it?”
A glance over at the wrenchingly empty rack. “Laura’s. One of the captains gifted her with it a few months ago.”
The moment of silence that follows is heavy. Saul clears his throat and says, “The night watch was quiet.” He hands over the reports he brought with him and Bill glances at them absently. “The basestar is finishing their priority repairs as quickly as possible.”
“Good. Ask them if they want us to send over an engineering team, help them get it done quicker.”
“You sure you want them in top form any quicker?” Tigh questions, ever paranoid, even of his new found ‘brothers’. “If they turn, they’ll be harder to beat.”
Bill nods. “That’s my point. If the other Cylon’s show up, ours will be better equipped for a fight.” He pauses, then meets his friend’s eye. “I don’t think they’ll turn on us now. We’ve come too far together and they have nowhere to go back to.”
“True,” Saul concedes. “Colonial One called. The President,” he practically spits the word in disgust and it’s more of an admission to his loyalties than the XO would ever put into words, “wanted to meet with you some time today.” Waving off any response, he tells Bill, “I already told them that you’ve got more important things to deal with today.”
“No,” Adama counters, shaking his head. “I should meet with Zarek.”
“You don’t actually think he’ll try to hold on to power, do you?” Tigh asks, a note of disbelief in his voice. “He’s a frakking terrorist. He’s the bastard that got Baltar elected.”
“It’s his right. The office is legally his now. He’s the president, whether we like it or not,” Bill replies sharply, not pleased with it either but understanding of the law nonetheless.
Saul shakes his head. “What Roslin was thinking making him her Vice … Woman must have lost her mind.”
“I knew what I was doing,” a lilting voice responds, but Tigh doesn’t hear it, still muttering to himself about her lack of sense.
Bill looks over at her, sitting on the other end of the couch, and gives her the smallest of smiles. Her bare feet are propped up on the coffee table, right next to where the XO’s ass is planted and she wears casual pants and a snug cream sweater he’s never seen her in before. Her eyes are bright and her hair is wavy around her face. She is looking at Tigh over the top of her glasses, shaking her head in amusement.
She meets Bill’s eyes with a resigned smile. “Even now, he thinks I’m crazy. Tom will do the right thing, Bill. He understands this game far better than most others.”
She looks so alive; vibrant and healthy, intelligence and humor sparkling in her eyes. He knows that just her presence, so real, means that he is more than likely losing his mind. He doesn’t care. If she is insanity, then he welcomes it.
“Zarek’s not stupid, Saul,” he finds himself saying, dragging his eyes away from her to look at Tigh.
“That’s the problem, he’s too frakkin’ smart.” The XO sighs and shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. Not today. Don’t worry about Zarek, Bill, meet with him tomorrow if you must. Like I said, there are more important things on your agenda today.”
“Yeah,” he mutters, his eyes drifting to her once again. Her gaze is sympathetic and almost enough to crush him.
Tigh stands, slowly making his way over to a photograph of a beautiful woman with a smile brighter than the Tauron sun at midday on the summer solstice; the same one she is currently flashing him at his lyrical mental description of it.
“You know,” the other man starts, huffing a gruff laugh, “I used to think you’d gone mad. Kept asking myself, ‘how the hell does Bill put up with that woman?’”
“Says the man who willingly married Ellen,” she comments, laughing even as she rolls her eyes. Bill grins at her, ignoring the way the muscles in his cheeks ache at the effort after so long without use.
Saul keeps speaking, his tone turning wistful. “Now though … I sure as hell am going to miss having her around. Tough old bird, I never actually thought that it’d beat her. Though, in the end, I ‘spose it didn’t. ‘Spose she got it, really. Ice water in her veins.” He sighs, turning and meeting the admiral’s eyes. “You gonna’ be okay to do this today, Bill?”
She’s beside him now, her hand warm over his, her grip strong on his arm. “You’ll be fine,” she tells him as if she truly believes he will be.
He isn’t so sure. “What choice do I have?” he asks, answering both of them with the question.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Over, over,
Forever more,
A night of grief,
A cloud so dark
And rage so cold
That bitterness runs vile
Over, over,
Forever more,
Or perhaps never more
A whisper, a whimper
The stars fading
A heart is breaking
Over, over,
Never more, indeed
- Doe Han’s Forever More, Never More
Feather’s Retribution, Number 42
He didn’t mean to wind up in the temple. After leaving his quarters, he’d just started walking and without a conscious thought his feet had led him to the smoke-hazed room he now stood in the entrance of.
There’s still hours left, but she is already there and it’s like a sucker punch to the stomach, one telling him to turn around and leave, get out immediately before you throw up, even as his legs somehow keep lifting forward, moving deeper inside.
Priestess’s roam around reverently, whispering to each other and muttering prayers as they bathe the room in candlelight. They don’t look up at him, they focus on their tasks and leave him all the privacy he needs. He doesn’t intend to need any, not now, not yet, but he appreciates the gesture all the same.
At the back of the room, just behind the altar, a young man stands at parade rest, blankly staring out at nothing in particular, his face set into such stone it’s as if he believes that if he unclenches his jaw, he’ll simply break into a million pieces. Bill wonders what he’s doing here. There’s no need, not anymore. He’s curious, but won’t ask; it isn’t his place.
The dimly lit profile of Kara Thrace catches his eye. She sits as deeply into the darkened room as possible on one of the back pews, hunched over, her features drawn with the shadows casting a haunted look over her face. It’s probably not even the candlelight causing the effect, a fact which depresses him further.
He makes his way over, stands just off to her right and asks the prerequisite, “Whaddya’ hear, Starbuck?”
She doesn’t even look up at him, her eyes focused on a nearby candle, her mind far away. “Not much of anything, Sir,” she tells him with little inflection in her voice.
Bill doesn’t sigh as he sits down beside her, but he can feel it in his chest. What would she say to her right now? he wonders and speaks, without meaning it because the words make him a complete hypocrite, “Sitting around by yourself and moping isn’t doing any good, Kara.”
“I asked Lee to come with me, be my brood-buddy,” she tells him after a lengthy silence. “But when they brought her in … he left, couldn’t deal with it.” She inclines her head in the young soldier’s direction and Bill takes another look; he hasn’t moved. “I don’t know how he’s been doing it. Word has it he hasn’t left her. At all.”
Pride blossoms in the old man’s chest for … he really should remember the boy’s name. He’s seen him practically every day in the past couple of months, at least once a week for the last couple of years; close, but never too close. An almost invisible, but ever comforting presence at the former president’s back.
“Liam,” she supplies from his side and he shivers because she’s so close her hair is brushing against his cheek. “Liam Tate.” The name clicks in place and he scolds himself and quickly repeats a mantra of ‘Tate takes care of Laura,’ in his mind.
And the young man did indeed take care of her. Still is now, even after his oath to her became null and void. Bill will take him aside, later, after she’s finally gone to where the officer can’t follow her, and give him his profound thanks.
Fondness coats her words as she tells him, “Mine too, please.” Then she chuckles lightly. “You know, I think he may be the one person in the universe that knew me better than you did.” He shoots her a sideways look, his expression relaying to her that no one knows her like him.
She just smiles in response and says, in that playful tone of hers, “There are things, places mostly, that a lady shares with her chief of security that she forbids any other man to ever see. Even the one she loves.”
His expression softens and for the first time in days, the dark cloud in the pit of his stomach eases, making way for the utterly content giddiness that fills him each time he hears her confirm her feelings for him. It doesn’t last long, because the person beside him, the breathing one, is oblivious.
“I couldn’t seem to make myself leave,” Kara says softly and then continues in a voice that’s more akin to a growl, “Why I should bother sticking around when she didn’t, I don’t know.”
Her eyes lift from the candle, to the altar and her previously emotionless state molds into a hard glare, her fists clenching until her knuckles are white. In the blink of an eye, the specter is kneeling in front of her.
“She’s angry at me,” she says sadly, reaching out a hand in a fruitless attempt to brush a loose strand of hair from the younger woman’s face.
It’s such a touching moment; her trying to relay in a soft touch what can only be described as a mother’s comfort, followed by the profound sadness in her eyes when she fails; that he finds his throat closing in on him.
Which is why his next words are gruffer than Saul Tigh’s appearance after a hard night of ambrosia. “Don’t blame her for this, Starbuck.”
“She gave up.” It’s so soft he has to strain to hear it. “She gave up,” Kara repeats, louder, but broken. “We never would have quit on her … and she just went and quit on us.”
“Not on you, Kara. Never on you, never again,” she whispers, equally as broken, tears running down her non-existent face.
He shakes his head, staring at her. “She didn’t give up, Starbuck.”
The pilot snorts unpleasantly. “There’s an empty bottle of morpha pills that disagrees with you, Admiral,” she sneers and shakes her head angrily. “She spent the past coupla’ years showing us how to live and now she’s --“
Bill cuts her off, harsher than he intends to. “Showed us how to die. With dignity. You’d deny her that? Deny her the right to refuse to die like her mother did, like yours did?”
Kara doesn’t answer. Her frame slumps further in on itself and she doesn’t even hurry to wipe away the tears that start falling down her cheeks. “She could have beat it … maybe there was something, like last time …”
He shakes his head miserably. “Not this time, Kara. It was the end of the line and she knew it.”
“Sharon said … she said she offered to let Cottle try Hera’s blood again, but the President refused. Why would she do that if she wasn’t quitting on us?” It’s the child inside this woman that asks the question, begging for understanding, needing a reason for what she sees as abandonment, yearning for reassurance that the world wasn’t crumbling inside of them.
Bill really wishes he could give her that.
“Oh, Starbuck … you couldn’t possibly understand. I put that family through too much already, I wasn’t about to let that child start screaming when Jack started poking on my account.”
“She hurt them once,” he tries to explain, to translate, in a sense. “She wasn’t about to risk doing it again, even for the smallest thing like a sample of Hera’s blood. She was righting a wrong.”
The young blonde looks at him incredulously. “She throws people out airlocks, signs assassination orders. She rigged a gods-damned election, only stopped at the last moment ‘cause she didn’t want you to feel guilty about it. Saving her life is where she draws the frakkin’ morality line?!”
A long pause as she stares at him, wide-eyed and he stares at the invisible minx who’s trying to hold back a could-lead-to-unstoppable-giggles smile. Then he meets Starbuck’s eyes and simply says, “Yes.”
She continues to gape at him and then together, slowly, they start to laugh. It’s almost completely hysterical, but soon they’re both guffawing loudly (the priestesses staring at them), with tears that can be classified as neither happy nor sad running down their faces.
“Crazy frakkin’ witch,” Starbuck mutters as she swipes at her face.
The joviality of the moment dies soon enough as they remember the point, that their tears, while mirthful in a twisted sort of way, are also those of deep loss. Long minutes of quiet follow and then Kara breaks it, whispering again, “It’s all going to change now, isn’t it?”
Bill responds with the slightest nod of his head and a confirmation of “Yeah,” that is little more than a sigh.
“What do we do?” she questions, her eyes imploring him for answers. “What the frak are we going to do without her?”
“When I figure that out, I’ll be sure to let you know,” he admits. “For now I’m just doing what I think she would do, if our positions were reversed.”
The look he receives from the pilot is understanding. “Dragging yourself through the broken glass with nothing more than the sheer force of your will?”
If Bill had to describe the experience of this day, those would be the perfect words. “Exactly.”
They share a grief-tinged smile and then Starbuck shakes her head. “Crazy frakkin’ witch,” she repeats, darker this time.
Bill reaches out, placing a hand on the shoulder of the young woman who, in all the ways that count, is his daughter and squeezes gently. “She’s family, Starbuck. She’s the matriarch of our family. If you have to be angry at her, be angry at her tomorrow. But not on this day. Today, just love her.”
With a sob and a nod, Kara turns and leans into him. He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her and let her cry into his chest. When he looks up, his beautiful ghost is smiling at him through her tears, nodding her approval.
End Part One.
Part Two >>